Each year, IIDEX brings you an exciting and inspiring keynote speaker series, featuring the best Canadian and international thought leaders. They’ve been hard at work ensuring 2012 will continue this trend, and they are pleased to announce their 2012 speakers.
Hospitality Keynote – Thursday, September 20, 2012 from 11:00am-12:00pm
You Are How You Eat (And Sleep): Great Travel Experiences by Design features Adam D. Tihany, founder and principal ofTihany Design and Ilana Weitzman, editor-in-chief of Air Canada’s enRoute magazine. Celebrity chefs and hoteliers the world over have a secret weapon: designer Adam D. Tihany. From the Mission: Impossible-inspired wine cellar at Aureole in Las Vegas to the pulley-operated spit roast at Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, Tihany’s design genius transforms the customer experience. During this talk, Tihany and Ilana Weitzman, editor-in-chief of Air Canada’s enRoute magazine, will discuss his design process and philosophy that every space should tell a unique story. They will also explore how Tihany’s dynamic and unique relationships with his chef and hotelier clients – including close friend Thomas Keller – produce novel environments that elevate dinner beyond the ordinary and make the hotel room more than just a home away from home.
Adam D. Tihany is widely regarded as one of the world’s pre-eminent hospitality designers. A graduate of the Politecnico di Milano School of Architecture and Urban Planning, he apprenticed in Europe before moving to New York in 1976. He established his own multidisciplinary studio and eventually began specializing in hospitality design. Since then, Tihany has created signature restaurants for celebrity chefs such as Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. To name a few, his hotel designs include the One&Only Cape Town resort in South Africa, the Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas, the Westin Chosun in Seoul, and The Joule in Dallas. Tihany is an educator and frequent lecturer at conferences and universities around the world. He holds an honorary doctorate from the New York School of Interior Design and has written two books, Tihany Design (1999) and Tihany Style (2004). For more information, please visit www.tihanydesign.com.
Ilana Weitzman is editor-in-chief of enRoute, Air Canada’s award-winning magazine, which was recently named Best In-flight Magazine in North America. Thanks to having one of the best jobs on the planet, Ilana has had the opportunity to experience some of the world’s best hotels, resorts and spas. She has won Gold and Silver National Magazine Awards for her reporting and editing, along with an award of merit from the North American Travel Journalists Association. For more information, please visit www.enroute.aircanada.com.
Lighting Keynote – Thursday, September 20, 2012 from 3:30pm-4:30pm
Solving with Story: A Theatrical Approach to Lighting Design is presented by Will Hastings, senior show lighting designer at Walt Disney Imagineering. From the theatrical stages of London to the larger-than-life theme parks of the world, international lighting designer Will Hastings has cultivated a unique process of using story to inform his work. Currently holding the enviable post of senior designer with Walt Disney Imagineering, one of the most innovative entertainment organizations in the world, Hastings draws on his theatrical training to balance the dizzying array of factors involved in modern lighting solutions. Budget, schedule, efficiency, maintainability, sustainability, cultural considerations, client whims and government regulations all play a role. But how do we ideate the emotional aspects? How do we determine what a space should feel like? In this keynote, he will explore the role of lighting designer as storyteller and, using a variety of past projects as case studies, demonstrate a theatrical approach to architectural lighting.
Will Hastings is a senior show lighting designer at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he has designed and completed projects in California, Florida, Hong Kong and Tokyo. He is currently a lead designer on Shanghai Disneyland, due to open in 2015. He holds a BFA in lighting and stage management from the North Carolina School of the Arts, and a specialist diploma in lighting and sound from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. For more information, please visit www.thewaltdisneycompany.com.
Architecture Keynote – Friday, September 21, 2012 from 11:00am-12:00pm
In the Public’s Interest is a panel discussion featuring Janna Levitt, principal architect of Levitt Goodman Architects; Michael Murphy, founding partner and executive director of MASS Design Group; John Peterson, founder and president of Public Architecture. Ian Chodikoff, editor of Canadian Architect magazine, will moderate. As we usher in a new era of globally connected communities, architects are increasingly called upon to develop “socially conscious” or “socially sustainable” projects. But how many are leveraging their skills to address the complexities involved in these projects? The architectural profession has been slow to realize it often serves a narrow percentage of the population. The time for socially sustainable architecture has arrived, and we are already witnessing a number of leading architects who are proactively addressing their clients’ needs in the social sphere. This keynote brings together three of the world’s leading practitioners of socially sustainable architecture to relate their experiences in both the non-profit and private sectors. All three have independently evolved their own definitions of social or public-interest architecture. Their approaches involve extensive collaborative networks operating on regional, national and global levels. Their collective experience will provide valuable insight on the unique situations in the United States, Canada and abroad, on issues affecting the structure of a design practice, fundraising, and partnership opportunities. This session will give attendees tools to apply aspects of public-interest architecture in their everyday practice, build stronger partnerships, sharpen their political acumen and influence future directions of the profession.
Janna Levitt is a principal of Toronto-based Levitt Goodman Architects. Her firm’s work has been widely published, nationally and internationally, and has won numerous honours, including the Governor General’s Gold Medal for Excellence in Architecture, and several RAIC Gold Medals and Toronto Urban Design Awards. In addition to her work as a practicing architect, Levitt is an active lecturer, critic, guest professor and jury member. For more information, please visit www.levittgoodmanarchitects.com.
Michael Murphy, founding partner and executive director of Boston-based MASS Design Group, was named one of 2011’s Gamechangers by Metropolis magazine. He is leading the design and construction of the Butaro Hospital in Rwanda, and has spoken at numerous conferences. He has taught courses on design for infection control at Harvard University’s School of Public Health and is currently a visiting critic at Boston Architectural College. For more information, please visit www.massdesigngroup.org.
John Peterson is the founder and president of Public Architecture, a national non-profit organization that mobilizes designers to use their skills and expertise to drive social change. He is also the principal of Peterson Architects in San Francisco. He writes and speaks internationally about the role of de
sign in improving underserved communities. He is an adjunct professor at California College of the Arts and was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. For more information, please visit www.publicarchitecture.org.
Moderator Ian Chodikoff is an architect and the editor of Canadian Architect magazine. He currently serves on the City of Ottawa Urban Design Review Panel and the External Advisory Board member at York University’s CITY Institute. He has taught and lectured in various universities and cities and has served on numerous design juries. For more information, please visit www.canadianarchitect.com.
Design Keynote – Friday, September 21, 2012 from 2:30pm-3:30pm
From Atelier to Mass Market: An Atypical Trajectory features interior designer Patrick Norguet. For the past 12 years, the Paris design phenomenon Patrick Norguet has been creating beautiful furnishings that are clean-lined yet wonderfully vibrant. Starting out as a window stylist for Louis Vuitton, he was discovered at Salon du Meuble in 2000 by Giulio Cappellini, who put Norguet’s Plexiglas Rainbow Chair into production. Norguet then cemented his reputation as an original industrial designer, in the mould of Roger Tallon, Achille Castiglioni and Alberto Meda, with Rive Droit, a series of classic lounge chairs for Cappellini clad in Pucci upholstery. Since then, the French designer has collaborated with a slew of manufacturers; at this past Milan furniture fair alone, he introduced the Jacket Chair for Tacchini, Kobi Chair for Alias, the Degree Stool for Kristalia and the Tools Lights for the new French brand Artuce among a prodigious number of launches. He has also begun to create bold interiors. In his keynote address, Norguet will explore his industrial design process – informed by the ateliers, artisans and mass producers he has worked with – and how it has evolved into the creation of interior design projects that smartly integrate his furnishings. Case in point, his brilliant revamping of a series of McDonald’s restaurants, furnished with dining stools he designed for LaPalma and his innovative interior design for luxury brands including Sofitel, Lancel and Marithé François Girbaud.
Patrick Norguet graduated from the École Supérieure de Design in Paris in 1996. He then worked for Louis Vuitton until 1998, when he made the move to furniture design. After a two-year search for a manufacturer to bring his Rainbow Chair to market, he attracted the attention of Cappellini, which began producing the design in 2000. And so began Norguet’s atypical trajectory as one of France’s most renowned and prolific designers. For more information, please visit www.patricknorguet.com.
This Design Keynote is part of the “Vis-à-vis Architecture” cycle, co-ordinated by the Embassy of France in Ottawa and the Institut Français.
Please note that all lectures are free with admission, and are presented in the Keilhauer Keynote Theatre.
For more information, please visit www.iidexneocon.com/2012/attendee/keynotes.