• School of Design Strategies

  • School of Design Strategies

  • At Parsons’ School of Design Strategies (SDS), design is a practice for navigating complexity, advancing equity, and reimagining systems—from cities and civic services to cultural and artistic explorations. As a global leader in transdisciplinary, practice-based research, SDS generates new knowledge through making, performing, and experimenting, challenging conventional hierarchies of knowledge while fostering more resilient futures across communities and sectors worldwide.

  • School Highlights

    Creative and Critical Explorations

    SDS embraces iterative cycles of action, reflection, and material engagement to generate new ways of thinking and making. In SDS, researchers are not passive observers but active participants, and making is sense-making and considered a form of inquiry. 

    Cities, Services, Systems

    In SDS labs and studios, students explore the ways design improves urban life, business models, civic infrastructure, artistic practices, and social systems. Project topics range from housing and healthcare to climate adaptation, mobility, and public space. 

    Practice-Based Research Leadership

    SDS is at the forefront of practice-based research, redefining the ways knowledge is produced in design, art, and the social sciences through creative, hands-on inquiry. 

    NYC as a Living Lab

    Located in a global center of culture, business, and innovation, SDS is embedded in New York City’s dynamic learning environment. Courses, fieldwork, and partnerships connect students to a network of resources, thereby blurring the lines between the classroom and the city.

    New Approaches to Technology

    Students are encouraged to integrate AI, computational tools, and emerging technologies into their creative practice and employ a critical and creative lens in the process. Our community experiments with AI not just as a tool but also as a subject of inquiry, examining AI’s ethical, social, and environmental implications and exploring the way it reshapes creativity and imagination.

    Careers and Practices

    Graduates of SDS pursue multifaceted careers across design, education, entrepreneurship, public service, and cultural leadership. Whether launching ventures, joining firms or nonprofits, or advancing scholarship, students leave with expertise in the practice-based research and transdisciplinary methods that are increasingly sought in global design, education, and cultural leadership positions. 

  • Programs

  • Student Work

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    • SDS Faculty

      At Parsons, your mentors include leading strategists, influential policy advocates, and designers who are at the forefront of their fields. Every day, you’ll benefit from their real-world experience and expertise in small collaborative classes.  

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    • SDS News

      • Take The Next Step

      Submit your application

      Undergraduates

      To apply to any of our undergraduate programs (except the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs) complete and submit the Common App online.

      Undergraduate Adult Learners

      To apply to any of our Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

      Graduates

      To apply to any of our Master's, Doctoral, Professional Studies Diploma, and Graduate Certificate programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.