Yves of the Future

Award-winning designer Yves Béhar will deliver keynote address at Palm Springs Weekend of Architecture and Design

Photo: Alannah Hale

As our Weekend of Architecture and Design commences this week, we’re thrilled to welcome keynote speaker Yves Béhar to Palm Springs.

An award-winning Swiss designer and entrepreneur, Béhar is world-renowned for his humanistic approach to forward-thinking design. His innovation spans industries, encompassing robotics and artificial intelligence, health and wellness, sustainability, and smart-home technology. Forbes named him “The Most Influential Industrial Designer in the World.” Vanity Fair proclaimed him “a pioneer of ‘venture design.’” TIME declared him a Top 25 Visionary.

Béhar’s ground-breaking designs include the affordable One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO; the SNOO Smart Sleeper, a technologically advanced baby bassinet; and Moxie, a robot designed to promote social-emotional learning. He has devoted more than two decades to creating products that improve human lives, approaching design through a fusion of technology and empathy.

“The best work that has come out of our studio starts from a human need, rather than a technological breakthrough,” he says. “The real breakthroughs are made by multidisciplinary teams with an insight into the human condition, who have come to believe that by assembling a few different technologies in a new way, they can deliver a marked improvement in the human condition.”

Béhar will be speaking at the Palm Springs Art Museum on Saturday, October 9 about how design can shape our world and transform our future. On Sunday afternoon, he will sign copies of his new book, Designing Ideas (Thames & Hudson, September 2021) at a cocktail reception at the Elrod Sculpture Garden.

Tickets to the weekend are nearly sold out, but the few that can remain can be purchased here.