Center for Design Events

4/17/2025

Where is the game industry now, and where could it go in the future? In this discussion, Mark and Seth Sivak talk about the major topics and trends within the game industry, including AI, XR, serious games, cloud gaming and eSports.

2/27/2025

Far from passive, our constructed world conditions the way we perceive and interact with and within our environment. The way things are designed influences how we act and behave with them, around them, and through them. Objects, systems and environments, be they physical, digital, social, or otherwise, mediate our understanding and experience of our being, thinking and acting in the world. This panel explores projects, viewpoints, and strategies offered by our panelists at the nexus of design, performance, and choreography — and the ways in which performance can be a lens through which we understand and interact with our structures and surroundings.

2/6/2025

This was the first Conversations Series event of the spring 2025 semester. To address the pressing need for a more accessible, effective and just legal system, the leadership team of NuLawLab has co-edited a new book, entitled “Legal Design: Dignifying People in Legal Systems.” In this groundbreaking guide to legal design, NuLawLab Executive Director Dan Jackson, Creative Director Jules Rochielle Sievert and Design Director Miso Kim introduce innovative frameworks that combine design with law and legal practice to reshape how justice is delivered. For the first CfD Conversations event of the spring semester, the panelists will explore the opportunities created by the merger of design, creative arts, and law.

12/05/2024

The Center for Design Bridges Fellowships aim to advance our mission and develop CAMD’s research agenda, strategically connecting scholars across different research areas and disciplines to make an impact in society and advance design knowledge. For this conversation, CfD Bridges Fellows are presenting their current fellowship projects. Beth Molnar, a 2023-2024 fellow, will share updates on her healthcare and tech project now that it has spent over a year in action. Sofía Bosch Gómez, the 2024-2025 fellow, will introduce herself and her civic design project.

11/14/2024

We are in exciting times of rapid technological developments, particularly fueled by AI and Extended Reality (an umbrella term for virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality). Various pioneers and futurists suggest that the “killer app” will be a fusion of AI with XR. Casper Harteveld, Wallace Lages and Eileen McGivney discussed how this fusion can be realized with the help of design in a responsible, societally impactful manner.

10/24/2024

The recent advent of Generative AI has opened a wide spectrum of new possibilities for data visualization. Image generation has the potential to help designers explore new creative modes for data visualization. Chatbots allow for engagement with data through natural language interactions. But to what extent will these potentials materialize? What are the main opportunities and hurdles? Will data visualization really benefit from GenAI?

Paolo Ciuccarelli and Enrico Bertini invited Vidya Setlur (Tableau), Victor Dibia (Microsoft Research) and Pau Garcia (Domestic Data Streamers) to discuss this timely topic.

09/19/2024

As part of their appointment as Visiting Fellows with the Arts & Humanities Social Action Lab in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities (CSSH), Kenneth Bailey and Judith Leemann of The Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) hosted a discussion for the Center for Design’s Conversations Series. Drawing on the overlapping circuits of conversation in which their own work is held, Bailey and Leemann invited a set of design thinkers and artists to come together to surface questions of body, institution, habit, and habitus. This conversation was also an introduction to the concerns and methods of their upcoming StudyLab at the Center for Design.

04/12/2024

Marcus Carney and Nathan Felde have worked together to integrate representational perception modeling techniques into design education and practice. Together with Jen Briselli, Greg Dalle-Molle and Michael Arnold Mages, Carney and Felde wish to stimulate questions and thinking about the idea of perception and the role it plays in the work of designers for their clients. They also aim to detect and correct flaws and errors in the system of healthcare service design.

03/20/2024

Prosthetics, assistive and adaptive technologies, inclusive architecture — all these forms of design shape the meeting of human bodies, disability, and the built world. This panel will discuss the sociotechnical promises and challenges of accessible design of all kinds, and the work of designers in disability rights and advocacy.

02/23/2024

PhD students, candidates and recent graduates discuss how they are advancing the frontiers of civic design through the use of technology and human-centered community engagement processes. They explore how to strike a balance between research and action, navigating the complexities of academic expectations and civic engagement where action, activism and community participation play a vital role in creating transformative and impactful work.

02/01/2024

With the recent advancements of AI and the increasing popularity of data visualization, it is natural to ask, “Where does data visualization fit in an AI-driven world?” In this hybrid panel, we explored how data visualization can provide solutions for AI and how AI can help us create better and more advanced visualization solutions.

12/08/2023

The design world is continually seeking new frontiers, but ancestral wisdom and practices like rhythm and dance are often overlooked. How can we reimagine co-design in ways that help us leverage the implicit knowledge we carry by virtue of our cultural heritage? The panelists lead a conversation about the challenges and prospects of co-design partnerships that aim to bridge academia with these ancestral and cultural funds of knowledge. Discover how these collaborations impact the institutions of academia and the culture’s community, and look toward the future by reimagining where this work will lead.

11/20/2023

Center for Design Fellow Sankalp Bhatnagar and his team of law student research assistants explore their work reimagining the design of case-based legal education through practice research. Bhatnagar and his team discuss their experiences and provide examples of their approach as a team. This work is supported by the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School, NuLawLab at Northeastern University School of Law, Center for Design at Northeastern’s College of Arts, Media and Design, and metaLAB at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

10/27/2023

CfD Fellow Michael Arnold Mages and distinguished speakers Beth Molnar, Herman Saksono, and Farzad Noubary discuss a project that merges design, technology, and mental health to support better outcomes in early childhood care. This project aims to create positive change in how we support parents of young children facing mental health challenges.

Imagine a smartphone app that empowers expert Family Partners to advise parents to enhance care conversations, coordination, and support for children aged 1-8. This innovation bridges the gap in mental health services, especially for underserved communities. Parents are the foundation of providing mental health support to growing children, but often don’t have access to the resources or support they need. The goal is simple: to improve communication, support experiential learning, and reduce disparities in mental health services for vulnerable children.

09/29/2023

PhD students and representatives from the Design Research Society have an open conversation about different perspectives and approaches to design research, while also sharing information about the DRS2024 conference in June. The conference is being hosted by Northeastern University, taking place in the United States for the first time in its history.

04/21/2023

Data visualization is a prevalent design and research practice in a myriad of contexts: from visual analytics to decision making, from the design of installations, to the communication of science. This conversation is on current applications in data visualization across a variety of practices. Design for visualization, visualization for research, and research on visualization, all at once!

02/06/2023

This conversation explores opportunities, challenges, and the potential impact of augmenting design processes through AI. The outcomes, methods, and approaches of a collaborative interdisciplinary research initiative will set the stage for a broader conversation on how data, information, and algorithms change the way we approach and perform design, and what the practical, theoretical, and ethical implications might be.

09/27/2022

To set the stage for a renovated series of the CfD Conversations, the Center for Design partnered with MEET Digital Culture Center to create an articulated event that included a panel, a curated exhibition with a selection from our Data Sonification Archive, and a live performance with a sound artist sonifying real-time data about draught. Beyond the Visual. Hearing Data Between Science and Emotion is a multi-voice discussion curated by Paolo Ciuccarelli (Founding Director of the Center for Design) and Sara Lenzi (TU/Delft) on Data Sonification, the new frontier for pushing the boundaries of data representations and creating holistic “data experiences.”

https://www.meetcenter.it/it/lecture/…

10/27/2022

This round table discussion is meant to develop an understanding of the different disciplinary definitions of patient-centeredness in the context of health-related projects and research. Participants may bring important context from their respective fields by participating in a group discussion about patient-centered design in various contexts and engaging audience members in Q&A. This is also an opportunity for the community to share projects that they might be working on and learn from others within Northeastern to promote alignment.

04/01/2022

Robotic systems and devices are becoming ever more pervasive in our workplace environments. Rather than being machines that force their modalities of operation upon workers the promise is to create responsive systems that adjust and adapt their operations to human practices, supporting the emergence of new forms of work. A panel, curated by CfD faculty member Kristian Kloeckl (Art + Design, Architecture) looks at profound questions that arise as designers, architects, engineers and developers find new ways to address the emerging condition of collaborative robotic environments.

Designing Dance: Embodiment, Ephemerality, and Experience
02/25/2022

Dance is polysemic and pluralistic, referring to a broad range of embodied practices that often create confusion as to what dance is, what dance can do, what it can mean, and what purpose(s) it serves.

This panel of choreographers will introduce methodologies of choreographic thinking that trouble visual dominance in favor of inner, kinesthetic experience and illuminate distinctions in designing in, through, and for the body. Our aim is to showcase how dance may correspond with the more familiar methodologies of design thinking and inform the exploration of embodied experiences through somatic practices.

Visualizing the Invisible: COVID-19 and Information Design
01/21/2022

Our screens are flooded with data visualizations giving us insights into the past, present, and future of the Covid-19 pandemic. How do designers and scientists apply the art of information design to visualize a global pandemic?

In this conversation industry experts discuss collecting visualization and the visualizations being collected: live-mapping global clinical trials, national vaccination program, predicting the trajectory of the pandemic.

12/03/2021

How do we design inclusive spaces of assembly that respond to place-specific narratives?

This panel explores how artists, architects, curators, and community organizers are working together to re-imagine the existing urban fabric of two Massachusetts neighborhoods through the lens of public art. Building on their collaborations with local residents and stakeholders, panelists will share their perspectives on the expanding role of temporary and participatory art projects to active vacant sites, engage local planning processes, and give shape to the collective memories of a neighborhood.

10/29/2021

Every day, we are exposed to hundreds of sonic experiences.

From the music we like to the subtle nuances of natural soundscapes and the intruding complexity of urban sounds, over the course of our lives we learn to decode sonic information and emotionally react to sound. More and more, sound is becoming a tool in the hands of designers to enhance users’ experience and complete our relationship to products and services. But how are sonic experiences designed?    How does the multi-faceted interrelation between sound and design – included for the first time in history among the themes of the Design Research Society Conference in 2022 –    impact interdisciplinary design research? This panel of artists, researchers and professionals, will looks at what is unique to musical thinking and what sound design has in common with other design methods.

9/24/2021

This event’s featured panelists are the creators of the Service Design Tools, a platform famous for its foundational impact in the service design discipline. They discuss why tools are so essential in service design and consider the future direction of service design represented by these tools. Service is often characterized by intangibility; therefore, service design tools have played a crucial role in the design process and in the co-production of the stakeholders.

4/23/2021

How might designers venture to develop understandings to help people do things together better?

The panelists will share their explorations of collective action, resource sharing, difference and sameness, conceptions of the sacred. Together they will offer a view of the worlds from which they speak, and ask what kinds of design thinking might be needed to create more resilient and convivial communities.

3/26/2021

Global companies are searching for universal solutions, yet different societies have varying needs and sensitivities. Solutions of various kinds have been proposed, and technology companies continue to experiment with interventions, including removal, algorithmic reduction, and labeling. This discussion will focus on potential design-related solutions and novel approaches that might expand the menu of options for dealing with problems associated with the proliferation of misinformation.

2/26/2021

This marks a major milestone for digital medicine and for the use of games for health generally. Around the same time, a first-of-its kind surgery was performed with augmented reality on a living patient. Both events and the pandemic itself bring up the question of what the future of games for health looks like. This panel looks at the challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies (AI, AR, VR), the implications of a post-pandemic world, and what critical role (game) design has in further advancing the current trends.

1/28/2021

Data visualization and related practices are currently experiencing a material turn.

As designers explore new material expressions and performances of digital information, what we describe as  “data” is no longer limited to symbols and numbers, but is increasingly seen as embodiments in the world. A panel, curated by CfD faculty member Dietmar Offenhuber (Art + Design, Public Policy) looks at the potentials of material data practices as a tool for public engagement, critical inquiry, and societal discourse addressing large societal challenges.

The Stakes of AI in Design
Molly Wright Steenson

The CfD hosted an open conversation with Molly Wright Steenson, historian, designer, writer, and professor who works at the intersection of design, architecture, AI, and ethics. She is the author of  Architectural Intelligence: How Designers and Architects Created the Digital Landscape  (MIT Press, Fall 2017), a history of AI’s impact on design and architecture. She is also the co-editor of  Bauhaus Futures  (MIT Press, 2019) with Laura Forlano and Mike Ananny, an edited volume that asks, “If the Bauhaus were around today, what would keep it up at night?” Currently, she is writing about the stakes in the emerging conversation on AI, ethics, and design.

Discontinuity: Politics of the Everyday in the Post-Pandemic Phase
Ezio Mazini

The CfD hosted Discontinuity: Politics of the Everyday in the Post-Pandemic Phase with Ezio Manzini. The digital talk, which attracted more than 100 guests, offered examples of social innovation that show how, even in these difficult times, a better kind of society is possible. Manzini drew from his most recent book, Politics of the Everyday, which asserts that by bringing autonomy and collaboration together, it is possible to develop new forms of design intelligence, for our own good, for the good of the communities we are part of, and for society as a whole.

Designers and creative-thinkers from across Northeastern University and throughout Boston gathered for the CfD launch event, Human by Design, which served as an overview of the CfD’s nature and structure, a celebration of the initiatives being incubated within the center, and the first in a series of lectures hosted by the CfD. The event brought together members of the Northeastern community – faculty, staff, and students – and working professionals – from design-focused firms and labs such as IDEO, Hacin + Associates, and metaLab (at) Harvard – as well as representatives from other universities, the Boston Mayor’s Office, and the Italian Consulate General. Together, these guests spearheaded meaningful discussions surrounding technology, data, design, artificial intelligence (AI), visualization, and more – with the celebration of design at the center.

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