SCLY3205

This course is an exciting way for you to develop skills and confidence by working in multidisciplinary teams on a project based in Ortigia, Siracusa, Sicily.

Each term, the design team will begin a new project, or advance the next phase of a project from a previous team. Regardless, you will work with local community partners and professional Italian designers as mentors to help shape a design response to an unmet need or opportunity in historic Ortigia and/or the city of Siracusa.

Your mentors will lead the design team in ways that are much like professional practice. They will help divide the work into manageable parts and smaller working groups, and you will collaboratively determine ambitious, yet achievable goals given the meeting schedule for the summer practicum.

You will be working alongside other design students (apparel design, architecture, graphic design, interior design, product design, and retail merchandising) to realize at least some aspects of the design proposal at full scale—as prototypes, partial models, or bespoke objects or events. In previous terms, for example, community projects included: designing and building a gateway structure at the edge of the sea, implementing way finding strategies, and screen printing apparel and accessories—all as part of neighborhood revitalization; and generating adaptive reuse strategies for an historic structure in the center of Ortigia, which included graphic identity and branding, prototyping furniture and build-outs, and hosting a communal event to share ideas.

Importantly, your time commitment for this course is determined as a work schedule might be in a firm. You are expected to attend and work/learn at the scheduled meeting times; there is no expectation for practicum work outside of your scheduled hours. (The work/learn meeting schedule will, in total, meet workload expectations for a 3-credit course.)