Design

Graduate student Niloufar Abdolmaleki has received a Merit Award from the 2023 Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD) Global Design Awards.

Abdolmaleki’s project, WOMAN LIFE FREEDOM, an installation in the Cruess Courtyard, was on view Oct. 30, 2022 through Jan. 7, 2023. 

Using fashion to raise the profile of heart disease as the leading killer of women, the Red Dress Collection, created by students from the UC Davis Department of Design, has been an innovative way to spotlight this awareness campaign. Garments from the collection are now on display in the lobby of the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts through May 1.  

In conjunction with the ten year anniversary of Verge’s groundbreaking at 625 S Street in Sacramento, the Verge will present “The First 10yrs,” an inaugural biennial exhibition of works produced during the first ten years of Verge’s Resident Artist Studio Program (RASP). “The First 10yrs” will open Saturday, April 8 with an opening reception from 5-8 pm.

Associate Professor Gozde Goncu-Berk has received a UC Davis Faculty Development Award for 2023-2024.

The award will enable Goncu-Berk to continue her research which explores the potential for smart clothing and electronic textiles not only to sense and monitor vital signs but also to act on the body with embedded actuation capabilities such as promoting mechanical, electrical and thermal tactile stimuli for improving health and wellbeing.

Research by Javier Arbona-Homar, assistant professor in design and American studies, and Julie Sze, professor and founding chair of the American studies program at UC Davis, has lead Arbona-Homar to become an active participant in discussion on whether the city of Vallejo should relocate its police station to a prime spot on the city’s historic waterfront.    

Assistant Professor Thomas Maiorana is among the interdisciplinary, multicampus researchers from the University of California partnering with agencies and community organizations in the Bay Area to help residents respond to natural disasters more quickly — and more safely.

Associate Professor Brett Snyder along with Irene Cheng, associate professor of architecture at the California College of the Arts, have received an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Award for their project Roommate House in Oakland, CA.

Associate Professor Gozde Goncu-Berk has received the Award of Excellence from the Advance Textile Associations for her work  “CalmWear: A Smart Tactile Sensory Stimulation Clothing.”  The award was announced at Advanced Textile Associations, The 76th Annual International Achievement Awards.

UC Davis Assistant Professor of Design Beth Ferguson is a designer and curator for the exhibition “Tools for a Warming Planet,” a collection of speculative and scientific field tools for environmental exploration of climate change. The installation is currently on view at Arts Santa Monica in Barcelona, Spain, through Aug. 21. From there it will be shown as part of Ars Electronia in Linz, Austria this September.

Undergraduate student Amabel Gale, a double major in computer science and design, was part of a team representing UC Davis at this year’s Biodesign Challenge Summit. The collaborative project “Sea Glass,” which harnesses microalgae to filter agricultural wastewater and, at the end of its use, the algae is converted into a bioplastic for eyewear, was presented by the team.

Helge Olsen, professor emeritus and a founding member of the UC Davis Department of Design who was widely recognized for his furniture design, died on July 11. He was 86.

The California Lighting Technology Center at UC Davis has received a new grant to establish “The Color Lab” in collaboration with the Center for Mind and Brain. The project’s goal is to explore the impact of discrete color spectra on stress, mind, and alertness.

Graduate student Edward Whelan and students from his first-year seminar Make an Exhibition: First-Generation College Students have created a colorful installation in the UC Davis Arboretum. The exhibition titled “Reflections & Connections” is on display through June 20. 

Professors Glenda Drew, design, and Jesse Drew, cinema and digital media, and lecturers Alexa Bonomo and William Mead, design, have created work that is featured in the installation “memory.unshift( )” at the Axis Gallery in Sacramento.

The four artists/designers’ work exhibits their contemplations, memories, thoughts and meditations on the shifting and tenuous relationship between electronic technology and human consciousness.

Congratulations to Sarah Grimes (art history and design double-major) who is among the winners of this year’s Norma J. Lang Prize for Undergraduate Research.