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Design Lab statement on protests, violence following George Floyd’s death

Design Lab statement on protests, violence following George Floyd’s death

Design Lab statement on protests, violence following George Floyd’s death

The Design Lab stands in solidarity with the Black community in the fight against racial injustice. We condemn all acts of police brutality and violence that led to the recent murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, David McAtee, and countless other members of the Black community.

We condemn all acts of discrimination. We fully support the Black Lives Matter movement and their efforts to bring justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe. We recognize that these acts of violence are deeply rooted in a history of systemic racism, and we understand that design plays a large role in influencing whether our structures and technologies support or further oppress people of color. We vow to use our platform, position, and privileges to fight for a more equitable future.

The Design Lab stands in solidarity with the Black community in the fight against racial injustice. We condemn all acts of police brutality and violence that led to the recent murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, David McAtee, and countless other members of the Black community.

We condemn all acts of discrimination. We fully support the Black Lives Matter movement and their efforts to bring justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe. We recognize that these acts of violence are deeply rooted in a history of systemic racism, and we understand that design plays a large role in influencing whether our structures and technologies support or further oppress people of color. We vow to use our platform, position, and privileges to fight for a more equitable future.

The Design Lab stands in solidarity with the Black community in the fight against racial injustice. We condemn all acts of police brutality and violence that led to the recent murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, David McAtee, and countless other members of the Black community.

We condemn all acts of discrimination. We fully support the Black Lives Matter movement and their efforts to bring justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe. We recognize that these acts of violence are deeply rooted in a history of systemic racism, and we understand that design plays a large role in influencing whether our structures and technologies support or further oppress people of color. We vow to use our platform, position, and privileges to fight for a more equitable future.

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San Diego profs tackle dying oceans and idea cross-pollination at global exhibition

San Diego Union Tribune

Design Lab member and Visual Arts Professor Pinar Yoldas joins the 2021 Venice Biennale to promote discussion of dying oceans and idea cross-pollination through a global exhibition.

This summer, 112 artists and architectural teams from around the world were invited to the annual Venice Biennale in Italy to create artworks that answer the forward-thinking question: “How will we live together?” Two of the invitees to this prestigious exhibition are from San Diego.

Pinar Yoldas, a multidisciplinary art professor at UC San Diego, took an imaginative look at what the world’s endangered oceans might look like in 30 years, while Daniel López-Pérez, a founding faculty member for the architecture program at the University of San Diego, studied the global dialogue of ideas inside a spherical structure inspired by R. Buckminster Fuller’s geoscope design.
How To Reduce Obesity Among Latino Children

How to Reduce Obesity among Latino Children, with Precision

UC San Diego and community collaborators receive $3 million grant to develop more community-centered, precision approaches to reducing adverse childhood events that lead to obesity, a nationwide problem

“Working with the Latino community, we want to create a family-based approach to improve individual and community resilience to stress and address the obesity epidemic,” said lead principal investigator Gary S. Firestein, MD, Distinguished Professor of Medicine and ACTRI director.

Blanca Meléndrez, director of the Center for Community Health at UC San Diego and a co-principal investigator on the study with Eric Hekler, PhD, Design Lab member, professor and interim associate dean for community partnerships in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health, said that beyond determining which methods best promote resiliency and reduce obesity among children, researchers and community collaborators will seek to create interventions that can be delivered to different families that match a family’s unique circumstances and needs.

Steven Rick on Designing for Healthcare | Design Chats


Steven Rick, Graduate Student at UC San Diego, shares his approach and experiences when designing for healthcare and how design can improve doctor-patient relationships.

Design Chats is a video series where we sit down with design practitioners to answer questions about how they utilize human-centered design.

View our Design Chats playlist on the Design Lab YouTube Channel
Daniel Suh Designer-in-residence

Meet Designer-in-Residence & Data Analyst Daniel Suh

Daniel Suh has always been passionate about creating partnerships to uplift others. While he was an undergraduate at UC San Diego’s Thurgood Marshall College, he founded one of the university’s first student consulting organizations, Cornerstone Community Consultants, which provides pro-bono opportunities for students to empower the local community. Suh also established UCSD’s first chapter of International Justice Mission, a student-led organization that centers around human rights, anti-human trafficking, and law enforcement. "Growing up in an underprivileged community, I've discovered a passion for social justice and contributing to causes larger than myself," Suh says.

Indigenous knowledge and advocacy is now seen as vital to the fight against climate change

As nations develop strategies to combat climate change, they're beginning to turn to solutions from the indigenous communities that have been on the front lines of the efforts to protect the planet.

A 2021 report from the indigenous rights organization, the ICCA, details just how much the rest of the world depends on indigenous communities for preserving planetary health.

"In Latin America and the Caribbean, Indigenous and tribal peoples manage between 330 and 380 million hectares of forest," the ICCA report said. "Those forests store more than one-eighth of all the carbon in the world’s tropical forests and house a large portion of the world’s endangered animal and plant species. Almost half (45 per cent) of the large ‘wilderness’ areas in the Amazon Basin are in Indigenous territories and several studies have found that Indigenous peoples’ territories have lower rates of deforestation and lower risk of wildfires than state protected areas."

Nazima Ahmad is Putting People Over Profits by Connecting Art and Design at the Design Lab

If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that our communities are more important than ever. The pandemic has changed the ways in which we experience and perceive community—sometimes even causing us to feel that it has vanished. The past two years have been an uncertain time for those involved in the arts, with many creative professionals being impacted by dwindling audiences and interest. Nazima Ahmad, a Designer-in-Residence at The Design Lab, noticed the crumbling connection between artists and consumers and sought to find a way to mend it. Working with fellow designer Michelle Hoogenhout, the two were able to come up with City Canvas, a concept developed in collaboration with the Arts and Commission Department of the City of San Diego that won the 2020 SCALE San Diego Urban Innovation Challenge that works to make connecting with local artists easier for San Diego residents.

“Working with the city on that project was all-around trying to figure out how to promote the creative economy of San Diego,” says Ahmad of the goal of the project. Not only was the project a great success at Design Week, but it is also what led Ahmad to The Design Lab.
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