Please join RISD LDAR, INTAR (@risdintar )and ARCH (@risdarch )departments for this year’s interdisciplinary Sustainability Lab thesis show! The show, entitled ‘Fiber Matters: Making with the Remainder,’ explores the studio’s year-long investigation into waste fiber and ‘the remainder.’
Drawing from agricultural and industrial remnants - such as discarded sheep wool, recycled paper pulp, and offcuts from hemp and flax production - the exhibition interrogates dominant systems of value, purity, and progress. It imagines alternative futures of making, where what is left behind forms the basis of what comes next. This premise doesn’t just question what gets made, but how to teach a pedagogy of how to (re)make. The exhibition will include material installations, process artifacts, and student-led research, alongside philosophical provocations and global case studies that embody ‘remainder-thinking.’ Together, these works reframe the unfinished, the imperfect, and the marginal as sites of ecological insight and design ethics.
Show opening 5/22/2026 from 6-9 PM in Sol Koffler Gallery (169 Weybosset St).
#RISD #sustainabledesign #sustainability #materialculture #exhibitionopening
INTAR SENIOR SHOW: Congratulations to our amazing seniors on their final show and thank you to everyone who came by to see their works 👏🏽⭐️
Featured:
Abby Haus
Fiona Dai
Jiyoon Park
Kiya Smith
Pilar Rivera
Rebecca Lee
Siya Girdhar
GRADUATE THESIS REVIEWS (DAY 2): Join us today in Sol Koffler Graduate Gallery for the final day of thesis reviews and to hear from our amazing graduate students
GRADUATE THESIS REVIEWS (DAY 1 + 2): Join us today and tomorrow in Sol Koffler Graduate Gallery at the CIT to hear from our graduate students and their thesis works
GRADUATE THESIS REVIEWS (DAY 1): Join us today and tomorrow in Sol Koffler Graduate Gallery at the CIT to hear from our graduate students and their thesis works
WHERE THINGS SETTLE: Join us this Wednesday at Sol Koffler Lobby 7PM for our INTAR senior show — How do you make memory tangible? How does design facilitate human experience and community? What is born from working within constraints?
Winding partitions transform the CIT lobby from a transitional space into a gallery space, and allow the viewer to drift from piece to piece with each niche creating a more intimate environment to exerience the work displayed.
Where Things Settle asks viewers to pause and ponder these questions as we explore concepts of community, cultural background, memory, history thresholds and passageways, and ultimately, the impact of the built environment.
Mia Larkin is a designer currently pursuing a Master’s of Design in Interior Architecture with a concentration in Exhibition and Narrative Environments at the Rhode Island School of Design. Larkin’s work centers on the idea that exhibition design is an act of service, requiring careful attention to how stories are shaped and shared. She is particularly focused on how designers are responsible for telling stories that are not their own, and how spatial environments can tell stories of lived experiences with sensitivity and care.
Larkin holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture with a minor in Museum Studies, where they developed an understanding of museums as stewards of individual narratives as essential components of a shared cultural ecosystem. She views museums as institutions that not only preserve personal and collective histories but actively engage with the present and influence how stories are carried into the future.
Their recent project, a la orilla, presents the works by Maite Sosa Methol, an exploration of how textiles can tell stories through material investigation and knitting as a medium capable of holding memories, tensions, contradictions, and cultural codes, both personal and collective. Taking inspiration from Uruguay — a country named after a river — and its diverse landscapes and heritage, the work centers on her homeland's deep relationship to water. Through this work, Larkin continues to investigate how exhibition design can translate personal narratives into spatial experiences to share with respect to broader audiences.
LECTURE SERIES: Join us today to hear from Nakeia Medcalf - 1:10 pm room 103.
Nakeia is a designer, producer, educator, and memory archivist known for blending design with lived experience. Her interdisciplinary approach weaves together spatial, historical, and cultural environments to create spaces that move beyond conventional architecture, designing environments that invite dialogue, gathering, and reflection.
Her work within indigenous and local communities centers on understanding craft from where it originated, and on how intentional design fosters community and impactful storytelling.
Nakeia has pioneered innovation programs globally - at MIT, NuVu Innovation School, the Kamehameha Foundation, Shanghai, Brazil and beyond - merging design and a deep passion for radical education and outreach. Her travels and personal invitations into communities around the world have shaped a practice grounded in place-based wisdom and intergenerational knowledge, using stories, traditions and ways of knowing passed down through community to create meaningful change.
This independent student project was an exploratory research project which explores the role of spectacle in the exhibition space. As an experimental researcher, Ayelet hosted and designed a workshop which invited students to choose to be an active participant or an active observer. Throughout the workshop, Ayelet acted as the "institution" by calling out different behaviors for the active participants to act out while the observers responded through making art in a medium of their choosing.
The goal of this workshop was to explore and catalogue behaviors and movement in space, namely how people move in museum and gallery context. The end goal is to gain an understanding passive observation and the power dynamic between the institution and the visitors.
@ablumovitzdesign
STUDIO SPOTLIGHT: This post features work by Kevin Xu, an undergraduate rising senior in the 2027 Class. Project Descriptions below:
Work 1: Junior Fall, Introduction to Interior Studies III, St Joseph’s Hospital Adaptive Reuse, 21
Peace St, Providence, RI 02907.
The project is located in South Providence within a former hospital now abandoned. The proposal integrates museum programming with affordable student housing for upper-level students capable of commuting, establishing a hybrid model of cultural and residential use. The project introduces new cultural infrastructure to the southern part of the city, supporting both educational access and improved living conditions. The adaptive reuse intervention occupies approximately half of the site, focusing on an eight-story primary building paired with lower surrounding structures. The adaptive-reuse strategy prioritizes full retention of the original structural system—all columns, beams, and concrete slabs are preserved. Selective floor plate removals are introduced to accommodate spatial requirements, maintaining structural continuity while enabling new circulation and exhibition conditions.
Work 2: Sophomore Spring, Introduction to Interior Studies II, Brown University WBRU Adaptive
Reuse, 88 Benevolent St, Providence, RI 02906.
Prior to its conversion into a Brown radio station, the masonry structure functioned as a historic fire station. The adaptive reuse strategy therefore prioritizes the preservation of the existing masonry envelope to maintain historical integrity and retain primary structural walls to ensure continued stability. Given the presence of a rear yard, a 15-foot extension is introduced at the back of the building. This addition consolidates vertical circulation and service infrastructure, including a new elevator and stair, externally, enabling more efficient construction while minimizing disruption to the original structure
PHOTO STUDIO: Did you know about our latest additon to the 3rd floor??
There is now a proper photo, lighting and seamless set up within the 3rd floor studio in the CIT.
Capture the high quality images that your models and designs deserve with the department camera. It can be checked out at the office on the 6th floor or rent one from the RISD equiptment rentals.
Share photos of your work and tag us on instagram or email to [email protected] for a potential feature on our feed! ✨
Above works:
1. Annatruus Bakker
2. Sion Hur
3. Annatuus Bakker
4-5. Ayelet Blumovitz
