2009 National Design Award Winners

Bill Moggridge

Bill Moggridge is a co-founder of IDEO, a global design consultancy, creating impact through design. A Royal Designer for Industry, Moggridge designed the world’s first laptop computer. He pioneered interaction design and is one of the first people to integrate human factors into the design of software and hardware. He has been a trustee of the Design Museum; visiting professor in interaction design at the Royal College of Art in London, lecturer in Design at the London Business School and a member of the Steering Committee for the Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, Italy. He is currently consulting associate professor in the design program at Stanford University. His book, DVD and Web site “Designing Interactions” tell the story of how interaction design is transforming our daily lives.

Amory B. Lovins

Amory B. Lovins, an American physicist and 1993 MacArthur Fellow, has been active at the nexus of energy, resources, environment, development and security in more than 50 countries for 40 years, including 14 years based in England. He is widely considered among the world’s leading authorities on energy—especially its efficient use and sustainable supply—and a fertile innovator in integrative design. He is the co-founder of Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent, entrepreneurial, nonprofit think-and-do tank. His uniquely influential and innovative work combines broad syntheses of new solutions to old problems with deep analyses of underlying technical and institutional issues. RMI’s clients have included The Clinton Foundation, Deutsche Bank, MGM Mirage and Wal-Mart.

Walker Art Center

Through hundreds of groundbreaking exhibitions, publications and presentations by designers worldwide, the Walker Art Center presents the value of design to the general public. Its in-house design studio—widely regarded as a leader in contemporary cultural branding—is the recipient of more than 100 awards and operates one of the longest running fellowship programs in the U.S. The Walker actively commissions cutting-edge designs to create new buildings, landscapes, fonts and interactive technologies from leading and emerging designers. The museum’s commitment to design is reflected in the importance it has been accorded within the institution since its inception as a multidisciplinary art center in 1940: a central voice in strategic planning, an essential component of its multidisciplinary programming and a vital force in shaping its identity.

SHoP Architects

SHoP Architects, a 60-person practice, was founded by its five principals in 1996. SHoP has been a leader in the transformation of intricate theoretical design into easily understood construction models by rethinking architectural practice. This think tank has pushed the designer’s realm past form making and into software design, branding, real estate development, construction and the co-development of new sustainable technologies. As both practitioners and educators, their commitment to challenging the entire process of building has proven to a generation of architects that beauty and technological proficiency are not mutually exclusive. Their current work includes a two-mile waterfront park along New York’s East River and projects for the Fashion Institute of Technology and Goldman Sachs, both in Manhattan, and Google in Mountain View, CA. Recently completed projects include Garden Street Lofts in Hoboken, NJ, Hangil Book House in Seoul, South Korea, The Porter House in New York City and SanLiTun in Beijing.

The New York Times Graphics Department

The Communication Design Award, which honors work in graphic or multimedia design, is presented to The New York Times Graphics Department. The New York Times has a long history of groundbreaking information graphics. From Sept. 11, 2001, when the department produced scores of maps and diagrams explaining the attacks and their aftermath, to the 2008 presidential election when the desk built the interactive maps on nytimes.com, the Times Graphics Department provides readers with a visual way to understand the news. A staff of cartographers, illustrators, researchers and developers work as a team to shape and deliver information by reporting, writing, designing, drawing and programming information graphics for both the printed newspaper and nytimes.com. Over time, the graphics have evolved from simple maps and charts to more complex visualizations, but the goal of authoritative, accurate journalism has remained the same.

Francisco Costa for Calvin Klein Collection

Francisco Costa has worked since 2002 as creative director of Calvin Klein Collection for women. Named Womenswear Designer of the Year in 2006 by the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Costa has worked directly with Calvin Klein as well as with other top design houses of Gucci, Balmain Couture and Oscar de la Renta. He worked briefly at Susan Bennett Studio before being recruited by the HE-RO Group as designer of Bill Blass dresses and knits. In 1993, Costa began a five-year collaboration with Oscar de la Renta that included the designer’s signature collection as well as Pierre Balmain haute couture, prêt-a-porter luxe and the launch of Oscar de la Renta Pink Label. Tom Ford recruited Costa in 1998 to join his Gucci design studio, where Costa was a senior designer concentrating on eveningwear including custom designs for select clients and celebrities.

Perceptive Pixel
Perceptive Pixel is dedicated to the research, development and deployment of multi-touch interfaces for the knowledge worker. Their systems enable both novice and expert users to manipulate complex datasets through a new class of intuitive yet powerful and visually rich interface techniques. The company was founded in 2006 by Jeff Han after he astonished attendees at that year’s TED conference with a live debut of the technology. Since then, Perceptive Pixel has rapidly proliferated by working with industry leaders to apply these novel interfaces to professional use cases in markets as diverse as business intelligence, medical imaging, energy exploration, industrial design, and collaboration. Most recently, Perceptive Pixel became renowned for completely transforming the way television broadcasters including CNN, Fox and ABC covered the historic 2008 Presidential elections.

HOOD Design

Hood Design was established by Walter Hood in 1992, in Oakland, Calif. The firm is committed to issues that address the re-construction of urban landscapes within towns and cities. Hood Design’s approach is multi-dimensional, exploring the role of specific landscape typologies and topologies that together reinforce and re-make landscapes that are specific to place and people. Hood is a professor and former chair of the Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning program at the University of California, Berkeley. His area of teaching and research, American urban landscape history and design, is intertwined with office practice creating a didactic approach to projects. Hood’s projects include the landscape for the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco and Poplar Street, a green boulevard in the heart of downtown Macon, Ga.

TsAO & McKOWN Architects

TsAO & McKOWN Architects, led by partners Calvin Tsao and Zack McKown, has demonstrated that the design of environments can best be served when building design and interior design are conceived as a whole, as evidenced by the unique sense of seamlessness between outside and inside exhibited in their many celebrated projects. Their work includes: architecture and interiors for Andre Balazs’ 47 story William Beaver House in NY, Riverlofts condominiums in NY and Suntec City, a six-million square foot public/private development in Singapore; architecture and urban master plans for large-scale projects in Budapest, Berlin, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and cities in China; interiors for cultural and fashion leaders Ian Schrager, Josie Natori, Joyce Ma, Peter Morton and Geoffrey Beene; exhibition design for Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art, McGill University’s McCord Museum and New York’s Jewish Museum; and product and furniture design for Nan Swid Designs, Donghia, The Robin Hood Foundation, World Studio and Japanese cosmetics master Shu Uemura.

Boym Partners

Boym Partners is a New York-based design studio led by Constantin and Laurene Boym. Boym Partners brings a critical, experimental approach to a range of products that infuse humor and wit into the everyday. Frequently drawing from American iconography, it creates a variety of products and environments for an international roster of companies, including Alessi, Swatch, Flos and Vitra. They also create their own Boym Editions, sought after by many collectors around the world. Both Constantin and Laurene have taught at Parsons The New School for Design, where they influenced and inspired generations of young designers. Their work is included the permanent collections of many museums, including The Museum of Modern Art.

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Reynold Levy, President, Lincoln Center

Since 2002, Reynold Levy has served as President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, playing in instrumental role in the latest redevelopment of the 16.3-acre urban renewal complex from the 1960s that was also the first attempt to centralize cultural institutions in an American city. The first major phase of the project, Alice Tully Hall designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, opened earlier this year and has been lauded equally by architecture critics and discerning listeners. The equally anticipated new visitor’s center designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien will open later this fall. Under Dr. Levy’s leadership, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has entered a new era by embracing ambitious and innovative buildings that reintegrate Robert Moses’ scheme with the city and invite a new audience to America’s most prestigious cultural campus on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Dr. Levy’s arrival at the helm of Lincoln Center continues a distinguished career in public service that includes his previous roles as President of the International Rescue Committee (1997-2002), senior officer of AT&T in charge of government relations (1994-1996), President of the AT&T Foundation (1984-1996), Executive Director of the 92nd Street Y (1977-1984), and Staff Director of the Task Force on the New York City Fiscal Crisis. He has also written and spoken widely about philanthropy, and is the author of Yours for the Asking: An Indispensable Guide to Fundraising and Management (John Wiley and Sons, 2008).