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Dwell on Design: 'On Stage' Speaker Preview

Last years's Dwell convention floor | Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist
This weekend's Dwell on Design at the Convention Center features an extensive amount of activities, offering something for everyone, from mobile food to pre-fab homes, all in the name of sustainable design.
LAist is looking forward checking out the 'On-Stage' portion of the event, featuring an excellent line-up of speakers, seminars and discussion panels. Topics range from green design, cars and renting versus owning to gardening, social media (of course!) and designing for social change. We've put together a listing of some of the panels we're most excited about as well as ticket information, but check out the full listing for the complete schedule.
Saturday:
10:30-11:00 Engaging the Public through Green Design with Arthur Rubinfeld - President of Global Development for Starbucks Coffee
11:00-11:30 Behind the Business of Sustainable Design
LAist heard panelist Enrico Bressan of Artecnica speak about sustainable solutions to the taco truck problem back in December and looks forward to hearing about his Design with Conscience products.
11:30-12:00 Conversations: Renting vs. Owning
Moderator Frances Anderton, Dwell editor and host of KCRW's DnA: Design and Architecture, will lead a discussion about "what makes sense, property-wise, in the new economy, and how to live Modern, and create community, even if you don't own the walls around you".
1:00-1:30 Crafting and Creating in Consumer Culture
This panel will explore the "alternative to mass-produced, mass-market impersonality", how we can bring crafting to the mainstream and "how small-scale design can have a big impact worldwide"
1:30-2:00 Cars Are Products Too
The opposite of sustainability is the auto industry, but cars aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Husband and wife Mike Simonian and Maaike Evers of Mike and Maaike offer insight about a future of efficient, affordable and zero-pollution cars.
2:30-3:00 Color in Architecture
LAist favorite, Barbara Bestor, who designed Silverlake's Intelligenstia and spelled BARAK in pink Chistmas lights across the outside her office building is part of this panel that explores "the shift in architecture away from color and towards coloring".
Sunday:
11:30-12:00 Nice Modernist: Emily Pilloton of Project H
Pilloton's not-for profit Project H focuses on four initiatives when it comes to product design: Humanity, Habitats, Health, and Happiness, such as Learning Landscapes and the redesigned hippo roller, an efficient means for transporting water used in South Africa.
12:30-1:00 Cultivating Green and Gardens in the City
LA is about as cement 'urban jungle' as you can get. Experts will share tips on how we can beautify the area around us, from traffic medians to personal gardens and transform from "a tough of gray to shades of green".
1:00-1:30 The Gestalt of Meat: From Art to Eating
Meat. Meat. Meat. Evan Kleiman, host of KCRW's Good Food, moderates this discussion about our perspective of and relationship to this favorite four letter word.
1:30-2:00 The Food Network: Social Media and the Way We Eat
2009 has been the year of Twitter and Kogi and they go hand in hand. Join the Kogi masterminds as well as the co-founder of Coolhaus, the Kogi of ice cream trucks as they discuss this relationship between food and the internet.
3:00-3:30 Freshly Picked: LA's Thriving Farmer's Markets
We are so fortunate to live in a city, despite its sprawling size, where we have access to at least one farmers market somewhere just about every day of the week. This panel discusses the rise of the local food movement with local farmers.
Weekend tickets: $25 - Buy online. LAist readers can save $15 on admission by using the code DWELL24B at check out.
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