The Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects (AIADO) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago announces a full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty position in Designed Objects, starting Fall 2010. Rank and salary are commensurate with experience, teaching, and current professional status.

The Designed Objects program focuses on the critical and creative re-thinking of the tools, furnishings, networks, and products that constitute everyday life. Borrowing from industrial design and disciplines such as systems design, furniture design, experience design and interaction design, Designed Objects envisions and seeks to produce designers as social citizens and cultural agents who choose "the contextualized object" as their primary means of reflecting and affecting our world. While concerned with professional competency within the realm of product design, the program also maintains a more critical and expansive understanding of the production and consumption of objects and products.

Responsibilities include teaching graduate- and undergraduate-level studio courses where design ideas are realized as tangible 3D outcomes. As such, we invite applicants with a working familiarity with a wide range of current materials and technology. Other teaching may include graduate design seminars and studios /seminars /labs in the candidate's field of expertise alongside the opportunity to take a leading role in the Design Objects curriculum. In addition to teaching, all faculty members at the School must perform research related to professional practice, service for the department and the School, and other duties as designated by the department Chair.

Application Procedure: By Monday, January 11, 2010 send résumé, statement of design experience and research interests, a teaching/educational philosophy, portfolio documenting professional practice, contact information for three references, and a self-addressed, stamped postcard to confirm receipt of materials to:

Designed Objects Search/yk
SAIC, Deans Office
37 South Wabash Avenue
Chicago IL 60603

If you would like your application materials to be returned, please include an appropriately sized, self-addressed, stamped envelope at the time of application. Materials will be returned at the conclusion of the selection process in Spring 2010.
Specific Skills

The School seeks a visionary practitioner with a minimum of 5 years experience within the field of product and/or interaction design. The program is particularly interested in designers with a strong background in one or more of the following emerging practice areas: systems design; social ecologies; experience design; advanced materials and technologies applications. The successful applicant’s research interests might include: human habitation, future wellbeing, critical design, biosciences, socio-cultural use-contexts, human computer interface, instantiated design thinking, material science, emerging technologies, and design activism/advocacy. Candidates should have the ability to integrate theoretical, material, practical, and social issues into design studio pedagogy. Previous teaching, lecturing or workshop experience is especially advantageous.

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Mail materials, as detailed below, to:

Questions regarding the School and its open positions, application procedures, or the search process may be directed to Shanna Linn, Director of Academic Administration in the Office of Deans. Consult www.said.edu for information on the School and its programs, or www.saic.edu/about/jobs/faculty for postings of open positions and application procedures.

Submission Details

Application Procedure: By Monday, January 11, 2010 send résumé, statement of design experience and research interests, a teaching/educational philosophy, portfolio documenting professional practice, contact information for three references, and a self-addressed, stamped postcard to confirm receipt of materials to:

If you would like your application materials to be returned, please include an appropriately sized, self-addressed, stamped envelope at the time of application. Materials will be returned at the conclusion of the selection process in Spring 2010.