LETTER FROM THE DEAN
JOEL TOWERS
WORK 4.0
JOEL TOWERS
Dean of Parsons The New School of Design At Parsons, we constantly challenge our students to train a laser-like focus on the way things really “are” in the world, while teaching them to never let that knowledge prevent them from imagining how the world could be different. Our students appreciate both the reality and the potentiality of the world. These are the qualities that enable them to innovate and then renovate, to generate and then regenerate. At the heart of the concept of reuse is the belief that there is no such thing as a “finished product”: nothing is static. The world itself—including natural and artificial ecosystems, buildings and cities—is constantly in flux. And in an age marked by decreasing material resources and increasing design innovation, the process of reuse will be central to the process of adaptation. Students and faculty in Parsons’ AAS Interior Design program are doing cutting-edge work on the topic of reuse, as you’ll observe in the following pages. Through this work, they’re helping the world adapt to increasingly complex conditions, and they’re also adapting themselves to an ever-changing professional environment. After all, the most important careers five years from now may not have been even imagined 15 years ago. Parsons’ AAS program in interior design has long served as a bridge for students and professionals of wide-ranging backgrounds to launch (or enhance) successful careers in the professional design world. The associate’s degree today is a valuable credential in a world where career paths can change quickly but require well-rounded, savvy and strong foundations of knowledge. The study of interior design at Parsons has a rich history, having begun more than a century ago, and it proudly continues to prepare its graduates for diverse pursuits, placing them on a common path with designers such as Albert Hadley, Angelo Donghia, and Sheila Bridges. The theme of reuse that runs through the work in these pages is timely, given our pursuit of sustainable and ecologically literate means of creation at Parsons, as well as timeless, in its conceptual sense and simplicity. Our faculty and students, capably led by Bill Morrish and Johanne Woodcock, immersed themselves in a rigorous curriculum, and their creative ability to consider, imagine, re-imagine, and re-invent the space and structure of interior environments is remarkable. Their work this year attests to the transformative capacity of design, so it is with great pleasure that I present this edition of WORK 4.0.