Coerte Voorhees
After completing a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design and several design internships in the United States, I relocated to Berlin, Germany to earn a masters degree in Product Design and directly afterward began my career in a well-established consumer electronics design consultancy.
Several years later, I began independently consulting on various projects in fields ranging from medical, to furniture, heavy equipment logistics and brand development. Along the way I developed a strong interest in computational design: a programmatic approach to designing products. Creating parametric programs and workflows allows for the processing of highly complex and unique geometries at an economically viable pace.
In 2016, I co-founded the company NEON BERLIN Eyewear GmbH, while working in parallel as a design consultant for several global leaders in the prosthetics/orthotics industry. My work in the medical field predominantly involves the creation of automated-applications that create prosthetics from scanned patient limbs.
Additionally, I have been fortunate to be able to share my knowledge in an academic context, having taught several semesters of design at Wentworth Institute of Design (Boston, USA) and the Art Academy of Berlin (Germany). The courses have ranged from the main semester project, to materials/manufacturing and computational design.
To all of my projects, both inside and outside of the classroom, I apply a holistic approach to design. I believe that successful design comes from making decisions while being open to a wide range of solutions. The final iteration is the one that strikes a balance of form and function, where all elements work together harmoniously and relate to one another in a meaningful way.
Good design goes beyond aesthetic taste – it offers utility and joy simultaneously. With an ever-expanding set of innovative tools and the declining amount of non-renewable resources at our disposal, modern designers are additionally challenged with the task of the responsible material usage.