Detroit Month of Design closes its 16th edition with a symposium on design as civic infrastructure

Detroit Month of Design closed its 16th edition with a symposium that treated design as civic scaffolding, the kind a city runs on.

Design Core Detroit and Cranbrook Academy of Art co-organized the closing event, called Design Moves the Future, on September 26 at the main branch of the Detroit Public Library on Woodward Avenue. The afternoon ran from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission was free.

"This year's theme, 'Design Moves the Future', acknowledges that progress is not passive," said Kiana Wenzell, co-executive director of Design Core Detroit. "It takes action and design is what sets tomorrow in motion."

That framing set the tone for the program, which examined how creative practice shapes Detroit's future through the lens of the UNESCO Sustainable Development Goals, entrepreneurship, production, studio practice, and cross-sector collaboration.

Presenters included Ed Be and Jared Blake of LICHEN, Kim Colin of Industrial Facility and creative director at MillerKnoll, and furniture designer Ayako Aratani of Pontiac, Michigan. A moderated panel followed, led by Leon Ransmeier, head of Cranbrook's industrial design program, with Sina Sohrab, EXPO Magazine co-founder Stefan Novakovic, and Sebastian Bauer of General Motors.

The symposium capped a monthlong festival that ran September 1 to 30 across neighborhoods, studios, and public spaces throughout the city. Detroit is the only UNESCO City of Design in the United States, and Month of Design is the festival Design Core Detroit builds around that title each fall.

The day did not end with the closing remarks. A Design Crawl ran from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., moving through partner venues for music, creative activities, and networking. By the date of the event, registration had closed, a sign the closing act pulled a crowd.

For a city that makes things, the idea underneath the symposium is a practical one. Design here shapes more than the look of a product or a building. It is a way of deciding what a neighborhood needs, how a small studio grows into a business, and how funders, industry, and local makers work the same problem from different sides. Putting General Motors, MillerKnoll, and independent designers on the same stage was the point.

Month of Design returns next fall. For anyone who missed this year, Design Core Detroit's programming runs year round, and the festival's citywide model means the next edition will again spread across studios and public spaces rather than sit inside one hall.