For the latest episode of the Design the Future podcast, Lindsay Baker and I diverged from our pattern and interviewed two people … and it was a joy.
Jonsara Ruth is co-founder and Design Director of the Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons School of Design, where she is an Associate Professor and Founding Director of the MFA Interior Design program. Alison Mears is Associate Professor of Architecture, Director and Co-Founder of the Healthy Materials Lab (HML) and Director/Co-Founder of HML EU.
This year is the HML's tenth in operation. Alison and Jonsara's close collaboration has been central to the Lab's development and to its success in engaging people and changing minds and practices.
"Jonsara and I have a lot in common," Alison says, "including a drive to use our design skills in the service of a higher goal to produce place for people that meet all their needs. We want to raise the bar. And we want to invite people in to do this work."
Jonsara says their partnership works well because they have complementary skill sets and they've always been willing to hear one another out: "We value intuition and we respect each other's experience. We are both committed to always learning and evolving."
Listen at https://www.designthefuturepodcast.com/episodes/jonsara-ruth-alison-mears or on your favorite podcast platform. (Please consider leaving a review on Apple or Spotify; it really helps people find us!)
Alison and Jonsara published the book Material Health: Design Frontiers (Lund Humphries, 2023) exploring the intersectional and complex nature of material health. Learn more about that here: https://healthymaterialslab.org/tool-guides/material-health-design-frontiers.
They also co-authored a chapter of The Regenerative Materials Movement (Living Future/Ecotone, 2024). All y'all podcast listeners can get 25% off the ePDF, which will auto-apply at checkout via this link:
https://store.living-future.org/products/the-regenerative-materials-movement-dispatches-from-practitioners-researchers-and-advocates.
Parsons / The New School
School of Constructed Environments
#MaterialsMatter
#HealthyPeopleHealthyPlanet
#DesignTheWorldWeWant
------------------------------
Kira Gould Hon. AIA
Kira Gould CONNECT
Mission Hills KS
------------------------------