Director’s Talks: Maria Nicanor in Conversation with ESTUDIO TEDDY CRUZ + FONNA FORMAN, 2026 National Design Award Winner, CLIMATE ACTION

Join Cooper Hewitt for a talk with Climate Action winner Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman—the latest program in a new series spotlighting the 2026 National Design Award winners in conversation with Director Maria Nicanor.

Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman lead an internationally recognized research-based design practice working along the U.S.–Mexico border. Their winning project, UCSD Community Stations, is a collaborative network of civic spaces—co-designed with local partners on both sides of the border wall—integrating cultural programming, scientific research, and community engagement to advance climate resilience and social equity.

About the Series

In this monthly series, Maria Nicanor, Director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, sits down with the 2026 National Design Award winners for one‑on‑one conversations at the museum. Spanning design disciplines and the ten award categories, each talk offers an inside look at the innovation, practice, and vision behind the work of this year’s winners.

The National Design Awards is a Cooper Hewitt initiative launched in 2000 as an official project of the White House Millennium Council. The awards and its associated public programs seek to increase national awareness of the impact of design in our everyday life.

Light refreshments will be provided after the conversation.

SPEAKERS

Two people in dark clothing standing together outdoors against a textured metal wall. The University of California San Diego (UCSD) Community Stations are a collaborative network of civic spaces along the U.S.–Mexico border, designed to advance climate resilience and social equity. Developed by Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, an internationally recognized research-based design practice, the stations support cross-border dialogue, participatory design, and research focused on regional migration and ecological interdependencies between San Diego and Tijuana. Located on both sides of the border wall, the stations are each co-designed and programmed with local partners to leverage university resources for climate adaptation strategies, including housing, public space, and environmental conservancy projects. By integrating cultural programming with scientific research and close community engagement, the stations aim to generate actionable knowledge for communities to address climate vulnerability and strengthen collective capacity for resilience. Cruz is an architect and serves as professor of spatial practice in the Department of Visual Arts, and Forman is professor of political science and founding director of the Center on Global Justice, both at the University of California San Diego.

Maria Nicanor is an architecture and design curator and historian. She is passionate about public access to culture and rethinking the traditional roles of museums by experimenting with new storytelling formats that connect cultural institutions with civic life. Before joining Cooper Hewitt as its director, Nicanor was the executive director of Rice Design Alliance at the Rice University School of Architecture, director of the Norman Foster Foundation in Madrid, and a curator at the Design, Architecture, and Digital Department of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Before that, Nicanor spent almost a decade as a curator working on exhibitions and architecture initiatives at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Accessibility & What to Expect:

Format: The program will begin with a brief welcome, then the speakers will engage in a moderated conversation. It will end with an optional Q&A with the audience. 
About the space: This program will take place in Cooper Hewitt’s Carnegie Library on the First floor of the museum. It is fully wheelchair accessible. There is an accessible restroom on the Ground floor. Read more about accessibility at Cooper Hewitt.
Accommodations: The program will have live CART captioning. If we can provide additional services to support your participation, email us at CHEducation@si.edu or let us know when you register. Please make your request as far in advance as possible—preferably at least ten days before the program date.
Recording: The program will be recorded and posted on Cooper Hewitt’s YouTube channel within two weeks.

SUPPORT

The 2026 Smithsonian National Design Awards and Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian’s Design Collection received generous support from:

LISA ROBERTS AND DAVID SELTZER
JON AND SHIGEMI IWATA

AMITA AND PURNENDU CHATTERJEE
ALEXANDRA & PAUL HERZAN
TARGET
TERRA FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN ART
ARTHUR F. AND ALICE E. ADAMS FOUNDATION

HENRY R. MUÑOZ III
IRENE AU AND BRADLEY HOROWITZ
CHRIS AND IRMA FRALIC
KIM AND AL EIBER
MARGARET GOULD STEWART AND DAVID STEWART
STEVE MILLER
KIMBERLY SCHUESSLER