Design to Connect

A few weeks ago, Design to Connect had the opportunity to discuss placemaking, community building, and fostering a sense of belonging in cities with Hans Karssenberg, a partner, public developer, and founder of Stipo, based in Amsterdam. . Hans loves great places where people can meet. He is devoted to human scale, mingled, multi-layered cities, great public space, involved communities, and true s...

Last week, and for the first time, we had a conversation with a sociologist. And I must say that, looking at concepts such as #feminist movements, #urbansafety , and #care from her point of view was extremely interesting! . Anna Bednarczyk is a sociologist and researcher. She is currently a research fellow at the K LAB at the Technical University in Berlin. She works on a PhD project about feminis...

So our latest guest has been the director of urban planning at AMAT, which is the mobility, environment and territory agency in the municipality of Milan, @demetrio Scopelliti. . Demetrio is an architect passionate about cities. His research and study focuses on the contemporary urban condition and future trends. He views architecture and urban design as catalysts for innovation and change. And he...

Some weeks ago, we had the chance to have a really interesting conversation with @Firas Safieddine.   Watch the episode here : https://youtu.be/5qaPj1JLbp4 . Firas is a leading practitioner whose work spans #urbanism , #design , #architecture , #neurotechnology , and #art ; operating across scales, from the microcontroller to the territory.  Throughout his professional journey, he h...

Our conversation with Naama Blonder, owner of Smart Density was a very special one.  Naama’s bold vision is to change the conversation about what good development can be and should look like ; and with that she co-founded her practice Smart Density. Naama wears many different hats all leading to the same end goal, connecting with the community and bringing in her deep and realistic understand...

We are back - starting our season two with an honest and raw conversation with Abbas Sbeity.   Watch the episode here: https://lnkd.in/eFbvAKnF  Abbas Sbeity is a human-centered researcher, designer, and facilitator with eight years of international cross-cultural management experience in the #MENA Region, Sweden, and the United States.  Abbas specializes in Learning & Deve...

So in June, we hosted our first workshop as Design to connect together with Tyler Suomala. During this workshop, we had the chance to connect with some of you and discuss so many interesting topics related to:  1- Issues we are facing in the industry – Office / Work Level 2- Issues that today’s Architecture / Industry Is causing on a Macro Level  And reflect on some questions like : 1- W...

Hey Everyone,  So in this video, we talk about how it was to start a podcast from zero. We talk about our experience in the last 6 months or so and share with you some of our learnings. BTW if you love listening to us, while we complement each other this video is made for you:D  Hope you guys like what you watch and get something out of it.   Let us know what you think and let'...

In Episode 08 we virtually traveled all the way to Italy to connect with our guest Omar Degan. Omar Degan is ethnically Somalian living between East and West. He is the principal of his firm DO It Architecture. We had a great time connecting with Omar. He left us with so many important points to think of.  Below are some of the key points discussed: - Cultural diversity and its impact on arch...

In this episode, we traveled virtually all the way to Cape-town, South Africa, to connect with an amazing human being Kevin Kimwelle.  𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫.  Below are some key points discussed: - 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 - 𝐀𝐟𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 - 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 - 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟...

In this episode, we had the opportunity to connect with Marco and Rakhi all the way from the beautiful city of Varese in Italy.   It was An amazing conversation as we felt that we took part in their journey as they walked us through different phases in their lives and shared with us valuable lessons and stories. We ended our conversation by learning more about their amazing social enterp...

The 5th episode is finally out and is ready for you to watch and be inspired by. We must say that we really enjoyed our talk with this humble woman, Carly Althoff.  Through this episode, we had the chance to reflect on various points such as:  • The importance of experimentation in finding long-lasting and sustainable solutions • Fostering humility as a tool for learning and, • Pursuing...

In our fourth episode, we had the chance to connect with these three inspiring ladies from India, Swati Janu the founder of Social Design Collaborative, Anushka Shahdadpuri, and Nishtha Kashyap, two of her core team members.  Through this episode, we had the chance to reflect on various points such as:  • role of architects in social policy and community advocacy • Fostering our critical...

Welcome to Episode Three, an episode where we had the opportunity to connect with the two Co-founders of Architecture in Development, Rob Breed and Changfang Luo.   Architecture in Development “ 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 60,000+ 𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 what could be called “Do it together 𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞.“   We...

In our second episode, we had the chance to connect with two inspiring guests from two different cities in the States, the co-founders of Out of Architecture: 𝐉𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐑𝐔𝐃𝐈𝐍 and 𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍 𝐏𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐎.Although the focus of this episode is around the architecture industry's unhealthy relationship around some topics like work-life balance and fair payments, our talk goes much beyond that and covers so many int...

As some may already know, we (Arezoo and Hadil) connected over Linkedin on September 7th, 2020. We were both going through a similar journey of questioning our paths and reflecting on what type of an Architect we wanted to become. We were both reflecting on how we felt like we were belonging and contributing to an industry that was causing more harm than good. Even though we both are people who dw...

We know we promised you a podcast, and the promise is still there.    The lunch of the podcast featuring architects, designers, students, and professionals from different fields is going to be in January 2022.    But before that, we thought to share with you 4 key elements that we thought is going wrong in our today's world of architecture.   The fourth video of this serie...

We know we promised you a podcast, and the promise is still there.    The lunch of the podcast featuring architects, designers, students, and professionals from different fields is going to be in January 2022.    But before that, we thought to share with you 4 key elements that we thought is going wrong in our today's world of architecture.  The third video of this series...

We know we promised you a podcast, and the promise is still there.   The lunch of the podcast featuring architects, designers, students, and professionals from different fields is going to be in January 2022.   But before that, we thought to share with you 4 key elements that we thought is going wrong in our today's world of architecture.   The second video of this series is about:...

We know we promised you a podcast, and the promise is still there.    The lunch of the podcast featuring architects, designers, students, and professionals from different fields is going to be in January 2022.   But before that, we thought to share with you 4 key elements that we thought is going wrong in our today's world of architecture.  The first episode of this series...

We never knew the power of connecting with people until the past couple of months when Areezo and myself connected via Linked in. We were both going through a similar journey and posting similar posts questioning the role of architects and designers in contributing to the health of our society. After exchanging a couple of messages we started talking more deeply about the things we really care abo...