The Metropolis Conference @ ICFF: Design Entrepreneurs: What’s Next

Monday, May 17, 2010
A full-day conference beginning at 10 a.m.
ICFF Theater
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York City
Space is limited. Register here.

Are you reinventing yourself? Your practice? If you’re a designer, architect, business owner, manufacturer, or educator, you’re looking for inventive ways to navigate the new economy. On this day you’ll get useful insights into what other creative people are doing. Be part of this timely conversation!

This program is registered for continuing-education credits.

10–10:15 a.m.
Welcome
Susan S. Szenasy, Metropolis’s editor in chief and the conference facilitator

10:15–11:15 a.m.
The Third Annual ASID New York Education Legacy Fund’s Horace Havemeyer III Keynote Address: Universal Design Now and Next
Valerie Fletcher, executive director of the Institute for Human Centered Design, asks: With the Baby Boom retiring and the millennials pushing the marketplace to new levels of creative problem-solving, what will the designs of our homes, workplaces, and public places need to become? What do we need to know? What’s in the works?

11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m.
Art and the Manufacturer
Andreas Dornbracht , the charismatic leader of the world-wide bathroom products company that bears his name, traces his firm’s unique arts program, how it’s evolving to reflect the new social consciousness about sustainability, and what it communicates about the firm’s vision and product offerings in a global market.

12:15–1:15 p.m.
Making the Financial Argument for Green
John Williams, teacher at Columbia University’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation and HDR Engineering’s senior vice president of sustainable development, offers useful pointers on how to convince your clients that green design is profitable design. What’s your next step in communicating green value and values?

1:15–1:45 p.m.
Lunch Break

1:45–2:45 p.m.
Green Design for the Desert
Jürgen Häpp, associate partner at Foster + Partners, discusses Abu Dhabi’s famous and infamous MASDAR City, publicized as a zero-carbon development. We travel with Häpp and Russ Wheeler, president of Hansgrohe North America, from the master plan and the architecture to the bathroom fixtures. What’s next for large-scale developments and water-related products?

2:45–3:45 p.m.
Design Policy and World Trade
What can the U.S. learn from countries with strong design policies? Robert Kloos from the Consulate General of the Netherlands; Andrej Kupetz of the German Design Council; and Leif Verdu-Isachsen, head of operations at the Foundation for Design and Architecture in Norway, report on programs that support design-oriented manufacturing as the backbone of successful global businesses.

3:45–4:45 p.m.
Design Innovations: Rapid-Fire Presentations

     Jennifer Leonard
     The IDEO designer reveals the plan behind the firm’s collaboration with Design
     21 on Livingclimatechange.com.

     Dan Wood
     WORK Architecture Company’s Edible Schoolyard is about to be built in
     Brooklyn. Lessons learned?

     Grace La and Mike Tennity
     La, associate professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the
     University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Mike Tennity, vice president of design
     and development, KI, will discuss the value of collaboration between academia
     and manufacturing, and the increasing importance in educating the next
     generation of architects and designers. La and Tennity will draw from their
     collaboration through a graduate student Studio led by Professors La and
     Dallman at UWM-SARUP.

     Yves Béhar
     Founder of fuseproject, Béhar shows objects designed by students using solar-cell
     technology developed by Swiss chemist Michael Grätzel. (The Sunny Memories
     collection, powered by the sun’s energy, is now on display at New York’s Center
     for Architecture.)

4:45–5 p.m.
The Next Generation of Design
Meet Metropolis’s 2010 Next Generation Design Competition honorees and learn about their brilliantly simple but far-reaching fixes that will make our environment better.

Space is limited. Register here.
 

Metropolis is a registered provider with the American Institute of Architects Continuing Education Systems. Credit earned on completion of this event will be reported to CES Records for AIA members by the provider. Certificates of completion for non-AIA members are available upon request.

Design Entrepreneurs: What’s Next is sponsored by the American Society of Interior Designers, Dornbracht, and Interiors from Spain.