Design has the potential to help us solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. But few designers and entrepreneurs recognize that potential.

Paul Lambert, co-founder and CEO of Quilt, sees design as a tool to drive the adoption of climate change mitigation technologies. That’s why he’s partnered with industrial designers Maaike Evers and Mike Simonian who are helping the team at Quilt rethink how we heat and cool our homes, a major contributor to the average home’s carbon footprint.

We spoke with Maaike, Mike, and Paul about how they approached the challenge of designing a process as well as a product, bringing fresh eyes to familiar problems, and how they collaborated with engineers to create a product that is both beautiful and highly functional.

Find the full episode, transcript and bonus content on our Substack: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/quilt-mike-and-maaike

Bios

Mike & Maaike

Mike & Maaike is a progressive industrial design studio led by Mike Simonian and Maaike Evers.

Formed as a design laboratory, the San Francisco studio works both independently and with clients to create new opportunities through products, technology, furniture, environments and transportation.

Maaike Evers is Dutch, Mike Simonian, Californian. These distinct backgrounds inform a diverse body of work marked by experimentation, substance and strong conceptual narratives.

Collaborations include: Google, Sonos, Headspace, Haworth, Artifort, Incase, Belkin, Xbox, Blankblank, Council, Coalesse, Quilt, Steelcase, and the City of San Francisco.

Paul Lambert

Paul founded Quilt after committing himself to designing a company that he could spend the rest of his life on. A breakthrough came in 2022 after realizing the answer was working on whatever problem was most threatening to the next generation of humans and that the problem today is climate change. Paul built his first internet business as a teenager, founded Learndot, an education platform, and was a Partner at Google’s Area 120.

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135: From pallets to patterns: a journey from warehouse to data science