The Value of Experimentation: Reflections on Xlab Offsite Chicago
The 2025 Xlab Chicago traced a real-time path meandering between convergence and serpentined unknowns—offering a rare pause in time to reflect, reimagine, and expand tomorrow’s design.
Xlab Offsite Chicago was unlike any event SEGD has produced before. Rooted in experimentation, it broke away from the traditional conference mold and invited participants into a two-day exploration of design as civic and cultural imagination. From the South Side’s Experimental Station to the historic DuSable Museum Roundhouse, we gathered in the round, paired talks with workshops, and leaned into formats that invited inspiration, play, and collaboration.
This wasn’t about tools or trends. It was about mindset. Together, we asked what it means to practice, see, work, and belong as designers today—and what responsibilities we carry to shape tomorrow.
Day 1: A Powerful Opening
The first day of Xlab invited participants to step out into the city through a series of immersive design tours. Options included exploring creativity and inclusion at the Design Museum of Chicago, uncovering material heritage on the Brick of Chicago: Hyde Park tour, foraging urban ecologies with Wild Axel, experiencing the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, and going behind the scenes at United Airlines’ newly redesigned headquarters in Willis Tower, designed by IA Interior Architects.
After the tours, everyone came together at Experimental Station—a South Side hub for cultural and civic innovation—for the official opening of Xlab. There, the energy shifted from exploration to collective vision as Bruce Mau, FSEGD, led First Inspire: Manifesto Workshop. “We do not have the luxury of cynicism,” he reminded us.
If you’re a designer in any field, your job is optimism. Your job is possibility.
Mau invited participants to co-create a new manifesto for design—one centered on purpose, possibility, and collective vision. “Because it’s all by design, that means we can redesign it,” he said, urging us to reimagine systems that no longer serve us and envision ones that can.
It was the perfect grounding for the next day, setting the tone for Xlab as an experiment in mindset, imagination, and responsibility.
Day 2: Experiments in Action
A Space Steeped in History and Light
The historic Roundhouse has humble beginnings. Built in the early 19th century by visionary architect Daniel H. Burnham, it originally served as a horse stable. Today, as part of the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center—the nation’s first independent museum dedicated to African American history—it stands as both a landmark of resilience and a beacon of cultural imagination.
Throughout the second day, the space revealed its own kind of magic. Light streamed through soaring windows, casting rainbow patterns across the concrete floor and enveloping speakers in shifting color. Brick walls and raw textures framed our conversations in ways that felt both grounded and transcendent—reminding us that place is never just a backdrop but a catalyst.
Ideas that Shaped the Room
Each speaker brought their own lens to experimentation—layered with insight, provocation, and connection:
Tiff Beatty, performance poet and cultural organizer at the National Public Housing Museum, opened with a powerful invocation rooted in memory and resilience. Channeling Beauty’s G.H.E.T.T.O. (Greatest History Ever Told To Our People), she reminded us that history and voice are the foundations for imagining what comes next.
Sarah Fornace of Manual Cinema showed how simple materials—paper cutouts, overhead projectors, and sound—can transform into cinematic stories. “We make worlds out of flat things,” she explained, emphasizing the power of revealing process alongside outcome. After her talk, participants stepped into the action themselves, creating live shadow puppetry that turned everyday gestures into surreal performances.
David Macaulay, author and illustrator of The Way Things Work, reminded us that drawing itself is a way of knowing. “Look at ordinary stuff. Take it apart. The more closely you look, the more you appreciate it.” Following the session, the space transformed into a shared exploration of observation, with participants filling sketchbooks in real time.
Jamie Kalven, writer and founder of the Invisible Institute, reflected on decades of reporting from the South Side. “The city’s not always my subject, but it’s always my medium,” he said, showing how stories grounded in place can reveal patterns of power and accountability. His talk challenged us to see design and journalism as parallel practices of making the invisible visible.
Monica Chadha, founder of Civic Projects Architecture, put her participatory ethos into practice. “You can’t get to place-based design without first, conversations with the people,” she said. Her workshop invited participants to explore what sparks joy—where and how people like to learn and with whom—using playful tools that surface everyday rituals and values. The exercise modeled how trust, belonging, and cultural equity are designed into communities from the ground up.
Rosanna Vitiello, founder of The Place Bureau, reframed placemaking: “We used to think, how can we articulate the identity of a place? Now we think about what a place can become.” Participants prototyped new worlds in her workshop using tools from her Place Futures Toolkit—protagonists, rituals, and practices. “We don’t need to build a building to create a place,” she reminded us.
Rebecca Gates, soundworker and cultural strategist, asked us to tune in differently. “Radio is a sonic territory of place—where sound becomes an organizing principle, connecting communities through listening.” Through a collective soundscape exercise, participants layered sustained tones into a shared act of presence.
Artist and educator Norman Teague, founder of Norman Teague Design Studios, closed Xlab alongside Daniel Overbey (studio manager and design assistant) and Alissa Touranachun (design assistant) with a keynote rooted in the metaphor of bread—ingredients + process = outcome. Inviting participants to literally break bread, they connected craft, equity, and storytelling in ways that felt both communal and profound. From reimagining plastics at the Venice Architecture Biennale to reframing contemporary furniture through African American and jazz traditions, the team showed how humor, listening, and joy can be design’s “super sauces”—powerful tools for creating connection and change from the ground up.
What People Are Saying
“’Cynicism is lazy and stupid.’ Thank you to Bruce Mau for truly setting a tone and SEGD for bringing us all together at Xlab in Chicago. What a time of reconnecting, mindset shifting, and basking in some inspiring moments.” – Erika McChesney, Electrosonic
“You need both. Storytelling and education work best in tandem, and they both begin with process… The best work happens when the creative process mirrors the experience you want to create.” – Mark Tapia, elbe interactive
“After attending SEGD Xlab last week, I’m reminded of how important unique perspectives are when approaching creative problems… I was left feeling extremely inspired to approach my projects in new ways and to stay curious.” – Tatom O’Donnell
“Reflecting on an incredible week in Chicago with the talented and creative community SEGD… I was extremely inspired and will be approaching my life as a design where I am the lead!” – Brandon Harp, McCann Systems
“What an honor to participate in this incredible event!” – Bruce Mau, MASSIVE CHANGE NETWORK
A Collective Experiment
What made Xlab Offsite Chicago so powerful wasn’t just the caliber of voices but the way everyone contributed. Attendees, speakers, partners, and co-chairs leaned into the experiment—sharing openly, collaborating deeply, and shaping an event that felt alive and participatory at every turn.
Our co-chairs—Aki Carpenter (Ralph Appelbaum Associates), Traci Sym (Plus And Greater Than), and Monica Chadha (Civic Projects Architecture)—were at the heart of it. From concept to curation, they brought together new voices, new formats, and a new location to create something entirely different for SEGD. Their leadership anchored the event while making space for others to co-create, proving what’s possible when we experiment with how we gather.
Thank You to Our Supporters!
None of this would have been possible without the support of our sponsors and partners:
- Presenting Sponsors: DCL and Nanolumens
Event Sponsors: Daktronics, Electrosonic, Morlights, Oat Foundry, Pixera, RLMG, S+D Corp
From Oat Foundry’s mesmerizing Split Flap sign to Nanolumens’ state-of-the-art displays and Morlights’ lighting display outfitted in SEGD’s own gradient, our partners helped shape the experience. And we closed each day in style—cocktails, DJ, and garden vibes at Experimental Station, and live jazz under the stars at the DuSable Roundhouse.
Closing Thought
Xlab Offsite Chicago proved what can happen when we experiment with how we gather. It recharged our practices, reshaped our perspectives, and reminded us that design is not just about solving problems but about expanding imagination—and building new ways of seeing, working, and belonging.