Material Health: Design Frontiers

Winona LaDuke is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, and is a two-time vice presidential candidate with Ralph Nader for the Green Party.

As Program Director of the Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities. And in her own community, she is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation based non-profit organizations in the country and a leader in the issues of culturally based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy, and food systems. In this work, she also continues national and international work to protect Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering.

In 2007 LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, recognizing her leadership and community commitment. In 1994 LaDuke was nominated by Time magazine as one of America’s fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age. She has been awarded the Thomas Merton Award in 1996, Ms. Woman of the Year (with the Indigo Girls in 1997), and the Reebok Human Rights Award. The White Earth Land Recovery Project has won many awards including the prestigious 2003 International Slow Food Award for Biodiversity, recognizing the organization’s work to protect wild rice from patenting and genetic engineering.

A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, she has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and is presently an advisory board member for the Trust for Public Lands Native Lands Program as well as a board member of the Christensen Fund. The author of five books, including Recovering the Sacred, All our Relations and a novel, Last Standing Woman, she is widely recognized for her work on environmental and human rights issues.

honorearth.org

Aaron Dorf is a Director and senior architect at Snøhetta, with over twelve years in the New York office overseeing projects including the National September 11^th Museum Pavilion in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Expansion, Harvard HouseZero, Blaisdell Cultural Center Redevelopment in Honolulu and the Joslyn Art Museum Expansion in Omaha, among others. Aaron looks after Snøhetta’s North American Powerhouse work – a body of projects and partnerships that follow Norway’s strictest sustainability practices for ZEB’s (zero emission buildings) by promoting ultra-low energy use, zero or positive emissions and healthy materials. The first North American project by members of the Powerhouse team, HouseZero, is a renovated office space and headquarters for Harvard’s Center for Green Buildings and Cities – a tiny project with huge ambitions.

snohetta.com

As Director of the Healthy Materials Lab, Alison leverages her practice-based experience as an architect and her knowledge and experience as a long-term academic leader to confront one of the more serious and often overlooked environmental challenges of our time: the health of the built environment. How do we make profound and long-term changes to everyday design practice to create truly healthy buildings, especially for those in the most need of affordable housing? HML creates resources, educational programming, and prototypical innovative housing models for a new post-petroleum world. Alison is co-Principal Investigator of the Healthy Affordable Materials Project (HAMP). The Project is a long-term coalition of four organizations that work together to remove harmful chemicals from the built environment. She is also the recipient of multiple grants that support the work of the Lab.

Alison’s work draws from the long tradition at The New School University’s commitment to promoting community-based sustainability, social engagement, and environmental justice, especially in her teaching in architectural design studios at Parsons. She lectures widely disseminating current thinking within the field of material health.

Alison Mears and Jonsara Ruth were awarded the 2022 Women in Architecture Innovation Award from Architectural Record and co edited the 2023 publication “Material Health: Design Frontiers”.

Amanda Kaminsky is Founder of Building Product Ecosystems—multi-disciplinary collaboratives that evolve code, infrastructure, and field logistics for optimal systemic health and performance of major building materials. Improvements to product and process are carefully piloted on projects under current development via regular convening of buyers and their manufacturers, recyclers, contractors, designers/engineers, policy makers, and academic researchers.

Before and during the early stages of BPE, Amanda led sustainable construction and procurement efforts at The Durst Organization. Amanda has collaborated extensively with project teams and supply chains on new and existing commercial and residential buildings to optimize materials and systems design, procurement, and building processes from project inception through construction and into ongoing operations. In collaboration with DSNY, she also managed New York City’s first high rise residential organics collection/compost program. Amanda Chairs the Health Product Declaration Collaborative board, and is a director on the board of Healthy Building Network.

buildingproductecosystems.org

Ana is Chair of the Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management graduate program and an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice at the Milano School. She also serves as the Associate Director for the Tishman Environment & Design Center (TEDC) at The New School.

Ana's research and professional practice focuses on environmental and climate justice. She works directly with impacted communities and coalitions to support the advancement of community led, critical and systemic alternatives to achieve environmental justice.

Ana completed her Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She received her Master’s degree from Brown University in Environmental Studies and has an undergraduate degree in Environmental & Evolutionary Biology as well as Environmental Studies from Dartmouth College.

tishmancenter.org

Andrea Lipps is Associate Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, where she conceives, develops, and organizes major exhibitions and books. Most recently, Andrea has authored and edited publications and curated exhibitions including Nature—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial (2019), The Senses: Design Beyond Vision (2018), Joris Laarman Lab: Design in the Digital Age (2017), and Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial (2016). Additionally, she is developing a collection plan and wishlist for acquiring born-digital work at the museum. Andrea is a regular visiting critic, lecturer, and thesis advisor, participates on international design juries, and frequently moderates and speaks at events, symposia, and academic conferences on contemporary design and curatorial practice.

The Cooper Hewitt Triennial Nature

An artist that transposes his talent in the useful and the functional with professionalism and organization. Hemp ambassador, biomaterial specialist, designer, visionary, builder, talented for communication. His experience is from the ground. He grew up surrounded by beauty and design in his mother's boutiques, then devoted himself entirely to construction, began his training in 2005 and founded DuChanvre in 2009. He assembles raw material to make an effective product technically and a work reflecting the purity of its ingredients. Specialized in hempcrete and lime plasters, his activities are motivated by art, love, ecology, solidarity and innovations. He practices so architecture testifies of our culture, our values.

duchanvre.com

Charlotte McCurdy is an interdisciplinary designer from New York City. She is a Global Security Fellow at the Rhode Island School of Design with the support of the MacArthur Foundation and a member of the New Museum’s cultural incubator, NEW INC with the support of Science Sandbox. Her research focuses on existential threats. She holds a Master of Industrial Design from RISD, and a Bachelor of Arts in Global Affairs from Yale University. She has shown her work at events and venues including The Cooper Hewitt Triennial, The Cube Museum, and the Tribeca Film Festival.

Charlotte’s research covers a wide swath of her interests, including climate change, biotechnology, food security, human-computer interfaces, and system design; she is driven to understand and humanize complex systems.

charlottemccurdy.com

Dr. Franca Trubiano is associate professor in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and a registered architect with l’Ordre des Architectes du Québec. Her research on “Fossil Fuels, the Building Industry, and Human Health” is sponsored by the Kleinman Energy Center. Her co-edited book Women Rebuild: Stories, Polemics and Futures is being published by ORO AR+D Publishing and her Design and Construction of High-Performance Homes: Building Envelopes, Renewable Energies and Integrated Practice (Routledge Press, 2012), was translated into Korean and winner of the 2015 Sejong Outstanding Scholarly Book Award. She is presently completing her manuscript Building Theories for Routledge, which challenges late 20th-century definitions and practices of architectural theory; and was co-organizer of the spring 2019 symposium “Architectural Theory Now?” held at the Weitzman School of Design. Franca was president of the Building Technology Educators Society (BTES) (2015); a founding member of the editorial board of the journalTechnology, Architecture and Design (TAD); and a member of the Journal of Architectural Education (JAE) (2013-2016).

design.upenn.edu/franca-trubiano

Ginger Krieg Dosier is Co-Founder and CEO at bioMASON- a revolutionary organization utilizing biology for growing cement construction materials.

She has over 8 years of business experience working with a diverse team of scientists, engineers, architects, builders, investors, granting agencies, and strategic partners. Her background includes sustainable material development from prototype to commercialization.

Prior to founding bioMASON, Ginger served as assistant professor of architecture at the American University of Sharjah, in the UAE and North Carolina State University.

biomason.com

A former Wall Street analyst and economist, Jen is an entrepreneur who cultivates leadership potential in students, startup founders, and corporate innovation clients. Jen is equal parts data-driven and creative in her approach to understand and apply the opportunities for technology and design to transform the economy, society, and culture. She is founder of Reason Street, a consultancy that designs innovation systems for Fortune Global 500 companies, helping board and C-suite executives evaluate and manage their full portfolio of growth opportunities. The consultancy also advises startups seeking transformational growth in health, social justice, and environmental impact. In 2008 she joined, as a partner, Drillteam, a consumer advocacy consultancy where she created a digital platform for managing large scale design research projects, and grew the organization, resulting in subsequent acquisitions by venture-backed Powered, Inc. and by Dachis Group. She has previously taught at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) and the School of Visual Arts. Jen has an MBA from HEC Paris and a BA from Trinity College.

jenvandermeer.org

John’s work as a designer, media maker, and strategist involves ethnography and systems-thinking, and is dedicated to supporting projects for positive economic and social impacts. He is senior strategist for Forward Mapworks. He also co-founded the Brooklyn-based design and architecture firm Super-Interesting! He previously served in a variety of roles for development and production of film and television. Recent projects and collaborations include: End of Life, Brooklyn Public Library, Italia Innovation, the Light Phone, Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator, CADA Foundation, and IMPACT Design for Social Change. He served on the Board of Trustees (2012-18) for the Flaherty Film Seminar, and was a Fellow (2015/16) at the Graduate Institute for Design Ethnography and Social Thought.

newschool.edu/parsons/faculty/john-bruce

Jonsara Ruth is co-founder and Design Director of Healthy Materials Lab (HML) at Parsons School of Design, where she is an Associate Professor and Founding Director of the MFA Interior Design program. At HML, Jonsara brings creative leadership to the ambitious goal of improving the health of underserved communities through the transformation of design and material practices. Drawing from over a decade as a designer in the furniture and interiors industries, Jonsara brings her understanding of manufacturing, supply chains, labor practices, and a penchant for democratic design to her roles at HML and Parsons. She draws from her artistic practice to creatively lead, motivate change, and inspire new methods for making and imagining futures.

She founded Salty Labs, a design collective, to experiment and implement ideas of circularity with healthy, low-carbon materials and strategies, working closely with local artisans to design interiors, furniture, and experiences. With Q Collection Junior, she designed the world's first Greenguard Certified crib for children. Her work is seen internationally in numerous publications, exhibitions, and people’s homes. Jonsara’s lifelong creative goal is to serve society and culture through her work.

Jonsara graduated with a Master of Architecture from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA in Industrial Design from Rhode Island School of Design, and currently serves on the board of the Sustainable Furnishings Council.

Together with Alison Mears, Jonsara was awarded the 2022 Women in Architecture Innovation Award.

Designer and researcher Julia Lohmann investigates and critiques the ethical and material value systems underpinning our relationship with flora and fauna. She is professor for contemporary design at Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland, where she also lives with her family. Julia holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art in London. As designer in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2013 she established the Department of Seaweed, an interdisciplinary community of practice exploring seaweed as a sustainable material of the future. In her work she combines participatory practices, making and speculative design for transition. Julia Lohmann's work is part of major public and private collections worldwide.

julialohmann.co.uk

Kate Daly is Managing Director at Closed Loop Partners, an impact investment firm, and leads their advisory services arm, the Center for the Circular Economy. The Center is a hub for circular business acceleration, investment, and research in packaging, food, the built environment, electronics and apparel & textiles. Kate previously served as Senior Vice President at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, where she oversaw industry-facing initiatives in sectors including advanced manufacturing, smart cities, cleantech, fashion, tech, and media. Prior to NYCEDC Kate served as the Executive Director of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission.

closedlooppartners.com/the-center

Maida P. Galvez, MD, MPH, FAAP is a pediatrician and Professor in the Departments of Environmental Medicine & Public Health and Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai where she is Founding Director of the New York State Children’s Environmental Health Center —the first state-wide, publicly funded model for children’s environmental health clinical services in the United States. She also serves as Director of the Region 2 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, a US Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control serving New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Dr. Galvez works to translate emerging research into programs and policies that prevent and reduce environmental exposures for children, their families, and their communities.

mountsinai.org/maida-p-galvez

Lasse Lind is an architect at 3XN Architect’s independent innovation unit GXN.

He has had a leading role in seminal research and building projects such as Green Solution House and the New Sydney Fish market. Lasse has co-authored two books on circular design: ‘Cradle to Cradle for the built environment’ and ‘’Building a circular future’, which analyses and give examples of best practice environmental design.

Lasse serves as chair of the board in Cradle People, bringing together civic, political and commercial interests to create a waste free society in Denmark. Lasse also serves as member of the advisory board to the Danish association of architectural companies and works on a public affairs level with policy making in relation to sustainability.

Lasse maintain a close relation to academia, founding and running the studio ‘Regenerative Architecture’ on the Aarhus school of architecture and currently acting as visiting professor on Chalmers University of technology.

gxn.3xn.com

Laura Vandenberg is an Assistant Professor and the Graduate Program Director for the Environmental Health Sciences Department at University of Massachusetts Amherst's School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Her research explores how early life exposures to chemicals can predispose individuals to diseases that manifest later in life, and on how current risk assessment practices can be improved in the study and regulation of endocrine disruptors. She was a Center for Research on Family’s Research Scholar in 2015-16, and has published many articles on endocrinology and toxicology in peer-reviewed science journals. Her work is funded by the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute. She holds a Bachelor’s in Biology from Cornell University and a PhD in Molecular and Developmental Biology from Tufts University School of Medicine.

umass.edu/laura-n-vandenberg

Martha Lewis is a senior architect and Head of Materials at Henning Larsen Architects, where she established an office-wide material database with the firm’s sustainability department and implemented material strategies for projects with a focus on healthy, ethically viable, and environmentally tenable materials. With two decades of professional experience in Copenhagen and Berlin, Martha is currently involved in establishing a Danish/Nordic material declaration, and was a member of the Buildings as Material Banks shareholders network, which has worked to establish an EU material passport. In 2016, she participated in the advisory group for the Danish Environmental protection Agency’s“Undesirable Substances in Sustainable Buildings”, and she has been involved in the Danish Green Building Council’s adoption of the German building certification system since 2011. Martha holds a MArch from Washington University and a BA from Vassar College.

henninglarsen.com

Maya Halden is a high school senior in Phoenix, Arizona. She has spent time working at the Healthy Materials Lab as an intern, where she assisted in research projects. Currently, she is participating in an interdisciplinary movement to end the production and use of harmful plastics and chemical compounds. Her viewpoint on global issues, such as sustainability, has been shaped by her experience of recent world events as seen from a young perspective and her time living abroad in Europe. Maya plans to study architecture, focusing on sustainability and human health.

Pirjo Kääriäinen, Professor of Practice, Design driven fibre innovation, Aalto University, Finland
Pirjo Kääriäinen is a textile designer and facilitator, working currently in the intersection of design and material sciences. Before her career in academia, she worked for Scandinavian textile industry as a designer and design manager, and gained experience also as an entrepreneur and consultant for creative industries. She is constantly looking for new ways to combine design with science, technology and business.

Pirjo Kääriäinen and Tapani Vuorinen have been developing interdisciplinary CHEMARTS collaboration between chemical engineering and design at the Aalto University since 2011. CHEMARTS is focusing on the education and research of biobased materials for healthier living environment and circular economy.

chemarts.aalto.fi

Samantha Josaphat is an Architect and the founder of Studio 397 Architecture. Part of a mere 0.3% of Architects, she founded her firm and named it STUDIO 397 after her accomplishment of becoming the 397th African American female architect achieving licensure in the USA. Studio 397’s work range from traditional Architecture to assisting in NYFW.

As President of the National Organization of Minority Architect’s New York Chapter, her chapter hosted the 47th Annual NOMA Conference and Exposition with an outstanding attendance of around 1,000 professionals. Samantha is also a design professor at The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture.

studio397architecture.com

Seetal Solanki is a materials designer and researcher based in London. She is Founder and Director of Ma-tt-er, a materials research design studio, consultancy and school, advising, designing, communicating and educating what materials are and can be in order to implement a more responsible future.

Author of "Why Materials Matter" (2018) and a Visiting Tutor at the Royal College of Art. She was made an Honorary Fellow at Hereford College of the Arts and received her Fellowship at the RSA in 2018 and holds an MA in Textile Futures from Central Saint Martins.

She’s had the privilege to work with NIKE, Selfridges, World Water Day, IKEA/SPACE10, British Council, The Design Museum, Hyundai, Ace & Tate, It’s Nice That and work has been widely featured around the globe. Seetal’s work focuses on creating a positive social, economic, political and environmental impact, which reveals the truth about how we live today and might live tomorrow.

ma-tt-er.org

Tapani Vuorinen, Professor of Forest Products Chemistry, Vice Dean (Education), Aalto University, School of Chemical Engineering, Finland. Prof. Vuorinen has (co)authored > 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers on the structure and chemistry of plant biomass and its conversion into chemical and material products. His current research focuses in the nanostructure and the reactivity of the plant cell wall. Besides his own scientific substance, prof. Vuorinen has promoted collaboration between academic disciplines, external stakeholders and the public, e.g. through (co)organizing CHEMARTS activities, real-life boot camp courses and other joined actions with industrial companies, secondary schools, etc.

chemarts.aalto.fi