The Daily Hub

Graduate industrial design students Charlotte Böhning and Mary Lempres are part of a seven-month incubator organized by Waste Management and the Slow Factory Foundation. The design challenge is focused on regenerative fashion that is recycled or remade and Böhning and Lempres are exploring a carbon-capturing leather alternative. The competition was covered by Forbes and will culminate in a February 2022 showcase of work by the six participating designers.

Karen Kubey, visiting associate professor of interior design, joined the WHEREING podcast hosted by Nina Freedman, visiting associate professor of undergraduate architecture, for a discussion on her career in housing and social justice and a vision for the future of housing in the United States.

The intersection of 7th Avenue and 12th Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn, has been renamed Pete Hamill Way in honor of the reporter, columnist, and Pratt alumnus who died last August. The new green-and-white street sign was unveiled with a ceremony on June 24.

The Noguchi Museum has an online exhibition featuring work from the MFA Graduate Foundations Design Studio course. Each spring, Pratt students are asked to draw inspiration from Isamu Noguchi’s work with their projects this year investigating how design can foster a dialogue between the acts of making, supporting, and commodifying, concentrating on the Museum’s Akari Light Sculptures. Noguchi + Pratt is on view online through August 29.

Amanda Huynh, assistant professor of industrial design, contributed the article “Fostering a Multilingual Design Studio Classroom” to the spring 2021 issue of INNOVATION magazine, the quarterly publication of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA): “The future of industrial design looks like the increasingly diverse students in our classrooms. It is essential that our studio classroom environments allow them to be their full selves and affirm their lived experiences.”

In July 2020, Trustee Kathryn Chenault, together with her husband Kenneth, announced their commitment of $1 million to establish scholarships to support diversity in the School of Architecture. The inaugural Chenault Scholarships were awarded to three incoming high-achieving undergraduate students: Fatoumata Diallo, Ariana Dillon, and Rylee Ferguson. With their first year behind them, Fatoumata, Ariana, and Rylee shared their experiences thus far on the School of Architecture site.

In its new Behind the Business series, Made in NYC, an initiative of the Pratt Center for Community Development, is spotlighting member stories each Monday through the summer. A recent video features Visiting Assistant Professor of Interior Design Ashira Israel, BArch ’11. Her Brooklyn-based design studio IN.SEK promotes sustainability in its furniture and challenges a culture of disposability and wastefulness.