The Ohio State University Department of Design is thrilled to announce the arrival of our annual Butter Goeller Design Affair. Next week, we will be hosting representatives from the Montreal-based design studio Daily Tous les Jours to serve as guests, advisors, and role models to the students within our department and to our University Community as a whole. Founded on the mission that “we are more together than alone,” Daily Tous les Jours strives to create collective experiences that allow citizens to critically engage with their neighbors and with their communities to foster connections between humans and galvanize change within our society. Since its founding in 2010, the award-winning studio has been bringing citizens out into their cities by collectively transforming public spaces into astonishing works of art. Not alone, as individual artistic minds, but rather as instruments of fellowship that show to the world what an impassioned and engaged community is capable of. 

Please join us on Tuesday, November 19th at 5:30 P.M. when Daily Tous les Jours founder Mouna Andraos and artist Ariane Dorig Peloquin will present a lecture at the Ohio Union in the US Bank Theater. Titled “Strange Moments Together,” Mouna and Ariane will speak on the foibles that come along with a narrow minded, data–driven approach to city building. The representatives will discuss how they seek to create a world that prioritizes the things that make us all so human—the joyful and unexpected moments of togetherness that can be found between strangers. After all, what is a community but a place where the walls between strangers can be broken down? All are welcome to attend this lecture, and we hope to see you there, witnessing this incredible presentation. 

Following the lecture, on Wednesday, November 20th, our second-year undergraduate design students and those in our MFA program will have the chance to participate in an all-day design workshop with Daily Tous les Jours representatives.There, our students will be challenged to thoughtfully interact with the campus spaces they inhabit. Under the guidance of Daily Tous les Jours, students will work to redesign one of those spaces in such a way as to engage all members of our Buckeye Community in profound and meaningful ways. The Department of Design has ambitions that, with the help of the University, we can take the created designs of our students and see them installed on our campus.

This transformative, two-day event is made possible by generous contributions from Professors Reinhart Butter and Heika Goeller. Professor Butter was instrumental in the development and growth of the Ohio State University Department of Design. His research caught the eyes of several major companies (Mercedes-Benz, Samsung, and Ford to name a few) thus bringing their attention to our department and creating room for new funding and sponsorships towards graduate theses, student projects, contract research, and more. Additionally, Professor Butter founded the department’s international student exchange program and remains involved with that extensive program to this day. He continues to guest lecture both domestically and abroad as well as serve as a design consultant in both the United States and Germany. Professor Goeller has spent her extensive career researching interior and space semantics, interior identity design, and human behavioral issues with particular considerations towards cultural differences. She has shared her findings by lecturing and leading workshops all over the world. She is a recipient of the DAAD Distinguished Teacher’s Exchange Award, SPHINX and Mortar Board Honorary, COSI Performance Excellence-Appreciation Award, OSU President’s Salute Honorary, The Marvel Group Design Advancement Award, The Ohio State University Design Merit Award, and the Ohio State University Department of Design Service Excellence Appreciation Award. We are enormously blessed to have these two incredible people in our department.