Geoffrey Petrizzi enjoys the unusual distinction of seeing his senior thesis project exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Two years after graduating, Petrizzi submitted his project, Aquaticus—an underwater diving scooter—to ID Magazine. His piece won a Design Distinction award in the Concepts category and caught the eye of Joe Rosa, a curator at SFMOMA, who selected it for the exhibition Body Design, on view from November 2002 through March 2003.

What was Petrizzi's original assignment? Tasked to create something that would work as both science and fashion, something conceptual yet anchored in reality, at first he wanted to create a diving suit with an embedded gill. Investigating this possibility, he found that the gill required a higher volume of water than was practical. But out of this came Aquaticus, a diving scooter with an embedded gill. The gill not only extracts oxygen from the water to feed the fuel cell power source, it also supplies oxygen to the diver, who is pulled along behind the device.

During his second to last semester, Petrizzi took a course with Yves Béhar, head of San Francisco's fuseproject. An internship there turned into a full-time job. At fuseproject, Petrizzi juggles multiple projects for clients such as BMW, Birkenstock, and Nike. He also designs cosmetics packaging, perfume bottles, and other consumer products.

From Glance, 2003

Born 1970, Pasadena, CA

CCA degree:
BFA 2001, Industrial Design

Residence:
San Francisco, CA

Current occupation:
Senior designer, fuseproject

Influences at CCA:
Jay Baldwin, Barry Katz, Tylor Garland, Mitchell Schwarzer

Website:
fuseproject.com