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Creative Director, Strategist and Writer focusing on new approaches towards design and cities.
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Biography
I am a Creative Director, Strategist and Writer focusing on new approaches towards design and cities.
My design projects include Urban Play, created for the city of Amsterdam in collaboration with Droog Design to transform areas of the city into public platforms for design interventions; Bairro Criativo, for the city of Porto, Portugal, to enable individuals to design and things they felt would improve their daily lives in the city; and The Urban Guide for Alternate Use, a catalogue and catalyst for re-purposed urban objects.
Most recently I have been appointed Creative Director for the city of Jesolo, Italy, overseeing strategy and creative direction for a series of design projects throughout the city to be unveiled in 2013.
Among many publication credits, I am the author of “Finding the Truth in Systems: In Praise of Design Hacking”, an exploration of how a hacking ethos, grass roots initiatives and open source approaches are transforming design, cities and civic engagement around the world and increasing people’s resourcefulness with the things and spaces that surround them. I am currently at work on the book “Urban Hacks”, detailing the application of the hacking ethos to the urban environment. My speaking credits include addressing the International Conference on European Policy, the World Urban Development Congress, and New Delhi’s Design Public Conference. I have guest lectured at institutions including Design Academy Eindhoven, Netherlands, Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, Central Saint Martin’s School of Art and Design, London, Boston University, and the University of Quebec, Montreal.
When not focusing on new approaches to urban design, I look at how design issues impact larger societal issues. In this realm, I directed the Trust Design project for Premsela, the Netherlands Institute for Design, exploring the role design plays in our levels of trust, and was a Guest Editor for Volume Magazine, publishing a 4-part series exploring this topic in depth.
In years past I was Creative Director for the UK’s Urbis Centre for Urban Culture from 2003-2006, where I directed numerous large-scale urban projects including Will Alsop’s SuperCity to rethink the future of post-industrial cities, ‘Urban Oasis’ with Berlin’s Office for Subversive Architecture, ‘At Home’ with Peter Saville, and “The China Show”, an overview of contemporary Chinese design and architecture.
