Three weeks ago I had to make a trip down to the Bay Area and it just so happened to sunny and warm while I was there. A nice break from the dreary June gloom that often casts itself over the Willamette Valley in Northern Oregon. It also happened to be Design Week SF, an annual event where a number of design related symposiums, lectures and open houses take place to highlight what creative teams all over San Francisco are up to. I had had a lot of fun reconnecting with some old colleagues I haven''t seen in a quite some time and there was a palpable sense of something big going on in the Bay Area. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there was a lot of interesting energy going on around there. Another boom on the horizon?
Design week hosted a number of interesting open studios, of which some notables included: Gensler, Fuse Project, Idea Couture, Frog Design, Astro Studios, Smart Design and Landor Associates. While I wasn’t able to make it to all of them (I’d forgotten how long SF city blocks are when you’re walking) I did manage to make it to a number of them. I found it really interesting that the event also seems to be a very big venue for local students to get out and do some prospecting of their own, looking for jobs and internships for the summer and coming school year.
I was also able to reconnect with my mentor and former faculty adviser from San Francisco State, Ricardo Gomes and a really exciting project he's working on. His former mentor from his days at UCLA grad school recently passed and while Ricardo was on his recent sabbatical he was granted and acquired Professor Shapira's extensive library and research collection that is now being archived and made available on the Nathan Shapira Design Archive Blog. It's a really interesting story beginning with Nathan's studying at the Polytechnico di Milano to his tenure at UCLA under the directorship of Henry Dreyfuss. It's an early work in progress, but I was able to visit the library, and yes it literally is a library
Darlene Tong, Head of Information, Research & Instructional Services, Professor Ricardo Gomes and Dr. Kevin Kelley, Coordinator of Online Teaching & Learning
It's an on going project that will be taking shape in the coming months and years to finish, but I am looking forward to the evolution of this site.
until next time, best.
Jamie.