David Schwarz

Formerly Chief Creative Officer at Second Story, Joel Krieger spent a decade designing interactive spaces like museum exhibits and flagship retail venues. Now at Magic Leap, he creates AR tools to enhance design and collaboration. As a spatial designer and toolmaker, he uniquely understands how emerging technology will transform the creative process and the industry.

Exploring HUSH’s integration of Magic Leap Workshop for collaborative, real-time iteration and design reviews of architectural designs at scale

Architects, engineers, and contractors are leading the adoption of ‘extended reality’ tools.

It’s finally here – and you knew it was coming. As we reach the point of Singularity in computer intelligence, we are also approaching the threshold of experiential maximalism. Perceptually, there’s almost no more resolution to be gained, almost no more fidelity to be squeezed out.

​At the upper thresholds of immersive experience, there is some fun to be had, for sure. But, against the wider context of our world’s most pressing themes, and the array of audiences interested in more… Show more

It’s finally here – and you knew it was coming. As we reach the point of Singularity in computer intelligence, we are also approaching the threshold of experiential maximalism. Perceptually, there’s almost no more resolution to be gained, almost no more fidelity to be squeezed out.

​At the upper thresholds of immersive experience, there is some fun to be had, for sure. But, against the wider context of our world’s most pressing themes, and the array of audiences interested in more nuanced experiences, there is vast creative opportunity. This is where we can develop a more responsible, sustainable AND creative design canon. This space isn’t hinged to technological leaps in resolution or “immersiveness,” but rather to balance and beauty and impact.

​In this talk, we’re going to look over the edge of the immersive chasm, and perhaps take a step back. Show less

architecture 5 10 20, hosted by FXCollaborative Managing Partner Guy Geier, is a podcast exploring the future of the built environment. Each episode will feature a different thought leader in a field related to the built environment discussing their vision for the future (looking 5, 10, and 20 years ahead). We look forward to exploring how we can leverage design to build a more sustainable, equitable, and just society.

This week, we sit down with David Schwarz, the founder of HUSH, an innovative experience design studio. In a conversation that moves from the philosophical to the practical, we go deep into the challenges and opportunities for both clients and staff of working with a design studio with technology and innovation core, discuss the future of work and the state of sustainability in emerging tech, share thoughts some thoughts on the questionably popular term, ‘phygital’, and even get into a little… Show more

This week, we sit down with David Schwarz, the founder of HUSH, an innovative experience design studio. In a conversation that moves from the philosophical to the practical, we go deep into the challenges and opportunities for both clients and staff of working with a design studio with technology and innovation core, discuss the future of work and the state of sustainability in emerging tech, share thoughts some thoughts on the questionably popular term, ‘phygital’, and even get into a little parenting advice with David and Bobby. If you’ve ever been offered a ‘metaverse watch’ from a guy in a trenchcoat, you won’t want to miss this one. Show less

Understanding Sustainability: Making Your Impact Count

In this episode, ThinkLab interviews David Schwarz, founding partner at HUSH, about the design firm’s innovative approach to sustainability, and Rebecca Best, head of sustainability at Material Bank, on how the world’s largest material aggregator is helping designers make more sustainable decisions.

Our first guest is David Schwarz, founding partner at HUSH, an experience design firm. Schwarz shares forward-thinking ways HUSH… Show more

Understanding Sustainability: Making Your Impact Count

In this episode, ThinkLab interviews David Schwarz, founding partner at HUSH, about the design firm’s innovative approach to sustainability, and Rebecca Best, head of sustainability at Material Bank, on how the world’s largest material aggregator is helping designers make more sustainable decisions.

Our first guest is David Schwarz, founding partner at HUSH, an experience design firm. Schwarz shares forward-thinking ways HUSH is leveraging design to connect the occupants of a space to how their own daily microdecisions affect the sustainability of a building. To that end, he describes an award-winning project, designed in partnership with United Therapeutics, which sought to make a building’s cutting-edge engineering visible and able to be appreciated by workers and visitors.

Our next guest, Rebecca Best, is vice president of sustainability at Material Bank. She explains that sustainability is so complex —requiring designers to balance climate, human health, and social justice concerns —that it can’t really be simplified. She counsels design firms to focus on making the decision-making process more efficient and shares strategies for how to empower clients. Show less

As an industry-leading experience design studio whose clients include Instagram, Nike, and HBO Max, the Brooklyn-based firm, HUSH, often begins in the backseat in relation to the sustainability goals of their global clients. Digital technologies, in their energy use, materiality, carbon costs and lifecycles aren’t often aligned to the sustainability mission. This is even more true when considering global corporations’ own brand experiences and technologically-driven workplaces. (The built… Show more

As an industry-leading experience design studio whose clients include Instagram, Nike, and HBO Max, the Brooklyn-based firm, HUSH, often begins in the backseat in relation to the sustainability goals of their global clients. Digital technologies, in their energy use, materiality, carbon costs and lifecycles aren’t often aligned to the sustainability mission. This is even more true when considering global corporations’ own brand experiences and technologically-driven workplaces. (The built environment is the second largest producer of carbon emissions in both its construction and operations!)

Observing this, the HUSH team recognized the need for a strategic framework to guide their digital and technological experience design and ensure a design approach that allows them to continue to leverage digital technology as key elements in their work, but in a way that maximizes a net positive value both creatively and sustainably. Based on their learnings building an experience design platform for the “Unisphere,” – a new company headquarters for the biotech company United Therapeutics – their team created a three-point framework to evaluate and apply to every new project.

Here, HUSH founding partner David Schwarz shares how they developed their framework around materiality, energy usage and lifecycle, what they learned about designing within an “energy budget” from the boundary-pushing Unisphere project, and why their team welcomes and celebrates people who want to push their craft in new, unexpected directions. Show less

Thinking about starting your own business? Or simply curious about what it takes to run a design studio? We have you covered. This is an epic episode focusing on creative entrepreneurship with insights from one of the industry's most exciting studios.

Let's get those headphones on (or speaker ready, listeners choice) and get you tuned into this convo with the fantastic David Schwarz!

But what is experience design? It depends on where you are and who you ask.

From where David stands experience design is about creating an immersive, three-dimensional, sensory experience in the real world. And affecting how you and I feel as we move through it.

In this episode, David shares how his agency approaches designing these unique experiences and the impending blur between the physical world and the digital world.

A virtual conference talk exploring the ways in which large organizations are leveraging their spaces to articulate their highest order values, themes and storylines to their most important audiences - using unique design, materials, technology and interaction.

David Schwarz, a founding partner at HUSH, joins us to discuss leading with your gut, being naive enough to take the leap to become a business owner, and how to find the right partner with complementary goals. I'll give you a clue, it all comes down to a Banh Mi sandwich. David is an articulate, inspirational storyteller who will resonate with all of my listeners in both the design industry and academia.

In this episode, Sam is joined by David Schwarz, the Founding Partner of HUSH to learn how design choices are considered when crafting spatial experiences. David explains how he discovered design as a career option and the shift to founding his own company. Later on in the show, they are joined by Nikolai Cornell, the Creative Director and Senior Design Manager of Brand Experience at Uber, to learn how the teams at Uber create meaningful spatial experiences for their employees and customers… Show more

In this episode, Sam is joined by David Schwarz, the Founding Partner of HUSH to learn how design choices are considered when crafting spatial experiences. David explains how he discovered design as a career option and the shift to founding his own company. Later on in the show, they are joined by Nikolai Cornell, the Creative Director and Senior Design Manager of Brand Experience at Uber, to learn how the teams at Uber create meaningful spatial experiences for their employees and customers. Together, they chat about their collaboration process for designing Uber’s Mission Bay HQ. Show less

Award-winning creative David Schwarz, Founding Partner of design agency HUSH, shares his thoughts on why the post-Covid office will be a hub of inspiration where data and touchless forms of interactivity will embody company values

COVID-19 design changes aren’t about patchwork or health-conscious design tweaks. It’s a chance to rethink everything, and to take the ‘work’ out of the workplace.

As with any huge challenge comes some amazing opportunity. The last several months have shown that we’re incredibly well-positioned to rethink the way workplaces are designed in ways that aren’t incremental, but rather really different… I think the risk at hand right now is that companies will take incremental steps to address it, but not revolutionary steps. And what a waste of a pivotal moment. What a waste of the potential to really change the way we will work in the future and what the… Show more

As with any huge challenge comes some amazing opportunity. The last several months have shown that we’re incredibly well-positioned to rethink the way workplaces are designed in ways that aren’t incremental, but rather really different… I think the risk at hand right now is that companies will take incremental steps to address it, but not revolutionary steps. And what a waste of a pivotal moment. What a waste of the potential to really change the way we will work in the future and what the workplace becomes.

In Allwork.Space's Future of Work Podcast, HUSH Partner David Schwarz discusses how re-envisioning workplace design post-COVID presents an opportunity for organizations to reclaim the workplace as an experience center and divest the workplace of work. Show less

When interactive experience design is at its best, it's engaging audiences in real-time, with real-time information, content and (most powerfully) data. That's because we've come to understand that data is a fundamental input into any organization's brand articulation.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to upend and disrupt everyday life around the world, it has become clear that how we use buildings is also due to radically change, at least for the near-term. The door handles we touch, how close people wait in line, and when and how we occupy work spaces, retail establishments, and other shared facilities will likely be modified in some way. And while surely many of these changes will be both ad-hoc and temporary, some designers are looking to longer term… Show more

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to upend and disrupt everyday life around the world, it has become clear that how we use buildings is also due to radically change, at least for the near-term. The door handles we touch, how close people wait in line, and when and how we occupy work spaces, retail establishments, and other shared facilities will likely be modified in some way. And while surely many of these changes will be both ad-hoc and temporary, some designers are looking to longer term technological upgrades to help streamline and bring a sense of wonder to the adaptation of these spaces.

We caught up with David Schwarz, Partner at New York City-based HUSH to get a better understanding of how experiential design might be challenged and re-calibrated in the aftermath of the pandemic. Schwarz highlights the ways that building use is poised to rely more heavily on non-tactile, auditory, and visually-based cues, for example, and how these changes can be filled with joy as well as pragmatism in a post-pandemic world. Show less

Big Tech has battled “viruses” for decades. Malware, trojan horses, hackers, and other digital threats have, from time to time, undermined their customers’ allegiances, breached critical security walls and made for PR fiascos that have affected stock prices, consumer confidence and company culture.

But it’s precisely these decades of battling digital viruses that make Big Tech some of the most apt entities to help design and define the future of IRL experiences in response to the IRL… Show more

Big Tech has battled “viruses” for decades. Malware, trojan horses, hackers, and other digital threats have, from time to time, undermined their customers’ allegiances, breached critical security walls and made for PR fiascos that have affected stock prices, consumer confidence and company culture.

But it’s precisely these decades of battling digital viruses that make Big Tech some of the most apt entities to help design and define the future of IRL experiences in response to the IRL pandemic at hand. Just think: What has Big Tech done to build your confidence and put the ever-present threat of a digital virus into the back of your memory as a user of many of their digital products? What can we learn from this ability to assuage fears – to nurture calm and rebuild confidence globally in the people who engage with their services and products every day, billions of times over – that can influence the way we design our future IRL world? Show less

DesignWanted interviewed David Schwarz to learn about the importance of simplicity, the culture at HUSH and some unrevealed stories behind the entrepreneurial journey of a company unique in its kind.

Q&A

Experience designer David Schwarz grew up “seeking weird things to explore, make and build.” Fast forward to adulthood and he’s still at it. As co-founder of Hush Studios he spends his brain power and energy blending architectural space and digital technology to create installations and experiences that people can inhabit, learn from, play in, and feel things inside of. He arrived via detours in economics and the San Francisco tech boom. It’s not a straight line, or clean story but… Show more

Q&A

Experience designer David Schwarz grew up “seeking weird things to explore, make and build.” Fast forward to adulthood and he’s still at it. As co-founder of Hush Studios he spends his brain power and energy blending architectural space and digital technology to create installations and experiences that people can inhabit, learn from, play in, and feel things inside of. He arrived via detours in economics and the San Francisco tech boom. It’s not a straight line, or clean story but it’s a fascinating one! Listen: Show less

This article is part of our June series about the future of work...

Corporate headquarters have long been a canvas for displaying the goals and aspirations of the businesses operating within them...

Some believe that our journey toward truly digitally-connected environments is destined to be lead by architects who are building those very spaces. But the truth is far more complicated...

Brand experiences have taken a (potentially dangerous) path towards prioritizing Instagram-ability over actual brand authenticity.

What is the value of physical, real-world experiences? And are these experiences intrinsically worthy of our time and effort - or is their value derived more and more from the social media captured within them?

An ideological assessment of risk taking in the creative industry, and models for increasing risk tolerance across industries.

A tactical guide to improving the risk tolerance of your teams, clients and partners.

Commentary on the field of architecture, and the architect's role in experience design for Patrick Sisson's article in Curbed.

A look at retail's increasingly digital future and another model supporting "experience" as a centerpiece for brick and mortar.

To create exceptional place-based digital experiences, you need wizards in architecture, technology, storytelling, experience design, engineering, and data science. When done well, the resulting fusion connects, inspires, and immerses us in ways that other types of digital experiences can’t.

A love letter to James Turrell.