The IDSA Northwest Chapter and Design for the Majority section present the 2010 Design Debate: “Can Design Save the World?” on Thursday, June 17^th at 7:00 pm at the Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park Pavilion.  This moderated panel discussion will include an interdisciplinary panel of design professionals from the fields of industrial design, architecture, graphic design, interaction design and user research.  The panel will discuss and debate issues related to designing sustainable products, structures and businesses for the 5.3 billion people living in less developed regions of the world.

Details:

Thursday, June 17^th, 2010

7:00 pm – Doors open

7:00 to 7:30 – Hors d’ouevre and drinks.

7:30 – Design Debate begins

Cash bar open following the debate.

SAM Olympic Sculpture Park Pavilion Building, 2901 Western Avenue, Seattle, WA 98121

Registration Online: (Closes June 11^th)

IDSA, AIA, AIGA Members = $15
General Public = $30
Students = $10

Registration at the Door:

IDSA, AIA, AIGA Members = $25
General Public = 45
Students = $15

Panelist Biographies:

Sergio Palleroni, Professor and Fellow of the new Center for Sustainable Processes and Practices at Portland State University , and was a Professor at the University of Texas, Austin, and the University of Washington for 18 years where he  founded the Basic Initiative (www.basicinitiative.org) , a multidisciplinary fieldwork program which each year challenges students from US and schools worldwide into apply their education in the field in service of the problems facing marginalized communities throughout the world. He has worked on sustainable architecture and community design in the developing world since the early1980’s both for not-for-profit agencies and governmental and international agencies such as UNESCO, World Bank, and the governments of China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Taiwan. His work with students has received numerous national and international awards, including the 1997 American Institute of Architects/ Association of Collegiate Schools of  Architecture National Education Award, the 2003 and 2006 NCARB Prize for Creative Integration of Practice and Education, the 2005 US  National Design Award given annually by the Smithsonian, and the first Global Impact Award from the Global Convention on Architecture in 2010, as well as  international  design awards from  Mexico, Colombia, Japan, Taiwan, Greece, Spain, and the US for his work making sustainability accessible to the traditionally underserved. The work of the BASIC Initiative has been most recently been documented in Studio At Large: Architecture in Service of Global Communities (2004), Building a Strawbale House (2005), and Architecture Like You Give a Damn (2006),  Teaching Sustainability in Asia (2007), Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism (2009), as well several television programs, including, “Green for All” a segment in the PBS series Design e2  (2006), all  which explore the BASIC Initiatives efforts to improve, and make sustainable, the lives of the globes poorest citizens.

Jason Morris is an associate professor of industrial design at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA.  Prior to his career switch to academia, he was a principal of the consulting product design firm tool. in Marblehead, Massachusetts.  Jason earned his Master’s of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering.  He is currently working on producing the first biographical documentary film about the pioneering industrial designer, Walter Dorwin Teague. Beginning in 2005 Jason began working collaboratively with bicycle couriers in Uganda to design a  new bicycle specifically for their unique use.  The prototype of this design was brought to Uganda in 2007 to be tested and critiqued by the Ugandans.  Although the bicycle design had it’s successes and failures, the process of this design project had significant positive impact on the lives of all involved.

Kara Pecknold has a graduate degree in Design and her research is presented as a case study in IDEO’s Human-Centered Design Toolkit. She is a graduate member of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada and has joined the Designer’s Accord. Kara currently teaches design at Emily Carr University while also working as a design research consultant with their research office. In this role, she has been focused on design and health care solutions for international communities. This summer, she is partnering with a local university to focus on design strategies that will impact food fortification systems in Rwanda. Under the name of Olivelife Creative, she has worked on freelance projects in design, writing and photography. Kara has had various experiences working as a designer in Rwanda and is interested in how to design when language and technology are not shared. Her graduate research considered how to design with rural communities and the impact of communication design on those who may not have access to technology or information. As we live in a world that is inherently cross-cultural, Kara suggests that these experiences are not just about designing in Rwanda but rather one example of what it now means to work in a global economy.

Michael Cetaruk is an Associate Creative Director at frog design. Michael Cetaruk joined frog in 2003. He leads interaction design projects ranging from iphone app to web applications for enterprise. His client list includes Movirtu, CA, Huawei, Sprint, Cisco, AMD, Microsoft, PeopleSoft, GE, Blockbuster, Vodafone, and Hawaiian Airlines among many others. Originally from Boston, MA, — now in Austin, TX, Michael has traveled widely personally and professionally, living and working in Asia and Africa, often having the opportunity to engage in local cultures in the developing world. Most recently, he has conducted a design collaboration with Movirtu to bring mobile communications sharing applications to those who cannot afford their own individual mobile handset, SIM, or monthly subscription.

Kevin Flick is a program officer with the Safe Water Project. As the Consumer Product Officer, Kevin is responsible for ensuring that our safe water product offerings meet the needs of our eventual consumers—those in the developing world making between $1 and $5 per day, or “bottom of pyramid” consumers. He works at the strategic level to ensure our research is taking us in the right direction and also manages our tactical usability research. Prior to joining PATH in 2009, Kevin spent four years on the hardware team at the Microsoft Corporation, leading user research for categories such as PC gaming hardware and new input/output devices for the PC. He has worked in prosthetic leg research and development, on musculoskeletal dynamics of insect flight, and in education as a high school teacher and teacher educator. He has a PhD in Zoology from the University of Washington, and a BA in Biology from Boston University.  At PATH, we believe that poor health and poverty do not need to go hand-in-hand.  Within that context, Kevin works to ensure that PATH Safe Water Project products meet the cultural, functional, aesthetic, and economic needs of the people we’re trying to serve.