2016 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award winners are announced

Moshe Safdie, Marlon Blackwell, and Bruce Mau are just a few of the 2016 winners in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum National Design Awards. First launched at The White House in 2000 as a project of The White House Millennium Council, the National Design Awards distinguish excellence, innovation, and public impact across 11 design disciplines. They also promote design's significant role in shaping society. First Lady Michelle Obama served as Honorary Patron once again.

A few of the categories include Architecture, Communication, Fashion, and Landscape Architecture, as well as Lifetime Achievement, Design Mind, and Director's Award. The Museum convened a jury of design leaders and educators from across the country, who reviewed the submissions resulting from nominations sent in by the general public.

Awardees will be honored at a gala dinner at the Cooper Hewitt's Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden on October 20.

Read on for more about the winners.

(cover image) Architecture Design: Marlon Blackwell Architects

“Marlon Blackwell is one of the nation’s most respected regional modernist architects. His Fayetteville, Ark.-based practice, Marlon Blackwell Architects, combines vernacular traditions with rigorous formalism to create architecture that responds to the physical and cultural eccentricities of a place. In addition to his professional practice, Blackwell serves as the E. Fay Jones Distinguished Professor at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas. He was named as one of DesignIntelligence magazine’s “30 Most Admired Educators” for 2015. Blackwell was the recipient of the 2012 American Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Prize, was named a United States Artists Ford Fellow in 2014 and has received multiple AIA National Honor Awards.”

Lifetime Achievement: Moshe Safdie

“Moshe Safdie is a leading architect, urban planner, educator, theorist and author, who explores the essential principles of socially responsible design with a distinct visual language. Beginning with his architectural thesis at McGill University in 1964 and his first built project, the seminal Habitat ’67 in Montréal, Safdie’s catalog of work and contributions to the dialogue on sustainable urbanism are unsurpassed in contemporary practice. With his Somerville, Mass.-based firm, Safdie Architects, Safdie’s recent projects include Mamilla Center in Jerusalem; Marina Bay Sands in Singapore; Khalsa Heritage Centre in Punjab, India; and the United States Institute of Peace headquarters in Washington, D.C. Safdie has been recognized widely for his enduring influence on the built environment and was recently awarded the 2015 AIA Gold Medal. He continues to inspire the theory and application of ideas about mixed-use and high-density housing in cities around the world.”

Design Mind: Bruce Mau

“Bruce Mau is a world-renowned visionary, innovator, author and designer, now living in Evanston, Ill. Twenty-five years in the business of design gave Mau the practical and holistic insights to establish his consulting firm Massive Change Network in 2010. In doing so, he laid the foundation for the new discipline of enterprise design, successfully applying his design thinking methodology to economic, cultural, governmental, environmental and social change for internationally celebrated designers, leading companies and countries around the world. Mau has worked on projects with Coca-Cola Co., McDonald’s, Herman Miller, Walt Disney Imagineering and Freeman; the governments of Denmark, Guatemala, Panama and Saudi Arabia; and architects Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas and SOM. In addition to his leadership at Massive Change Network, Mau became chief design officer in 2016 for Freeman, the world’s largest producer of trade shows and exhibits.”

Director’s Award: Make it Right

“Founded by Brad Pitt in 2007, Make It Right is a nonprofit organization that builds homes, buildings, and communities for people in need. All Make It Right projects are LEED Platinum certified and Cradle to Cradle-inspired to meet the highest standards of green building. Make It Right began as an effort to rebuild safe and sustainable homes in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina. The organization enlisted architects such as Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne and David Adjaye to help design climate-adapted, eco-friendly homes for the most devastated parts of the city. Since then, the organization has shared its knowledge of affordable green building with communities around the world and worked in neighborhoods across the country to increase housing stock. Additional projects include an apartment building for disabled veterans in Newark, N.J.; repurposing an abandoned, historic building into a mixed-use development in Kansas City, Mo.; and partnering with Native American tribes to build homes on the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana.”

Corporate & Institutional Achievement: Center for Urban Pedagogy

“The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) is a New York City-based nonprofit organization that uses the power of design and art to increase meaningful civic engagement, particularly among historically underrepresented communities. Founded in 2001, CUP’s work addresses the need of communities struggling to understand the complex public policies and decision-making processes that impact their lives, from affordable housing to labor rights. By collaborating directly with these communities to create simple, accessible and visual explanations, CUP provides individuals with the tools to claim their rights, advocate for their needs and fight for social justice in their communities.”

Communication Design: Geoff McFetridge

“Geoff McFetridge is a graphic designer and artist based in Los Angeles. Through his design studio, Champion Graphics, McFetridge has created works for international brands, Hollywood films and local bike shops that have a uniquely human touch. He has taken a singular and entrepreneurial approach to design that values looking inward more than problem solving. A graduate of the Alberta College of Art and Design and the California Institute of the Arts, McFetridge has exhibited in galleries and museums around the world; these works of installation, painting, drawing and printmaking are integral to his studio practice. Dedicatedly inventive, McFetridge has sought to expand on what both design and a design practice looks like in his time.”

Fashion Design: Opening Ceremony

“Carol Lim and Humberto Leon founded Opening Ceremony in 2002, with the idea of bringing their love of travel and fashion to a concept boutique. The company has grown to encompass the Opening Ceremony ready-to-wear, accessories and footwear collections for men and women; retail outlets in New York, Los Angeles, Nagoya and Tokyo; a wholesale showroom in New York; and a comprehensive online platform at openingceremony.us. Opening Ceremony has also become known for its innovative fashion shows, nightlife events and collaborations, including those with Chloë Sevigny, Intel, New York City Ballet, Pendleton, Spike Jonze and Yoko Ono. In 2012, Leon and Lim were appointed creative directors of the French fashion house Kenzo.”

Interaction Design: Tellart

“Tellart is an international design studio that creates interactive objects, immersive spaces and digital experiences for brands, museums and multinational companies. Founded in 2000 by Matt Cottam and Nick Scappaticci, Tellart is headquartered in Providence, R.I., and has offices in San Francisco, New York and Amsterdam. The studio’s designers, engineers and filmmakers drive ideas from concept to final execution. Tellart created the first fully Web-accessible museum exhibition for Google through the Chrome Web Lab, imagined and prototyped future services for world governments with the Museum of the Future, and encouraged healthy living through mixed-reality gaming with Humana. Tellart’s projects synthesize the digital and physical through embodying and embedding data, networks and sensors in beautifully crafted objects, art and architecture.”

Interior Design: Studio O+A

“For 25 years, Studio O+A has been a creative force in workplace design. What began as a two-person space planning operation in Silicon Valley in 1991 is today a San Francisco-based design firm with more than 40 employees and clients that are some of the most dynamic companies in American business, including Facebook, Uber, Cisco Systems and Yelp. Led by principals Primo Orpilla, Verda Alexander and Perry Stephney, O+A built its reputation on understanding how the next generation of entrepreneurs is changing the work environment and how those changes are abetted by design. From the beginning, O+A saw its mission as capturing the spirit and culture of the client in the built environment and turning that spirit into a story.”

Landscape Architecture: Hargreaves Associates

“Hargreaves Associates has been at the forefront of landscape architecture for more than 30 years and is globally renowned for the transformation of neglected urban sites, waterfronts and campuses into memorable places that have become icons for their cities. Led by George Hargreaves, Mary Margaret Jones and Gavin McMillan, the firm has offices in San Francisco; Cambridge, Mass.; and New York City. Projects range from large scale and environmentally complex—such as the 274-acre parklands for London’s 2012 Olympics, Crissy Field in San Francisco and Waterfront Park in Louisville, K.Y.—to place-making projects, such as the University of Cincinnati’s campus, to small plazas and gardens, such as 555 Mission Street in San Francisco and Caruthers Park in Portland, Ore.”

Product Design: Ammunition

“Ammunition is a studio dedicated to putting design talent at the center of imagining, creating and operating new product and service ventures. Founded in 2007 and based in San Francisco, and Brooklyn, N.Y., the studio is led by partners Robert Brunner, Matt Rolandson and Brett Wickens. Ammunition places entrepreneurs in close contact with a 60-person team of designers with expertise in physical and digital product design, service design, brand identity, user experience, graphic design and packaging. Noteworthy projects include Beats by Dr. Dre, June Intelligent Oven, Lyft Glowstache, Polaroid Cube, Square Stand and UNICEF’s Kid Power Band.”

More info about the awards:

Individual nominees are require to have practiced professionally for a minimum of seven years; Lifetime Achievement nominees must have been practicing professionally for a minimum of 20 years. Winners are selected based on the level of excellence, innovation and public impact of their body of work. The Director’s Award is chosen by Cooper Hewitt director Caroline Baumann, and given to an individual in recognition of outstanding support and patronage within the design community.