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Integrated Prototypes/Products

A course in developing ideas through physical and digital prototypes, connecting product design, art and speculative storytelling.

This archive brings together seven offerings at Parsons from Fall 2022 through Fall 2025. Student work ranges from fabrication experiments and fictional devices to furniture and culturally situated accessories.

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Fall 2025

Selected student work

Backbone

Student project by Anishka Tewari · Fall 2025
Wearable prototype

A wearable spine brings the body’s hidden structure into view, exploring the tension between protection, vulnerability and trust. Anishka developed the vertebrae through sketches, Rhino models and repeated 3D prints, then connected the silver-painted pieces with rings and chains to a sewn garment.

Silver-painted vertebrae follow the curve of a wearer’s exposed back, held by fine chains.
Final wearable, detail from page 16. Backbone by Anishka Tewari, Fall 2025.
Backbone worn beside a window, showing the full vertebral chain and its attachment to a black garment.
Backbone worn. Student project by Anishka Tewari, Fall 2025.
Notebook drawings explore a spine-shaped wearable, its loops, chains and garment attachments.
Concept and construction sketches. Anishka Tewari, Fall 2025.

SPORA AIR

Student project by Zinnia Siegel · Fall 2025
Fictional product/prototype

A fictional portable air device is imagined for an age of industrial waste. Inspired by biodegradable electronics and the story Annihilation, Zinnia proposes a mycelium-powered, biodegradable object within a speculative scenario.

A white and pink speculative air device has two circular rotors surrounded by pink organic forms.
SPORA AIR: fictional portable air device. Student project by Zinnia Siegel, Fall 2025.

Spring 2025

Selected student work

Vessels for Presence

Student project by Ally Kessler · Spring 2025
Human enhancement device

Two hand-painted vases are conceived as devices for attention and presence. Working at different scales, the objects explore how design can shape the atmosphere of a room and its relationship to the people who inhabit it.

Fall 2024

Selected student work

Traditional Korean Binyeo

Student project by Ella Lee · Fall 2024
Integrated Prototypes/Products

Ella reinterprets the traditional Korean hairpin for contemporary use, combining cultural continuity with a practical accessory design. Her presentation follows the proposal through inspiration, sketches and prototype documentation.

Spring 2024

Selected student work

Birds in the year 3000

Student project by Zoe White · Spring 2024
Speculative evolution and prototyping

Zoe imagines how birds might adapt to a harsh future climate, building nests and scavenging among the remains of artificial materials. Archival photographs and books inform 3D models and laser-cut prototypes that trace a hypothetical evolution from the present to the year 3000.

A nest-like prototype assembled from wire, screws and shaped components rests in a tree.
Nest prototype photographed in a tree. Student project by Zoe White, Spring 2024.
Three views of a speculative bird form combine pointed, branching shapes with a curved black structure.
Digital model and form studies. Zoe White, Spring 2024.
A black bird-like prototype sits in front of a display of bird images, nest photographs and design references.
Prototype and research display. Zoe White, Spring 2024.

Spring 2023

Selected student work

Eye on Screen

Student project by Yuanning (Ning) Han · Spring 2023
Fictional wearable device

A fictional wearable asks what it means to look back. Responding to the male gaze in cinema, Ning places an eye display at the back of the wearer’s head. Storyboard sketches, an electronics prototype, the dithered eye frames that play on its display and photographs of the device being worn show how the concept became a physical object.

Two views of a person wearing a small screen displaying an eye at the back of their head.
Eye on Screen worn. Student project by Yuanning (Ning) Han, Spring 2023.
Eight dithered black-and-white close-ups of an eye, opening, closing and looking sideways.
Dithered eye frames for the display. Yuanning (Ning) Han, Spring 2023.
Two close-up views of the wired electronics prototype, including a small screen displaying an eye.
Electronics and eye-display prototype: acrylic, Arduino OLED display, fiber sheet and hair clip. Yuanning (Ning) Han, Spring 2023.
Colored storyboard drawings show a rear-facing eye display and a proposed head-mounted device.
Storyboard and wearable-device sketches. Yuanning (Ning) Han, Spring 2023.

Final props

Student project by Cindy Cao · Spring 2023
Final documentation

Final prop photographs document a set of sculpted objects in use. The submitted collection includes six photographs and a video.

A person holds sculpted red and pale objects while bringing one of the red props toward their mouth.
Final prop documentation. Student work by Cindy Cao, Spring 2023.

Fall 2022

Selected student work

3D-printed prototype

Student project by Aidan Dillon · Fall 2022
Prototype documentation

A fabrication-stage photograph documents a dolphin-shaped resin print with its support structures still attached. The course archive also includes an assembly video and a digital model image.

A white dolphin-shaped resin print and cylindrical parts rest on a wooden work surface with printing supports attached.
Resin-print fabrication stage. Student work by Aidan Dillon, Fall 2022.
Course outline

This outline draws on the Fall 2022 syllabus and the Fall 2025 hybrid digital prototyping brief. Individual assignments evolved across the seven offerings.

Goals

  • Use design and making as forms of inquiry and discussion.
  • Develop concepts through open-ended experiments with materials and fabrication.
  • Translate sketches and narratives into physical prototypes.
  • Document the development of a design through images, models and writing.

Assignments & methods

Design futures prototyping · Fall 2022

Research signals, develop scenario fictions and translate them into artifacts through successive rounds of physical prototyping.

Digital fabrication · Fall 2022

Develop analog and CAD sketches into prototypes using fabrication processes such as 3D printing, woodworking and metalworking.

Hybrid digital prototyping · Fall 2025

Iterate a fictional device or artifact through 3D scanning, modeling and digital assembly, combining printed parts with salvaged components.