Oct. 17, 2002
What: U receives $1.5
million for Digital Design Consortium
Who: Linda and Ted Johnson,
U of M alumni
Contacts: Martha Douglas, U of M Foundation,
(612) 626-9712
Steve Linders, University News Service,
(612) 626-7701
Alumni Linda and
Ted Johnson Give $1.5 Million for New
Research in Digital Design
Minneapolis/St.Paul - Alumni Linda and
Ted Johnson have given the university
$1.5 million for start-up funding for
research devoted to developing a new generation
of design tools for architects, engineers
and other practitioners. Their gift will
help launch a new Digital Design Consortium
to facilitate collaboration among faculty
in architecture, computer science and
other fields. The gift will also be used
to purchase cutting-edge digital tools
for research and to support graduate students.
By combining digital technology and design,
researchers hope to expand the boundaries
of how complex design modeling is represented
and create new ways for architects and
other practitioners to work with their
clients in visualizing the design process.
"Linda and Ted Johnson's gift will
link the fields of design and digital
technology, in which the University has
already invested, and create a new focus
on developing tools that architects and
designers will use in the future,"
said Tom Fisher, dean of the College of
Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
"Their gift will help researchers
produce tools that better approximate
the way designers think and that will
facilitate their communication with clients
and communities."
"Today's so-called computer-aided
design tools generally automate the back-end
production aspects of bringing a design
to reality, but fail to truly assist in
the early stages of design," said
Ted Johnson. "Our dream for the Digital
Design Consortium is to pioneer technologies
and techniques that will enable digital
tools to play a larger role in up-front
design process, and, ultimately, to improve
the quality of our built environment."
Linda and Ted Johnson, who live in Seattle,
met at the University as students in the
late 1970s. Ted studied architecture and
later graduated with a degree in computer
science. Linda earned both her bachelor
of arts and master's of business administration
degrees from the university..
"We are grateful to Linda and Ted
for their generous gift and for inspiring
the collaborative efforts of our faculty,"
said H. Ted Davis, dean of the Institute
of Technology. "No other university
has as much potential as Minnesota does
to expand research in this area."
University of Minnesota faculty are already
conducting research in fields such as
computer graphics, scientific visualization,
3D representation, computer-aided geometric
modeling and design, architectural drawing,
and the relationships among human behavior,
perception and design. Opportunities also
exist for collaboration among faculty
connected to the Digital Technology Center
and the Design Institute, two academic
initiatives created by university President
Mark Yudof and supported by legislative
funding and private gifts.
Ted Johnson is vice president of Microsoft's
Business Tools Division. He was previously
co-founder of Visio Corp. and joined Microsoft
when it purchased Visio. Visio's flagship
product of the same name was introduced
in November 1992 and became the world's
best-selling drawing and diagramming software
by the time it was sold to Microsoft in
January 2000. Prior to founding Visio,
Johnson was with Aldus Corp. and led the
development of the IBM PC version of Aldus's
PageMaker desktop publishing software.
The Johnsons' gift counts toward Campaign
Minnesota, the university's $1.3 billion
fund-raising campaign. As of August 2001,
$1.180 billion has been raised for the
campaign.
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