The Department of Interior Architecture and Design, with support from the Donghia Foundation, recently launched the Donghia Designer Series with lectures from two furniture designers. Cory Robinson has an MFA from San Diego State University and is currently a furniture designer, associate professor, and chair of the Fine Arts Department at Indiana University. Robinson is interested in the relationship that artists and designers both have in shaping the experience with objects of daily ritual. Jason Schneider also has an MFA from San Diego State University and is an instructor in furniture design at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado. Schneider’s current body of work uses the subtle features of unsophisticated material cardboard to create furniture. Both visited undergraduate furniture design classes and offered critiques as well as assist graduate students working on independent studies.
FSU’s Facility for Arts Research (FAR) worked with professor Marlo Ransdell of the FSU’s Department of Interior Architecture and Design in the Fall of 2012 to bring student projects to life at human scale. Materials and support for this Department of Interior Architecture and Design / FAR interaction were funded by the Donghia foundation. The process began with a class visit and orientation lecture by FAR’s Creative Director Chad Eby. Ransdell’s graduate furniture students then built files in AutoCAD and prototyped them at small scale on the Department of Interior Architecture and Design’s laser cutter. The resulting small models were critiqued by Ransdell and FAR staff. Over the next few weeks, students visited the facility to cut their scaled and adjusted files with the help of FAR’s ShopBot.
Photos: Students working with Noah Brock and Marlo Ransdell to produce their prototypes at FAR. Projects currently on display in the School of Art and Design Gallery in the William Johnston Building. Cory Robinson and Jason Schneider, guest lecturers funded by Donghia