KDI Exchange: Co-design Methods for Creative Collaboration

KDI Co-Principal Malini Srivastava, AIA, is the associate dean for research, creative scholarship, and engagement in the College of Design and director of the Consortium for Research Practices. Her work spans research, teaching, and practice in urban-scale pervasive play frameworks, high-performance architecture, responsive building skins and biomaterial interventions to address environmental impact. Malini is a 2024 recipient of University of Minnesota’s Graduate and Professional Teaching Award and was inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Teachers. In 2020, she completed her doctorate in design at Carnegie Mellon University; her dissertation was titled Purposeful Play. Her efargo research project utilizes games to impact city-wide energy use and was a recipient of the Architect Research + Design Award in 2022. She is a licensed architect in Minnesota and a 2018 recipient of the American Institute of Architects’ Young Architect Award. Malini served as the AIA Minneapolis Chapter president in 2023. She currently serves on the Bush Foundation’s board of directors.

Juanjuan Wu is a  professor of retail and consumer studies, director of the interdisciplinary design minor, and associate dean for academic programs in the College of Design at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Her research focuses on co-design and crowdsourcing in online retailing and consumer behavior and 3D virtual/augmented reality retail environments and consumer responses. She is also a leading scholar of Chinese fashion and author of Chinese Fashion from Mao to Now, a textbook used in various fashion studies and liberal arts disciplines. She has also co-authored many books on fashion in Chinese.