Justin W. Cook
Pierce Anderson Design Critic in Design Engineering
Visiting Faculty
LL1.207
Justin W. Cook is the father of three boys. He grew up on the Puget Sound in a small town where he initially trained as a carpenter and later an architect. As a graduate student, his curiosity about the broader potential of his emerging practice led him to work on systemic challenges in healthcare in order to build more humane systems of care. His current work spans healthcare, sustainability, education, and housing, with a particular emphasis on designing novel organizational architectures to address systemic issues.
Most recently, Cook concluded a six-year research experiment as the founding Executive Director of the Center for Complexity (CfC) at the Rhode Island School of Design (2018–2025). Established in partnership with Infosys, the Center functioned as a transdisciplinary engine designed to navigate the “Polycene”, a term CfC advanced in 2023 to describe an era defined not by human dominion, but by stewardship and entanglement.
At CfC, Cook led a practice organized around two research cores: Systems of Care and The Polycene. His team’s work ranged from the intimate—developing anti-stigma design manuals for the opioid crisis—to the planetary, such as the Horizon 2045 initiative to redesign nuclear security. This period was dedicated to cultivating a post-tragic design practice to empower individuals and communities to face polycrises with resilience and creativity.
Currently, Cook is Pierce Anderson Design Critic of Design Engineering at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In this role, he brings his focus on the architecture of new institutions to the program’s pedagogy, helping students build the capacity to intervene in complex, human and more-than-human systems through strategic design and systems thinking.
In addition to his academic roles, Cook is a cofounder of IDCUBED, a company addressing climate and housing crises through sustainable, modular mass timber buildings. He also leads Commonwealth Advanced Projects LLC, providing strategic design consulting to organizations such as Google, Fidelity Investments, Knight Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, IBM, and the UN.
Cook has a longstanding interest in the intersection of design, sustainability, and societal wellbeing. He is the author of Sustainability, Human Wellbeing and the Future of Education (Palgrave, 2018). His recent publications include Polycene.design (2024), Collapse (2024), and Carry Forward (2023), all published by Rhode Island School of Design.
From 2008 to 2018, Cook was Senior Lead for Strategy at the Finnish Innovation Fund, Sitra, where he focused on strategic design, urban systems, decarbonization, impact investing, and the future of education. During this time, he was a founding member of the Helsinki Design Lab, which has been emulated by governments and NGOs worldwide. He has also served as an advisor to the OECD’s Observatory for Public Sector Innovation, leading a project funded by the European Commission on how systems and design methodologies can help the public sector address complex challenges.
Cook has collaborated with MIT’s Collaborative Initiatives on projects like the Clinical Trials Systems Project, a partnership with Johns Hopkins University Systems Institute aimed at improving the clinical trials system. He has taught at various institutions, including RISD’s Institute for Design and Public Policy, a collaboration with the US Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Cook received a Master of Architecture from Harvard University, where he earned a commendation for outstanding academic achievement, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington. He has been invited to speak at numerous institutions and conferences globally on topics related to strategic design, systems thinking, and applied complexity.