Journalist, writer, and media critic Virginia Heffernan has joined the School of Visual Art’s 2017 Design Writing and Research Summer Intensive, a two-week course organized by the school’s MA Design Research program.

The Summer Intensive, which aims to help participants improve their writing skills and research methods, includes seminars, lectures, behind-the-scenes access to new projects and exhibitions, and studio visits. (The 2016’s Summer Intensive studio visits included the likes of MOS Architects, Pentagram, The Lab at Rockwell Group, and Bjarke Ingels Group.) Participants are furnished with a desk at the SVA MA Design Research’s space at 136 W 21st St. and can explore a range of subjects, from graphic design to industrial design, architecture, and cities.

This year’s instructors include architecture writer and critic Karrie Jacobs; BBC director-producer Adam Harrison Levy; New York Times Senior Culture Reporter Robin Pogrebin; The Weeklings co-founder Jennifer Kabat; and design and business columnist Rob Walker. According to the SVA, Heffernan’s course is “about design that defines itself against digital culture. Not Luddite design, or analog, nothing nostalgic; but something that only exists as a response to culture’s saturation with software and digital hardware.”

The application deadline is April 15; click here for more details.