Common Design Studio is a transnational transdisciplinary studio where students collaboratively design projects which respond to topics around planetary health. Students work in hybrid groups from RMIT Melbourne Communication Design, MDIT and MAGI, RMIT Design Vietnam, and Elisava Design School in Barcelona. 

DATA – beyond numbers is the theme for 2025. Collaborative design-led research projects will focus on developing actionable strategies for a sustainable, holistic relationship with the earth and its interconnected ecologies, delving into the deeper, intrinsic aspects of data that shape our lives and influence our daily functions, and the material and tacit qualities of data, rather than focusing on numbers and digits. Each group will propose provocations and improvements to the symbiotic relationships between data, humanity (as a diverse species) and the numerous occupants and systems with which we share planet Earth. 

This studio will explore DATA and its capacity to communicate both knowledge and rhetoric. We will use our digital and analogue and embodied skills to undertake direct field research then interpret that DATA to communicate an ethics of future DATA relationship. 

Outcomes include short responsive videos, exhibition design, exhibition outputs (material and digital) and Studio Knowledge Objects.

Assessments 
Brief 1 - Design Intensive outcomes 
Brief 2 - DATA - beyond numbers exhibition 
Brief 3 - Studio Knowledge Object

1374 days - Giorgia Lupa

Ethics, Design and AI – 'No Harm Done' 

Data Garden Collective – Joanne Amariso

Fossil Fuels & The Arts – Gabrielle de Vietri

Supersymmetry – Ryoji Ikeda

Important Note: As part of the 'Common Design Studio' project we will start with an intensive design sprint with international partners on Friday 28 Feb (the Friday before the normal Semester starts) and meet every weeknight for 7 sessions until Tuesday 11 March, from 7-9pm, in live synchronous zoom sessions with our international partners.
Please don't preference this studio unless you can commit to attending at least 6 out of these 7 sessions (but ideally all 7) as this design sprint forms the foundation for the remainder of the studio.