Raw Expo
Designed an interdisciplinary experience to create dialogue and connection across disciplines by making the creative process visible.
Role: Creator, Experience Design & Strategy
Scope: Cornell University · 50+ project teams · 500+ attendees · 7 colleges
Overview
RAW Expo is an interdisciplinary exhibition designed to create dialogue and connection across Cornell’s seven colleges.
Across campus, students work deeply within their own disciplines, each with distinct languages, methods, and cultures. While innovation often happens at the intersection of fields, there were few opportunities for students to engage meaningfully across disciplines.
In response, we created RAW Expo, an experience centered on exposing the creative process behind projects. By shifting focus from final outcomes to how work is made, we established a shared language that enabled conversation, discovery, and unexpected collaboration.
Impact
RAW Expo created a new model for interdisciplinary connection by making process
the common ground across disciplines.
50+ project teams showcased their work
500+ attendees across 7 colleges
Sparked conversations and connections across disciplines
Established a shared language around creative process
Enabled unexpected collaborations and continued dialogue
Designing the Experience
The experience was designed to make process visible, relatable, and easy to engage with across disciplines.
Instead of presenting polished final work, participants were asked to share their thinking, iterations, and decisions. This created a more accessible entry point for people from different backgrounds to understand and engage with each other’s work.
Exhibits were intentionally arranged to create adjacencies between projects, encouraging conversation and highlighting opportunities for collaboration across disciplines.
Principles
Process over outcome → creates a shared language
Designed for curiosity → invites questions and conversation
Cross-disciplinary adjacencies → spark unexpected connections
Low barrier to entry → accessible to any background
Designed for interaction → not passive viewing
Activation
RAW Expo brought together 50+ project teams and 500+ attendees across all seven colleges for a one-night, immersive exhibition.
Participants shared their work through process-driven displays, while attendees explored, engaged, and connected across disciplines.
By focusing on how work was created rather than what was created, the experience fostered deeper conversations and more meaningful interactions between participants.
Designing for Interdisciplinary Connection
Connection across disciplines requires more than bringing people together, it requires a shared way to understand each other’s work.
By making the creative process visible, RAW Expo created a common language that allowed people from different backgrounds to engage, ask questions, and find points of connection.
This project reinforced that designing for connection often means designing for understanding first, creating the conditions for dialogue, curiosity, and collaboration to emerge.
