Industrial Design Exchange Program Goes to Tokyo, London

Students at Tachilab, Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University build robots as part of their curriculum.

Pratt’s newest international program, Global Innovation Design (GID), offers three takes on graduate industrial design in three of the world’s most dynamic cities.

Starting this September, seven Pratt Industrial Design second-year masters candidates will spend an academic year abroad: the fall semester at Keio University in Tokyo in the media design program, and the following semester at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London (in collaboration with Imperial College London). At the same time, 12 students from London and eight from Tokyo—switching countries on the same schedule—will come to Pratt. This coming year is the GID’s first; eventually, 12 students from each city will participate in the program.

“This is a program that’s unlikely to exist in any one school—it’s synergistic at a very high level, linking four of the world’s most celebrated design institutions,” says Steve Diskin, chair of Industrial Design. “Our mission is to educate a new generation of designers as powerful, savvy citizens of the world who understand the full scope and potential of design.”

Each school will give students a profound cultural experience and diverse skill set: at Pratt, students will study advanced form, color and design methodology; at Keio, students will have access to high-tech prototyping, robotics, and Japanese pop culture; at RCA/Imperial, the curriculum will emphasize engineering, invention, and prototyping. Each school will offer a different slant on international design and entrepreneurship.

Although the students from New York, London, and Tokyo will not live on the same campus together, all 27 participants will meet virtually every week to collaborate on a large-scale international project in addition to their local studies.

Katrin Mueller-Russo, a professor in the Industrial Design Department, says that Pratt students and professors traveled to Japan and England in the past year to experience classes in the different universities and provide feedback for the program.

“For some of the students, it’s something out of their comfort zone. They’re good at conceptualizing things, but they had not necessarily experienced certain approaches,” she says.  “So it was really interesting to see the students think ‘what are we getting ourselves into?’ and then come away with such positive experiences, seeing how quickly their sensibilities were expanding.”

Aldana Ferrer Garcia, a native of Buenos Aires, is one of the Pratt students who will be participating as a “pioneer” in the first round of the program. As an international student, she’s already interacting with a new culture while studying, but now she’s thirsty for more travel. “You are really aware of your own culture and you understand that it’s a contrast with other cultures,” she says. “I’m excited about having a different filter for each one of the places. So maybe you’re working with the same premise, but trying very different methods. You need to know how people perceive the world or face whatever problem they have,” she says.

Text: Ruth Samuelson
Photo: Courtesy of Tachilab, Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University