9DA - Design Arts

Developed for students who are curious, artistic, and want to develop their talents for practical solutions, the Design Arts program nurtures critical thinking and merges historical and digital practices in art, fine craft, and industry. In collaboration with the Vermont Granite Museum’s Stone Arts School, in Barre, the self-proclaimed “Granite Center of the World,”  we aim to be North America’s premier source of stone arts information and education by merging historical and digital practices in art, fine craft and industry.

Drawing on the School’s emphasis on human-centered design as well as Design Build, the program teaches students to use critical thinking and the design process itself to bring new value to citizens, communities, and companies. Professors with expertise in a wide range of areas guide students in researching user experiences to create well-conceived and executed projects.

Each year, progressively more challenging studio projects enable majors to build an awareness of materials and gain an in-depth understanding of visual and 3D vocabulary through hands-on work. Professors emphasize both the traditional values behind the design arts and current trends in the profession as students progress from drawing, to three-dimensional mock-ups and models, to working drawings and prototypes.

A Design Arts major is an introduction to the profession, where students learn vital technical, artistic, design, and communication skills. The first year of the program provides a foundation in Art and Architecture. In the second year, students begin to understand the historical context of the design arts. They receive skill-based exposure to both traditional and state-of-the art techniques for visualization. Through hands-on making, students begin to understand materials and the design possibilities inherent in them.

Third year encourages students to learn various advanced techniques and tools, to further experiment with the elements and principles of 2-D and 3-D design through the critique of historical works and hands-on exercises, and to develop their own sophisticated body of work and an individualized area of study. A semester at CityLAB: Berlin provides enrichment and global perspectives to the course of study.

During fourth year, students learn more about legal and business practices in the profession and undertake projects that emphasize innovation and the ability to refine formal design issues. A capstone project and apprenticeship/ internship provides a practical connection between academic studies and potential career paths.

The School of Architecture + Art fosters a natural and effective mentoring relationship between faculty and students and allows students to develop their own visions as designers. We offer our students the education necessary for the practice of the design arts in their fullest sense:  to design, make, and build in a way that embodies cultural meaning, employs technology wisely, and contributes to the larger community. To this end, we seek to instill in students the core values of comprehensive knowledge, holistic awareness, continual innovation, active cooperation, and ethical responsibility through a balanced curriculum comprising observation, analysis, exploration, iteration, and synthesis, grappling throughout with abstract as well as concrete material, intellectual as well as hands-on experience. 

We endeavor to contribute to the making of meaning and the meaning of making.

Goals

Students of the Design Arts Program will:

• Be respected and recognized for technical competence in the creation of design arts projects

• Conceptualize and develop ideas imaginatively and accurately in three dimensions

• Develop material ideas with facility, clarity and rigor

• Exercise collaborative skills for working across disciplines and in multidisciplinary fields

• Communicate to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• Actively engage in continuing education throughout life.

• Be recognized for their leadership skills and their abilities to work with all people.