Facilities at the Department of Design

The Department of Design offers a vibrant environment with state-of-the-art technology and facilities such as Wood & Metal Workshop, Photography Studio, Animation Studio, Clay Studio,  Printing Lab, IT Labs, 3D Printing Facility, Book Binding, Silk Screen Printing, and a library.

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Design Centres

Design Innovation Centre (DIC), IITH
Design Innovation Centre at IITH works under the Ministry of Human Resource Development. IITH is one of the 20 new Design Innovation Centres. Department of Design – DIC has since been working towards the infrastructure of the ecosystem in which Designers and Engineers in academia interact with real-world problems and stakeholders to give shape to creative entrepreneurial cooperation and collaboration. We aim to use design to the fullest to simplify the human lifestyle and to engage creative minds in innovating and experimenting with the design process, and to understand its vast possibilities. We also strive to impart quality design education and design for sustainability. We believe in learning from the fields rather than theoretical knowledge.

Centre of Excellence in Design(CODE), IITH
The RAMP- Center of Design Excellence (CoDE) at IIT Hyderabad represents a strategic collaboration between academia and the MSME industry, aimed at enhancing industrial capabilities through innovative design solutions. The Centre will focus on the following key areas across three major functional areas; New Product Innovations, Sustainable Infrastructure and Smart Cities, Emerging Technologies (UI/UX, VR, AR, MR, AI, etc.), Graphics, Branding and strategy, Heritage, crafts, and culture, Film & Animation.

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Research Labs

INDReA, A Virtual Experience design Lab
INDReA (Interactive Digital Reality Application) is a lab of Department of Design, IIT Hyderabad. The vision of the lab is to create a space that serves as a catalyst for innovation and exploration, where students, researchers, and industry professionals come together to solve real world problems with a creative touch and make meaningful contribution to the society.

Digital Heritage Lab
Digital Heritage lab intends to explore digital dimensions of perception and visualization for research in heritage architecture and design. The lab will connect academics and research for fresh and innovative ideas in to this domain. The output could be in the form of virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality for an immersive experience to the user.

Design for sustainability Lab
Sustainability is a holistic approach that the lab intends to engage for issues to handle with research, development, and educational activities. The lab intends to take up local/regional/national challenges and strives for strategic sustainable solutions. Its objective is to foster a balance between people, society, and the economy and regenerate the carrying capacity of life-supporting ecosystems. The proposed lab would take up research projects, consultancy projects, academic assignments, etc., in a leading role to inculcate attentive minds towards causes serving three aspects of sustainability in real life.

Graphos Studio
Graphos Studio at IITH is a pioneering Visual research and innovation hub of the Department of Design, IIT Hyderabad, dedicated to unravelling the complexities of visual communication, discourse, and meaning-making. Our Studio delves into the intricate ways visuals function as language, shaping cognition, perception, and communication in diverse domains.

Space Bar, Contemporary Visual Culture Lab
The Space Bar is a research hub oriented towards understanding contemporary visual landscape of the world, its users and audience. The lab strives to research, document and theorise diverse facets of the transforming physical and digital world around us.

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Workshops and Studios

Wood and Metal Workshop
The wood and metal workshop is equipped with high standard machines, power tools, and hand tools to facilitate working with different materials such as metal, wood, acrylic, bamboo, etc. Some of the highlights are Wood Carving CNC machine, Laser Cutting Machine, Vacuum Forming Machine, Panel saw, Table Saw, Spindle Moulder, Chain and Chisel mortiser, Wood lathe, Metal Lathe, Tig Welding, Arc Welding, Paint Booth, etc. Students use this in-house facility for model making and fabrication with high precision.

Clay Studio
The clay studio is equipped with a kiln, hand tools, and a potter wheel to facilitate working with clay situate within the Wood and Metal workshop.

Graphic Design and Binding Lab
Equipped with two large format printers and a screen printing machine, this lab has facilities to perform all processes from printing up to finishing. The lab provides in-house facilities such as trimming, binding, and thermal lamination to the students to explore and carry out their work more efficiently in one place.

VR Cave 
VR cave at IIT Hyderabad is a virtual reality space; primarily an empty room in the shape of a cube in which each of the surfaces comprising the walls, floor and ceiling may be used as projection screens to create a highly immersive virtual environment. Furnished with modern equipment and technology such as stereoscopic eyewear, wands, data gloves, joysticks etc., lab provides an ideal immersive virtual reality environment for the students and researchers.

Animation Studio
The Department of Design’s philosophy on animation is ‘the narrative inspires the medium’. The Animation lab is a blend of traditional and modern animation technology. The students experiment with traditional processes of using paper, pencil, lightboxes, puppets, clay, paper cutouts, sand, oil paint on glass, pixilation and moving of objects to narrate stories. The modern technologies include drawing and painting displays, latest software on high-end computers, 360-degree cameras, and Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) to produce work such as Digital 2D, 3D, whiteboard, motion graphics, explainer videos, GIFs, Visual Effects (VFX), projection mapping, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) animation.

Photography Studio
The photography studio at the Department of Design provides state-of-the-art facilities for professional photography and videography. Studio also provides audio-video editing and color correction facilities for professional production. Here, students and researchers are encouraged to use modern in-house facilities to innovate and experiment in the field of photography and filmmaking.