︎

CHRIS WOEBKEN STUDIO
Mark

Teaching

Courses, workshops and learning experiments across design, research and collective futures.

Participation
All participation
Access
Participant support

22 courses & programs · 33 offerings · 57 workshops

Speculative Design

Fordham, Visual Arts Department

Spring 2026, Spring 2024
Course

Developing future-facing design proposals through research and prototyping.

Speculative futures · Prototyping

Offerings & resources

Spring 2026

elective · undergrad · Fordham, Visual Arts Department

Course partner: Cybernetics Library

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

Spring 2024

elective · undergrad · Fordham, Visual Arts Department

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

MOLT face attachment modeled in a portrait.
MOLT · Grace Do · Spring 2026
A translucent purple and blue jellyfish-inspired interface worn across a hand and wrist.
TURRITOPSIS · Siqi Weng · Spring 2024
Aqua Walker speculative advertisement depicting buoyant shoe platforms on water.
AQUA WALKER · Shamia Rahman · Spring 2024

Selected student work · View course documentation

Spring 2026
Course

A hands-on laboratory for interactive devices, physical computing and iterative prototypes.

Interaction design · Prototyping

Offerings & resources

Spring 2026

graduate · Cornell AAP, Design Tech

Daniel Leithinger — Co-teacher

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

Two students demonstrating FELIS during a conversation, with wearable ears and a long articulated tail.
FELIS · Lucius Hu and Sophia Sun · Spring 2026
Overhead view of a participant within the suspended layers of translucent paper.
Breathe · Stevie Phelabaum, Sarah Rupani and Jacob Gasper · Spring 2026
A student wearing a colorful balloon mask among trees.
Squirrel Ranger · Sophia, Rachel and Cici · Spring 2026

Selected student work · View all eight selected projects

2022–2025 · 7 offerings
Course

Hands-on exploration of physical prototypes, fabrication processes and product development.

Prototyping

Offerings & resources

Fall 2025

elective · undergrad · Parsons School of Design, School of Design Strategies

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

Spring 2025

elective · undergrad · Parsons School of Design, School of Design Strategies

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

Fall 2024

elective · undergrad · Parsons School of Design, School of Design Strategies

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

Spring 2024

elective · undergrad · Parsons School of Design, School of Design Strategies

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

Fall 2023

elective · undergrad · Parsons School of Design, School of Design Strategies

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

Spring 2023

elective · undergrad · Parsons School of Design, School of Design Strategies

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

Fall 2022

elective · undergrad · Parsons School of Design, School of Design Strategies

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

Silver-painted vertebrae follow the curve of a wearer’s exposed back, held by fine chains.
Backbone · Anishka Tewari · Fall 2025
Two views of a person wearing a small screen displaying an eye at the back of their head.
Eye on Screen · Yuanning (Ning) Han · Spring 2023
A white and pink speculative air device has two circular rotors surrounded by pink organic forms.
SPORA AIR · Zinnia Siegel · Fall 2025

View course documentation

EXPLORE, EXPLAIN, PROPOSE

Columbia GSAPP, Computational Design Practices

Fall 2025
Course

Selected projects examine machine vision and colonial cartography, environmental justice along the Cross Bronx Expressway, and food-access infrastructure in New York.

Civic infrastructure · Tactical media

Offerings & resources

Fall 2025

colloquium · graduate · Columbia GSAPP, Computational Design Practices

ARCH A4145 · Colloquium 2 · 21 students

Program theme: Situated Technologies · 2025–2026

Co-taught by Chris Woebken and Daniel Miller

Selected student projects

Further project development is documented in Columbia’s 2026 CDP archive.

Projecting Topographies

Mika Yassur
Machine vision in Gaza traced back to colonial cartography, with sand as a material that resists fixity.

Project advisor: Josh Begley

View project documentation · 2026

Trench

Sriya Thotakura
Environmental justice along the Cross Bronx Expressway, indexing community board minutes and organizer testimony as weighted evidence alongside asthma and EJScreen data, delivered as a dashboard for Community Boards.

Project advisor: Kazuki Sakamoto

View project documentation · 2026

Tracing Food, Tracing Fragility

Sunni Jiayu Hu
Food access in New York as infrastructural fragility, with a vulnerability index and a Unity environment built from photogrammetry in Red Hook.

Project advisor: Seth Thompson

View project documentation · 2026

Hands hold layered cartographic transparencies over a lit panel in a film still from Mika Yassur’s Projecting Topographies.
Projecting Topographies · Mika Yassur · 2026 documentation
Trench dashboard compares Cross Bronx Expressway intervention sites using satellite imagery, street-view segmentation, depth maps, trench analysis and design proposals.
Trench · Sriya Thotakura · 2026 documentation
Fragmented photogrammetry reconstructs a stocked grocery aisle inside Sunni Jiayu Hu’s Unity-based food infrastructure environment.
Tracing Food, Tracing Fragility · Sunni Jiayu Hu · 2026 documentation

2025
Workshop

A five-day workshop in Taiwan using storytelling, collaborative world-building and physical artifacts to explore speculative futures.

Participatory futures · Speculative futures · Prototyping

Free program · NYCU and NTHU students.

Workshop details

2025

5 day · NYCU & NTHU, Taiwan

Der-Jang Yu — Co-facilitator · Scenario Lab — Co-facilitator

Project documentation

Students presenting and discussing their speculative prototypes in the workshop
Group discussion and presentation of speculative prototypes.
Workshop participants arranging concept scaffolding cards on a table
Concept scaffolding cards support collaborative world-building.
Participants testing a branching cardboard and found-material prototype
Testing a physical artifact from an imagined world.

2025 · Documentation and videography: Karan Lo · Full photo album

Fall 2023
Course

Research through design connecting life sciences, materials and fabrication.

Biodesign · Prototyping

Offerings & resources

Fall 2023

studio · undergraduate and graduate · University of Pennsylvania, Stuart Weitzman School of Design

DSGN 2510 / DSGN 5017

Taught by Chris Woebken

Course overview & resources · Course syllabus

A green coffee-ground biomaterial sleeve wraps a takeaway coffee cup.
Coffee-Based Bioleather · Alejandra Chamorro · Fall 2023
A purple molded biomaterial swimsuit top is displayed on a dress form.
Methylcellulose Based Swimsuits · Hannah Lee · Fall 2023
Purple pigment is mixed into a pale biomaterial batch in a pan.
Methylcellulose Based Swimsuits · Hannah Lee · Fall 2023

View course documentation

Spring 2023
Course

A research and making studio examining the body, identity and everyday technologies. Students use fictional narratives and physical prototypes to question self-tracking, connectivity, privacy and automation, developing objects that open discussion about alternative futures.

Prototyping · Speculative futures

Offerings & resources

Spring 2023

elective · undergrad · University of Pennsylvania, Stuart Weitzman School of Design

DSGN 2500

Chris Woebken — Teacher

Course catalogue

Original course syllabus

Selected student projects

Snail Antennae Device

Quanyi Wang · Spring 2023

What if humans communicated through antennae? Quanyi’s wearable combines two air-driven antennae, a reflective face shield and earplugs to explore communication beyond familiar facial expressions and speech.

Animated demonstration: a handheld button controls the red antenna as it extends and changes shape.
Hand control and antenna movement · Quanyi Wang
Quanyi Wang’s concept sketch shows antenna positions for different signals and two handheld controls.
Concept sketch: communicating through antennae
How it works
  1. Press buttons on two handheld controls.
  2. Air pumps inflate or deflate each antenna.
  3. Use changes in antenna position as visible signals.
Side view of the wearable showing its headband, inflatable antennae, electronics and hand control.
Side view: head-mounted prototype and hand control · Quanyi Wang

Commu-tail (Cat Tail Device)

Hannah Lee · Spring 2023

Hannah Lee’s curved tail model has overlapping pale segments around a flexible core.
Final speculative tail model

A speculative wearable tail inspired by how cats communicate through posture and movement. A flexible base and modular outer segments explore how a tail-like extension could become part of the human body. Earlier whale- and bird-tail studies informed the final model.

Process & development
Close-up of a curved flexible base cut with regularly spaced slots.
Flexible base study
An early black paper tail study has layered pointed shapes attached to a wire frame.
Early bird-tail study

Making Kin with Biomaterials

Columbia GSAPP, Building Science & Technology Elective

Fall 2022, Fall 2021
Course

Exploring relationships with microorganisms through grown materials, biological prototypes, and scenarios for a post-carbon society.

Biodesign · Multispecies relations · Prototyping

Offerings & resources

Fall 2022

graduate course · Columbia GSAPP, Building Science & Technology Elective

Taught by Chris Woebken

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

Fall 2021

graduate course · Columbia GSAPP, Building Science & Technology Elective

Taught by Chris Woebken

Course overview & resources · Course catalogue

An array of molded cylindrical material samples sits on a studio work surface.
Birdhouse · Daniel Vanderhorst · Fall 2022
An illuminated tapered mesh lampshade casts a shadow onto a wall.
Lampshade Design · Eujin Kim · Fall 2022
A scenario collage overlays colored organic forms and trees onto an aerial view of an industrial data-center site.
Biobased data center · Adeline Chum, Jules Kleitman, Aditi Mangesh Shetye · Fall 2021

View course documentation

Spring 2022
Course

A graphic design research studio exploring how biotechnology, artificial intelligence and nonhuman perspectives challenge human-centered design. Assignments combine speculative worlds, sensory investigations of microorganisms and machine vision with visual and physical prototypes.

More-than-human · Prototyping · Sensory exploration · Speculative futures

Offerings & resources

Spring 2022

elective · graduate · RISD, Graphic Design

Assignments: Designing Futures; Umwelt; Machines Have Eyes.

Chris Woebken — Co-teacher · Anastasiia Raina — Co-teacher

Course website · Selected documentation

Original course syllabus

Students work with microscopes and specimens around a laboratory bench.A computer screen displays a detailed three-dimensional model of an insect.A laboratory computer displays a striped close-up image beside scientific imaging equipment.A person uses a handheld scanner on a small object inside a white tabletop photography enclosure.
Spring 2022 · RISD Graphic Design

Diatom Perception

Student project by Sadia Quddus and Dougal Henken · Spring 2022

Sadia and Dougal imagine the experience of a diatom through color, gesture and projected imagery. Drawing on research into how diatoms respond to changes in their environment, the installation explores an intuitive, empathetic way to approach climate change through a nonhuman perspective.

Diatom Perception poster by Sadia Quddus and Dougal Henken combines a large microscopic form with colorful graphic patterns.
Diatom Perception · Poster
A participant raises a hand toward a colorful projected diatom in a darkened room.
Installation documentation
Spatial diagram of Diatom Perception shows a projected diatom and a visitor within a marked installation area.
Installation study: projection and visitor placement
Course & program documentation

Design in the Posthuman Age

- SS22, RISD GD
co-taught with Anastasiia Raina

Microscope image of a translucent organism with short segmented legs. Magnified image of a microscopic organism with a prominent eye-like structure and segmented appendages. A pale, branching microscopic form against a dark field. A magnified image of textured biological forms in yellow and orange.

2021
Workshop

Workshop details

2021

3 day · Columbia GSAPP, NYC

Alexander Klose — Co-facilitator

Cooperating institution: Goethe Institute
Workshop partner: 1014 / space for ideas

Selected documentation

A curved staircase at 1014 illuminated by green light.A participant reads a printed instruction card under green light.Participants read from printed sheets during a green-lit group session.
Scenes from the sessions at 1014 and collages by Adeline Chum, Jules Kleitman, Aditi Mangesh Shetye, 2021
Course & program documentation

Precognitioning post-oil


What might it feel like to live in New York City after fossil fuels?

The fossil energy regime of coal, oil and gas has to and will end eventually, coal rolling and the renewed celebration of excessive fossil fuel consumption have been merely petromelancholic rebound effects… This is the backdrop for our ongoing research project on the histories and afterlives of petromodernity. How do we want to live in a post-fossil future? How and with whom will we develop new kinships after the social bonds connected to the resource economy and the exuberant promises of our ‘Western Way of Life’ are untied? Will we actively delve into a world of living materials and microbiological entanglements? Will we get beyond racism and patriarchy? Will we cease to privately own land?

Join us at one of three successive precognitioning sessions at 1014! Play out visions of urban renewal, societal reformation, and a post-extractivist approach towards natures and societies after the possible endings of fossil energy regimes.

Through narrative techniques and design futures methods a series of bespoke design interventions and immersive installations transform 1014 into a hyper-reality testing environment. Using guided speculative role play and co-created moments of immersion, participants are encouraged to experiment with new values and beliefs that might emerge in a post-petro world. The scenarios and installations have been developed in collaboration with an architecture course at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, led by participatory futures practitioner Chris Woebken in partnership with cultural researcher Alexander Klose.

The idea of precognition: Being neither driven by big corporations nor by governments, the precognition process takes up the project of working with and on futures in an explicitly non-technocratic, experimental way. It avoids statistics-based "scientific" methodologies. Instead, it relies on collectively crafted visions and material-based artifacts and embodied roleplay. An archeology of the fossil presence: surveying infrastructures, collecting images and narratives that at the same time manifest all kinds of afterlives and hint to possible escape routes.

You’re invited to join us as a participant on one of the evenings Oct 28, Oct 29, Oct 30. In two groups of max 15 people, visitors will walk through the installations and the precognitioning process accompanied by Alexander Klose and Chris Woebken and different ‘lead speculators’ from varying fields of practice and knowledge for each evening. We will explore and respond to new precognitioned values, myths, and cultural imaginations that might emerge while being shaped by the afterlives of petro-modernity.

Commissioned and hosted by 1014, New York City, in cooperation with Goethe Institute New York City and Popup Goethe Institute Houston.

Find more information on our lead speculators here:
https://www.1014.nyc/events/precognitioning-post-oil-hjrjl


Participants stand and sit among wooden structures during a green-lit workshop. Hands arrange organic specimens and printed sheets on a tabletop apparatus. An exhibition display combines a printed collage poster with pink sculptural forms. Participants discuss objects and specimens in a dimly lit workshop space. A speculative collage combines an industrial interior with mossy ground and green growth. Participants demonstrate a bodily gesture beside a projected image during a workshop. Speculative landscape collage showing large translucent structures across an industrial site.

Scenes from the sessions at 1014 and collages by Adeline Chum, Jules Kleitman, Aditi Mangesh Shetye, 2021

Interdisciplinary Team Project

CUNY City Tech, Emerging Media Technology

Fall 2020
Course

An interdisciplinary studio investigating life after oil through collaborative scenarios, experiential prototypes and speculative media environments.

Participatory futures · Prototyping · Simulation

Offerings & resources

Fall 2020

studio · undergraduate · CUNY City Tech, Emerging Media Technology

MTEC 4800

Co-taught by Chris Woebken

Course overview & resources · Course website

Two black lounge chairs face a monitor in the Petrobionis waiting-room installation at 1014.
Petrobionis · Michael Lecolant and Christopher Riba · Fall 2020
A large projected scene fills the wall in Justin Philip’s Petronostalgia installation.
Petronostalgia · Justin Philip · Fall 2020
Participants gather around tables during a staged emergency meeting at 1014.
Fear and Governing · Brian Livingston and Anthony Truong · Fall 2020

View course documentation

Fall 2019
Course

A studio using set design, fictional narratives and immersive prototypes to explore relationships with technology, society and the environment. Students develop participatory workshops, artifacts and filmed scenarios, then test how others experience them.

Participatory futures · Prototyping · Simulation

Offerings & resources

Fall 2019

PSAM 5600

Chris Woebken — Instructor

Invited guest critics: Ayo Okunseinde · Fiona Raby

elective · graduate · Parsons School of Design, MFA D&T

Course syllabus

Cross-Species Test Sites

Columbia GSAPP, Building Science & Technology Elective

Fall 2019, Spring 2019
Course

Investigating urban wildlife and microbial communities through situated prototypes and multispecies interfaces.

Biodesign · Multispecies relations · Fieldwork · Prototyping

Offerings & resources

Fall 2019

graduate course · Columbia GSAPP, Building Science & Technology Elective

A4863

Taught by Chris Woebken

Course overview & resources · Selected documentation

Spring 2019

graduate course · Columbia GSAPP, Building Science & Technology Elective

A4863-1

Taught by Chris Woebken

Course overview & resources · Course syllabus · Selected documentation

Course & program documentation

Cross-Species Test Sites

- SS19 & FA19 at Columbia GSAPP
Building Science & Technology Elective
Taught by Chris Woebken

This course investigates the complex relationships between humans and non-human urban inhabitants. Students study urban animal wildlife, indicator species, and microbial communities and work with biologists and ecologists to identify new potentials in designing for biological systems. Through the process of fabricating, situating and testing prototypes, we aim to create a reflective space for deeply considering the details of these new interactions, and to discover unforeseen opportunities, twists and challenges. Project outcomes are physical devices in the form of multispecies interfaces, bio-receptive materials, and infrastructure modifications that propose new multispecies collaborations across all scales. 

Full Syllabus


Jules Kleitmann | FA19


Seahorse Exchange proposal showing seahorses beside a branching white structure in water.Seahorse Exchange collage situates pale purple structures beside a waterfront promenade.Seahorse Exchange section drawing shows a proposed structure extending below a waterfront walkway.
Michael Alexander Mc Dowell | Seahorse Exchange, SS19

A small white prototype enclosure sits in a narrow outdoor passage between buildings. Diagram of a shared tabletop device with colored markings and individual seats around its edge.

Matteo Cordera - Ratelier, SS19

Soilcell3000 prototype rendering with a green housing, small screen and separate circular components. Four participants seated in a circle on grass during a group experiment.
Julia Pyszkowski - Soilcell3000, SS19

Raptor Vending Machine diagram linking birds, rodents and two proposed structures with arrows. Section drawing of the Raptor Vending Machine proposal, showing a ladder and stacked forms beside a street.

A small wooden enclosure mounted on a tree beside a city street.
Michael Lu - Raptor Vending Machine, SS19

Recolonizing prototype: a dark draped form wrapped with pale, branching sculptural growths. A second view of the Recolonizing prototype shows pale branching material around a draped black form. Two upright Recolonizing prototypes with draped dark surfaces and pale branching growths. Close-up of pale, branching sculptural material on a Recolonizing prototype.

Two circular specimens show branching growth patterns against a black background.
Sadie Dempsey, Recolonizing, SS19


An overhead concept diagram shows a pink-framed surface, a drawn rat, and pigment tubes and containers.
Ratelier · Matteo Cordera · Spring 2019
Four people sit on grass around a colorful rounded prototype connected to cables and devices.
Soilcell3000 · Julia Pyszkowski · Spring 2019
Illustrated project documentation for Good Fences Make Good Neighbors by Xin Qin.
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors · Xin Qin · Fall 2019

View course documentation

Fall 2019
Course

A graduate studio using critical inquiry and experimental making to question the systems designers work within.

Speculative futures · Prototyping

Offerings & resources

Fall 2019

studio · graduate · RISD, Industrial Design

Paolo Cardini — Co-teacher · Agi Haines — Co-teacher

Selected documentation

Yuqing Ma’s Slow Food project combines sketches and photographs of a wearable device used while eating a doughnut.Yuqing Ma’s Slow Food project documents a tray and wearable devices used while eating fries and drinking through a tube.
Yuqing Ma - Slow Food
Course & program documentation

Critical Thinking & Experimental Processes

- FA19 at RISD MID
Grad studio taught by Paolo Cardini, Agi Haines, Chris Woebken

In this course, we will focus on areas of the design discipline that treat design not as a vocational tool for developing products that solve problems, but rather as a practice of critical inquiry. What does this mean? Historically, Industrial Design has been tightly coupled with industry and commerce, with designers designing functional products that improves people's lives, and more importantly, sells! Sustainable design, social design and various other approaches within design have tried to make the products of Industrial Design less harmful. However, design as critical inquiry is different from all these approaches, in that it attempts to use design to question and reveal the underlying assumptions of the systems in which we operate as designers, but also as citizens, humans, animals. This approach to design is variously known as critical design, speculative design, discursive design. Interestingly, Critical Design itself has been critiqued as being not sufficiently radical. Industrial Design has also traditionally been seen and presented itself as a somewhat logical and goal-driven process of problem-solving. We will also be turning this aspect of traditional design on its head, and use design as an experimental process, non-goal driven, open-ended yet iterative. We can refer to this as Experimental Design. The word ‘experimental’ is tricky, however, because it can refer to two quite different, almost opposite things: tightly controlled experiments as conducted in the sciences, or experimental inspiration-seeking activity in the fine arts. In this course, we will tend toward the latter meaning.

So: Experimentation and Critical Inquiry are the two fundamental elements of this studio class. We will learn about these approaches in design, but more importantly, through their research and making, students will be invited to discover the unknown and ask relevant and pointed questions.


A speculative apparatus combines a pressure gauge, red reservoir, tubing and an artificial hand.
Speculative classroom installation with suspended hexagonal frames and an illustrated anatomical banner.
Danlei Huang - Post Plastic Age

The Exit Plan display combines a glass vessel, a patterned stand and illustrated printed panels.The Exit Plan documentation shows embroidered objects and illustrated fabric panels laid on a table.
WenYu Du - Exit Plan

Data Futures

Parsons, School of Art, Media, and Technology (AMT)

Spring 2019
Course

A studio examining the social and ethical implications of data and artificial intelligence. Students use interviews, speculative scenarios and embodied prototypes to question everyday AI and test new relationships with data-driven technologies.

Speculative futures · Prototyping · Tactical media

Offerings & resources

Spring 2019

PSAM 5600

Chris Woebken — Co-instructor

elective · graduate · Parsons, School of Art, Media, and Technology (AMT)

Daniel Goddemeyer — Co-instructor

Course syllabus

Fall 2018
Course

Student proposals for public engagement with climate disruption and food systems, developed through research, prototyping and local field tests in preparation for COP24.

Climate research · Pedagogical tools

Offerings & resources

Fall 2018

ITPG-GT.2992 · 7 weeks · 2 credits

Chris Woebken — Co-instructor

elective · graduate and undergraduate · NYU ITP/IMA

Karolina Sobecka — Co-instructor

Pablo Suarez — Visiting instructor

Course consultation partner: Red Cross Climate Center

Course syllabus · Student projects & process materials · Course description

Selected student projects · Fall 2018

Proposals and prototypes developed at NYU ITP/IMA.

#WatchingCOP24

Sarah Schoengold · 2018

Black-and-white WatchingCOP24 participation poster with a hat-and-glasses symbol and a QR code.
Participation poster prototype · 2018

A proposed portrait and social media campaign connecting people affected by climate decisions with COP24. The presentation traces public-engagement research, field tests, a participation poster and a website prototype.

Trash Prints

Arnav Wagh · 2018

Trash Prints map prototype locating photographed waste around Washington Square in New York.
New York map prototype · 2018

A proposal to map conference waste through the photographs and knowledge of sanitation workers and volunteers. A New York map prototype tests how waste and the labor of cleaning it up could become visible to the public.

Galaxy of Personal Food Waste

Effy Fan · 2018

Seven clusters of colored circles visualize a week of personal food-waste reports against a dark background.
Food-waste visualization prototype · 2018

An interface that turns daily reports of food waste into a shared visualization. Tested at ITP, the prototype uses clusters of colored circles to make individual patterns part of a collective picture.

Course & program documentation

Weather Worlds at UNFCCC COP24

- Fall 18 at NYU ITP/IMA
Taught by Karolina Sobecka and Chris Woebken

Weather Worlds is a studio course that explores the role that design plays in public engagement on climate disruption. In this outcome-focused course the students will design pop-up public engagement interventions for the 24th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP24), which will take place in December 2018 in Katowice, Poland. The designs will be created in consultation with Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. The aim is to create blueprints for design approaches that can be adapted and replayed in different contexts and settings to create interventions sensitive to and inclusive of local challenges and participation. A handoff that includes a local re-interpretation of the design is a key aspect of this approach.

In this semester’s Weather Worlds studio we will focus on the impacts of climate change on food systems and vice versa - on the impact of our food systems on climate. We will design interventions through which participants confront how by simply eating they connect to supply chains, networks, and institutions that extend well beyond their families, communities or countries. Specifically the interventions will connect the international COP conference participants with the local polish food-system-and-climate-impact intersections. Understanding the paths that the carbon we ingest takes through the myriad material configurations and their sociotechnical orderings exposes the fundamental interconnections between the matter of our bodies, carbon emissions impacts on climate, and the agricultural, infrastructural, consumption, valuation and information systems that we have put in place. It further lets us consider what can be done about it, from local context-specific issues to global policy.

The partnership with the humanitarian sector will broaden and amplify the impact of this project, facilitating and developing engagements worldwide. This course produces a Weather Worlds platform that will investigate forms of experimental pedagogy, communication, and participation in engaging the public and multiple stakeholders on issues linked to climate disruption.

Course website


Graduate Thesis Research

RISD, Industrial Design

2015–2018 · 3 offerings
Visiting critique

Visiting critiques of graduate thesis research in industrial design, across three offerings in 2015 and 2018.

Offerings & resources

Fall 2018

Chris Woebken — Visiting critic

graduate studio · RISD, Industrial Design

Andy Law — Course collaborator · Alicia Tam Wei — Course collaborator

Spring 2018

Chris Woebken — Visiting critic

graduate studio · RISD, Industrial Design

Andy Law — Course collaborator · Alicia Tam Wei — Course collaborator · Koofi Aidoo — Course collaborator

Fall 2015

Chris Woebken — Visiting critic

graduate studio · RISD, Industrial Design

Andy Law — Course collaborator · Timothy Maly — Course collaborator · Julie Lasky — Course collaborator

Spring 2018
Course

Exploring environmental microbiomes through sampling, genomic methods and physical devices.

Biodesign · Multispecies relations · Fieldwork · Prototyping

Offerings & resources

Spring 2018

elective · graduate · NYU Tandon IDM

Elizabeth Hénaff — Co-teacher

Course website · Selected documentation

A participant holds a layered cardboard dial during a Micro-Environment Exploration Lab workshop.Participants gather around devices and prototypes on a rug during a Micro-Environment Exploration Lab presentation.
Spring 2018 · NYU Tandon IDM
Course & program documentation

Micro-Environment Exploration Lab

- SS18 at NYU  Tandon - IDM
Taught by Elizabeth Hénaff and Chris Woebken

Metagenomics is the field of research which investigates the microbial component of our environment. It is a rapidly growing field, enabled by the recent decrease in cost and increase in throughput of DNA sequencing technology. We can now easily measure the microbial component of our environment and have the opportunity to incorporate this new microbial metric into the design of our built environments and products. In this class we will cover a basic understanding of the state of current research in environmental microbiomes. Students will get hands-on experience in which they will learn the computational methods to analyze genomic data. We will design physical devices to interact with this invisible component of our environment, either in form of sampling instruments, bioreactors or bio receptive substrates that propose new symbiotic relationships with the microbial environment.

Full Syllabus

Three transparent sample dishes containing different white materials on a wooden table.
The projects presented at Biodesign Challenge: https://biodesignchallenge.org/nyu-idm


Weather Worlds

SVA Design (IXD) BFA

Fall 2017
Course

A studio exploring climate disruption through participatory scenarios and collaborative design. Students developed the Weather World’s Fair at the Queens Museum, inviting visitors to consider how weather shapes culture and imagine a climate pavilion for 2064.

Climate research · Participatory futures · Speculative futures

Offerings & resources

Fall 2017

elective · undergrad · SVA Design (IXD) BFA

DSD-3762-A

Public program: Weather World’s Fair, Queens Museum, 3 December 2017.

Chris Woebken — Co-teacher · Karolina Sobecka — Co-teacher

Photo album

Original course syllabus

An arrangement of climate vocabulary blocks at the Weather World’s Fair
Weather World’s Fair, December 2017.
Activity cards and tokens used in a public climate workshop
Activity tools at the Weather World’s Fair.
Young participants taking part in a hands-on climate activity
Public participation at the Weather World’s Fair.

Weather World's Fair, December 2017 · Photography: Hyungjin Park · Full photo album

Summer 2017
Course

A four-week intensive using live-action role play, simulation and rapid prototyping to explore possible futures.

Simulation · Prototyping · Speculative futures

Offerings & resources

Summer 2017

Four weeks, full-time · School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe

31 July–25 August 2017 · ACUD MACHT NEU, Berlin

Participants combined narrative, computer vision and machine learning with fabrication to develop design provocations for an immersive exhibition.

Co-taught by Chris Woebken and Sascha Pohflepp

Guest teachers: Susan Ploetz · live-action role play; Gene Kogan · AI workshop

Course description

A printed speculative newspaper used as a design artifact
Speculative storytelling through printed artifacts.
A staged installation with an illuminated table and electronic equipment
An imagined environment staged as an installation.
An illuminated symbol above a bar-like speculative installation
World-building through spaces, props and signage.

2017 Summer · Full photo album

Fall 2016
Course

A studio exploring how emerging technologies could change everyday life in New York. City observations inform speculative prototypes, which are placed in real situations to prompt discussion about possible futures. The course combines research, rapid prototyping, critique and a final exhibition.

Infrastructure imagination · Prototyping · Speculative futures

Offerings & resources

Fall 2016

elective · graduate · NYU ITP

Seven weeks · 6 September–18 October 2016

Chris Woebken — Co-teacher · Richard The — Co-teacher

Original course syllabus

Hands holding an experimental artifact and scenario cards
Artifacts and scenarios.
Students developing ideas on futures worksheets
Scenario development.
Students collaborating around a workshop table
Collaborative exploration.

2016 Fall · Full photo album

2016–2019
Workshop

Biodesign · Participatory futures · Sensory exploration

Workshop details

2016–2019

Autumn Ahn — Design facilitation · Jingwei Deng — Design facilitation · Jaya Eyzaguirre — Design facilitation · Jierui Fang — Design facilitation · Sands Fish — Design facilitation · Sarah Garrison — Design facilitation · Giulia Grassi — Design facilitation · Sebastian Kamau — Design facilitation · Nicole L'Huillier — Design facilitation · Ani Liu — Design facilitation · Xin Liu — Design facilitation · Noa Machover — Design facilitation · Molly Mason — Design facilitation · Eytan Levi Michael — Design facilitation · Anahide Nahhal — Design facilitation · Devora Najjar — Design facilitation · Juan Necochea — Design facilitation · Avery Normandin — Design facilitation · Miguel Angel Perez — Design facilitation · Kallirroi Retzepi — Design facilitation · Penny Webb — Design facilitation · Calvin Zhong — Design facilitation · Nitzan Zilberman — Design facilitation

Workshop partner: Ginkgo Bioworks
Archive publisher: Extrapolation Factory

Project documentation

2016-2017
Residency

A school residency with Extrapolation Factory exploring futures of education and food systems. Educators and students identified signals of change and developed dioramas and physical prototypes to make possible futures tangible.

Participatory futures · Prototyping

Offerings & resources

2016-2017

Chris Woebken — Workshop co-lead

k-12 · Dalton School, NYC, NY

Rob Meredith — Program initiator · Elliott P. Montgomery — Workshop co-lead

Photo album

Educator workshop · 2016 · Student food-futures workshop · 2017

2016
Workshop

A four-day public workshop at the Walker Art Center imagining urban infrastructure that could support species affected by climate change. Visitors developed scale prototypes that informed the later Transition Habitats project.

Climate research · Indicator species · Infrastructure imagination · More-than-human · Participatory futures

Free program · Walker Art Center visitors.

Workshop details

2016

4 days · Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

Extrapolation Factory — Co-facilitator

Project documentation · Extrapolation Factory archive

2015
Workshop

Participatory futures · Prototyping

Free program · University students in the USC workshop; related public calls were also free.

Workshop details

2015

2 day · University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, CA

Extrapolation Factory — Co-facilitator · Situation Lab — Co-facilitator · Stuart Candy — Workshop co-organization · Jeff Watson — Workshop co-organization · Elliott P. Montgomery — Workshop co-organization · Chris Woebken — Workshop co-organization · Jen Stein — Workshop collaboration

Project documentation

Herramientas Urbanas

Laboratorio para la Ciudad, Government of the Federal District, Mexico City

2014
Workshop

A three-day workshop using field observation, sensory exploration and physical prototyping to develop new ways of observing Mexico City.

Infrastructure imagination · Participatory sensing · Sensory exploration · Speculative futures

Free program
Laboratorio para la Ciudad supported materials, sourced from local shops during a field trip.

Workshop details

2014

3 days · Laboratorio para la Ciudad, Government of the Federal District, Mexico City

Chris Woebken — Workshop lead & facilitation
Mario Ballesteros and Maria Garcia Holley — Design facilitation

Project documentation

Film workshop

RISD Digital + Media, Providence, RI

2013
Workshop

Workshop details

2013

2 day · RISD Digital + Media, Providence, RI

Film workshop

RISD Digital + Media, Providence, RI

2012
Workshop

Workshop details

2012

2 day · RISD Digital + Media, Providence, RI

2012
Workshop

Workshop details

2012

1 day · GSAPP Studio-X, NYC, NY

Kyle McDonald — Co-facilitator

Project documentation

Black-and-white Camera Hacking invitation designed as a camera resolution test chart.Camera Hacking participants gather around modified camera equipment during a demonstration.
Camera Hacking — Night school documentation, 2011
Course & program documentation

Camera Hacking - Night school, 2011



On November 30, 2011 Media artist Kyle McDonald and speculative designer Chris Woebken ran a Night school at Studio-x demonstrating a series of experiments using time-lapse, photo traps, and computer face-detection to reveal hidden perspectives, invisible behaviors, and unexpected interactions in the city.

Two Camera Hacking participants aim a red optical device out of a window beside a laptop. A laptop displays a magnified view of a brightly lit tower at night beside a red optical device.