Hasta La Ideas

For those who dream of coming to the big city…to study the big city, Parsons the New School for Design has introduced a bachelor of science in urban design. According to the school, the new undergraduate degree program is the first of its kind in the United States. “Cities have become far too complex for any one person, academic discipline, or professional practice to grasp alone,” said program director Victoria Marshall, a practicing landscape architect and founder of Newark-based design firm TILL, in a statement issued by Parsons. “Through a mix of studios, workshops, field work, and social science courses, students will critically engage with the aesthetic, cultural, ecological, and political dimensions of urban life.” The four-year program is structured around a series of projects that address the roles of design in relation to critical issues facing cities such as sustainability, global migration, and economic instability, the latter of which students will experience firsthand should they seek off-campus housing. Past your bachelor’s degree days? Parsons is also developing two new graduate programs: an MA in Theories of Urban Practice and a studio-based MS in Design and Urban Ecologies. The newest members of the Parsons faculty, designers Aseem Inam and Miguel Robles-Duran, are at work on the curricula.

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It’s a very familiar and widely acknowledged fact that large retail chains, shopping centers and casinos design their floor layouts to intentionally try and guide consumers along a somewhat confusing path in order to keep them away from the exit and get them to see as much of their merchandise (or slot machines, in the casino’s case) as possible. They’re are varying degrees of this general irritation, but a team of researches at the Virtual Reality Centre for the Built Environment at University College London has discussed a study they’re working on that has found that Ikea is perhaps the worst offender. Exits are hard to spot, the only easy-to-navigate paths push customers through every inch of the store, and because the layouts are so confusing, consumers fear they won’t be able to find an object again and wind up buying it just so it won’t disappear. While, again, there’s nothing altogether new there, particularly if you’ve ever spent any time at an Ikea, Alan Penn and his colleagues at the Centre have established that Ikea pushes the maze-like design to levels significantly above the average, having one of the most difficult sets of floorplans in the business. In their defense, a spokesperson for the company told the Daily Mail that they’re just trying to give consumers options and for those who already know what they want, they” have created shortcuts.”

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A workshop led by the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project and a brochure for Green Map, two of the organizations selected for desigNYC projects.

Socially minded design projects work best with a matchmaker: someone to connect the organizations serving the public good with the design talent ready to help (at no charge). Enter desigNYC, the volunteer-led organization founded by Edwin Schlossberg and Michelle Mullineaux of ESI Design and New York‘s Wendy Goodman. Launched last year with a successful round of pilot projects, desigNYC has just revealed its line-up of collaborations for 2011. A panel of expert judges considered submissions from the NYC nonprofit and design communities, selected the top projects, and matched nonprofit needs with design firm skills.

The nine new projects span the design disciplines and focus on addressing issues such as sustainable development, social justice, human health, and local food systems. Designer Rodrigo Corral will work with the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project to design a multi-language financial rights guide for new immigrants in NYC, while architects 590BC and Studio L’Image will create architectural enhancements and interpretive experiences for PortSide NewYork‘s Brooklyn boathouse and community center. Communication designers Language Dept. and developers Rubenstein Technology Group have been matched with Educating Tomorrow to create an identity and website that will act as a resource hub for the NYC educational community on sustainability issues. Meanwhile, Otto NY will partner with Green Map System, which marshals user-contributed mapping of local green resources, on a redesign of the Green Apple Map website. Other projects include greenhouse development on unused lots in East Brooklyn and a communications framework for a new urban and industrial ecology center in Gowanus.

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Recession? What recession? Despite having some stumbles along the way last year, from being denied the option to build their own food kiosk to having their finances pried into by the newspaper, things are apparently going pretty well for the Guggenheim Foundation. Yesterday in Helsinki, the city’s mayor announced that they would be working with the Guggenheim in the hopes of installing a new Foundation museum (pdf). The commissioned study will reportedly take most of 2011 to complete, looking into “topics including the possible mission and structure of an innovative, multidisciplinary art museum in Finland” and “the form that its exhibition and education programs might take,” as well as other factors (including, of course, what sort of “economic impact” it will have for the Guggenheim). This new development, coming on the heels of the Foundation’s on-going construction in Abu Dhabi of another new museum (though that also hit a recent hurdle with the sudden departure of former director Thomas Krens), certainly makes it appear that the organization has weathered this economic storm of the last few years fairly well. Here’s a statement about the Helsinki proposition from the Guggenheim’s director, Richard Armstrong:

“Finnish people are reluctant to boast. So let me be the one to say that Finland is unquestionably poised for a greater role within the world’s cultural scene. Finland’s identity has always been defined to a remarkable degree by education, architecture and design, and its vigorous, sophisticated culture has made a mark internationally. But civic leaders, cultural observers and artists in Finland believe much more has become possible — and we wholeheartedly agree. For the Guggenheim, this study with Finland is a very compelling opportunity to continue our investigations into the possibilities of global interchange, to offer the expertise our network has acquired and to work with respected fellow museum professionals such as Helsinki’s representative to the initiative, Janne Gallen-Kallela-Siren.”

Certainly not a bad thing to have going on in advance of 2012, when Helsinki steps in and gets some more artist press when it serves as the World Design Capital for the year.

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Following two years of opening test shops to try out new interior designs and retail setups, now that Starbucks has made their big changes official with the roll-out of a new logo, it looks as though that experimental phase might now be over. Capitol Hill Seattle reports that the shop the company opened back in the summer of 2009 under the name 15th Ave Coffee & Tea, which looked a bit more rustic and like an authentically-local coffee shop, will be converted into a standard Starbucks over the next few weeks. Though the company told Capitol Hill reporters that the interiors of the shop will largely stay the same, the signs would all be updated and the usual Starbucks machines would be installed. Here’s a bit more about the future of these tests:

Going forward, it now seems clear, the coffee giant will be aiming for this upgrade of its core brand, not the creation of new ones… In the meantime, they’ve learned how to scale new offerings developed at the Capitol Hill shops as techniques like pour-over coffee trickle out to the global marketplace.

It also sounds like this particular Starbucks’ era of experimentation has come to an end. According to the company spokesperson, no more “learning environment” cafes are being planned at this time.

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