The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum has launched a new website, highlighting design-related events around the city during the International Contemporary Furniture Fair.
Design Week NYC is a grassroots initiative convened to celebrate design at ICFF and the satellite fairs and events being held around the city, including American Design Club's exhibition at Heller Gallery, Model Citizen, Noho Design District and WantedDesign.
The site provides a central location for information regarding the many design events hosted by numerous organizations around the city. The website uses the Ushahidi platform, which was featured in the Map Kibera project in Cooper-Hewitt's 2011 exhibition "Design with the Other 90%: CITIES." The platform enabled the community of Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya, to map local resources and publish news.
"Designers, architects, city officials and media have all worked together to build Design Week NYC and raise awareness of the inspiring projects and events taking place all around the city," said Caroline Baumann, associate director of the museum. "We're already looking forward to 2013 and working with the design community, Speaker Christine Quinn and NYC & Company to reinforce New York City's position as one of the premier design capitals of the world."
Key Features of the Design Week NYC Website
- Locations plotted by an interactive map
- Events organized by date and category for ease of identification and sorting
- Geo-location for mobile search on the go
- Event profiles with space for integration of social media through comments, encouraging community interaction
- Real-time user contributions such as attendance "check in" and commenting on the event profile via smart phone
- A designated hash tag, #designweeknyc, for users to connect to a unified conversation about design events taking place citywide
- SMS text messages to be published on the site about specific events
- Latest design news from a variety of online sources, including Metropolis Magazine and
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