Grow your community here.

Learn how to make a difference in the world together, by design.

MFA DSI is a graduate social design program that asks:

How can design offer pathways that shift us towards healthy, equitable systems?
What conditions and collaborations enable communities, systems, and nature to thrive?
How can social design increase care and our capacity
for change?

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

Strengthening Relationships + Care

Advocating for health, equity, anti-discrimination, justice, joy, and healing, Supporting shared values and interdependence, and honoring nature’s wisdom.
Design asks questions over solving problems, with care.

Intentionally
Co-Creating

Collaborating with communities, advocating for mutual benefit and abundance. Centering lived experience, while reducing harm.
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.
Design supports new thinking over new things to imagine possibility and lead with vision.

DSI MFA Program

APPLY NOW

Applications for Fall 2025 are OPEN!

Don’t wait to start thinking about the future.

Thinking about getting a graduate degree at MFA DSI?

Start and submit your application before the SVA Priority Deadline (January 15, 2025) for earliest consideration.

FIND OUT MORE

EVENTS

NYC Climate Week: 2024 Marketplace of the Future

The 8th annual Marketplace of the Future is a “World’s Fair” style expo showcasing innovative solutions to climate change.

EVENTS

David Proctor, Grabbing the Hammer Lane at the United Solo Festival

Grabbing the Hammer Lane: A Trucker Narrative is a searing, one act play about prodigal rebellion and fleeting moments for redemption.

BLOG

+POOL and Kara Meyer featured in fast Company, June 2024

“Why NYC’s floating pool could change beach access for the entire state.”

Thesis 2020

Thesis 2020

PRETTY/UGLY

Tianyue Zhang & Tara Maurice(MFA DSI ’20)

“PRETTY/UGLY” is radically rethinking sustainability through content creation, live events, and strategic collaborations in work that communicates the interdependence of man and nature. With a sense of urgency and possibility, PRETTY/UGLY’s work makes clear: “there is no garbage in nature.”