Center for Design
The Center for Design is Northeastern’s platform for interdisciplinary design research. It is a space for collaborative research activities and a hub for connecting the actors of the design ecosystem. It aims to share knowledge and practices, shape common tools and methods, and strengthen a unified disciplinary ground.
The complexity of the grand challenges surrounding health, security, mobility, sustainability and democracy demands a long-term shared research effort that crosses disciplinary boundaries. Design as an ‘interdisciplinary and integrative discipline’ – with its capacity to map the complex dynamics of an issue, foresee its evolution, and shape tangible and intangible interfaces, experiences, services and systems – can empower the network between and across disciplines. Design also facilitates the cross-disciplinary discourse itself through innovative communication methods, and as a ‘third discipline’ mediates across humanics.
The Center for Design opens up a new space for these interdisciplinary exchanges; it is where the design research agenda is collectively shaped and innovative solutions are collaboratively conceived and developed through joint research initiatives. Building solid ground for the bridges that CAMD faculty members have already established internally and promoting new collaborations with other areas both within and beyond Northeastern University, the Center for Design gathers the critical mass needed to leverage existing research initiatives, providing them a fertile environment to grow and systematically sustain them.
Design Research Week
The Center for Design at the Northeastern University College of Arts, Media and Design hosts an annual Design Research Week — a week of presentations, conversations, studio visits, exhibits, and workshops with colleagues, faculty, and students in design research.
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How to reserve space at the Center for Design, space amenities, acceptable reasons for reserving space, and rules for using space at the Center for Design.
Recent News from the CfD
How the way you walk impacts your health and your city
With WalkSensePlace, researchers will study the “conversation between our feet and the environment” to better understand how to design walkable cities and the relation between walking and health.
February 12, 2026
Design Research Week returns this spring
The Center for Design’s annual Design Research Week will return this spring, from March 16-22, 2026.
February 5, 2026
Game design professor takes a closer look at real estate games
Casper Harteveld takes a look at what real estate games like The Sims, Monopoly and The Game of Life offer consumers in a world where it has become harder to buy a house.
August 7, 2025
Northeastern researchers visualize the Venice Biennale
Northeastern University has three projects on display at the 2025 Venice Biennale, which tell a story about our changing relationship to data and information.
May 16, 2025
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