Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York

Object of the Month: Design for Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

davidsong — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:01:21 +0000

This drawing was architect Rafael Viñoly’s presentation concept sketch for Verizon Hall, home of the Philadelphia Orchestra, as it appears from the west. Watercolors are an integral part of Viñoly’s working process, used in the early design stages to formalize his organizing concepts. Following the watercolors, more precise drawings present the actual resolution of the design.

Drawing: Design for Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, West Elevation. Rafael Viñoly (Uruguayan, b. 1944). United States, ca. 1996. Brush and watercolor on thick white paper. 14 3⁄16 x 19 15⁄16 in. (360 × 507 mm). Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Rafael Viñoly, 2010-17-1

Social Impact Design: From Idea to Implementation

pmartin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:45:43 +0000

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the Social Impact Design Summit in New York with a group of renowned designers and architects who have dedicated their careers to solving our world’s toughest challenges. At the Summit, there were many important discussions about ideas, but what struck me most were the passionate conversations around implementation.

I believe design at its very nature is best poised to take on the challenges of implementation in challenging situations. Indeed, only when our solutions are consistently working over time will design have its proper place in how we approach problems like poverty, hunger, and homelessness.

Yet, design in the social sector has been criticized for being too focused on new ideas, rather than on creating meaningful, on-the-ground change. It seems we all agree that more emphasis needs to be placed on long-term impact and implementation, yet we still primarily reward new concepts and ideas. How can we begin to place more emphasis on implementation?

I was inspired by one simple suggestion raised at the Social Impact Design Summit that would start to shift norms: Change social impact design competitions. The question was posed, “What if our competitions awarded designs that have successfully been in the market for 5-10 years, instead of those that have just been conceptualized?” This would be an important change in the way our profession communicates its values around sustained impact in the social sector.

In my own experience, designers are adept at navigating complexity, thrive under constraints, and have deep empathy for the unique motivations of individuals. And while I’m not naïve about the difficulties of implementation in the developing world, I do believe that creativity, inclusion, and flexibility—the natural traits of design—will be the skills that help get us to lasting change.

At the Social Impact Design Summit, there was a consistent call to action for design to show impact through meaningful, on-the-ground change. My hope is that solutions like IDEO.org’s new HCD Connect platform will enable problem-solvers around the world to keep end-users’ needs in the center of design solutions and successfully implement ideas together. We invite anyone who’s working to address challenges in low-income communities to join the HCD Connect community here.

Patrice Martin is the co-lead and creative director of IDEO.org. Before founding IDEO.org, Patrice’s work has focused on addressing large-scale social change in the private, public, and social sectors, and her expertise is in connecting people’s needs with compelling design solutions. Since coming to IDEO in 2004 from SonicRim, Patrice has led projects and project teams in healthcare, financial services, hospitality, and education, with clients including Nike, Mayo Clinic, The American Red Cross, Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Marriott International. Patrice holds a BFA in industrial design from the University of Michigan.

IDEO.org has recently launched a new resource to connect and support designers working on some of the challenges around lasting change and successful implementation of ideas. The platform, called HCD Connect, enables human-centered designers to hear directly from individuals working on the ground to get solutions out into the world. Now, designers can share stories about specific challenges, find inspiration in solutions that work, and learn from others’ insights and experiences. The platform was launched with support from the Agricultural Development Initiative at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Where Should We Go from Here?

baileyk — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:21:47 +0000

The Social Impact Design Summit was a great opportunity to bring to the surface the controversies and commonalities within our new field of practice. We had representatives approaching design from corporate and nonprofit organizations, along with representatives from academia, with a correspondingly broad array of ideas about what constitutes social impact. For example, one company was exploring a new low-cost heart defibrillator for populations in the Global South, while one nonprofit was interested in using design to challenge an oil pipeline in the Global North.

The controversy had to do with who the “client” was for these various designs: corporate or citizen client. Some of the designers at the summit wanted to discuss ways to build stronger conversations about social impact with their for-profit clients. Some organizations discussed using design to increase civic input in housing design or improving civic input in governance. Here the “client” is the civic body or humanity at large, versus having a civic goal triangulated through a corporate client. Due to design growing up as a research-and-development arm of the corporate sector, it is harder to decouple design from corporations and market-driven concerns. And for organizations trying to improve the lives of marginalized people and communities, design for social impact isn’t necessarily market-driven.

Our commonalities lay in our love for design practice. One of the most poignant moments I had during the summit was with Robert Fabricant from frog, who said, “You do what you do, and we do what we do. There’s a lot to be learned and gained from us both doing what we do.” He saw the value of every kind of practice represented at the summit. Where our controversies create divergence in thoughts and approaches, our love for design creates opportunities for convergence and possibly collaboration.

If we are to really move toward intensifying our commonalities and collaboration, it will take more support. Groups will need opportunities for more face time and play time. The contacts we made across organizations were a great start. Now the question is, ”Where do we go from here?”

Kenneth Bailey started the Design Studio for Social Intervention (ds4si) in 2007 with the support of Stone Circles Fellows and MIT’s Department of Urban Planning Community Fellows Program. Since its inception, ds4si has helped frame the need for design thinking and artistic research and development in the social-justice sector.

The Taxi of Tomorrow is Here Today

northropj — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:15:14 +0000

Each day, 600,000 New Yorkers hop in the back of a taxi - the iconic yellow cab that is a symbol of New York City around the world. The 2014 Nissan NV200 Taxi, New York's Taxi of Tomorrow, made its global debut yesterday at a special event with New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Nissan President and CEO Carlos Ghosn.

Prior to the press launch a preview and panel discussion about the design evolution of the Taxi was presented by Cooper-Hewitt, Design Trust for Public Space, the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission and Nissan. The panel was moderated by Phil Patton of the New York Times and panelists included Cooper-Hewitt's chairman Paul Herzan, who was instrumental in instigating the search for a new taxi, as well as David Yassky, New York City Taxi & Limousine Commissioner; Davin Stowell, Smart Design; and Francois Farion, Nissan Design America. The discussion focused on the importance that the taxi plays in every New Yorker’s life, and how this unique automobile is considered the city’s personal car. The design of the new taxi was developed from the inside out, putting the user, passengers and drivers, and their needs, ahead of any sort of exterior aesthetic. After a rigorous, two-year competitive bid selection process, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission selected the Nissan NV200 Taxi in May 2011 as the exclusive taxi of New York City beginning in late 2013. Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, the Design Trust for Public Space and Smart Design also engaged with Nissan and the TLC in the vehicle's design.

NYC taxi drivers have an average of 46 fares a day, so the Taxi of Tomorrow needs to stand up to the demands of its environment. Nissan created a New York City "street," complete with potholes, at their Arizona testing facility to recreate the harsh conditions the the new taxi would encounter. With the Taxi of Tomorrow, every taxi driver and passenger will enjoy superior safety, increased comfort and amenities, and improved durability – a tremendous improvement to today’s transportation in the city. Key new features include:

a legible roof light for clear communication
flat floor for ease of entry and exit
lights to indicate passenger exits for oncoming cyclists
sliding passenger doors will not interfere with other traffic or street activity
clear, panoramic sunroof
greener interior materials

The Taxi of Tomorrow is headed to the 2012 New York International Auto Show, where it will be on display for New Yorkers and visitors from around the world. The auto show at the Jacob Javits Center is open to the public April 6-15.

Links:
Design Trust for Public Space - http://www.designtrust.org/
New York Taxi and Limousine Commission - http://www.nyc.gov/html/media/html/news/taxioftomorrow.shtml
Nissan - http://www.taxioftomorrow.com/web/index.php
2012 New York International Auto Show - http://www.autoshowny.com/

Sustainability: Visiting the Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant

groomjo — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:20:07 +0000

According to Jim Pynn, Superintendent of Newtown Creek’s 52-acre water waste treatment plant, the plant’s star architectural feature is eight futuristic, stainless steel–clad “digester eggs.”

Tours of the facility began less than a year ago. Our tour started early in the morning in the new Visitor Center. Once inside, it was hard to hear over the noisy water cascade walkway – a playful, meandering path mimicking a water slide – designed by Brooklyn local Vito Acconci. A sculpture of discarded plastic water bottles hung over the walkway, highlighting the virtues of New York City tap water over bottled water.

Elsewhere in the lobby, signage and models opportunistically taught visitors about water usage and processing – in short, all you’d want to know about your water. By the time we reached the top of the stairs, we’d learned about the history of New York City’s aqueduct system. The two main aqueducts, built in 1842 and 1929, are still in use; water from the Catskills is fed into the city mostly by gravity. A third aqueduct, in construction, is prosaically titled Water Tunnel No. 3. It is the largest construction project in New York’s history. While I give kudos to the city and to Pynn’s entrepreneurial spirit in bringing visibility to a vastly misunderstood yet vital topic, it was disappointing to note that one of the faucets in the women’s bathroom didn’t turn off and was dripping water.

A group of over 100 people convened on the second floor to be alternately entertained and informed by Pynn’s hour-long narration of the incredibly technical process of taking waste water — what we flush down our drains and toilets every day in addition to what is carried by the city’s sewers, all 310 million gallons of it — and making it into a relatively benign liquid that is emptied into the Hudson. First, the large debris is gleaned and set aside for dumping into a landfill. Next, smaller particles are strained, squished, cooked, and drained into what they call “sludge,” which is sold as fertilizer. Cooking oil is apparently so common that they have developed a special way of siphoning it off. Pynn pleaded with visitors to relegate cooking oil to the garbage, for solid-waste disposal.

The digester eggs mimic the function and temperature of a human stomach, as black, bubbly ooze is fermented by bacteria to create the sludge for further processing. This process stabilizes the sludge by converting most of the organic material into water, carbon dioxide, and methane gas (the gas is then used to power the plant). Visitors got to peer down into the digesters through portholes and see the black stuff percolate.

Bacteria aside, the view from atop the towers was fantastic.

In the end, I felt relieved to learn that my sludge is in such good hands. Pynn has been managing this plant, one of fourteen in NYC alone, for thirty years.

I know that NYC tap water is so clean it is exempt from some of the most stringent filtering requirements. We enjoy nearly 2,000 square miles of pristine watershed in the Catskills and Croton. These lands are even available to the public for exploration and recreation. New Yorkers have reason to be proud of their tap water, and hopefully that will translate into a sense of responsibility to sustain the lands that provide us with so much. What is on the horizon? Pay attention to hydrofracking.

The scoop:
The Visitor Center at Newtown Creek (not the Newtown Wastewater Treatment Plant) is located at 329 Greenpoint Avenue, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY, 11222 (at the intersection of Greenpoint Avenue and Humboldt Street), and is open to the public from 12–4 p.m. on Fridays only.

Tours occur once a month, and reservations are required. Check the Visitor Center calendar
for the next scheduled tour. Due to the popularity of these tours and the limited space, they highly recommend reserving a spot in advance.

School groups need to fill out an Education Outreach Request Form before requesting a tour of the digester eggs.

Object of the Month: Small Diamond chair by Harry Bertoia

seb — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:59:13 +0000

Small Diamond chair, model 421-1. Designed by Harry Bertoia (Italian, 1915–1978), upholstery designed by Antoinette Lackner Webster (Toni Prestini) (American, 1909–1998). Manufactured by Knoll Associates, Inc. United States, ca. 1957. Plastic-coated wire, cotton upholstery, foam rubber, 77.5 × 88.9 × 74.9 cm (30 1⁄2 in. × 35 in. × 29 1⁄2 in.). Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of the Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, 2011-22-1. Photo: Matt Flynn

Known primarily as a sculptor, Harry Bertoia designed the Small Diamond chair for Knoll between 1950 and 1952. During that time, rather than do conventional design research, Bertoia conceived of a series of side chairs and lounge chairs for mass production, made of wire mesh formed into seating shells. According to Bertoia, “In the chairs, many functional problems have to be satisfied first. . . but when you get right down to it the chairs are studies in space, form, metal too. . . . If you will look at these chairs, you will find that they are mostly made of air, just like sculpture. Space passes right through them."

The curves and contours of the model 421-1 seem to embrace the sitter. This example is distinguished by its coated wire frame and blue Prestini upholstery, a cotton plain weave Knoll named for the textile designer, Antoinette Lackner Webster (Toni Prestini).

This chair was included in the recent Bard Graduate Center exhibition Knoll Textiles, 1945-2010, and comes as part of a gift of Knoll textiles and furniture made possible by Bard curator Earl Martin, a graduate of the Master’s Program in the History of Decorative Arts and Design run by Cooper-Hewitt and Parsons The New School for Design.

24 Hours in America - Thoughts on the Social Impact Design Summit

shahk — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:40:06 +0000

Going to New York from India for a day-long meeting was absurd to my wife. I was excited: a global meet-up on socially responsible design; one Asian among 50 odd Americans; big names among participants, sponsors, donors and a weekend that would allow me to see the World Trade Center monument.

For such a short meeting, learning was substantial: how to efficiently conduct a meeting, and how little even well-informed Americans know about dominance of the informal sector in Asian cities. If 90 percent of the buildings that get constructed do not pass through a professional architect, how can architects reflect or bring about a socially responsible outlook in their designs?

My main focus and concerns were India, and Asia as a whole. To me, a wider definition of Socially Responsible Design would embrace:

The client groups that are served (are poor, low income and those un-serviced by formal markets excluded?)
The quality and reach of design output (for mass or class?)
Cost and affordability (who can buy/access?)
Sensitivity to larger ecological/ environmental/social challenges in production, marketing, delivery processes (carbon footprint, environmental crisis, energy/ resource constraints, inequality, exclusion, waste )
People centeredness (sensitivity to culture, tradition, local wisdom
Innovation (technology, tools)
Approaches to design (is the approach participatory, consultative, enabling, empowering or is it more conventional- i.e., designers offering solutions from ivory towers?)
Market/ institutional linkages

Ways forward for socially responsible design could include

Rethinking and restructuring of formal education across the board, especially professional education which is alienated from the grassroots reality
Reorientation of mainstream professionals in all disciplines. They are confined mainly to a thin band of urban, rich, socially mobile and institutional clients
Development of Social Entrepreneurship in an organized, large-scale, formal, private sector (for example, in affordable housing, low cost interiors, furniture for working class clients)
Recognition and/or incentives or other forms of support for the large, informal/unorganized sector for ‘better’ design
New thrust on rural needs and markets.

Small scale but innovative efforts are happening: be that Asian Coalition of Housing Right’s Community Architect initiative or Fellowship of Ashoka Innovators for the Public or Architecture for Humanity. Focusing only on scaling up as key challenge is to see it in a limited context. Rethinking the ‘development model’ is the essence of real challenge.

Kirtee Shah is a practicing architect and is the Director of ASAG (Ahmedabad Study Action Group), a non-government organization run by concerned professionals committed to using their skills for public causes, especially slum upgrading, disaster rehabilitation and low-cost housing. Kirtee has served as housing and urbanization expert on several expert advisory groups for the Indian national and various state and local governments, as well as to UNICEF and the World Bank and the Social Housing Foundation of South Africa. He is also President of Habitat International Coalition and a member of the international board of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a non-profit society supporting public service entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Thoughts and Reflections on the Social Impact Design Summit

moalosi — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:56:47 +0000

At the recent Social Impact Design Summit in New York, organized by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, one issue that received attention was the need to build local capacity so that projects can be self-sustainable. Any successful model should be built on local capacity, knowledge, and engagement. Designers sometimes assume that local communities cannot come up with innovative solutions to their problems, but the truly limiting factor is the lack of funds and exposure to relevant technology.

Another notable issue brought up at the summit was the long-term evaluation of projects – a basis or standard to measure the value of design in communities. In Africa, we have had good projects, launched in a short period of time, which collapse as soon as the donor agency leaves. This is an unsustainable waste of resources. One of the reasons why such projects fail is the absence of local ownership. Funders and organizations need to be more flexible to assess initiatives over the long haul.

I would like to see some program of action to carry out the resolutions of the summit, such as the formation of some strategic committees bringing together designers and funders. It would be unfortunate if all of the suggestions and solutions proposed were shelved and nothing happened as a result. This was an insightful and fruitful summit, and I am hopeful that much can be achieved through such dialogues.

Dr. Richie Moalosi is Senior Lecturer of Industrial Design at the University of Botswana and Coordinator for the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Research Laboratory in Botswana. His research interests include design and culture, sustainability, and social innovation. He has been involved in the Only Planet project, the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Africa-Brazil dialogue, and Creative Communities for Sustainable Living–Africa.

Design Ignites Change Award Winners

harrissm — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:34:26 +0000

By Andréa Pellegrino, Worldstudio

Design Ignites Change, an initiative of Worldstudio, promotes and encourages talented high-school and college students across the country to use design thinking and innovation to develop actual projects that will benefit their own communities while giving them a voice on important social issues.

The winning projects of the Fall 2011 Design Ignites Change Awards demonstrate the bright future of design as a means of bringing meaningful and relevant positive change to the world. They are not only innovative and well-researched, but also scalable, giving them the potential to affect communities across the globe.

The Implementation Award went to two outstanding projects: Safe Agua – Ducha Halo, from Narbeth Dereghishian and Jessica Yeh at Art Center College of Design; and Design Thinking in Rural North Carolina, from Kirsten Southwell at North Carolina State University.

The Idea Award was awarded to the entrepreneurial-minded Halal Hotdog project from Minneapolis College of Art and Design student Brian Wiley; along with Crop ’n’ Shop and Moitié-Moitié, which also use food and design to bring about positive social change.

To celebrate the newest mentoring program, School: By Design, a special award was introduced for the most compelling school-redesign idea. The winning project, Sow, by Kaitlan Martin, Whitlock Shelby, and Watts Kelly from Missouri State University, is the result of a mentoring partnership with students from Martin’s studio and Bailey Alternative High School. They designed a collection of resources to be used alongside the existing greenhouse at the high school. The project’s goal is to nurture healthier and more sustainable lifestyles for the students and community of Springfield, as well as promote a more positive image of the school within the city.

The judges for this round, who had the difficult task of reviewing the most impressive and thoughtful group of projects submitted to date, were Doug Powell, AIGA/Schwartz Powell Design; John Carlin, Funny Garbage; Pam Williams, Williams & House; and Monica Harriss, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

4 Questions 4: Kevin Palmer

seb — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:07:24 +0000

The latest in our 4 Questions 4 series interview Kevin Palmer, founding partner of London-based Kin Design.

Kin Design is perhaps best known for their work for the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, recent work for the National Maritime Museum (London), and their custom covers for Wallpaper* Magazine.

Seated in the beautiful North Reading Room of the National Design Library, we asked him four questions about starting his business, designing for the museum context, and a new definition of craftsmanship for digital designs.

Video and questions by Katie Shelly.