Designers, engineers, students and professors, architects, and social entrepreneurs from all over the globe are devising cost-effective ways to increase access to food and water, energy, education, healthcare, revenue-generating activities, and affordable transportation for those who most need them. And an increasing number of initiatives are providing solutions for underserved populations in developed countries such...

Yesterday Design Watch Members toured the 10,500 square-foot library branch in Battery Park City, New York Public Library’s ‘greenest’ location. NYPL wanted a forward-looking design to emphasize their commitment to the 21st century. The bright and open spaces create a welcoming sense of community, while the design of everything from the furniture to shelving and...

The Devastating Effect of the Tsunami in Sendai, Japan, on March 11th, 2011 The horrifying images on television of the earthquake and tsunami that afflicted the Japanese coastline last Friday remind us of the fragility of the civilization that we have developed on our planet, and show the enormous power of nature. Professor Shinichi Takemura...

The trend toward organic goods and ethical trade is spreading in the fashion world with a wealth of new initiatives to connect designers to sustainable resources and materials. Hear from Summer Rayne Oakes, Co-founder/CEO of Source4Style — a B2B marketplace that allows designers — both fashion and interior — to search, compare and purchase more...

  Two significant tools for American designers seeking to make their design process more sustainable have recently been announced. The first tool, which hopefully will have broad and positive implications for manufacturers of outdoor industry goods, is Eco-Index . Basically an assessment tool which evaluates a product’s environmental impact, Eco-Index allows manufacturers to measure six...

  The evening of May 19th capped off a three-day residency at the Cooper-Hewitt for Natalie Chanin, founder and designer of the design studio Alabama Chanin. Chanin, one of the founders of the burgeoning “slow fashion” movement, followed up her two-day Design Directions workshop for teenagers with an hour-long public lecture and book signing. “Lecture”...

Over the next two weeks on the Cooper-Hewitt Design Blog, students from an interdisciplinary graduate-level course on the Triennial taught by the Triennial curatorial team blog their impressions and inspirations of the current exhibition,‘Why Design Now?’.     This year the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s Triennial: Why Design Now? explores topics of sustainable design. Current...

Over the next two weeks on the Cooper-Hewitt Design Blog, students from an interdisciplinary graduate-level course on the Triennial taught by the Triennial curatorial team blog their impressions and inspirations of the current exhibition,‘Why Design Now?’.   Joe Gebbia is a San Francisco-based industrial designer and self-described “designtrepreneur,” as well as founding partner of the...

Michael Bierut and Yve Ludwig of Pentagram talk about designing the catalog for the National Design Triennial: Why Design Now? A partner at Pentagram, a critic at Yale and a co-founder of Design Observer, Michael is one of the world's most admired graphic designers. We at Cooper-Hewitt were thrilled with the design that he created...