51-617 Design Fusion: Designing for Presence

6 units, Carnegie Mellon University

The discipline of design is motivated by a drive to make things better. It can be very difficult, however, to maintain a genuine engagement required to address the biggest challenges we face, when our personal, social, civic, economic and environmental anxieties take so much of our energy. How can we sustainably apply our creative problem solving when we regularly feel overwhelmed? Designing for Presence helps us nurture ourselves and our connections as part of our practice of improving the world. Through a combination of readings, seminar discussion, mindfulness practices and a collaborative project, we will simultaneously fortify ourselves, cultivate empathy toward others, and explore practical design interventions to a real issue affecting the local community.

Prerequisites: none listed

Offered: Spring 2026

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