News and Events

August 20, 2024

Bringing New Life to Paper Streets 

The City of Durham has over 600 “paper streets” – narrow strips of land planned for use as a street, but never built. College of Design students partnered with the city’s Office of Performance and Innovation to bring new life to these previously underutilized spaces, envisioning micro-parks, art installations, educational outdoor spaces, and valuable pedestrian corridors.

July 30, 2024

Newton D’Souza to lead doctoral programs for the College of Design

Newton D’Souza, PhD will head up a new doctoral programs unit within the College of Design at North Carolina State University, effective August 12, 2024. D’Souza will oversee the two doctoral programs offered by the college, a traditional PhD in Design program and a hybrid Doctor of Design degree.

April 05, 2024

Winners Named for 2024 Graduate Research Symposium

Nearly 200 NC State graduate students presented their research projects during the 17th annual Graduate Student Research Symposium, 27 top performers awarded.

April 01, 2024

M. Elen Deming Honored for Exceptional Service to CELA and LAF

Educator and researcher M. Elen Deming was presented with the Forster Ndubisi Professional Service Award at the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) Dinner on March 22, 2024.

April 26, 2023

Doctor of Design Program Celebrates its First Graduate: Dr. Juhann Waller

Juhann Waller (DDes Cohort 1) is the first student-practitioner of the program to graduate, and will receive his degree in August 2023. Dr. Waller is the CEO of J.C. Waller Associates, PC, based in Greensboro, NC. His doctoral dissertation is entitled “Resilient Infrastructure: An Integrated Design Approach for the Equitable Distribution of Stormwater Capital Improvements Projects for Pluvial Flood Mitigation.” It models a type of applied design research that can be effected in real time, for real change.

January 12, 2023

Preparing the next generation of green professionals with LEED Lab

North Carolina State University (NC State) is preparing the next generation of green building leaders through LEED Lab. This multidisciplinary immersion course uses project-based learning in the built environment to educate and prepare students to become green building leaders and sustainability-focused citizens.

August 26, 2022

Students Visualize Structures of Oppression; win NC State Envisioning Research Contest

Students in the College of Design recently took top prizes in the Graphics and Data Visualization and photography categories of the NC State Envisioning Research Contest. Three of the four entries from the college were part of the DIY Cartography: Oppressive Infrastructures class, which explored how we as a society are grappling with how to best serve diverse communities and create more equitable futures for all while visualizing the complex historic context around oppressive infrastructures in the US.

August 17, 2022

Ethnographic Fiber Artist Karen Baker on Slow Fashion and Natural Products: How One DDes Student Explores the Lost Histories of Textiles

Karen Baker, current student in the Doctor of Design Program at NC State’s College of Design, is a weaver focused on design, history, and critical studies of textile and fiber in Washington, DC. She is currently researching the textile, fiber and craft contributions and techniques of enslaved and free African American weavers before the Great Migration.

May 24, 2022

Student Profile: Iyare Oronsaye Seeks to Improve Diversity in Animation

Iyare Oronsaye is currently the director and assistant professor of the animation and illustration program at the University of Northwestern as well as a student practitioner in the College of Design’s Doctor of Design (DDes) program. As a DDes student, Oronsaye is researching how inclusivity can make positive impacts within the animation industry.

January 07, 2022

From A-to-Z: Lesley-Ann Noel and Decolonizing Design

Assistant Professor of Art + Design Dr. Lesley-Ann Noel aims to bring underrepresented voices into everyday design education through social innovation, inclusive community-led research and public health solutions. By creating tools such as the Designer’s Critical Alphabet and the “Who Am I” Positionality Wheel, she is making conversations around race and bias more common in classrooms and workplaces.

September 02, 2021

Exploring Nature as a Resource in Virtual Reality

GGRAPH 2021 Groovy Graphics Assignment, “Photogrammetry for a Virtual Reality Nature Scene.” As part of their on-demand talk, the two discussed capturing nature using photogrammetry and building a virtual reality nature scene.

July 12, 2021

DDes Student Designs Learning Assessments for Deaf Children

When user experience designer AJ Polanco decided to advance his career by earning a doctoral degree, his search for the perfect opportunity led him to become part of the first cohort of eight students to enroll in the College of Design’s brand-new Doctor of Design program in 2018.