In 2015, interior designer Jonsara Ruth and architect Alison Mears received a grant to study the use of building materials in affordable housing. This grant led to the creation of the Healthy Materials Lab, a design-led research lab based out of the Parsons School of Design that raises awareness about toxins in building materials and draws attention to healthier alternatives. Almost a decade later, they’re still asking big and necessary questions: What if we could make building material...

S11E3: The Healthy Materials Lab is Making Housing Healthier for Everyone

Interviews with fascinating people from a range of industries—from music and retail to journalism and technology—who are exploring their creative practices, inventing new ways of working, and helping shape a more inclusive world.

In the 11th season of DB|BD,&nbsp; co-hosts Jessica Helfand and Ellen McGirt are observing equity by highlighting the “redesigners” — people who are addressing urgent problems by challenging big assumptions about how the world can and should work — and who it should work for. 




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Richard Buery is the CEO of Robin Hood, New York City’s largest poverty fighting organization. It supports high-impact community organizations and partners with state and local governments to elevate New Yorkers out of poverty. In 2023 alone, Robin Hood invested $129 million in 200 carefully selected poverty fighting organizations. And New Yorkers need this support more than ever before. Robin Hood’s 2024 Poverty Tracker, released in February, found that nearly 500,000 more New Yorkers lived ...

S11E4: Richard Buery and Robin Hood Are Building a Coalition to Tackle Poverty in NYC

Franklin Leonard is the founder and CEO of The Black List, a platform that nurtures emerging screenwriters and gives screenplays that aren’t attached to a big producer, actor or studio a chance to be produced. Since The Black List’s founding in 2005, 440 scripts from its annual survey have been produced as feature films, grossing $30 billion in box office worldwide. These films have earned 267 Academy Award nominations and 54 wins, including four Best Picture Oscars (Spotlight, Slumdog Millio...

S11E2: How Franklin Leonard is using The Black List to Redesign Hollywood

Carrie Mae Weems is a multidisciplinary artist. Her body of work stretches over four decades and across many mediums, but with a singular focus—  depicting the reality of Black life.  Weems talks about her work, her role in public life, the intersecting crises in the world, and the power of convening people through art to confront big truths.On this season of DB|BD,  co-hosts Jessica Helfand and Ellen McGirt are observing equity by highlighting the “redesigners” — people who ar...

S11E1: How to Throw a Party to Change the World with Carrie Mae Weems

While The Design of Business | The Business of Design is between seasons, we wanted to share with you a recent conversation we think you will find valuable. Previous DB|BD co-hosts Jessica Helfand and Ellen McGirt sat down with Design Observer podcast host and founder of Other Tomorrows, Lee Moreau and Cindy Chastain who leads customer experience and design at Mastercard.For three days in March, Design Observer and Mastercard leaders gathered with some sixty people—designers and scholars, soc...

S11E3: The Healthy Materials Lab is Making Housing Healthier for Everyone

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