STANLEY RUIZ: What inspired your MAD project? “I wanted to use rice as a part of my design vocabulary since it’s very symbolic of my culture — I grew up in the Philippines — so I made a chair using rice husks and rubber-coated foam. Now that I’m living here in the United States, it allows me to share my outsider perspective, while at the same time assimilating and adapting to the culture here. My fascination with rice as a design material, though, started with another chair I worked on for an exhibition — I made a Panton chair all in white rice.”