Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) president Rosanne Somerson discusses how the design school has been forced to reinvent itself in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic in the penultimate talk in our collaboration with Friedman Benda for VDF.

Like many universities and design schools, RISD was forced to close its campus in March as lockdown restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19 were implemented across the US, forcing the school to transition to teaching online.

"This is without a doubt the biggest challenge we've faced in our entire 143-year history as an institution," Somerson told curator Glenn Adamson in the latest of New York gallery Friedman Benda's Design in Dialogue interviews that Dezeen is publishing as part of Virtual Design Festival.
"When we were forced to send our students back home, or at least off campus, we had so little warning. We did it, I think, incredibly seamlessly. But it was traumatic for the students. I mean, this is not at all what they had anticipated. And it was done to them, and to all of us, rather than by them. So it was very difficult and it raised all kinds of issues of all kinds of inequities and complexities."

Despite the easing of lockdown restrictions, Somerson revealed that the university is having to completely revamp its campus to enable students and teachers to use its facilities while adhering to social distancing regulations.

"Since [lockdown began], the world has changed again five ti...