Cooper-Hewitt just acquired Nike’s latest high performance running shoe, Flyknit Racer, which uses the most advanced knitting technology and only the most essential materials to create an ultra-light and fast racing shoe. The Flyknit Racer is the first pair of Nike shoes to enter the collection and was chosen for its innovative use of textiles...
On February 27, 2012, fifty-some leaders from the academic, design, and funding communities convened at the New York offices of the Rockefeller Foundation for the Social Impact Design Summit. Convened by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in conjunction with the Lemelson Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Surdna Foundation, the convening aimed to develop...
This drawing was architect Rafael Viñoly’s presentation concept sketch for Verizon Hall, home of the Philadelphia Orchestra, as it appears from the west. Watercolors are an integral part of Viñoly’s working process, used in the early design stages to formalize his organizing concepts. Following the watercolors, more precise drawings present the actual resolution of the...
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the Social Impact Design Summit in New York with a group of renowned designers and architects who have dedicated their careers to solving our world’s toughest challenges. At the Summit, there were many important discussions about ideas, but what struck me most were the passionate...
The Social Impact Design Summit was a great opportunity to bring to the surface the controversies and commonalities within our new field of practice. We had representatives approaching design from corporate and nonprofit organizations, along with representatives from academia, with a correspondingly broad array of ideas about what constitutes social impact. For example, one company...
The latest in our 4 Questions 4 series interview Kevin Palmer, founding partner of London-based Kin Design. Kin Design is perhaps best known for their work for the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, recent work for the National Maritime Museum (London), and their custom covers for Wallpaper* Magazine. Seated in the beautiful North...
The Carnegie Mansion on Fifth Avenue, home of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, is closed for the next two years as it undergoes extensive renovations. The Museum’s National Design Library – established in the 1890s by the Museum’s founders, the Hewitt Sisters, at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art –...
Paul Johnson, who established Johnson Trading Gallery in 2007, welcomed Design Watch Members for a look into the gallery’s mix of vintage and contemporary pieces by emerging designers. Highlights included Max Lamb’s hand-molded wax and nanocrystalline copper chairs; Kwangho Lee’s customized electric cables hand-woven and fashioned into lamps; Ricky Clifton’s Egyptian-styled furniture and...
One participant, frog’s Robert Fabricant, captured the day’s conversation with a series of sketches. The one-day Social Impact Design Summit, held on February 27, 2012, brought together individuals who engage in socially responsible design every day: public-interest architects, industrial designers, planners, civil-society designers, landscape architects, engineers, and inventors from Australia, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the...
What? Design is a process that can solve problems, and socially responsible design is design that seeks to solve problems which vex the world’s poor and marginalized communities. Simply put, socially responsible design uses innovation and the tools of design to improve access to services such as healthcare and education and increase social, economic,...
We got in touch with Critter & Guitari, electronic instrument designers from Philadelphia, to ask them four questions about their practice of design, music, and art. COOPER-HEWITT: Owen, you studied Music at Dartmouth, and Chris, you studied electronics at ITP. Tell us how you met and when/how you knew you wanted to work together. CHRIS...
Cooper-Hewitt’s DesignPrep is a series of free design-education programs that introduces New York City high-school students to collegiate and career opportunities in design. Participating students attend design workshops with professional designers, visit design colleges as well as designers’ studios, and engage in professional development. Students from all over the city were invited to become...
Target: Design in the Classroom is an innovative new program that brings Cooper-Hewitt, to NYC schools. This video shows a kids-eye-view into a full day of design workshops at P.S. 124 in South Ozone, Queens. All K-12 teachers in NYC are eligible for this free, hands-on design workshop. Register online today at http://www.cooperhewitt.org/designK12registration to register...
a href="http://collection.cooperhewitt.org/view/objects/asitem/id/192804">Fibra. Designed by Eszter Haraszty for Knoll Textiles. United States, 1953. Screenprinted linen. Gift of Larry Weinberg, 2011-20-1. Photo: Matt Flynn For over seventy years, Knoll has been a leader in modern workplace furnishings and textiles. Cooper-Hewitt recently added forty pieces of Knoll textiles and furniture to the collection, most of which were recently...
Cooper-Hewitt recently acquired several original prototypes and drawings used to develop OXO's Good Grips product line. Cooper-Hewitt curators identified this line for the museum's collection because the products were a game-changing innovation iconic of late 20th century design. Watch this video to learn more about the story behind the objects.
