Sustainable Design, Art, and Engineering: A Conversation with Enrico Bressan and Sami Maalouf

Enrico Bressan (MS Engineering, CSUN) is co-founder and President of the design company Artecnica. His company is a Los Angeles based design company that collaborates with the most established and emerging international designers to create inspiring decorative objects for the living environment. Alongside such talented designers as Tord Boontje, Hella Jongerius, and the Campana brothers, we continue to explore vibrant, colorful ways of expressing compelling ideas and bringing delight and discovery to everyday design. Artecnica is committed to considering issues of environmental sustainability and responsible manufacturing. Products are often made with recycled materials and transported in easy-ship flat packages to help reduce our carbon footprint. And our Design with Conscience® program works with artisan communities in developing countries to produce unique handcrafted objects that reflect indigenous skills. This humanitarian approach supports shared work and profit across borders, cultures, races, and religions. Here again, design acts as a catalyst for change, providing an opportunity to help transform the global landscape.

Sami Maalouf (Ph.D., UCLA) is a CSUN professor of civil engineering at CSUN's Civil Engineering and Construction Management Department (CECM) and the coordinator of CECM's graduate program. His research interests are centered on environmental fluid mechanics (water quality models, turbulence, transport phenomena, stratified flow, surface, and groundwater flow and contamination) and sustainable development (heat disposal, alternative energy systems, hydroelectric power, and energy conservation). Besides coastal and environmental matters, Maalouf is focused on researching engineering education, finding ways to enhance and optimize the teaching/learning experience and build a bridge between fundamental engineering disciplines and practical applications in the civil engineering field. Current research involves reversing the hierarchy in engineering education.