 Welcome, everyone. Welcome to Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and our National Design Week. And welcome to the master class with Mary Ping and Joe Doucet. My name is Kim Robledo-Diga. I work in the Education Department here at Cooper Hewitt. This winter salon program is part of our National Design Week, which was launched in 2006 in conjunction with our National Design Awards. And during National Design Week, we offer week-longs worth of free programs that focus on the work and vision of our National Design Award winners, which is fantastic, and this is actually kind of tail-ending that we've hosted so far. But before we get started, I want to thank our sponsors and funders. National Design Award programming is made possible by generous support from Target. Additional support is provided by Adobe. And funding is also provided by Design Within Reach, Altman Foundation, Facebook, Edward and Helen Hintz, and the Segal Family Foundation. So let me welcome Matilda McQuade, who's a deputy curatorial director here at Cooper Hewitt, who will introduce our National Design Award winners to you today. Thank you, everyone. Welcome. Glad you're here, and especially in this beautiful room here. It seems like this is a well-designed room and with the sun beaming in. So I have the great pleasure of introducing Mary Ping and Joe Ducey, who you will hear a little bit more about in terms of their installation in the show just behind you called Tablescapes, Designs for Dining. They had a major role in that exhibition. Mary Ping is a designer and founder of Slow and Steady Wins the Race, and as Kim said that she was the National Design Award winner last year in fashion. Her conceptual clothing and accessories line investigates the elements of what people wear, how they wear it and why. Joe Ducey, again, a National Design Award winner last year in product design. He's a designer, entrepreneur, inventor and creative director who has worked in product, furniture, environment and technology. So welcome to you two, and I wish you a happy conversation. Thanks for coming. Thank you for coming. So that's Mary. I'm Joe. Just to make it clear. So just by way of a brief introduction about how we'll handle this talk, Mary and I put our heads together and we thought, what's the best use of your time with us? And we thought it would be really interesting not just to get the PR press story about this exhibit and our contribution, but actually for you to hear a lot of the real process that you go to when you get a call saying, hey, we're going to do an exhibit. Would you like to participate? So we'll talk about the early stages and how we came up with our concept, and then we're actually going to take all of you and walk back to the room so you can actually see the objects that we're talking about. So that when we're talking about them in detail, it's not just theoretical and you're trying to imagine what the hell we're saying, you can actually see them the right in front of you. And that might lead to a richer conversation that we can have about actual questions that you might have. So it's our goal to be very transparent and very open and sort of peel back the curtain and allow you into the process that we went through, which is probably typical of what an exhibit like this takes a lot. Exactly. And then this way we can spend more time in the room speaking about the process itself for the table and the seating and the serving wear. This way you can see it right in front of you. So we'll talk now more about the, this isn't really echoing. Sorry. I can hear you. Okay. So we can talk more here about just the sort of nebulous amoeba-like thinking process that led us to sort of the more firmed up thing that you'll see in the first room. So when Cooper Hewitt invited us a few months back, we decided like, well, okay, we'll sit down, have a conversation first, kind of concept the ideas. I mean, for me, I'm not entirely sure with you, but it's like, you know, it's just kind of a conversation and then just, we just, you had a great actually suggestion which was like divide and conquer. So it was like, Joe was going to take the serving wear and then I would do the tables and seats. And so, but in the bigger umbrella picture, we were saying like, well, we both know like we're confident in knowing how to design something that looks good. And so that doesn't, but that doesn't really address anything current, like meaning like for me, like, you know, adding something that just looks nice is easy, but it'd be better to kind of solve another problem. And so if we were going to address the contemporary age, we thought like, well, what does that look like in 20 to 30 years? You know, the idea of dining. Step back, the overall when we were approached is actually the framework of the exhibit wasn't really set. In case you're not aware, the exhibit of tablescapes is basically showcasing design and dining throughout the centuries. You know, the feature is this, too, which is from the 19th century, I think, done for Napoleon III. They had a room dedicated to the 20th century. And, you know, the curators at the museum invited Mary and I to look at, you know, what's the 21st century room going to be? There was really no brief beyond that, not like, you know, what are you doing contemporary? Is it about the future? What are you going to do? So, you know, Mary and I were sort of thrown into it, and we had to very quickly decide, like, put in a point of view about just what we were even going to do. Like, what kind of program were we going to put on? There was no specific brief of what type of object or any type of setting, which is kind of typical. And, you know, it's kind of interesting because, you know, knowing that, I think, you know, how open it was, you think that as designers, you love a really open brief, but sometimes you just want to know what you need, the problem you need to solve. So we had to both define the problems that we were going to address, and then come up with a solution all in a very, very short time. Yes, that was, I think we did a good job, but I think that sometimes, like, you know, those sort of, like, you know, like lighting the fires definitely lets us, like, you know, think of, you know, certain ideas and, like, solutions. And so, yeah, and so then on that note, we had a conversation. We had lunch. We had lunch, which was fitting because we were like, we might as well be eating if we're going to be talking about dining. Yeah, and one of the options was, you know, going to a boat, and, you know, maybe that would inspire something else. But yeah, we had lunch, and we talked about the, I mean, I think the importance of addressing it on a global point of view, too. You know, I think it was really easy to think about, you know, a place setting like a fork and a knife, and then it was important to include, like, well, we should say chopsticks and, you know, what is, like, the rest of the world? Like, how do they eat, and, you know, what's, you know, what are the actual components when you sit down to the table? Right. And so these were kind of things that we knew about, like, okay, well, these are the obvious points. And then we thought, okay, well, you know, the UN has a projection that in actually less than 20 years, 15 years, there's going to be an additional one billion added to the population. And the, you know, the most populous countries now are the U.S., China, Japan, India. But then that's going to shift in 10 to 15 years where it's going to be, you know, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and what's, as a side note, what I always find surprising is that, like, a country as big as Russia is barely even on the top 10 list. Right. You know, they're really not that populous. So which is actually a good testament to how congested everything is going to be because there is going to be migration into cities. And because that's where all the jobs are going to be. So then we addressed that. Yeah, it was really this, an understanding of the challenges that are in the 21st century, right? You have populations that are growing at a very steady rate in a way that is going to lead to greater, far greater congestion, far more limited resources in terms of both material and land and space. And, you know, resources that we don't really have much of a concern for like potable water, which are going to be more and more precious in a sense that what we have to do is, what we decided very early on, we're going to address these issues. We're going to take them head on in terms of, you know, because how that's going to impact your daily life. And, you know, one thing we all do every day is we eat. But, you know, what can we do in terms of utilizing, you know, our skills as designers and creative thinkers and taking those limitations and making them opportunities, you know, to have a better and brighter solution, not this dystopian future that we're talking about right now. But these are just problems. We're problem solvers. So how can we take those and, you know, use them as a starting point to offer up some solutions that not only, you know, that don't, you know, you don't get bummed out when you're walking out of here, but you're like, you know, design can make life better in very small ways. I think that's one of the things we really set out to do. So we'll just like talk a little bit about like some of the iterations or just like the open thinking process that we arrived at before what you see in the gallery. I think, I mean, upfront, I think Joe was like far more, you know, like the perfect student because like you already knew what you were going to do. And I remember the renderings were like already like perfect. And so, and I had a few sketches that were different than what was out there. So, you know, my initial thinking was like, well, maybe it's like a, you know, I knew I wanted to tackle something that was like the idea of like, okay, well expands from a one person to an eight person, you know, which is actually what Joe's serving where it does. It's multi-purpose and it, you know, can be used for, you know, one person to eight people or infinite. I mean, I think that's actually a nice contrast. It's like we know that we're dealing with something that's finite as these parameters. But so what if we were to kind of think of it in infinite terms, you know. And, you know, we want to make sure we have a lot of time to be to, you know, a brief time to explain our projects where you're looking at them and open up enough time for you to be able to ask, you know, questions or, you know, even raises concerns that maybe we haven't even thought about. So now might be a good time to head back and we can discuss the, which, you know, the buses arrived just getting us right back. And that'll give us enough time to be able to discuss these things in detail and save room for questions. That sound like a plan? All right. I think we'll talk about the table and, you know, a few other items that she designed. It's a really, you know, I hope you, you know, you'll find time to do it beforehand. But, you know, my contribution to this along with Mary was basically the tableware and the coloring. And just looking at it, it's a little deceptively simple. But the problem we were really trying to solve was, okay, what do we do with limited resources? Material and in terms of, you know, the, the, the, the, in order to clean between stages. So you have cooking vessels. You have serving vessels. You have vessels that you eat off of and you have, you know, some type of vessels that you store food in. Right? So for every meal you have, there are essentially four different components that not only take up resources in terms of making them in their manufacture, but I think equally important, they take resources in terms of using clean water to clean them in between each stages. So I thought it was a pretty good set of vessels and serve and eat and store in those very same vessels. It's a very simple idea and probably not the most original in the world, but the approach we took was we narrowed down to all the forms that we thought you would need and made them just as simple as possible. And so we did, as part of that, was to try to make a long bowl and a lid and a glass. That's it. But a plate, the fact that the lid becomes a trivet, the fact that the bowl becomes a heating element to contain it, or the bowl becomes a bowl means that you need far fewer vessels in order to be able to serve us. And we've tried to show a lot of different scenarios here about how they, they're just done in different aspects. Equally raised dots. Now, why are they? Well, if you're going to cook in something, you're introducing heat into it. Without getting too technical, what we've created are a series of heat sinks. What heat sinks do is they create a greater surface area on one side, opposed to the inside. Now, that makes things cook much more quickly with less energy and heat evenly better. But most importantly, after you heat the microwave, they'll quickly dissipate heat so that these things become cooler to the touch. Because if you are cooking on a frying pan and putting it in your table and expecting it to eat up, you actually go straight from a very hot surface to a very cool surface. But more important, like, we're people. If we could take this technical necessity and make it into a beautiful aesthetic moment, you know, so that it becomes, it adds, which is equally, if not more so important to your enjoyment of, you know, dining, whether it is by yourself or whether it's in a group, you know, people need beauty. It's, it's why you see these dots. There's sort of two, we're a much more globalized society. There are, we set that universal and, you know, integrating things, you know, in between like, you know, an eastern spoon and a western spoon, integrating chopsticks. But what you'll see here is this is a very right-hand friendly set, right? If you're a left-handed person, it's going to be very difficult for you to use. So, whether you're a child, whether you're a teenager, whether you're a... The digital file is merely mirrored. And you actually have the perfect set of cutlery for you to use if you're left-handed. And the perfect set of cutlery for you to use if you're right-handed. So these are simple innovations that technology allows because, unlike traditional manufacturing, you're not having to cut tooling and make 100,000 units before you make your cost. When you, you know, click to order on, on Amazon, you're ordering your set. You can just dial in what you want and then it would come in... You know, that's a very, you know, cursory explanation of, of what you're seeing here. And you may have questions later, but I think I'll let Mary talk about, you know, the her ingenious table here. Thanks. So I, so in order to kind of maintain the conceptual integrity of our sort of mission statement, the table and the seating really addresses the idea of like finite space, I think a lot of us living in, you know, New York, you know, in the cosmopolitan region definitely probably has, you know, have grappled with. And so quite simply the idea is if you could, if you have like one person, you know, yourself or if you have guests, it could accommodate your guests as well. So this is just a prototype for display, but in theory the idea is that they spin out of the two central axes, which are based on a Lazy Susan. So those spin and kind of the quintessential Lazy Susan is great because, you know, you can pass food around really easily and it's a nice idea of like gathering everyone together. So the tabletops actually are at different heights for a reason because they can stack. And so then the seats fold in and they live underneath the tabletops. So in theory, you know, you could have, you can have it on two legs and it will support two people or one person. And then you can spin everything out and you'll have up to eight in this iteration. And so, so that's the kind of like structural design. The materiality of it is also very key because the surface laminate, actually the whole top board that you see is a material called rewall based out of Iowa. And they recently got acquired by a company called Continuous Materials. And so their mandate is that they are going to try to scale up this existing interior wall board that they supply, which are actually compressed, in this case, compressed Starbucks coconut water cartons. And so, but, yeah, and so, and you'll, if you look closely, you'll see the sort of like packaging details. And then the silver is great because that's the liner, the tetraliner of these containers. And so it kind of really gives a second new life to things that are discarded. And so they, it's a great company and they kind of, you know, gather everything based on color. So at least you have some sort of like uniformity. And I think the nice effect that it lends itself to is this idea of like a terrazzo stone effect. And the, in this prototype, we used MDF, but in our kind of like dream world, it was going to be used, we were going to use Rich Light, which is also another 100% architectural material. And it's so somehow the method that they use, they've compressed it so densely that you actually have to use a stone cutter to use it. So people have been actually replacing it as their kitchen, you know, countertops. Yeah, it's great and it looks, it looks beautiful. So that was our ideal sort of like, you know, use. And yeah, so I think this is just like a potential answer to the idea that, you know, you don't have enough space in your living space, but you want to try to accommodate everyone. How do you do so? What you're seeing here are look prototypes. These are 3D printed polymers. That's what I would need off of. But they are designed and developed to be used in 3D printed aluminum, 3D printed steel, and 3D printed glass. All of these 3D printed steel is actually commercially viable at the moment. 3D printed glass is in its nascent stages. You know, we're told it's going to be commercialized in three years. I give it 10. So this is, you know, not today's solution, but in the very, very near future. So, no, I bet you could buy them from the museum, though. It's some extra funding. In terms of color, I think what we were looking at was to create some, you know, contrast between the two. Understanding that, you know, it's an exhibit and people are walking by. They want to sort of grab someone's, you know, allow the forms to come through. It's actually the same pattern applied to the glass and the matte black. And you can see the textural difference between them. They both have different qualities to them. Dictating that, you know, in production, it's like anything with these, you know, there would probably be many different versions that would suit many different people, as well as different patterns. What's important about the pattern is that you have more surface area on one side than the other, not that particular pattern. So it's kind of interesting because it actually mirrors a lot what you're seeing in the room on the 19th century. There's a lot of cut patterns in glass because of the way they handle light. This is a completely different function, but ultimately the two do the same thing in the sense that they're there to elevate the experience as well as, you know, in this case, serve a purpose. I'm not sure they do so in that room. But that's the difference between a 19th century designer and a 21st century designer. A 19th century designer is there to, is an artisan there to bring about a higher level of aesthetics. 21st century designers and creative thinkers are here to absolutely imbue a greater sense of responsibility to what we've put out in the world. We're here to solve problems rather than just create new ones. But, you know, we still have a responsibility to the aesthetics of things as well. It's not just pure utility. Yes. Right. That's a very good question. One of the things that, here's sort of the trajectory of additive manufacturing and why we chose to look at this in terms of 3D printing. One, there's zero waste in the process. Nothing is made until it has a home. Like, you're not, these are not being manufactured in some far off country, put on a container ship, shipped around the world, put in a warehouse in New Jersey, and sit there and hope you sell it and make it the trip to the buyer. And all of the impact that that has out of manufacturing allows you to, when you buy something, it's made right then and it's made for you. Now, here's the trajectory of additive manufacturing. It's been around for 37 years. It's basically following Moore's law. Like, it's been getting, it's basically following Moore's law the same as computing. It's been getting 20 to 25% cheaper each year and 20 to 25% better in terms of quality. And while now, this is, you could have these things 3D printed. They would be extraordinarily expensive. In five years' time, they would be less so. In 15 years' time, it would be cheaper than if you could mass manufacture them today. So, yes, the idea that additive manufacturing, you know, Mary and I were saying, we came up with our ideas fairly quickly, but then it's how do we, you know, who do we, we have to partner with people, we have to figure out, you know, how are we going to have these things realized and into space and on time and ready for the opening. That's one of the bigger challenges that you rarely get to hear about. Yeah. What we tried to do, and if this has a, you know, another phase to it, the actual sort of like these like panels that you see that are like supporting the seats, the idea is that they would be tessellated in, so tessellated meaning it's cut out from the board using the negative shapes after you use the circles for the seating and the tabletops. We tried to stick with that, and so like the curvature of the tabletop kind of speaks to the oblong shape of Joe's serving wear, so that's how we kind of wanted to match that just like aesthetically, but we were trying to see if we could also, you know, have whatever was left over after we cut the boards to serve as a uniform shape to be the seats. You can see them. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but they're not too much. Yeah, yeah. Should only require two different hikes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this one's meant for a hot beverage and this for a cold, and it wasn't necessary to wrap it all the way around for a cold beverage. Actually, if anything, it would lose heat more quickly, so we used the same design aesthetic for a grip. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes you just need to break things up a bit. Too many dots. We had a schedule. Yeah, thanks for coming. Yeah, thank you all for sticking around, and thanks for the great questions. The worst thing you can do is be up here and no one asks anything.