Staff Reporter
VIRGINIA Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUQ), in partnership with the Ministry of Civil Service Affairs and Housing (MCSAH), has announced its third annual international design conference, Tasmeem Doha 2006.
“The event, scheduled from February 20 to 23 at VCUQ, continues the discussion initiated in Tasmeem 2004 and 2005 regarding the role design plays in shaping our identity, determining the quality of life, and driving our economy,” officials said yesterday.
Qatar Foundation’s vice chairperson Dr Saif al-Hajari, VCUQ dean Christina Lindholm, MCSAH official and Tasmeem 2006 committee chair AbdulAziz al-Sulaiti and VCUQ interior design professor and Tasmeem 2006 committee chair J P Reuer were present.
Presentations by 12 international designers and Qatar’s decision makers, and design exhibitions and panel discussions are the highlights of Tasmeem 2006 that will have design practitioners, professors and students from various parts of the world participating.
The theme of the conference, ‘Without You, I’m Nothing: Design in Need of Community, Community in Need of Design’, conveys a symbiosis between the designer and those he/she designs for and suggests that it is imperative to understand the roles of all the collaborators and participants in the design process.
“We have speakers coming from places as diverse as Cuba, Zimbabwe, Cairo, Oman, New York, and Paris,” explained Reuer who pointed out that the premise of the conference is that fresh, original, appropriate design stems from a process that is based in investigative, analytical exchange and observation.
Bruce Mau, Stefan Sagmeister, Saki Mafundikwa, Mario Gagliardi, Aly Khalifa, Steve Badanes, Khaled Asfour, Eva Maddox, Ruben and Isabel Toledo, Lydia Pearson and Pamela Easton, and Li Edelkoort are the international speakers.
Mau is an internationally recognised expert on innovation and creativity and one of the world’s greatest designers. He willfully ignores all professional boundaries, expanding the concept of design into intellectual territory it rarely dares to tread.
Admired for his ambition, humour and optimism, Mau has designed almost everything that can be designed; from books to bookstores; from office textiles and library signage to a museum of biodiversity with Frank Gehry.
Recently, Mau has embarked on his most challenging project to date, the Massive Change exhibition. The project which encompasses a book, a traveling exhibition, a radio show, a website, and an upcoming feature film, is just the latest in a long line of multi-disciplinary works that Mau has collaborated on.
Mau has worked on three of the new millenniums most talked about buildings: The MoMA in New York, Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and Rem Koolhaas’s Seattle Public Library.
Stefan Sagmeister, the founder of the New York based Sagmeister Inc, has designed, since 1993, branding, graphics and packaging for clients as diverse as the Rolling Stones, HBO, the Guggenheim Museum and Time Warner.
He is a five time Grammy nominee and won a Grammy for the Talking Heads boxed set. Sagmeister has won practically every important international design award.
Mafundikwa, from Zimbabwe, a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from Yale University, worked as a designer and art director in New York from 1985 to 1997, before returning home to found his country’s first graphic design and new media college, the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts in 1999.
The school is now in its sixth year of operation, still not funded but remains a success against unimaginable odds.
Gagliardi is a designer, strategist and design theorist, and develops design and marketing strategies for global organisations and regularly speaks and writes about design, culture and management. He is currently principal of Allevio Design.
Gagliardi is a regular speaker at international congresses, such as the Era 05 World Design Congress in Copenhagen, the European International Design Management Conference in Barcelona, the 5th Marketing Conference in Istanbul, the Norwegian Innovation Conference Innotown and the Product Development and Management Association in London.
Khalifa started Gamil Design in October 1995, where he combined his creative and technical talents into truly innovative products. He has degrees in both industrial design and mechanical engineering and substantial experience in international product development.
His work has focused on cutting-edge wearable design ranging from cycling gloves and shoes to sports apparel, eyewear and digital equipment, gathering several patents in the process.
Khalifa has evolved Gamil Design to include extensive experience in branding and product strategy. As member of IDEAS, a select group of sporting goods designers based in Europe, he works in colour, materials and trend forecasting. His clients include Bausch & Lomb, Trek Bicycle, Nike, Panasonic, Outdoor Products and Evenflo.
As a practicing architect, Badanes’s commissions have included private homes, schools and public structures. In 1990 he commissioned the winning entry of Hall of Giants Competition in Seattle, entitled ‘The Fremont Troll’.
He is a founder of Jersey Devil, an architectural firm that perpetuates the tradition of medieval craftsmen. The firm is comprised of skilled craftsmen, architects, inventors and artists “committed to the interdependence of building and design”.
Architect Asfour has been the technical reviewer for The Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Recently, he was invited to join a research group working on Architecture and Identity organised by Berlin Technical University and funded by Volkswagen Foundation.
Asfour’s research has covered most of the Arab world. Over the last five years, he has been teaching in Misr International University in Cairo.
Maddox is a principal in the architectural and interior design firm Perkins and Will. She teaches design theory and lectures regularly at universities in the US, India, Bangladesh and Holland.
In 2004, Maddox was a recipient of the prestigious Women Who Make A Difference Award from the International Women’s Forum representing the state of Illinois.
Fashion designer Isabel Toledo and artist Ruben Toledo established in 1984 Toledo Studio which comprises clothing design, ad campaigns, hotel promotion and mannequin design.
Strongly anchored in Cuban culture yet highly individualistic, both approach their craft with passion. Toledo Studio’s designs have been featured at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Mode Museum in Antwerp and in solo exhibitions at the Musueum in the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York.
Pamela Easton and Lydia Pearson together make up Easton Pearson. They established their design partnership and business in 1989. The company is based in Brisbane, Australia and supplies over 100 stores worldwide.
Easton Pearson has worked with a number of textile artisans in India for over 15 years to create fabrics with specific garments in mind. They work with various cooperatives and workshops which specialise in various techniques such as weaving, embroidery, silk printing and applique.
Easton Pearson rarely purchase existing fabrics, instead they work over long periods of time and through various processes of experimentation developing their own.
The Edelkoort Group, one of the world’s most renowned trend forecasters was founded by Li Edelkoort. Her work has pioneered trend forecasting as a profession, from innovative trend forums for Premire Vision in the late 1980s to long-ranging lifestyle analysis for the world’s leading brands since 1990.
The Edelkoort Group provides trend analysis and consulting services to major international companies in a wide range of sectors from cosmetics to cars, telephones to public transportation, from food and flowers to bricks and paper.
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