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 #prattint2025book #prattint2025bookmfa #pratt_sod #prattshows2025 #PrattGrad25 @prattinstitute @pratt_sod

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 #prattint2025book #prattint2025bookbfa #pratt_sod #prattshows2025 #PrattGrad25 @prattinstitute @pratt_sod

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 #prattint2025book #prattint2025bookmfa #pratt_sod #prattshows2025 #PrattGrad25 @prattinstitute @pratt_sod

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 #prattint2025book #prattint2025bookbfa #pratt_sod #prattshows2025 #PrattGrad25 @prattinstitute @pratt_sod

Yutong Ren, MFA’25 Continuity in Creation: spatial design mediates between cultural memory and urban transformation This project fosters artistic continuity by capturing the street as an active creative corridor. Flexible studios, open exhibition zones, and communal spaces engage the street, blurring public and private boundaries. The design sustains a visible, dynamic creative presence within Williamsburg’s changing urban landscape, countering the effects of gentrification and preserving cultural identity. Thesis advisor: Ji Young Kim #prattint2025book #prattint2025bookmfa #pratt_sod #prattshows2025 #PrattGrad25 @prattinstitute @pratt_sod

Chenyu Zhang, BFA’25 Inside Out is speculative exploration of possibilities that open when familiar interiors switch places with everyday public spaces. Sited in Manhattan’s Chinatown, scaffolding enables domestic doings to move into public view and street life to privatize in domestic interiors. Reversed, public and private gain strange vitality. Thesis advisor: Alexander Schweder #prattint2025book #prattint2025bookbfa #pratt_sod #prattshows2025 #PrattGrad25 @prattinstitute @pratt_sod

Shiyun Yuan, BFA’25 Library at the end of the world This thesis proposes a new framework for local Red Hook residents to perceive and experience their environment. Through the adaptive reuse of an abandoned trolley along the Red Hook waterfront, the project transforms the structure into a library and community center. By reactivating a forgotten artifact of the neighborhood’s history, the design invites residents to engage with their surroundings in new ways, fostering fresh perspectives, creative inspiration, and a deeper sense of connection to place. Thesis advisor: Rachel Paupeck #prattint2025book #prattint2025bookbfa #pratt_sod #prattshows2025 #PrattGrad25 @prattinstitute @pratt_sod

Noora Mohiuddin, MFA’25 Beyond the Veil: Where Strength and Agency Are Woven into the Stories of South Asian Women This thesis explores the reinstatement of agency for South Asian survivors of domestic violence through the design of a safe, supportive environment. It investigates how transitional housing in New York City can evolve beyond a physical structure to serve as a sanctuary fostering resilience, healing, and empowerment. Thesis advisor: Alper Besen #prattint2025book #prattint2025bookmfa #pratt_sod #prattshows2025 #PrattGrad25 @prattinstitute @pratt_sod

Xinhang Li, MFA’25 Intermittent Appropriation By inverting interiority onto exterior urban spaces, this project expands spatial affordance through conditions that support temporary, subjective, and spontaneous use. It proposes a design framework enabling intermittent appropriation to reclaim access and agency in fragmented public environments. Thesis advisor: Frederic Levrat #prattint2025book #prattint2025bookmfa #pratt_sod #prattshows2025 #PrattGrad25 @prattinstitute @pratt_sod