It's Time. Submit your deposit by April 15 to begin designing change. People brainstorming at a table.

Time for change?

Apply to MFA DSI to learn the design mindsets and capabilities to support people and the planet.

How can design shift us towards more healthy, caring systems?
What conditions and collaborations enable communities, systems, and ecosystems to thrive?
How can eco-social design increase innovation and our capacities for change?

Social design
works with communities, organizations, governments, businesses, and the planet through:

Strengthening Relationships + Care

Advocating for health, access, ecologies, restoration, joy, and healing. Supporting shared values and interdependence while honoring nature’s wisdom.
Social Design asks good questions and deepens connections, with care.

Co-Creating Intentionally.

Collaborating with communities, advocating for mutual benefit, accountability, and abundance. Centering lived experience and responsibility, while reducing harm.
Social Design can shift power while building leadership and creatively responding.

Embracing Complexities

Breaking from things that no longer serve us. Recognizing the continuum and pluralities, and making the invisible visible.
Social Design supports new thinking over more things, to imagine possibilities and lead with vision.

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EVENT

MFA DSI Thesis Show 2026

Tuesday, May 12 | 4 pm EST | SVA Theatre, 333 W 23rd St, New York City

Celebrate the Class of 2026 and watch their thesis projects, which respond to the social issues that ring true today and will shape tomorrow, including: media literacy, water access, transit inequality, overconsumption, community displacement, education, gender inequality, aging, and social isolation.

Through innovations in game design, play, advocacy, craft, astronomy, and emerging tech, with communities and partnerships, in rhythms and beats, these MFA DSI projects find power in proximity.

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EVENTS

Embodied Design Lab Summer Course: May 19 – June 25

Grounded in somatics, movement, contemplative practices, and sensory design, this online course offers nourishment and care for ourselves as we do work in our communities and interactive classes around embodied teaching and relational ecologies. 6 weeks (12 sessions).

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BLOG

Traveling God: A new illustrated book by DSI alumni

Traveling God is a collective illustrated project that drifts through You Shen culture across Fujian, Taiwan, and Singapore. It introduces us to wandering gods, local stories, and the small, curious moments found along this journey. Designers: Nany Chen, Avery Liu (MFA DSI ’25), and Hao Jie Sim (MFA DSI ’26).

BLOG

Marketplace of the Future: Amer Jandali (MFA DSI '16)

A look back at NYC Climate Week. Marketplace of the Future asks us to imagine a future where we collectively put climate first… a future full of services, ideas, and goods that are the result of a healed planet… a future where joy and care for the Earth are innate.

Thesis 2025

Thesis 2025

S.T.A.R. (Space Trash Awareness & Recovery)

Yuki Han and Katherine (Yisi) Shen (MFA DSI ’25)

S.T.A.R. (Space Trash Awareness & Recovery) is an international alliance of young experts coming together beyond the traditional space industry. By igniting bold conversations to confront the escalating crisis of space trash and turning complex challenges into stories that spark global awareness and inspire an ethical mindset, S.T.A.R. sparks the next generation to become the space leaders of tomorrow, co-creating a culture where the cosmos is cherished as a shared, protected frontier.

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