Doug Paige

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.