Parsons School of Design

The New School University Center at 14th Street and Fifth Avenue, a LEED Gold building completed in 2014

The New School opened the 16-story The New School University Center ("UC") at 65 5th Avenue in January 2014.

While the 65 Fifth Avenue plans were initially controversial among students and Village residents (spurring in 2009 a major student occupation was held at The New School's previous building on that site), plans for the University Center were adjusted in response to community concerns and have since been well received. In a review of the University Center's final design, The New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff called the building "a celebration of the cosmopolitan city".

The tower, which was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill's Roger Duffy, is the biggest capital project the university has ever undertaken. The building added classrooms, new residences, computer labs, event facilities, and a cafeteria to the downtown New York City campus in addition to a two-story library and lecture halls. While the UC serves as a central hub for all university students, the majority of its classrooms and workspaces are used for Parsons programs.

2 West 13th Street/66 Fifth Avenue is most commonly known as the Sheila Johnson Design Center. The main Parsons campus is located at 2 West 13th Street in Greenwich Village in the borough of Manhattan.[9] The renovation of the existing structure's first and mezzanine levels was made possible in part by a $7 million gift from New School Trustee and Parsons Board of Governors Chair Sheila Johnson. The "Urban Quad" (as the school calls it) was designed by Lyn Rice Architects and encompasses a total area of 32,800 square feet (3,050 m²). In addition to classrooms, the building includes the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Gallery and Auditorium, and the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries.[10] The renovated ground floor also provides a new home for the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Archives, a collection of drawings, photographs, letters, and objects documenting 20th-century design.

The building hosts the Adam and Sophie Gimbel Design Library, a resource collection supporting art, architecture and design degree programs offered by the Parsons School of Design. The collection consists of approximately 45,000 book volumes, 350 periodical titles (200 current), 70,000 slides and 45,000 picture files. Special collections holdings number over 4,000, including many rare and valuable items.[11]

The building's renovation won the 2009 National AIA Honor Award, the 2009 MASNYC Masterworks Award, the 2009 AIANY Merit Award, the 2008 AIA New York State Award of Excellence, the 2008 American Institute of Architects NY/Boston Society of Architects Biennial Honor Award for Educational Facility Design, the 2008 SARA/NY Design Award of Excellence, and the 2007 AIANY Merit Award for Projects.[12]

On Monday, April 2, 2018, the 2 West 13th Street building was affected by an electrical fire, which erupted in the basement at around 10:40 AM. The building was quickly and safely evacuated thanks to the teamwork of all students, faculty, and staff, and the building remained closed for the remainder of the Spring 2018 semester. The 375 courses usually located within the building were relocated to other buildings in the university. The cause of the fire is water which leaked through the basement ceiling onto electrical switchgear, causing circuit breakers to explode. [13]

The Parsons East Building, located at 25 East 13th Street building is home to the School of Constructed Environments, which houses the Interior Design, Lighting Design, and Architecture and Product Design departments of the college. The Fine Arts department is also located in this building. The facilities included in the building are the digital and traditional fabrication shops, the Laser Cutting lab, the Light Lab, multiple Computing Labs, the Angelo Donghia Materials Center, the Healthy Materials Library, and The Design Workshop.[14]

The 16th Street building, known as the Vera List Center, features dedicated floors to design studies and development. Both the 6th and 12th floors are dedicated to the Design & Technology Bachelor and Master programs. The building also features a library.

Director of the New York School of Fine and Applied Art, Frank Alvah Parsons, first began a program in Paris in 1921.[20] The following year, the school made its home on the oldest planned square in Paris, the Place des Vosges. Parsons stated: "France, more than any country, has been the center of artistic inspiration since the sixteenth century… The value of associating with, and working from, the finest examples of the periods in decorative art, the adaptation of which is our national problem, needs no comment."[21] The school offered courses in architecture, interior decoration, stage design, and costume design, adding poster and graphic design a year later. Among its supporters were interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe and author and interior designer Edith Wharton.

In 1931, interior designer Jean-Michel Frank led a group of students at the Paris Ateliers to create an icon of modern design, the Parsons Table.[22] After teaching advertising, illustration, and stage and costume design, Van Day Truex became director of the Paris Ateliers in 1934. An influential voice of 20th-century American design, Truex later became the design director of Tiffany & Company, where he developed the firm's signature interiors and graphics. Guest critics at the Paris Ateliers during this period include fashion designers Jeanne Lanvin, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Jean Patou.

After closing before the onset of World War II in 1939, Parsons restarted its activities in Paris in 1948 offering a summer course combining travel and study. What was now Parsons School of Design reopened the School (at first with a summer abroad program in the late 1970s); it became known as Parsons Paris. In 1980, Parsons expanded its Paris program, entering into an educational partnership with the American College in Paris (now American University in Paris), to offer Bachelor of Fine Arts and study-abroad options. Beginning in 1986, students matriculating in the Parsons Paris program were eligible to receive a degree from Parsons School of Design.

In 2008, when the contract between Parsons School of Design and Parsons Paris expired, the former decided not to renew it. At the expiration of the agreement, Parsons notified the Paris school that it could not continue to use the "Parsons" name any longer. The Paris school challenged that decision and brought the legal proceeding before the International Chamber of Commerce who ruled in favor of Parsons School of Design.[23] That institution, now called the Paris College of Art, is no longer affiliated with The New School.

In November 2012, The New School President David E. Van Zandt announced that Parsons School of Design would be opening a new academic center, to be called Parsons Paris, in Paris in the autumn 2013.[24] Located in Paris’s First Arrondissement, Parsons Paris incorporates a faculty of French and European design educators as well as visiting professors from around the world. The school offers a variety of bachelor's and master's degrees in design, fashion, curatorial studies and business. All classes are taught in English.[25]

• re:D is the magazine for Parsons alumni and the wider Parsons community, published by the New School Alumni Association.[28]
• Scapes is the annual journal of the School of Constructed Environments.
• The Journal of Design Strategies explores and documents collaborative work on the borders of management and design.[29]
• The Parsons Journal for Information Mapping (PJIM) is published quarterly by the Parsons Institute for Information Mapping and focuses on both the theoretical and practical aspects of information visualization.[30]
• BIAS: Journal of Dress Practice published by the MA Fashion Studies Dress Practice Collective started in the spring of 2013 and aims to join elements of "visual culture, fashion theory, design studies and personal practice through a variety of media."[31]
• The Fashion Studies Journal ' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal for fashion scholarship and criticism. It was established in 2012 as a platform for graduate-level writing[32]

WNSR is a student-run, faculty-advised online-only university radio station based at The New School. Programming is delivered in the form of streamable mp3s and, in the near future, subscribable podcasts. It is a station for all divisions of The New School.[33]