Daniel Michalik

Daniel is a designer and design educator with a furniture and product design studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. His work focuses on researching and expanding overlooked materials to create objects that explore the intersections of material, culture and manufacturing. He focuses on unlocking the secrets of cork, an engaging material with vast implications for healthier perspectives on design, agriculture and manufacturing. Cork is a sustainable material, regenerating every 9 years for harvest. The Portuguese regions of cork production hold centuries-old farming and manufacturing traditions that can teach us how objects can be made more responsibly. Objects reflect a love for the origin and context of material, exploring the deepest potentials of cork as an unusual natural material, allowing it to perform in new ways, and as no other material can. Material experiments evolve into products that engage form, color and function. Daniel’s work has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Dwell, Sight Unseen, Dezeen, Phaidon Books, I.D., Wallpaper*, Interior Design and American Craft, and he has collaborated with clients including Google, Reddymade and Nike. He is Professor of Product and Industrial Design at Parsons School of Design in New York City.