I Am AIA:

Don Rood

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Don Rood is a founding partner of The Felt Hat, a strategic design office since 1994. A Northwest native and Cooper Union alumnus, Don is passionate about Design Thinking and its ability to  transform brands, organizations and communities.

Why did you join AIA Seattle?

Architects are among our most satisfying, creative partners. We feel our engagement with the community is the best way to support a profession whose impact on lives can be profound.

What is the value of AIA to you?

AIA embodies the voice and values of those who spend entire careers using their creative energies and insights to build cities, homes, chapels, public and private spaces that impact the quality of lives of us all. It is important to support that kind of spirit.

What relationships have you created?

Too many too list. Chief among them though are the partners we found in your Seattle office! We have met many like-minded designers in the profession throughout the Northwest. We had hours of interesting conversations with Rick Zieve, Jon Schluening and the rest of the leadership at SRG when we worked through a rebrand with them last year.

What are you working on now?

Uhhh… A website?

How do you explain what you do for a living?

We are design thinkers. We ask the question every day, on every project, “Is there a better way?” Design thinking uses the creative process – often in the context of culture and/or commerce – to address ambiguous, wicked problems. It offers solutions people have not yet visualized. This makes design an intrinsically optimistic endeavor, and therefore an ideal agent for change.

What inspired you today?

One more day of warm weather into a Pacific Northwest autumn.

Has your career taken you anywhere you didn’t expect?

Absolutely. That’s the only reason to continue.

Can design save the world?

No. Not be itself. Designers working with scientists working with rabbis working with monks working with women working with transvestites and plumbers and zookeepers and traffic cops accountants and baggage handlers and poets the deaf and the left and the right and the center and the marginalized – just might save the world. People working together, across disciplines and belief systems could imagine a better human experience.