Peter Wooding,
FIDSA (b.1940)
President of the Industrial Designers Society of America
(IDSA), 1987-1988
Peter is the Design Director and owner of Peter Wooding Design Associates, a firm he started with his partner and wife JoAnn in 1978. His career began 40 years ago at Herman Miller Research under Robert Propst in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He then spent eight years at General Electric Applied Research Division, leaving to become the Design Director of the Internationally recognized, non-profit, multi-discipline Research and Design Institute (REDE).
Today, his practice ranges from total facilities development to tabletop products. It includes product design, furniture and systems design and interior design. The multidiscipline philosophy and diversity of his office is illustrated by the range of clients which include: Herman Miller, Maytag, Knoll International, SIS Human Factors, Geiger, Jofco, Haworth, Martin Brattrud, Paoli, Nessen Lighting, dac Lighting, Ardee Lighting, LAM Lighting, ICF, Helikon, Kimball, Dansk, Sasaki, Fleet Bank, Textron Inc., KVH Industries, The Broadway Show "Candide", the Simon and Garfunkel World Tour, Cookson America, KPMG Peat Marwick, The Andover suite at the New England Patriots Stadium and the Industry-sponsored Universal Kitchen Research Project developed at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
This last project was exhibited at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt museum in New York and won an IDSA Special Recognition Award for RISD in 2000.
Peter Wooding Design Associates was the winner of the IDSA 1988 IDEA silver award in the Environments category and winner of the 1991 American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) Competition for its work on the adaptive use of the 1895 Providence Union Station. The firm also awarded a 2002 Best of NEOCON award for the Evoke case-goods line for Kimball International. In 2001, Peter received the Silver Teabag Award from the Boston Chapter of IDSA.
Peter has also taught and lectured at the Rhode Island School of Design in both the Industrial Design and Interior Architecture departments; the University of Michigan; the Louisville School of Art; University of the Arts; Wentworth Institute; Taipei Institute of Technology; Muchina School of Art and Design in St. Petersburg, Russia and the Technical Institute in Tblisi, Georgia. He has also lectured extensively at seminars on design directed to business leaders and has been a spokesperson for U.S. design in speaking engagements around the world, on television and in print interviews.
Peter has served as President and Chairman of the Board of IDSA and is past President of the Worldesign Foundation. He testified before Congress on behalf of the Design Arts Program for the National Endowment for the Arts and served on the NEA Design Arts Panel. Under a grant from the U.S. State Department, he led a delegation of designers to hold a series of seminars in Hungary as part of the "Design in America" program and led another delegation to Finland and three cities in the Soviet Union as part of an Accord of Mutual Cooperation and Exchange with the Soviet Society of Designers. Peter also participated in the negotiations between IDSA and Business Week which resulted in the sponsorship of the IDEA Program.
Peter is a 1963 (B.S. in Design) graduate of the University of Michigan, College of Architecture and Design. He also attended the Art Center School in Los Angeles.