Biography:

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Carla creates – and helps other people and companies create – innovative, effective and gorgeous products from discarded or undervalued resources. She was born and raised in São Paulo, Brasil, and has been involved with ecology from age 12, when she represented her school at the Rio 92 conference. She received an IB diploma at the United World College of New Mexico, USA, majoring in Art/Design and History, and a Bachelor degree in History at the University of São Paulo. She studied design for 2 years with renowned Brazilian designers Humberto and Fernando Campana, and was a founding member of the notechdesign collective, which was active from 2001-2005. Her work with research and development of upcycling technologies has won awards by the Latin American Design Foundation (2003), UNESCO – Design 21 (2005), Artemisia Social Ventures (2007), the International Youth Foundation’s YouthActionNet fellowship (2008) and SEBRAE’s Top 100 Brazilian Crafts (2009). In 2007, she was named among “100 of the world’s most exciting and important young product designers”, by indication of design critic and curator Maria Helena Estrada for the book &Fork, published by Phaidon Press. She specialized in Design for Sustainability through the international Gaia Education program, in Creative Facilitation with the late Charlie Murphy of PYE – Partners for Youth Empowerment, and is a member of IDIN – the International Development Innovators Network. Carla works with innovation consultancy and creative facilitation, running design assessments, lectures, creation labs, workshops and other collective processes for several companies and institutions in Brazil and abroad. She is cofounder of Ideia Circular (2015), an initiative aimed at promoting and discussing the principles of Cradle to Cradle design and the Circular Economy in Brazil.