Design 21: Social Design Network

One of the most famous Idol architects and designers of our time- if not THE ARCHITECT (for me at least), Rem Koolhaass amazing visions stir art and architecture towards new dimentions and show that in this area there is a lot to be explored. His completely new interpretations of society, progress, space, culture and etc. are a brilliant example of modern thinking and reveal new paths for the young generations of architects and designers to follow. It would be incredible to hear some of his thoughts and ideas. I give my vote to him!

http://www.valcasey.com/ http://www.designersaccord.org/

I'd love to interview Valerie Casey, founder and executive director of the Designers Accord, a global coalition of designers, educators, strategists, researchers, engineers, and corporate leaders, working together to create positive environmental and social impact.

Design Against Crime Research Centre

DAC is a socially responsive, practice-led research centre located at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London.

Lorraine Gamman is employed as Professor in Design Studies, in the School of Graphic and Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design, London, where she has taught for over 15 years. She is also Director of Design Against Crime (DAC) at the University of the Arts London, which she set up in 1999, and which was validated as a new Research Centre by the University in 2005. She is currently Vice Chair of Designing Out Crime Association (DOCA), and a member of the Home Office’s 2007 “Design and Technology Alliance” (www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/crime-strategy-07). She also works as an independent assessor for a variety of research councils.

http://www.designagainstcrime.com

Bruce Mau is an acclaimed Canadian designer and founder of the Institute without Boundaries (IwB). A major thread of his work--especially his IwB work--is concerned with designing solutions to the world's problems.

The exhibit and book he and the IwB put out in 2003-2004 has been influential in my own research, as I see an ethical imperative to bend scholarship toward justice in a practical, designed approach.

He'd be great to interview.

db

It's not like I haven't heard what he's got to say, but he has proved a direct relationship between design and concrete, socially useful results. He's always up-to-date in design and social issues, so he always comes up with new conclusions and facts in these areas.

that's my vote.

BF mexico

After reading part of his book, 'In the Bubble' on Google Scholar, I immediately bought it and have read it many times since. he talks about connecting communities, designing a way towards a truly sustainable future, designing for people and society, and relying on people - not stuff. He has been involved in many social projects and he's been a real inspiration to me.

My question would be: How does industrial design fit comfortably in a world that needs less stuff? We can reduce the impact that stuff makes, and we can raise awareness of the impact we make, even try to design our way back to a sustained Earth, but at the end of the day, it's the boss who decides that what the world needs is another range of useless food packaging, or another novelty roof decoration for Christmas.

i know i know, my main man leo doesn't get a look in bec he's dead but let's face it if he was alive today he'd get my vote for his paradigm shifting approach to the role of design in our lives and how it can elevate humanity to heights hitherto unknown...leo i bow in humble supplication...

ps besides being a grave robber, did you know he was also a great cook and designed incredible banquets for princely courts and courtesans

Original author of The First Things First Manifesto, Garland is one of the first graphic artist and photographer to comment on social awareness in communication. Who better to interview?!?

http://www.theinternationalexchange.co.uk/

Known as TIE, this organization empowers communications and advertising professionals to create positive social change by igniting their passion and creating opportunities for them to use their knowledge and skills for good.

Yes, we've all been on the side of our businesses that sell products and services, and that pays the bills, but the deeper layer to what is happening in our world involves more and requires more. TIE connects the dots of our industry to global culture, economy, knowledge and values and generates the "product" of endless possibilities for people and developing communities around the world.

Check out this great article about them in AdAge: http://adage.com/goodworks/post?article_id=137883

My question---with so much technology and innovation shifting and changing how we relate to each other, how does TIE empower developing countries to evolve with these trends while maintaining a true sense of their cultural history?

VOTE FOR TIE!

Neri Oxman is, in my opinion, the world's next great architect. Frank L. Wright embraced nature and Frank Gehry embraced the use of the computer to design and construct amazing buildings. Neri Oxman's MaterialEcology is making use of computer science to better understand nature and in so doing will open a new world of architecture that literally uses the building blocks of nature as a new form of architecture that will change how we look at structures from bridges to furniture to buildings and everything in between.

Remember the name Neri Oxman because her creativity is going to change the face of architecture for the better and forever.

John Wr. Gotts Palo Alto, California Co-founder, BijoBee.com Serial Entrepreneur Candidate for Congress, 2012

John Emerson, www.backspace.com/notes. The man has influenced "generations" of designers and activists (since May 2002). Quoting the July/August 2005 issue of Print Magazine: “Most designers agree, even insist, that design is more than clever imagery selling goods and services — it also influences how societies function. Social Design Notes, a remarkably informed and highly useful blog edited by John Emerson, explores design’s sociopolitical power and inspiration. A New York activist and designer who oversaw Web sites for Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch, Emerson launched his blog is 2002 as a ‘bridge between design activism — to push designers to think about acting in the public interest and to help activists see how design can facilitate their campaigns.’ Emerson explores how design is used to support and challenge the status quo, posting one historical note about the ‘Black Panther Coloring Book’ created by the FBI during the civil-right movement, and another about South Africa’s use of the comic book to prepare its citizens for their first election. Emerson also discusses the built environment, praising former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani for having championed design to improve the lives of the disabled. And Social Design Notes’ Resource page contains tools — such as free stock photos — designed to convert readers into true reformers.”

firebelly design rocks with a number of awesome ventures... camp firebelly, reason to give, the firebelly design grant, plus beautiful design that makes a difference every day. read their ethos and you'll understand why: http://firebellydesign.com/about/ethos

it would be great to meet them because they are as unique as it gets in a field of trends. they offer a business model that stands on it's own. they prove that design can really make a difference. and they don't just do it by talking, they do it by acting.

i would ask them how are they able to do all they do for their community + design, plus continue to make great work + seemingly make a profit.

http://www.ideo.com

NERI OXMAN

I nominate Neri Oxman because I had recently the pleasure to meet her in person and can say that she is genuinely an extraordinary visionary woman whose abundance of energy and genius would lights up a stadium in the dark.

Excerpted from her website, www.materialecology.com :

Neri Oxman is an architect and researcher whose work attempts to establish new forms of experimental design and novel processes of material practice at the interface of design, computer science, material engineering and ecology.

A graduate of the AA School of Architecture and previously a medical scholar at the Hebrew University and the Technion Institute of Technology, she is currently based at MIT where she is a presidential research fellow and a PhD candidate in Design Computation.

Transcending disciplinary and professional boundaries, Oxman's work pioneers Material Computation as a design paradigm beyond typological expression. She promotes the aesthetics of material formation and behavior as a scientific contribution to ecological activism.

Her work, Natural Artifice, has recently been displayed in the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition, the Museum of Modern Art, now part of the museum's collection. Current work is on display at the International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Seville and the 2008 Beijing Biennial. Neri has recently been recognized as a Revolutionary Mind 2008 by SEED Magazine, featuring her collection of work and research in design. She has won multiple awards for her research including the Earth Award for Future Crucial Design, HOLCIM Next Generation Award for Sustainable Construction, a Graham Foundation Carter Manny Award, the AICF Award of Excellence, the Harold Horowitz Award and others.

Neri is the founder of M A T E R I A L E C O L O G Y, an interdisciplinary design research initiative engaging in design research featuring new initiatives at the intellectual and productive interface between science, art and design and based in Cambridge, MA. www.materialecology.com

Ideas too good to waste.™ Donating talent for the forces of good. Love what you do and how you do it. After more than 15 years of creating influence, demand, social currency, and profitability for more than 130 diverse brands, including local start-ups to global icons, Chad Rea's focus is now to bring conscious consumerism out of the exclusive fringe and into the accessible mainstream.

This is the future....let's hear about it from Chad Rea.

Ideas too good to waste.™ Donating talent for the forces of good. Love what you do and how you do it. After more than 15 years of creating influence, demand, social currency, and profitability for more than 130 diverse brands, including local start-ups to global icons, Chad Rea's focus is now to bring conscious consumerism out of the exclusive fringe and into the accessible mainstream.

This is the future....let's hear about it from Chad Rea!

Gehry is too famous and designers know him well. But, there is a question here: What is Gehrys works effects on social design? If we examine Gehry designs, can see difference .He is making change happen through design and making change happen through life. He composed a lovely music with line and form. Gehry really changed the concept of form and space, not in architecture only, in furniture design and jewellery design, too. I think he is an avant-garde artist, who can changed design in different styles, like Deconstructionism, Folding and Architecture of jumping universe. I have many questions from Gehry!

Hippo Water International is an innovative not-for-profit that distributes the Hippo, a water transport tool that enables people with limited access to water to move 5x the amount possible using traditional methods in less time and with much less effort!

The folks at HRI (a team of volunteers led by Cynthia Koenig) are constantly looking for ways to innovate - they just teamed up with Engineers Without Borders and Project H Design to re-design the Hippo for better shipping efficiency and a lower price point, and they're now collaborating with Catapult Design to incorporate water filtration.

HWI operates with a simple philosophy: 'a good idea and a simple design can change the world.'

read more at www.hippowater.org

KY

We nominate Tony diZinno, photojournalist extraordinaire who donates enormous amounts of time documenting the experiences of Mountain to Mountain.

M2M is currently developing projects in Afghanistan to promote education and to eliminate the startling gender gap in literacy. M2M's projects are focused primarily on the short and long-term needs of women and children.

http://www.mountain2mountain.com