Hasta La Ideas

Whether you’re more interested in the wallcoverings favored by Jeffrey Bilhuber or Smart Design’s latest triumph on the sustainable syringe front, we’ve got a symposium for you. The Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and GE kick things off tomorrow with “Why Design Now? Solving Global Challenges,” a conference that will explore the role of design in solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Held in conjunction with the museum’s ongoing National Design Triennial exhibition, the day-long event will bring together thought leaders, scientists, and designers to share their expertise on how design can accelerate innovation and improve efficiency and scalability of solutions to address urgent global needs.

The in-person confab reached capacity faster than you can say “Richard Saul Wurman” (the TED Conference founder who will be giving the keynote address), but our friends at Core 77 will be livestreaming the entire event here, and we’ll provide tasty, bite-sized updates via Twitter. So call in sick to work and spend your Friday listening to Gravity Tank founder director Chris Conley discuss designing products for everyday lives (scheduled for 10:50 a.m. EST), and don’t miss your shot (zing!) to hear Smart Design’s Dan Formosa and Eric Freitag‘s present a case study on the Cimzia Prefilled Syringe (2:50 p.m.). Also on tap: moderated discussions about green design (9:50 a.m.), international design (11:30 a.m.), and healthcare reform (3:10 p.m.) featuring panelists including Pentagram partner and 2010 National Design Award winner Lisa Strausfeld, Parsons dean Joel Towers, and the Cooper-Hewitt’s own Ellen Lupton and Bill Moggridge.

Things take a turn for the domestic on Saturday, October 2, as the ever more fantastic Museum of the City of New York holds its fourth annual Home Design in New York event. Presented in partnership with the New York School of Interior Design and Taconic Builders, the symposium will explore some of the city’s great residential spaces with the help of interior design luminaries such as the aforementioned Mr. Bilhuber, Albert Hadley, and Amy Lau. Donald Albrecht and Judith Gura will moderate the afternoon’s proceedings as speakers including James Zemaitis of Sotheby’s and Anthony Victoria, an expert in 18th century European furnishings (bring on the commodes!), each focus on a particular New York space and discuss its importance in design history—or just why they really, really like it. Learn more and reserve your space here.

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