In Monday’s edition of The Washington Post, columnist John Kelly focused his attention on a public art project in the making by Landscape Architecture Professor Mikyoung Kim. Backed by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities and slated for completion later this fall, her Kaleidoscope Project will provide a “unique artistic enhancement” to the 14th Street Bridge - a well-traveled gateway into the capital city. The idea is to transform the derelict hexagonal tower where the keeper of the draw-bridge once sat into a massive kaleidoscope emanating colorful light.

“The challenge was to create something of interest to drivers” as they’re crossing into Washington, DC, Mikyoung says in the article. “It was to create something that visually you could take in at 20-40 mph, which is a very particular challenge. It’s not like being in a museum.” Too true. But therein lies the beauty of public art - it offers refreshing surprises in unexpected places.

It’s not too late to register for or volunteer at this weekend’s A Better World by Design conference in Providence, which promises to be even better than the first (held last fall). A small group of Brown and RISD students - including Seungkyun Lee ‘10 ID, Joyce Tu MID ‘10 and Willem Van Lancker ‘10 GD - have been working around the clock to pull this three-day event together. Thanks to their efforts, A Better World by Design ’09 will bring 18 inspiring speakers and workshop presenters together with hundreds of enthusiastic, motivated young people who believe in the power of design and critical, art-school thinking to address our most pressing problems - from climate change, to affordable housing, to our dependence on fossil fuels. The conference takes place at RISD, Brown and in downtown Providence and you can register here or sign up to volunteer by e-mailing volunteer@abetterworldbydesign.com.

This week Google launched Google Sidewiki, which appears as a browser sidebar, allowing users to find – and add – helpful information related to the search topic along the side of the page. President Maeda was involved in the launch and RISD’s own homepage appears in the Sidewiki YouTube demo video (above).

It’s just another example of how the web is an ever-changing tool and how, by sharing our combined knowledge, we can help provide perspective, context and insights to others as they explore information – and vice versa.

CVS/pharmacy commissioned four RISD students to give new life to a faded, graffiti-riden wall of the Thayer Street (Providence) store. The result? A colorful mural brightening the well-traveled street and a $10,000 donation from CVS to the RISD Painting Department scholarship fund! Above, James Szurek (right), store manager, presents the check to (from left) Painting Department head Dennis Congdon and students Annabeth Marks, Alison Kizu-Blair, Michael Kolendowiz and Christina Graham. Thank you, CVS!

The stove was hot with pizza and so were the conversations when RISD alumni, along with their families, got together with  Alumni Association President Nat Hesse ‘76 SC at his Sculpture Ranch in New Mexico recently for a Pizza Cook Off. Michael Wright ‘85 ID was the pie maker,a specialty he developed during his student days at RISD. Mike made the pizzas and everyone brought the ingredients, including green chile - a New Mexico favorite. Alumni at this years Cook Off was the most varied it’s ever been at this annual event, ranging  from Jane Crittenden ‘49 PT to Sean DiIanni ‘07 SC. When RISD Alumni get together, good food abounds!

Within weeks of arriving on campus last year, I was asked whether I was going to change the name of the “Jolly Roger.” I thought, “The ‘Jolly Roger’? Isn’t that a pirate thing? What does it have to do with RISD?” Turns out that the Jolly Roger is a RISD Dining venture from the magical mind of our Director of Dining and Retail Ginnie Dunleavy that is named after President Roger Mandle — it’s on the southern tip of the RISD campus and right near our architecture studios. The sandwiches are delicious and sitting in the company of RISD students will make you at least ten times more creative. And rest assured that it will remain the “Jolly Roger” — the “Jolly John” doesn’t make it into the official pirate dictionary (smile). -JM

This semester RISD and Pawtucket, RI-based toy manufacturer Hasbro are teaming up to “leaven the seriousness of design education with a curricular initiative centered around structured play” in a studio called Multidisciplinary Reinterpretation of Play for Games in the Spirit of Cranium.

ID Magazine is already taking notes. As the course title suggests, the studio is built around Cranium, the board game that blends language, art, memory and performance and meshes perfectly with RISD’s core values of “critical thinking and making.” The interdisciplinary studio is led by Susan Doyle (Illustration),  Khipra Nichols (Industrial Design) and Lalya Gaye (Digitial + Media). As Khipra - who worked for Hasbro for 20 years before coming to RISD - observes, “play is a natural part of the design process […] any creative person is really trying to play. If they can be given permission to play at work I think they’ll discover that they get more done.” The studio is also offering RISD students and faculty the opportunity, says President John Maeda, “to collaborate with an enlightened industrial partner” and combine rigorous learning with a big dose of fun. In other words - the perfect RISD education.

Today I had the opportunity to share the sunshine and delicious food from RISD Dining with the undergrads and grads at our beautiful Tillinghast farm. Many bicycled to Barrington from RISD. i cheated and drove my car. Thanks to the undergrads that pulled me into their frisbee game. -JM

According to the dictionary, an ecolect is ” a language variety unique to a household” - a term Matt Grigsby ‘05 ID finds appropo to describe the company he co-founded with that name. Ecolect is the worlds largest online database of ecological products and provides, in Matt’s words, a “new, ecologically intelligent language for designers”. Incoming freshman and returning students turned out earlier this week to hear Matt, the first in a series of Alumni Lecturers,  talk about his experiences at RISD - an environment in which he could learn by his mistakes as well as successes, and where he found cross pollination with Brown, MIT, and sponsored studios - and, since his graduation, his search for a better way to bring ecologically sound products to artists and designers.  Matt brought along some samples of those products, part of his traveling “petting zoo” (see photo above), and you can see them and more at the Ecolect website he and his partner Joe Gebbia ‘05 ID have been building over the last few years. Thanks, Matt, for sharing your personal journey with us!

Important work by Sami Nerenberg ‘07 ID, adjunct faculty in Industrial Design, and Nate Bastien ‘09 ID is being recognized (by the likes of the influential design blog Core77) and you can help - if you like! Sami and Nate are Timberland Earthkeeper Heroes/Changents - Sami for working with community teens to “makeover” environmentally challenged homes in Providence and Nate for designing street packs for the homeless made from recycled materials. As part of the Earthkeepers Movement, you can team-up with Sami and Nate and vote for them - the winning Changent receives a national ad campaign sponsored by Timberland to promote the project and help the environment. Congratulations, Sami and Nate and good luck!