2024 Ones to Watch - Innovators in CRE: David Waingarten, Downstream

Waingarten finds and expresses the heart of a project, sets the creative vision, and leads teams to execute at the highest level possible — from concept to delivery and any point in between. Waingarten leads interdisciplinary teams of designers, developers, technologists, architects, fabricators, and integrators to deliver bespoke site-specific interactive environments and installations. At the heart of every project is a desire to place audiences in the center of the story and give them ways to engage, connect, and contribute. Clients included the National Archives, Library of Congress, MoMA, Ralph Lauren, AIGA, and Universal Studios.

Innovative Solution: 

Experience design is a key strategy to address the challenges facing CRE. At its heart are three goals. 1) Storytelling – Connecting people to shared purpose and placing us in the center of the story; 2) Community – Bringing people together for moments that matter; and 3) Operability – Designing user-friendly systems that make these spaces easy to operate, maintain, quickly reconfigure for different use-cases, and scale. This practice is inherently adaptive, changing to fit the needs of each brand, space, and audience. What’s changed is the demand, which used to center purely on B2B and event spaces, and is increasingly focused on internal workspaces. To make CRE returns, employers need to design experiences around their employees just as much as for their customers.

Innovative Outlook: 

Generative Art and Digital Content – Edgeless digital art that can flow on and across multiple rasters or canvases. Art that is constantly changing and tied to APIs within the building itself, translating building systems metrics like vertical circulation, occupancy, and air quality into beautiful real-time visuals.

“David Waingarten helped lead the experience design of two of Google’s largest real estate projects in New York City – Pier 57 and St. John’s Terminal – setting new benchmarks for experiential in-situ storytelling and corporate event space. David led the design and integration of skyscraper-wide digital art and information, including a 300’ projection-mapped ramp, and the design of experiences that tell the stories of these two landmark buildings.” - Chloe Petherick, Unispace Group.