Parsons Presents Design at the Edge with Bruce Nussbaum

Bruce Nussbaum, Visiting Professor of Innovation and Design at The New School and BusinessWeek contributing editor, will host conversations with international design innovators John Thackara (April 20) and Ezio Manzini (May 4) as part of Design at the Edge-Redesigning Our Lives in an Era of Radical Change, a lecture series held in conjunction with a course he is teaching this spring in the School of Design Strategies at Parsons The New School for Design. Thackara and Manzini are internationally recognized for their leadership roles in an emerging international design movement that collaboratively addresses issues of sustainability and community. The April 20 event with Thackara will take place at Wollman Hall, and the May 4 event with Manzini will take place at Tishman Auditorium, The New School, both located at The New School, 66 West 12th Street, New York.

Nussbaum's class focuses on the forces of demographic, technological, cultural, economic and political change that are disrupting our social organizations and personal lives. Through a series of talks, videos and other engagements by a roster of design stars from around the world, both inside and outside Parsons, the lecture series pushes students to think widely about the forces shaping their lives and critically about how to harness the tools and methods of 21st century design to deal with them.

John Thackara is considered a pioneer in the field of collaborative design and innovation. He is the director of Doors of Perception, a design futures network with offices in Amsterdam and Bangalore. Founded in '93 as a conference to connect international design visionaries, thinkers, and grassroots innovators, the organization works to move beyond discussions of what technology can do to ho w we want to live. Thackara was the first director of the Netherlands Design Institute, is a member of the experts group advising the European Commission on its innovation policy, and is currently the Programme Director for Designs of the Time (Newcastle, UK). His most recent book is In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World.

Ezio Manzini is a leading international expert on sustainable design and professor of Industrial Design at Milan Polytechnic and Director of CIRIS (the Interdepartmental Centre for Research on Innovation for Sustainability). His work focuses on innovative processes in the system of production and consumption and the relationship between product strategies and environmental policies. His most recent book, Sustainable Everyday, envisions what life might be like in a sustainable society, putting forth possible scenarios and workable alternatives. He is also a member of SlowLab, a laboratory for slow design thinking.

Last year, Bruce Nussbaum, one of the leading thinkers and writers about the intersections of innovation and design, joined The New School as a Visiting Professor of Innovation and Design. He works broadly across The New School, with a faculty "home base" in the School of Design Strategies at Parsons The New School for Design, which houses degree programs in design and management, integrated design and environmental studies.

Nussbaum is best known for his continuing role as an editor, writer, and blogger about design and innovation for BusinessWeek. He was named by I.D. magazine as one of the "forty most influential people in design," and in 2008,he was a Finalist for the "Design Mind" National Design Award by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. He was recently appointed to the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Design.

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