During this year’s ICFF in New York, over 30 students from seven international design schools came together for the 2025 WantedDesign Schools Workshop, a collaborative, high-energy design sprint centered on one of today’s most universal and urgent issues: food systems. The workshop, titled “Eating in NYC: Reconnecting and Redesigning Food Systems”, was led by the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and supported by Haworth, Core77, and molo.
In a dedicated studio space furnished by Haworth and molo on the ICFF show floor, students were tasked with imagining innovative, systems-based interventions that could reshape how New Yorkers grow, access, prepare, and share food.
Participants are given the brief at SVA Products of Design Studio.
The participants—representing CCA, CENTRO, Escuela Mónica Herrera, Ohio State University, RISD, Pratt Institute, and SVA—were divided into cross-disciplinary teams and given just four days to research, ideate, and prototype bold design proposals. Their final concepts were presented on May 20, 2025 during ICFF to a jury of industry leaders, including Allan Chochinov (SVA, Core77), Nicolai Czumaj-Bront (Haworth), Kristine Mudd (SVA) , Jane Nakagawa (Honda Design LA), and Stephanie Forsythe (molo).
The Jury Team confers: Nicolai Czumaj-Bront (Haworth), Stephanie Forsythe (molo), Jane Nakagawa (Honda Design LA), Kristine Mudd (SVA), and Allan Chochinov (SVA, Core77) Image: ICFF Jenna Bascom Photography.
“Food systems were an ideal subject for an intensive design sprint like this,” said Erica Pernice, one of the RISD faculty leading the workshop. “The universality of food jumpstarted the students’ ability to connect to the subject matter and to each other.” Pernice emphasized how the shared familiarity with food allowed teams to quickly find common ground, despite coming from different countries, schools, and disciplines.
Fellow RISD faculty member Charlie Cannon noted that food provided a natural entry point into systems thinking: “Everyone encounters multiple parts of the food system every day. That gave students a meaningful and accessible way to understand the broader implications of their design decisions.”
The diversity of the participants proved to be one of the workshop’s biggest strengths. “We had students from industrial design, strategic design, graphic design and communications, and architecture,” Cannon said. “This meant that every team could think through their design proposals at different scales and registers.”
Being hosted on-site at ICFF added a unique layer of inspiration and exposure. “Students could wander the halls and get a fresh perspective from the global design community,” Cannon added. “We also had drop-in visitors who were curious to engage with the teams and their projects.”
Ultimately, the workshop challenged students not only to design within tight constraints, but also to collaborate deeply and meaningfully. “Successful collaborations were careful to include everyone’s perspectives and skills,” said Cannon, “and identify an unusual opportunity that they could all rally around.”
By zooming in on food systems and rooting their ideas in real-world NYC contexts, the teams delivered thoughtful, place-based proposals that explored how design could intervene at every scale—from the personal to the systemic. As Pernice put it, “We found the most successful projects focused on New York-specific sites, leveraging existing programs for depth and believability.”
Allan Chochinov, Founding Chair of MFA Products of Design program at SVA and co-founder of Core 77 was again leading the Jury review and was enthusiastic about this years workshop. “I love being part of this student workshop every year. I think it’s the 12th year, and this years’ team was near and dear to my heart: food and food systems, and food sustainability. The projects were quite pragmatic, but also adventurous, some even visionary. The students had a great time. It was really clear that they were working well in groups and hopefully making friends for life. The idea of mixing students from schools from all over the world into teams that are all blended is just genius.”
The cohort from WantedDesign Schools Workshop. Image: ICFF Jenna Bascom Photography.
The winning team whose project was titled Re-Compost was comprised of: Florence Grace-Castonguay from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Rida Zeng from School of Visual Arts, Gabriela Mestriner from Pratt Institute, Sebastian Arce from Escuela Monica Herrera, and Gabriela Mierkalne from California College of the Arts whose team re-imagined New York’s composting system to make it truly circular. You can view the winning team, Re_Compost’s presentation here.
“I really appreciated how well they worked together, despite coming from different backgrounds. Everything felt cohesive and on the same level. The team clearly understood how to collaborate effectively. I also liked how they presented very practical, thoughtful solutions — and again, everything was very well balanced within the team,” commented Nicolai Czumaj-Bront, Senior Principal Designer at Haworth, who was part of the Jury.
The Re-Compost (Winning) Team
Florence Grace-Castonguay – Rhode Island School of Design I’m originally from Montreal, Canada, and I’m currently completing my Master’s in Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
The most rewarding part of the Wanted Schools Workshop at ICFF was the opportunity to meet and collaborate with students from various schools and nationalities who shared a common interest in food systems. Throughout the workshop, professors and professionals shared their experiences working across different scales of food-related design. This broadened my awareness of the range of possible interventions and it was inspiring to connect with others who were equally passionate about the topic.
Before returning to design, I studied and worked in pastry, which continues to influence my design approach, using food both as a material and a subject. I believe food, because of its universal and experiential nature, has a unique ability to bring people together and spark conversations about broader issues such as sustainability, equity, and accessibility.
Our success stemmed from a strong sense of collaboration. Each member brought a different background and perspective, allowing us to contribute in complementary ways. We were also deeply engaged with the workshop brief and believed strongly in the positive impact of our proposal, which helped unify and motivate us throughout the process.
I see my future in design working within interdisciplinary teams, where collaboration across different fields allows for interventions at multiple scales. My dream career would allow me to explore meaningful, socially engaged design—particularly in areas that intersect with food, community, and sustainability.
The best way to follow my creative journey is on my Instagram account.
Rida Zeng – School of Visual Arts
I’m originally from Chongqing, China, and completed my BA in Classical Studies at the University of Chicago. I’m currently pursuing an MFA in Products of Design at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Working alongside peers from such varied backgrounds and watching our idea evolve in just a few days was incredibly rewarding. (It’s also my first time working on a systemic intervention of this scale in a team setting and joining a design workshop.) We really tapped into our shared interests, cross-checked one another’s ideas, and joined our individual expertise. Seeing that collaborative energy incubate a concept from zero all the way to a prototype was very powerful.
This year’s theme (NYC’s food systems) highlighted a rich overlap between urban systems and communal bonding. From my humanities background, I’ve long read food as a vessel of memory, identity, and metaphor; through design, I now also see it as a complex system of people, processes, and places. The workshop helped me bridge these lenses and inspired me to continue uncovering real-world relevance in classical inquiry while using design to nurture human connections.
Our team success resulted from various components including: Team spirit: We paused after each discussion to realign our vision and deliverables, which kept us focused, distilled a ton of information into a clear narrative, and paced our days.
Complementary skills: Each of us brought different strengths, enabling fast research, brainstorming, prototyping, and storytelling under tight time constraints.
Rigorous research: Grounding our work in the realities of NYC’s food ecosystem prevented us from reinventing the wheel and allowed us to leverage existing resources effectively.
I strive to be a strategist driving impact through research and design at growth-stage businesses. Leveraging systems thinking alongside emerging technologies, I aim to develop products, services, and experiences that inspire people to imagine – and live in – a better reality.
You can explore my work at ridazeng.com and connect with me LinkedIn. I also share work on Instagram.
Gabriela Mestriner – Pratt Institute
I was born and raised in Brazil, in a cultural landscape that continues to inform my approach to design. My perspective has been shaped by diverse experiences in my home country —particularly in Bahia and through long-standing relationships with Indigenous communities in Xingu. These influences continue to guide my work, both in its values and creative direction. I received my degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from Mackenzie University in São Paulo in 2016, the same year I co-founded Flipê Arquitetura — a studio focused on architecture and interior design through a collaborative lens. I ran Flipê until 2024, when I relocated to New York to pursue postgraduate studies in Industrial Design at Pratt Institute. Alongside my academic work, I’ve been developing a research-driven practice that moves across disciplines, grounded in material experimentation and shaped by questions of cultural memory, sustainability, and shared knowledge systems.
The most rewarding aspect of this workshop was seeing how different aspects of my practice could come together so fluidly — from design and architecture to systems thinking and collaboration. The workshop offered a space to work across scales, connecting material experimentation with larger urban and ecological systems. The final presentation and jury feedback were especially meaningful. Their insights were sharp, generous, and motivating, giving me even more drive to continue developing ideas that respond to real contemporary needs. What stayed with me most, though, was the sense of collective engagement. The brilliance, generosity, and passion of peers from diverse voices and generations. A powerful reminder of the creative energy that emerges when different perspectives unite around a shared purpose.
The theme — focused on food and waste systems in New York City — resonated deeply with the research I’ve been doing on sustainability, circularity, and the cultural dimensions of design. I was particularly drawn to the open-ended nature of the brief. It invited us to navigate ambiguity, consider multiple narratives, and engage with both the tangible and the systemic. Our group focused on composting as an entry point, which led us into broader discussions about waste, care, and value. These are themes I return to often in my work — especially when thinking about how materials carry meaning and how design can support more regenerative relationships with the land.
Our team’s success was rooted in mutual trust, deep engagement, and the willingness to truly listen to one another. Everyone brought their full perspective — combining diverse skills, experiences, and cultural perspectives into something cohesive and intentional. The structure of the workshop played a crucial role. The mentors, organizers, and guest speakers consistently challenged us to be thoughtful about impact and intentional in our choices. That helped keep the work grounded. In the end, I think our process became our strongest asset —it wasn’t just about the final outcome, but about how we got there together.
I imagine my future practice as a space of ongoing inquiry — one that moves between disciplines and scales, grounded in material research and shaped by a strong cultural background, while remaining open and innovative about the future. I’m especially interested in how design, art, and architecture can intersect to generate new forms of engagement with places and people. My work often begins with natural or reclaimed materials, but always returns to questions of meaning — how we relate to what we make, and what it reflects back to us. Moving between functional and conceptual sculpture and spatial interventions, it remains rooted in material experimentation. I’m drawn to design as a method of reflection and resistance: a way to propose other systems, other relationships. In recent years, I’ve been fortunate to collaborate on projects that explore Indigenous knowledge systems, climate resilience, and land-based practices — including research with Indigenous communities in Alaska and ongoing learning shaped by the knowledge and lifeways of communities in the Xingu region of Brazil. These experiences, along with my continued studies in Traditional Ecological Knowledge, have deepened my understanding of design as a tool for listening, for asking better questions, and for imagining. At its core, my dream practice is not centered only on objects or systems, but on relationships — between people and place, between tradition and possibility, between concept and matter. A space of research, creation, craft and exchange: one that rethinks value, resists disposability, and contributes to more attentive, place-based ways of living. Where making is inseparable from meaning, and where art, architecture, and design converge to propose balanced ways of inhabiting the world.
My website offers an overview of current projects and collaborations. I also share updates and process reflections on Instagram and I use LinkedIn to stay connected with the design community and share research-related work.
Gabriela Mierkalne – California College of the Arts
I’m originally from Riga, Latvia, and I’m currently studying Interior Design with a minor in Ecological Practices at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
The most rewarding part of this workshop was seeing how quickly an idea can come to life when people from different backgrounds work toward a shared goal. It was exciting to apply what I’ve learned in school to something real that could better serve NYC communities.
The theme was directly aligned with my passion for sustainable design. Our team focused on transforming New York City’s composting infrastructure into a more circular system that redistributes compost back to communities. It allowed me to bring together my interests in ecology, community-centered design, and education through spatial storytelling.
I think our success came from how well we respected each other’s thoughts and leaned into our individual strengths. We were constantly building on each other’s ideas, we trusted each other, and most importantly, we all cared for the issue we were addressing.
I see my future in design as a way to connect cultures, environments and people. Growing up in Latvia, I was surrounded by traditions that respected nature, valued craftsmanship and taught me to notice the small details – like how light moves through space or the memory that materials carry. My dream is to bring that design sensibility to a global scale. Create sustainable environments that activate the senses and form emotional connections for those who experience them.
You can find my work on Instagram where I share my design projects and fun things I am working on.
Sebastian Arce – Escuela Monica Herrera
I hail from the city of San Salvador in El Salvador and attend Escuela Monica Herrera.
I think the most rewarding part of the WantedDesign Workshop was being able to see our project completed and then shared on the big screen. I got a lot from talking about our solution and knowing what we accomplished in four days and that we delivered solid work.
Honestly, I had never heard of food design before, so it was something new for me and it was a fun way of learning a new area of design, which inspired me to be more curious about the small things in life like: where does my food come from? how do I eat it? and, why do I like certain spots?
I would say team work contributed to our success as we were open-minded and put the best interest toward the project first. We used our specific strengths, and because we knew how to deliver work equally we could leverage the potential of each teammate. We did not leave anyone behind, and did not go to the next stage until all of us were equally satisfied with the work.
I haven’t explored every aspect of design, however as of now, I would love to have a furniture studio, and do custom-made pieces for all types of clients. Having a real one-on-one connection with the client throughout the process of a project appeals to me. Currently I work in a marketing and creative agency firm created with friends, you can see our work on Instagram.