Designing Futures. Building Differently.
Working with companies, institutions, and creative teams to evolve how we make, sense, and learn.
Through circular systems, sensory intelligence, and the design of learning programs and educational platforms, I guide future-facing projects—across products, people, and organizations.
→ Shu Bertrand
Design to Make
Circular products and systems for a regenerative economy.
As founder of Aplat, a San Francisco based zero-waste design and manufacturing brand. I designed Aplat around a simple fact: up to 80% of a product’s environmental impact is determined at the design stage (Ellen MacArthur Foundation). My work focuses on eliminating that waste before it begins—through pattern engineering, material efficiency, and design decisions that anticipate impact from the start. I led every aspect of the business—from seed to fiber to factory to home—building a full e-commerce ecosystem from the ground up: product design, sourcing, operations, marketing (both B2B and DTC), and customer experience. Collaborating with chefs, bakers, farmers, and winemakers, I help brands bring scalable, regenerative solutions to market—starting with how we make.
I’m taking everything I’ve built with Aplat into a new chapter—integrating agentic AI into my workflow and ecosystem design. See Where I’m Going →
Design to Sense
Research frameworks that connect product design, brand, and sensory experiences.
I use science and systems thinking to lead design. My approach is grounded in neuroscience, sensory intelligence, circadian rhythm, biomimicry, and life-centered research. I help teams design products that support human health, behavior, and everyday experience. This investigative approach has helped global brands create new product categories, uncover market insights, and align cross-functional teams around ideas that matter. I take creative risks, apply emerging tools—alternative intelligence and human intuition—and look to nature’s models to inspire new ways of thinking. I’m now expanding this sensory work with generative AI and biomimicry platforms like AskNature.org—designing with human and nature’s intelligence together. What’s Next →
Design to Learn
Designing how people learn in a changing world
At California College of the Arts, I led a deep research and redesign of the Industrial Design program—building a new learning framework around life-centered design, circular economy, material craft, and the integration of LLM tools into everyday studio practice. I work closely with tenured and adjunct faculty to create new curriculum, shared workflows, and student-centered learning experiences that feel exciting and flexible as tools and expectations change.
In higher education, I focus on the full journey of learning—how students first discover a program, how they move through studios and critiques, and how digital tools support their work. My goal is to make hybrid learning—classroom and online—feel seamless, intuitive, and connected. Spending time with students, faculty, and internal operations has deepened how I design for human experience. I’ve seen how aligned workflows and thoughtful communication build confidence and lead to meaningful outcomes for students, faculty, and the institution.