Natural Elements, Senses
and Design

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This workshop will explore the way in which we can interact with the natural elements and the senses that are integrated into the design process in order to enhance and better understand the experience.

The goal of the workshop is to not rely solely on the visual references, but to explore all sensorial approaches in creating a design that can be both interactive and comprehensible. The basic idea will be to try and diverge from the purely ‘ocularcentric’ approach to creating a design. Participants will choose what the exhibition topic is, based on group discussions prior to undertaking the assignment. Working in teams, workshop participants will create mini-exhibitions in various parts of the Boisbuchet property, utilizing the natural elements, landscape, and weather conditions to create and install their designs, which may in fact be permanent or temporary. Using digital photography and video, process and results will be recorded throughout the week.

Jon Otis (USA)

Otis studied design at the University of Massachusetts and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Milan, Italy, in 1985. There, he worked with the industrial designers DePas D’Urbino Lomazzi. After one year, Otis joined legendary designer Ettore Sottsass at Sottsass Associati and worked closely on diverse projects such as the Enorme telephone, Vitra Display Products, Brion Vega televisions, Esprit showrooms and stores, and fashion and furniture projects. In 1991, Otis formed The Moderns design studio in New York as a partner in charge of interior architecture and product design and won numerous design awards for showroom interiors and exhibition design. His work has been published extensively in magazines and design journals.

Since 1999, he has been Principal & Creative Director of Object Inc., an interdisciplinary design laboratory and creative think tank. This organisation integrates a holistic approach to design that includes design education and not-for-profit projects as well as a core design studio focusing on interior architectural design, exhibition design, product design, and visual and sensory communication design to support them.

Clients include: Nike Presto, Mercedes North America, Artemide US, Calvin Klein Cosmetics, Metro Furniture, Wolf Gordon Inc., Acme Studios, Tandus Inc., Carnegie Textiles, the Long Island Children's Museum, and design consulting with several museums and exhibition design companies.

Besides lecturing throughout the United States at colleges and universities, Otis is also currently on the Design Faculty at Pratt Institute in New York, where he is in the process of creating a curriculum for a master’s program in exhibition design.