Greyt Big Talk w/ Doug Paige & Lukas Kronawitter

Doug Paige is an industrial designer whose work centers on biomimicry, looking to nature for design solutions. He taught industrial design at the Cleveland Institute of Art, with a concentration in biomimicry, and treats nature as a resource for knowledge, not just raw materials.

In 2019 he teamed up with Berlin architect and urban designer Lukas Kronawitter, who came to CIA through the Cleveland Foundation's Creative Fusion: Waterways to Waterways, an edition of the program that marked the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire and the environmental movement it inspired. Together they set out to develop new models for a sustainable Cuyahoga River, starting with one of the least glamorous objects in the urban landscape: the bulkhead. Traditional metal bulkheads hold land back at the water's edge but destroy habitat for natural, regenerative life. Paige and Kronawitter worked toward a new system that would let waterways regenerate fish and plant populations, clean water naturally, and still serve recreational and industrial uses.

Lukas Kronawitter is a Berlin architect and urban designer whose work reads ecosystem dynamics to make cities more efficient, responsive and adaptable. He has developed sustainable water management concepts for cities in Asia, Europe and North America, most notably the Tianjin Eco-city and Chaohu Lake City in China.

At the Berlin Research Society for Energy and Environmental Technology he conducted environmental impact assessments for renewable energy infrastructure across Germany. At the Technical University of Munich he received the German Chancellor Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for work on the life cycle of building materials and construction processes. He has taught at the Technical University of Berlin and the North China University of Technology, and with the New York studio Terreform ONE he launched its Global Programs in Berlin with CIEE, where he has led a regenerative design studio.

In 2019 he came to the Cleveland Institute of Art for the Cleveland Foundation's Creative Fusion: Waterways to Waterways, working with industrial design professor Doug Paige on new models for a sustainable Cuyahoga River to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1969 river fire.