by ELIZABETH SUMAN
The organizers of D:center are working hard to use design to bring creative people in Baltimore together across a range of disciplines — design, architecture, non-profits, academics and urban planning — in hopes of making Baltimore a better place.
Tonite’s meeting (at 6:30 pm at The Windup Space) is a good example of the center’s multi-disciplinary reach: it’s being hosted by a graphic designer, a product designer and a neuroscientist.
Organizer Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson sees D:center (now in the final stages of becoming a non-profit) as “a galvanizing force in the city for people from many different backgrounds and disciplines.”
Largely through monthly themed meetings, D:center offers a central place for creative types and activists to share what they’re working on, and possibly work together.
The organization began in the summer of 2008, when Baltimore architect Klaus Philipsen and a few others planned an open meeting. They invited movers and shakers in Baltimore’s design, architecture, education, and nonprofit communities to imagine what a design center in Baltimore should look like. “White papers” were submitted, and the D:center was born.
Dickinson said she hopes it will bridge all of Baltimore’s divides and serve as “a centralized place where design can come together and really spread out into the city around it.”
“It’s not just about this center generating its own ideas,” she said. “It’s about the center…being a community place you know you can come to air out ideas, start to think big and start to find people who are interested in the same kind of new visions that you are and you can start to make it happen.”
The organization is funded by a long list of sponsors, including the Baltimore Community Foundation. Each meeting, or “Design Conversation,” held the first Wednesday of every month, is curated by a different person and revolves around a specific theme, explored with a multi-disciplinary panel.
Tonite’s theme is “Invention,” and the discussion will revolve around “how we spark creative breakthrough,” or “Aha!” moments, from three perspectives: the brain, materials, and collaboration. The meeting is curated by Dickinson, and the experts will include neuroscientist Charles Limb (Hopkins), graphic designer and writer Ellen Lupton (MICA), product designer Inna Alesina (MICA), and David Peloff, the Program Director for Emerging Technologies at Hopkins. Popular past themes have included biking and sustainability, and themes for the next several months are posted on the center’s website.
Meetings are casual and discussion based, and anyone is encouraged to come regardless of their profession or expertise. Audience participation is a key compenent of each “Conversation” and attendees often change each month, depending on the topic (around 60 percent of each month’s attendees are newcomers).
