Here’s Mitchell Joachim, TED Fellow and urban designer, talking about his ONE Lab, which he hopes to turn into a “university without walls.”

Candy Chang’s “Before I Die” project—where public space in New Orleans was turned into a collaborative blackboard for residents to share their life dreams—was recently recreated in Denver. This stunning video shows the project being built.

“We are all exposed to certain information in the environment, but coming together and expressing that information is what turns that information into knowledge.” Designer Neri Oxman, at the Connecticut Forum, on the power of collaboration.

In this talk, TED Fellow and designer Anab Jain talks about “designing the new normal,” and explains how new technologies in design will drastically change the way we live.

John Maeda, President of the Rhode Island School of Design, on why videogames should be admitted to the MoMA in Wired.

Anab Jain’s Superflux combines a design consultancy with a cutting-edge laboratory, which, “brings vision and freshness in our consulting work, and, of course, keeps us creatively and intellectually sustained,” says the TED Fellow.

A future-facing designer, TED Fellow, and a new Lavin exclusive speaker, Anab Jain is changing the way design studios operate—and therefore, expanding the possibilities of the entire design industry. As the Founder and Director of Superflux, Jain and her team are doing things a bit differently: the studio is part consultancy, part laboratory, with each section working separately while in tandem. The consultancy is client-facing, offering bespoke services to science labs, art galleries, and comapnies like Nokia, and Microsoft—with whom they created “Rethinking Machine Intelligence” projects, like re-imagining RFID devices and creating ‘smart’ products to “help us be more expressive, creative and reflective in our daily lives, particularly in the context of the home.” The lab is a research space where new ideas are developed and tested—like their bottom-up tools for managing urban growth. By relying on the ‘sweet spot’ of unexpected and contrasting synergies, and combined with a steady stream of new ideas and provocations, Superflux hopes to meet the unique demands of the twenty-first century in a more positive and direct way.

Superflux is particularly interested in the ways that emerging technologies interface with the environment, and how they function in everyday life. The studio is in a one-of-a-kind, unprecedented and exploratory role; and as a speaker, Jain is in a rare, important, and timely place to discuss their findings. In practical and refreshing talks, Jain reveals the benefits and surprising outcomes of this new business model, and how it can—and should—be applied elsewhere in the business world.

“When people say, ‘I don’t get art. I don’t get it all,’ that means art is working,” says John Maeda, design speaker and President of the Rhode Island School of Design in his latest TED Talk. “Art is supposed to be enigmatic…art is about asking questions — questions that might not be answerable.”

Candy Chang’s latest TED talk examines the unused potential of our public spaces to pass on wisdom, and connect and empower communities.

Check out Lavin speaker and design expert Bruce Mau’s latest campaign, where his firm has taken on the task of redesigning Canada’s brand. Here’s a quick description of the campaign from the Toronto Standard:

The campaign uses the two solid red bars from the sides of the flag to frame a diverse range of Canadian people, inventions and places including Arcade Fire, Stephen Harper and the Trivial Pursuit game piece. Showcasing a wide variety of Canadian ideas and viewpoints brands Canada as an inclusive, dynamic place that harbours a creative, open population. [Bruce Mau Design] offers up a bevy of ideas for implementing the red bars design including bus ads, a press podium and even a new passport stamp.