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  • MFA in Design
  • Overview
  • Gallery
  • Thesis Projects
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MFA MFA in Design

  • Our program is interdisciplinary because designers face complex problems that defy easy categorization. We train students to understand audiences, collaborators and clients in original and authentic ways, combining aspects of fine art studio practice, graphics, interaction, architecture, fashion and product design, to form a hybridized education. Designers, increasingly, need to navigate between and blend disciplines, maximizing resources and working adaptively to create new environments, visuals, messaging and products. Our program’s strength lies in its ability to support each student’s unique interests, providing a custom education, tailored to each individual.

    Program Handbook Curriculum Courses Descriptions

Why study MFA in Design?

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    Creative, Motivated Students

    Our students are creative, motivated, hard-working, self-directed individuals, who are willing to engage challenging
    topics. The MFA program has high expectations, pushing each student to confront the complex practice of
    meaningful design, and to develop the discipline and rigor needed to develop an authentic voice.

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    Strategic Approaches to Applied Design Research

    We expose students to an array of creative tools and processes, stressing the interplay of research, scholarly writing and studio-based making. Immersed in an interdisciplinary environment, we challenge students to conceive innovative solutions to real design challenges. We provide valuable opportunities embedded directly within our curriculum, including international field study trips, workshops, teaching opportunities and internships.

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    Learning through Hybridized Making

    We provide a dedicated space for each student in studios that are equipped for model making, prototyping, casting, painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, sewing and physical computing. Our students are provided with training in, and access to, a fully-equipped Fabrication Lab with 3D printers, laser cutters and vinyl cutters, a vacuum-forming machine, computer numerical control (CNC) routers, and a woodshop stocked with a full complement of power and hand tools. We provide access to and research support in our Materials Library, which is stocked with traditional and cutting-edge materials—the only facility of its kind in the Gulf region.

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    Designers Forge Dynamic Career Paths

    • We prepare students for a better career in the design professions, research, and academia.
    • Our program produces graduates who are adept at navigating and combining various forms of practice.

Curriculum

Semester course descriptions can be found at this link:
http://bulletin.vcu.edu/azcourses/desi/

Faculty

  • Rab McClure

    Director of Graduate Studies

    .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

  • Dr. Giovanni Innella

    Associate Professor 

  • Marco Bruno

    Associate Professor

    P +974 4402 0706
    .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

    see full profile

  • Reema Abu Hassan

    Adjunct Faculty

  • Stella Colaleo

    Adjunct Faculty

  • Yeon Geong Hwang

    Boost Lab Research Fellow

  • Rab McClure

    Director of Graduate Studies

    .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

  • Dr. Giovanni Innella

    Associate Professor 

  • Marco Bruno

    Associate Professor
Contact


.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

BIO

Marco Bruno is an architect, an unaware artist and a motorcycle enthusiast. After twenty-one and one half years or uninterrupted studies between Italy and the US, Marco started his working career in Hollywood as a model maker in an Oscar-nominated special effect company. Marco become a registered architect in Italy, and in the beginning of...

Contact

P +974 4402 0706
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

see full profile

  • Reema Abu Hassan

    Adjunct Faculty

  • Stella Colaleo

    Adjunct Faculty

  • Yeon Geong Hwang

    Boost Lab Research Fellow

Alumni

Campus

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    Our digital fabrication laboratory offers 3-D rapid prototyper and scanner, vacuum former, fabric printer and laser cutter.

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    Create your own work space in our well equipped studios.

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    Physical computing facilities.

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    Within our wood workshop you will find a variety of saws, drill presses, sanders, planers and hand tools.

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    Use our photography, multimedia and video studios equipped with a green screen room.

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    Our Library provides a range of books, magazines and DVDs on all aspects of design.

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    The materials library offers a range of sample materials from fabrics, glass, plastics, ceramics and recycled materials.

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Fieldtrips & Workshops

  • Bath, United Kingdom, 2018

  • Netherlands, 2017

  • Turin, Italy, 2016

  • Sandberg, Amsterdam

  • Fiona Raby

  • Jan Wilker

  • Veneto, Italy

  • Fudan University

  • Marije Vogleszang

  • Bath, United Kingdom, 2018

  • Netherlands, 2017

  • Turin, Italy, 2016

Bath, United Kingdom, 2018

November 2018

Our 2018 MFA field study re-examined the traditional Arabic lantern, or fanoos—a symbol of festive welcome and safe haven. We began by designing and fabricating a digital light source, which can be re-programmed and customized using a smartphone. Next, we travelled to Bath, England and worked with professional artists to blow glass into 3d-printed steel molds we designed ahead of time. Each student and faculty member produced three unique, mold-blown glass lamps during our five-day field study workshop. The project combines our affinity for Qatar's rich cultural heritage with our belief in the forward-looking power of design to shape the future.

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Netherlands, 2017

October 2017

Wispy wool fibers—agitated with soap and water—will tangle and blend to form a non-woven textile: felt. The ancient process requires careful observation and keen sensory awareness. With deliberate movement and attention to the strands of wool, the material transforms before one’s eyes. It is a natural alchemy; out of many, one.  The 2017 field study included a five-day workshop in Oldeberkoop, the Netherlands. Students and faculty each designed and felted a modern prayer rug. Praying is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, and as such, is an obligatory duty of every Muslim. Prayer rugs are used by Muslims globally, and have a rich history that spans the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. Traditional prayer rugs are woven, featuring distinct patterns and colors that often reveal a rug’s place of origin. A prayer rug’s purpose is to delineate a clean space for performing prayers. During prayer, the worshiper stands, kneels, bows, sits, and takes a position of prostration, where the palms rest flat against the rug, and the forehead touches also. Muslims pray towards the direction, qibla, of the Kaaba in Mecca. One common characteristic of traditional prayer rugs is a distinctive design feature used to orient the rug towards the qibla for prayer. These elements often mimic the mihrab niches found in mosques that indicate the congregation towards the qibla. As a result, prayer rugs are practical and functional at the same time they are sacred and revered. Our modern felted prayer rugs explore the following themes: modernity (impact of advanced materials and technologies on the act of fabrication), tactility, surface, depth, function, portability, comfort, durability, and cultural resonance. Workshop participants: Rabab Abdulla, Majdulin Nasr Allah, Norah Alshammari, Hazem Asif, Richard Blackwell, Marco Bruno, Aisha Jemila Daniels, Diane Derr, Nourbano Al Hejazi, Mohammad Jawad Jaffari, Se Hee Jang, Rabeya Khatoon, Rab McClure, Thomas Modeen, Mariam Rafehi, Alisha Saiyed, Yasmeen Suleiman, Sidra Zubairi Special Thanks:  Hawar Textile Institute, www.hawar.nl 
Saar Snoek, www.saarsnoek.nl 
Noha Fouad, photographer, videographer

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Turin, Italy, 2016

November 2016

The artifacts exhibited at Design Days Dubai highlight results from this year’s Field Study—an annual component of our program where students and faculty travel together to engage in a shared, immersive design experience. This year’s Field Study included a five-day workshop in Torino, Italy, where we designed ceramic incense burners using Grasshopper visual programming software and a Wasp 3D clay printer. By using forward-looking design and fabrication tools (Grasshopper + 3D-printed clay) to re-examine the form and utility of this ritualized archetype (incense burner), we seek to simultaneously celebrate cultural heritage and technological progress, which we posit as interdependent and mutually supportive. Faculty: Rab McClure, Richard Blackwell, Marco Bruno, Diane Derr, Thomas Modeen. Students: Hazem Asif, Hala Gabr, Nourbano Al Hejazi, Sultana Jesmine, Elizabeth Ju, Mona Makhlouf, Noora Melhim, Wajiha Pervez, Norah Al Shammari, Islam Shehab, Sidra Zubairi. Special thanks to MunLab, Elena Carena, Andrea Graziano and Bruno Demasi.

Field trip image

  • Sandberg, Amsterdam

  • Fiona Raby

  • Jan Wilker

Sandberg, Amsterdam

March 2012

In March 2012 a workshop with Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam took place, where nine MFA students worked side by side with their Dutch counterparts on a joint project, entitled "Extra National Style." The project looked into the issues of national identity, multiculturalism, and design activism, and taught students important lessons in collaborative design.

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Fiona Raby

Doha/London 2011

A collaborative workshop with visiting designer Fiona Raby, a Senior Tutor of London’s Royal College of Art, was complex and multidisciplinary in nature.

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Jan Wilker

New York 2011

This workshop was about redefining the limited definition of "design" and conventional designers' preoccupations, and about breaking down professional self-inflicted barriers.

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  • Veneto, Italy

  • Fudan University

  • Marije Vogleszang

Veneto, Italy

June 2011

In June 2011 MFA faculty and students had a traveling workshop with Fabrica – a cutting-edge design and research center in Veneto, Italy. The workshop called "Shared Glass" was to create a collection of “hybrid” objects: pieces that mix and match Middle Eastern and Western influences, shapes, and functions.

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Fudan University

Shanghai 2010

MFA in Design students collaborated with students of Fudan University to create a video project for Qatar’s National Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.

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Marije Vogleszang

Holland 2010

Marije, a founder of The Eating Design movement in Holland, came to visit our MFA students in Qatar and offered a week-long workshop investigating the habits and behaviors associated with food and food consumption.

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Opportunities

Visiting Artists

Each year VCUarts Qatar welcomes visiting artists and designers to campus to share their expertise and experiences. Drawn from across the globe, these artists, designers, educators are highly accomplished and recognized within their respective design fields. They share their knowledge through lectures, conferences or specific workshops, broadening our students’ creative experiences and complementing our multi-cultural approach to design.

Many visiting artists have inspired our MFA in Design students including:

Fiona Raby, Jan Wilker, Marije Vogleszang, Armor and Nertos Gutierrez (Atelier La Juntana), Giulio Iacchetti, Felipe Fonseca, Ali Ganjavian (Studio Banana), Tonin Kauppila and Alice Twemlow.

Graduate Research Grant

The Graduate Research Grant program provides funding with the purpose of encouraging curiosity, creativity, risk-taking and scholarly investigation into a project or subject of interest relevant to the student’s academic or creative interests.  Each year, students from graduate programs can apply for grants to make their projects reality.  Through a competitive review, VCUarts Qatar graduate students will be awarded grants for projects that support and develop their creative practice, research, and scholarship. 

Our MFA in Design students have been offered internships at several leading organizations within Qatar including:

Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Lusail Consultants LLC, The Center of Design Innovation (CoDI).

Inquiries

VCUarts Qatar
Al Luqta Street
Education City
Doha, Qatar
+974 4402 0555
vcuqinfo@vcu.edu

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