Raffi Tchakerian

EN

Raffi Tchakerian is a designer, researcher, and educator with vast experience across multiple fields of design, including aerospace, aviation, robotics, product, humanitarian, and interaction design. He has developed the ability to transform thoughts into tangible solutions through cross-fertilizations, spin-ins, and spin-offs between these fields—aimed at improving the interactions between humans, the tools and technologies they use as extensions, and the environments they inhabit.  Graduating in Industrial Design from Iuav University of Venice in 2008, he completed a Master’s in Product Design in 2010 with honors, with a thesis project on aerospace design. From his graduate years until 2015, he collaborated with the international design studio Architecture and Vision and space architects Arturo Vittori and Andreas Vogler, contributing to projects of different natures and scales—ranging from desert contexts to space—developed within the studio. After his master’s degree, Tchakerian became a Ph.D. candidate in Design Sciences at the Iuav School of Doctoral Studies, graduating with honors in 2014 with a dissertation on aerospace design. Since 2009, he has taught courses and workshops in Italy, San Marino, the USA, Ethiopia, Kuwait, and Lebanon.  

In 2018, Tchakerian moved to Dubai, becoming one of the founding faculty members at the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI), where he currently teaches. His roles include creating the Foundation program in collaboration with MIT and Parsons, developing the advanced third-year Product Design workshop “Design and Manufacture” (focused on robotic manufacturing), and managing the setup of the Fab Lab and its tools and machinery, including a KUKA KR-150 robotic arm. He is currently the Head of the Robotics Research Department, focusing on additive manufacturing for in-situ resource utilization, and has coordinated the Thesis Program since 2021. Alongside academia, he is also a co-founder of Ibdå—an R&D-driven design and engineering studio that helps organizations turn early ideas into validated prototypes and proof-of-concepts (PoCs), bridging research, design, and engineering across software, hardware, and hybrid systems.