Making Resources

First-Year Studios have been designed to enable students beginning their journey at Parsons Paris to engage in exploration and interdisciplinary discovery. The studios contain tables for life drawing and an area for making. Each studio is equipped with basic hand tools such as saws, hammers, and drills, which allow faculty to introduce various construction methods, as well as an industrial sewing machine and Stockman mannequins. First-year coordinators and faculty hold class and extracurricular workshops to allow students to develop the skills required for their majors.

The darkroom allows students to explore analogue photography by providing a space in which to develop black-and-white film. The darkroom is equipped with enlargers, film development tanks, a drying unit, and a digital negative scanning and editing station.  

Parsons Paris’ Project Space is a bookable interdisciplinary workspace where students and faculty can experiment and prototype installations, set up photo shoots, hold group critiques, and host public events and exhibitions. Situated at the entrance to the 45 rue Saint-Roch building, this space is located in the heart of Paris, less than 500 meters from the Louvre.

Parsons Paris offers state-of-the-art printing facilities that enable students to produce industry-level prints. The print labs at both the Saint-Roch and the Romainville sites offer laser printing facilities and are equipped with a Canon C165 printer for daily printing requirements, a Canon V700 printer for booklet finishing, an Epson Surecolor SC-P8500D large-format inkjet printer, an Epson T3100X large-format inkjet printer, and an Epson Surecolor SC-F500 dye sublimation printer. 

Students and faculty can check out a range of equipment and technology to meet their project needs from the Equipment Checkout library, which stocks everything from audiovisual equipment to domestic sewing machines and power tools. Equipment can be checked out for use both on and off campus.  Available equipment includes Canon full- and crop-frame DSLR cameras, Blackmagic video cameras, Olympus analogue photography cameras, tripods, photo studio strobe and continuous lighting equipment, digital projectors, audio recorders, speakers, laptops and Mac minis, and LCD screens for presentations.  

Parsons Paris offers industry-level Universal Laser Systems VLS machines, which allow students to work with a range of materials in exciting ways. Students can produce projects in wood, plastic, fabric, and leather and engrave metals, glass, and ceramics.

Parsons Paris’ 3D printing facilities allow students to engage in creative exploration using fused filament fabrication and liquid resin stereolithography fabrication. Students can use a variety of 3D scanning methods to capture 3D model information. Students also have access to the Mobile 3D Modeling Lab,  (link to 3D modelling lab) which houses 20 high-end modeling laptops.

Our vinyl cutting and pen plotting machine enables students to engage in machine drawing and to cut adhesive and heat-transfer materials such as vinyl. This machine can be used to create stickers, fabric transfers, and paper and card decals. The Graphtec CE-6000 and CE-7000 plotters can be used to cut a range of materials and sizes.

The XR Mobile Lab’s VR and AR equipment enables students to explore this burgeoning creative field. The XR Lab is equipped with HTC VIVE, Oculus Rift headsets, iPad Pros for AR and 3D scanning, and 360-degree video cameras.

This lab houses 20 high-end 3D modelling laptops with software that meets course requirements, including  Clo3D Autodesk, and other applications, which students can use without needing to worry whether their laptops have the correct technical specifications. The lab is also equipped with four desktop rendering stations for students who require the processing power to render digital models.

Riso Printing is akin to digital screen printing and is used to create stunning graphic designs with a unique textured look and feel. Parsons Paris’ Risograph resources can be moved to a particular studio in accordance with faculty needs. The Risograph is often used in conjunction with Parsons Paris’ bookbinding resources to create zines, postcards, posters, and brochures.