By the People:
Designing a Better America

By the People: Designing a Better America

By the People: Designing a Better America, a major exhibition on socially responsible design, features sixty design projects from every region across the U.S. and explores the challenges faced by urban, suburban, and rural communities in the U.S. and its bordering countries.

Organized by Cynthia E. Smith, curator of socially-responsible design at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York, By the People is based on more than two years of Smith’s field research—traveling to shrinking post-industrial cities, sprawling metro regions, struggling rural towns, along border regions, areas impacted by natural and man-made disaster, and places of persistent poverty—in search of collaborative designs for more equitable, inclusive and sustainable communities. The exhibition highlights design solutions that expand access to education, food, health care, and affordable housing; increase social and economic inclusion; offer improved alternative transportation options; and provide a balanced approach to land use between the built and natural environment.

Occupying most of MOAD’s galleries, the exhibition includes objects, images, scale models, full-size displays, infographics, and interactive media, and is divided into six themes: Act, Save, Share, Live, Learn, and Make. The exhibition aims to empower visitors to see themselves as designers—not just of objects, but also of ideas, strategies, and solutions that improve our daily lives. It showcases the innovative and impactful actions generated through design, in order to inspire creative problem-solving at local, regional, national, and even international levels. By the People demonstrates how design can address the world’s most critical issues.

By the People: Designing a Better America is organized by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and curated by Cynthia E. Smith. The Citizen Design Lab is an extension of By the People, and its activities are developed in partnership with ISA-Interface Studio Architects. The presentation of this exhibition at the Museum of Art and Design at MDC is organized by MOAD’s Senior Curator, Wanda Texon. By the People is made possible by the generous support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; and by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture