Jonathan Y. Bean, Ph.D.

TASTE. DESIGN. MARKETS.

I’m Jonathan Bean. My research spans domains including consumer culture, technology, sustainability, architecture, and design. I am an assistant professor in the Markets, Innovation, and Design program at Bucknell University. Prior to joining Bucknell, I worked in New York City at Parsons The New School for Design, where I developed a foundational course and taught in the first year of the Design Studies MA program. I earned a PhD (2011) at Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design in Social and Cultural Processes in Architecture and Urban Design. I have studied at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and under Lebbeus Woods at Research Institute for Experimental Architecture in Vico Morcote, Switzerland. I hold an MS and BA, both in architecture, from Berkeley. For the past eighteen months I have been focused on an immersive study of the Passive House movement in the US. As part of this research, I have become a Certified Passive House Consultant.

TASTE REGIMES

Ever been over to dinner at a house that’s eerily similar to yours? Taste regimes — a concept I developed with Zeynep Arsel — account for the rise of antler chandeliers and vintage transit scrolls by linking what you like to what you do. Download the article.

IKEA HACKING

A piece I wrote with Daniela Rosner for the Human-Computer Interaction Conference became the springboard for this 99% invisible podcast in which I help a radio producer hack a bed from three KALLAX shelving units. Listen to the podcast.

MAKE IT WORK

I write a regular column for Interactions, the flagship magazine for the ACM’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) on the interface between design and technology. Read the columns.