Initiative Sponsorship

Design Studios: Through a Design Studio sponsored project, corporations gain access to new, unbridled approaches to a design or business problem.  Pratt's creative students and faculty collaborate with a corporate sponsor to tackle a design problem and work towards possible solutions.  Design Studios occur within the context of Pratt's academic curriculum.  For example, in a recent Design Studio, Pratt Industrial Design students developed concepts for Umbra, including the CONCEAL bookcase.  

Innovation Labs: Innovation Labs provide an opportunity for more extensive analysis of a design problem and bring Pratt's extensive creative resources to bear on a corporate design or business challenge.  Innovation Labs serve as faculty research centers, testing laboratories, and idea clearing-houses.  Typically, they extend beyond the formal boundaries of the academic curriculum.  A recent example is the establishment of the Kullman Center, an Innovation Lab dedicated to exploring and disseminating innovative ideas in industrialized construction over a three-year period.

Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation: As part of Pratt's commitment to energizing and supporting the creative services sector by developing socially- and environmentally-beneficial solutions to business challenges, the Pratt Design Incubator brings design students, faculty, and alumni from Pratt and other academic institutions together with mentors from all areas of the design profession, engineering, business, and finance.   The Design Incubator maintains an open door policy that has enabled it to attract many fledgling local entrepreneurs who are curious about how to develop a marketable product. 

Network for Emergent Architectural Research (NEAR): NEAR acts as an umbrella for a number of sponsored research initiatives conducted by faculty and students, providing companies with solutions to architectural and interior design challenges. 

To learn more about sponsoring one of these initiatives at Pratt, contact Ludovic Leroy, Director of Corporate Relations, at (718) 399-4265 or by email at lleroy@pratt.edu, or the Division of Institutional Advancement at (718) 636-3537 or by email at advancement@pratt.edu.