Program for MIT Awards Ceremony. 2011.
This was a great opportunity to volunteer for the IDEAS Awards and Global Challenge group at MIT (Cambridge, MA) that each year awards student projects that are improving the lives of communities in need around the world. The 24-page program color codes the various innovation categories. I also did a map that plots all the winning projects of the last ten years (detail images above).

Sales tool iPad app interface. Data entry screen. 2011.

MASA. Ipad application. 2010-2011.
MASA is a design news application for the iPad. Unlike the online component, the application is very visual and prioritizes images over text. I designed the interface of the app and website, plus created an editorial approach and frequently create content for this publication (articles, interviews, etc.)

MASA. Interface.

Expo Cambia. Biodegradable Exhibit. 2009.
This was a temporary exhibit about sustainable design in Mexico. CAMBIA, literally "change", was shown at the UNAM university in Mexico City. The exhibit structure was made out of corn husk leaves woven into a wire mesh. Display panels were hung inside, inviting people to enter the ring to learn about sustainable projects being made in Mexico at the time of Earth Day. After the exhibit, the structure was repurposed as a compost bin.

Now House. Net-zero energy housing system. 2004-2008.
This award-winning retrofit design was an initiative of Work Worth Doing, a multi-disciplinary design studio that I co-created in Toronto a few years back. The Now House Project turned a wartime house in into one that produces as much energy as it usesÑa net-zero energy house. The retrofit is repeatable. It could potentially reduce around six million tons of greenhouse gas emissions as result of retrofitting a million similar wartime houses across Canada. I had multiple roles in this project: developing the overall project concept, designing a do-it-yourself visual feel for the project and communications materials: posters, banners, brochures, website, exhibits, and activities. I was also involved in designing various parts of the Now House community involvement, including community survey design, scenario development, and a periodical newsletter.

Some of the information graphics used in Now House brochures.

Simplexity. Architecture Monograph. 2010.
This 600+ page monograph of the architecture firm LAR/Fernando Romero involved printing color images on different color papers, a new experiment for the publisher, Hatje Cantz. The overall concept was drawn from the book title "simplexity", a paradox that involves simplicity and complexity. The overall aesthetic resembled vintage scientific publications. Each project was presented with its "index card" along with diagrams, renders, and photographs of the projects. An essay and interview were interspersed through the book.

Lucio Muniain Site. Website and Content Management System. 2009-2011.
lmetal.com.mx
A minimalist website for architecture firm Lucio Muniain et al. The challenge was to design the site so that every component could be updated by the architect, using a content management system that I developed using Drupal.

PRODUCTORA Site. Website and Content Management System. 2007.
productora-df.com.mx
A simple website for architecture firm PRODUCTORA. This site also included a content management system that I coded in PHP, allowing the architects to update their projects, and change the homepage whenever they wanted.

Poster series for a project called Massive Change: The Future of Global Design. 2004.

Poster for San Juan Poli/Graphic Triennial. 2009.

Hyperborder. Research and visions on the future of U.S.-Mexico relations. 2005-2007.
Architect Fernando Romero invited me to develop a publication about the U.S.-Mexico Border. I assembled a binational team of young social and political scientists to explore the future of U.S.-Mexico relations in Fernando's office in Mexico City. The book presents a contemporary perspective of the border region as well as dozens of future scenarios. My role as project director included doing research, writing, interviews in both countries, illustrations, and the graphic design of this book (book layout, illustrations, graphs, and maps) as well as finding a publisher for this book. Two years of hard work later, Hyperborder: The Contemporary U.S.-Mexico Border and its Future was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2007. The book is now available in over 300 public libraries from Arizona to Singapore. The book was also the 2006 runner-up winner for Metropolis magazine Next Generation awards.

What if Greenland was Africa's Water Fountain?. Exhibition. 2004.
As part of Work Worth Doing, we were asked by Bruce Mau Design to help create one of seven pragmatic utopias for Denmark. The client was the Danish Architecture Center. My role was to help design the system, research the feasibility of the proposal, and design the exhibition in collaboration with Bruce Mau Design. Our project required us to articulate a new vision for Greenland (a self-governing province of Denmark that is seeking independence).

Our utopia, 'What if Greenland was Africa's Water Fountain,' presented two possibilities for the island: 1) to capitalize on the melting of its icebergs and profit from the sale of the world's purest bottled water; and 2) to capture Greenland's meltwater and ship it to water-stressed countries in western Africa.

This system design was presented in three simultaneous exhibitions called 'Too Perfect: Seven New Denmarks', in Toronto, Copenhagen, and Venice. An accompanying exhibition catalogue also captured these proposals.

Global Citizen. Application interface prototype. 2011.
This is a prototype of a future application that allows iPad users to track global emergencies and their respective news coverage, photos, commentaries. It also allows for donations to be channeled to local relief projects.

Massive Change. Exhibition and publication. 2003.
When I joined the inaugural class of the Institute without Boundaries, a post-graduate design program in Toronto's Bruce Mau Design studio, we were asked to develop a public project about the future of design. It included a traveling exhibition, publication, website, and other products that present a new view of design.

Based on Arnold Toynbee's notion that we can think of 'the welfare of the human race as a practical objective,' Massive Change set up an optimistic vision for the design discipline, one that is not about the world of design, but the design of the world. We explored this idea from the perspective of twelve topics, such as Urbanization, Materials, Energ y, Living Systems, Information, Manufacturing, among others.

Although this project was developed by a team of around a dozen people, my role in this project was to contribute with research, writing, and design of the first few drafts of the book, parts of the exhibition, the first website for the project, a movie, and poster series. I also co-organized a number of seminar series that informed the project's thesis.

The exhibition was the Vancouver Art Gallery's highest attended exhibition, and the book is one of the publisher's most popular books on contemporary design.

mnartists.org identity. Online and print identity for arts organization. 2002.
mnartists.org is an organization in Minnesota that exists entirely online. Using statistical information about the five major areas of the organization's website, an asymetrical pentagon was algorithmically rendered. The resulting logo is updated every hour on the masthead of the website. The shape reflects current traffic and number of new artworks uploaded to those five areas of the site at that given time.

To reflect the ever-changing nature of the website, a series of eighteen stickers, twenty four logo variations, and eighteen color selections were created for the print identity. The stationery materials include eighteen stickers that can be used on white stationery and business cards. Each person has the freedom to choose his/her favorite sticker color and shape and apply them however they want on stationery.