2024 SEGD Conference Experience Dallas Kick-Off: THINK BIG!
We are excited to THINK BIG! at the 2024 SEGD Conference Experience Dallas, which kicks off in less than a month on Thursday, September 26th. This year’s “Think Big” theme captures the bold, innovative spirit of Dallas, offering three days of immersive experiences that will challenge your creativity, push the boundaries of design for health and humanity, and explore the scientific impact of experiential design. Don’t miss your chance to connect with industry leaders, learn from the best, and celebrate the vibrant culture that makes Dallas a design powerhouse.
Day 1 Sessions and Speakers
Designing Your Brain to Think Exponential
The 2024 SEGD Conference Experience Dallas will commence with an inspiring keynote from Sandra Bond Chapman, PhD, Founder and Chief Director of the Center for Brain Health. Through our 2023 SEGD Fellow Bruce Mau, we discovered the exciting intersection of design thinking and neuroscience, leading to this inspiring partnership. Her keynote, “Designing Your Brain to Think Exponential,” will not only launch our conference but also provide us with interactive brain health exercises that can transform the way we approach design. Dr. Chapman will unlock tools for experience designers and creators to reboot and train our brains, emphasizing the power of neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to change and update itself moment by moment.
In her talk, Dr. Chapman will delve into the fascinating concept that we, as designers, are the architects of our own brains. She will share strategies to fuel our limitless capacity to think exponentially, urging us to become brain-informed designers and brain health actionists. This is vital in today’s world, where approximately 50% of how we design our tasks, meetings, and environments is toxic to our brain’s innovation and depletes mental energy. By embracing the “Power of Triple Double,” we can achieve greater creativity, productivity, and innovation.
Following a networking break, we will resume with sessions under the theme “Epic Visions: Bold Gestures in Experiential Design in Dallas.”
Dallas Design: The Good, The Bad, and the Very Very Ugly
Harry Mark, FAIA, Executive Director and Principal of RSM Design, will take us on a journey through the evolution of design in Dallas. From the “Big Hat Houses” to the elements that resonate as authentically Texan, Mark will explore the eccentricities and excellence of Dallas’s design legacy. As a longstanding insider and Dallas design aficionado, Mark is uniquely positioned to bring to life the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly in Dallas’s design history.
Memory of Place | Site-Specificity in Memorial Design
Next, we will shift gears to explore the intricate process of creating site-specific memorials. Norman Lee and Shane Allbritton, Partners of RE:site Studio, along with Drema Chavez, Public Art Coordinator for the City of Dallas, will provide insights into the creation of “Shadow Lines,” a new sculpture at Martyrs Park. This public art installation will memorialize victims of racially motivated violence in Dallas, intertwining elements of shadow, light, time, and memory. The design features a semicircular wall of weathering steel on a circular concrete plaza, offering a serene space for personal reflection, intergenerational conversation, and public commemoration.
Destination Dallas: AT&T Discovery District
Our final session of the morning will focus on the transformation of the AT&T corporate campus into the iconic AT&T Discovery District, a new landmark in Dallas. Led by Roger Ferris, Justin Rankin, Digital Experience Design Leader at Gensler, and Jamie Reilly, General Manager at Moment Factory, this session will reveal how AT&T’s headquarters were reinvented as an entertainment destination. The team behind the project thought holistically about creating a sense of belonging, both among AT&T’s diverse talent base and for the broader Dallas community. The result is a unification of physical and digital environments, featuring experiential platforms embedded into the buildings and landscape, including the impressive nine-story Media Wall and responsive Globe sculpture at the public plaza.
The diverse digital and physical activations in the AT&T Discovery District deliver an unparalleled experience, transforming the campus into a shared space for both employees and Dallas residents.
Join Us in Dallas!
This Dallas-centric lineup on Thursday, September 26th is the perfect way to kick off our conference, offering a deep dive into the city’s design culture and innovations. Don’t miss your chance to think big, build your brain, and brainstorm with SEGD! Join us for a day of inspiration, creativity, and groundbreaking ideas that will shape the future of experience design.
About SEGD
We are designers of experiences connecting people to place. SEGD is a multidisciplinary community collectively shaping the future of experience design. We are a thought leader and an amplifier in the practice of experience design. Learn more at segd.org.