Featuring 25 site-specific, newly commissioned installations, Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial explores design’s role in shaping the physical and emotional realities of home across the United States, US Territories, and Tribal Nations. The exhibition is the seventh offering in the museum’s Design Triennial series, which was established in 2000 to address the most urgent topics of the time through the lens of design.

Installed throughout the Andrew and Louise Carnegie Mansion, each floor of the exhibition is organized by themes that evoke experiences of home:

“Going Home” (ground and first floor) considers how people shape and are shaped by domestic spaces. Through reinterpretations of diverse home environments that traverse interior and exterior spaces, this section explores the historical and personal factors that influence home design and its profound impact on people’s experiences, behaviors, and values.

“Seeking Home” (second floor) addresses a range of institutional, experimental, and utopian contexts that challenge conventional definitions of home. Installations examine the idea of home through the lenses of cultural heritage, the human body, imagined landscapes, and refuge.

“Building Home” (third floor) presents alternatives to single-family construction models, expanding and redefining home to embrace community space, cooperative living, land stewardship, decolonial practices, and historic preservation. Large-scale installations explore building typologies grounded in regional histories and cultural specificity, and address contemporary issues such as housing precarity, environmental advocacy, memory, and aging.

PARTICIPANTS

  • After Oceanic Built Environments Lab, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Leong Leong Architecture, New York City
  • Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE), Miami, Florida
  • La Vaughn Belle, St. Croix, US Virgin Islands 
  • Black Artists + Designers Guild, Brooklyn, New York
  • Lori A. Brown, Syracuse, New York; Trish Cafferky, Boston, Massachusetts; and Dr. Yashica Robinson, Huntsville, Alabama 
  • CFGNY, New York, New York
  • Mona Chalabi and SITU Research, Brooklyn, New York
  • Nicole Crowder, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Hadiya Williams, Washington, DC
  • Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, Oakland, California 
  • Heather Dewey-Hagborg, New York, New York
  • East Jordan Middle/High School, East Jordan, Michigan 
  • Curry J. Hackett, Wayside Studio, Washington, DC, and New York, New York
  • Hugh Hayden, Brooklyn, New York; Davóne Tines, New York, New York; and Zack Winokur, New York, New York
  • Hord Coplan Macht, Baltimore, Maryland
  • Terrol Dew Johnson, Tohono O’odham Nation, Sells, Arizona, and Aranda\Lasch, Tucson, Arizona, and Brooklyn, New York
  • Liam Lee, Brooklyn, New York, and Tommy Mishima, Bronx, New York
  • Lenape Center with Joe Baker, Delaware Tribe of Indians, New York, New York, and Oklahoma 
  • Joiri Minaya, Brooklyn, New York
  • Sofía Gallisá Muriente, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Carlos Soto, Bronx, New York
  • Robert Earl Paige, Chicago, Illinois
  • PIN–UP, New York, New York 
  • Ronald Rael, Oakland, California, and La Florida, Colorado 
  • William Scott, Oakland, California
  • Amie Siegel, Brooklyn, New York 
  • Renée Stout, Washington, DC

Exhibition Highlights

publication

The accompanying publication, Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century, co-published with MIT Press, will feature scholarly essays together with first-person home stories, photo essays and conversations. All Design Triennial participants will contribute to the book alongside writers and critical thinkers who represent the expansive geographies, communities and legacies included in the exhibition. Available in February 2025, the publication will be designed by Sunny Park of Park-Langer, based in Los Angeles. Buy now →

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The exhibition is organized by Alexandra Cunningham Cameron, Cooper Hewitt’s curator of contemporary design and Hintz Secretarial Scholar; Christina L. De León, Cooper Hewitt’s acting deputy director of curatorial and associate curator of Latino design; and Michelle Joan Wilkinson, curator of architecture and design at the National Museum of African American History and Culture; with curatorial assistants Sophia Gebara, Caroline O’Connell, Julie Pastor, and Isabel Strauss.

Exhibition design by Los Angeles–based Johnston Marklee. Graphic design by New York City–based Office Ben Ganz. 

SUPPORT

Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial is presented in collaboration with Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. This project received federal support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum; the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the National Museum of the American Latino; the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center; and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Generous support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Support is also provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation; Edward and Helen Hintz; re:arc institute; the Keith Haring Foundation; the Lemberg Foundation; Maharam; and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

 

Upcoming Events

Family Program | Block Printing Textile Placemats
Join us this summer for hands-on activities inspired by Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial. Families are invited to sketch, print, or build together. On Wednesday, July 30, inspired by the abundant textile patterns in Nicole Crowder and Hadiya Williams’s dining room installation The Offering, design your own placemat! Create stamps using foam and cardboard and print with fabric paint on linen! Take your placemat home to use at your table.
Family Program | Sketching in the Garden and Galleries
Join us this summer for hands-on activities inspired by Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial. Families are invited to sketch, print, or build together. On Wednesday, July 16, try out fun drawing prompts and sketch in the museum’s garden or cool off and be inspired by the mansion’s interiors. Create your own Cooper Hewitt postcard with what makes New York City home to you and mail it to a friend!
Making Home Saturday Series: Is Home Where the Body Is? (Session 2)
Join Cooper Hewitt for the next Making Home Saturday Series where we consider the hidden homes of our DNA with artist and biohacker Dr. Heather Dewey-Hagborg. For Session 2, enjoy a live performance of “Correspondence Song,” a musical version of Dewey-Hagborg’s exchanges with medical institutions and third parties as she attempts to track down her blood samples. The performance, will include voice and acoustic instruments performed by composer Niki Main, Danielle Buonaiuto, Jules Biber, and Jessica Tsang. The performance will take place on the second floor of the museum after a presentation by Dewey-Hagborg in Session 1. It is standing room only and first come first served. 
Making Home Saturday Series: Is Home Where the Body Is? (Session 1)
Join Cooper Hewitt for the next Making Home Saturday Series where we consider the hidden homes of our DNA with artist and biohacker Dr. Heather Dewey-Hagborg. In Session 1, Dewey-Hagborg will discuss her installation and soundtrack for Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial, which explores the architectural and cultural footprint of so-called “biobanks.” Dewey-Hagborg will tell the story of her own investigative efforts to discover her “blood spot card”—the blood drawn at birth from every newborn to be screened for disorders. After her presentation, Dewey-Hagborg will be joined by biologist Katayoun Chamany for a brief conversation.
Heritage, Design, and Culture in the Black Home
In celebration of the recently released publication Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century, join artists and designers Robert Earl Paige, Renée Stout, Jomo Tariku, and Hadiya Williams in conversation with Michelle Joan Wilkinson, curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, as they explore ideas about home through the lens of heritage, culture, and design. The speakers will reflect on their experiences of making home through art, design, and through cultivating spaces for the nourishment of self and community. In their work, which includes textiles, altars, tablescapes, and furniture, we find examples of how each uniquely addresses refuge, ancestry, and interconnection in home living spaces and the objects they create.

Past Events

Family Program | Architecture Mini-Challenges
Join us this summer for hands-on activities inspired by Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial. Families are invited to model, sketch, print, or build together with creative projects related to the exhibition. On Wednesday, July 2nd, discover how architects creatively tackle issues like weather, materials, and tiny spaces. Then, try your hand at architectural mini-challenges with clay, cardboard, and other materials inspired by the exhibition.
Family Program | Setting a Place at the Table
In June, celebrate Pride by designing your own placemats to welcome loved ones to your table. Draw inspiration from works in Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial, including the PIN-UP film Dream Homes, which tells the story of three LGBTQIA+ communities exploring daily life and ensuring everyone feels at home, and The Offering, by Nicole Crowder and Hadiya Williams, which explores how textiles and table settings can help express who we are and provide a sense of belonging.
Dream Homes Film Screening
Join us at Anthology Film Archive for a screening of Dream Homes, a 30-minute documentary film featured in Cooper Hewitt’s Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial, exploring communal living within three LGBTQIA+ collectives across the nation—Lupinewood, Ten of Cups Farm, and House of GG. Co-directed by PIN–UP publisher Michael Bullock and filmmaker Michael Cukr, the film reimagines home and kinship, highlighting solidarity, community, and new domestic models. After the screening, stay for a thoughtful discussion with the filmmakers and multigenerational representatives featured in the film on how these communities cultivate a profound sense of home while defying mainstream norms that often exclude queer people.
An up-close image of a book titled "Making Home." The cover art is of a clothes line with various items hung up. The title text is orange. The book is placed on a wood table. The image is bordered in light purple. At the bottom, red text reads "Making Home." Black text reads "Smithsonian Design Triennial."
Book Launch: Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century
Join us for the book launch of Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century. Published to accompany the exhibition Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial, the book is a powerful collection of perspectives on the contemporary and evolving meanings of home, and how they capture both the shared and conflicting narratives that impact our country today. Featuring a mix of readings and conversation, the program will explore possibilities of how to navigate and reflect on the book’s dynamic collection of essays, interviews, and photos.
Curator Tour: Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial
In this curator-guided tour of Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial, visitors will explore some of the exhibition’s 25 original commissions, highlighting design’s role in shaping the physical and emotional experiences of home across the United States, US Territories, and Tribal Nations. The exhibition is the seventh offering in the museum’s Design Triennial series, which was established...
Curator Tour: Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial
In this curator-guided tour of Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial, visitors will explore some of the exhibition’s 25 original commissions, highlighting design’s role in shaping the physical and emotional experiences of home across the United States, US Territories, and Tribal Nations. The exhibition is the seventh offering in the museum’s Design Triennial series, which was established...
Family Program | Making Homes for Urban Birds
Design urban habitats for the feathered friends among us! Learn about bird-friendly designs and create your own model skyscraper.
Family Program | Design Around Town
Make yourself at home for a game day at the museum!
Disability Meets Design: Hack Your Home with Laura Mauldin 
Disability Meets Design: Hack Your Home with Laura Mauldin  Held in celebration of NYCxDesign, this program presents tactics and strategies for making our homes more accessible for ourselves and our loved ones. Led by Laura Mauldin, professor, author, and founder of the site DisabilityAtHome.Org, the program includes a presentation followed by a hands-on workshop inviting...