The Spaces In Between: Twelve Conversations for International Design Day 2026

Jacques Lange, Melike Taşcıoğlu Vaughan, and Jonas Liugaila bring together three generations of leadership from the International Council of Design — the global body that has championed design as a cultural, ethical, and social practice since 1963. Jacques, a founding voice in international design advocacy and former Icograda President, offers the long view. Melike, ICoD’s current President, brings the strategic vision. And Jonas, ICoD Treasurer and co-founder of research agency The Critical, grounds the conversation in measurable impact. Together, they explore the origins and meaning of International Design Day, what it means to build a unified global voice for design across vastly different cultures and contexts, and why The Spaces In Between feels like exactly the right provocation for this moment in the profession’s history.

Lucy Holmes is the founder and creative director of Holmes Studio — the B Corp-certified London design firm that created the visual identity and brand language for International Design Day 2026. Known for transforming complex ideas into experiences that are inclusive, narrative-driven, and deeply felt, Lucy’s work spans some of the world’s most celebrated cultural institutions, from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to the British Museum’s Western Range galleries, which are currently under development. In this conversation, she reflects on what it means to translate a theme about human connection into a visual language — and what the spaces between objects, ideas, and people have always meant to her practice.

Aki Carpenter is Vice President and Chief Creative Officer at RAA Global Studios, where she leads the design of some of the most significant museum and cultural institution projects in the world — including the exhibition design for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C., the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and the Japanese American National Museum. As SEGD Board President and co-founder of the BIPOC Directors Collective, Aki brings to this conversation both the weight of practice and the urgency of advocacy. Her work asks, again and again, how design can hold the most difficult chapters of human history while still creating space for hope, healing, and connection. There may be no voice in this series more attuned to what it truly means to design The Spaces In Between.

Cheryl S. Durst, Hon. FIIDA is the Executive Vice President and CEO of IIDA — the International Interior Design Association — where she has served for nearly three decades, growing the organization to over 15,000 members across 58 countries. The first African American woman inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame, Cheryl has spent her career making the case that the spaces we inhabit are never neutral — that every room, corridor, and threshold carries values about who is welcomed, who is seen, and whose experience matters. In this conversation, she brings that conviction to bear on The Spaces In Between, and on what design owes the people who live inside it.

Nu Goteh is the founder of Room for Magic and co-founder of Deem Journal — a designer, strategist, and educator whose work begins from a premise that feels simple and is anything but: that design should create conditions for people to lead affirming, beautiful lives. Born in Liberia and raised in the US after arriving as a refugee at age three, Nu brings to every project a lived understanding of what it means to navigate spaces that were not designed with you in mind — and what it looks like when they are. Through Room for Magic, he works at the intersection of brand, community, and culture. Through Deem Journal, he has built one of the most important platforms in contemporary design discourse, centering equity, social practice, and the voices too often absent from the conversation. As a member of the SEGD Board of Directors, he helped shape the thinking behind this year’s theme — and in this conversation, he explores what The Spaces In Between means when the stakes are not aesthetic, but human.

Llisa Demetrios is Chief Curator of the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity — and the granddaughter of Charles and Ray Eames themselves. A sculptor, archivist, and lifelong keeper of her grandparents’ legacy, Llisa brings to this conversation something rare: a lived understanding of what Charles and Ray were actually reaching for. As the Eames Institute embarks on an ambitious new museum campus, she is thinking deeply about how to bring not just the collection but the meaning of that work to life — the connections, the curiosity, the invisible threads between objects and ideas and people. There may be no voice in this series better suited to The Spaces In Between than someone who grew up shaped by one of design history’s most profound creative partnerships — and who has spent her career finding new ways to share what it taught her.

David Schwarz is the co-founder and creative director of HUSH — a globally recognized design agency working at the intersection of architecture, placemaking, digital technology, and data-driven storytelling. With clients ranging from Nike and Google to Goldman Sachs, Meta, and JFK International Airport, David has spent nearly two decades asking a question most practitioners never articulate: what is the relationship between time, emotion, and value in the spaces people actually inhabit? In this conversation — one of the most philosophically rich in the series — he and Cybelle explore the difference between designing for spectacle and designing for ritual, and what it means to build experiences that compound in meaning over a lifetime.

Lee-Sean Huang is Co-Executive Director of Learning and Programs at AIGA, co-founder of design and social innovation consultancy Foossa, and a teacher at Parsons, NYU, Emerson, and the School of Visual Arts. His practice has taken him from Fortune 500 boardrooms and the United Nations to working alongside genocide survivors in Rwanda and families navigating pediatric cancer in suburban Chicago. What connects it all is a single conviction: that a thriving community is a living ecosystem that requires intentional design and radical empathy. In this conversation, Lee-Sean explores what it actually takes to design for genuine belonging — and where the profession is still falling short.

Joanne Chan is Chief Executive Officer of Turner Duckworth — the globally recognized branding agency behind some of the most enduring visual identities of our time, including Amazon’s smile logo and Coca-Cola’s iconic brand language. A pioneer who grew the agency from its earliest days to its acquisition by Publicis Groupe, Joanne has spent decades thinking about what makes a brand not just distinctive, but genuinely human. As a new member of the SEGD Board and leader of its Brand Committee, she brings that lens directly to bear on this year’s theme. In this conversation, she explores what happens in the space between a brand and the people it is trying to reach — and why the most powerful design is never about the image alone, but about the feeling it quietly leaves behind.

Carole Wedge, FAIA is the newly appointed Executive Vice President and CEO of AIA — the American Institute of Architects — bringing to the role 37 years of practice and leadership at Shepley Bulfinch, where she rose from the mailroom to CEO. A champion of people-centered design, equity, and climate resilience, Carole has spent her career connecting the dots between communities, institutions, and the built environment. As AIA opens its reimagined Global Campus for Architecture and Design in Washington D.C. — a member-focused, net zero adaptive renovation — she arrives at a pivotal moment for the profession. In this conversation, she explores what architecture owes the spaces where people gather, belong, and find their way to one another, and why The Spaces In Between feels as relevant to a public library rooftop as it does to the future of the field.