Research & Outreach

As part of a top tier research university, the College of Design prides itself not only on teaching the next generation of designers, but on conducting groundbreaking research and sharing our expertise with a wide variety of communities.

The College of Design’s research and outreach units include centers, laboratories, museums, consortia, and institutes of regional, national, and international importance. These units focus on providing innovative solutions to design problems, new information to their constituencies, and thought-provoking opportunities for student learning.

Research Highlights

Center for Design in Health

The Center for Design in Health is currently working with a hospital in Delaware to implement process elements designed to prevent wrong-patient, wrong-procedure, wrong-site events in 16 different care delivery areas where invasive and/or high risk procedures are performed, including inpatient and outpatient settings.

Center for Sustainable Building Research

Center for Sustainable Building Resarch MPCA Grant Prototype

The Center for Sustainable Building Research worked with the University Libraries and the GIS department to map the location of lost urban waterways, which were then represented on current maps of the Twin Cities. This research effort located covered water ways and then geo-positioned the older maps over todays maps to see the approximate locations of these streams.

Goldstein Museum of Design (GMD)

Goldstein Museum of Design object of the week example

In addition to acting as an important source of research by students and faculty of the College of Design, objects from GMD's collection are also requested for loan by museums across the country. A glorious Saami ensemble, including shoes, hat, tunic, and a bag is currently on loan to Walt Disney Imagineering at Walt Disney World. It can be found in the exhibition Norsk Kultur, Inspiration for Disney Frozen located in the Norway Stave Church gallery at Epcot Center. The ensemble will be on view November 13, 2017–March 13, 2018. Discover the details in "Saami Ensemble on the Move."

Minnesota Design Center

Last fall the Minnesota Design Center hosted the event Victor Gruen: Visionary Urban Designer. An Austrian architect, Gruen (1930-1980) designed Southdale Center, in Edina MN. Southdale, the first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall in the United States, opened in 1956 and revolutionized retail shopping culture. MDC director Tom Fisher moderated a panel discussion, which included Viennese architect Judith Eiblmayer, Viennese sociologist, filmmaker, and cultural critic Anette Baldauf, and architect Alan Bruton.