The Faculty of Design TD Speaker Series kicks off with a panel discussion featuring Blaine Brownell, Els Ziljstra, Stephanie Forsythe and moderated by Roderick Grant.

Join us for an evening of discovery as we explore new smart, sustainable and innovative materials with leading world experts in the field of material sourcing, research and application for design. New materials will be on dislay before and after the panel discussion.

Roderick Grant is Co-Chair & Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at OCAD University. He teaches in undergraduate Graphic Design and Graduate Interdiscplinary programs. He holds an MFA degree from  the Rhode Island School of Design, and a BA in Urban Studies from New College of Florida. He continues to practice critical graphic design through SimonJames, a design partnership with his wife, Designer Michelle Grant. His ongoing research on radical design pedagogies seeks to challenge thresholds between design disciplines, dimensions, and practices.

Blaine Brownell is an architect and former Fulbright scholar with a research focus on emergent materials. He is a principal of the design and research practice Transstudio and an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the Master of Science program in Sustainable Design at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture.

Els Zijlstra studied architecture at the University of Technology Delft. Other interests are biology, biomimicry, cultural anthroposophy and journalism. When she founded Materia all these fascinations came together. She intermediates between the creative professional and the Industry. By gathering innovative materials worldwide and expose them through a search engine, lectures, books and articles.

Stephanie Forsythe, the designer of Molo based in Vancouver, Canada, is a design and production studio dedicated to an exploration of space making in combination with experiments in manufacturing, materials and structure. The molo studio explores the overlapping realms of art, architecture and design, and creates unique designs in a variety of scales, from tea set to museum, for clients around the world. 

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