new member | college of design and innovation (D&I) at tongji university (china)

19.12.2024 Member news

ICoD is pleased to welcome the College of Design and Innovation (D&I) at Tongji University (China), a college focused on smart, sustainable design for industrial transformation and future living and serving at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The motto of D&I is: “to learn and create, for a meaningful life and a better world”.

ABOUT

Design education at Tongji University began in the 1940s, and for the first 70 years, the core design discipline was linked to architectural studies, mainly in the Bauhaus tradition. In 1986 the major of industrial design began enrolling undergraduate students. In 1993, the department of industrial design was established. In 2009, the university moved its design department out of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning and established a new college – the College of Design and Innovation (D&I). At this time, D&I developed a 3-dimensional, T-shaped educational framework, based on the prevailing undergraduate-master’s- doctoral degree system, to better explore possible approaches to cultivating design innovation talent.

“Fly Me to the Moon” Exhibition-Live in Milan. Tongji University School of Design and Innovation was one of the 22 universities invited to participate in the official core exhibition area at the 2024 Milan Design Week and the 62nd Milan Furniture Fair (Salone del Mobile Milano). Its exhibition venue is adjacent to the Royal Academy of Art in the UK and the Rhode Island School of Design in the US, jointly presenting forward-looking innovative works and design ideas to the audience.

PROGRAMMES

The college offers four undergraduate programmes which are Industrial Design, Media and Communication Design, Environmental Design, and Product Design. At the post-graduate level, the college offers eleven master’s programmes and nine doctoral programmes.

The master’s programmes include Design History and Theory, Design Strategy and Management, AI and Data Design, Advanced Industrial Design, Interaction Design, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Advanced Environmental Design, Product Service System Design, Advanced Media and Communication Design, Design Thinking and Sustainable Future, and Systematic Design and Intelligent Innovation.

The doctoral programs are PhD in Design, Doctor of Design, and Double-Degree Doctoral Programs (more info is available on the Tongji Official university website).

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN FOCUS

D&I seeks to respond to the challenges the world faces today by fostering leaders of smart and sustainable design and innovation who pursue academic excellence while contributing to social development. Its goal is to be pioneering, inclusive and diverse, to learn and to practice, in order to pursue excellence and continue to make substantial contributions to human progress.