Jonathan Olivares was born in Boston in 1981, and graduated from Pratt Institute’s industrial design program in 2004 after having studied design and management at the New School University. In 2006, he established Jonathan Olivares Design Research (JODR), an office dedicated to industrial design, design related research and exhibition design. The combination of these activities gives the office a multilateral approach towards each project.

The office designs furniture for Danese Milano and Knoll Inc., and in the field of research JODR works with a diverse group of clients, with a wide variety of objectives. Research projects have included a survey of the American furniture industry for Domus Magazine, a four-year investigation of office chairs for Knoll Inc., which culminated in the book A Taxonomy of Office Chairs (Phaidon Press, 2011) and The Outdoor Office, a research project focused on designing outdoor work spaces done under two grants from the Graham Foundation.

JODR has designed exhibitions for The Art Institute of Chicago, Nouveau Musée National Monaco, and the EXD design Biennial in Lisbon which have ranged from exploratory curatorial projects to overviews of the office’s work.

www.jonathanolivares.com