Hyde Lecturer Verda Alexander Explores Designs Solution for Today's Changing World

The College of Architecture is excited to announce Interior Design Hall of Fame member and internationally revered, award winning, interior designer Verda Alexander, will be giving the next Hyde lecture titled “Interior Design- Where do we go from here?” at 4 p.m., February 18 via Zoom Webinar https://unl.zoom.us/s/92063804357. As the co-founder of Studio O+A, the San Francisco design firm responsible for groundbreaking offices at Facebook, Microsoft, Slack, McDonalds and many others, Alexander has spent 30 years in the design industry redefining workplace and looking ahead to the future of work itself. Alexander’s work focuses on expanding the conversation around design, social justice, climate activism and art. Combining a multi-disciplinary career with a passionate commitment to improving lives through design, her typical contribution to a project is to question received wisdom, test basic assumptions and look beyond conventional solutions to a more creative path. Alexander’s experimental projects for O+A, range from pop-up installations on the future of the office to a mobile design lab partnering with communities across California.

Named by Contract Magazine Designer of the Year with Primo Orpilla in 2012, Alexander is also a member of Interior Design Magazine’s Hall of Fame. In 2016 Studio O+A received the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for interior design.

For this lecture, Alexander will examine the various ways designers can help shape the built environment to be more relevant to today’s needs. Recent events have turned the way one lives and works upside down and the future of work is wide open for designers to reimagine. The profession of interior design is also at a crossroad. Now is the time to pave a new way forward. Can professionals use the tools of design to address the multitude of crises facing the world today and design for a better world?

This presentation is part of the College of Architecture’s 2021-2022 Hyde Lecture Series featuring speakers from across disciplines that are united under the common theme of “Emerging Opportunities for Equality in Planning and Design.” The series focuses on the anticipated “new normal” and looks to draw insight and explore what solutions planners and designers can offer in the Post-Pandemic Future.

The college’s Hyde Lecture Series is a long-standing, endowed, public program. Each year the college hosts compelling speakers in the fields of architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and planning that enrich the ongoing dialog around agendas which are paramount to the design disciplines and our graduates.