This week Amy speaks with award-winning architect, and current Head of Global Design and Innovation for Gensler, Jordan Goldstein. Born in Rockville Maryland, Jordan discovered his passion for architecture visiting construction sites with his mother at age 5. Today he’s an educator and sought-after spokesperson on the future of design both domestically and globally, but what distinguishes Jordan is his interdisciplinary, cosmopolitan, approach to architecture with a focus on elevating the human experience.

Creative strategist, visionary, and design podcaster Maurice Cherry was born in Selma, Alabama where it quickly became apparent he was going to take the world by storm. Immensely talented on all fronts, Maurice has dedicated his career to recognizing and celebrating the power of Black design and creativity online. These days, Maurice is perhaps most well-known for his award-winning podcast Revision Path, which showcases Black designers, and as of 2019 is the FIRST podcast to be acquired by the Smithsonian.

People-centered designer Marquise Stillwell spent his youth in Ohio learning to be a good neighbor and going to art museums with his grandfather. Always part of a community of makers—auto factories, steel plants, engineers and industrial designers—his curiosity for people and spaces grew into a passion for creating systems and formulas that make built environments better for all people. Not surprisingly, his ability to be open, vulnerable, listen and hold space is at the center of his design practice.

Legendary art director Giulio Cappellini first fell in love with cars, then studied architecture, and took the family furniture business into the stratosphere with his bold curatorial vision and knack for spotting international talent. His true gifts may lie in his instinctual approach to risk taking, a dedication to longevity over market trends, and his truly familial approach to building relationships. With passion and curiosity for miles, his gaze is eternally optimistically pointed toward the future.

This special Clever Extra, recorded live at RISD as the keynote presentation of Design Week RI, four creative thought leaders come together for a discussion on the power of creativity. As a social value, creativity often gets dismissed as “making things pretty” rather than being understood as the fundamental impulse and effort behind every creation. Here, with Panelists Rosanne Somerson, Sara Ossana, Umberto Crenca and Sophie Chien, we are discussing creativity as a core component of personal empowerment.

Design impresario Murray Moss grew up in a house his father engineered with a drinking fountain in the dining room. At 5, he redecorated his farmhouse bedroom with a Chinese motif. In college, after accidentally burning down his apartment with a fondue pot, he found his love of theatre. The ‘90s were all about MOSS, his Soho New York boutique that lit up the global high-design scene and paved the way for a new era of design as art. Cut to today: he’s a pedagogue, a retail consultant and as fabulous as ever.

In this special Clever Extra, we’re sharing a rebroadcast of another podcast 2VDE Media produces for Neocon called NeoConversations. What does it take to effectively design brand character into a space? How can brand values and purpose be communicated through materiality, visual language, ambiance and experience? What’s in the tool kit needed to implement a design program company-wide? Amy Devers explores these questions with Renee Hytry Derrington, International Design Lead for Formica Group, and Abbott Miller, a partner at world-renowned design studio, Pentagram.

Strategy and design consultant, Alain Sylvain, was born and raised in New York City, the son of Haitian immigrants. His early creativity included playing in fake bands and starting a fake restaurant. After studying international affairs and business he embarked on a brief stint in political campaigns, but that morphed into advertising and he found himself embracing both his creativity and business acumen to help leverage the might of corporations for the greater good. 

Designer / public servant, Ana Monroe, grew up in the south to radio station-owning liberals who taught her to reject the status quo in favor of positive change. While she never did inherit her Panamanian-born mother’s wild, beautiful curls, she did pick up her wide-open ideas about beauty. After graciously rejecting the idea of law school, she embarked on a series of professional adventures that led to her current work as a human-centered design leader at a federal government think tank.

We teamed up with Tarkett for this Clever Extra to take a deep dive into Neoculture - a term coined to describe the way diverse cultures are coming together as never before to create entirely new cultures with new values. Suzanne Tick, a product and textile designer, and Chris Stulpin, Chief Creative Officer for Tarkett have done extensive research into the attitudinal shifts and megatrends that inform Neoculture, how it impacts the future of the built world, and why it matters to the design community.