On view August 28 – November 30, 2015
Opening Reception: August 28, 6:00 pm
AIA San Francisco Center for Architecture + Design Gallery
130 Sutter Street, Suite 600, San Francisco

Good design can be deceptively straightforward. To casual observers, a clever graphic or an elegant product may appear effortless, even obvious. Artists, architects, and designers know that the path to an ideal solution is rarely a direct line from inspiration to finished product. In reality, design is much more dynamic—there is experimentation, collaboration, risk-taking, and improvisation. In other words, the creative process is often playful.

This exhibition examines play as an essential element in the work of eight Bay Area organizations that engage design in diverse ways. It considers, for example, Google’s ever-changing homepage, which breaks the rules of corporate branding. It looks at how Heath Ceramics uses trial and error to hone its masterfully produced line of housewares, and the way Anchor Brewing continually reinvents its Christmas Ale to reinforce a legacy of craftsmanship. Some of the architects and artists represented here make sketches to play with their designs, while others employ state-of-the-art technology to push the limits and possibilities of their fields. All of these playful approaches facilitate problem solving, circumvent the adult impulse to self-edit, and foster environments for innovation.

AIA San Francisco and the Center for Architecture + Design present this exhibition as part of the 12th annual Architecture and the City festival, which takes place throughout San Francisco every September. Visit archandcity.org for complete information.

About the Curator
Erin Garcia is an independent curator and writer based in the Bay Area. She has worked for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Oakland Museum. Most recently she was the guest curator of the ongoing exhibition City Rising: San Francisco and the 1915 World’s Fair, which has installations at the California Historical Society and at the Palace of Fine Arts.

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