Communities · Education · 2013;2018 · Proposal

Can institutions learn to teach design together?

Design Index

Two attempts to connect schools, companies, and people around interdisciplinary design education.

Poster panel: a pixelated green world map on dark grey with a circle of text saying the programme will bring people from all over the world together — Fig. 1 — The Design Index mark and a panel from the programme poster, Rensselaer PDI Studio 6, 2013. Studio work with Peter Finigan and Lauryn Menard.

Role: Co-author of the proposal; later convenor
Years: 2013;2018
Project status: Proposal
Collaborators: Peter Finigan, Lauryn Menard, Vincent Arena
Categories: Communities · Education
Sources: I01, I02

2013 studio plan for a design-education consortium: Proposal
2018 revived network model: Proposal
Think tank and Design for America Summit involvement, 2018: Took place
Consortium as an operating institution: Not realised

04Situation

What could schools teach together that they could not each support alone? In 2013, Peter Finigan, Lauryn Menard, and I developed a studio proposal at Rensselaer for a consortium of schools and companies. It combined an index of what was taught where with a structure for teaching across institutions. ^[I01]

05Two attempts

The first version was a model and poster making the case for shared resources. In 2018, Vincent Arena and I revisited it as a network. That work fed into a think tank and invited talks around the Design for America Summit.

Proposal page in grey text with a green heading, describing a two-week summer design symposium between Rensselaer and Stanford, facilitated by IDEO — Fig. 2 — The written proposal, 2013. Studio work with Peter Finigan and Lauryn Menard.

Pamphlet page headed Metrics: a hexagon diagram of costs totalling 80,000 dollars split into supplies, legal, facilities, flight stipend, catering and housing, above a day-by-day summer timeline — Fig. 3 — The proposed programme’s costs and daily timeline, as proposed in 2013. Not a realised budget.

Pamphlet page: an infographic of 55 participants, most of them students, a note on sponsoring companies, and a weekly group-project schedule — Fig. 4 — Who the programme was designed for: 55 participants and their sponsors, as proposed. 2013 pamphlet.

Pamphlet page headed Benefit to You, listing publications, research, interaction and community benefits for participating faculty — Fig. 5 — The case made to faculty, 2013 pamphlet.

Green poster panel headed Design Models comparing the Stanford model, three overlapping circles for human values, business and technology, with the PDI model, an impossible triangle of environmental, social and creative around the user — Fig. 6 — Two design models set side by side: Stanford’s and Rensselaer PDI’s. 2013 poster.

06What came of it

The talks and think tank took place in 2018. The proposed consortium and later network never became an operating institution.

07Why it is here

This was my first attempt to design an institution. Looking back from the UIF alumni work, I can see a mistake in the starting point: we asked institutions to join before finding out what people wanted to do together.

References & documentation

1. I01
`03 Selected Work - Gelfuso_1.pdf`, Oct 2026, 24 pp. — Project narrative/role and existing media candidates: SecondThought pp.3-4, conversational diagnosis p.5, InstaGraph p.6, Mines p.7, Ford p.8, making p.9, UIF p.10, early work p.11, ASEE pp.12-24first-party
No, portfolio prepared by owner
2. I02
`01 CV - Gelfuso.pdf` and revised CVs, Oct 2026 — Dates, roles, projects, publication statements; reconcile conflicting older versionsfirst-party
No, owner-supplied CV