PNCA’s MFA in Collaborative Design is defined by the work we do and the people we do it with. For example:

• Designing a hybrid space for independent musicians
• Creating / marketing an in-home all-purpose hot compost bin
• Exploring “Broken Design” in our annual publication, Blight
• Product / market design for reducing invasive species

Are we service designers? Entrepreneurial designs? Product designers? System designers? Yes. And more.

We work mostly in teams, but we take on individual projects through independent study and capstone theses such as:

• A multimodal transportation initiative
• An interaction system for treating / preventing pediatric migraines
• BridgeLab, a college-wide design/art entrepreneurship incubator
• zLab, a design-based education program

We’re highly connected to the design / creative / nonprofit / entrepreneur community in Portland. The city is our laboratory. But we venture past Portland’s famed urban growth boundary – to the Pacific coast, to the mountains, to the high desert. These natural landscapes provide much of our region’s resources where many ecological / social / economic issues remain unsolved, even ignored. We see opportunity here.

We’re creative problem solvers.

MFA in Collaborative Design Program Site