Oberlin

Schedule of Events

FRIDAY APRIL 16

Growing Design Visions
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Carleton Varney ‘58, President and Owner, Dorothy Draper & co.
8:00pm Finney Chapel

Followed by:

OBERLIN GREEN DREAMS: A FASHION SHOW

Special guest judges Carleton Varney ‘58, Michael Alexin ‘79, Brad Walsh ‘04, and Assiatou Diallo ‘08.

Welcome to Oberlin’s fashion lab, where a new approach to college apparel is being born from the intersection of Oberlin’s identity and the talent of our students. Oberlin Green Dreams is a fusion of a fashion show’s performative potential with its roots as a commercial showcase. Green, a color dear to the hearts of environmentally conscious Obies everywhere, is a universal symbol of growth, change, and liberation. Chromakey green, on the other hand, is a color so rarely seen in nature that it is used as a placeholder for computer-generated images. Exploring this contradiction between the naturally harmonious and the artificially constructed Oberlin Green Dreams will usher in a new age of Oberlin fashion.

SATURDAY APRIL 17

DESIGN FOR THE ARTS
10:00am-11:30am Craig Lecture Hall

In the world of commercial/consumer products design is often a regimented process, which moves fairly seamlessly from R&D to end-user delivery; with information flowing fairly freely among manufacturer, retailer, and consumer.  Opportunities for collaboration are built into the process.

In the arts world the opportunities for collaboration and formal sharing of information are not as prevalent.  How does an artist, the so-called creator, collaborate with various interpreters (directors, designers, performers, marketers) to deliver art that remains true to the artist’s vision and delivers a valuable experience to the audience?

David Lang, Composer, Co-founder, Bang on a Can, panelist
Tom Shepard ‘58, panelist
Eric Einhorn ‘02, Stage Director, panelist
Steven Roth ‘77, Independent Arts Marketing Consultant, moderator

DESIGNING SPACE: FOUR CASE STUDIES
10:00am-11:30am West Lecture Hall

Jonathan Kurtz, Associate Project Designer, Westlake Reed Leskosky, panelist

David H. Stull ‘90, Dean, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, panelist

“Design for Learning: The Kohl Building”

The Kohl Building, which will open on May 1, is brilliantly conceived to bring students and faculty together in a space that reflects Oberlin’s dedication to the pursuit of great art, to harmony within our community, and to the imperative need to steward our environment. How do you design an innovative space that meets a highly complex series of programmatic demands in a way that inspires transformational teaching and learning?

John Harwood, Assistant Professor of Art, panelist

“From the Production of Commodities to the Production of Space: The Case of Duisburg-Nord”

The transformation of the metalworks and surrounding wasteland at Duisburg-Nord, in the heart of the industrial Ruhr region of Germany, is an exemplar of landscape reclamation for public purposes.  What challenges does this (mostly) wildly successful project present to the American “Rustbelt,” as it seeks to reclaim land from the excesses and ultimate failures of domestic industrial capitalism?

Jonathan Kirschenfeld ‘76, Architect P.C., panelist

“Peripatetic Infrastructure: Homeless Housing Meets Irregular Sites”

Supportive Housing, a unique residential proto-type combining studio apartment units with on-site services, has become the nation’s most successful program to combat chronic homelessness among single adults with special needs. This presentation is a case study of six new SRO Residences, one completed and the rest in various stages of construction, located in the Bronx and Brooklyn. This ‘family’ of buildings exhibit differing forms as they share a common feature beyond their program: they all adapt to irregular, ‘remnant’ urban sites. While promoting the notion of social sustainability, the buildings also employ progressive ‘green’ building systems and materials such as central heating and cooling fan coil system, high performance exterior envelope, energy efficient lighting and appliances, recycled and recyclable materials, and gearless elevator.

Stephen Hardy, Associate, Director of Planning, BNIM, panelist

“Respect for the Land and a Rededication to Future Generations: Toward Sustainability in Greensburg, Kansas”
 
On May 4, 2007, a two-mile-wide, EF-5 tornado hit Greensburg, a town of 1,389 in southwestern Kansas.  The disaster leveled over ninety percent of the town’s buildings, killed ten, and prompted the New York Times to claim that “Nature had performed a coup de grace” on this “Kansas town.” Undeterred, residents took on a rebuilding project that captured the imagination of the country.  Greensburg became a model for disaster recovery and a leading national example of sustainable community design. How can the lessons of this small rural town be transferred to other communities?

BUFFET LUNCH
SHOWCASE: STUDENT ENTREPRENEURS AND DESIGNERS
11:30am-1:00pm Science Center Commons

Join us for lunch and an opportunity to hear presentations and see the work of entrepreneurial and design talent from Oberlin students and students across Northeast Ohio.

The Zen of Innovation
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Michael Alexin ‘79, Vice President, Product Design ad Development, Target
1:00pm-2:15pm West Lecture Hall

This is a talk designed to inspire broad thinking about the importance and nature of innovation in America today.  It will provide insight into how to create a culture of innovation.  The talk will showcase examples of innovation, both from Target’s experience and also the market at large.

WORKSHOPS & CASE STUDIES
2:30pm-4:00pm

Design For Sustainable Transformation
Peter Nicholson ‘91, Founder & Executive Director, Foresight Design Initiative and Amanda Medress ‘09, Fusionist, Foresight Design Initiative 
Science Center A254

How do we initiate and accelerate the change necessary to create more environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable communities?

Although many want to change the world, the world often doesn’t want to change. Catalyzing greater sustainability requires new methodologies, tools, and ways of thinking. This interactive session focuses on how to make the necessary and radical shift from sustainability awareness to implementation.

I Know it When I See It: Graphic Design and Branding Techniques
Marcia Hoskins Fardella ‘74, Chief Graphic Designer, Guggenheim
Science Center A155

How does the discipline of branding distill the essence of your product and make it memorable? Marcia will present a case study of the Guggenheim Museum’s graphic identity and discuss good and bad examples of branding.

Design in Health Promotion
Michael O’Donnell ‘75, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Health Promotional Journal and Chairman of Health Promotion Advocates
Science Center A255

How can we create workplace and national policy environments that make healthy choices the easiest choice?
 
Michael O’Donnell will describe the journey of his organization’s recent success in advocating for the inclusion of health promotion provisions into the health care reform bill signed by President Obama in March 2010 as well as earlier efforts to integrate health promotion strategies into human resources management, and raise the rigor of research within the health promotion field.

Lessons from Greensburg, KS: Transforming Communities by Design
Stephen Hardy, Associate, Director of Planning, BNIM
Science Center A154

Highlighting community design innovations that are pushing architecture and urban planning towards whole-systems thinking, this session will identify some interesting forms of engagement and touch on policy momentum, drawing on the lessons of rebuilding Greensburg, KS after a devastating EF-5 tornado. Design principles for Greensburg’s renewal included treating water as a precious resource, building 100-year structures, using 100% renewable energy, crafting a new economic approach, and engaging in a mass public process. “Scaling up” sustainable design to deal with community-wide challenges is a daunting but thrilling challenge for a vast array of interdisciplinary thinkers. How can common sense, technology, and interdisciplinary thinking shift our communities towards sustainability?

Screening of the Film (UNTITLED)
Prefaced by a moderated conversation between the director and composer
7:30pm - 9:30pm Apollo Theater

Jonathan Parker, Director
David Lang, Composer
David H. Stull ‘90, Dean, Oberlin Conservatory moderator 

A fashionable contemporary art gallerist in Chelsea, New York falls for a brooding new music composer in this comic take on the state of contemporary art. Adam Goldberg (Two Days In Paris) plays the composer, whose work calls for paper crumpling, glass breaking and bucket kicking. Marley Shelton (Grindhouse) plays the gorgeous Chelsea gallerist, whose latest show features an artist, played by Vinnie Jones (Snatch), who employs taxidermy and household objects. Further complicating the affair is the composer’s brother, played by Eion Bailey (“Band of Brothers”), whose highly commercial art work - the financial backbone of the gallery - is sold to corporate clients discreetly out of the gallery’s back room.

SUNDAY APRIL 18

Design for Social Impact
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Emily Pilloton, Founder and Executive Director of Project H Design
1:30pm-2:30pm West Lecture Hall

Followed by

Design Revolution Roadshow
Woodland Street Parking Lot

In January of 2008, with a few hundred dollars, a laptop and an outsized conviction that design can change the world, rising San Francisco-based product designer and activist Emily Pilloton launched Project H Design, a radical non-profit that supports, inspires and delivers life-improving humanitarian product design. Hear Emily speak and check out her biodiesel-powered truck and Airstream trailer exhibition  of 40 humanitarian design solutions.