Earlier this week, PSFK attended the first of two design events hosted by Good Magazine. The theme of the evening was ‘Design and the City’. Good invited a number of speakers to talk about how design is changing and enhancing the way we experience the urban environment specifically in New York city.
Robert Sherman of Mercy Corps & Gideon D’Arcangelo of ESI Design presented the Action Center to End World Hunger project. New York’s Action Center is the first-of-its-kind interactive experience that informs visitors about the root causes of hunger and empowers them to take action. ESI and Mercy developed a way for anyone to get involved in the fight against hunger even if you only have one minute available.
Allan Chochinov of Core77 and professor at The School of Visual Arts reviewed a recent MFA Design project assigned to students to rethink upper limb prosthetics. Students researched the problems by meeting with people who have lost limbs. The wide ranging solutions are beautiful and functional. All the projects are available for review at The Prosthetics Project site.
Karin Fong of Imaginary Forces showed design work the firm has done to renovate the Times Square Visitors center. Located in the landmark Embassy Movie Theatre, the renovation will bring the bright lights down to street level. Large scale dynamic signs and screen will be installed to add a modern contrast to the historic space. The new visitors center is set to open before January 1 2010.
John Mangin from the Center for Urban Pedagogy & Glen Cummings of MTWTF, presented the Envisioning Development Toolkit, set of teaching tools designed to help experts and laypeople communicate. The toolkit takes complex demographic data and displays it in an easy to use graphical manner. The intention is that community members can develop and articulate positive, nuanced visions for their neighborhood to the experts during planning debates. The toolkit is also way to get an overview of the dramatic development change that has overtaken many New York neighborhoods.
Michelle Mullineaux of designNYC gave an overview of the new organization. The desigNYC collective was formed by group of designers and design advocates with the mission of helping nonprofit and community groups in need of design services connect with professional, pro bono design resources. Creative firms looking to get involved can still register to donate services.
Finally, Mark Galbraith of Nau moderated a fashion show featuring clothing from the pop-up store. Mark spoke about Nau’s commitment to quality design and use of sustainable and recycled materials.
Good’s second event happens tonight in NYC. The theme is ‘New Ideas for New York’.
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