What we do

Parsons develops and manages collaborative student projects with corporations and non-profit organizations. The projects provide students with concentrated “real-world” experiences while delivering solutions for sponsors’ design and business challenges.
Visit this link for an overview of partnership projects.

Contact Us

Edwin Torres
Manager, External Partnerships
212.229.8950 x4448
E-mail: email

Projects

Top juniors and seniors from Parsons’ dozen-plus design disciplines participate in the projects. Most projects feature two or more design disciplines working in tandem, replicating the work environment the students will experience later. Project managers and faculty members, who are usually influential working designers themselves, supervise the work.

Projects typically include one or more of the following areas:
• Product research and design
• Game design, motion design and animation
• User experience design
• Fashion
• Architecture and Interior design
• Technology and applications development
• Marketing and business strategy
• Sustainable design

Project models

We work with our sponsors to determine the best model for a proposed project, whether it be a one- or two-semester class, a four-week competition or an intensive, three-day design session. All models are funded by sponsor grants.

Project value

Projects deliver tangible value to our sponsors and we offer proven capabilities that span the developmental, visualization, and physical implementation of projects.
• Parsons offers comprehensive expertise in all areas of design with access to the strengths at The New School in the Social Sciences, Economics, and Management.
• Parsons unique strengths in Design & Management that provides strategies in research methods and multi-disciplinary project management.
• Collaborative projects combine sponsor resources with students’ new perspectives,ideas and energy at the same time supporting design education.
• Students fall into the ideal demographic for many organizations: 20- to 25-year-old early adopters from all over the world, living in the middle of New York City.
• Students engagement with sponsors results in potential interns and future employees.

Recent work

In the last three years, Parsons has collaborated on more than three dozen projects with corporate and non-profit sponsors, including these recent examples:

CARE: In June 2008 a group of students and faculty from Parsons The New School for Design and The New School’s Graduate Program in International Affairs traveled to San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala, to work with the women's artisan association "Ajkem'a Loy'a," to support them in designing and producing hand-crafts for a broader market, and developing their business and organizational skills as a first step toward a sustainable business model.

The project is a partnership with CARE, a non-profit organization that works with groups of women internationally to eliminate global poverty.

This site documents the visit and various activities realized: http://thenewschoolcollaborates.blogspot.com/

Fossil: Teams competed to design a fashion watch and its “tin”, or packaging.

Little Houses on the Black River: Collaborative product design project to design and produce flat-pack, self-sustaining dwellings for installation on a bridge over the Black River in Hallefors, Sweden. Awarded 2006 Best Design School Project Award at ICFF.

Luxury Education Foundation: In the eleventh year of our collaboration with Columbia Business School, we delivered luxury product and service concepts for Chanel, Christian Dior, Hermes, Lalique, Graff, Bernardaud and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Vespa: Three Parsons departments created a Vespa fashion line and several “lifestyle” accessories.

Siemens Corporate Research: Students developed two game interface projects for industrial applications: warehouse management and subway management.

Samsung: A team of recent Parsons graduates designed the “Welcome Experience” for Samsung’s leading-edge New York branding space.

Sierra Club: Students created concepts for new lines of Sierra Club dinnerware and glassware.