Every year, we have the opportunity to work with talented, forward-thinking Parsons design students. As they walk through the HML doors, they become part of a growing community of healthy materials advocates and changemakers of the future. We welcome undergraduate and graduate student researchers from across Parsons who undergo a competitive selection process, are passionate about changing the status quo of design, and are curious about alternatives. 

Five of our brightest graduated this past May and as we look forward to following their paths, we take this moment to celebrate them and highlight one project from each during their time at Parsons. They employ strategies of re-use, use healthier or natural materials, and experiment with fabrication techniques to achieve design proposals that address their project questions. Meet our recent graduates: Julieta Gaitan Rubio, Noa Sklar, Sheetza McGarry, Shreya Dwivedi and Stan Walden. 

This project “celebrates the intricate beauty of the natural world. Inspired by the multifaceted systems within nature, this project invites viewers to delve into the mesmerizing patterns, textures, and interconnectedness found throughout our ecosystem. From the organic textures of leaves to the geometric designs of seeds and the dynamic networks of mycelium, each artwork reflects the fragility and importance of preserving biodiversity.” Julieta uses different fibers and different knitting techniques, and uses bioplastics made from alginate and glycerin to generate the organic shapes.

Noa’s thesis departs from the way that architecture creates defined urban spaces that divide neighborhoods. Inspired by Geoff Manaugh’s “A Burglar’s Guide to the City,” which looks at how burglars move through a city’s overlooked spaces with their ‘imaginative transgression’, revealing new ways to engage ignored spaces and voids. By integrating structures through facades, alleyways, and abandoned buildings, the design transforms interstitial spaces within Manhattan into a new streetscape. It disrupts the grid’s repetitive movement, encouraging conscious pedestrian engagement. The design reveals hidden spaces and questions property lines and access. The site, near Seward Park in downtown Manhattan, overlays a vacant lot, an abandoned theater, and interstitial space, using varying material opacities to guide movement and push the boundaries on property lines, ownership, privacy and access.

Sheetza’s work explores how democratic space can empower New York City neighborhoods by adapting to residents’ needs. Sheetza notes that public infrastructure often fails diverse communities by promoting assimilation and overlooking specific cultural needs. Focused on the Pacific Street and Bedford Avenue intersection in Brooklyn NY, this project proposal demonstrates how design can address these needs through community-driven interventions and infrastructure changes. By treating the community as experts, the project seeks to protect at-risk residents and their cultures. Ultimately, it advocates for democratic spaces that foster healthy infrastructure and lifestyles, investing in culture as essential to a city’s success.

This project proposes an interior design framework based on the traditional Indian practice of using regional materials to foster a connection with the land. Globalization, notes Shreya, has blurred the distinction between local and global, resulting in sameness, placelessness, and alienation from local culture and context. By using locally foraged materials like seaweed, oyster shells, moss, and driftwood in New York’s urban interiors, “Earthing Interiority” aims to counteract placelessness and reintegrate humans into a larger ecological network. This approach of ‘cohabiting’ fosters a symbiotic relationship of care and reciprocity, emphasizing interiors as living ecosystems.

Stan’s thesis examines and displays artifacts from New School students, faculty, and staff during the early years of the AIDS crisis. Alongside curating archival objects, he designed display furniture that scales to accommodate these assets and facilitate unexpected experiences in the gallery. 

This project will inform the installation, AIDS at The New School: What is Remembered?, at Aronson Galleries from Nov. 23, 2024, to Jan. 12, 2025.

We celebrate the accomplishments of Julieta, Noa, Sheetza, Shreya, and Stan, and extend our heartfelt congratulations to each of them. Their dedication has not only enriched their own academic journeys but has also contributed to the work and overall mission of the Healthy Materials Lab. Working with dedicated students like them is incredibly important to us. The experience they gain here equips them with unique skills and critical knowledge for advancements in healthier building and making practices. We are proud of the insights and expertise they have developed with us, and we eagerly anticipate seeing how they will apply what they have learned in their professional endeavors. Our hope is that they continue to be innovators and fierce advocates for healthy materials, carrying forward the principles and passion they have cultivated at HML and Parsons into their future careers.