Become an interior design leader and innovator, setting standards for critical thinking, sustainable practice, ethical and social responsibility, professional aptitude and collaboration as you enhance and transform the built environment.
At Pratt, one of the most prominent programs in the country, you’ll study interior design as an integral element of the built environment, generating creative solutions that combine light and color, craft and making, material research, evolving technologies, sustainable practice, and social responsibility, including global cultural histories and diverse contexts. Our CIDA accredited BFA program prepares you to think critically, innovate, and become an interior design leader, expanding the potential of professional practice, design education, and research that affects the interior environment.
The design studio is at the core of your educational experience at Pratt. It is a creative space and a community in microcosm, from which we connect to the larger design community. We believe education takes place in the studio and the classroom and that the work in the studio benefits the student’s growth equally. Working with tools and materials in the studio deepens knowledge of the opportunities inherent in form-making and design exploration.
Maker Spaces and Labs
Sustainability and material exploration drive our passion for making. We are hands-on and immersive; any student of design can discover, iterate and refine their investigations through our many labs. Learn more
Thesis
The Senior year spring semester design studio is devoted entirely to the development of a major design project: the Senior Design Thesis – a full semester of work on a self‐initiated project based on a strong sense of professionalism and design maturity. The thesis project is presented at the annual design show, a public event attended by industry leaders and potential employers. See Pratt Shows 2023.
Study Abroad
Immersing yourself in another culture is an incredible experience that can extend the boundaries of creativity. Study abroad programs are an integral part of the college experience, and Pratt has deep connections with university partners around the world. Junior year students have the opportunity to spend the spring semester at DIS in Copenhagen, Denmark. Many exchange and study abroad options, including the Custom Semester program for juniors, are available to Interior Design students. See where you can go.
Learning Resources
We develop disciplinary fluency in our program of study and we celebrate the interdisciplinary nature of design critical to address the plurality and complexity of the environments in which we operate. Learn more.
Our Faculty
Our faculty are practitioners of interior design, architecture, industrial design, lighting design, furniture design, and communications design. They run or work for some of the most exciting and successful design firms in the world. All faculty have extensive experience working at the scale of the interior, and their expertise and abiding interests are brought to bear upon the coursework.
Interior design alumni have risen to the tops of their fields in affordable housing, community economic development, transportation, government, community development and advanced research.
Thinking seriously about Pratt? Learn more about admissions requirements, plan your visit, talk to a counselor, and start your application. Take the next step.
Building your portfolio can be daunting. We’ll answer your questions and help you feel confident about the portfolio you submit with your application. Start building your portfolio, now.
Find yourself at home at Pratt: our residence halls, student organizations, athletics, exhibitions, events, the amazing City of New York and our Brooklyn neighbors. Check us out.
Fay Ran, MFA’25
In Transit
Temporary Community
In Transit re-imagines CHARAS’s legacy through a design lens, balancing personal growth and communal renewal. Drawing from Puerto Rican informal living patterns, it proposes adaptive, flexible interiors that offer low-income youth transitional spaces, fostering self-identity and belonging.
Thesis advisor: Frederic Levrat
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Moon Jung Choi, BFA’25
Color Equality renovates a pavilion in Chinatown’s Columbus Park into a space where survivors of anti-Asian hate crimes can heal. Spaces to therapeutically reenact and re-script trauma, share emotions with other survivors, and electronically monitor sites of previous attacks are designed to restore the agency taken during an attack.
Thesis advisor: Alexander Schweder
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Ruoyan Wang, MFA’25
Hybrid Workspace Design for Enhanced Collaboration
Integrating Digital Twins, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality in an AI and IoT Research Institute.
This thesis explores creating a hybrid workspace that merges physical and virtual environments, utilizing digital twins, AR, and VR to support real-time interaction, collaboration, and seamless engagement between on-site and remote users. The design prioritizes flexibility, comfort, and sensory engagement, incorporating biophilic elements like green zones and adaptive lighting for well-being and productivity.
Thesis advisor: Stefanie Werner
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Wenxuan (Primrose) Zhang, BFA’25
Rural Revitalization: ReForm, ReUse, ReImagine
This thesis revitalizes Dongtai Village through spatial interventions that reconnect interior spaces to the Great Wall through adaptive reuse strategies. Addressing the challenges of rural revitalization, this project re-imagines the village’s architectural language to support contemporary rural life, ensuring the community will evolve and sustain itself rather than remaining a preserved relic.
Thesis advisor: Sarah Lippmann
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Zixu Wang, MFA’25
Wired Encounter
A study of elastic connection between people and space
This thesis explores perception of spatial volume typically characterized by planes, surfaces, and containment, as deconstructed lines. The proposal analyzes experiential notions of elastic, dynamic and responsive boundary, zone, and program, which then contribute to alternative behavioral, ergonomic, contextual and relational connectivity.
Thesis advisor: Nina Freedman
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Raksha Sanikam, MFA’25
The Storyteller: Where space becomes a narrative of Indian craft
This thesis explores how immersive storytelling in retail and exhibition design fosters deeper engagement with craft. By reinterpreting Indian spatial elements, it proposes a journey that educates and prepositions the grandeur of Indian craftsmanship within the multicultural context of New York.
Thesis advisor: Ji Young Kim
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Yichi Zhang, BFA’25
Frame: Information Cocoon
This thesis uses critical design to visualize the information cocoon, an issue in the digital age. By creating an experiential trap, it draws people in to reveal the problem’s depth, encouraging them to reflect and use their own perspective (frame) to better understand and filter information.
Thesis advisor: Melissa Cicetti
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Juan Miguel Rodriguez, MFA’25
The Architecture of Memory and Transformation: Revealing layers of human experience and intervention
This thesis investigates how textural preservation, material contrast, and spatial choreography can re-frame architectural ruins into immersive spaces of sensory and cultural reflection. Through minimalist insertions, transparency, and tactile engagement, the design invites embodied movement and visual exploration - evoking a temporal dialogue with memory, decay, and impermanence.
Thesis advisor: Stefanie Werner
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Haolan (Elvis) Zhang, BFA’25
Mycoo transforms a sewage processing tank in Gowanus’s Newton Creek into a zoo or aquarium for fungi. Designed to promote reflection on the complexity of people’s relationship with fungi, interior spaces allow visitors to interact with species that give humans life, cause their death, or propose new understandings of beauty.
Thesis advisor: Alexander Schweder
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BFA students at Pratt study interior design as an integral element of the built environment by generating creative solutions that integrate an understanding of light and color, craft and making, material research, evolving technologies, sustainable practice, and social responsibility, including knowledge about global cultural histories and diverse contexts. The program prepares students to engage in critical inquiry that establishes them as innovators and leaders in the field of interior design, expanding the potential of professional practice, design education, and research affecting the interior environment.
Students begin their study of interior design in the sophomore year upon completion of a required year in Foundation. As the curriculum proceeds, interior design projects become more complex. The structure of the 126-credit program prepares graduates for a leadership role in an established profession.
Interested BFA students may apply to spend the spring term of the junior year at the Danish International School (DIS), studying interior architecture in Copenhagen. The program at DIS includes extensive study tours throughout Scandinavia. Individuals interested in transferring to Pratt from other institutions are also encouraged to apply.
To support our commitment to technological excellence, personal laptop computers are required for all undergraduate students.
Students are able to engage in analysis, research, and application of the fundamentals of human behavior.
Students are able to research, analyze, and integrate light, color, and materiality as essential design elements and principles.
Students are able to visually present and communicate their intentions through appropriate media.
Students are able to present their own work through oral and written formats.
Students are able to analyze and integrate knowledge of historical, cultural, and social contexts.
Students are able to research, identify, and evaluate constraints, rules, codes and conventions that govern the built environment.
Students are able to identify and integrate principles of human and environmental health.
Students will be prepared to work collaboratively and in multidisciplinary environments.
