I’m Cotter Christian, Dean of the School of Constructed Environments at Parsons School of Design, where I also teach interior design. I care about how the spaces we move through shape us, and about making design education more humane, curious, and inclusive. Two threads run through most of my work: contemplative practice, the idea that attention and presence belong in the studio, and the queer history of interiors, the coded apartments, bars, and gathering places where queer life has been built and rebuilt.

As dean, much of my attention is on what design education should become at a moment when the field, and the world it prepares students for, is genuinely in flux.

Before becoming dean, I served as the school’s associate dean, and earlier directed our BFA Interior Design program. I live in Jackson Heights with my partner and our black dog, Eleanor.

Email me at cotter@newschool.edu