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Design Blog Design Blog » Contemporary Design

Slideshow: Celebrating Design at the White House

Celebrating Design at the White House On Monday, July 14, Mrs. Laura Bush hosted the winners and finalists of the 2008 National Design Awards at a brunch reception at the White House. For members of the Museum’s staff, this event is one of the most anticipated and enjoyable experiences of the year, giving us a chance to personally meet and congratulate the amazing designers who are honored that day.

The highlight of the event is a presentation by the current First Lady. Mrs. Bush is beautiful, poised, and articulate. She’s also funny, telling us how in 1776, the Continental Congress asked Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson to create a new national seal; that process was design-by-committee in the worst way, taking six years to complete. Today, Mrs. Bush explained, the White House knows to hire a design professional to do design work.

And design professionals were there that day in abundance—some of the best in the world, from Lifetime Achievement winner Charles Harrison, who designed products in-house at Sears for over thirty years, to all six principals of Olin Partnership, winner in the Landscape Design category. These great designers will be honored again at a gala dinner at Cooper-Hewitt on October 23, 2008.

Mobilizing Resources


The majority of India’s poor still live in rural villages, while the many living in the urban areas have increasing purchasing power. In response to this growing disparity an Indian organization, GOONJ, has developed a large-scale resource mobilization initiative to re-use surplus clothing from the urban consumers to the rural poor; rather than simply giving away the clothing the villagers are motivated to engage in community projects such as the repair of roads or de-silting existing water in exchange for the clothing. Strategically, GOONJ started with recycled clothes – clothes did not involve heavy investments and policy changes – with plans to expand to deliver critical resources like medicines and books using the same distribution model.

The distribution network engages over 100 grassroots organizations as dispersal partners in rural areas since local groups can best analyze the needs of its locality and have access to some of the remotest regions. Urban collection camps are staffed by volunteers working with corporations and schools to collect and transport the recycled material.

Systemic changes to the way urban households think about discarding consumer goods and engaging with those less fortunate can have lasting impact throughout India. Lessons learned from observing those impacts and the ones learned from a scalable distribution network responding to populations living in poverty or post-disaster can be applied throughout the world. Started as a national movement it could turn into an international one.

Video: Boym Partners at GlassLab

Constantin and Laurene Boym of Boym Partners, a New York-based design studio, collaborated with GlassLab which set up shop last month in Cooper-Hewitt’s garden. Boym Partners, finalists for the 2008 National Design Award for Product Design, bring a playful, experimental approach to product design. Watch the video below to see them in action.

Watch this video in high quality

You can find more Cooper-Hewitt videos on YouTube and on our Video page.

Design Geography


Fernando and Humberto Campana grew up in Brotas, Brasil, 235 kilometers (146 miles) north of São Paulo. When the Campanas were growing up it was a small town that was renowned for its exuberant natural features and good soil for growing coffee.

“Brotas is home, it is where everything began. We had very little to do in such a small town, so the geography of our surroundings were the instruments of our playtime. Brotas is an (sub)urban place full of rivers, waterfalls, trees and animals and we carry these imprints whether we want it or not.

In Brotas we also learned about movies. The movie theater run by an uncle of ours showed all kinds of vanguard films such as Bertolucci, Stanley Kubrick, Fellini, Polanski and Brazilian productions. This allowed us to dream and create with no boundaries as these great filmmakers.

That played a very important part in our lives: today we try to translate that small countryside town into our designs.”

—Fernando and Humberto Campana

Straw and Earth


An energy-efficient straw bale house is being built on the Mall, across the street from the US Capitol. Natural builders from around the country converged on Washington DC to construct the straw shelter and a bamboo shade structure. Rose Morin, a green builder from New Mexico and one of the over dozen volunteers with Builders Without Borders who built the structures, notes “the strength of homes is in their essential simplicity.”

The eco-house is part of the US Botanic Gardens’ One Planet-Ours: Sustainability for the 22nd Century which features displays from over forty organizations and individuals, including the United Nations Environment Program and the US Department of Energy. It is on view from May 24 through Oct 13th, 2008.

Straw bale construction can be used for a variety of climates. Architects in a colder region like Finland use this building technique to keep the heat in, while in Mexico it protects from the intense heat. Designing with straw bale improves insulation, limits waste and reduces energy requirements while utilizing a renewable recyclable material. Builders Without Borders find because of these super-insulating qualities and their lower cost as an agricultural waste material this construction method can be highly suitable for solving the housing shortage in economically marginalized communities where culturally appropriate.