Madison Michael Ford, an award-winning architect and academic, will be one of the featured speakers at Neocon 2023 at the Market Mart in Chicago June 12-14.
“NeoCon is the world’s largest interior design event / event of the year. So this happens every year in Chicago,” Ford tells Madison365. curtains, floor coverings, furniture, lights, you name it.”
Ford explores architecture and urban design through the lens of hip-hop culture with the mission of promoting diversity through culturally relevant pedagogy. He is the founder of Architecture Hip Hop Camp, an international, award-winning youth camp that places hip-hop culture as a catalyst to help underrepresented youth with a plan to identify, critique, and generate architecture.
NeoCon is the center of the trade community, uniting designers, architects, end users, manufacturers, dealers, suppliers, associations, educators, students and equipment each year in June; next to his place. At the platform and at the event, business owners share ideas on equity, sustainability, and how to build a better future.
Ford will team up with his old friend Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, aka Lupe Fiasco, a Chicago-born Hip Hop legend and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The two Neocon closes on Wednesday, June 14, 10, with notes entitled “Exploring the Design Rhythm.”
(Wikimedia Commons)
With Ford, who won “The Hip-Hop Architect” and Lupe Fiasco, rapper Grammarly, he will discuss his explorations in extracting the rhythms, textures, and patterns of Hip Hop as a source of design innovation. in teaching and in the practice of the profession.
“I join Chicago legend Lupe Fiasco. So we got together to talk about our two loves – Hip Hop and design,” says Ford, adding that the two have been connected for 6 years or so. “A lot of people don’t know about Lupe Fiasco but he has something to do with design. And what we’re talking about is how the two of us have collaborated over the years on projects like Campus Architecture Hip-Hop. We run Hip Hop Architecture sessions that are only for rappers and professionals. .. things are just for young people.
“And then we’ll talk about using hip-hop inspired design. I think Lupe Fiasco is one of the better lyricists out there when it comes to putting words and rhymes together. “In fact, I think he’s the best lyricist of all time,” Ford adds. “So we’re going to talk about how you can take patterns, textures, rhythms, and other things from Hip-Hope and use them.”
Other notable speakers at NeoCon 2023 include Michael Murphy, co-founder of MASS Design Group, an architectural and design collaborative, and Amy Webb, world-renowned futurist and founder & CEO of the Today’s Future Institute.
“I think what I’m looking forward to most about this conference is being able to share my unique plan, which was deeply moved and moved by Lupe Fiasco, in front of 40,000 more people than many who attended the conference. last year,” Ford says. “It will be an exciting moment.
“But another thing that really moved me was being able to show the talent of some of the young people that I work with around the country and how they took Hip-Hop and created their design inspirations from there.” adds “The pivotal year of Hip-Hop … is the 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop this year on August 11, 2023. So it’s a perfect opportunity to share some new innovations in culture.”
Ford has so many fans here in Madison that he hopes to be able to travel to Illinois for Neocon in June.
Chicago is not far away. The customer is very happy and takes care of the customer. So I definitely encourage people in and around the city of Madison working on new projects to come out and see the new products and new stuff that is being unveiled at Neocon,” says Ford. “This is the place where most of the vendors from around the world come… to Neocon to show what’s new. Therefore, it is a great opportunity for people who work in projects, be it office spaces, residential spaces, etc. It’s the price of the product before.
“And you can come and see me and talk to Lupe like a big good,” he said with a smile.
Registration for NeoCon 2023 programming began this week. For more information, click here
