Austin Center For Design

Austin Center for Design exists to transform society through design and education. This transformation occurs through the development of design knowledge directed towards all forms of social and humanitarian problems. The center explicitly tackles problems related to:* Homelessness and transient housing solutions * Healthcare access, affordability, and comprehension * Nutrition, personal wellness, and consumption * Education and job placement * Poverty * Sustainability and environmental impact The Center offers an innovative curriculum that repositions creative design education in the context of designing for the public sector. Students learn the interdisciplinary skills of creative design thinking, as applied to solving complicated problems of society and culture. These skills broadly include divergent thinking, ideation, visualization, synthesis, prototyping, and the managing of complexity and data organization. Students use these skills to develop systems, services, products, and new business models that address pressing social issues.