For Whom? By Whom?: Designs for Belonging
Spring 2019

Inclusion, accessibility, and justice are unavoidable terms in debates on design and technology today. It has become clear that fostering belonging requires overcoming design’s perceived innocence — admitting historical and contemporary cases where design accidentally or purposefully excludes — to formulate more deliberate positions on designers’ role in shaping collective life. More than an effort to incorporate neglected populations within existing paradigms, today’s leaders work to reinvent design and technology to promote alternative methodologies, knowledges, and ways of life. From racist bots to #metoo, the urgency of this reinvention has only become more apparent. This Spring, the Jacobs Institute invites a group of thinkers and practitioners to outline design’s blind spots and exclusions and share their thoughts on possibilities for a future of belonging.

Our current speaker lineup is below; more dates and speakers will be added in the coming weeks!

Jacobs Design Conversations

Fridays at noon, Jacobs Hall 310
Lectures and lunch with distinguished guests

Dori Tunstall (Dean, OCAD Faculty of Design), 1/25
On respectful design, not social responsibility
You can now listen or read about Tunstall’s lecture at Jacobs

Ellen Pao (Founder, Project Include), 4/5
On promoting diversity and inclusion in tech

Jodi Forlizzi (Professor, Carnegie Mellon University)
On what comes after design thinking

We ask that attendees register in advance for Design Conversations; please visit our Eventbrite page a month in advance of talks to RSVP.

Design Field Notes

Mondays at 4pm, Jacobs Hall 220
Informal chats with leading design experts

August de los Reyes (Google), 2/4
On disability as a product of design

Karen Nakamura (UC Berkeley), 2/11
On disability and technology in Japan

Niloufar Salehi (UC Berkeley), 2/25
On designing social change online

Jacob Gaboury (UC Berkeley), 3/4
On queer histories of computing

Caricia Catalani (IDEO), 3/11
On designing for inclusive citizenship

Ben Allen (Stanford), 3/18
On the politics of code

Tom di Maria (Creative Growth), 4/15
On inclusive futures for art institutions

Bill Leddy (LMSA), 4/22
On architecture and accessibility

On Screen

Thursday at 7pm, Jacobs Hall 310
Films on design’s power to exclude

The Pruitt-Igoe Myth, 1/31

Misleading Innocence: Tracing What a Bridge Can Do, 2/21

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