Welcome to the Centre for Design Research, a strategic research centre bringing together designers, artists, makers, curators and critical writers working across a broad range of disciplines.
We feature the work of both doers and thinkers in contemporary design practice and theory, fostering cross-disciplinary conversations. We are committed to the guiding principle that shared research leads to new research; and new research leads to better, more engaging teaching and learning.
The Centre of Design Research is hosted in Te Kura Toi a Hoahoa, the School of Art and Design at Auckland University of Technology. Our aim is to expand interdisciplinary research, engagement and discourse surrounding the theoretical, practical and commercial frameworks that embody design, art, media, and the creative industries.
We are profoundly engaged with makers and making, connecting academia to industry so that research makes a difference in the wider world through writing and writers, painting and pixels, the hand-made and the automated. Through our projects, public engagement and published research, we seek to challenge and redefine what it means to be a designer.
The projects we showcase have a strong commitment to inclusion and diversity. They are intersections: between design and art; Māori, Pacific and Indigenous knowledge and world views; science and technology. They connect with communities and celebrate the diversity, culture and methodologies of indigenous design practice.