julkaalmquist@gmail.com

Julka Almquist is a researcher, designer, and educator based in Minneapolis.

I am a freelance researcher and designer with expertise in ethnography, qualitative research, and experience-based learning. I was formerly a design researcher at IDEO, the Mayo Clinic, and had a 5-year global freelance practice where I was a research director across various projects in both the public and private sectors. I hold a Ph.D. at the intersection of anthropology and design from the University of California, Irvine. Teaching and mentoring are central to my purpose, and I have taught design research, human-centered design, and real-world client-based design courses at Art Center College of Design and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I believe deeply in collaborative leadership, collective ambition, and building community. Additionally, my creative projects on topics like landscape, sensory experience, and family reflect my deep belief in connection, curiosity, poetic forms of inquiry, and experience-based learning.

 
 

Select Client Work

What is the future of public libraries? On this project, I worked as a design researcher and strategic advisor exploring the future of public libraries through human-centered design. Starting with public libraries in Chicago and Aarhus, Denmark, the project soon grew into a network of collaborations leading to meaningful change and developing new practices around creativity and experimentation with librarians around the world. We focused on patron needs, what it means to embrace failure, and how to do iterative prototyping. This work culminated in a co-authored Design Thinking for Libraries Toolkit that is free to download.

How can schools be more equitable and better prepare students for the world we live in? Education is going through a radical transformation that requires new approaches and forms of inquiry. I collaborated with Transcend Education to build creative capacity to transform schools and systems. Using human-centered design methods, we worked with educators to create tools and thinking activities to guide inspiration and bring about new visions for school design and systems of learning. Based on our prototypes these Trend Cards and Design for Learning Cards were created to encourage exploration.

How do people care for plants? I led the research and concept direction on a project with a large organics company to explore possibilities for indoor gardening and to better understand how people care for their plants. One of the most powerful insights we had was that the people who were incredibly good at caring for their plants didn’t have more knowledge about them, rather they paid more individual attention to them. This insight was critical in guiding design because it inspired ideas, that in addition to building knowledge, encouraged people to pay attention to and better care for their plants.

 

How can we deepen the exchange of stories between immigrants and their new neighbors? I explored this question with Green Card Voices (GCV), a Minneapolis-based mixed-media nonprofit organization that builds bridges among immigrants and their communities through the art of storytelling. GCV was interested in designing a card game that would allow diverse groups to exchange stories in person and to learn from each other. Through co-creation with the community and the GCV team, we made Story Stitch a card game that is structured to support equitable conversations across lines of difference. Learn more about the cards and watch a news story about AOC using our cards.

How can retail make zero waste practices easier for people? What responsibility do mass retailers have in creating a more sustainable future? Target has a new sustainability strategy where they have committed “to co-create an equitable and regenerative future together with guests, partners, and communities.” At Target, I worked on a team to actualize this strategy by developing a consumer-facing experience that offered products, services, and education to make it easier to adopt sustainable practices and shop sustainably. I led the design research for the development of Adding up to Zero, a sustainability retail experience at Target’s Open House learning lab. See some video footage and take a virtual tour.

How can we explore big complex questions in tender and poetic ways? How can we see the world in new ways? I am the founder of an organization called Field Experience that aims to foster curiosity, lifelong learning, and multi-sensory forms of inquiry. Over the course of my research career, I have discovered that clients love to learn through first-hand analogous explorations because it expands their worlds in unexpected ways. Through Field Experience, I organize inspiration explorations that are a form of intervention to see the world in new ways. They challenge what we see every day, to have fresh eyes, and to have a renewed connection to learning. You can see examples of field experiences in Aarhus and Berlin.

 

Select Creative Projects

To explore creativity through nature, I received a Visual Arts Fund grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York, administered by Midway Contemporary Art. The year-long Minneapolis-based project was called Landscape and had 12 events.

In 2015-2016, I was invited to do a year-long curatorial programming residency at Mana Contemporary Chicago to create a events around sensory experience and community. I explored questions around what it means to engage the senses as a mode of learning and social connection.

During the 2020 lockdown, I realized in the years prior that I had unintentionally created a creative lunch practice. Because I couldn’t gather people, one of my favorite activities was to compile these experiences Pictured here: lunch with Jeong Kwan at the Baegyangsa temple in the mountains of South Korea.