Designmatters Vice President Mariana Amatullo is quoted in Jon Kolko’s new book entitled Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving. In the book, Kolko discusses the idea of involving end users in the entire design process and how this could affect the overall design solution.
Jon Kolko is the founder and director of Austin Center for Design, a progressive educational institution teaching interaction design and social entrepreneurship. His work focuses on bringing the power of design to social enterprises, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship and large-scale industry disruption.
Click here to read an excerpt from the book, and here to purchase a copy.
Safe Agua Peru project Vitamigos has moved on to the Semi-Finals of the Dell Social Innovation Challenge (DSIC). As a semi-finalists, Vitamigos designers Cora Neil and Thomas Kong will receive mentoring from a DSIC-Certified Mentor to help refine their project page and required finals materials. They will also be in the running for 1 of 5 grand prize cash awards totaling $105,000.
Vitamigos creates a new, fun, playful, and interactive experience for moms and kids that combines water purification and nutrition in a tasty beverage.
The Dell Social Innovation Challenge identifies and supports promising young social innovators who dedicate themselves to solving the world’s most pressing problems with their transformative ideas.
Click here to learn more. The contest runs through May 13, so be sure to register and vote!
Core77 Design Awards 2012: Meet the Jury, Mariana Amatullo – Educational Initiatives
March 2012
Core77 interviews Mariana Amatullo, jury captain for the Educational Initiatives category, about her team members and also gets some insight into her thoughts on the critical crossroads facing design education.
The Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network (CIMTAN) features the Designmatters realworld studio, Project Coastal Crisis in it’s latest newsletter.
The newsletter entitled “CIMTAN Snippets” showcases the work of Project Coastal Crisis’ Aquateam with students German Aguirre, Derrick Tan, and Jessica Lee. They developed an interactive display/game that illustrates the benefits of IMTA ( Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture.)
Project Coastal Crisis is a collaboration between Designmatters and the Aquarium of the Pacific. The project challenged students to develop educational campaign strategies and products to bring public awareness about the impact of Sea Level Rise in Southern California Coastal communities.
The Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network (CIMTAN) is a network of researchers with complementary expertise from across Canada that promote and practice the IMTA concept.
Click here to download the “CIMTAN Snippets” newsletter.
A mixed media campaign to promote colorectal cancer screening, spearheaded by Art Center College of Design, The American Cancer Society and the Mayo Clinic Center for innovation, has been adopted by more than 60 organizations affiliated with the National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable and launched in conjunction with National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.
Family PLZ! is a collaboration between Designmatters and the Graphic Design department. The campaign was designed by Graphic Design, Advertising and Graduate Media Design students in a trans-disciplinary studio class led by faculty members Dirk-Mario Boltz, Jason Brush and Allison Goodman.
Initially launched in Fall 2011, with renewed support during National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month that is being observed throughout March 2012, the Family PLZ! campaign uses contemporary media channels and social networks to promote family history as a key factor in the need for colorectal cancer screening.
For more info about the Family PLZ! campaign click here.
Download the full press release here.
Core77 recently announced the jury panels for the upcoming 2012 Core77 Design Awards. Designmatters Vice President, Mariana Amatullo was selected jury captain of the Educational Initiatives category. Joining her are; Karen Hofmann, Director of Color, Materials and Trends Exploration Laboratory, Chair of Product Design, Art Center College of Design, Alexandre Hennen, Director of Continuum Los Angeles and Johanna Blakely, Managing Director & Director of Research, USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center.
Katherine Bennet, Associate Professor of Industrial Design, Humanities and Design Science, is also representing Art Center as an adjudicator for the Core77 Awards. She was chosen to be a member of the Strategy and Research jury!
Launched in 1995, Core77 serves a devoted global audience of design professionals, corporations, students, enthusiasts and fans. The Core77 Design Awards celebrate the richness of the design profession and its practitioners by recognizing excellence in all areas of design enterprise.
The contest is now open for entries. Submit by March 13 for 20% off entry fees.
To learn more click here.
GE: ecomagination
February 2012
by Earnest Beck
Mariana Amatullo featured in this GE: ecomagination blog entry about an innovative solar powered portable light designed by graduate architecture students at New York’s Columbia University to address the lack of electricity in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.
Earth Techling
February 2012
by Jeanne Roberts
A short article about award winning Safe Agua Peru project GiraDora designed by Alec Cabunoc and Ji A You.
MásDeco/La Tercera
February 2012
by Soledad Garcia-Huidobro
An article that features Designmatters frequent collaborators Un Techo para mi País Chile, whose Innovation Center was recently selected to be 1 of 7 finalists in the ICSID World Design Awards for the ongoing Safe Agua Project.
Pasadena Sun
February 2012
by Adolfo Flores
An article highlighting the recent Friends of the Bad Weather Shelter Campaign, a collaboration between Designmatters and the City of Pasadena.
The 2011 Spark Awards had a total of 445 top notch entries. Six out of six Safe Agua projects were finalists. The Safe Agua team walked away with the highest honor, the Spark! Award for GiraDora, as well as a Gold Award for Balde a Balde and a Bronze Award for VitAmigos.
GiraDora (design team, Alex Cabunoc & Ji A You) is a human-powered washer and spin dryer to increase efficiency and improve the experience of washing clothes by hand.
Balde a Balde (designer, Kimberly Chow) Spanish for “Bucket to bucket” is a portable faucet that provides running water from any bucket.
VitAmigos (design team, Thomas Kong & Cora Neil) is a new fun, playful, and interactive experience for moms and kids that brings together water purification & nutrition in a tasty beverage.
In addition to the awards, the winner’s work will be showcased in Spark’s unique design exhibition at San Francisco’s Autodesk Design Gallery and at the Guangzhou Design Week in early December.
Spark is a community of designers and creative people, bound together by the idea that design can make significant, positive changes in the world and help make it better. They promote these ideals through the annual organization of international design competitions, exhibitions, blogs and workshops.
SAFE AGUA Peru is a collaboration between Designmatters at Art Center College of Design, the Latin American NGO, Un Techo para mi Pais and its Innovation Center. Safe Agua aims to co-create innovative design solutions to overcome water poverty with families living in Cerro Verde, a 30,000-person slum [asentamientos] perched on the hillsides surrounding Lima, Peru.
To learn more about Safe Agua Peru click here.
Click here to read the Spark Awards press release.
The past year GradID student Siddharth Vanchinathan along with other select Art Center students participated in a joint project with Caltech and SaintGITS that took them all the way to Kerala, India to conduct field research. The Caltech class entitled Design for Development was led by visiting Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Ken Pickar. Instructor Nathan Allen (Product Design) served as the Art Center faculty mentor for the team. The goal of the class was to come up with innovative solutions to help industrial laborers in the Kottayam district of Kerala, India.
Siddharth was part of the Ideabag team along with Alta Fang (Caltech), Stephanie Kato (Caltech), Cinny Sunny (ST GITS) and Sajith Sundar (ST GITS). They designed a gravitational mixing process that could considerably lessen the workload of the laborers at the Vembanad Chemicals facility in Kottayam.
As part of the class, the team/project with the best final paper with a commitment to continue implementation wins a $1000 prize. The Ideabag team plans to use the funds to help facilitate future prototyping and engineering costs when implementing the first pilot in Kottayam.
To learn more about the project check out Siddharth’s blog
Safe Agua – Ducha Halo has been selected by the jury for a Design Ignites Change Implementation Award. The awardees are given a financial grant to help fund the implementation of student initiatives with powerful and provocative solutions. In addition to the grant, Ducha Halo is also featured on the Design Ignites Change website.
Ducha Halo an outcome of the Safe Agua Chile studio, is an affordable pressurized shower solution that brings the dignity and well-being of a hot shower to people living with no running water and inconsistent electricity.
Design Ignites Change is a world studio program that supports designers and architects who want to make a difference.
To learn more click here.
Safe Agua Peru project’s Balde a Balde and GiraDora are part of a select group of student design projects that will be showcased at the NCIIA 2012 Open Minds Conference, March 22-23 in San Francisco.
Open Minds is the acclaimed annual exhibition of cutting-edge innovation from NCIIA’s best student teams. The exhibition takes place each year during NCIIA’s annual conference, and is an opportunity for student teams to demonstrate their products and companies, and receive local and national media coverage.
To learn more click here.
Designmatters, Graduate Media Design and the Humanities and Design Sciences Departments are hosting a guest lecture by Ezio Manzini, Founder of DESIS (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability).
Ezio Manzini is a professor at the Politecnico di Milano in Italy and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Parsons, the New School for Design, in New York. For more than two decades, Manzini has been working in the field of design for sustainability. Most recently, his interests are focused specifically on social innovation as a major driver of sustainable changes and what design can do to support it. With this perspective, he founded and currently coordinates DESIS (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability). DESIS is a network of design labs (Designmatters/Art Center is one of the labs) based in design schools and design-oriented universities actively involved in promoting and supporting social change.
Design as a Catalyst of Social Resources: How Designers Can Trigger and Support Sustainable Changes
February 16, 2012 5PM
Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles Times Media Center
Click here to download event poster
Safe Agua Peru projects Balde A Balde, GiraDora and Vitamigos are in the running for a Peoples Choice Award from the Dell Social Innovation Challenge.
Balde a Balde designed by Kim Chow (Product Design) and Carlos Vides (Environmental Design), is a portable faucet that delivers pipeless running water from any bucket, alleviating many of the health and financial costs of using stagnant water.
GiraDora designed by Alex Cabunoc (Product Design and Jia You (Environmental Design) is a human-powered washer and spin dryer to increase the efficiency and improve the experience of washing clothes by hand.
Vitamigos designed by Cora Neil (Environmental Design) and Thomas Kong (Product Design) creates a new, fun, playful, and interactive experience for moms and kids that combines water purification and nutrition in a tasty beverage.
The Dell Social Innovation Challenge identifies and supports promising young social innovators who dedicate themselves to solving the world’s most pressing problems with their transformative ideas.
Click here to learn more. The contest runs through May 13, so be sure to register and vote!
As NCIIA Sustainable Vision Grantees, key members from the Safe Agua Peru team will be attending the Dell Social Innovation Challenge Sustainable Vision Venturelab to share preliminary design outcomes from the course and continue learning strategies to move the projects further.
The VentureLab is an intensive, five-day, highly experiential and immersive workshop designed to enhance the success of your venture. Participants develop strong, sustainable business models that create products or services for the benefit of people living in poverty.
The lab will be held at the University of Texas, Austin – January 12-16, 2012
To learn more click here.
Change Observer
December 2011
by David Stairs
David Stairs shares his thoughts about the “Design with the Other 90%: CITIES” Exhibit at the United Nations, where the Safe Agua Chile project was recently showcased.
Happy Holidays and Season’s Greetings from Designmatters.
In September, Mariana Amatullo and Eduardo Strakowskij curated a special Desis Exhibition at the Denver Cumulus Conference. In October, this same exhibit was presented at The Tao of Sustainability Conference in Beijing along with special case studies from China. The Desis Exhibition is an outcome of the Desis Network and aims to encourage discussion on the global state of the art of social innovation and sustainability.
The DESIS Network is a constellation of autonomous but interconnected DESIS Labs. Given this system architecture it offers the very unique possibility to integrate local and global points of view and to promote open design programs where a variety of projects converge, tackling complex problems and generating larger scenarios.
For more info on the Desis Exhibition click here.
The most recent issue of Pasadena Foothills Magazine’s 50 Creative People features several of Art Center’s best and brightest.
Click here to read the full magazine online. Download PDF here.
The Smithsonian Channel is currently airing the Design with the Other 90% documentary mini-series which includes interviews with faculty and students from the Safe Agua project as well as documentary footage from Broadcast Cinema alumna Elizabeth Bayne’s Safe Agua Documentary. Click here for showtimes
The Impact • Design for Social Change (student organization) headed by Mariana Prieto (Product Design) and Erik Molano (Graphic Design) has been busy organizing Art Center’s very own Tedx event that will address design’s important role in social impact. The event will take place June 9, 2012. Students can participate by enrolling in the TEDx course supported by Designmatters.
For more info on how to get involved contact Mariana Prieto at artcenter.impact@gmail.com
Ashoka, Changemakers
November, 7 2011
by Kristie Wang
Product Design Alumni Jessica Yeh and Narbeh Dereghishian’s award winning Safe Agua, Ducha Halo project is featured in Ashoka’s Changemakers Idea ExChange blog with other socially innovative products focused on helping people around the world access clean water and use it more efficiently.
Change Observer
October 2011
by William Drenttel and Julie Lasky
An update on what transpired at the Winterhouse Second Symposium on Design Education and Social Change.
Safe Agua Chile projects Gota a Gota (students – Stella Hernandez, Nubia Mercado, Diane Jie Wei), reLAVA (students – KC Cho, Jacqueline Black) and Research Methodology Cards (faculty – Penny Herscovitch, Dan Gottlieb, Liliana Becerra) will be featured in the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s “Design with the Other 90%: Cities” Exhibition at the United Nations (October 15, 2011-January 9, 2012) The Smithsonian Channel will also be airing portions of The Safe Agua Documentary by Broadcast Cinema alumna Elizabeth Bayne, as part of a corresponding Design with the Other 90% documentary mini-series.
Safe Agua is a social innovation collaboration between Designmatters at Art Center College of Design and Chilean NGO Un Techo Para mi Pais (Un Techo). This unique combination of design education, design research, and social entrepreneurship aims to help families in Chile’s campamentos (slums) overcome water poverty.
Click here for more info about Design with the Other 90%
Change Observer
October 2011
by Julie Lasky
Introduction to Art Center’s Media Design Matters program, a new graduate track in social design that combines communications strategies with field work.
Designmatters own Mariana Amatullo is featured in a taped interview for Diseñadores+1 and El Diario Diseño. Mariana discusses design education, social change and how Designmatters at Art Center College of Design is making a difference through our groundbreaking, award winning and socially innovative project outcomes.
Click here to watch the interview.
Mariana Amatullo will be a featured panelist alongside esteemed colleagues Anne Burdick, Chair, Graduate Media Design Program – Art Center College of Design, Alan Chochinov, Chair, MFA Products of Design – School of Visual Arts, and Jamer Hunt, Director, MFA Transdisciplinary Design – Parsons the New School for Design.
With an introduction by
Manuel Toscano, Principal, ZAGO, AIGA National Director for Social Engagement
Moderator
Cameron Tonkinwise, Associate Dean for Sustainability, Parsons the New School for Design
And special guest
Christopher Fabian, Tech4Dev, UNICEF
The event is presented by Design for Good, an AIGA initiative and will take place October 19, 2011 at the US Fund for UNICEF.
Click here for details.
The New York Times
September 2011
by Donald G. McNeil Jr.
An article about recent Art Center Alumni Narbeh Dereghishian and Jessica Yeh’s award winning Ducha Halo portable shower system, which was an outcome of the Designmatters Safe Agua Chile Project in partnership with the Innovation Center, Un Techo Para mi Pais.
Design Ignites Change recently began profiling college and university design programs that are integrating a socially responsible agenda into their curriculum and dedicating resources to support students in their creative efforts to make a positive impact around the world. Designmatters at Art Center College of Design is the first to be featured in this new series.
Read more here
Safe Agua addresses quotidian challenges of safe water access for families living in Latin American slum developments. Driven by field research in Santiago, Chile, the team designed innovative water solutions, implemented by the NGO client: 10 Mila community laundries, Relava kitchen workstations, and 1000s of Ducha Halo portable showers.
Click here to read more.
The World Design Impact Prize established by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) is an innovative and interactive design prize dedicated to stimulating socially responsible design projects and initiatives around the world. Designmatters has been nominated for this prestigious prize.
To learn more click here. Make sure you spread the word by tweeting and sharing with your friends.
June 2011
The James Lemont Fogg Memorial Library at Art Center College of Design has created a library source guide to support the Designmatters Concentration, focusing on the four core themes: Sustainable Development, Global Health, Public Policy and Social Entrepreneurship.
The resource guide can be accessed directly here (or though the Designmatters Resource page below).
June 2011
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is hosting an exhibit on innovative and affordable designs to provide safe water, internet solutions and entrepreneurship opportunities for people living in poverty. Six different safe water solutions developed by Designmatters at the Art Center College of Design in partnership with the Innovation Center of Un Techo Para Mi Pais will be on display.
The exhibit will be in Washington, DC from June 6-10 at the atrium of the IDB’s headquarters.
The Huffington Post
May 2011
by Alla Kazovsky
Introduction to Art Center’s Designmatters department as the first design institution to be declared a partner of United Nations as a NGO and its recent projects, including Mpala, Es Tiempo and Safe Agua.
Pasadena Weekly
by Carl Kozlowski
April 2011
Art Center exhibit focuses on America’s largest group of people living with HIV/AIDS.
Be the Change: Save a Life
March 2011
Brilliant minds and their game changing innovations gathered at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on Saturday March 26th.
Good Magazine
by Ernest Beck
March 2011
An article about the fast growing trend of social design education at Art Center and other top design schools.
Open Minds is NCIIA’s (National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance) annual exhibition showcasing innovative products and designs by students from some of the top universities and colleges in the country.
Narbeh Dereghishian (Product Design) and Jessica Yeh (Environmental Design) are one of only 15 student teams selected by the NCIIA (National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance) to showcase their work at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington D.C. on March 26, as well as take part in an exciting video competition. The exhibition will be open to the public on Saturday from 10am – 2pm.
Narbeh and Jessica’s video entry “Safe Agua – Ducha Halo,” is a short film documenting the process of developing an affordable and pressurized shower solution built for the developing world. The Ducha Halo video captures the outcome of the Safe Agua Designmatters project in collaboration with the Innovation Center of Un Techo Para Mi Pais. Please support them by casting your vote on the Inventors Digest Website. The Competition ends March 14 so vote soon and often.
Pasadena Magazine
January 2011
by Claire Standish
Interview with Environmental Design student Stephanie Rose Stalker, designer of SAFE AGUA community laundry center Mila.
Le Monde
October 29, 2010
By Hubert Guillaud
Designmatters Safe Agua Project is featured in the French Le Monde.
Angeleno Magazine
by Lisa Sweetingham
An article on the products designed by students to help those in need.
International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) Newsletter
The Safe Agua project is profiled by ICSID in the council’s newsletter.
Core 77
By Core Jr
Mariana Amatullo interviews with Core77 regarding Designmatters Concentration.
ChangeObserver
by Ernest Beck
An article updates Camel Mobile Clinic filed-testing in Kenya and Ethiopia.
ChangeObserver
by Ernest Beck
An article that updates Camel Mobile Clinic filed-testing in Kenya and Ethiopia.
ChangeObserver
by Ernest Beck
A campaign to protect the health of Southern California’s Latinas overturns conventional assumptions of why these women fail to seek preventive measures.
The design innovation aspects of a camel saddle system that integrates solar technology for mobile clinics in Africa (a Designmatters ongoing collaboration with Princeton and Nomadic Communities Trust) was profiled in several articles since December, 2009:
Solar Powered Camel Clinics Deliver Vaccines to Kenya
Wired UK/News Culture
By Michael Conroy
Using Camels to Deliver Health Care in Rural Africa
Toronto Star, Canada
By Craig and Marc Kielburger
*Also republished in the Huffington Post
Solar Powered Camel
Greenz Magazine, Japan
By Yukiko Matsuoka
Despues del Techo, Agua
Interview to the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio and its week-end design magazine edition that featured the project.
Fast Company
By Alissa Walker
Article introduces the outcomes of Designmatters “Safe Agua Chile” project.
Core77
By Andrea Mangini
An article about global summit activities and reports focused on sustainability and education, which was held by Designers Accord.
DesignObserver
Mariana Amatullo reports on the Aspen Design Summit.
Ashoka Tech
By Diana Corrales
Ashoka Tech blog profiles Safe Agua Chile Project and student process with weekly series.
Articles highlighting the Designmatters Fall 2009 “Safe Agua Chile” project, conducted in partnership with the Santiago-based humanitarian organization “Un Techo Para Chile.” The studio is focused on products and environmental interventions to help slum-dwellers transport, store, efficiently, conserve and re-use water in their daily lives.
Gota a gota: La lucha por el agua en un campamento
La Tercera Newspaper, Chile
View Website
U.S. Design School Teams Up with ‘Un Techo Para Chile’
The Santiago Times, Chile
View PDF
Mariana Amatullo Directora Designmatters
El Diario Diseno, Chile
View PDF
Escuela que disena Ferraris alivia la falta de agua en campamentos
El Mercurio Newspaper, Chile
By Lorena Guzman H.
View PDF
Six Solutions for Saving Water and Saving Lives
Fast Company
By Alissa Walker
View Website
Design21
By Paul Young
Article about the IMI porject and the Designmatters/Caltech Collaboration in the class “Engineering Design of Products for the Developing World.”
Print Magazine
By Monica Racic
The Designmatters program is highlighted as one of the best philanthropy programs in design education.
Oberholtzer Visual Culture
An interview with Mariana Amatullo regarding “The Los Angeles Earthquake: Get Ready” project.
Core77
By Robert Blinn
A review of The LA Earthquake Sourcebook, which was released in collaboration with “The Great Southern California ShakeOut.”
Curbed L.A.
By Marissa Gluck
Art Center is referenced here in this article about “The L.A. Earthquake Sourcebook.”
Print Magazine
By Paul Morris
This article describes the poster exhibition “Images from Human Rights: Student Voices” at Pasadena’s Central Library, designed by sixteen Art Center students.
STEP Inside Design
By Tom Biederdick
Art Center is featured in this article about Designmatters and “The L.A. Earthquake: Get Ready” project.
Pasadena Star News
By Janette Williams
This article features Art Center’s “Human Rights: Stuent Voices” exhibit at the Pasadena Central Library.
Pasadena Weekly
By Joe Piasecki
Art Center’s exhibit “Human Rights: Student Voices” was featured in the Pasadena Weekly.
Time Magazine
By Amanda Ripley
Mariana Amatullo an Art Center are mentioned in this article about the Southern California Shakeout.
Wall Street Journal
By Gabriel Kahn
This article references Designmatters’ role in organizing the “Get Ready Rally.”
Wired
By Alexis Madrigal
This post showcases the earthquake response game “Aftershock.”
Core77
By Mark Vanerbeeken
This article places Aftershock within the context of the larger design initiative “The Los Angeles Earthquake: Get ready.”
Design21
By Mariana Amatullo
Mariana Amatullo outlines the Great Southern California ShakeOut.
NEED Magazine, Issue 5
By Meghan Garrity
The Mpala project is profiled in this article on solar energy in the developing world.
Core77
By Mariana Amatullo
Mariana Amatullo, Vice President of Designmatters, speaks about design education for social change.
Design-Altruism-Project
By David Stairs
Designmatters mentioned in this article on education as good citizenship.
Ping Mag
By Aroldo Cardoso Jr.
The Katrina Furniture Project is featured in this interview with Cynthua E. Smith, curator of the “Design for the Other 90%” exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt.
Project H Design
A post highlighting Designmatters.
La Opinion
By Pablo Baler
An article featuring the Cihame photography project.
Design21
By Sarah Lidgus
Designmatters program and projects profiled in Design21, a social design network in partnership with UNESCO.
Metropolis
By Stephen Sacks
The Color Guard Mosquito Net developed in the GE Healthcare: Anywhere studio is featured in this article on product and industrial design work by students in the U.S. and Europe.
Pasadena Star News
By Larry Wilson
This article highlights the “Action: Art Center and the United Nations” exhibit at South Campus.
Pasadena Weekly
By Ellen Snortland
An article profiling the Designmatters initiative.
I.D. Magazine
By Jessie Scanlon
This article features the work done in the Nyumbani Village project.