Lunch + Learns: Spring 2017

Healthy Materials Lab, along with the Donghia healthier Materials Library, is passionate in its efforts to both raise awareness of the toxics that burden our health and environment, and innovate to make a healthier present and future. With this goal in mind, the Lab is partnering with the Library to create Lunch + Learns, a series of lectures from hand-picked manufacturers. These lunchtime talks expose students, faculty, alumni and any interested members of the public to sustainable innovations in the material sciences — with the perk of provided lunch.

The Lunch + Learns are where the Lab meets the Library - where research meets resources. Careful planning goes into not only the creation of the series as a whole, but also into the particulars of each event. Understanding the great overlap between our many disciplines, invited speakers are meant to appeal to the broad design and fine arts audience that makes up The New School. Manufacturers are carefully vetted to make sure they fall in line with the mission, highlighting those that are on the forefront of healthier production of materials:

The events not only educate attendees by disseminating information about the industry that they may not have heard, but also provide immediate access to healthier products. Moreover, attendees will leave knowing what questions they need to ask when using any kind of physical material - an important skill to have,especially for students just entering the professional world. Often, designers and architects rely on the materials they know best, ones that’ve been tried and proven reliable for years; health impact isn’t necessarily a consideration when choosing or persisting to use them. The Lunch & Learn series and events of the like are intended to encourage designers to ask questions and to know what kind of inquiries to have.

The start of an open dialogue, not only between designers and the firms they work for, but also between designers and manufacturers, is important. It’s often a relationship that can be composed more of demands rather than discussion. When the conversation shifts to one of transparency and compromise, with the common goals of innovation and health, two halves of the industry can come together, act as one and therefore create change, even if it is incremental.

And so perhaps most important of all is the action these events will surely spawn. The idea is that what the Lunch + Learns teach will go beyond the microcosm of any one student’s project and instigate change on a macro level. Even one designer who leaves with that drive will create a ripple, and another, and another, until the face of design itself shifts to necessitate healthier material innovation.

Like in Fall 2016, this semester we’ve gathered manufacturers who have demonstrated their commitment to health and sustainability and who will kindle this movement. Our presenters include: LIBECO LINENS, leaders in manufacture and artisanship of flax plants to produce linen textiles; CARPET CYCLE, a company that innovates with reuse to produce insulation; ECOVATIVE, a biomaterials company who uses mycelium materials, or fungus roots, to produce all kinds of products; and ROMABIO, who manufactures VOC-free mineral based paints - all of whom are presenters that will uphold our goal of empowering designers and instilling in them change that will then proliferate.

This social impact has already begun. Earlier this school year, in response to the smell of chemicals in a stairwell that had been painted over the Thanksgiving break, a New School student posted a brief and potent poem:

Acquiring knowledge and seeking understanding take you one step closer to creating change.

Attend our Lunch + Learn events and become a part of a healthier future.

• RSVP here for our April 5th event with ECOVATIVE.

• RSVP here for our April 12th event with ROMABIO Paint.

If you have any questions, please contact us at: materiallibrary@newschool.edu.