The Futures Archive – Details, episodes & analysis

While The Futures Archive is between seasons, we wanted to share with you a recent conversation between TFA host Lee Moreau, Design Observer founder Jessica Helfand, Cindy Chastain leader of customer experience and design at Mastercard, and Ellen McGirt from Fortune.

For three days in March, Design Observer and Mastercard leaders gathered with some sixty people—designers and scholars, social entrepreneurs and independent consultants, creative leaders and senior practitioners from across a range of industries—to discuss the current state of everything from collaboration and craft to cultural transformation, technological innovation, and the social and systemic changes impacting the ways we live and work. 

The Futures Archive will be back soon with season three! In the meantime check out our back catalogue here, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or however you listen, and make sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

While The Futures Archive is between seasons, we wanted to share with you another show — Sketch Model from Olin College of Engineering and previous cohost Sara Hendren.

Sketch Model is a limited series that delves into the engineering classroom and looks at how perspectives from the arts, humanities, and social sciences shape the why and should questions about the technologies we build. On this episode, Sara  talks to creative technologist Mimi Onuoha about teaching young designers—and artists, and engineers, and creative people whose work lies somewhere in that mix—how to learn. How to learn not just skills for designing the built world, but how to contend with the ideas behind the things we make. To hear more from Sara on TFA check out her episodes on the insulin pump, the refrigerator, and the defibrillator (AED).

A transcript for the episode an be found here.

The Futures Archive will be back soon with season three! In the meantime check out our back catalogue here, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or however you listen, and make sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

So what did you have for breakfast? Did any of it come from your refrigerator? On this episode of The Futures Archive Lee Moreau and Sara Hendren discuss designing for health and safety within the everyday context of refrigeration and the mysterious coldscape.

With additional insights from Jonathan Rees, Nicola Twilley, Vipul Saran, and Robyn Metcalfe. 

Note: This episode addresses topics particularly sensitive in light of this week's school shooting in Texas. While Design Observer has never shied away from difficult conversations, the editors acknowledge that this content may be difficult for some listeners.

Content Warning: Violence, killing, and death are discussed in this episode.

It would be hard to find someone who wants to share space with a mosquito. Hence, the creation of the bug zapper. But as designers, how do we address what lives and what doesn't? On this episode of The Futures Archive Lee Moreau and Sloan Leo go deep on how human-centerd design doesn't always reflect humanity.

With additional insights from David MacNeal, Juliano Morimoto, Spee Kosloff, Paula Antonelli, and Lindsay Garcia. 

On a hot summer day there's nothing like walking into a freezing cold office building to remind you of how much humans are modifying their environments. On this episode of The Futures Archive Lee Moreau and Rachel Lehrer discuss the pleasures and pains of air conditioning for ourselves and the sustainability of the planet.

With additional insights from Salvatore Basile, Daniel Barber, Kofi Boone, and Gail Brager. 

Do you notice the defibrillator on the wall or behind the cash register in the places you visit daily? Have you ever been called on to use one? On this episode of The Futures Archive Lee Moreau and Sara Hendren discuss the defibrillator, designing life-saving machines for everyday users, and the power of the power button.

With additional insights from Christine Ball, Rachel Plotnick, and Lucienne Roberts.

Do you have a blender? Do you use it? Does it make your life more convenient? On this episode of The Futures Archive Lee Moreau and Sloan Leo discuss the blender, gender roles, and power structures.

With additional insights from Alice Naylor, Dan Formosa, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, and Michelle Lokot. 

What does our need for dongles say about the sustainability, or obsolescence, of the electronics we are designing and consuming? On this episode of The Futures Archive Lee Moreau and Liz Danzico discuss dongles and how we might find a more sustainable way forward. With additional insights from Jason Scott, Susan Strasser, Kem Laurin, and Nathan Proctor. 

What are the relationships between design and pleasure? How can we design the most pleasurable experiences?  On this episode of The Futures Archive Lee Moreau and Rachel Lehrer discuss the disco ball and the importance of embodied design. With additional insights from Änne Söll, Nadine Hubbs, Gary Hunt, and David Rose. 

Season two of The Futures Archive launches next week and we’re excited to introduce you to our four co-hosts for the season. Just like last season our host Lee Moreau, his co-host, and a variety of experts will explore an object to learn about it's design and cultural history, and unlock a larger conversation about human-centered design and the future. This season, each episode will take an object with power, look for the human at the center — and keep asking questions with our following co-hosts.

 Liz Danzico is part designer, part educator, and full-time dog owner. Liz is the Founding Chair of the MFA Interaction Design program at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) and was most recently Acting Senior Vice President, Digital for National Public Radio (NPR), as well as Vice President, Design, responsible for leading human-centered design across NPR’s products and platforms. 

Rachel Lehrer works on high risk, high reward projects that span violence to pleasure. She builds global, multi-disciplinary teams to design and test life-changing, scalable solutions for those affected by conflict and disaster. She most recently developed a program that resulted in 27% reduction in the frequency of intimate partner violence, in half the time and at half the cost of the leading violence prevention programs. She's now building a company for men with the goal of increasing pleasure for women. 

Sloan Leo (they/he) is a Community Design theorist, educator, and practitioner. They are the founder of FLOX Studio, a community design and strategy studio FLOX Studio is on a mission to alter the future of work by integrating community & social justice values, design thinking, and organizational development. We work with nonprofit capacity builders, design institutions, and social impact leaders to foster collaborations, facilitate meaningful conversations and prepare for the near future. 

Sara Hendren is a humanist in tech—an artist, design researcher, writer, and professor at Olin College of Engineering. Her book What Can A Body Do? How We Meet the Built World explores the places where disability shows up in design. In 2021-22, she is Lecturer in Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design and a fellow in Education Policy at the New America think tank, where she is researching the future of work for adults with cognitive and developmental disabilities.