Lifestyle

Dear Frances, First off, I want to say that I feel really sorry for you this week since the news broke about your $60,000 scholarship to study at Whitehouse Institute of Design. As your passion was to study design, you should be commended for following this passion, and for applying yourself to your studies and graduating with Distinctions. Well done. No one is suggesting that you didn’t deserve to graduate with high grades, and no one is suggesting that it was unfair for you to be accepted into the course in the first place. But what people are upset about, including me, just so we’re clear, is the speculation that you got this opportunity to study without paying for it through your dad’s job and his connections. If this is true, we’re upset with your father. And I should imagine that...

Hello dear Design In Conversation listeners, subscribers, and followers. First of all thank you for your support of this podcast. Since our launch in November of 2013, over 20,000 of you have clicked, downloaded, subscribed and pressed play to at least one episode of Design In Conversation. Knowing that all of you (most of which I have never seen or met) have heard my voice is simultaneously exciting and overwhelming. Whether you’ve listened to just one, or tuned into every episode and shared them with your friends, colleagues and fellow design aficionados, your support is very much appreciated. Our goal with this project has been to share an interesting point of view of the design community in general, but more importantly, to share the voice of designers, artists, makers and...

Dear Larry, In your recent conversation with Charlie Rose at TED, you said you’d rather hand over your cash to Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City) instead of donating it to a philanthropic organization. I understand the sentiment. The nonprofit sphere has generally proved itself incapable of solving many of society’s most intractable problems. In particular, 2.7 billion people left behind in the most extreme poverty – 40% of the world’s population, living on $2 per day or less while global wealth concentrates in fewer and fewer hands, putting humanity on an unsustainable course. But for all of us, it’s a practical challenge, not just a guilt trip. The poor drive the population explosion with high birth rates; they represent a catastrophic waste of human talent; they contribute...

Dear Secretary Foxx, Congratulations on your unanimous confirmation to serve as U.S. Secretary of Transportation. As head of one of the nation’s most important agencies, you now have the unique opportunity to lead it into the future. This future may involve the next generation of aircraft or navigation; roads or bridges; cars or trains. But one innovation, design-build project delivery, has already arrived. While many states (including your home state of North Carolina) use it extensively, the U.S. Department of Transportation is often behind the times. Design-build is an integrated approach that delivers design and construction services under one contract with a single point of responsibility. A study by the Construction Industry Institute and Penn State University showed that...