Before he was shaping the future of global design education at Harvard and Chicago’s Institute of Design, Patrick Whitney was an artist finding his footing at the University of Alberta.
This week, as part of Edmonton Design Week, Media Architecture Design Edmonton (MADE) brings the world-renowned design strategist back to his hometown for the first time since 1984 for a series of public events — including the Canadian premiere of a documentary detailing his life’s work.
Whitney, who served as dean of the IIT Institute of Design from 1987 to 2016 and currently works as a Professor in Residence at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has spent decades establishing design as a strategic discipline. His focus isn’t just aesthetics — it’s applying design thinking to real-world problems across business, health care and public services and other projects with greater unknowns.
Whitney’s vision is the focus of U.S. filmmaker Gary Hustwit’s latest documentary, What Are People For?, which explores Whitney’s human-centred approach to systemic challenges. The question is what sits at the centre of Whitney’s decades in design.
“Patrick’s argument in the film is that the problems we face now need more creativity and imagination, not less,” says Zac Atkinson of MADE. “Edmonton has a design community that already applies that thinking to social services and public-sector work and the built environment.”
The film’s titular question is especially relevant to Edmonton. As local innovators and policy-makers keep up with rapid urban growth and a young population, Whitney’s framework offers a way to look at local problem solving. “Events like this film put that work in front of people who benefit from it, but don’t usually hear about it,” Atkinson says.
Whitney says he hopes viewers will take away from the film the sense that design is changing. “It’s moving from a list of culture, lifestyle, social programs et cetera, to take on a new type of problem. There is a new role for designers dealing with projects that have extreme uncertainty, where you don’t know what the right thing is to do,” he says. “For example, dealing with access to health in remote, rural villages. This is a project fraught with uncertainty, but we still have to take action.”
It doesn’t matter if you’re a design practitioner, an educator or just curious about how design thinking can reshape our institutions and tackle problems laden with unknowns, Whitney’s return offers a rare, local glimpse into a globally influential mind.
The Future of Design Education: Hear remarks by Whitney on design from a global perspective. This panel discussion at the Zeidler Theatre features leaders from Alberta’s post-secondary design programs. Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026 at 7 p.m.
What Are People For? Catch the screening of the Canadian premiere at the Zeidler Theatre, followed by a live panel discussion including Whitney and his collaborator André Nogueira, as well as local design leaders. Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026 at 7 p.m.
Downtown | Zeidler Hall in the Citadel Theatre | 9828 101A Ave NW, Edmonton
