Having followed Robin Guenther’s work for some time, when Fast Company named this FAIA and LEED AP one of “The World’s 100 Most Creative People in Business 2012,” I was delighted, but not surprised. The sustainable healthcare design leader at Perkins + Will is known as a strong and persistent advocate for human- and planetary health. Her crusade to increase her own knowledge about our material world gives her the authority of someone with genuine concern for her fellow creatures and long-term experience in the complex filed of health care design. Her advice to the magazine’s readers about the materials we live with every day, is dramatic in its simplicity:

“If they don’t tell you what’s in it, you probably don’t want what’s in it.”

“Consult your nose—if it stinks, don’t use it.”

“Use carbohydrate-based materials when you can.”

With this in mind, I asked Robin to talk about the Health Products Disclosure (HPD) initiative, and how it may change our material world for the better. Read her realistic, but optimistic observations on everything from HPD’s short and long term influence on the built environment, to the power of the design community in creating positive change in the marketplace, and more.

Susan S. Szenasy:  You have been an eloquent advocate for patients (in fact anyone who works or visits) in the healthcare segment for as long as I can remember. Your ammo has been finding the least toxic, most healthy products available for the interiors you design. In view of your long and inspiring campaign for healthy interiors, what does the formation of HPD signal to you?

Robin Guenther: The HPD represents a major milestone in the advocacy for safer and healthier building materials.  For the first time, we will have access to important, accurate information on the contents of building materials – “a nutrition label,” so to speak, that we can use to inform our specifications. As the HPD information is used to build Pharos, the Healthy Building Network comparative tool, it will accelerate the possibility of independent comparisons of products, another important aspect of this quest. Read more…

One highlight of this year’s Architectural Digest Home Design Show was DIFFA’s Dining by Design. This special exhibition features a smorgasbord of more than 40 dining environments created through a series of collaborations between designers and design brands. These whimsical installations raise funds to support direct care for people living with HIV/AIDS and preventive education for those at risk. On March 25, a select group of lucky guests will get to enjoy an extravagant dining experience as the grand finale.

On the opening day, we were lucky enough to receive a private tour of Dining by Design from the very stylish Goil Amornvivat, a partner at Brooklyn’s TUG Studio, which designed one of our favorite environments (below). Here is a glimpse of what we saw at this year’s show.

Amornvivat stands with the installation TUG created with custom furniture designer Justin Huxol of Tietz-Baccon. Their design depicted playful scenes from around the world, and it was inspired by a wreath (below) TUG created with Whoopi Goldberg for last December’s DIFFA holiday auction.
Photo by Magda Biernat

Read more…

Those of us who watch the architecture and interior design professions from the sidelines can’t help but feel that we’re witnessing a squabble between a brother and a sister. Perhaps their contentious history can be attributed to growing pains, or it may be a result of poor definitions. After all, the skills necessary to design and erect a memorable building, are very different in scale and intent from making it delightfully habitable and functional. The current president of IFI, the International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers, Shashi Caan, thinks it’s a matter of definition.

So, this woman of action who, by the way, is trained as an architect and industrial designer and has a stellar career in interior architecture and design, has decided to make the global organization she heads up, the arbiter of definitions.  She is in a powerful position. IFI, distinguished from its other alphabet soup trade organizations, is known to bring together global forums on issues that local practitioners from 50 countries need to know about. There’s a lot of cross-cultural learning going on at these meetings. Research is a key topic. So is the future of the design and architecture professions.

Under Caan’s leadership, the organization is in the process of “exploring the value, relevance, responsibility and identity of Interior Architecture/Design.” Through the global policy initiative, Design Frontiers: The Interiors Entity (DFIE), madam president hopes to reach the consensus that, as she says, “has become critical” in view of the enormous challenges presented, globally, to everyone responsible for designing our cities, buildings, and interiors.

It will take 8 minutes of your time to provide your honest, real, and relevant answers here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/IFI_DesignFrontiers.
You have until January 27th to complete the survey. Then the answers will be tallied and be ready to be discussed at the DFIE Global Symposium in New York, on February 17-18, 2011.