Making Better Things with Daniel Liden: Toyota Lecture Series

A public lecture on sustainable product design alongside a pop-up exhibition exploring sustainable materials.

Rather than waiting for the circular economy to be defined for us, designers are in a unique position to proactively shape it. This lecture by Daniel Liden, a Copenhagen-based designer and author of Better Things: Materials for Sustainable Design, takes alternative materials as the starting point and explores the many opportunities that they present in terms of replacing conventional virgin and non-renewable materials in contemporary industrial design.

Alternative materials have a huge role to play in reducing the environmental impact of products, and Daniel’s lecture will cover a range of approaches to designing with these materials without losing sight of delivering valuable, durable, and accessible user experiences, including an introduction to exciting new work on circular materials by CCS students that will be on display during Detroit Month of Design.

The lecture will be directly followed by an opening reception in the Valade Family Gallery for a pop-up exhibition of sustainable design work created by CCS students in tandem with Daniel Liden during his residency.

UN SUSTAINABILITY GOALS

We use Detroit's UNESCO City of Design designation as a call to action for Detroiters to embrace the Sustainable Development Goals in their own communities, contributing to the active effort of solving global interconnected issues.