Design

Graduate Program Coordinator Rachelle Agundes’s new paintings and assemblages explore the porous boundary between the inside and outside. Her show “Outside-In” at the Birdhouse Gallery in San Francisco features works constructed from fragments of lived experience transformed into new spaces. Rachelle layers and rearranges fragments of images, allowing one image to interrupt another. Images from different times and locations are compressed, obscured, and allowed to remain unresolved. In “Outside-In” what is absent becomes present again.

On Oct. 14, the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art opened the exhibition “The Gift of Fashion: From the Maria Manetti Shrem Haute Couture Collection.” Formulated in collaboration with museum benefactor and namesake Maria Manetti Shrem as part of the Museum’s 10th anniversary season, the exhibition showcases a variety of meticulously designed gowns and jewelry.

Key contributors include Professor of Design Tim McNeil, along with Design Collection Curator Adele Zhang. In addition, McNeil recruited Maev Dunning, a master’s student in design. 

Two recent design talks, presented by The Maria Manetti Shrem Institute for Sustainable Design, Fashion and Textiles, were in conjunction with “The Data at Hand: Data Physicalizations of Earth and Space,” a new art exhibit at the Mills College Art Museum in Oakland. The installation was curated by Kayleigh Perkov, assistant professor in science and technology studies at UC Davis.

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Professor Konstantinos “Kosta” Papamichael, a visionary researcher, educator, and leader in the field of daylighting design and founder of the California Lighting Technology Center at UC Davis.

Assistant Professor of Design Akshita Sivakumar is one of fourteen faculty members from the College of Letters and Science who were selected in June to have their research supported by the college’s Regeneration Research Program — a program which came about as a way to sustain research as funding opportunities have become scarcer. Sivakumar is a designer, architect, and technoscience studies scholar whose work lies at the confluence of governance, social movements, technology, and the built environment.

The UC Davis Design Museum opens its 2026–27 season with Connecting Threads (together): Textile Works by Lynn Setterington which opens on Sept. 29 and runs through Nov. 20.  

Collaboration is at the heart of textile making and this idea is explored in a display of work by UK based artist Setterington. Through textiles the artist challenges contemporary issues in society and how stitch can be used to commemorate people and communities.

The results of the 16th annual Luminaire Design Competition are officially in, featuring a partnership with Maltani Lighting and the work of Professor Jae Yong Suk’s students. After three rounds of deliberation by the jury—comprising the Maltani design team, Neha Sivaprasad of Sol Light Studio, and Karen Park from UC Davis—the winners are Olivia McCutcheon, Mara Alagon, and Gian Ayson. Link to Article

The Maria Manetti Shrem Institute for Sustainable Design, Fashion and Textiles hosted its first speaker in the Industry Seminar Series: Federico Marchetti on Feb. 4.

FORBES magazine has honored UC Davis Design alumna Kausi Raman (B.S., design and economics, ‘20) by naming her one of their “30 under 30” in education for 2026.

FORBES magazine has honored UC Davis Design alumna Kausi Raman (B.S., design and economics, ‘20) by naming her one of their “30 under 30” in education for 2026.