Mapping Alternate Visions of Complex Problems in the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry
STUDIO
written by
Harrison Apple
As part of the intellectual and artistic landscape at Carnegie Mellon University, the staff cultivates a permissive environment for creative research by empowering CMU students, faculty and staff to change their typical terms of engagement with their work and with each other. Listening carefully and responding to the community through art, design, technology and culture, Harrison Apple and Dave Zak curate programs focused on their kindred enthusiasm for the contrast of bleeding-edge technology and foundational heritage craft.
The 2025–2026 Sylvia & David Steiner Speaker Series included visiting lectures and hands-on learning from field-forming scholars and practitioners. Each brought their research questions to the STUDIO, which supports unconventional and hybrid approaches to thinking and making our way through obstacles.
The STUDIO’s first visitor in fall 2025, Lauren Dreier, is an emerging scholar from Princeton University’s School of Architecture. She collaborated with CMU research group, “Softbotics,” and Mechanical Engineering Professor Trevor Jones to teach structural geometric beadmaking to material scientists and artists simultaneously. This workshop focused on sharing Dreier’s practice of designing super-strong structures along with Jones’ parallel mechanical engineering approach to beaded surfaces and cultural education work with his Ojibwe community. Collaborating in the STUDIO, the languages of craft, cultural form and spatial engineering kicked off a series of novel programs joining together students, staff and faculty of CFA, Engineering, Computer Science and Robotics.
Invitees to this hybrid technical series included José Santiago Pérez (University of Pittsburgh professor of Studio Art), Petra Floyd (multimedia artist and CMU MFA alum), Sandy Loaf (Pittsburgh area photographer and sculptor), Hayri Dortdivanlioglu (Dartmouth Architecture Lab leader) and Steven Haines (co-founder of Pittsburgh Sound and Image).
These guests repeatedly attracted a cohort of participants from across CMU who were eager to combine their expertise through anthropological, technical and aesthetic workshops. Skill building and experimental approaches to basketry, fiber processing and costume construction culminated in a weekend-long intensive with Vernelle Noel (CM-Architecture), Hayri Dortdivanlioglu (Dartmouth), Harrison Apple (STUDIO), Lea Albaugh (CMU Human-Computer Interaction Institute), Jim McCann (CMU Robotics Institute and Textiles Lab), and Olivia Robinson (CMU IDeATe). Together they demonstrated and vigorously tested overlapping methods for problem solving in the world of modeling and graphics through modified heritage textile methods.
Support from the Steiner Speaker Series accelerated Noel’s interdisciplinary research in shape grammar and architectural textiles. This work has developed alongside her long-term study of Caribbean and Latin America Carnival costumes and traditional wire bending in her home country of Trinidad.
“With the recent addition of a PJ Dick Innovation Award, her research to reenvision craft through robotics and code promises continued enthusiastic student engagement through the STUDIO and CM-Architecture for many years to come,” said Apple, who serves as director of the STUDIO. “Noel’s growing community of craft and technology scholars grounds the acceleration of CMU’s interest in AI-supported fabrication by maintaining a physical intelligence through material and cultural memory.”
The STUDIO looks forward to the continued technological innovation shaped through artistic tradition from CFA’s five schools.
The Steiner Speaker Series allows our laboratory to engage intelligently and effectively with complex problems in an inspiring environment of creative inquiry.
Director
Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry