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Thinking of leaving the United States for life abroad? Youre not alone. A record-setting 21% of Americans expressed a desire to emigrate in 2024. While politics might play a role in the uptick, an increasing number of creative professionals are also leaving for career reasons. They want to embrace work cultures that foster balance over burnout, escape design echo chambers, and have the ability to afford launching their own studios. In the Bay Area in particular, it just felt like the treadmill was getting faster and faster, says Lisa Baird, president and principal strategist of the creative consultancy Fraîche Design Thinking. Baird moved to Paris with her family in 2022. I knew that quality of life was sort of slowly but surely disintegrating, because people were becoming more and more attached to work, like a religion. We were curious about how creatives like Baird made the move, so we checked in with designers who have decamped for other countries to learn more. In this story you’ll learn: The French program that gets you in the country and doubles as a business plan Why even expats need to maintain a mix of U.S. clients and make occasional return visits How Europe’s social programs foster personal and professional growth The ways in which designers adapt to being hours ahead of the U.S. The great emmigration Baird, who is originally from the Dallas suburbs, has spent time at a kaleidoscopic array of creative shops, including Ideo, Collins, and Frog. Long ago in San Francisco, she noticed one word rising in prominence and impact: hustle. It led her to rethink her life choicesspecifically how she might tip the balance less toward work and more toward life. I just didn’t want to be on my deathbed wishing that I had spent more time with my kids or with family, or pursuing personal interests, or just living life, really, she says. It’s a similar story for Rachel Gogel, a fractional creative director, who is relocating to Paris in January 2026. Gogel was born in Paris to American parents, but she moved to the U.S. to attend the University of Pennsylvania in 2005. From there she worked in publishing in New York City, followed by Facebook in Silicon Valley and other gigs. After a decade in the Bay Area, the dual U.S.-French citizen found herself fatigued by the hustle culture as well, and witnessed the impact of golden handcuffs, where employees trade heaping salaries for overworked misery. But working hard isn’t a golden ticket to the American dream. Meredith Hattam, founder of design studio A Present Force, says she left the U.S. because she grew disillusioned by the design of American systems at large. I don’t want to be ridiculously wealthy. I don’t want to have some crazy life. I want to be able to buy a house one day, Hattam says. I want to be able to raise children and not have debt. I want to be able to run a creative studio or do creative things and not be super stressed about having to take jobs to make ends meet. I don’t want to be worried about healthcare. So she took a job in Berlin in early 2023and now manages her own studio, something she says would have been prohibitively expensive in New York. Moving strategically The first step to moving abroad is obtaining a visa. Given how they vary by territory, it’s too expansive a topic to dig into here, but it’s worth noting how Baird obtained hers: Frances talent passport program. Launched in 2017, it offers a way to relocate ones business to France. It demands a robustly documented plan that involves specifying the number of jobs youll create for French citizens, among other things, but the upside to all that work is that you have a plan in place. By the time I finally got it all approved and landed in France, in a weird way, all I had to do was open up this business plan and look at page one, and be like, Well, what did I say I would do? Baird says. She advises deciding up front if moving abroad is a fun, novel thing you plan to do for a year or soor whether youre looking to full-on emigrate, and let that dictate whether youll work with immigration attorneys, as she did. Gogel has been consulting with one as she looks ahead to her move. Strategically, she has also been taking on more international speaking engagements to carve out a global footprint, adjusting her verbiage to more commonly understood international terms (e.g., focusing more on the term creative consultant in lieu of fractional leader), and rekindling East Coast relationships since maintaining clients there will mean less of a time zone discrepancy with Europe. A new work schedule Baird adjusted the entire cadence of her work life; rather than establish the days marching orders through a client call in the morning, she shifted that call to the end of her workday, and then hits pause until the following morning. Hattam, meanwhile, works a modular schedule based on the meetings or standing calls on her calendar, starting late on days when she has an evening meeting. Thanks to Slack, Loom, and other services, she says she works completely asynchronously, and establishes that up front with clients. At first, she was worried that would be seen as a problem but notes instead, If they want to work with you, they’ll work with you. Most of the people interviewed for this story maintain a mix of U.S.-based clients and some local work. What they all note: U.S. clients pay better. Cari Sekendur, founder of Butter Studio in Berlin, says European budgets are a lot lower in general. In her experience, clients in Europe invest less in marketing across the board. Her advice is to have a solid client network before leaving the U.S. I think it would have been really hard for me if I had just moved here straight after leaving my last full-time job, she says. The perks of life abroad If you’re working anyway, what makes life in Europe any different? Sekendur and Gogel both note that theres a prevailing cultural ethos of working to live, rather than living to work. Hattam says that in Berlin, the shift is palpable: All the noise around the next achievement you should be seeking and how youre doing compared to your peers is quieter. She says she had to adjust to a culture where What do you do? is not the first thing asked in the course of conversation. It’s actually been really healthy to decouple my professional status from my life, she says. I have actually had to undo a lot of toxic patterns in thinking about careerism, finances, all of these things. It’s not that you can’t think about these things at all, but it’s just that they’re not front and center in the same way. For Sekendur, the international life finds its way back into her work. Belin has long been a hub for art and music, and the city has always had a strong DIY culture as well. Being around a lot of creativity and people creating things from scratch gives me inspiration, whether it’s a direct connection or not, she says. But it comes with a practical boon, too. In Sekendurs case, Berlin is a very international city, and thats reflected in the people on her team; while New York is, too, she says the Brooklyn studio where she worked was comprised of people from the same cultural backgrounds. Being able to bring different experiences and backgrounds to the work just makes it better, in the same way that any kind of diversity makes work better, because you’re having more perspectives coming to it, she says. What that looks like practically: In her current studio, for example, Sekendur worked with a copywriter from Syria on a menstruation activewear line for Puma. That colleague was able to offer critical perspective on how to talk about the subject with a Middle Eastern audience. Ultimately, as Baird adds, Not everybody’s just on some tech treadmill, trying to help the next rich guy get richer, which, you know, God bless you, everybody’s got to have a way to put bread on the table. But you just meet a broader mix of people here, because the way society is structured enables more types of careers to exist in a shared community. It’s not a panacea One thing in particular that Sekendur misses about the States is networking. So she dedicates a couple of annual visits to New York City, where she crams in as many meetings as possible. She says shes also been beefing up her LinkedIn presence. The creatives we spoke to don’t play up the fact that theyre not based in the States. Sekendur says she doesnt tout it, but she also doesnt hide it (Berlin is indeed on her LinkedIn profile). It’s so interesting to me because [being based out of the U.S.] felt like the most important thing for so long, until the pandemic, and now nobody even asks, she says. Baird says her best advice is to not bring it up constantly. There’s no need to just be like, Hey, its Lisa dialing in from Paris at the start of every Zoom call, she says. It’s not relevant. It doesn’t need to be the focus or the focal point of any and all conversations. After all, as it happens, location isnt everything, and Hattam cautions against romanticizing a move abroad at large. It’s still really hard in different ways. Living in Europe isnt going to fix all of your problems, she says, though shes grateful for some of the structural differences that she wishes America could fix, like healthcare, education, gun violence . . . She adds: It’s more about wanting to find more of your own voice and challenging yourself. I never thought I was capable of moving abroad, period. But once you do something like that, you’re like, Oh, I can do all these other things that I was scared oflike starting my own design studio, or going freelance, or pitching clients that I never thought I could pitch. Whatever it is, you’re going to feel more and more empowered. I think that’s just a really beautiful thing. Do these designers have any plans to move back to the U.S.? No, Hattam says. No, Sekendur says. No plans, Baird says. And in all likelihood, Gogel is hoping to soon be able to say the same.
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What if buildings and neighborhoods were planned with health and climate risks in mind, just like businesses use financial data to guide their decisions? What if public health and real estate werent at odds, but instead coauthors of a healthier, more equitable urban future? Thats the bold premise of Architectural Epidemiology, a new book that offers a radical rethinking of the relationship between place and health. Written by architect and public health expert Adele Houghton and Dr. Carlos Castillo-Salgado, an epidemiologist, the book introduces a place-based framework for aligning real estate investment with public health goalsusing the tools of epidemiology to guide design decisions that affect buildings and the way they engage the surrounding city. At its core, architectural epidemiology is not a metaphor. Its a methodology. Diagnosing places like patients Just as a doctor might diagnose a patient based on symptoms and environmental exposures, Houghton and Castillo-Salgados framework helps designers, developers, and policymakers diagnose the health of a place. The process begins by gathering publicly available health and climate datarates of asthma, heat exposure, housing-cost burden, chronic illness, and moreand dialing into the specific needs of any real estate project boundary. These place-based insights then inform customized development strategies tailored to local needs. (Courtesy Johns Hopkins University Press) This isnt a one-size-fits-all checklist. Its a locally calibrated, equity-centered approach that asks: What are the most urgent public health and climate concerns in this neighborhood? And how can this project become part of the solution? Two case studies from the book, one in the South Bronx and another in East London, show how this approach plays out in the real world. Toxic infrastructure to health-first housing The South Bronx is one of New York Citys most environmentally burdened neighborhoods. Residents face compounding public health concerns, including high rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and pediatric asthmaconditions tied directly to chronic exposure to air pollution, extreme heat, and poor housing conditions. Infrastructure like solid waste transfer stations, natural gas plants, and a daily flow of more than 750 diesel trucks has left a lasting environmental footprint. Three projects demonstrate how health-driven interventions play out in real life. Arbor House, a 124-unit LEED Platinum affordable housing development, took an indoor-focused strategy. With no regulatory leverage to reduce nearby traffic or emissions, the project team instead designed a protective shell: a high-performance building envelope, mechanical exhaust and ventilation systems, low-VOC materials, and a no-smoking policy. These features directly addressed local respiratory and cardiovascular risk data, providing a sanctuary of clean air in a polluted context. The Eltona, another LEED Platinum project by the same developer, built on these strategies but also benefited from its location within the Melrose Commons urban renewal zone. This area, guided by a community-authored plan, introduced pedestrian-prioritized streets and small green spaces to break up heat and pollution hot spots. This sort of coordinated planning can push health equity beyond the building envelope. The Peninsula represents an even bolder intervention: transforming a former juvenile detention center into a mixed-use anchor of community well-being. Once all phases are complete (anticipated in 2026), the project will deliver 740 units of affordable housing, a wellness center, daycare, supermarket, light industrial space, and a workforce development huball aligned with the long-standing Hunts Point Vision Plan. Created through a collaborative effort between local government and community groups, the plan calls for cleaner air, economic opportunity, and access to green space without displacing existing residents. This multiscalar transformation wouldnt have been possible without partnership. The development team committed to providing both affordable and middle-income housing, as well as commercial and industrial spaces aligned with local needs. The local government played a convening role, confronting outdated zoning and building codes to enable community-led regeneration. And community groups acted as watchdogs and visionariesdocumenting health inequities, advocating for residents needs, and ensuring decades of disinvestment didnt translate into displacement. From industrial blight to inclusive growth In East Londons Hackney borough, Gillett Square shows how long-term, community-led urban design can build resilience without triggering displacement. Residents here also face elevated risks from exposure to traffic-related air pollution, unsafe pedestrian conditions, and mental health stressors, particularly among children and the elderly. Climate concerns such as extreme temperatures compound vulnerability, especially in a borough with high poverty rates and a large renter population. The project began in the 1980s as part of a broader, three-pronged effort to reduce crime, create economic opportunity for women- and minority-owned businesses, and preserve affordability in the face of rapidly rising property values. Organized by Hackney Co-operative Developments, a community interest company, this initiative has grown over 40 years into a model of place-based health equity.Unlike top-down redevelopment, the transformation of Gillett Square unfolded through continuous negotiation among residents, developers, and the local government. A former parking lot became the square itself. Adjacent buildings were renovated to create 30 affordable workspaces and 10 retail units prioritized for local startups and cultural groups. The existing street-facing storefronts remained intact, maintaining the character and economic rhythms of the block. During construction, current tenants were temporarily relocatedbut not displaceda rare feat in most urban redevelopment narratives. The built environment improvements werent just aesthetic or economic. The renovated Bradbury Works building added insulation, operable windows, and improved ventilation to respond to extreme temperatures and indoor air quality concerns. It was also designed to accommodate a future rooftop solar array. Elsewhere on the square, an old factory became a jazz club. Another was converted into a mixed-use building with social housing and office space. Each adaptive reuse project layered with health-promoting elements such as natural light, passive ventilation, and energy efficiency. Importantly, these design moves responded to both immediate and long-term public health concerns identified in the architectural epidemiology framework: exposure to air pollution, heat vulnerability, mental health stressors, and pedestrian safety risks. The health situation analysis for the neighborhood emphasized the need for strategies that reduced the risk of obesity, mental health issues, and traffic-related injury, many of which were tackled by fine-grained, community-rooted design rather than by sweeping interventions./p> Gillett Squares evolution also depended on progressive land use policy and community engagement over time. The local government enabled critical rezonings: converting the parking lot into a plaza, allowing mixed-use development, and permitting the installation of small retail kiosks. The development team, operating as a nonprofit social enterprise, prioritized community interests. And community groups, many of which had been active in Hackney for decades, fought to ensure that the squares benefits didnt come at the expense of its existing residents. In a borough where 75% of residents are renters, and poverty rates among children and the elderly are among the highest in the U.K., the stakes of gentrification are high. Gillett Square proves that design can support resilience without fueling displacementand that longevity, not speed, can be a hallmark of justice-oriented urban development. These case studies show that health equity can be the foundation, not a by-product, of urban development. By aligning investments with public health and climate data, Architectural Epidemiology offers a road map for building places that protect and uplift communities. This framework identifies community needs and guides community residents, developers, and designers to solutions that create value for both stakeholders and shareholders. This story was originally published by Next City, a nonprofit news outlet covering solutions for equitable cities. Sign up for Next Citys newsletter for the latest articles and events.
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The designers Charles and Ray Eames were two of the most important designers of the 20th century, and their legacy of innovative furniture, product, and industrial design continues to have an influence today. Now, the foundation that carries the couple’s torch is planning to open a new museum that explores their work and its enduring impact on the design world. The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity just announced the purchase of a disused corporate campus in the San Francisco Bay Area that it will be converting into a large-scale art and design museum. With an adaptive reuse design by the architecture firms EHDD and Herzog & de Meuron, known for its work on the Tate Modern art museum in London and the De Young Museum in San Francisco, the new museum will focus on design through the lens of purpose. The Eames Institute expects to open the museum before 2030. John Cary, president and CEO of the Eames Institute, says the museum is a dream project that’s finally taking form. “When we conceived of the Eames Institute seven years ago, we always wanted to create a very large, high-capacity venue for the community and the public to come and experience art and design in ways that they might not be able to otherwise,” he says. [Photo: courtesy Eames Institute] The Eames Institute is still in the early stages of thinking through the curatorial angle for the museum, but Cary says it will be undeniably Eamesian. “We’re especially inclined toward problem-solving design, the kind of design that actually addresses a need. What we’re really interested in is trying to untangle the process from the product. That’s something that the Eameses did so well.” [Photo: Iwan Baan/courtesy Eames Institute] Known best for iconic furniture pieces like their molded wood lounge chair and ottoman, the Eameses were multihyphenate designers who worked on projects ranging from World War II leg splints to lamps, children’s toys, and educational films. Cary says this range of outputand the emphasis on designing things people neededmakes the Eameses’ work continually relevant. He says the new museum will celebrate this legacy of design work and house the official Eames archive, while also championing newer generations of designers and artists, as well as emerging talents. “We’re interested in really teasing out the life stories of these creatives. What were their trajectories? How did they come to be who they are?” Cary says. [Photo: courtesy Eames Institute] Located about 30 miles north of San Francisco in the city of Novato, the museum project is adapting a 1960s-era corporate campus and distribution center originally designed for the publisher McGraw-Hill, and used most recently by the shoemaker Birkenstock. The 88-acre campus was designed by John Savage Bolles, a modernist architect who designed San Francisco’s Candlestick Park stadium and the IBM campus in San Jose. [Photo: Herzog & de Meuron/courtesy Eames Institute] Despite the Novato campus being mostly a utilitarian warehouse, it jumps out from its freeway-adjacent landscape with a boldly layered shark-tooth roofline in bright white. After Birkenstock left in 2019, it sat unused. “I fell in love with that warehouse, mostly by driving by a lot, then managing to sneak my way in. Authorized, but nonetheless, it wasn’t on the market at that point or anything,” Cary says. “I just am pretty relentless about things.” The campus eventually went up for sale, and Cary says the Eames Institute had to beat out some stiff competition to take it over. They bought the property for $36 million and have been working with Herzog & de Meuron for the past few months to come up with conceptual designs for adapting the warehouse, an adjacent office building, and the site’s vast landscape. [Photo: Iwan Baan/courtesy Eames Institute] Herzog & de Meuron have deep experience creating museum spaces, including the Tate Modern in London and the De Young Museum in San Francisco, and in adaptive reuse. According to Simon Demeuse, partner at Herzog & de Meuron, the firm is “deeply committed to working with existing buildings whenever possible.” Turning a former goods distribution facility into a museum offers the potential to rethink how collections are made accessible to the public, he says, via email. “The Eameses explored the world and their designs in a very open manner, leading to new ways of understanding and seeing their surroundings,” says Demeuse. “This building will allow its stewards and visitors to experience the collections and exhibits in an open manner as well, from many different perspectives and vantage points that can evolve over time.” Despite sitting right next to Highway 101, which expands from four to six lanes across the span of the campus, berms around its edges make the property surprisingly quiet. “That kind of acoustical protection was really, really appealing,” Cary says. [Photo: Iwan Baan/courtesy Eames Institute] It’s a bucolic condition that’s led the Eames Institute and the architects to think about the warehouse building as a kind of indoor-outdoor space. Made up of five long bays that once held canyons of pallets full of schoolbooks and, later, sandals, the warehouse’s edges could feasibly open up wide to allow programming to spill outward. Partly subterranean, the warehouse stays naturally cool, which works well for preserving artwork and archival materials, as well as for handling the region’s hot summers. These conditions all play into the problem-solving ethos of the Eames Institute. Adapting the building to a new use instead of simply building from scratch is squarely on brand. But Cary is cautious to note that this is not a museum about the Eameses, or at least not only that. “We’re really interested in creating a multigenerational offering for a truly multigenerational audience,” he says. “While we will always celebrate the Eameses as the seed of all of this, we have the chance to create an even bigger canvas and to bring others into it.”
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