Design Tech Open Studio

Exhibition Abstract

The new Department of Design Tech is a multicollege, transdisciplinary initiative pioneering innovation, research, and teaching on topics at the intersection of design and emerging technology that most greatly impact research, industry, and practice in a changing world.

Bridging expertise and catalyzing exploration, innovation, and collaboration in emerging areas, including design + interactions, design + materials, and design + environments, Design Tech is a generator of new modes, methods, and applications that redefine design practice and research.

The relationship between design and technology has never been more important to society nor more fundamental to how we live, work, create, and interact with each other and the world now and in the future. The confluence of rapidly accelerating technologies — from AI and quantum computing to genomics and synthetic biology to digital manufacturing and simulated realities — is prompting unprecedented advancement across disciplines and scales. New intersections between the digital, the physical, and the biological are radically altering how we understand our world and humanity. As a result, design is becoming increasingly critical to actualizing technology as a means for advancing human progress.

In an era when we are witnessing one of the most significant paradigm shifts in the conceptualization and creation of our environments, objects, and interfaces, Design Tech advances design research and education across disciplines and domains at Cornell and beyond.

This inaugural Design Tech Open Studio exhibition features work by our Design Tech Innovation Fellows, Design Tech faculty, and Design Technology students intersecting with our three hubs: design + interactions, design + materials, and design + environments. Participating Cornell colleges: Cornell College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP), Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science (Bowers CIS), Cornell Engineering, Cornell Human Ecology (CHE), and Cornell Tech in New York City.

Contributors

The Design Tech Open Studio exhibition is cocurated and coordinated by Assistant Professor Tiffany Cheng, Visiting Lecturer Laura Maria Gonzalez, Instructor Lawson Spencer, Mercy Akande (M.S. DT '26), and Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger Professor in Architecture and Chair of Design Tech Jenny E. Sabin.

Design Tech Inaugural Faculty

Tiffany Cheng
Itai Cohen
Timur Dogan
Laura Maria Gonzalez
François Guimbretière
Wendy Ju
Heeju Terry Park
Jenny E. Sabin
Uli Wiesner

Design Tech Innovation Fellows

Marcelo Coelho
Marirena Kladeftira
Samuel Leder
Daniel Leithinger

Design Technology Students (M.S. DT '26)

Mercy Akande
Julia Beitel
Weiching Chen 
Yuji Kitamura
Thomas Knoepffler
Nora Lan
Bo Li
Xiaocheng Li
Anxin Lian
Shuhan Liang
Rui Liu
Rajvi Ranjit Patil 
Cheng Peng
Kobe Phillips 
Vita Sipayung
Shiyuan Tian
Carrie Wang
Xiaoman Yang
Yiwen Yang
Chris Ye
Yongshi Zheng
Diyu Zhou
Zijie Zhou