April 18, 2010
Oberlin, OH
Location of Airstream exhibition (parking spot): Woodland Street Lot, across from Science Center, 119 Woodland Street
Open exhibition times: 2:30 – 4:30pm
Location of lecture/presentation: Science Center, West Lecture Hall
Lecture time: 1:30 pm
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Recap: Oberlin, April 18th
Today was our LAST STOP on the road show! We added Oberlin to our itinerary recently, and were thrilled to be there as part of their Designing The Future conference, hosted by their Creativity & Leadership group. Many of our friends and colleagues are Oberlin alum, from Ralf Hotchkiss who designed the Whirlwind Wheelchair, to Tom Kelley of IDEO, and Peter Nicholson of Chicago’s Foresight Design Initiative (and my former employer post-grad school!).
We headed into the lecture at 1:30, during which I presented the history of Project H and our 6-value process (We design through action; We design with not for; We design systems not stuff; We document, share, and measure; We start locally and scale globally; We build). One of the questions to follow centered around the need for a “clearing house” of sorts, by which designers with great ideas could partner with a group like Project H to see their projects through production and implementation.
After the lecture we headed out to the trailer and were joined by a few people who were not in the lecture. In particular, a mother and her three young girls stopped by, and I spent about 30 minutes explaining everything to them from Y Water to the solar panel that powers our lights.
I also debated design education with Peter Nicholson, and we agreed that transdisciplinary collaboration was lacking, and that there was a need for “multi-lingual” designers who could function as creatives, businesspeople, anthropologists, and more. I have always believed that all designers should be double majors, or at least minor in something outside of design, as the best design exists as a tool for non-design disciplines (design for education, design for policy, etc).
We were also joined by a local bookseller who had copies of Design Revolution on hand, and I signed a few copies for visitors. A big thank you to Lauren Abendschein for helping us organize a very successful last stop!
