A design is the concept of or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word design refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent, and is sometimes used to refer to the inherent nature of something – its design. The verb to design expresses the process of developing a design. In some cases, the direct construction of an object without an explicit prior plan may also be considered to be a design. A design is expected to have a purpose within a certain context, usually having to satisfy certain goals and constraints and to take into account aesthetic, functional, economic, environmental, or socio-political considerations. Traditional examples of designs include architectural and engineering drawings, circuit diagrams, sewing patterns, and less tangible artefacts such as business process models.
Moshe Safdie is an architect, urban planner, educator, theorist, and author. He is known for incorporating principles of socially responsible design throughout his six-decade career. His projects include cultural, educational, and civic institutions such as neighborhoods and public parks, housing, mixed-use urban centers, and airports. He also had master plans for existing communities and entirely new cities in the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia. Safdie is most identified with designing Marina Bay Sands and Jewel Changi Airport, as well as his debut project Habitat 67, which was originally conceived as his thesis at McGill University. He holds legal citizenship in Israel, Canada, and the United States.
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offers postgraduate degrees in art and design to students from over 60 countries.
Erik Gunnar Asplund was a Swedish architect, mostly known as a key representative of Nordic Classicism of the 1920s during the last decade of his life. At this time, he was a major proponent of the modernist style which made its breakthrough in Sweden at the Stockholm International Exhibition (1930). Asplund was professor of architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology from 1931. His appointment was marked by a lecture, later published under the title "Our architectonic concept of space." The Woodland Crematorium at Stockholm South Cemetery (1935-1940) is considered his finest work and one of the masterpieces of modern architecture.
Critical design uses design fiction and speculative design proposals to challenge assumptions and conceptions about the role objects play in everyday life. Critical design plays a similar role to product design, but does not emphasize an object's commercial purpose or physical utility. It is mainly used to share a critical perspective or inspire debate, while increasing awareness of social, cultural, or ethical issues in the eyes of the public. Critical design was popularized by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby through their firm, Dunne & Raby.
Paola Antonelli is an Italian architect, curator, author, editor, and educator. Antonelli is the Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, where she also serves as the founding Director of Research and Development. She has been described as "one of the 25 most incisive design visionaries in the world" by TIME magazine.
Carlo Ratti is an Italian architect, engineer, educator and author. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he directs the MIT Senseable City Lab, a research group that explores how new technologies are changing the way we understand, design and ultimately live in cities. Ratti is also a founding partner of the international design and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, which has offices in Turin, New York and London. He is also a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano and an Honorary Professor at TTPU Tashkent. Ratti was named one of the "50 most influential designers in America" by Fast Company and highlighted in Wired magazine's "Smart List: 50 people who will change the world".
Dunne & Raby is a London-based design studio established 1994.
Julia Lohmann is a multidisciplinary designer, educator and researcher living and working in Helsinki, Finland. She is an Associate Professor of Contemporary Design at Aalto University.
Lise Anne Couture is a Canadian architect and educator. She is the co-founder of Asymptote Architecture, in partnership with Hani Rashid. She is based in Brooklyn, New York.
Neri Oxman is an Israeli-American designer and former professor known for art that combines design, biology, computing, and materials engineering. She coined the phrase "material ecology" to define her work.
Sascha Pohflepp was a German artist, designer, and writer whose work focused on the role of technology’s influence on the environment, often collaborating with scientists and other artists to explore this theme.
Design fiction is a design practice aiming at exploring and criticising possible futures by creating speculative, and often provocative, scenarios narrated through designed artifacts. It is a way to facilitate and foster debates, as explained by futurist Scott Smith: "... design fiction as a communication and social object creates interactions and dialogues around futures that were missing before. It helps make it real enough for people that you can have a meaningful conversation with".
Professor Nasrine Seraji-Bozorgzad AA Dipl FRIBA, is an Iranian-born French-British architect. She is a 2011 recipient of the Knight of the Legion of Honour, an Officier of l'Ordre national du Mérite and l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Karla Maria S. Rothstein is an American architect and adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where she is also the founder and director of Columbia University's trans-disciplinary DeathLAB Rothstein is also the co-founder of Latent Productions, an architecture, research, and development firm in New York City, which she co-founded in 1999 with Salvatore Perry. A significant focus of her architecture practice, research, and teaching has been redefining urban spaces of death and remembrance.
Anthony Dunne is a critical designer, educator and founder of the art group Dunne and Raby. He runs the studio with his long term partner and collaborator Fiona Raby.
Susan Cianciolo is a fashion designer and artist.
Cathrine Maclennan Kramer is a Norwegian artist, designer and curator.
J. Yolande Daniels is an American architect, designer and educator. She is a founding principal of studioSUMO, an architecture firm that speaks to socio-cultural landscapes through design.
Speculative design is a design practice concerned with future design proposals of a critical nature. The term was popularised by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby as a subsidiary of critical design. The aim is not to present commercially-driven design proposals but to design proposals that identify and debate crucial issues that might happen in the future. Speculative design is concerned with future consequences and implications of the relationship between science, technology, and humans. It problematizes this relation by proposing provocative future design scenarios where technology and design implications are accentuated. These design proposals are meant to trigger debates about the future rather than marketing products.
