Dave Laubenthal

What started almost 5 years ago in Boston- Design Museum Boston- has now stretched to Portland. I run the museum and am involved with every aspect of growth and execution. We are a distributed museum, which means we have no permanent home- rather we put on our engagement all around the city, activating dormant or unused spaces, turning the whole community into the museum.

Our mission is to educate the world on the role of design in our lives and to unite the community in ways that enrich our collective work, make businesses more competitive, and solve real-world problems more creatively. After all, design has the power to make our everyday lives more comfortable, more efficient, more exciting, more rewarding, more… better.

We are inspired by revolutionary design: the fruitful result of thoughtful problem solving and a willingness to break with tradition. This is why our museum has no permanent address. Design Museum Portland is a decentralized network of physical and virtual exhibits. Whether in a gallery, retail environment, public space, or on the web, our programming gives audiences new insights into the design process and the greater social, economic, and environmental contexts that both affect and are affected by design.

We produce public exhibitions, events, and programs to show the who, why, and how behind the things we see and use everyday. We aim to highlight the positive impact good design and innovative thinking can have on literally everything.

We plan to add Chicago and Berkeley, CA next year with other cities in early considerations for following years.

Co-designed and am teaching a new studio lab class, called Product Design for an Emerging Bioeconomy. In conjunction with the innovative companies gDiapers and Exile Leadership. Our students are tasked with designing a home composting unit that would be able to safely and easily compost everything from kitchen scraps to soiled diapers, giving agency to the user to turn their waste stream into a valuable resource. We have embraced the potential of this work to have massive impact.

Designed and implemented a new class (with additional classes in development) that focuses on the prototype process and illuminating the realm of iterative design. The focus is on getting your ideas out and built quick and fast and then testing through feedback loops and making adjustments. More hands on and less computer design. The focus is on form and intention as much as, if not more than, function. We fail harder, faster, and unapologetically with the results exceeding all expectations.

We design custom furniture and lighting. In every case we attempt to design with as much environmentally sensitivity as possible. We operate a full wood shop and a full metal shop in the Central Eastside Industrial District of Portland, Oregon directly across the river from Downtown.

Additional services include commissioned artwork for the home as well as large scale public works.

DJL Studio has shifted focus from design and fabrication services to consulting and project management services. We serve a wide range of needs and project scales from home interiors, to office interiors, to restaurants to large International rollouts. We have a vast network of collaborators in the Pacific Northwest that we work with to bring our projects to life.

Made large scale, kinetic sculptures for productions around the world. Lion King on Broadway, Superbowl halftime show, Olympics opening and closing ceremonies, Cirque Du Soliel and many other shows...