By the People: Designing a Better America

ALI is honored to be included in By the People: Designing a Better America, opening at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum this fall.

 

Featuring work that addresses entrenched environmental, social, and economic issues, By the People is "an exhibition of sixty collaborative design projects throughout the United States and across borders. By the People challenges the country’s growing crisis of social and economic inequality. Curator of Socially Responsible Design Cynthia E. Smith conducted over two years of field research—traveling to shrinking post-industrial cities, sprawling metro regions, struggling rural towns, areas impacted by natural and man-made disasters, and places of persistent poverty—in search of design for more inclusive and sustainable communities. Presented in the Barbara and Morton Mandel Design Gallery and Process Lab, By the People delivers a powerful message of optimism for achieving a more just and equitable society for all Americans through design."

 

ALI's "Divining LA" brings science, policy and community design together to solve water supply challenges in drylands. In a short video, ALI presents a brief overview of the climate challenges arid and semi-arid cities face the world over, and the design tools we are developing and testing to help secure safe, local, and low-carbon water supplies in Los Angeles. Tools range from a powerful new digital platform for maximizing urban stormwater recovery to a hands-on teaching tool for community education about watershed health.

 

Hazel, the digital design tool, is being developed and tested with the support of the AIA College of Fellows Latrobe Prize in collaboration with our partners at Perkins+Will and City of LA Bureau of Engineering.

 

The Hazel Table, a hands-on teaching tool, has been developed and tested with the collaboration of our students, interns, and community outreach partners, including Connect the Dots and Mayor Garcetti's Great Streets Challenge.

 

By the People runs from September 30th, 2016 through Februrary 26, 2017. The Cooper Hewitt is located at 2 East 91st Street at Fifth Avenue in New York City. Hours are Sunday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.  Adult admission, $18; seniors, $12; students, $9. Cooper Hewitt members and children younger than age 18 are admitted free. Pay What You Wish every Saturday, 6 to 9 p.m. The museum is fully accessible.