© A Better World by Design 2009.
You are currently viewing the archived site for the 2009 conference. View 2010 site.
To provide our attendees with a more personal experience and to accommodate more specific aspects of our mission we will be holding three panelist sessions throughout the weekend allowing attendees to attend multiple events and gain exposure to many
different ideas and perspectives. Our collection of panelists represent the best and brightest of our local community as well as a large number of professionals and educators from around the world. Most panels will comprise of three panelists and one moderator, enabling a great deal of participation by all guests.
Below is a our list of confirmed participants with all being announced in the coming weeks!
(A Better World by Design 08 returning alumni noted in blue!)
Affordable Housing
The panel on Affordable Housing will discuss the ways in which designers can alleviate poverty and homelessness primarily in urban areas in which the built environment has been degraded. More people today live in the urban situation than the rural, and yet cities are often places that contain vast slums, abandoned lots or derelict homes. The panel will explore how housing and planning projects can rebuild the urban fabric, and help foster community and civic engagement in otherwise impoverished areas. Can a building in a depressed neighborhood truly act as a catalyst for larger scale social change? A discussion around the benefits and drawbacks of small-scale urban infill solutions vs. large scale housing projects will also be welcomed.
Moderator Dietrich Neumann, Brown Architecture
Herman DeKoe, Providence Habitat for Humanity
Brian Phillips, Interface Studio Architects
Anne Tate, RISD Architecture
Martha Werenfels, Durkee Brown Viveiros + Werenfels
Appropriate Technology
The Appropriate Technology panel aims to explore the role of simple, relatively low-tech solutions to problems facing the global poor. As our world becomes increasingly globalized, steep grades of inequality between and within nations are exposed and call to attention the gap in the standards of life between rich and poor. The concept of appropriate technology is to provide culturally relevant goods to poor nations to fill the needs of those who lack access to more expensive, westernized, or high tech products and materials. The discussion may also center around who deems what goods are “appropriate” to a certain cultures, how appropriate technology may promote more substandard care to the poor, and how such solutions can best serve the poor in a manner that decreases rather than further entrenches, inequality.
Moderator Chris Bull, Brown Engineering *08
Barrett Hazeltine, Brown Engineering *08
Sloan Kulper, One Earth Designs
Scott Shall, International Design Clinic
Architecture in the Developing World
The Architecture in the Developing World panel seeks to explore the role that architects have when building in poor nations—where daily life may revolve more around basic employment, shelter, and health than it does around grand gestures of art. Well-known architects have a history of designing large scale projects in the developing world , but architecture could be seen as irrelevant to the lower income people in developing countries. How can architects build sensitively in urban slums or impoverished rural areas? Is there a role for the architect in poor countries? What types of innovation is needed in terms of affordability, sustainability, and cultural awareness are most essential to architects in the developing world?
Moderator Chris Bull, Brown Engineering *08
Elizabeth Dean Hermann, RISD Architecture
Colgate Searle, RISD Architecture
Laura Sussman, RISD Architecture
Clean Energy
The panel on Clean Energy seeks to discuss sustainable solutions for the ever-growing energy needs of the world. As large countries such as China and India industrialize, and as Western countries, particularly the United States, continue to pollute on a high per-capita level, the need for alternative energy solutions is pressing. The future of energy may lie in the harnessing of renewable resources such as wind, water, and sun. Which new forms of energy solutions provide the most promise for the future? How can we avoid the pitfall of replacing one form of unsustainable energy with another that may cause different but serious problems?
Moderator Peter Weber, Brown Chemistry
Johnathan Knowles, Design-Build Lab/RISD *08
Brad Marston, Brown University
Paul Rich, Deepwater Wind
Tayhas Palmore, Brown University
Communication for Activism
As we saw our current President propelled into the White House by an overwhelming effort of grassroots activism, we also saw the evolution of his campaign unfold through amazing visual communication and creativity. Today, more than ever in human history we are part of an increasingly visual, image-based culture. In this panel we want to explore the role and responsibility of the designer in social and environmental causes, the myriad ways design can empower and enliven activism (beyond simply designing posters), and what the future holds for communication and conversation between designer/communicator and receiver. Furthermore we hope to investigate the notion of “designer” in a way that does not mean “image-maker” but rather “message-maker.”
Moderator Lucy Hitchcock, RISD Graphic Design *08
Andy Cutler, Cutler & Company
Tom Ockerse, RISD Graphic Design
Natacha Poggio, University of Hartford Art School
Scott Stowell, Open
Emerging Markets
The panel on Emerging Markets will discuss the emerging consumer markets of the developing world. The world’s great economic powers may be shifting and the markets in developing countries represent vast and largely untapped resources. How can products and services targeting lower income groups in poor countries be economically sustainable, but also socially and culturally sensitive as well? What sorts of cultural characteristics should those aiming to design businesses in poor countries be most aware of? Are positive change for the consumer and an economic profit for the producer mutually exclusive or mutually enforcing?
Moderator Sami Nerenberg, RISD Industrial Design & Grain Design *08
Niti Bhan, Emerging Futures Lab *08 Speaker
Michele Bowman, AndSpace
Gerard Minakawa, RISD Industrial Design
Sriniketh Nagavarapu, Brown Economics *08
Emergency Shelter
The Emergency Shelter panel aims to explore the role of designers in disaster relief and the provision of basic shelter. Whether man made or natural, catastrophes can leave vast swaths of a population without a home, rendering them vulnerable to hunger, disease, and despair. This panel will discuss the ways in which architects and designers can address the basic human need of shelter. We have seen how environmental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina often disproportionately affecting the poorest and least equipped to deal with such a situation. The same is true in refugee camps and war zones. The discussion may also center on the unique challenges designers face in such situations, and the ways in which they can best work with relief organizations to provide shelter.
Moderator Dietrich Neumann, Brown Architecture
Mia Ferrera, Global Village Shelters
Derek Hoeferlin, Washington University in St. Louis
Robert O'Neal, RISD
Green Building and Architecture
The panel on Green Building seeks to explore the ways in which architects can rethink the way a building uses energy in order to reduce its negative environmental impact on the earth. As the health of the world becomes an ever more pressing and relevant issue, the need for more efficient, ecologically friendly solutions to construction and building structures has never been greater. The discussion may touch on the challenges architects face in building “green”—balancing long and short term costs, responding to clients’ needs in a manner that best incorporates environmentally sustainable features, and so on. What specific strategies can architects use to address environmental goals? What remains to be accomplished in the field?
Moderator Thomas Brendler, Bernuth & Williamson
Markus Berger, RISD Interior Architecture
Dave Kessler, Native Structures
Kurt Teichert, Brown Environmental Studies
Green Consumer Products
The panel on Green Consumer Products will aim to discuss how today’s consumer product industry can address daunting environmental challenges facing our world. With our throw-away society and materialistic culture, it is increasingly important to develop new ways of thinking about what we consume, how we consume it, and where it goes after we are finished. We welcome a discussion around how alternative materials and chemicals can be used to give products a “cradle to cradle” lifecycle. What are some of the greatest challenges to changing the product industry to become more sustainable and safe? What are some of the most innovative approaches being explored to rethink the way products are made and consumed?
Moderator Khipra Nichols, RISD Industrial Design
Matt Grigsby, Ecolect *08
Dawn Oliveira, Oliveira Textiles
Rosanne Somerson, RISD Furniture
Information and Data Design
This panel aims to explore the ever adapting role of the designer as teacher, humanitarian, and consumer advocate, the influence of the information age on the average consumer, the ability of the designer to reveal information on supply chains and production systems, and the many challenges facing designers to communicate this information to the public. We would welcome discussions on social networking, the democratization of the media (and what this means to the design of information and news), and the power the designer holds to translate these important messages to a populus with ever-shortening attention span.
Colin Owens, Mass. College of Art
Burkey Belser, Greenfield/Belser
Jonathan Denholtz, California Academy of Sciences
Krzysztof Lenk, RISD Graphic Design
Sustainable Agriculture
The Sustainable Agriculture panel will explore the ways in which increased urbanization and globalization have changed the way we produce and consume food. There has been a large shift away from small-scale, local farms, towards the production and marketing of food by large corporations. In the US, we produce more food than we can eat, and instill our foods with such high levels of fat and sugar that many are overweight and obese. Yet at the same time, many parts of world suffer from famine and widespread hunger. A return to only local farming may be impossible given the number of people who live in an urban environment—are there innovative urban solutions to fresh food? Should the future of agriculture lie in organic, local, global, small-scale, industrial, or cash crop solutions?
Moderator Kurt Teichert, Brown Environmental Studies
Noah Fulmer, Farm Fresh Rhode Island
Rik Kleinfeldt, New Harvest Coffee
Critter Thompson, Mithun Architects
Medical Design
The Medical Design panel will address the ways in which designers and engineers can create products and spaces that benefit the medical sector. From the design of large scale hospitals, small scale mobile clinics, prostheses, advanced scanning equipment, methods of birth control, and surgical tools, design is an indispensable part of the field of medicine. This panel welcomes a discussion on such intersections between biomedicine, science, and design. What unique considerations are imperative to the design of medical products? What special needs should an architect of a hospital keep in mind? How have innovative healthcare products helped alter and advance the field of medicine?
Moderator Trey Crisco, Brown Med *08
Aidan Petrie, Ximedica *08
Jonathan Spector, Doctors Without Borders & Impact Pediatrics Int'l
Tim Prestero, Design that Matters
Open Source Creativity
The panel on Open Source Communities will focus on the use of new, decentralized technology to connect designers. Many technologies have embraced the culture of open source, allowing people to directly share their ideas and innovation across boundaries. Information and communications technology have become widespread and commonplace. Open Source Communities will explore how maker and open source cultures have made the development of technology more accessible to everyday people, and how such connectivity can empower populations. A discussion on the ways in which easy access to new ideas have inspired new collaboration and better design (for products, buildings, programs—anything and everything) is also welcomed.
Moderator Paul Badger, RISD Digital + Media
Ken Banks, Kiwanja *08 Speaker
Scott Belsky, Behance
The Future of Transportation
The Transportation panel will center around the ways in which modes of transportation around the world must shift in order to avoid further degrading our planet. Should innovation focus on redesigning energy-consuming vehicles like cars, or on encouraging people to reduce energy consumption through use of bicycles or public transportation? The panel may also address the challenges of providing clean and sustainable transportation in a world where the population is exploding and wealth is also rising.
Moderator Kipp Bradford, Brown Engineering *08
Al Dahlberg, Project Get Ready
Michael Lye, RISD Industrial Design *08
Jessica Millar, Vehicle to Grid
The Integration of Design and Business
In a world that is demanding design to play a greater role in the strategy and suc- cess of businesses, this panel will be an opportune time to bring together some of the best minds on the topic to discuss the potential for collaboration, the difficul- ties of cooperation, and the future role designers may play. Themes of design and business education, designer’s as leaders in a new economy and business land- scape, and the application of the design process to fields beyond the visual and creative.
Moderator Bill Foulkes, RISD Center for Design + Business
Christian Crews, AndSpace
Maria Giudice, HOT Studio
Peter Lawrence, Corporate Design Foundation
Debbie Millman, AIGA/Design Matters
Urban Arts
The panel on Urban Arts will be focused on issues surrounding the unique challenges that artists and designers face working in urban environments. Because of increased funding cuts for art education in schools, many young people grow up without an effective outlet for their creativity. In such an environment, artists who focus on issues pertinent to urban communities and engage the communities—through education or otherwise—in art are providing a much needed service that has the potential to help rebuild often frayed neighborhoods. A discussion around the most useful ways to effective teach or work with inner city students or communities, as well as what sorts of messages urban artists and designers should address is welcomed.
Moderator Peter Hocking, RISD Public Engagement *08
Jillian Perez, Project M
Clay Rockefeller, The Steel Yard *08
Jason Yoon, New Urban Arts
Social Entrepreneurship
As Providence continues to position itself as a national epicenter for social entrepreneurship we see a growing importance to spread this message and these ideas to the students at RISD and Brown. With this theme in mind we hope to explore the relationship between social entrepreneurs and designers and how business strategy and design can interact for a socially-minded goal. Furthermore we would welcome a discussion of the development of a socially entrepreneurial creative economy in the future and how the development of such a collaborative network is in fact essential to the success of future generations.
Moderator Josef Mittelmann, Brown Engineering *08
Alan Harlam, Brown Swearer Center for Public Service *08
JJ Jacobson, JTJ Investments
Mehdi Moutahir, Johnson & Wales University
Follow us on:
