Courtesy : design.cmu.edu

Environment design

WHAT ARE “ENVIRONMENTS”?
All of us go about our days, playing, working, being, relaxing, healing, thinking, learning, in solitary and social places. Some are physical, some are virtual, and they each shape what and how we do things. Designing for environments relates to utilizing physical and digital components to shape these places (e.g. airports, branded retail stores, museums, classrooms, mixed reality tools) to foster particular experiences. 

IS THIS A NEW AREA OF DESIGN?
While people have always designed their environments, the Environments track in the School of Design was developed in recognition that new and emerging technology allows the blending of digital and physical elements to craft experiences. As the possibilities of designing for environments expand, expertise in the design of these complex systems is needed.

WHAT DO WE DESIGN?
As Environments designers in the School of Design, we work in a range of scales, from artifacts or small spaces only one person can experience at a time, to systems and services that impact entire communities. These include retail experiences, interactive exhibits, workplaces, new kinds of mixed reality interactions, intelligence in environments, social systems, and experimental speculative projects. At the core of what we do is a consideration for who we are designing for, the passage of time, physical and digital space, interactions (between people, objects, technology, and space), and how the experience we are designing relates to the world around it.  

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO LEARN TO DESIGN ENVIRONMENTS?
We learn and experiment with a wide range of domain-specific knowledge and approaches. We also work to  synthesize multiple theoretical perspectives and apply them practically and critically through our work. The practical skills that we develop include interaction and user experience design, physical and digital prototyping and modeling, physical computing, storytelling and filmmaking, multi-sensory and brand design, virtual and augmented reality, creative use of machine learning, speculative design and design fiction.

WHERE DO ENVIRONMENTS STUDENTS APPLY THEIR KNOWLEDGE?
Students who studied in the Environments track are now designing physical, digital, and hybrid experiences, new services, exhibits, and exploring the boundaries of new technologies. Graduates are designing interactions and experiences at Apple, Google, AJQA, Capital One, and Duolingo, among others. Environments students have interned with companies and organizations that include Apple, Google, NASA, Microsoft, Samsung, LinkedIn, Facebook, Dubberly Design Office, Deeplocal, frog design, odopod design, and Blast Motion, among others.

DISCOVERY PANEL

The Discovery Panel is a platform for students to share inspiration, collaborate, and present their work more effectively. This multi-screen display fulfills the absence of a dynamic presentation tool and facilitates helpful critique.

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Additional information about the Environments track

The Environments track was launched in 2014 with the School of Design’s new curriculum. We recognized that increasingly, we live in hybrid times and designing for our experiences involves larger designed and natural contexts. We simultaneously engage with physical and digital environments in ways that are not covered by Communications and Products. For example, a visit to an urban center may require shifting your attention between the physical environment and mobile devices (e.g., map applications, photos, social media), and is also now involving hybrid augmented reality experiences. The physical and digital are likely to blend even further with smart spaces, internet of things, mixed reality, sensor networks, big data, artificial intelligence, smart cities, and mixed reality interfaces. 

Designer Eliel Saarinen said, “Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context – a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” In the Environments track, we seek to design places that result in meaningful human experiences, and increasingly, delightful experiences that involve the seamless integration of digital and physical systems.