As the founder and principal of the New York design studio and consultancy Openbox, Marquise Stillwell’s mission is to foster inclusive communities through a fusion of design, art, and culture. At Opendox, the spinoff film company he cofounded with director and producer Petter Ringbom, Stillwell, who acts as executive producer, underscores that philosophy by making documentaries that capture great social and cultural change. We sat down with him to learn more about his innovative design philosophy that puts people and community first.
Can human-centered design manifest from the urban planning scale down to smaller hospitality projects?
Human-centered design is a key component of community design, and community design is a social practice through the activation of physical space for the communities that actually use them. At Openbox we focus on how people want to live and work, not just the built environment. How people actually use space is really important. Moving forward, hospitality spaces have to become more flexible, more modular and collaborative environments. No one goes to a hotel to sleep in a box or goes to a restaurant to sit at a table. We want spaces that feed and nurture and adapt to us. We are currently working with Curioso, a hospitality design studio in Chicago founded by Nina Grondin and Daniel Pierce. We partnered with them because they understand and value experience design. Nina views design as a creative opportunity to build community. She approaches the projects she works on from a business perspective, but with a storyteller’s point of view. Working with Curioso helps Openbox expand the work we do.
Accomplished designers like Milton Curry are represented in the biannual design journal Deem
How does design serve, or fail to serve, communities?
Spaces tell stories. When people don’t see themselves in those spaces and aren’t involved in the design process, they don’t see their stories told. When people who are not part of the community tell the stories of others, they misrepresent them. There is a real responsibility to bring in people at the top layer when we are creating the master plan, the prototypes, the blueprints. We need to bring in people from different walks of life—gender and color—so those spaces represent the full vision of what it means to live in community. Design is there to listen. The failure of design is when we don’t, and infer or make assumptions to check boxes instead of building insight from the community. No longer can we build it for them and think they will come. The idea now is that if you build it with them, they will come.
How does your work with Openbox intersect with Opendox?
Everything we do on the design side is about storytelling. Our work between Openbox and Opendox is a circular economy of approach. We borrow from each other. Our design work feeds into the context that builds out a film, and our storytelling approach feeds into how we design a space.
What projects are you excited about?
We recently completed a project in Washington, DC with the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. DC Public Library wanted to create a new exhibit space that would be a home for local stories, past and present. To ensure that the design met the needs and hopes of the community, [we went] through eight months of generative design research and exhibition prototyping, and delivered blueprints and a guidebook to provide a framework for community engagement and a five-year plan for exhibition experiences. These plans aim to sustain and elevate community-centered exhibits within the MLK Library. I [also] recently launched a publication called Deem with my partners Alice Grandoit and Nu Goteh, which centers design as a social practice.
Storytelling is at the heart of the exhibition center
A still from Shield and Spear, the Opendox film that examines post-apartheid South Africa
Photos by Dario Calmese and courtesy of Deem, Openbox, and Opendox
This article originally appeared in HD’s November 2020 issue.
