Speakers

Michael Murphy is an architect, educator, writer, and founder of Michael P. Murphy Studio. His work focuses on how the built environment shapes our lives, our health, and our communities. Michael’s recent book, The Architecture of Health, traces the history of medical design and its attempt to align architecture with health outcomes. Michael’s recent work looks at the ownership of the built environment and how sharing access can solve the climate and social crises we face. Michael is the current Thomas Ventulett Chair of Architecture at Georgia Tech, and serves on the board of MASS Design Group, which he co-founded and led until 2022; where he led the design of such projects as the Butaro District Hospital, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the Embrace Memorial in Boston. Integral to MASS’s success was Michael’s decision to take full advantage of MASS’s nonprofit status to secure donations from like-minded philanthropists and using that support to help seed projects that might not have happened otherwise. Michael also placed a priority on important research projects, including those focused on the Public Monument, architecture’s role in Restorative Justice, and exploring the shrinking “Fringe” city in America, inspired by his hometown of Poughkeepsie, NY. During Michael’s tenure, MASS was the recipient of numerous awards, including the AIA Firm of the Year Award in 2022, Wall Street Journal Magazine’s Innovator of the Year for 2021, The American Arts and Letters Award, and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award. Michael has been personally honored by the Royal Institute of British Architects as an International FRIBA and has held fellowships and advisory roles with the Emerson Collective, the Aspen Institute, The Santa Fe Art institute, and the Clinton Global Initiative. He has lectured around the world, advocating for a different approach to architecture, including as a keynote speaker for the 2017 AIA Annual Conference and the presenter of 2016 TED Talk “Architecture that Heals”, which has received over 1.8 million views to date. Michael also authored the book “Architecture of Health” with Jeffrey Mansfield and MASS Design Group, which examines how our built world was shaped by disease and reveals how historical examples can offer us both caution and inspiration. Michael has a BA from University of Chicago, an M.Arch from Harvard graduate school of Design, and lives in Boston with his wife and two children.

Fernando Laposse is a Mexican designer who specializes in transforming humble natural materials into refined design pieces. He has worked extensively with overlooked plant fibers indigenous to Mexico such as sisal, loofah, and corn leaves. His works are the result of periods of research that are developed into objects where materials and their historical and cultural ties to a particular location and its people take center stage. He often works with local indigenous communities and addresses topics such as the environmental crisis, the loss of biodiversity and migration through the transformative power of design.

Stacey Edgar, PhD, is the Executive Director of the International Folk Art Market (IFAM)n in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The mission of the International Folk Art Market is to create economic opportunities for and with folk artists worldwide, supporting the work of artisans serving as entrepreneurs and catalysts for positive social change. An award-winning social entrepreneur, educator, and researcher, Stacey brings over 20 years of experience working with artisans globally. She spent 5 years as a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, Leeds School of Business in the Social Responsibility & Sustainability Division. In 2003 Stacey founded and led Global Girlfriend, a fair-trade enterprise that partnered with over 250 women-led artisan enterprises in forty countries. She built a multi-million-dollar market for handcrafted apparel and accessories through e-commerce and wholesale partnerships with premier retailers including Whole Foods Market, Target, and West Elm as well as 1,500 boutique retailers nationwide. In 2017 she co-founded Trade+Impact Association, a global non-profit trade association advancing women-led social enterprises. Stacey is the author of Global Girlfriends: How One Mom Made it Her Mission to Help Women in Poverty Worldwide, co-author of a chapter in Handbook on the Business of Sustainability, and her most recent research study Artisan Social Enterprises in Zambia: Women Leveraging Purpose to Scale Impact was published in the Social Enterprise Journal.

Virgil Ortiz's artistry extends across various media and boundaries—challenging societal expectations and breaking taboos. Raised in a creative environment filled with storytelling, collecting clay, gathering wild plants, and producing figurative pottery, he remains influenced by his grandmother and mother, renowned Cochiti Pueblo potters. One of the most revolutionary potters of his time, Ortiz's works are exhibited in museum collections worldwide, including the Design Museum den Bosch, Fondation Cartier pour I'art contemporain, Triennale Milano, Smithsonian Institution, and the Lowe Art Museum in Miami. His latest exhibition, I AM: Indigenous Ancestral Memory at the Hickory Museum of Art in North Carolina, explores the fascinating intersections of art and science fiction, propelling Indigenous futurism to new heights. Ortiz fuses his Pueblo culture with sci-fi, fantasy, and apocalyptic themes, yielding thought-provoking and futuristic imagery while shaping the fantastical world he's creating with clay, fashion, multimedia art, and AI. Ortiz teaches Pueblo history to multiple generations of viewers worldwide, telling the story of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt through his project Revolt 1680/2180 by introducing a cast of superheroes he's created over the years through a series of works, including jars, busts, and now live actors portraying the characters in the story. The events of the Pueblo Revolt are little known among most Americans today; however, it remains a pivotal era of New Mexico's history. Ortiz's mission is to cultivate global awareness that Pueblo communities are alive and thriving, reflecting generations of strength, resilience, brilliance, and vitality.

Handshouse Studio, co-founded in 2002, is a non-profit educational organization, that has gained international recognition for creating bold, innovative hands-on projects that illuminate history, explore science, and perpetuate the arts. In one-of-a-kind collaborations that focus on the re/creation of objects, we follow lines of inquiry and curiosity to delve into the object’s cultural context, and then invite students, educators, and skilled professionals to work side-by-side to re/create the object with its original tools, materials, and methods. Re/creation allows us to venture into the “mind of the maker” through the process of the hand in action. This personal, tactile understanding of the ingenuity and cultural significance of the object awakens history and heritage that cannot be brought to life any other way. Handshouse projects have included reconstructing a full-scale medieval truss that once supported the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris and sending project representatives to help reconstruct the Gothic cathedral’s 315 ft timber spire in France, building an operable replica of a wooden submarine from the American Revolution, reconstructing the Gwozdziec wooden synagogue in Poland, recreating several human-powered wooden cranes used to build many of Europe’s architectural wonders, remaking historic gourd banjos that played a foundational tune in America’s history, exploring authentic art and form of the legendary Trojan Horse, as well as creating dozens of innovative Environmental Enrichment Devices to improve the wellbeing of over a dozen different species of animals living under human care at zoos and sanctuaries. Handshouse reaches large audiences regionally, nationally, and internationally through workshops, exhibitions, lectures, films, and publications. Handshouse projects have been exhibited in museums such at the National Building Museum (Washington, DC), POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews (Warsaw, Poland) and the International Spy Museum (Washington, DC) Handshouse has collaborated with film companies such as Trillium Studios, PBS’s NOVA, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Television, and StudioOrsopolis. The award winning documentary film Raise the Roof created by Trillium Studios about the Gwozdziec Synagogue ReConstruction project can be viewed here. Marie Brown, Handshouse Studio, Executive Director, has worked in leadership positions with Handshouse since its founding, and served as director since 2018. A director, maker, and educator, Brown received her MFA in Directing from the University of Texas (Austin, TX), a BA in Music and Theatre from the University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA), and has learned broad spectrum of skills through a life-long practice of the learn-by-doing philosophy that founded Handshouse. Brown is drawn to collaborations that invite multi-disciplinary approaches to exploring challenging questions, making connections, cultivating curiosity, and empowering the voice, body, heart, and hand.

One Japanese, one French, partners in creation and life, Aki and Arnaud Cooren founded A+A Cooren in 1999. Through their minimal, simple Japanese-French design aesthetic, they seek to integrate subtle references to nature in the everyday interiors and objects they design. This multi-award-winning duo have worked for brands as varied as Shiseido, Artemide, ClassiCon, L'Oréal, Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, Yamagiwa, Boffi Bains, Cartier, Chanel and Mobilier National on interior, product and furniture design projects as well as scenographies. They also create special pieces for private customers and collaborate with architects on interior design projects. Since 2019, the duo has been represented by Carpenters Workshop Gallery, with their solo show taking place in London in Spring 2021. Since then, they have showcased duo’s work in Paris, New York, and at various art fairs. In the context of the gallery, Aki and Arnaud develop empirical work that questions reality, in collaboration with artisans. Similarly, each piece is either partially or entirely crafted by Aki and Arnaud's hands in their workshop in Paris. The pair won a Villa Medicis Hors les Murs residence in 2007 and spent several months in Denmark to research “natural and artificial light”. They also have been awarded The Liliane Bettencourt Prize pour intelligence de la main – Dialogues 2017, for their lowchair Tiss-Tiss, with craftsman David de Gourcuff. In 2025, they received the Créateurs Design Award in the category of Best Limited Series and Bespoke Design for their Ishigaki Floor Lamp Coral. A+A Cooren Design Studio - www.aplusacooren.com - aa@aplusacooren.com Read the story about Aki & Arnaud in dig.ni.fy magazine’s winter 2022 issue. Photo credit: Thibaut Chapotot