About the RDC

Nancy Richardson Design Center
About the RDC

Get ready to create

With the vision of bring together students, faculty, industry, and community, the Nancy Richardson Design Center was truly created by and for everyone.

Our Story Our Building Our People

Students using a fabric printer — Starting with flexible classrooms and open spaces for inspiring learning, the RDC’s most coveted offerings are in the fabrication labs. These maker spaces are equipped with technology to cater to artisan tinkerers and tech geeks alike. Our curriculum and workspaces are focused on Design Thinking.

Nancy Richardson leads with design

A 1982 interior design graduate of CSU, Nancy Richardson and her husband Curt Richardson are co-founders and owners of OtterBox and Blue Ocean Enterprises. Read more about her excitement for the Design Center she helped make possible.

RDC grand opening

Nancy Richardson greeting a student at the 2019 grand opening of the Nancy Richardson Design Center.

What is Design Thinking?

Design thinking is a nonlinear, iterative process that seeks to understand users (empathize), challenge assumptions, (re)define problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. The process bounces back and forth to incorporate learning from failed attempts, feedback from users, and flexibility for new ideas to permeate – ultimately resulting in implementation.

Explore Design Thinking Courses

Who benefits from the RDC?

Students

…who want to be more creative in their thinking as well as the way they solve everyday or socially significant problems.

Close up of hands with red nail poish using the band saw in the Wood Lab.

Faculty

…who are looking to form interdisciplinary collaborations around design-based learning, research, and creative scholarship.

An instructor teaches a student how to use the panel saw in the Wood Lab

Departments

…that value interdisciplinary innovation for its potential to increase teaching effectiveness and faculty productivity.

A wooden Rams head that made with the CNC router in the Wood Lab

Industry and Community Partners

…who need help understanding the nature of the problems they face and resources to design and test solutions.

A hand holding a 3D printed block of letters that spell `RDC`

Nancy Richardson Design Center About the RDC "Big Things Are Going To Happen Here."