Second-year student Regena Paloma Reyes is currently hard at work on her MFA thesis—an investigation into the factors that promote city-dwellers' resilience during crises. Finding herself in New York City at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Regena was inspired to create two garment projects that blur the lines between protection and fashion: Covered and Anti.

Water Surface is a DIY atmosphere lamp that creates hypnotic ripples of light when touched. First-year designer, Qiting Fang, says the device is intended to “be placed on your table, shelf, or bedside to create a harmonious ambiance and absorbing experience.” Indeed, the lamp simulates the relaxing sensation of watching ripples appear on a placid lake.

Orbt is a set of convenient writing instruments, specifically ballpoint pens, that minimize their environmental impact by avoiding single-use plastic and promoting reusability. Inspired by the geostationary orbits revolving around the earth, Orbt is designed to, quite literally, stay around the user for years. The iconic Reuleaux Triangle shape of the stylus and its magnetic stand’s matching profile nudge the user to place the pen back in its home, preventing misplacement, use after use.

SARAPOSO is a speculative company that increases access for international migrants to source, cook, and eat from their 'home' cultures while residing in a new locale. First-year student—and self-described urban international migrant—Margarita Zulueta was inspired to create SARAPOSO based on her own experiences.

Bonding is a mental health consultant platform for Chinese seniors suffering from depression, and for their children who want to support them. Joey Hang Yuan designed the app as part of his MFA thesis, which focuses on redesigning experiences to keep older adults engaged in social relationships despite the digital divide.

Imagine solving pet accidents at home by building your own DIY electronic device. First-year student Jingxuan "Susan" Zhang set out to do just that when she designed NoPeeNow to correct her cat's bad behavior. Using Arduino and ultrasonic sensors, the product detects where a cat is peeing and creates noise to frighten them away from that area, thereby changing the undesirable habit.

The Aquarius is a speculative seasoning controller designed to curb salt and oil overuse for better health. The precise bottle design allows the user to only pour out the recommended daily amount—not a drop more. First-year student Gaoming Lyu says her product design started with a traditional Chinese recipe, the tomato scrambled egg. "It's a favorite dish that my parents often cooked during my childhood," she explains. "I noticed that the flavor of this dish began gradually changing, becoming much saltier than before. I discovered that my father was adding more and more salt with each passing year." This experience in her family's kitchen attracted Gaoming's attention to how people's tastes become heavier as they age—a significant issue as salt intake in China is confirmed to be among the highest in the world.

Oasis Market is an online grocery service that delivers affordable, fresh food to residents living in food deserts. First-year student Stephen Joyce says his speculative company's solution to food apartheid involves combining empathy with economic relativization, investing directly into the communities they serve. "We seek to be an authentic and homegrown voice in our city, and we believe strongly that our primary duty is to our community, not our investors."

First-year student Anne Keating created SafePub, a speculative project that commits to women and vulnerable minorities’ safety. Prioritizing the well being of women and LGBTQ+ individuals, the project envisions a network of allies in the form of pub owners, staff, taxi drivers, and local law enforcement.

Have you ever wondered about those little “do not eat” packages of silica that accompany many shipped goods? That’s desiccant (from Latin, to “make thoroughly dry”)—widely used to absorb moisture from the air and reduce the humidity inside sealed containers. Desiccants are typically made from non-biodegradable materials like silica, but first-year student Qiting Fang reimagined a more sustainable solution. Tea Waste Desiccant is a speculative company aiming to transform tea leaf waste into natural desiccant and replace common non-biodegradable silica desiccant worldwide.

First-year student Zekun Yang’s Living Pixels light frame was recently featured on the Arduino Blog. The article opens with, “As smart devices become more ingrained in our everyday lives, it’s perhaps only natural that we start to think of them as living things. What if such gadgets actually did have personalities and emotions that we as humans don’t ever see?” Zekun’s Living Pixels project illustrates this idea in luminescent style, as a picture frame that shows a static pattern of lights when anyone is nearby. When people aren’t present, and the device is left alone, it displays a range of emotions on its 16×16 LED matrix—from sleepy, relaxed, and even angry.

TRIGG≠R is a digital product suite that addresses language dissonance by translating American political terms in conversation. Created by first-year students Margarita Zulueta and Stephen Joyce, TRIGG≠R focuses on contested phrases to bridge the language divide through educational translation via an app and plugin.

Frubo is a fruit bowl with a modern aesthetic and a hidden agenda. Masquerading as a simple piece of home decor to store fruits and vegetables, Frubo creates a space for the user to store fruits that they want to consume immediately on the upper platter, and fruits that they would save for another day in the bottom portion of the container. Frubo is designed to live everywhere except the kitchen, with the intent of treating fruits the same way that we treat flowers: as pieces of beauty to be enjoyed at the height of their bloom.

It’s that time of year again! We’re thrilled to bring you our second annual MFA Products of Design Holiday Gift Guide, featuring dynamic and delightful objects and interventions by MFA PoD alumni, faculty, lecturers, and guests. This year, in these highly virtual times, we’re thinking more expansively about what a “gift” might mean. Click below to check out products, events, courses, and experiences designed by our PoD community at large.

One of the most anticipated products to come out of PoD’s partnership with MoMA is the set of Roller Coasters—ingenious drink coasters designed by Class of 2020 alum Hui Zheng. Check it out on the MoMA Store website!

First year Katy Yuelapwan created the The Solar Sleeve featuring a top layer with solar cells embedded amongst the curvilinear surface, with a bottom layer with silicone straps, and a button that connects both layers. The button allows the product to conserve energy and for the two parts to nestle into each other when they are not in use. It allows the user to use stored up energy as they are walking through a desert wasteland in 2052. The challenges of this project were fitting functionality within the form that was distinguishable as an iteration. The successes of this project lied within utilizing Keyshot to implement Katy’s vision with materiality in mind.

First-year, Margarita Zulueta created Narrateam, a platform that offers a centralized database for intersectional feminists to provide their own narratives and learn from the narratives of others, in order to gain a better understanding of the movement. Narrateam members can use the platform to share resources, events, and news items that are relevant to the movement and connect with like-minded individuals and organizations.

For 3DPD1, first-year Qiting Fang created the Steam Mouse iron. She initially looked at the form of curvilinear and planar volumes before function was given to the product. Qiting worked through many iterations and landed on this wonderful redesign of a widely used home good.

Helen Chen’s thesis, Fruiting Bodies: Fungal Futures for Collaborative Survival, explores how new material ecologies and interspecies consciousness—the acknowledgment that we live in complex ecosystems involving both human and non-human life—can create a paradigm shift in current industrial modes of production and consumption. In order to address the urgency of landfill and chemical waste streams around the world, she began her thesis exploration with prototyping biomaterials ranging from bacterial cellulose to algae-based bioplastics and mycelium.