MAKERS series: Rob Forbes and Traci Des Jardins

MAKERS series exposes the creative and often raw process of individual making by exploring the origins and processes of creativity and the interplay between inspiration, innovation with an emphasis on the act of making itself. Presentations and discussions with diverse practitioners working in the arts, or at the intersection of architecture and design, will broaden our assumptions of the complexities of making at scale—to reveal insights into materials and methods, digital and nature-based technologies, and the highly personal journey between vision and process to reach creative outcomes.

Thinking Through the Hands : Making as Creative Research 

How does working with the hands directly shape discovery and insight for ideating and creative growth, allow us to be in the present and allow our minds, heart and hands to connect? Two visionaries and longtime friends with diverse and distinct backgrounds in creative professions will discuss their work, life experiences, entrepreneurial visions and the multitude of ways they learn and continue to realize versatile and powerful creative outcomes through hands-on processes. 

Speakers

Traci Des Jardin

Traci Des Jardins is a California native whose three-decade career has helped shape San Francisco’s culinary landscape. Classically trained in French cuisine, but equally rooted in the Central Valley traditions of her Mexican upbringing as a child learning to cook from her grandparents. A two-time James Beard Award winner, Food & Wine Best New Chef, Top Chef Finalist and Judge, Traci has founded and led acclaimed, award-winning restaurants and influential culinary collaborations; Jardinière, Arguello, Commissary (with Bon Appetit Management Co. and The Presidio Trust), Culinary and Development Advisor to Impossible™ Foods (first to put Impossible Foods Burger on her menu ), Sugar Bowl Ski Corporation Food & Beverage program and the Misool Foundation in Indonesia . Traci champions seasonality and supporting local farms and ranches. Her mentoring legacy continues having influenced generations of hospitality leaders. 

Rob Forbes

Rob Forbes is an accomplished ceramist, serial entrepreneur, photographer, author and a strong public advocate and spokesperson for modern design and urbanism. He is best known as the Founder of Design Within Reach (1999) changing the public’s education and access to design, and PUBLIC Bikes (2010) creating bicycles with high design standards for everyday people. Rob’s books ask us to take note and be observers of the world around us where design is hiding in plain sight. His design and business interests continue to be cross-disciplinary and in 2021 Rob founded Studio5050, an organization to assist small businesses owned and run by people of color. He splits his time between his residence in San Francisco and his Healdsburg micro-farm with his sidekick Solito. 

Moderator

Lise de Vito

Lise de Vito’s design career spans decades in the San Francisco Bay Area, as co-owner of Zack | de Vito Architecture + Construction, with award-winning architecture and interior design projects across residential, commercial, and vertically integrated design-build development. Alongside her professional practice, Lise is a multidisciplinary artist as well as co-owner of a San Francisco–based gift+art shop, where research, curation, and making actively inform her creative interests.

In collaboration with AIASF and the Center for Architecture+Design, Lise created, curates and moderates the MAKERS series, highlighting the storytelling and journeys of diverse makers and creative practitioners at scale.