Felix Ho's thesis, Bridged Reality: Using Technology to Nurture Distant Relationships, explores how technologies can break the barrier for those who are dear to us but living far away. When living at a great distance, friends, family, and couples sometimes become estranged. In order to create a new capacity for connection to break the distance barrier, Felix began his thesis exploration with a high-tech intervention that allows users from different locations to have a shared low-tech experience that makes the user feel connected asynchronously.

The latest product to come out of PoD’s partnership with MoMA is this set of Landscape Candle Holders—designed by Class of 2021 alum Zhenxuan Wang.

Margarita Zulueta’s thesis, Weighted: Designing Towards Fat Liberation, investigates how anti-fat bias affects fat-identifying women through the lens of design. Anti-Fat bias is the discriminatory belief that the social stigma against fat people, in the tradition of fat activists reclaiming the term, is justified. Anti-Fat bias is normalized and affects the 1.9 billion adults who are considered to fall within this group. Having experienced the pain of anti-fat bias in her own life due to falling within the small-fat to mid-fat range, Margarita explores and creates products of design to create structures that move towards fat liberation.

At Wanted Design in New York City, the Class of 2023 debuted their semester-long group project, RE-ACTORS. Products of Design students present annually at the NYCxDESIGN Festival, and this year was unique since Wanted Design took place at the ICFF at the Jacob Javits Center!

As a busy and sleep-deprived graduate student, Arshlavi Auleear had a revelation when she started taking intentional breaks and naps. She felt less stressed, more energetic, and was increasingly productive. In response, she designed Nu-age, an app and service that promotes napping as a tool for increasing productivity and wellness.

Students Erika Choe and Cheryl Zhang were disturbed to learn that 20% of adopted dogs are returned to shelters each year. “This tough transition not only strips dogs of their sense of safety—it also reintroduces negative stressors and potentially euthanasia.” In response, Cheryl and Erika designed Bowow, a 'Google Translate' app for dog owners to better understand the meaning behind their pet's barks.

Margarita Zulueta's upcoming thesis, Accepting Fat, proposes fat acceptance through design offerings to combat anti-fat bias. Specifically, her project Flex—a speculative new fleet incorporated into Southwest Airlines—addresses discrimination in airplane systems through the lens of seating.

Do you know someone who moved far away and keeps forgetting all of their friends' birthdays? Charvi Shrimali was struck by her own forgetfulness after moving from India to New York City and missing a few too many birthdays because of the time zone difference. Deciding to never make the same mistake again, Charvi built You Better NOT Forget My Birthday, a smart device in the form of a plush celebratory cupcake.

Temporary loss of smell, or anosmia, is the leading neurological symptom and one of the earliest and most commonly reported indicators of COVID-19. It can negatively affect many aspects of daily life—most notably eating. “87% of COVID patients with anosmia said they experienced a reduced enjoyment of food,” remark students Sarah Hackett and Cathy Tung, who teamed up to design Chewful, an app providing ‘tailored dining journeys’ to help improve the experience of eating for those without the ability to smell or taste.

Zol Fairway is an app and digital caddie system designed by first-year student José Achi Martín. A wearable wireless chip offers golfers suggestions on how to play the specific course the user is on, much as how a real-life caddie would. José explains that the Zol app is intended to facilitate the learning process of the sport for beginners but also functions as a correction and tracking tool for more experienced players.

In an 11-week project, Margarita Zulueta, Zekun Yang, and Anne Keating set out to redesign in-home water filtration consumer products, of which Brita is the current market leader. Their solution? VODA—a reusable pitcher-agnostic system that pairs with a geo-specific custom water filtration mixture. VODA focuses on local, open-source accessibility to clean water, and aims to reduce plastic usage in our personal drinking water habits.

Have you ever wished you could taste the delicious dish you just saw featured in a movie? Foodflix, a speculative project created by student Cheryl Zhang, offers just that—to provide customers with outrageous immersive experiences through movie food delivery, a recipe app, and escape room labs. Partnering with Netflix, "Foodflix aims to bring your favorite movies to life."

For The World, a project designed by first-year student Erika Choe, serves as a far-sighted collective that embodies decentralized and democratic practices to actively engage in building a better future. Erika envisions the website as your “go-to guide for exploring and sharing alternate models for a more connected, meaningful and regenerative future.”

Globally, we consume 2.25 billion cups of coffee a day, which equals a shocking 23 million tons of wasted coffee grounds each year. In response, first-year student Nihaarika Arora created Ground2Ground—a set of upcycled straws fabricated from used coffee grounds blended with natural binding agents. The straws are designed to be reused and compostable, “returning to the ground at the end of their lifecycle.”

DUO is a speculative contraceptive technology product for egalitarian couples, aiming to empower both partners and hold them equally accountable. Designed by first-year student Monica Moaz, DUO consists of two pill packs: one for the male and one for the female partner.

“With consistent long-duration spaceflight becoming more probable in humanity’s future,” offers first-year student Corey McClelland, “the opportunities for innovation in microgravity gastronomy are seemingly limitless.

Stooping is a long-time New York tradition: someone discards their no longer needed belongings on the stoop or sidewalk in front of their home, and any passerby can salvage the items for free. During the pandemic, first-year student Kaylan Tran noticed that stooping became an Instagram phenomenon with thousands of users sharing their finds. Inspired by this movement, Kaylan created Trove, an app that aims to turn stooping into a fun, treasure-hunting, community-based experience.

First-year Student Jaemin Cho’s AromaClock and Aroma 4D Platform reimagines the use of scent as a triggering device for behaviors that users want to reinforce.

Class of 2023 student Cathy Tung has created Mousk—a digital product, platform, and brand that addresses the facial expression and nuance forced by the pandemic.

Avocados are highly nutritious but also increasingly controversial. Controversial?! Those of us who love avocado toast might be shocked to learn the truth: From its high food mileage to giving rise to "green gold" cartels, the rising popularity of the fruit has significant environmental and social implications. When first-year student Charvi Shrimali researched these issues further, she became motivated to find local alternatives to high export produce in her native India. Her proposed solution? Closer Home Eats is a speculative startup that proposes popularising and rebranding the Indian variant of avocado known as butter fruit. The project aims to counter the high food mileage and extinction of plant species due to rising monoculture.