Designers in Dialogue

Designers in Dialogue

Derek Chen likens his job as founder of Council Design to that of a matchmaker. Rather than employing full-time designers, Chen hires designers who have ideas that fit his company’s brief, mimicking the collaborative business plan of European companies, like Kartell and Cassina, which dominate the modern design world.

It was only fitting that Council was one of four Bay Area design collectives that gathered at One & Co’s studio last week's "Designers in Dialogue" event presented by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art A+D Forum, an auxiliary group of the SFMoMA that organizes events and studio visits for members with acute interests in architecture and design. The theme: the unique cooperative design environment in San Francisco. "Coming from New York, which is a very competitive and individualistic place, one thing that moved me about San Francisco was the way designers aren’t competitors but friends and collaborators," said Cary Bernstein, a San Francisco architect and co-chair of the A+D Forum.

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Miyoko Ohtake
When not writing, Miyoko Ohtake can be found cooking, training for her next marathon, and enjoying all that the City by the Bay and the great outdoors have to offer.

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