Speakers

A man with glasses and a beard stands indoors with hands in pockets, wearing a light blue button-up shirt and jeans. The room has white walls and natural light.

Andrew Kudless | Matsys | University of Houston

Andrew Kudless is a designer based in Houston, Texas where he is the Bill Kendall Memorial Endowed Professor at the University of Houston’s Hines College of Architecture Design as well as the Director of the Advanced Media Technology Lab. In 2004, he founded Matsys, a design studio exploring the emergent relationships between architecture, engineering, biology and computation. The work of Matsys has been exhibited internationally and is in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the FRAC Centre in Orleans, France. His work on Confluence Park has won a number of awards including a 2019 AIA National Honor Award. In 2019, he became the first American designer to contribute to Louis Vuitton’s Objets Nomades collection. He holds a Master of Arts in Emergent Technologies and Design from the Architectural Association and a Master of Architecture from Tulane University.

A man with short hair stands with arms crossed in front of a wall with posters, including one that says DESIGN IS SMART..

David Wolske | University of North Texas

David Wolske is a designer, educator and letterpress artist whose work explores the expressive potential of typography through systems, constraints and experimentation. He is an Associate Professor of Communication Design at the University of North Texas.

Wolske combines antique wood and metal movable type with digital design processes. His isotype technique isolates and recombines individual parts of letterforms to create abstract compositions and new typographic forms. His work has been exhibited and published internationally, and he has presented lectures and workshops for organizations and institutions including AIGA, ATypI, College Book Art Association, Mid America Print Council, the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum and UCDA.

Wolske is a founding member of Letterpress Educators of Art and Design (LEAD) and an advisor to Partners in Print. His creative practice prioritizes process, material exploration and conceptual development. He views craft as excellence developed through curiosity, iteration and intention, an approach that shapes how he makes, teaches and thinks about the future of design.

A woman with long brown hair sits by a radiator, wearing a black blazer and tan pants, with one arm resting on the radiator and a calm expression on her face.

Julia Watson | Lo—TEK

Julia Watson is an Australian-born designer, author, TED speaker and founder of the Lo—TEK movement, advancing post-carbon futures through the cultivation of post-carbon cultures. She is the author of the award-winning books Lo—TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism and Lo—TEK Water, which reframe Indigenous technologies as models for climate-resilient landscapes, infrastructure and cities.
As founder of the Lo—TEK Office for Intercultural Urbanism and the Lo—TEK Institute, Watson works at the intersection of landscape architecture, ecology and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, collaborating with Indigenous communities, governments, cultural institutions and global organizations to develop regenerative design solutions for the climate era. Her clients and collaborators include NIKE, LEGO, Gensler and Buro Happold, and she has been recognized in Wallpaper USA 400 for four consecutive years as one of the architects shaping America’s creative landscape.

Bald man with a short beard and black shirt sits in front of large leafy green plants outdoors, looking at the camera.

Damien Mitchell | University of Louisiana Lafayette

Damien Mitchell is an Assistant Professor and the Program Coordinator of Industrial Design at the University of Louisiana Lafayette. He is a native of Louisiana who has worked as a multidisciplinary designer and entrepreneur in the fields of industrial design, graphic design and studio craft. He obtained a Bachelor of Industrial Design for UL–Lafayette, and later a Master of Fine Arts degree from The University of California–Davis. His current research integrates traditional craft principles into contemporary design disciplines as a means of democratizing design while promoting sustainability and localized production economies. He expresses his design ethos through artifacts such as footwear and furniture.