A multitude of schools are at the forefront of devising low cost innovations around the world, these are only a few of the examples of initiatives and projects underway. Designmatters at Art Center College of Design develops a multi-component design solution for a mobile clinic in Kenya. A camel-packaging system improves efficiency, refrigeration units are...
An amazing group of teachers just spent the week at Cooper-Hewitt, participating in our on-going City of Neighborhoods program for educators. This year, the museum invited around forty teachers from New Orleans to take part in a week-long study of how design can work in the classroom, with a focus on exploring one’s local community....
Many families are still crowded into one-bedroom FEMA trailers even 2 years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the US Gulf Coast. The Building Goodness Foundation has been providing relief to these cramped conditions building extra rooms for storage or a living room, even an extra bedroom. Over 150 of these extra rooms have been built in...
The show was conceived to begin a conversation and provoke discussion about the broad range of ways various organizations and individuals are addressing the underpinnings of poverty through design innovations. The selected objects tell a story and are windows into the numerous ways these groups are providing direct solutions. This blog will allow the discussion...
Though we knew that we may find it tough to ship several of the objects, our registrars and exhibitions department have had to make extraordinary efforts to make arrangements to bring objects from remote areas around the world. In the beginning of March we received an email from Nigeria. Mohammed Bah Abba, the designer of...
On April 19, Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey spoke here at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum about their work as owners of the legendary California pottery maker Heath, founded by Edith Heath in the mid-1940s. Their presentation had everyone thinking about the role of craft in manufacturing. They explain, “We believe that the craft of manufacturing...
