This week Amy speaks with award-winning architect, and current Head of Global Design and Innovation for Gensler, Jordan Goldstein. Born in Rockville Maryland, Jordan discovered his passion for architecture visiting construction sites with his mother at age 5. Today he’s an educator and sought-after spokesperson on the future of design both domestically and globally, but what distinguishes Jordan is his interdisciplinary, cosmopolitan, approach to architecture with a focus on elevating the human experience.

Creative strategist, visionary, and design podcaster Maurice Cherry was born in Selma, Alabama where it quickly became apparent he was going to take the world by storm. Immensely talented on all fronts, Maurice has dedicated his career to recognizing and celebrating the power of Black design and creativity online. These days, Maurice is perhaps most well-known for his award-winning podcast Revision Path, which showcases Black designers, and as of 2019 is the FIRST podcast to be acquired by the Smithsonian.

Artist and product designer Bethan Laura Wood grew up with ample access to kitchen-table craft projects and a flair for self-expression. When kids made fun of her clothes, she reclaimed her style by going full-on “dress-uppy.” Her schooling, which included a craft-based technical track as well as conceptual rigor, has armed her with a finesse for elevating industrial materials to luxury levels, layered with depth and intrigue. Side note: she is known to travel in style, much to the delight of TSA agents!

Danny Giannella, Tammer Hijazi and Jeffrey Renz are the trio behind Bower, a contemporary furniture and product design studio. With a focus on mirrors, they explore perceptions of depth, light and self. Through a free–thinking, experimental process, Bower aims to bring unexpected objects and environments into people's lives, with reflections taking center stage. They believe the mirror is the everyday object most closely related to our consciousness.

In this episode of Clever we’re deconstructing the success of New Zealand’s response to COVID-19 through a lens of design in a conversation with Ana Monroe, a civic design strategist and Akiko Kurematsu, a design and culture journalist in Auckland. New Zealand is considered a major success story in how they reacted to and contained the spread of Coronavirus, so we took a deep look at that success, by doing what designers do: taking it apart to see how it works.

Branding & design strategist Jessie McGuire was born in El Salvador and adopted by a “wholehearted feminist” single mother. She grew up exploring her creativity and getting encouragement to go to art school. After a few degrees and a slew of work experience she’s now the managing director of ThoughtMatter, where she’s fostering a culture of work worth doing, building a justifiable case for creativity and spreading the gospel of curiosity, thoughtfulness and generosity. And redesigning the constitution, nbd.

People-centered designer Marquise Stillwell spent his youth in Ohio learning to be a good neighbor and going to art museums with his grandfather. Always part of a community of makers—auto factories, steel plants, engineers and industrial designers—his curiosity for people and spaces grew into a passion for creating systems and formulas that make built environments better for all people. Not surprisingly, his ability to be open, vulnerable, listen and hold space is at the center of his design practice.

Legendary art director Giulio Cappellini first fell in love with cars, then studied architecture, and took the family furniture business into the stratosphere with his bold curatorial vision and knack for spotting international talent. His true gifts may lie in his instinctual approach to risk taking, a dedication to longevity over market trends, and his truly familial approach to building relationships. With passion and curiosity for miles, his gaze is eternally optimistically pointed toward the future.

Industrial designer Ayse Birsel grew up thinking she’d become a lawyer until a revelation with a teacup enlightened her to the principles and practice of design. Always a playful soul, her essence of playfulness is an important part of her creative process - a process she’s used to design award-winning products as well as to help people design a life and work they love. Now, she shows us an optimistic way to lean into the transformative opportunities that are inherent in these challenging times.

Industrial designer Tomek Rygalik of Studio Rygalik shares the story of his work developing Circula, a series of functional public furniture sculptures designed to host interdisciplinary discourse around the urgency of the climate crisis. In the face of a global pandemic, this project has taken on another dimension of purpose in the potential to assist recovery and reconnection in the aftermath of isolation and social distancing.