David Trubridge with SCE students during interdisciplinary storytelling workshop.

The New Zealand-based designer David Trubridge recently led an intensive storytelling workshop with SCE students.  In the words of Product Design student Joseph Gonzalez, who recounted his workshop experience to Design Milk, it was a “mad-dash mash-up of architecture, interior design, product design and lighting design students working together to convey a story through designed objects.”  The students worked in teams to develop a guiding narrative concept, which they subsequently explored materially and physically. According to Gonzalez, Turbridge’s interdisciplinary approach – combining art, design and making processes – was both challenging and highly rewarding.

The workshop culminated with a presentation of each team’s three-dimensional story to a panel of critics including Trubridge, Pete Oyler and Nora Mattingly of Assembly Design, Chad Phillips, Director of Retail for the Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum, and SCE faculty Daniel Michalik, Rama Chorpash, and Mark Bechtel. The teams were enthusiastic to show the results of the designs they created over the brief but intensive workshop.  As Gonzalez explained, “we were all excited not only to present what we accomplished but also to continue building on these ideas. The experience built new interdisciplinary connections and opened us to varying perspectives of the design process.”