Disegno #37 by Disegno

CH22-CH26

Hans J. Wegner

1950

THE FIRST MASTERPIECES Hans J. Wegner’s Masterpiece Collection of chairs represents the pinnacle of high-quality, timeless design. Pushing the boundaries of natural materials while remaining focused on function and form, the CH22, CH23, CH24, CH25 and CH26 chairs each feature seats carefully woven by hand in a process that takes a skilled craftsperson hours to complete.

THINKING INSIDE THE BOX For a couple of years we have been working with design from a new sustainability perspective, questioning what sustainability really mean in our times. There are no shortcuts worth defending, and it’s not about thinking outside the box, it’s instead about looking inside the box. The increasingly shrinking box, with walls constructed by rules, regulations, laws, certificates, and demands. Can we answer yes to all questions about sustainability and renewability even before they are asked? Are we able to create original design from inside the box? We believe we are ABLE...

ABLE | Lindau, Borselius, Bernstrand 2O24

blastation.se

ABLE | Lindau, Borselius, Bernstrand 2O24

ONDARRETA NEWS : GINGER FAMILY BY SEBASTIAN HERKNER

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Ginger Designed by SEBASTIAN HERKNER

Ginger Family The Ginger chair helps you travel to different scenarios depending on how you look at it. A soft seating collection driven by round shapes and an inviting seating shell resting on various base typologies that helps us shape new contexts, uses and spaces. www.ondarreta.com GINGER CHAIR 67CM X 65CM X 79CM X 45CM [WIDTH X DEPTH X HEIGHT X SEAT HEIGHT] GINGER SLED 74CM X 65CM X 79CM X 45CM [WIDTH X DEPTH X HEIGHT X SEAT HEIGHT] GINGER WOOD 74CM X 65CM X 79CM X 45CM [WIDTH X DEPTH X HEIGHT X SEAT HEIGHT] GINGER LOUNGE 80CM X 80CM X 70CM X 40CM [WIDTH X DEPTH X HEIGHT X SEAT HEIGHT] GINGER LOUNGE SLED 85CM X 80CM X 70CM X 40CM [WIDTH X DEPTH X HEIGHT X SEAT HEIGHT] GINGER LOUNGE WOOD 87M X 80CM X 70CM X 40CM [WIDTH X DEPTH X HEIGHT X SEAT HEIGHT] ORIGIN 100% MADE IN EUROPE

Salone del Mobile. Milano / 16-21 April, 2024 Pavilion 18, Stand D05

Unfinished Words Oli Stratford

In her 2017 book In Memory of Memory, translated into English by Sasha Dugdale, poet and essayist Maria Stepanova recounts an anecdote to illuminate her wider discussion of how we connect with memory and histories: “It’s said that the Russian futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov quickly lost interest when reading out his own poems and would break oﬀ with ‘and so on and so forth…’” What?? Excuse my shock, but I wasn’t aware this was an option, so it’s proving quite an important anecdote for me. I know that Khlebnikov did still write his full poems, and laziness only kicked in when it came to the matter of recitation, but I’ve already begun to dream a little bigger and become heavily interested in taking Khlebnikov up on his suggestion of extrapolating as I see fit. I cannot begin to describe how attracted I am to the idea of not bothering to finish articles, but simply allowing them to peter out with an “etc etc” or “the story broadly continues in this vein.” Not only would this save time for more valuable pursuits outside of writing, such as stealing anecdotes from Maria Stepanova, but I also think it’s the best possible ending for any piece of journalism. Hear me out. One part of Disegno’s remit is to highlight design’s sociopolitical, economic, environmental (etc etc) Introduction

entanglements, but there’s always so much to say! Just when you think you’ve got a project nailed down, you spot a loose thread wriggling its way towards an area of interest that you had yet to consider. Perhaps there are additional environmental implications not fully brought to light; historical resonances that might be further explored; new or neglected perspectives, frameworks and lived experiences that deserve attention. That list is partial, but please do assume a tacit “etc etc…” Still, that’s what makes design compelling and gives it significance: the spaces, objects and systems with which we surround ourselves constantly admit of new interpretations, implications and inequities about the ways in which we live. Suﬃce to say, I hate this, because my dream is to have the whole field summed up ASAP, such that I can shutter the journal and double down on plagiarising whatever Stepanova’s up to next. Nevertheless, a non-ending ending seems a decent option in the short term. After all, no article should be considered comprehensive or conclusive. Treat Disegno as a prompt, then: a collection of essays, galleries and ideas that begin to scratch away at the surface of the field and oﬀer points for furth— Nope, sorry, I’ve absolutely lost interest. Just assume that you have the general gist and so on and so forth… 6

Contents 5

Introduction Unfinished

Contents

Contributors

Masthead The people behind Disegno

Development Stories of Use Inge Sempé imagines the objects left behind when a man goes out and never returns

Objects in Review A Foldable Canvas Unosinotra’s riﬀ on Filipino street furniture

Research The Past is The Future A call for fuller font character sets to support Vietnamese

Opinion Learning from Failure Jenny Nordberg leans into glorious glitches

Objects in Review Fringe Benefits Sarah Brunnhuber advocates for more fringes, less waste

Opinion Rhymes With Under the surface of shipping containers matched with dazzle camouflage

Philosophy Für Edward One man’s pet is another brand’s $$$ Disegno × House of Switzerland Milano (insert) Voices: A Story of Swiss Design 33 perspectives on a country’s design scene

Opinion Seen on Screen A lingering fart, a song and a Sony television

Objects in Review A Non-light Light Behind Bocci’s glowing orb

Construction Soft Power Architecture An embassy that invites diplomacy into the pavilion

Feedback A Llama and a Legacy What would Ray and Charles Eames do?

Material Tangible Action Hamed Ouattara salvages oil drums and invests in community

Economies At All Scales Normal Phenomena of Life challenges the normal phenomena of design

Objects in Review From Image to Object Why it took Jasper Morrison Studio so long to design a barbecue

Collaboration Scraps on Show Extruding and designing with the world’s first 100 per cent recycled aluminium

104 Objects in Review Hanging by Many Threads Jacob Hashimoto’s journey from sculpture to textile 105

Distribution Dear Things Nitzan Cohen plots a revolution of the DIY kind

115

Objects in Review Just My Type When design studios BNAG and ABC Dinamo began to flirt across disciplinary boundaries

116

Objects in Review Holding a Dinner Party Mitre and Mondays gets a handle on handles

117

Index Short stories from the creation of this issue

120

End Note No Randomness A story of the London plane tree emerges from the shadows

DISCOVER MODULOR WALL PANELLING SYSTEM, COVER WALK–IN CLOSET, RADIUS DOOR. DESIGN GIUSEPPE BAVUSO

London Flagship Store 83-85 Wigmore Street W1U1DL London london@rimadesio.co.uk +44 020 74862193

Contributors Soum Eveline Bonkoungou is a passionate Burkinabé photographer currently dividing her time between Burkina Faso and France. p. 40 Nicholas Calcott is a cat paparazzo with a slightly more respectable side hustle. p. 67 Miranda Clow enjoys research and writing. p. 89 Fabian Frinzel bought bird food for the winter and put it out in front of the photo studio window, but no birds came :( p. 21, 47, 66, 89, 104, 115 and 116 Lia Forslund loves a good factory visit. p. 90 Albrecht Fuchs is an artist and portrait photographer, who really hates portraits of himself. p. 13 Ines Glowania loves art, architecture, design, writing and fries. She really loves fries. p. 115 Nicolas Haeni uses mundane objects to build a very personal fantasy through pictures and videos. House of Switzerland Milano (insert) Kane Hulse takes pictures of handbags and hooligans. p. 79

Anniina Koivu has spent the last month contemplating the soft power of embassy architecture, unearthing preppers in their hideouts, interviewing Italian design icons, trying to get students excited about design criticism, and growing a one-jumper fashion empire. p. 32

Sheila Ngọc Pham . is a Sydney-based writer, producer and researcher trying to raise her two kids bilingually. p. 22

Milo Keller is a Swiss photographer and professor at ECAL known for his photography work in the field of architecture and design. p. 32

Rupal Rathore is preparing to welcome spring into her home. p. 104

Gerhardt Kellermann navigates his dual identity disorder, merging photography with industrial design. p. 105 Oscar Lhermitte is obsessed with the relationship we have with objects. p. 120 Silvio Lorusso writes and talks about design, though actually doing very little of it, and believing in it less and less. p. 105 Kristina Micotti is drawing dogs in bikinis. p. 49 Tetsuo Mukai is a fan of logistics design and design logistics. p. 48 Jenny Nordberg was asked for this bio quite last minute. p. 31

Hannah Rashbass is busy planning her next dinner party. p. 116

Leonhard Rothmoser is leading a team of researchers in developing sustainable agricultural practices aimed at reducing carbon emissions. (This would be interesting, but it’s not true, it’s the opinion of Chat GPT.) p. 31, 48 and 65 Ligaya Salazar is mostly thinking about wild plants and indigenous knowledge. p. 21 Inga Sempé is a French industrial designer. She loves house cleaning. p. 13 Louise Thurin is an author and neologism generator specialising in visual cultures of Black Worlds. p. 40 Matthew Turner keeps dreaming that he’s walking around Teufelsberg Spy Station in Berlin. House of Switzerland Milano (insert) Alastair Philip Wiper is a photographer that likes to see things other people don’t get to. p. 90

The Journal of Design #37 Editor-in-chief Oli Stratford oli@disegnojournal.com

Founder and director Johanna Agerman Ross

Publisher and commercial director Chris Jones chris@disegnojournal.com

Managing editor Evi Hall evi@disegnojournal.com

Creative directors Florian Böhm Annahita Kamali akfb.com

Advertising representative – Italy Carlo Fiorucci carlo@fiorucci-international.com

Assistant editor Lara Chapman lara@disegnojournal.com

Designer Jonas Hirschmann info@akfb.com

Distribution and stockist enquiries MMS London info@mmslondon.co.uk

Assistant editor Helen Gonzalez Brown helen@disegnojournal.com

Subeditor Ann Morgan

Contributors Soum Eveline Bonkoungou, Helen Gonzalez Brown, Nicholas Calcott, Lara Chapman, Miranda Clow, Fabian Frinzel, Lia Forslund, Albrecht Fuchs, Ines Glowania, Annabel Gray, Nicolas Haeni, Evi Hall, Kane Hulse, Anniina Koivu, Milo Keller, Gerhardt Kellermann, Oscar Lhermitte, Silvio Lorusso, Kristina Micotti, Tetsuo Mukai, Jenny Nordberg, Sheila Ngọc Pham, . Hannah Rashbass, Rupal Rathore, Johanna Agerman Ross, Leonhard Rothmoser, Ligaya Salazar, Inga Sempé, Oli Stratford, Matthew Turner, Louise Thurin and Alastair Philip Wiper.

Thanks Many thanks to Pro Helvetia for a wonderful collaboration; Lauren Smith for all her work guiding Words on Wood through four successful seasons; and Hanna Nova Beatrice and Jonna Dagliden Hunt for collaborating with us on a terrific talk series for Stockholm Furniture Fair.

Paper and print This issue of Disegno is printed by Park Communications on Edition Oﬀset 120gsm by Antalis. The cover is printed on Arena Extra White Smooth 250gsm by Fedrigoni. Voices is printed on Arena smooth extra white 120gsm by Fedrigoni.

Finally we are sad to say goodbye to Lara Chapman, who has brought so much to the Disegno team. We will miss her ever brimming ideas, flair and craft as a writer, endless good humour, and football anecdotes. We wish her luck in the next steps in her career.

Park Communications is a carbonneutral company, with this issue of Disegno printed on FSC certified paper, using 100 per cent oﬀshorewind electricity sourced from UK wind, and vegetable oil-based inks.

We are very grateful to all our contributors, and for the help of everybody who has supported us and made Disegno #37 possible – not least to Lester the dog, who always lives up to his gentlemanly name.

Contents copyright The contents of this journal belong to Disegno Publications Limited and to the authors and artists featured. If you are tempted to reproduce any of it, please ask first.

Contact us Studio 4 The Rose Lipman Building 43 De Beauvoir Road London, N1 5SF disegnojournal.com Design Reviewed The team behind Disegno also produce a companion publication, Design Reviewed, which focuses on users’ engagement with design’s cultural, political and social entanglements. The fourth issue will be released in July 2024; issues one, two and three are already on shelves. Disegno Works Disegno also runs the creative agency Disegno Works. disegnoworks.com

Stories of Use Introduction Johanna Agerman Ross Stories Inga Sempé Translation Annabel Gray Photographs Albrecht Fuchs

The first time I interviewed Inga Sempé, back in 2009, she was talking about her love of stores: hardware stores, stationers, newsagents. The reason, she explained, was that she likes to study the objects that people purchase and use. As a designer of furniture and products, this is the biggest accolade she can imagine: people using and living with the things she has designed.

Development

What follows, however, are stories of a diﬀerent kind. In anticipation of La casa imperfetta’s display at the Triennale (16 April – 15 September 2024), Disegno asked Sempé to create a series of design fictions exploring her imagined home and its absent resident. They invite us to open the door and step into the casa imperfetta.

Museums on the other hand, tend to do the opposite. They take objects out of use, storing them for posterity and handling them with utmost care. When they are displayed, it’s often on plinths and behind glass, as rarefied artefacts, even when that object may be mass produced and available to buy in any store. “I don’t really appreciate exhibitions on contemporary design presented like medieval sculpture,” Sempé tells me. “I think it’s quite ridiculous, as you can easily buy them on Craigslist for a really good price.” Imagine Sempé’s conundrum, then, when Milan’s Triennale design museum made contact to discuss staging an exhibition of her work in spring 2024. On the one hand, a museum exhibition offers critical recognition of a kind different to everyday use, but it nevertheless condemns objects to be devoid of their original purpose. In considering an exhibition, therefore, Sempé (together with Marco Sammicheli, the Triennale’s director) conceived of a different way of interpreting her more than 20 years of work as a designer for companies such as Alessi, Hay, Mutina and Ligne Roset. Rather than an exhibition in the traditional sense of the word, they conceived La casa imperfetta (“The Imperfect House”), a display that would invite visitors into the home of a fictional character, a man of indefinite description. It’s a onebedroom apartment, designed with the help of Studio A/C, which contains traces of everyday life. “I wanted to create the feeling that the man who lives here has just left to buy some butter, but on his way back they were tragically hit by a tram,” she says. “So as you enter you could imagine it’s like the first visit of the police.” Sempé has spent time sourcing the right material to scatter around the house and significant time locating her own designs, including on various online forums. “The companies I worked with were not really interested in me it seems,” she says. “They haven’t kept any of the designs, so I’ve tried to gather them for the show in other ways. I bought the Tratti tiles I designed for Mutina from a builder outside of Paris that I found online, and yesterday I was on a kind of Italian Craigslist to put an offer in on one of my lamps for under the asking price.” There is poetry in the idea of a designer so invested in the use of objects that she is tracing the trajectories of her own designs via online shopping platforms. Then again, it also reaffirms the significance of museums as repositories of objects and platforms for stories that might otherwise go untold.

The owner of casa imperfetta rushed out of his house to buy butter this morning and was hit by the No. 29 tram. The following notes, found on his desk, reveal what he loved about his home. Hallway Having a proper entrance hall, a real separate room, is a privilege – an intensely desirable thing. In the last flat, the coats hung around on the kitchen chairs; shopping bags and school bags lay on the diminutive table; the floor was littered with the hastily torn-open packaging of long-awaited parcels. And now I have this lovely, spacious hallway, a welcoming transition space for unloading and a place of organised passage. A real hall is a kind of giant wastepaper basket, filtering comings and goings; like ants, we deposit mounds of variable consistency. A hall is like a three-dimensional doormat, it keeps the house clean. It makes it calm. I’m waiting for another builder’s quote to move the partition. The hall is really far too big and the sitting room much too small. Sitting room When my mother finally changed the sofa of my childhood – a mattress with pillows that I dropped on the floor and never picked up – I was disappointed. After years of deliberation, of careful consideration of this long-postponed purchase, I suddenly found myself encased in a sort of rigid box – a receptacle for flabby rectangular cushions, covered in a fluﬀy herringbone that the rivets on my jeans caught on. And still the cushions needed picking up. I was less disappointed in the modern telly that arrived while I was at riding camp. With a remote control! I LOVED that remote control. Decades later, I saw the same one in a car-boot sale. That magical object looked so huge and unwieldy, like a specially oversized orthopaedic boot – Italian size 36, French 37. Another hi-tech gadget, another remote control: my father’s tweed jacket was deformed by a strange

Development

A model of the casa imperfetta, the real-world version of which will be built at Milan’s Triennale design museum in spring 2024.

device that he kept in his pocket. Yellowish, like a pat of butter, with a perforated receiver ridged like a hippo’s incisor, it allowed him to check his answering machine when he was out. He would dial his office number and place the device on the handset. In the ensuing tête-à-tête between those two perforated creatures, high-pitched signals screeched down the line to trigger playback of the recorded messages. He never worked out how to rewind those tapes, in spite of his general capacity for winding people up. He lost the thing once. We found it months later under the squidgy cushions of the horrid sofa, along with a four-colour biro, a die, the letter Q from the Scrabble set, and some giant breadcrumbs, which I ate. It was all very modern. When I go to people’s houses, I still slip my hand under their cushions and surreptitiously examine my excavations on the pretext of having felt something prick me. Bathroom Rooms that are dedicated to cleanliness get dirty very fast. Is it that we seize on the slightest bit of dust, an affront to our purified bodies? Or that tiling is such a treacherous surface because it’s so clean, each grouted tile framing the slightest hair, creating a sort of museum of deficient hygiene? Francesca washes herself using techniques more suited to a garage. You’d think she was washing the mud off a rally car. Foam everywhere, and she uses one of those huge sponges (which she holds to be natural) to which we have all fallen victim at red lights, our windscreens suddenly obscured by their deposit of greying scum. I have often imagined her standing between the shaggy rollers of an automatic carwash. Sucked in by its vertical brushes, twisting her long hair like giant curlers, she would end up bald on one side, the other erupting with the blue fibres of those bristling rollers. When she washes her hair at home, water spirals down the drain, leaving a black, greasy nest. She has unruly keratin; her toenails get so long that they curl up in her shoes. When she cuts them, the unpredictable nail clippers don’t project fine lunules, red or white, like capital Cs, but plectrums of Francesca horn (available soon on Etsy?). The kitchen is considered the hub of processing and production in the home, but a bathroom is the same. Stray hairs, nail clippings, sodden cotton-wool

balls, and white soap stains on the floor are the fruits of its labour. And, like the kitchen, it is rife with danger. When Francesca uses conditioner to bring out her curls, the floor is treacherous. Once I went flying and pulled off the hook for the shower head to save myself. It turned out to be metallised plastic and had snapped clean off. Metallised plastic is the equivalent of a soya steak. Bedroom I have changed the mattress religiously every 10 years, as instructed. The excitement of waiting for delivery of the new slice of foam, yellow like spring cheese, covered in a fabric that also has something of farmyard production about it – hand-woven in sustainable materials, heady with well-being. But it didn’t make any difference, other than I now keep wondering about my old mattress. I wonder where it is, where it was taken. Is it in a charity shop, stacked between other discarded mattresses? Does it carry the weight of new sleepers? Has it been chopped up into a thousand tiny pieces to use for stuffing cushions or cuddly toys? Were the pieces graded by size and put in carefully labelled stackable storage bins? Or like many mattresses made homeless, perhaps it has been buried. But where? Laundry room I love this laundry room, or rather this drying rack between two walls. Laundry is the tyrant of the home. It comes in fits and starts, invasive, taking up residence in a range of spots around the house. At work – in recent, imminent or actual use – it can be found slung across furniture and window sills, or even draped around a body; on a minibreak, in the washing basket or machine, on a drying rack or ironing board; or relegated to the retirement home of a wardrobe or drawer, where it may be more or less well cared for. It disappears from view, we look for it, it reappears. Sometimes it is displayed for really quite long periods of time in a room, spoiling the decor, before returning to take refuge in a cupboard until its next scene. Other people’s washing, in houses as ill-equipped in laundry rooms as mine have been in the past, always makes me deeply uncomfortable. When people entertain in tiny sitting rooms with wrinkled clothes drying next to the sofa, or in the kitchen, the sight of their washing is as distressing to me as talking to a superior when they have parsley between their teeth.

Development

Office Making this little office changed my life. It’s nothing like working uncomfortably in the kitchen, or on the very, very low coffee table in the sitting room. I measured the exact distance between my chair at the kitchen table and my desk chair: 4.58m. I chose science at school, so I’ve been trained to be rigorous in my analysis. For 15 days in a row, I collected the crumbs beneath each of these chairs in two separate envelopes. The weight of those picked up under the office chair was greater than those from the kitchen: 25 per cent more. Using the microscope I bought on Amazon and plugged into my computer, I sorted the crumbs by type and colour. Conclusion: I follow a more diverse diet in my little windowless office. I have put up a hook for a dustpan and brush. Kitchen It’s amazing how stupid we can be when we already know that what we’re going to do is stupid. Why did I put half an onion back in the fridge? Because I told myself that we were going to be less wasteful, that I’d use it that evening. Ecological. Yes! That was on Tuesday and now it’s Saturday, and the butter tastes of onion and the whole fridge stinks. My coffee is hot, the toast is waiting for spread. But not with that smell. Well done. Toast works in symbiosis with butter, which hydrates it, softening the surly little chap, stooped over after his long stay in the toaster. I neglected the sensitive butter for the sake of half an onion. If I had just put the whole thing in the sauce on Tuesday, would that really have been overdoing it? Would I have ruined the meal? Would I have been admonished? “You might have put a little less onion in. A bit heavy on the onion,” perhaps? No. It would have been good; not bad, anyway. I must be braver. I let myself be intimidated by the recipe, as if it were watching me. It was because I didn’t have any cumin – I could already feel failure looming and decided that an extra half an onion was a step too far hors-piste. The result is a breakfast that smells like a Molotov cocktail. Recipes always intimidate me. The pleasure of hosting is more about the danger of disappointing. And double-sided disappointment: the disappointment of bad food, and the disappointment of guests outstaying their welcome. E N D

“I don’t really appreciate exhibitions on contemporary design presented like medieval sculpture.” —Inga Sempé

Words Ligaya Salazar

Image by Fabian Frinzel.

A Foldable Canvas-The term “bangkito” refers to the ubiquitous, improvised, small, low stool used throughout the Philippine archipelago. Whether it helps squeeze one more person into a jeepney minibus (the country’s primary urban mode of transport), oﬀers respite for a market seller who has been on their feet all day, or enables a quick chat or game of chess at informal street gatherings, a bangkito is always at hand. Often crafted from wooden crates or scraps, held together with wire or various other found materials, it is ripe for individual adaptation. “A traditional jeepney experience was one of the inspirations for creating our Blankito,” explains Mona Alcudia, co-founder of product design and architecture studio Unosinotra. “The conductor pulling out a bangkito in the middle row to accommodate way more people than a jeepney can hold, or playing budots, a form of Filipino grassroots electronic music, from their cell phone for everyone to hear.” A merging of “bangkito”, a Filipino word of Spanish origin, and the English word “blank”, the Blankito is both a compact, foldable chair design and a blank canvas. Founded in 2022 by Alcudia and Buddy Lim Ong in Cebu – a Filipino city with a long history of craft-based furniture making for export, which was announced as a Unesco Creative City of Design in 2019 – Unosinotra set out to create a chair using digital fabrication methods while also drawing on local inspiration and reference points. “Traditionally, to be able to design and make commercial furniture in Cebu, you had to come from an established family with roots in manufacturing and

export, and have your own factory,” explains Alcudia. “We wanted to challenge this by using more democratic fabrication tools.” Each Blankito is made with three pieces of CNC-cut, furniture-grade plywood, which are held together with cargo straps and stainless steel quick-release buckles and hinges, and finished with 3D-printed branding tags that also show the assembly instructions. The studio designed the stool to be customisable, enabling buyers to create bespoke surface patterns, seat shapes and other detailing prior to purchase. Additional plans are now afoot to release the CNC files online, enabling further adaptation. Blankito also folds out flat, transforming it into an artwork that could be displayed on a wall. This feature was highlighted by Unosinotra’s contribution to the 2023 Tubô Cebu Art Fair, for which the studio commissioned 15 artists from the Visayas, the island group that Cebu is part of, to transform the Blankito. The resulting pieces – including seats made from upcycled cotton scraps and a portable bag/stool combination – emphasise Blankito’s adaptability and versatility, but also pay homage to the ingenuity of everyday objects in the Philippines.

Objects in Review

THE PAST IS THE FUTURE Words SHEILA NGỌC PHẠM

In a recent New York Times article, ‘Read Your Way Through Hanoi’ (2023) by novelist NGUYỄN PHAN QUẾ MAI, readers may have clocked an intriguing footnote, one that had never before appeared in the publication’s 172-year history. In the footnote, NGUYỄN noted: “The Vietnamese words in the original version of this essay used diacritical marks. To comply with New York Times style, the marks were removed before publication.”

Research

NGUYỄN went on to explain how “this practice alters the meaning of the words” – by not representing Vietnamese words as they should be written, The New York Times is systematically allowing incorrect spelling, and creating factual errors. “In the case of HỎA LÒ PRISON, for example, ‘HỎA’ means ‘fire,’ and ‘LÒ’ means ‘furnace’: the Burning Furnace Prison. Without the marks, ‘HOA’ means ‘flowers,’ and ‘LO’ means ‘worry,’ rendering the term ‘HOA LO’ meaningless,” wrote NGUYỄN. It was bold of the novelist to question the editorial standards of the long-standing publication. However, permitting such a footnote is perhaps a sign of progress. By naming the problem, there is an opportunity to address it. NGUYỄN’S footnote concludes with a call to action: “I look forward to the day when The Times and other Western publications celebrate the richness and complexity of Vietnamese, and of all other languages, by showcasing them in their original formats.”

read and regularly updated, and features an ever-growing ‘Samples’ section. NGUYỄN’S article now looks and reads as it should. Vietnamese Typography was originally written as TRƯƠNG’S Master’s thesis at George Mason University School of the Arts, and born out of the frustration he felt about the lack of Vietnamese diacritics in modern typefaces. It has since become an invaluable resource, particularly for non-Vietnamese type designers interested in designing typefaces that support Vietnamese, which has the most diacritics of any language with Romanised script. These diacritics are not just marks above one letter, as is the case with common diacritics in European languages (e.g. é, à, ö); in Vietnamese, the complexity is due to the way in which diacritics are also stacked on top of each other (e.g. Ổ, Ề). There is also the diacritic that appears below letters, as you can see in my name, and with letters that have existing diacritics (e.g. Ậ, Ệ). In his book, TRƯƠNG outlines some of the design challenges this presents: “The marks must be consistent in the entire font system to create uninterrupted flow of text. The strokes of the marks have to work well with the base letters to help readers determine the meaning of words. They must not get in the way of the base letter and collide with adjacent letters. Considering balance, harmony, space, position, placement, contrast, size, and weight, designers must overcome each challenge to create a successful typeface for Vietnamese.” Thinking back to my 2021 Guardian article, I began to investigate further. The newspaper’s current typeface, Guardian Headline was launched in 2018 and designed by award-winning New York- and London-based type foundry Commercial Type. I wrote to the foundry to ask about the lack of support for Vietnamese diacritics. “Requests to add Vietnamese support come up from time to time,” wrote back Christian Schwartz, a partner at Commercial Type. “But customers have rarely budgeted for the extra time and expense.” Schwartz’s comments gave me pause. Even though we live in a world that is more globalised and interconnected than ever, it is concerning that major media outlets are still not investing in typefaces that ensure more accurate reporting. In these examples, we can see that Vietnamese diacritics represent a design and language problem that many of us in the diaspora recognise, all over the world – I live in Australia, TRƯƠNG is in the United States, and NGUYỄN lives in Kyrgyzstan in Central

As a writer who regularly includes Vietnamese words in English-language articles and publications, I have also faced the problem of diacritics. When writing for The Guardian in 2021 about the rediscovery of 60s singer PHƯƠNG TÂM, I was regretfully informed by my editor they could not accommodate diacritics because “it looks uneven when printed”.1 It was a problem of styling, rather than technical impossibility. A few diacritics did eventually make it into the article – like Â, found in a number of languages – but having a few letters with diacritics does not make those words correct. The fundamental problem stands: the Vietnamese language is still not considered important enough to be represented the way it should be. In response to NGUYỄN’S New York Times footnote, designer DONNY TRƯƠNG, who is based in Arlington, Virginia, reformatted her article to show it is possible to include the full set of Vietnamese diacritics. To achieve this, he used the typefaces Kaius, Job Clarendon and Change, designed respectively by Lisa Fischbach, David Jonathan Ross and Bethany Heck, and Alessio Leonardi. The reformatted version of NGUYỄN’S piece is published in TRƯƠNG’S ebook Vietnamese Typography (2015), which is free to 1

Disegno’s two fonts also do not support Vietnamese diacritics (somewhat ironic for an internationally-focused design journal). As such, the text is now interspersed with examples of Barber (THỢ CẠO) by Behalf Studio for Republish, ed.

Asia. But we’re not the only ones. The story of Vietnamese typography predates us all, and begins in the place where our mother tongue originates.2

Images courtesy of LƯU CHỮ (previous page) and DONNY TRƯƠNG.

For centuries, Vietnamese was written using Chinese characters, a result of China’s millennium-long rule of the region. Although Chinese rule ended in 938 AD, Vietnamese continued to be written only in Chinese characters until the 17th century. In 1624, a French Jesuit named Alexandre de Rhodes came to what was then known as “Cochinchina” – southern Vietnam. He is widely credited with inventing the Romanised version of Vietnamese script. Rhodes, however, was not the first to Romanise Vietnamese, as explained in the excellent historical overview in Vietnamese Typography. His work built on the work of Portuguese missionaries such as Gaspar do Amaral, António Barbosa and Francisco de Pina – the latter is considered the first European to speak fluent Vietnamese – but it is Rhodes who created what is known as “QUỐC NGỮ”, which has since evolved to become the oﬃcial writing system for Vietnamese. Although he is a distant historical figure, he was someone I heard about while growing up in an expatriate community in the 80s and 90s. On our family altar, my father even has a small black and white picture of him. Rhodes is remembered because he helped to make literacy widespread in Vietnam, whereas the Chinese-based versions of the written language had been largely inaccessible outside elite circles. Although the origins of QUỐC NGỮ began with European missionaries, and it became the oﬃcial writing system under French colonial rule (1864-1954), 2

Before I get to Vietnam, I want to include a brief note about names. In Vietnamese, as in many languages, one’s family name appears first. So , for example, NGUYỄN PHAN QUẾ MAI’S family name is NGUYỄN – the same surname as at least a third of Vietnamese people. Given that there are relatively few surnames for a population of 90 million-odd people, I have long felt awkward referring to Vietnamese people by their surnames as is the convention in English-language articles. In addition, those of us in the diaspora living in the anglophone world largely adopt the typical naming structure of our family names being last. This is especially the case when you have an English name, like I do. I’m SHEILA NGỌC PHẠM, rather than PHẠM NGỌC SHEILA, because the latter just doesn’t sound right. This is just to say that the issue of names adds another layer of complexity and a challenge that arises in multilingual and multicultural contexts. Place names are often written without diacritics and are regularised in English: Saigon instead of SÀI GÒN, Vietnam instead of VIỆT NAM. While compromising on common place names is not necessarily a major inaccuracy, this is not true of many other words that include diacritics.

An explainer from DONNY TRƯƠNG’S

Vietnamese Typography, focusing on diacritics.

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Examples of Vietnamese typography, collected and archived by LƯU CHỮ.

it was its uptake by the Vietnamese themselves and the tweaks they made that has brought us to where we are now – with designers working to get the importance of Vietnamese typography more widely recognised. The evolution of the Vietnamese written language from many influences brings to mind other aspects of Vietnam’s culture, which absorbs outside influences and indigenises them – food, art, architecture, music. These are the thoughts I kept returning to with every designer I spoke to about Vietnamese typography, and how the designs of the world’s past are becoming part of the designs of Vietnam’s future. The first modern and original typeface designed specifically for Vietnamese was Cadao by PHẠM ĐAM CA, a graphic and type designer, and former

Images courtesy of LƯU CHỮ.

It surprised me to learn that the first original typeface for Vietnamese was designed only in 2012, just over a decade ago. professor at Hanoi Architectural University. Cadao was released in 2012 after two years of development while PHẠM studied at ESAD Amiens in France. As PHẠM has written, “[Cadao] is, in my opinion, the first typeface family which is seriously designed for the Vietnamese language requirements. All other existing fonts for use in Vietnamese were simply solutions to adaptation needs.” At the end of 2013, he began to develop an updated version of the typeface focusing on further enhancing the diacritical system. Cadao has since been used for literary publications, among other purposes. It surprised me to learn that the first original typeface for Vietnamese was designed only in 2012, just over a decade ago. My first reaction was that surely one major factor is the civil war, which ended in 1975. After all, the long period of turbulence that followed temporarily halted the evolution of design and fashion, which had otherwise been flourishing – particularly in South Vietnam. A mass exodus also led to valuable resources and talent flowing out of the country. While postwar Vietnam was focused on recovering, elsewhere, in more stable and prosperous parts of the world, old typefaces were becoming

digitised in the 80s and 90s, alongside new ones being specifically created for a digital medium. That’s not to say that the pre-digital past is irrelevant in the story of Vietnamese typography, however – far from it. The past informs collective LƯU CHỮ’S thinking about the future. LƯU CHỮ (Archiving Type) describes itself as “an independent Vietnamese Typography Collective” and is based in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). Its members have been archiving and researching Vietnamese graphic design history since 2015. “We started searching, finding documents and old books,” says LÊ QUỐC HUY, the graphic designer who founded the collective. “I was curious and wanted to understand,” he adds, explaining to me in Vietnamese the origins of his thinking behind the collective’s formation: realising that various aspects of Vietnam’s immediate past, from the time before he was born in the early 1990s, weren’t being formally taught. Paying attention to old artefacts made past practices and the history of Vietnamese design start to emerge. But it was documenting and studying the wonderful lettering on local shopfronts’ old signage that really brought the project to life. “The sign writers and the families knew the story behind these signs, how they were created,” says LÊ. “These stories made it easier to understand, connecting with what we saw in books too.” LƯU CHỮ documents examples of street signage through the hashtag #thelosttypevietnam on Instagram. The snapshots are taken by the collective and their extended network, with photos of prints, media and street signage throughout the country. Scrolling through the tagged images, you see not only an archive of typefaces and signage, but other ubiquitous elements of Vietnamese design and architecture. On many of the images of shop signs, for example, the vernacular ironwork that is found on windows and doors throughout the country is also captured. These metal designs have become iconic – another example of a European introduction that has become intrinsic to the everyday language of Vietnamese buildings. On the same call with LÊ is CAO XUÂN ĐỨC, another HCMC-based designer who joined the collective in 2020. He explains to me in English how the initial collecting morphed into an online archive and series of articles documenting their investigations. This includes excerpts from the books they’ve collected,

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Left: Cadao by PHẠM ĐAM CA. Below: Ejya by THY HÀ. Bottom: Westgate (CỬA TÂY) by Behalf Studio for Republish.

Images courtesy of PHẠM ĐAM CA,. THY HÀ and Republish.

with more than 200 titles in their library, which they are in the process of making publicly accessible this year through a new space in the city. Lately, LƯU CHỮ has been embarking on typeface design. “We’re in the process of reviving a typeface that was often found in propaganda materials,” says CAO. “We are in the process of digitising it and making it public; that’s the goal for the future.” In a similar vein, GIANG NGUYỄN, a designer and university lecturer at RMIT Vietnam, launched the community project Republish in 2020. Operating through his design practice, Behalf Studio, the explicit aim of Republish is to produce a curated collection of free and open-source fonts under SIL Open Font Licences. These typefaces are also available through Adobe Fonts; so far they have released five. As the Republish website states: “The output of this project is[…] created by and for Vietnamese people. This is our eﬀort to return the unique but familiar aesthetics of local identity to the community.” Republish’s fonts find their inspiration from historic references. The elegant Westgate (CỬA TÂY), for example, designed by NGUYỄN as Republish’s first font, is based on the vernacular concrete typography found on the north, west and east gates of Saigon’s iconic market, Ben Thanh (BẾN THÀNH). It alludes to the art deco style of the French colonial era in the early 20th century. Instead of being a liability, the diacritics are a design highlight. Other typefaces have since been added to the platform, based on old signage and songbooks. The development of each is based on a rigorous

“The output of this project is created by and for Vietnamese people. This is our eﬀort to return the unique but familiar aesthetics of local identity to the community.” —Republish

assessment process; after all, there is no shortage of inspiration on the streets of Vietnam, as LƯU CHỮ has documented. But there are challenges in adapting lettering from signage for digital use.

“One of the common issues is that the nuances look very nice on sheet music and metal signage done by hand, but when you digitise them, they look quite awkward because we expect vectorised strokes to be perfect,” says NGUYỄN, speaking to me in English from his studio in HCMC. “Most of the lettering artists who did beautiful sheet music letterings and sign paintings were painters, illustrators. So it’s craft-based rather than metal type-based.” But when they can incorporate old elements into digital typefaces, I believe that the result can help to create a sense of continuity for a culture that has experienced constant disruption over the past century. The typeface ĐANH ĐÁ was created by NGUYỄN in collaboration with Chicagobased artist HƯƠNG NGÔ, for their art project “To Name It Is To See It”. It is now one of Republish’s oﬀerings. ĐANH ĐÁ is based on A typeface from PHỤ NỮ TÂN TIẾN, a women’s magazine published in HUẾ in 1932. As Republish describes it, “ĐANH ĐÁ is a bold and condensed sans-serif that carries traces of art deco influences from French colonial era with the subtle hardness and boldness of propaganda style.” Another designer I spoke to is THY HÀ, based in Melbourne, Australia. By day she is a UX/UI designer and Webflow developer, and by night she is a type designer. She is also a member of LƯU CHỮ, coming on board in 2020, as well as a former student of NGUYỄN when she studied in Vietnam. “I really want to do more type design, but it’s not a big industry,” she tells me, once again highlighting the financial reality for Vietnamese type designers, who face many barriers. All of this work is a labour of love; LƯU CHỮ currently receives no funding and Republish is primarily subsidised by the work of Behalf Studio, with additional support from grants and contributions. During my conversation with HÀ, she points out that in Vietnam, Cooper Black is pervasive in contemporary signage. Originally designed by Oswald Bruce Cooper and released by the Barnhart Brothers & Spindler type foundry in 1922, an adapted version of the typeface titled VNI-Cooper was created to support Vietnamese, and has long been distributed for free. There’s a reason for this: VNI-Cooper was developed by VNI Software Company, founded by the late HỒ THÀNH VIỆT. HỒ served in the South Vietnamese army and came to the United States in 1975 as a resettled refugee. He deserves a place in the story of Vietnamese typography because, although

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he was an electrical engineer and not a typeface designer, he was responsible for bringing Vietnamese letterforms to computers with the VNI character set. Even as Vietnam experienced a delay with its entry into digital typefaces, the bridging work of HỒ in adapting an existing typeface ensured that, in the 80s and 90s, Vietnamese could be represented digitally and on the burgeoning World Wide Web. His invaluable work laid the foundation for all the type designers to come. (In Vietnam, during the 90s, other engineers – particularly from the North – adapted other typefaces to achieve similar results.) Now that HÀ lives in Australia, she, too, sees herself as a “bridge” between where she grew up and her adopted home. She notes that most of her type designer friends are from Australia and the United States. “I have an advantage here to learn from diﬀerent type designers, but also connect it back to Vietnam.” It was after migrating to Australia, after all, that she developed her first typeface as her Master’s project under the guidance of accomplished type designer Vincent Chan, a lecturer at RMIT in Melbourne. Mighty Mono was released last year and fully supports Vietnamese; it is available through type foundry Modern Type. Her latest typeface Eyja, also released in 2023, is based on a serif typeface she found in an 1852 edition of Visit to Iceland and The Scandinavian North by Ida Pfeiﬀer. HÀ writes of its provenance: “I discovered the book through a book collector on Facebook Marketplace during the Melbourne lockdown, when all the antique book shops were closed.” Eyja demonstrates the possibilities that come with migration and seemingly incongruous design worlds meeting, and how a typeface inspired by Scandinavian design supports Vietnamese and close to 400 other languages. The way it is distributed is also worth discussing in terms of how more inclusive design can be achieved. HÀ licences Eyja through Counter Forms, a pioneering new foundry and platform that aims to give typography “a more accessible, diverse and equitable future.” The platform was co-founded by HÀ’S former university lecturer Vincent Chan, alongside Dominic Hofstede and Robert Janes. Chan believes that the problem of Vietnamese typography is not merely one of design, but requires fundamentally shifting the graphic design field to become more inclusive. “Counter Forms’ base character set includes Vietnamese, but also diacritics to cover Indigenous languages in this country,” he says. “Notions of

‘standardised’ character sets[…] are inherently political decisions.” Guided by equity, Counter Forms also oﬀers pricing based on the location of the licensee. “I think in many ways it’s about who we are deciding to include and exclude, and where we draw that line,” explains Chan. Counter Forms’ relative pricing is not common practice for the vast majority of foundries, which generally sell their typefaces for a high fixed price. Chan also feels that designers could be doing more to educate their clients about the possibilities of representing languages. “I think it’s largely on designers to put forward these notions of support and accessibility,” he says. “From a business perspective you can talk about its reach.” Expanding the market in general is certainly one way to reposition this design problem: is it better to have fewer people use your typeface because of how expensive it is, or is it better for as many people as possible to use it the world over? Counter Forms, then, joins a movement of type designers and foundries considering their work as being as much a social and political act as a marketdriven or aesthetic pursuit. Given how things are evolving, perhaps it won’t be long before NGUYỄN PHAN QUẾ MAI and myself will be able to include Vietnamese diacritics in our writing for global publications like The New York Times and The Guardian. There already exists, after all, Vietnamese Typography, a freely available ebook, which has directly led to typefaces being redesigned to support Vietnamese. Then there are the designers in Vietnam drawing inspiration from history and elsewhere to create typefaces that allow Vietnamese people greater access to aesthetic choices as expressed through typography. And then there are the designers, both Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese, working to change the field of commercial typography to be more inclusive. It’s a hopeful time and exciting to see the countervailing design forces at work in Vietnam and abroad which continue to challenge the status quo – one typeface at a time. E N D

Learning From Failure

Words Jenny Nordberg Illustration Leonhard Rothmoser Free design software for scanning, rendering or printing objects is easily found if you know where to look, but its imperfect code frequently introduces errors. While this is normally seen as detrimental, designer Jenny Nordberg has harnessed these glitches to help shape her new Free Applications chair. During the pandemic, my friends and I decided we should do a jewellery project for fun, since we had never designed jewellery before. My take was inspired by oﬃce supplies: I built small mock-ups from things like printer paper, staples and cardboard, and turned them into shapes that could resemble a pair of earrings, a ring or a bracelet. I scanned these rough mock-ups with my phone. I already knew the scans were going to be crappy – I built the mock-ups very fast – and that would be the aesthetic, but when I scanned them, they became really crappy. In fact, when I transferred all of the scans onto a 3D programme, they were so crappy that the computer made its own decisions, altering the design. When I exported this to my 3D printer, its software also made changes. That is the beauty of it. I decided to build a chair in the same way. I had an exhibition coming up – Strategies for Moving Freely at Design Museum Helsinki – and the museum had asked me to propose a project with a Finnish manufacturer, so I approached bioplastic makers Brightplus. Since I was using free design programmes, we discussed how it could be nice if the printer we used wasn’t a big industrial 3D printer, but a cheap home version. That way the print gets quite crappy too.

I started with a rough physical mock-up. My scanning programme is really poor when it comes to details, so I made the chair in lots of diﬀerent colours so that it would be easier to read. I uploaded the scan to my computer, using hacked software to then export it to another programme that could transform it into a printer file. Data gets lost during that transformation, because it simplifies the model, which would otherwise be too complex. The result is a smoother version of the first scan, which was quite jagged. To be able to print a chair on a small home 3D printer, I had to use a final programme to split the 3D model into 21 parts. As resources, these free programmes really suck – you have to work with them, not against them. You need to allow mistakes to be OK and almost beautiful, which is often how I work: I let something or someone else make the decisions. I have an overview, but I love this way of working where I’m more of a curator or art director. Let the software and the machines make the decisions. A couple of years ago there was an idea that, in the future, everyone would have a 3D printer at home. I don’t believe that, because working with these kinds of software and machines is quite hard, at least if you want a perfect result – you need to spend time learning how to use them. But when I work with these programmes, it’s super fast and cheap. I see these free applications as a shortcut, which means that they necessarily come with drawbacks. You shouldn’t be afraid to dive into those. I was once a beginner too, but these technologies can become surprisingly easy if you allow mistakes to be a part of them. As told to Evi Hall.

Soft Power Architecture Words Anniina Koivu Photographs Milo Keller

Architecture is a powerful tool. Explicitly so, when designed for those in positions of power. Its language serves to project authority. Political leaders build to seduce, to impress, and to intimidate. Hence, rather than as an art form, “architecture must be understood as an expression of power and propaganda,” argues critic Deyan Sudjic, who coined the term “power architecture” in his 2005 book The Edifice Complex (2005).

The Residence of the Swiss Ambassador in Algiers (2024), designed by Lütjens Padmanabhan Architektinnen.

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The residence’s garden was originally created by a director of Algiers’ botanical garden, but has now been revitalised by landscape architect Florian Bischoff.

Power architecture manifests in different forms, ranging from totalitarian to democratic to nationalistic. Embassy buildings are a prime example of power architecture, as they express the political stance of a government. The tangible embodiment of a nation on foreign soil, they also house the ambassador – who, ideally, is a facilitator of international cooperation, fostering connections between nations. Within this context of international relations, the new Residence of the Swiss Ambassador in Algiers expresses the power it wields in an unusual way. Modest and unimposing, the residence is a one-storey pavilion, tucked away in a large, quiet garden in the Hydra district of the Algerian capital. “Among the different proposals of the architectural competition, ours was the sole single-storey building,” says Oliver Lütjens, co-founder of the Zurich-based studio Lütjens Padmanabhan Architektinnen, which designed the building. “Its unpretentious design ultimately became the key winning factor.” In its relative modesty, the Residence of the Swiss Ambassador is historically atypical. The first permanent residential embassies were established by the mid-15th century, when the city-states of Milan and Venice set up representations at the French court of Louis XI, with the goal of overseeing political, economic, financial and legal affairs, despite being far from home. Today, the number of such structures has grown enormously: more than 240 nations currently carry out diplomatic tasks at more than 27,000 embassies worldwide. Individual embassy architecture varies, of course, according to factors such as geography, climate and the security level

“Its unpretentious design ultimately became the key winning factor.” —Oliver Lütjens

of the host country. Nevertheless, a number of basic architectural features often recur. The first of these is impermeable fortification, reminiscent of medieval castles, which intimidates thanks to its sheer size. Neoclassical style is another commonly seen feature: it conveys an aura of law and order through symmetry, dramatic use of columns and grandeur. For a long time, it was the preferred architectural language of democrats and despots alike.

By the end of the Second World War, however, neoclassicism had become so widely associated with fascism and totalitarianism that Western democracies sought to distance themselves from it. Instead, and fittingly, they chose a new language for their newly built societies, one that expressed post-war aspirations towards openness and transparency. This was the

In recent years, political unrest and security concerns have prompted a further shift in design. international style, characterised by reinforced concrete, steel and glass, along with open layouts behind glass-curtain walls. Modernism seemed to express the physical attributes of democracy and progress, and there were plenty of architects whose work fit the bill: Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen and Edward Durell Stone. Author David B. Peterson, in his 2023 publication US Embassies of the Cold War, describes this architectural era as a stark departure from neoclassicism and depicts modern embassies as “the curtain wall vs the Iron Curtain”. He goes on to highlight their new role as “billboards of cultural diplomacy”. Deliberately open and accessible for visitors, the new post-war embassies looked a bit like corporate showrooms. They included libraries, exhibition spaces, cinemas, lecture halls and more – they functioned, indeed, as showrooms of the “Western way of life”. Ths is not the context into which Lütjens Padmanabhan’s pavilion has emerged, however. In recent years, political unrest and security concerns have prompted a further shift in design. Due to outdated safety standards, former embassies built in the international style have been shut down or repurposed as hotels. Meanwhile, new constructions have reverted to creating imposing fortifications with impenetrable security – and even, in the case of the new US embassy in London, a moat. Former US secretary of state John Kerry registered his concern about this trend years ago. “We are building some of the ugliest embassies I’ve ever seen,” he said at a 2009 Foreign Relations Committee hearing.1 “We are 1

As reported in Philip Kennicott’s 2009 article ‘U.S. Embassy Architecture: Breaking the Diplomatic Ties That Bind Design’.

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with private spaces when not in use. “This allows the ambassador and their family to integrate the entire building into the family’s everyday life. Children can freely play in the garden, and run around the house,” adds Padmanabhan. Strategically placed doors unite the different spaces. So do the chosen materials: Algerian marble flooring extends throughout, while the kitchen and bathroom feature the same tiling. Graphical elements – such as a bright-yellow striped wall à la Sol LeWitt and vivid green window frames – add to this sense of unity. The built-in cupboards and wardrobes, both modest and practical, are a thoughtful choice considering the typical relocation of ambassadors every three years. Indeed, the residence embodies this essence of embracing impermanence: a temporary residence that is pragmatic and discreet, capable of welcoming a diverse array of guests with different needs, and offering them a sense of home during their stay. A few pieces of furniture and lighting are part of the house’s permanent fixtures. Some were carefully chosen, while others were custom-designed by Jörg Boner, a Zurich-based designer, for the two public areas of the house. In the salon, a collection of Oyster leather chairs (Boner, Wittmann, 2014) and Servomuto side tables (Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Zanotta, 1974) are casually arranged around a large carpet by Swiss textile designer Christoph Hefti, evoking the tradition of majlis (an Arabic term meaning “sitting room”). Meanwhile, the dining room is fitted with a 5m dining table, custom-designed by Boner, and Curv wooden chairs (Boner, Stattmann, 2021). “It exudes a touch of 1970s executive charm,” jokes Boner, noting the intriguing contrast in his choice of finishing. “You might expect such classical elegance to be crafted

building fortresses around the world. We’re separating ourselves from people in these countries. I cringe when I see what we’re doing.” In the current era, the built representation of many countries’ essence has moved from innovation, openness, and optimism towards a form of architecture dictated by suspicion and fear. All of which is what makes the Residence of the Swiss Ambassador in Algiers an outlier, not least for

“We wanted to avoid this kind of penthouse-piano-nobile arrangement and bring everything to the same level.”—Thomas Padmanabhan its decision to turn away from enclosure, and instead towards an open pavilion structure. With a relatively small footprint of 680sqm, the building efficiently accommodates all of the essential functions of a representative public site, while at the same time enabling its inhabitants to enjoy family life. Organised around an interior garden, the building is divided into public and private areas, which can also be opened up into one continuous, open floor plan. In addition to a foyer, a salon and a dining room for official purposes, the house comprises three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen that leads onto an outdoor patio, and a service kitchen, as well as a spacious roof terrace. The structure’s remarkable canopy roof comprises aluminium slabs, some of which are vertical while others are slanted. “The adjacent chancellery, already built on a neighbouring lot by Bakker & Blanc architectes in 2013, is designated solely for office use, which means that any public event – be it a dinner, lunch, discussion, reception or movie night – will be hosted in the residence,” explains Thomas Padmanabhan, Lütjens’s co-founder. Traditionally, diplomatic residences strictly separate private areas from public ones, typically placing the private quarters on the upper floor. “We wanted to avoid this kind of penthousepiano-nobile arrangement, and bring everything to the same level,” he explains. Taking their concept further, the architects designed the building with a single, open floor plan. Official areas seamlessly merge

“It exudes a touch of 1970s executive charm.”—Jörg Boner from mahogany. However, the table in ash is simply stained in this red-brown hue you see throughout the Kasbah old town of Algiers, whether as a furniture finish, or as paint on houses and fences.” Even the lighting solutions adhere to a flat hierarchy. “The starting idea was simple lightbulbs screwed into the ceiling,” recalls Boner. “Already done by Corbusier

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Jörg Boner curated and designed the furniture for the residence’s main public areas. The dining room showcases a 5m-long wooden table paired with his wooden Curv chairs and Enzo Mari’s Bambú vases (Danese, 1968/2015).

and others, I proposed to add a reflective disc to a glass globe. This basic typology adapts itself throughout the entire property – both indoors and outdoors.” Ceiling fixtures, wall-mounted lights, floor lamps

Informality often makes it much easier to connect with people than any formal event can do. and garden posts – all part of the same lighting family, they also reflect these egalitarian principles. Undermining the traditional monumentality of an embassy – and upending the symbolic power dynamics that come with it – the new residence is an oasis in a garden. It’s a pavilion designed with its residents in mind, which elegantly blurs the line between the formal and the informal. The architects have been able to transmit a sense of freedom in their design. “A freedom within a securely enclosed compound,” adds Thomas Padmanabhan. “Had we had to give in to security perimeters, barriers and 20mm protective glass, this pavilion would not have been possible.” How, however, will the residents of the building react? Will they feel deprived of their status and prestige in this relatively informal space? Will they feel they lack privacy in the absence of classical distinctions between public and private? The new residence will need to be lived in and experienced to know. For now, one diplomat and jury member for the project signalled his appreciation, pointing out how well-suited it was to one important and often overlooked diplomatic event in particular: the children’s birthday party. “Informality often makes it much easier to connect with people than any formal event can do.” Diplomacy is also called soft power – the ability to influence others through attraction, persuasion and cultural influence rather than through coercion or force. When applied to architecture, a building that successfully facilitates diplomacy through subtlety and nuance might rightly be called “softpower architecture”. E N D

In 1961, the first clandestine negotiations between the fledging Algerian government and French representatives unfolded at the Hotel Schweizerhof in Lucerne, Switzerland. A diplomat penned a report to Bern’s federal government, describing what looked like a promising possibility of reconciliation between the two governments with the words: “Bon début à Lucerne.” These same words are now immortalised on the foyer’s grand mirror. Adjacent stands a table, halved and preserved from the original hotel, serving as a poignant reminder of the historic meeting held

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over 60 years ago in Lucerne.

Tangible Action Words Louise Thurin Photographs Soum Eveline Bonkoungou

In Ouagadougou, I meet designer Hamed Bransonka-Bra Ouattara wearing his everyday uniform – a Faso dan Fani ensemble complemented by a T-shirt featuring the face of pan-African icon, Thomas Sankara, the president who oversaw the formation of Burkina Faso in 1984. “Bonne arrivée!” Ouattara’s workspace, aptly named Studio Hamed Ouattara, was established in the capital of landlocked Burkina Faso in the early 2000s. Operating using an atelier-apprenticeship model, his buzzing creative hub and workshop is home to a dozen artisans and welders (“soudeurs”) who collaborate under the guidance of Ouattara and his wife, Hahoua. The designer’s dedication to working within this framework serves as a testament to the importance of hands-on learning and practical skills development, reminiscent of age-old traditions observed among bronze casters in Burkina Faso. “I am proud to work this way and of being a pillar of my community,” he tells me, “[is] a sentiment that I believe would resonate with our ancestors as well.” This atelier approach, which is shared by many designers and artists on the continent, significantly contributes to the flourishing of Africa’s various design scenes, yet is born out of the current limitations of art education in Sahelian countries (Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Chad), which are grappling with economic-growth hurdles and terrorist attacks. In 2019, Benin’s Africa Design School, the first formal design school in West Africa, opened its doors, welcoming students from neighbouring countries. Yet according to Ouattara, the enrolment fee of 1,960,000 F.CFA per year (around £2,600) remains “too expensive for potential foreign students coming from Burkina Faso”. In his workshop, Ouattara and his assistants proudly present me with several pieces currently being welded: Dounan, an elegant, throne-like armchair featuring

a fan-shaped backrest, and Game Over, an all-metal table, evoking a popular African strategy game, Awalé. His designs – influenced by both Sudano-Sahelian architecture and Atomic Age style – have garnered growing international recognition, finding a home in esteemed private and public collections, from aﬄuent homes in Abidjan, Miami, Cape Town and Brussels, to the Denver Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. Ouattara’s furniture is characterised by innovative use of scavenged materials, including industrial metal debris and colourful eroded petrol drums – without its own oil production, Burkina Faso imports petroleum in these canisters, which then typically go to waste. This distinctive approach towards materials is Ouattara’s response to his immediate surroundings, where recycling, limited resources, constant power outages and political unrest (not least the two coups d’état the nation experienced in 2022) are the norm. Despite these challenges, the studio produces limited-edition metal pieces, each of which is meticulously crafted by hand. Alongside his use of scrap metal, Ouattara is newly interested in salvaged wood, which he and his team find in nearby scrubland. “I am now drawn to working with the wood of dead trees that are plentiful in our bushes, a direct consequence of climate change,” he explains to me. “Their integration into my design is a natural evolution of my craft – a stride toward harmonising with our environment and valuing all of its resources in a spirit of sustainability and reverence for nature.” Looking ahead, Ouattara envisions expanding his presence with the opening of a showroom in Ouagadougou and the extension of his workspace through a digital laboratory equipped with 3D printers and laser-cutting machines that will be powered through the installation of much-needed solar panels. These

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endeavours are possible thanks to state funding and the success of his latest series, Bolibana, executed in collaboration with the design galleries Foreign Agent and Friedman Benda. The expansion of Ouattara’s studio is not just a reflection of the growing number of projects he is involved in; it shows an intention to invest in his local community. “By making this significant investment on Burkinabè soil, I am fulfilling my role as a citizen, contributing to the collective eﬀort of reclaiming our space and soul in the midst of terrorism which currently aﬄicts the Faso and its neighbours, Mali and Niger,” he says. Today, Studio Hamed Ouattara stands as testament to the transformative power of art and design, creating jobs for talented individuals. It came to light during our conversation that Ouattara professes profound faith – in animism, in art, and in the future of his nation. Following our conversation, he invited me and a group of his fellow artists to accompany him on a journey the next day to the countryside, to a place far away from Ouagadougou’s clamour. As the temperature reached 42°C, we found ourselves enveloped in a secluded haven, an open-air sanctuary inhabited by his sculptures. While I cannot delve further into the details of this particularly private scene, it is clear to me that therein lies the source of Ouattara’s inspiration as a designer. By turning discarded materials into objects, Ouattara not only enriches Burkina Faso’s cultural heritage but also contributes to ongoing conversations on the management of international trade’s byproducts, fostering a form of sustainable development that centres social impact, both in Africa and in the wider globalisation of contemporary design. “Navigating through this crisis requires tangible actions,” he says, “with spirituality as a social and creative underpinning.”

Metalwork in Studio Hamed Ouattara, an atelier founded in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Material

Hamed Bransonka-Bra Ouattara (left) has built his practice in Ouagadougou using waste materials sourced from in and around the city. His work makes particular use of discarded petrol drums, in which Burkina Faso imports petroleum.

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The studio operates according to an atelierapprenticeship model, providing employment to talented artisans. Ouattara now plans to expand the studio by opening a showroom and equipping the workshop with new machines.

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In 2023, Ouattara exhbiited his work at Friedman Benda, Los Angeles, as part of an exhibition called Bolibana.

Italy’s textile district, but her work is often delayed while larger and less complex orders are prioritised. In the future, Brunnhuber plans to open her own micro mill in Denmark to produce her fabrics locally and cater to companies on the smaller end of the mass production scale. “In the industry 300m is considered the minimum production quantity for a roll of fabric, and you generally have to pay a subsidy for anything less,” she says. “We need to put systems in place to produce less in a way which makes economic sense.” Rather than hiding the seams of her garments, Brunnhuber’s fringes flamboyantly highlight them. Her clothes tell a production story that Brunnhuber hopes will provoke her customers and the wider fashion industry to reflect on their consumption habits. She exhibits her garments alongside their fabric to illustrate the process, and the patchwork of carefully divided textures reminds me of seeing farmlands from a descending airplane and glimpsing a view of a laborious and often hidden process. “I realise that I’ve made producing clothing quite complicated,” she says. “And in some ways that’s a really good thing, because it’s actually way too easy to make a lot of clothes, and I think that’s led to disconnection and overproduction.” Words Helen Gonzalez Brown

Image by Fabian Frinzel.

Fringe Benefits.Uneven fringe hangs from the chest of Sarah Brunnhuber’s crisp cotton jacket like haphazardly chopped doll’s hair. Even when it falls in more conventional places, such as the arms or the back, the fringe doesn’t recall the jacket of a biker, a cowboy or a rockstar. It is, instead, wispy like baby hair or vermicelli noodles; the shoulder tufts are more like budding angel feathers than a military epaulette. “I’ve kind of coined the term ‘form follows technique’,” Brunnhuber says, explaining that she doesn’t decide where the fringes on her garments are positioned – these design elements are an expression of how her fabric is woven and cut. “I think of the fringes as being my design assistant,” she says. “I think of them as cooler than me – they bring an edge and a rawness to the design that I would never think of myself.” Instead of cutting a clothing pattern out of a rectangular bolt of fabric and throwing the scraps away, Brunnhuber initially wanted to weave fabric on a loom with carefully placed empty spaces in order to create a ready-made pattern and avoid waste. After realising these blank spaces would disrupt the tension of the loom and cause it to malfunction, however, she replaced them with patches of looser weaves which she chops apart to make her signature fringes, creating garments with no oﬀcuts. Since starting her company Stem and releasing her Edition One collection, Brunnhuber has also collaborated on a zero-waste line with luxury fashion brand Ganni. “I try to position Stem in between craft and industry, merging high tech and low tech,” she explains. “The fabric can be mass produced, but I think of the cutting technique as a craft, which is quite interesting to do at a time when hand crafts are dying out, especially in textiles.” But convincing mills to make a challenging new fabric is a diﬃcult task, since it takes time to experiment with weaving it. Brunnhuber also uses certified yarns such as recycled or organic cotton, and many mills don’t have these yarns certified for use on their machines when dealing with small quantities. Creative hub Lottozero has helped connect her with mills in Prato,

Objects in Review

Dazzle Camouflage Rhymes with Shipping Containers

Words Tetsuo Mukai Illustration Leonhard Rothmoser Most things that we use and consume reach us though complex global shipping processes. They’re systems we know exist but don’t necessarily grasp the full extent of. When they work, products and goods materialise as if out of thin air, with no eﬀort on our part. An important innovation that made this magic possible is the modern shipping container. These International Standards Organization-certified (ISO) containers are the backbone of modern logistics. The main diﬀerence between them and the hundreds of unruly sacks previously used to move grains and other goods is their ridged metal surface, a particular and recognisable type of corrugation specifically designed for container side panels. It is lightweight yet robust, enabling the containers to be stacked and thereby allowing huge quantities of things to be moved across the ocean at the same time. Container technology, and just as importantly its standardisation, has revolutionised the global shipping industry since its invention in the 1950s,

and this shift in how we move objects is one reason why goods made in China can be cheaper than local counterparts in the rest of the world. Its unsurpassed efficiency made the idea of physical distance less relevant, blurring the border between here and there. Today, we can frequently neither see, nor comprehend, the distance between manufacture and consumption thanks to the ease of movement and availability of goods that come with the shipping container. Prior to these changes, during the First World War, the British Navy invented dazzle camouflage. Thought to be one of the first human-made camouflage designs, this iconic pattern, with its randomly placed stripes in various widths and pitches, was intended to obscure a ship’s direction and speed of travel, making it difficult for an enemy to aim at it accurately. The camouflage proved effective, given that visual references were used heavily for locating ships at sea, and demonstrated that our perception of physical objects can be manipulated to gain an advantage. The pattern was applied on all types of vessels, but particularly on ships carrying supplies across the North Sea,

where German U-boats presented a substantial threat, disrupting the British supply chain. It was widely used until the Second World War, when locating ships using sonar became the standard, making visual camouflage redundant. Unlike dazzle camouflage, the shipping container has more or less retained its original function through the years. But during the Covid-19 lockdowns, as we witnessed the piling up of shipping containers in ports and the spread of empty shelves in shops, it was made clear how complicated and fragile the world of logistics really is. What we thought were discreet stagehands in our lives turned out to be precarious contraptions in need of constant attention. Echoing the way in which sonar made ships visible again, lockdown broke the veneer of technological sophistication, and in turn made us appreciate the invisible processes that make the things we take for granted possible.

Für Edward I’m in bed, trying to read, but pat. Edward has other ideas.

Words Oli Stratford Illustrations Kristina Micotti Philosophy

Edward is my cat, which is a relationship that comes with an important corollary when considering pets. “If I have a dog, my dog has a human,” writes Donna Haraway in The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness, her 2003 book examining connections between species. “[What] that means concretely is at stake.” So, with Haraway’s reflection in mind, let’s try to figure out what Edward and my relationship means at present. I am a human,

Now that he has my attention, Edward changes tack. He hops down off the mattress, before swinging round to pop his front paws onto the bed frame, his face beginning to winkle under the duvet. “We cannot simply ask animals about what they are thinking or feeling,” writes philosopher Lars Svendsen in Understanding Animals: Philosophy for Dog and Cat Lovers, “and it’s not always easy interpreting their body language.” Hmm, maybe, but then Edward has just trampled Understanding Animals, and it’s pretty clear what he’s after: Edward wants to get into bed. I lift up the duvet to create a tunnel, arching my legs as a buttress, and he slips in. Cue contented purring as he rolls around in the hollow, while I return to Svendsen: “What is it like to be a [cat]?1 It is a strange question. What is it like to be a human? Are these questions essentially different?” “Miaow,” says Edward, tucked up in bed. Sharing my flat with a cat entails negotiation, not least because Edward and I have different ideas about what its elements are for. Shelves are not for displaying ornaments, for instance, but for weaving across precariously. Said ornaments, meanwhile, are not for appreciation, but for slowly pushing until they smash to the floor. Their remnants should then be peered at, with any responsibility for their downfall met with wide-eyed incredulity, before another ornament can begin to be slid over the edge to join its fallen comrade. The sofa is for sitting on – here we are in agreement – but also for shredding when you enter the room, whereas bookcases are not for storage, but rather for hiding atop from the hoover (who is, in Edward’s opinion, a known bastard). The table, Edward concedes, is for dining, but ideally you should be sat amongst its plates like a purring pepper pot, your arse slowly reversing into a fellow diner’s face while your nose and mouth determinedly lower into the serving bowl. “Meaning is attributed to the world by the beings that live and act within it,” writes Svendsen. “The world in itself is meaningless, and there is no neutral meaning in the world either because different beings[…] will always project their own meaning onto it.” Edward and I may be looking at the same things, but we project onto them different meanings. I, for instance, currently see a keyboard, useful for typing

“What is it like to be a cat? It is a strange question. What is it like to be human? Are these questions essentially different?” —Lars Svendsen trying to read; Edward is a cat, trying to stop me reading. Each time I attempt to turn the page: pat. A paw extends, tapping smartly at the curlicue of paper. “We are not one,” Haraway says, “and being depends on getting on together.” Pat. You can probably tell that Edward and I are not cooperating. The reading is continuing; the paws are growing more insistent. By now, in fact, they’re pressed quite firmly on top of the book, with Edward’s face peeping over the dust jacket. It’s actually quite an expressive tableau, because Edward is quite an expressive cat. He’s absolutely tiny, for instance, but in possession of outsized waggling ears, and huge lamp-like eyes. So, quite a gobliny cat, but still cute, yeah? Meanwhile, he has a mutation in one of the genes that codes his fur, an effect of which is that his hairs have a proclivity towards the dishevelled. Basically, he is genetically rumpled. At the moment, for example, his chest and face are sleek and otterlike, but his back and bum are wild and haystacky. He’s a cat in two halves, but his body has suddenly pulled itself into harmony in order to arch up over my book, whose cover slams down under its new weight of cat. His flecked fur ruffles in delight, and he trills as he marches across the paper, rubbing his face on its sharp corners – Edward has triumphed over literature.

Svendsen actually asks the question about dogs, but I’m using creative licence.

Philosophy

this essay, but Edward sees bh2ekr45 `zasq ÛıÌÓ◊ CDFR, which I assume is his way of capturing the fact that a keypad is a warm place to sit the moment I leave the room. What is at play in all of our spatial negotiations is the idea of an umwelt, a term coined by biologist Jakob Johann Freiherr von Uexküll to capture an organism’s subjective reality as governed by their sensory apparatus. “Thus we ultimately reach the conclusion that each subject lives in a world composed of subjective realities alone,” von Uexküll wrote in his 1934 monograph A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men, “and that even the Umwelten themselves represent only subjective realities.” Edward and I may share a physical space, but we do not share an umwelt – which should be clear because I’ve just found him pushing his face into a shoe. As a result of their umwelten, pets are frequently design resistant – they confound expectations, uncover new aﬀordances in objects, and inadvertently hack spaces and products in manners that humans rarely expect. “It is easy to dismiss the culture of pets as rooted in a human desire for control, namely for a relationship with another being that is entirely on our own terms,” notes architecture writer Paul Dobraszczyk in his 2023 book Animal Architecture: Beasts, Buildings and Us. “But animals are not merely commodities; they bite back in ways that we cannot usually foresee.” One area in which this becomes apparent, for instance, is the realm of specialist pet products. Over the years Edward has been bought countless cat beds and toys, only to largely ignore them in favour of sitting in the cardboard boxes in which they arrived, or else merrily twanging the loose Sellotape that once secured their packaging. Nevertheless, I keep buying him products because, as Dobraszczyk notes, “[opening] up to animals means de-centring ourselves.” Now, I know that what I’ve just said is not in the spirit of Dobraszczyk – he’s talking “challenging long-standing anthropocentrism of human thought and ways of being in the world”, I’m talking buying a toy mouse on a string – but shopping for pet products is one way in which I like to imagine that I’m putting Edward first.2 I buy him products because it feels like I’m doing something for him, which isn’t surprising 2

– there’s a whole industry set up to make people think this way. In their 2023 book Pet Revolution: Animals

“The emotional bond between owner and pet is often, perhaps to some degree always, bound up in anthropomorphic projections.” —John Bradshaw and the Making of Modern British Life, historians Jane Hamlett and Julie-Marie Strange set out how the pet industry has “long exploited people’s aﬀection for animals by encouraging them to spend money on pet products,” citing the example of Spillers dog food. In 1919, Spillers launched an advertising campaign that encouraged customers to see their product as more than mere nutrition. Spillers, the campaign suggested, was not simply sustenance, but rather a cooked meat covenant between dog and human, expressing care and aﬀection with every can. “Pet him by all means but make your fondness practical by giving him Spillers Victoria,” the adverts ran, with Hamlett and Strange summarising that dog food was no longer just a functional product, but instead something specifically marketed as “an expression of love”. Not to disparage Spillers, but I don’t think dog food is an expression of love. More widely, I’m not sure any pet product is an expression of love – at least not without provisos. “If you were to focus on one particular mortal sin within the modern study of animals,” writes Svendsen, “it would be the use of anthropomorphism.” When I shop for Edward outside of bare necessities, I’m not really putting him first – after all, he ignores most of the things I buy him in favour of getting back to his busy schedule of screaming at other cats through the window. Instead, I buy him things because I like to be bought things, and I then carry this element of my experience over to my understanding of his. “The emotional bond between owner and pet is often, perhaps to some degree always, bound up in anthropomorphic projections,” notes anthropologist John Bradshaw in his 2011 book

I also gabble admiring nonsense at him. This morning, for instance, I assured him that he would have a strong mandate if he were ever to run for mayor of the flat.

In Defence of Dogs. “Many people appear unthinkingly to treat their animals as if they were little people.” Bradshaw may have a point. I can’t help but notice, for instance, that Edward has barely touched the 31cm-tall soft toy tiger I bought him.3 Anthropomorphism, as with many areas of contemporary life, often plays out in relation to pets through the idea of transaction – a predominant mode through which consumer societies seek to express and expand interpersonal relationships. “But I think pets do quite well without all those things,” suggests Sofia Lagerkvist, one of the co-founders of Stockholm-based design studio Front, “because they tend to just want to chew the toilet paper or something anyway.” Founded in 2003, Front initially made its name with Design by Animals (2004), a series of investigations in which the studio gave a material or object to an animal in order to see what they would do with it – the result, whatever the animal’s response, became the final project.4 Design by Animals was not design for animals,5 and Lagerkvist is sceptical as to the value of much dedicated pet design, yet she nevertheless understands the desire to mediate the human/pet relationship through objects. “It’s a sign of our idea of pets,” she explains. “We create these objects as a way of inviting them to be a part of our families and for the feeling that they’re comfortable. They’re an acknowledgement of the fact that pets are a part of our lives.” The pet, of course, perceives nothing of this (although that’s not to say that they don’t enjoy a comfy place to sleep and interesting things to play with), but this has little impact on our anthropomorphic projections. Perhaps this is to be expected. After all, even the idea of a pet as a specific kind of animal entails projection. In Pet Revolution, Hamlett and Strange observe that “there are no pets in nature”, with the word having only acquired its present meaning in the 19th century to describe “a relationship with a special animal, cared for within the home”. Edward fits this

Image courtesy of Front.

3 4

I thought he might like to see what the bigger cats look like. A two-layer wallpaper was handed to rats and gerbils, who gnawed through the top sheet to reveal patches of pattern beneath; clay coat pegs were constricted into form by the coils of a snake; and a fantastically bizarre lampshade was created by recording the flightpath of a fly around a lightbulb. Instead, the project was a kind of send-up of designers’ pretensions to be in control of their own processes. “It was an exploration of chance, and inviting that into the design process,” says Lagerkvist. “For us, animals were a vehicle to have diﬀerent conversations about design.”

definition, clearly, but it would be just as easy for him not to. Lots of cats aren’t pets, just as many species that were kept as pets in the 19th and early 20th centuries – squirrels and starlings, for example – would now raise eyebrows if brought into the home. While certain animals may naturally be better suited to the pet relationship than others (the long history of dog and human interaction, Haraway argues, can be seen as a process of “co-habitation, co-evolution, and embodied cross-species sociality”, that has left dogs as “[partners] in the crime of human evolution”), the category itself remains artificial. “We base our definition of ‘the pet’ on the criteria developed by the historian Keith Thomas for application to humananimal companionship in the past,” explain Hamlett and Strange. “[An] animal kept in the boundaries of domestic space; that was named; and that was not intentionally reared for food.” As a test, I apply these criteria to Edward: 1) he is currently sprawled on the sofa, pawing at a Uniqlo fleece I bought him; 2) he not only has a name, but countless nicknames;6 as it stands, I have no plans to eat him. Of Thomas’s tripartite criteria, it’s the idea of shared domestic space that seems the most crucial,7

Gerbil-produced wallpaper, from Front’s Design by Animals.

particularly as Disegno’s Instagram account has begun filling up with a new type of design content over the past year. Whenever I’ve scrolled through our feed recently, I’ve seen a steady stream of advertising imagery from brands that focus on proud tails and inquisitive snouts, all in service of newly released 6 7

Monkey, Lord Potato and Susan B. Handsomey, to name just a few. Although the pets themselves might put not eating them top.

Philosophy

objects for domestic animals. Pet content on Instagram is hardly surprising, but what is unusual is the fact that these designs aren’t being manufactured or distributed by traditional pet brands such as Zooplus, Pets at Home and Fressnapf, but are instead the work of dedicated “design” companies drawn from the realms of furniture, fashion and products. In the last year alone, furniture brands Hay and Poltrona Frau have launched lines for pets, with Ikea having taken the plunge in 2017, while

me a few years ago if we would be working in the pet industry, I would have been like, ‘Why would we be doing that?’”), he notes that the trend is, among other things, responding to an economic imperative. “People are spending more money in that space,” he explains, adding that although Layer’s pet products are not particularly expensive – the first question Earth Rated asked the studio was “have you ever designed a product under $10?” – a general increase in spending across the field has raised consumer expectations. Worldwide, there are somewhere around 471m pet dogs and 370m pet cats, with Bloomberg estimating that the associated pet industry is worth roughly $320bn – a figure that is expected to rise to $500bn by 2030. The largest percentage of that market is food, and veterinary treatment is also a sizeable element, but accessories and objects still form a significant portion of sales, with Britain alone spending £900m on pet products in 2020.8 Meanwhile, Hamlett and Strange report that Pets at Home, the UK’s largest pet retailer, enjoyed “record-breaking sales worth £1bn with a 35 per cent rise in pre-tax profit to £116.4m in the year to March 2021”. The economic trend, as Hubert notes, is clear, and it seems no coincidence that it appears to have accelerated during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic: a period that saw a large increase in pet ownership (and, correspondingly, pet abandonment), as well as increased spending on home furnishings. “People are looking for things that are a bit more sensitive to their needs and sensibilities,” Hubert says. Whereas traditional pet companies have typically “gone to a factory in China, sourced things, and put their branding on it,” he suggests, the category is now suﬃciently valuable to ensure that “somebody at a company might go, ‘You know what, we are going to invest X amount of cash and we are going to get it designed properly.’ That kind of design-driven pet brand is relatively new.” I think that’s true, but it’s also worth stressing that all products are designed, even those that are not “design-driven”. I’ve just looked over at Edward, for example, who is busy playing on his cat tree. He’s leaping between its platforms, tucking into the covered boxes that adorn its structure at various levels, and occasionally batting at the toy mouse anchored to its apex with elastic – a material that began life as white, but which is now shamefully

A dog bed, designed by Hay.

fashion companies Celine and Louis Vuitton have also been busy promoting ranges of pet accessories. Alongside these forays into the market from established design companies, a number of “design-led” pet brands, such as Germany’s LucyBalu, Canada’s Papuk, and the US’s Cat Person, have launched, professing to oﬀer more considered, beautiful products that are beneficial to both pets and the people they live with. “Cats and persons. Two very diﬀerent animals living under the same roof,” reads Cat Person’s website. “This relationship is a special one. It’s not owner & owned. It’s friends, loved ones, occasional frenemies. And it’s one that has been neglected by the pet industry. Until now.” So… why now? “Let’s just crudely call it a trend,” says Benjamin Hubert, creative director of British design studio Layer. In 2020, Layer collaborated with Cat Person to design the brand’s cat bed and feeding bowls, and three years later the studio returned to the sector with a range of toys for dog brand Earth Rated (for whom Layer has also worked on branding). While Hubert acknowledges that Layer’s work within pet design has surprised him, particularly given that the studio has hitherto focused on more developed design fields such as consumer technology (“If you’d asked

To give you a sense of rough ratios, the UK spent £2.9bn on pet food and £2.1bn on veterinary services in that same year.

black with saliva. As you might imagine, Edward’s tree is very grotty. It’s made from low-quality MDF that peeks through in patches where powerful paws have shredded the tree’s fleecy cover, which was, even in its salad days, grotesque. But Edward loves every inch of it. The moment I walk into the room it’s set up in, he rockets up its stepped platforms, meeting me face-to-face for a pat, before chasing after the various ribbons draped over its nested structure. And if his enemy the hoover decides to rear its dreadful sucky face, the tree is the crucial jumping oﬀ point from which Edward can escape to the bookcase. As a product, it’s clearly fit for purpose, but there is still a resistance towards labelling objects of its kind as “design”. “Which, really, is a way to look at the design world’s prejudices,” Lagerkvist suggests. “Love for animals seems to be universal, but it’s an interesting point as to why design has decided that these kinds of products are low status. It makes me wonder if there are certain categories where, if you mix in design, design seems to lose its status?” Part of the issue, she notes, is that products for pets are typically sourced

Images courtesy of Hay and Layer.

Layer’s dog toys for Earth Rated.

through channels that diﬀer to those through which high-status design, such as furniture, is acquired. “If something is ‘designed’, it’s supposed to tick certain boxes. Design for animals hasn’t been ‘invited’ to become design. It’s sold in regular shops or on platforms where people are making things at home. There’s such an enormous market for these objects, but it’s not considered ‘good design’, because it’s available somewhere else.” She’s not wrong. I bought Edward’s cat tree on Amazon in 2019 and, five years on, the platform still seems to oﬀer a decent overview of the market – a search for “cat trees” brings up seven pages worth

of functionally identical products, all sold by different brands: Yaheetech, PawHut, Feandrea and Jissbon. They would all, I suspect, delight Edward, but they’re not objects you would readily associate with high design values. “There are a lot of products out there,” confirms Mathias Wahrenberger, who co-founded the cat brand LucyBalu with industrial designer Sebastian Frank in 2019. “The pet market is growing and already huge,” he says, “but it’s also been going in the wrong direction from a consumer standpoint, because the products are getting cheaper and cheaper.” Looking at LucyBalu’s website, I can see his point. The brand sells a variety of cat platforms, wall-mounted hammocks and scratching posts that meet all the same functional needs as Edward’s tree, but represent a clear step up in terms of construction and materials. There is, for instance, a startling absence of poorly upholstered fleece. Instead, LucyBalu’s products seem tasteful, well thought through, and solidly made. “We have the parameters of the cat, which are not discussable because if we just do nice looking products that don’t work for them, then it doesn’t make sense,” says Wahrenberger. “But we also want to offer a nice product for the human.” This split between pet and human is characteristic of the field, whose current development pivots around the idea that objects ought to meet the functional demands of pets, while also aspiring to match human aesthetic norms for interior objects – not look shit, basically. “Pleasing the pet and having something aesthetic don’t need to be mutually exclusive,” says Hubert, “and I think there is a happy medium where you can have things that are sensitively designed, but which also work for the needs and behaviours of the pet.” This ethos is abundantly clear in the work of Papuk, a Canadian cat brand founded in 2022 by interior designer Vazken Karageozian, whose Connect cat tree is a modular series of ash veneer shelves, balanced elegantly atop solid ash dowels. To complete the design, soft cushions, scratch pads and dangling toys can be affixed to each shelf using brown leather straps, such that the tree can be adapted to suit the needs of the cat over time, and individual elements replaced when they become worn. It is, irritatingly, nicer than all of the furniture in my flat, and cats seem to like it too. During my Zoom conversation with Karageozian, one of his cats perched happily atop it throughout, exhibiting the kind of business savvy that should see them immediately appointed Papuk’s head

Philosophy

of marketing. “We share our homes with cats and a lot of people are so proud of their cats, but they have the cat tree hidden somewhere in a corner because they don’t want people to see it,” Karageozian tells me. “Regular cat trees are everywhere – they’re a staple – but they all look exactly the same, which is kind of hideous.” I decide not to show him Edward’s. A similar motivation towards integrating human aesthetic standards into pet products is also present

“We make so many things for the home, and a dog bed is very visible in a space, so why not also come up with something for pets?’” —Mette Hay in a new collection of dog accessories from Danish design brand Hay. Overseen by Mette Hay, creative director of the company’s accessories line, the collection is thoroughly charming, oﬀering a range of colourful dog beds, toys and bowls, as well as leashes and collars. “Looking at a lot of the pet things that were around, we found that it was all being done in very grey, brown and neutral tones,” Hay tells me, “so it was easy for us to see that we could approach this in a way that would feel more Hay. I felt we could shake things up a bit.” The elements of the range that I’ve seen in person seem to be considerably higher quality than many equivalent products on the market, but Hay keeps our conversation surrounding its motivation light. “We just felt it could be fun, you know,” she tells me. “My driving passion throughout the years has been to search for something that our business is not already working on. We make so many things for the home, and a dog bed is very visible in a space, so why not also come up with something for pets?” If I were a dog, I think, I’d definitely want Hay’s bed. Except, I probably wouldn’t, because I’m mixing up my umwelten. Hay’s collection is beautiful, but its key design decisions are not ones that pets are likely to benefit from directly. That’s not to say that it’s not

an excellent product that dogs will like – it looks very comfortable and nicely squashy – just that the unique qualities of the design are principally attractive to humans, rather than dogs. Much of the collection’s pleasure comes from its colours, for instance, but a number of the shades used are not actually visible to dogs, who cannot perceive red. More generally, both Hay and Papuk’s pieces highlight the manner in which many design elements within pet products are almost entirely about human preference, rather than the needs of the other animals who will use them – which isn’t a criticism, but a reality of the way in which diﬀerent species engage with the world. “Dogs are not concerned by what a thing is but by what they can do with the thing, which will largely concern whether it can be sat on, lain on, chewed or eaten,” Svendsen explains. “A dog has only, to a small extent, a preference for things that have one form rather than another – what’s crucial is whether the thing fits in its mouth or not.” Karageozian makes this same point in relation to Papuk’s Connect tree, particularly given that his design exposes how pet products cater to two user classes simultaneously: meeting the needs of the animal, while also appealing to the human who wields the wallet. “[What we’ve done with Connect] is not for the cat itself, because there are already cat trees that function,” he says. “It’s about people investing in their own spaces.” Both Hay and Papuk seem to have accepted the existing functionality of pet products as largely suﬃcient;9 what can be worked on instead is the manner in which they are integrated within shared spaces. This duality within pet products matches the duality of pets themselves – a set of creatures whose existence as a distinct category of animal is dependent upon their relationship to humans and the spaces in which they are kept. It is a definition that is doubly awkward in terms of the power hierarchies it introduces (Hamlett and Strange note that within the idea of being “a pet” is the idea of being “subjugated to another’s power and [losing] one’s individual personhood”), as well as for the frequently unreasonable expectations it places onto non-human animals. Edward, for example, 9

There are, however, debates to be had around sustainability given the quality of both companies’ products. “It’s the last cat tree you’ll ever buy,” Karageozian tells me, contrasting this to the fact that many pet products are low-quality and disposable. “The elephant in the room with the pet industry is that it creates a lot of waste,” agrees Hubert.

Philosophy

is lovely to live with. He’s gentle, cuddly and extremely friendly, but on occasion he can also be manic and destructive, which is probably true of most cats and dogs. He shreds and he smashes, and has absolutely no concept of the financial or emotional value of anything he comes across – if it’s whackable, it’s going to get whacked. “They’re creatures that destroy things for fun,” notes Hubert, “so in thinking about them, your mindset is totally diﬀerent to how it would be in other areas of design where you’re perhaps more precious about an object.” He’s not wrong. I once bought a small ceramic cat that looks a bit like Edward and have suspended it with ribbon from metal shelving above my television console: a fond, decorative tribute to the cat with whom I live. Now, however, when Edward has decided that he wants food, he jumps onto the console and rears up on his hind legs, stretching upwards with his front paws to strike his ceramic double in the face, aggressively clanking it into the shelf – an action that he has learnt will prompt me to get up and make him dinner in order to stop the attack. If it weren’t for the pleasure of watching him assault his own avatar in the name of chicken biscuits, this casual destructiveness would be annoying, but it’s also just a natural consequence of housing a non-human animal in a space that is laden with human meaning. “It may be disheartening for[…] owners to hear this,” notes Svendsen, “but you cannot blame [an animal] because it doesn’t understand something it doesn’t have the prerequisites to understand.” One outcome of Svendsen’s call for improved interspecies understanding is to encourage greater consideration of the ways in which domestic space is set up for pets. Cats, for instance, experience a space as essentially “vertically oriented”, explains Svendsen, “while a human space is more horizontal”. This is why “a cat will continually jump up onto things and down from them, and often choose to jump over things instead of walking around them.” As such, any eﬀort to restrict their movement across shelves, tables and the like is fundamentally contrary to the manner in which they process and move through space – you can do it up to a point, depending on how tractable your cat is, but you’re hardly accommodating their natural behaviour. Equally, cats struggle with change, and form strong territorial connections to a particular space and the manner in which it has been organised – introducing new elements or altering existing ones is stressful. “[Cats] are happy once they have been able to set up

a complete set of associations between what each feature of that environment looks, sounds and smells like,” explains Bradshaw in his 2013 book Cat Sense. “This explains why cats immediately pay attention to anything that changes – move a piece of furniture from one side of the room to the other, and your cat, finding that its predictable set of associations have been broken, will feel compelled to inspect it carefully before it can settle down again.”

“They’re creatures that destroy things for fun, so your mindset is totally diﬀerent to how it would be in other areas of design.” —Benjamin Hubert Dogs are more adaptable within spaces given that their predominant connection is to the people they live with rather than a territory, but this is not to say that their insertion into human spaces is trouble free. Like cats, dogs chew and scratch, and their experience of the world is heavily mediated by scent, as opposed to our emphasis on vision. “[Dogs’] noses must surely be insulted by what must seem to them to be the overpowering odours of our detergents, fabric softeners and ‘room fragrances’,” writes Bradshaw. “[Presumably] they just get used to them, accepting them as an unavoidable downside of sharing a living space with the humans they are so closely bonded to.” This notion of dogs accommodating humans is significant, not least because the same kind of interspecies accommodation is frequently missing on the other side. “[Many] owners will prefer not to encourage their dogs to go upstairs, or sleep on their beds with them,” writes Bradshaw, adding that these relatively minor restrictions on movement are frequently paired with restrictions on behaviours inconvenient to humans, but which come naturally to dogs – barking, herding, chasing, gnawing. “[Dogs], as living beings, cannot be re-engineered every decade or so as if they were computers or cars.10 In the past, when dogs’ functions were mostly rural, it was 58

Images courtesy of Layer.

accepted that they were intrinsically messy and needed to be managed on their own terms. Today, by contrast, many pet dogs live in circumscribed, urban environments, and are expected to be simultaneously better behaved than the average human child and as self-reliant as an adult.” A different way of putting Bradshaw’s point would be to acknowledge that pets introduce design challenges for domestic spaces that a lot more could be done to address. “A pet is a user,” says Hubert, “and if there’s anything I’ve learned from working on lots of different things, it’s that all design is just user challenges, user problems, user solving.” Hubert’s bed and bowls for Cat Person, for instance, appear more considerate to cats’ needs than most. The bed comes with a cosy, felt canopy that transforms it into a covered hideaway, but this canopy can also be folded down to offer a more open bed, or else removed entirely. This checks out with my experiences of Edward. Sometimes he wants to nap quietly under duvets and throws, burrowing as deep as he can, while at other points he scrabbles up my back to lay dozily on my shoulders, peering out at the flat from on high. “Cats are really fickle, to the point of hilarity,” notes Hubert, “so you can’t have a one-size-fits all solution. The [Cat Person] bed is just showing a bit of empathy towards the fact that they might sometimes want to cosy up somewhere dark, and they might sometimes want to have a bit more peripheral vision.” Cat Person’s bowls, meanwhile, break with an industry norm of scaling down dog bowls, which typically have straight sides. Instead, Layer has designed its bowls to flare outwards towards their rim so as to avoid agitating the cat’s whiskers as it eats, while an attachable stand means that the bowl can be raised up once a cat grows out of kittenhood to ensure it remains at a comfortable eating height. “Which is all very simple,” says Hubert, “but just shows a bit more consideration for the cat. I think anybody who can’t see the value added by design in any field misses a trick, because there are always things that can be improved. Design shouldn’t be vanity – it’s there to solve problems.” 10 The irony being that dogs have been subject to intensive breeding programmes to encourage particular behaviours and traits. Despite this, Bradshaw notes, there is an increasing proportion of dogs whose breeds were originally developed to fulfil specific tasks, but whose “sole [contemporary] function is to be family pets. Although many working types have successfully adapted, others were and still are poorly suited to this new role.”

Layer’s bed and bowls for Cat Person.

One of the more interesting suggestions for how products could help to solve problems generated by the integration of human and non-human experiences of space came from one of the earliest of the new raft of pet design projects: Lurvig, a pet range launched by Ikea in 2017, and designed by Inma Bermúdez and Moritz Krefter of Studio Inma Bermúdez. Krefter and Bermúdez designed Lurvig to include a number of standalone products, but also prioritised elements that could be integrated into existing Ikea furniture. The collection’s scratching post, for instance, is a mat that wraps around a table leg using velcro, while its cat bed is square so as to fit neatly into the shelves of the company’s Kallax shelving unit, thereby providing a cosy hideaway that doesn’t take up additional floorspace. “Humanising is a big mistake, because at the end of the day the product is not going to be used by you,” says Bermúdez. “There are many products on the market – which I really don’t like – that try to convert your pet into a child.” As such, Bermúdez and Krefter prioritised smaller nudges to the design of environments, reasoning that this was one way to

Philosophy

lean into pets’ existing behaviours, while still trying to meet human aesthetic standards. “You can’t anthropomorphise,” says Bermúdez, “because there is a need for well-designed products that actually think about the needs of dogs and cats.”

The problems addressed by Bermúdez and Layer’s collections are small, but may represent the kind of issues that should be tackled by design, particularly given that the friction that many pets experience in domestic spaces is almost entirely caused by people. The presence of pets in homes is, after all, a human contrivance – the cats and dogs themselves rarely have any say in the matter.11 When I adopted Edward as a stray kitten from Cats Protection, he did not decide whether to live with me. Instead, he was forcibly moved into a space that he would not have selected of his own accord, not least because it involved a 15-mile trip down a motorway and Edward does not, at present, own a car (note to self: buy Edward a car to prove my love). While he now seems extremely positive about his living arrangements – he’s marching back and forth across the desk as I write this, happily ramming his face into the edge of the laptop screen – the whole setup has a slight Stockholm Syndrome vibe: I control where he can go within the space; when he can go outside (as a renter I do not, alas, have a cat flap); and what behaviours are encouraged and discouraged. I am his friend. Pat. I am his provider. Pat. I am… sort of his jailor? Pat. Given all the restrictions that I place on his movement, I’ve come to think that it’s probably not too much to ask that I let him sit on my laptop once

in a dfq rjuFBR3HUOBFGRVTY. Yet this desire to make pets comfortable, and to accommodate their needs, has clear implications for design. “Cats are being humanised more and more – they are becoming part of the family,” LucyBalu’s Wahrenberger tells me. “So we have always said that if cats are really becoming part of the family, you should think about cat supplies as furniture.” Co-founder Sebastian Frank is in full agreement: “We see ourselves as a furniture company more than a pet supply company.” This desire to frame pet products as a sub-sector of furniture design is surprisingly common. On one level, it may be an attempt to borrow credibility and respectability from a more established design field, applying it to a category that has “been a bit maligned historically,” according to Hubert. “There is a stigma, definitely,” says Wahrenberger. “We have encountered big designers who have said, ‘I don’t want my name to be attached to that kind of product,’ because it’s seen as kind of dirty, so that’s a reputational risk.” Framing pet products in terms of furniture, however, represents one way in which companies can subvert preconceptions around who “design” is for, and apply the values that are already attached to human-centric terminology and typologies to a user base that has often been ignored. “There is a kind of hierarchy [in design],” says Hubert. “You would traditionally prioritise things for you and the people you love, whereas a pet would be very secondary. But since becoming a pet owner, I’ve seen that it’s actually a really desirable space and very underserved.”12 In contrast to LucyBalu, Hubert does not explicitly frame his cat bed as furniture, but he is nevertheless clear on the value of taking pet design seriously. “As designers, if we work on a chair, how many other people have already worked on that typology?” he says. “It’s prestigious and desirable, of course, but how much value can you add? There are a lot of categories out there in design, like pets, which are not traditionally sexy, but which are actually the ones with the biggest opportunity.” Nevertheless, the linguistic shift towards “furniture”, or the wider insistence on recognising design values within the field, is also a response to the cost of many of these products. LucyBalu’s Dinghy cat bed, for instance, is priced at €129, whereas “a pet shop

11 The reverse can also happen, however. A stray cat called Olaf has forcibly moved into my parents’ kitchen, for example, and now refuses to leave. He’s absolutely brilliant.

12 Hubert has a dog called Pochi, who is adorable and sometimes appears on the Layer Instagram account – it is always very exciting when this happens.

“There is a stigma. It’s seen as kind of dirty by some designers, so that’s a reputational risk.” —Mathias Wahrenberger

Philosophy

will say that a cat bed needs to be €17.99,” says Wahrenberger. “So if we try to sell through pet shops, they’ll just say, ‘OK, your bed is €129. What the fuck?’” With this in mind, LucyBalu sells directly through its website, where it can better frame the narrative around its products. “We want to use the phrase ‘cat furniture’ to show that we think about products for cats from an interior standpoint,” continues Wahrenberger. “It takes the same amount of material to create a table as it does a cat tree, but it’s easier to position a table as being worth more. Probably the biggest critique that we face is that we’re expensive.” It’s an experience that is familiar to Papuk, whose Connect cat tree and accompanying accessories retail at around £700. “We’ve been very careful with the language,” Karageozian tells me. “You see people spending thousands on a side table, but they’ll

develop spaces that integrate the two in “healthier, more mutually supportive relationships”. Dobraszczyk’s wider message of tolerance has applications for pets too. As opposed to focusing on designing out the odours, damage, mess and conflicting interests that non-human animals bring into human spaces, Dobraszczyk suggests that we work towards building more genuinely interspecies spaces: instead of “believing that firm boundaries between nature and the built environment can somehow be restored, we should rather embrace their discomforting dissolution”. One method for achieving such spaces could be to focus on pet design – generating new, dedicated solutions for meeting the needs of domestic animals and people – but a simpler, and cheaper, approach would just be to relax our restrictions around how such animals are permitted to behave in a space, which is what the pets seem to want anyway. Dobraszczyk, for example, cites his own dog Charlie, who “generally finds little pleasure in occupying spaces or structures apart from our own,” and who instead “chooses to occupy the home entirely as a consequence of our actions, seeking at all times to remain close to whoever happens to be around at the time”. As such, Charlie’s “designated spaces” in the home are not specific to him, but rather “entwined” with those of Dobraszczyk and his family. In other words, fewer specialist cat beds for Edward; more letting Edward get into bed. The most obvious reason why this does not happen more often is because of the commercial opportunities that swirl around pets. This is a point I put to Alexandra Midal, a theorist who has proven prescient in the field of animals and design. In 2015, Midal curated The Animal Party, a provocative exhibition showing projects from design students at Switzerland’s HEADGenève university that explored some of the theoretical implications of designing for animals, and the political complexities of their place in human society. The Animal Party was ahead of its time in terms of its consideration of interspecies design, particularly given that the topic is now a critical darling,13 but Midal is careful to flag its potential limitations. “We don’t know what [pets] want, so we have these projections, all the time, about what their needs are,” she tells me. “It’s a presumption in the name of others, on behalf of others, which is a

Papuk’s Connect cat tree.

then ask, ‘Why is a cat tree £700?’ But [Connect] has complicated details and is as complex as any furniture piece, which is why it costs that. That’s why we say ‘furniture’.” I think Karageozian and Wahrenberger’s arguments are reasonable, and the cost of their products justifiable for those who can aﬀord them, but the expense of the new raft of pet designs does feed into a potential criticism of the field: that it is applying human metrics of value, design and problem solving to a terrain where they do not comfortably fit. In Animal Architecture, for example, Dobraszczyk argues that “the biggest obstacle to a genuinely ecological architecture is the human sense of revulsion at nature, unbidden, trying to get back in” – we spend too much time, he suggests, worrying about preserving distinctions between humans and other, wild, animal species, and should instead

13 In 2022, for example, the Netherlands’ Het Nieuwe Instituut for architecture, design and digital culture declared itself a zoöp – an institutional model that “makes the interests of nonhuman life part of organisational decision making”.

Image courtesy of Papuk.

highly problematic thing.” Nevertheless, Midal also acknowledges that the horse has already bolted when it comes to pet design, with the commercial field having expanded rapidly. “I was noticing at the time [of The Animal Party] that big companies were starting pet departments and I know the cynicism of that,” she says. “It’s a new market and a new niche. Actually, I wouldn’t even call it cynicism – it’s pure capitalism. There is a market, there is a need. We go there.” If there’s one thing that capitalism is good at, however, it is using products to shape the perceptions of those who exist within its frameworks – something Spillers was exploiting all the way back in 1919. This eﬀect is typically negative – and largely focused on persuading people to buy products they don’t need – but there may be potential for it be applied towards more positive ends too. In 2004, for instance, designers James Tuthil, Johannes Paul, Simon Nicholls and William Windham founded Omlet, a pet-care company that grew out of Eglu, a project the four developed while studying design at London’s Royal College of Art. Created as part of an eﬀort to reimagine the typology of a chicken coop, Eglu sought to shed any connotations of agricultural infrastructure and instead recast the form as a piece of polished product design – a brightly coloured injection-moulded plastic structure, clipped into an attached run. “We always believed that this was interesting as a piece of design because it wasn’t just about making a product,” Paul tells me. “The whole idea of the Eglu was whether we could change people’s perception of chickens as a farmyard animal through the design of a product. If you have a chicken coop that doesn’t look like a chicken coop, can you also get rid of all the previous concepts of what chicken keeping should be?” Chickens represent a more challenging case study for thinking about pets than cats and dogs,14 but Paul is adamant that the objects that swirl around all pets play a determining role in the ways in which we perceive the animals. “Think about a dog bed,” he tells me. “A lot of people would say, ‘What more is there to do with its design? It’s basically just a cushion on the floor, right?’ But there’s actually a lot of exasperation when you talk to customers about dog beds, because most of the products are poor quality, they start to smell, 14 Their relative lack of integration with domestic space creates complexity, as does their overlap with agriculture in the manner that Omlet describes.

and cleaning them is a huge problem.”15 These negative connotations surrounding objects for pets, Paul suggests, have a habit of bleeding through into our perception of the pet, not least because “pets can’t talk, so there’s a lot of responsibility on objects to facilitate that relationship [between animal and human].” There’s something to that. Because non-human animals have no space for commercialism and its concerns within their umwelten, the products that

“We don’t know what pets want, so we have these projections, all the time, about what their needs are.” —Alexandra Midal most obviously meet their needs are ones that deal with brute bodily realities. There are beds to sleep, shed and drool in; toys to rend, savage and dismember in imitation of hunting behaviour; bowls to house food in, because Edward’s desire to hoover raw meat directly oﬀ the kitchen floor is not a behaviour I wish to indulge; and litter trays to deal with the terrible consequences of said hoovering. In contrast to other areas of commerce, pet products are more explicitly concerned with the basic, more animal, elements of what it is to exist – elements that are not always delightful to deal with. “What we’re doing as product designers in this area is trying to remove a lot of the chores surrounding pets, and allowing more of the experience to just be a sense of togetherness,” says Paul. “If you can deal with some of those issues through design, that helps remove any negative associations, because these relationships between humans and animals can be so unique and special.” These may not be alluring challenges for a designer, but that’s not to say they aren’t worthwhile addressing. “When you’re looking at pet design as a career, you don’t see Gucci or Prada, you don’t see Flos or B&B Italia, so it doesn’t 15 It’s worth noting that Omlet’s method for designing dog beds to avoid this problem is, fundamentally, to make them more like human beds. “Our range is about being fully washable,” says Paul. “It’s more like your own bed, where you would change the duvet once a week.”

Philosophy

have that allure for young designers,” he continues. “There aren’t the premium brands that you have in lots of other design fields, which give cachet and glamour to the industry, and that’s been a problem. For years and years, it has been about designing to a price point and trying to make it cheaper, whereas it should be about trying to enable the relationship between the pet and the human to be beneficial to both parties.” That’s a noble aim, but pat. Edward is done with such considerations. PatPatPatPatPat! The ceramic avatar is being thwacked ferociously, signalling that feeding time is upon us. It’s an object I bought to be purely decorative, but in which Edward has discovered deep, untapped function as a dinner bell. But then, Edward, like all pets, is good at subverting products – in fact, their capacity to undermine straightforward understandings of products is probably present in the very idea of a pet to begin with. After all, Edward’s status under British law is not that of an individual with guaranteed rights. Instead, he is classified as “property”, which is an exceptionally odd and uneasy thought given that he’s a living being. While pet design may seek to mediate the human/pet relationship through specialist objects, the status of the pets

themselves is uncomfortably close to the designs that accommodate them. “[As] much as humans might think of their pet as a person, pets are commodities too,” write Hamlett and Strange, which is an unpleasant, but accurate description. While I may not think of myself as Edward’s owner, I did pay to adopt him. “This does not thwart [pets’] importance as emotional attachments, but it does complicate it,” add Hamlet and Strange. “[Most] people do own their pet, as both a product with a personality and as a much-valued – emotionally if not always financially – possession.” Which may be true, but just try telling that to Edward! Like all pets, he defies easy categorisation, just as he defies the straightforward applications of design – at present, he’s busy spraying shards of chicken across the room, successfully evading the silicone mat that I bought to catch errant crumbs. After he’s done with dinner, he’ll probably smash up some ornaments, before striding past the unused cat bed en route to my bed. After all, the law may see him as property, and design may see him as a user, but Edward’s umwelt has no space for such concepts. If there’s one thing I can be sure of, it’s that Edward has other ideas. E N D 64

Voices A Story of Swiss Design

Complications I recently discovered that watchmakers employ a special term to describe any feature of a timepiece that steps beyond the matter of basic timekeeping. Whether an internal mechanism, an additional display, or a specific tool, these functions are all grouped under the same word: complications. When Disegno was invited by House of Switzerland Milano to create a publication reflecting on the state of contemporary Swiss design, watchmaking was never far from our minds. This is not, perhaps, surprising. In thinking about Switzerland and its contributions to global design culture, certain points of reflection inevitably arise. In the 20th century, the country was a cradle for architecture’s international style, while its contributions to typography, graphics, furniture, and (of course) watchmaking have been well documented. In the popular imagination, Swiss design is serious, functional and precisely executed. It is a country of excellent schools and world-class manufacturers. With this framing in mind, Switzerland’s design traditions have often been understood through the lens of “die gute Form” (“the good form”), a concept proposed by Swiss designer Max Bill (1908-1994) in rejection of the styling, frippery, ego, and in-built obsolescence that he saw in much of the design that surrounded him. By contrast, the notion of die gute Form was to be understood as describing design as it ought to be practised: a synthesis of form, function, ethics and beauty, which was to be encapsulated in one object. “This ‘good’ stands in opposition to ugly, useless, bad, nasty,” Bill wrote in 1961, “and has the implied characteristics of useful, practical, functional, usable and even beautiful.” These words have since served as a kind of standard by which Switzerland’s design is both understood and judged. And yet: complications. In attempting to sum up any country’s design culture, dangers lurk. It is important to reflect on the formal structures that shape a nation’s creations (its educational system, industrial base, financial support networks, and so on), but the exercise can become flattening and reductive when it strays towards suggestions of a distinctive national style or approach. Max Bill may be an archetypal Swiss designer, but what

of H.R. Giger (1940-2014), whose nightmarish biomechanical designs birthed Ridley Scott’s Alien, or Kueng Caputo, whose 2011 Copy project toyed with the implications of plagiarism through ironic, rough-and-ready reproductions of existing objects? In grappling with “Swissness”, what prompts prioritisation of one expression of design over another? Moreover, how easily applicable is the idea of die gute Form to the rapidly expanding forms of practice that constitute design today? In attempting to capture what is characteristic of a country’s design output, you invariably simplify and omit. This publication, by contrast, attempts a more modest contribution towards any understanding of Switzerland and its design. It purposefully makes no authoritative claims as to what Swiss design is or isn’t. Instead, it is formed from the personal reflections of those actively connected to the country and its design scene: designers, academics, curators, educators and manufacturers. Over the coming pages, Disegno has interviewed 33 figures from Swiss design, assembling their perspectives to form a patchwork of voices that oﬀer a more nuanced assessment of Switzerland’s design than any attempt at a definitive overview. It is a piece of oral storytelling that acknowledges the unavoidably personal and unashamedly subjective forces shaping Swiss design. This is a contemporary story, told through the words of people building the field today. Many of those featured were born in Switzerland and still work there; some are Swiss by birth, but based elsewhere; others, meanwhile, have moved to the country to build their careers. The selection of each person was deliberate, inasmuch as they reflect the sheer diversity of design practices in Switzerland today, but also arbitrary – this same publication could have been made with 33 diﬀerent voices, with no loss of meaning, context or variety. As such, we invite you to interpret the coming pages for what they are: snippets of conversation that, together, form a portrait of Swiss design – one that is complex and collage-like. A portrait, in other words, that admits of complications. Oli Stratford

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

1.Ian Weddell (USM)

We don’t say we are Swiss. Is it known we are Swiss? A lot of people think we are German. 2.Charles O. Job

I don’t see myself as a Swiss designer. I have a passport but don’t really see myself as part of the system. I know lots of Swiss designers and we’re diﬀerent and do diﬀerent things. 3.Sarah Kueng (Kueng Caputo)

We don’t consider ourselves as Swiss, we think of ourselves as European. Switzerland is so small that it makes no sense to give it a border. 4.Nicole Chebeir Ragy (NOV Gallery)

I was born in Lebanon, but I grew up in the US.

We don’t say we are Swiss 7.Youri Kravtchenko (YKRA and HEAD – Genève)

I have an approach that is rooted in Latin American perspectives, as I come from Peru. We have plural ways of thinking and doing because of where we’re from, so we have to recontextualise and hold space for our practice constantly.

I travel, I’ve lived in diﬀerent countries for many years, studying in diﬀerent places.

I’m from the Netherlands and it has a very strong design scene. Now, I’ve been rooted in Switzerland for almost 12 years and that combination of diﬀerent places has proven to be so beneficial to my practice.

10.Tara Mabiala

I grew up in London, and also in Tanzania. Being multicultural informs all that I do and infuses my work. 11.Livia Lauber

I feel that I’m Swiss and I think I started feeling that when I left Switzerland much more than when I was there. Living elsewhere, I realised how “Swiss” I am. I think that shows in my design. 12(Peter Hornung (Round Rivers)

5.Gabriela Aguije Zegarra (Cocinas Alterinas)

6.Carolien Niebling

freedom to start our business. For a time our studio was still based between Marseille and Zurich, but now we have a strong link to the Swiss scene.

8.Claudia Perren

I’m from Hamburg originally and moved here 11 years ago. I came here because of the conversations about longlasting materials. In Germany there was only an interest in the cheapest options.

(Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

The diﬀerent languages spoken here help to guide relationships and also create a great variety of diﬀerent design approaches.

Yeah, but I still have the feeling that I am not Swiss, and I’ve never lived and worked in Switzerland.

9.Andrea Anner, AATB

14.Werner Baumhakl

We lived in Berlin for five years and then in Marseille for another five years, where space was cheaper and we had more

No, no, I’m originally from Germany, the southern part of Bavaria. So I would say the

13.Mirko Müller (USM)

(Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

The Malvaux N°1 knife, designed by Thilo Alex Brunner for Malvaux.

The Pipaio side table, designed for Mattiazzi by Julie Richoz.

mentality is not so far away from the Swiss mentality, which makes things easier, especially when it’s concerning language. 15.Big-Game

Also the fact that it’s multilingual means there is no need to first master the language. And sometimes people just speak their own language and everyone still understands each other. It being decentralised is also important – there is not just one hub where you have to be. 16.Claudia Perren (Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

I’m from Berlin, but I’ve also lived in New York and taught for a long time in Sydney. So, you know, I’ve seen some places. I’m connected to Switzerland through my family and, more recently, my work. 17.Tabea Wschiansky

I know a lot of people who work from Switzerland, Swiss designers, who work for Japanese companies and they’re a really big part of how Japanese design is perceived. The same can be said for some aspects of British design. 18.Tara Mabiala

I’m half Swiss and half Congolese and so I wanted to talk about the way clothes are owned. This kind of self-appropriation of clothing in my family and in the culture

of the Congo. How people take something that already exists and twist it into something quite personal. 19.Louise Paradis

I’m French Canadian, and I studied in Montreal and then I moved to California for six years and following that I moved to Switzerland.

22.Werner Baumhakl (Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

The people here have to know you, they have to know you’re reliable, that they can count on you and that you are looking for a serious relationship, not just fast money. The way you work with people is really very important. 23.Matylda Krzykowski (CIVIC)

CIVIC does not have a fixed programme. It’s more about oﬀering a space where projects and connections happen without guidance. This isa prototype that could be applied to any (Swiss) school.

20.Werner Baumhakl (Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

24.Werner Baumhakl

We teach in English because it’s a common language, and we have people from Iran, we have people from Poland, we also have people from Russia and Malaysia.

I tried to find something diﬀerent to “interdisciplinary” and we call it a co-disciplinary approach where you have interiors, cinematography, fashion design and industrial design in a kind of melting pot.

(Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

How do we relate to each other? 21.Claudia Perren (Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW )

How do we relate to each other? Design can play a big part in shaping that.

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

25.Youri Kravtchenko (YKRA and HEAD – Genève)

We don’t have oil or this kind of stuﬀ, so we have design and possibilities to use that. If you remove some materials you

We want to understand ourselves on a global scale. become more creative. And we are in the middle of Europe and the middle of four languages, and we can use that position to make us aware of more possibilities.

to be a link between social studies and aesthetic studies. 27.Matylda Krzykowski (CIVIC)

26.Marco Costantini (Mudac)

It is important for me to be an intermediary between designers and the public, to help us understand society and create a future. The link between public and designer is also formulated

Being educated by a Swiss system means also that you’re somehow contributing to that system.

29.Florencia Colombo

One thing is “Swiss Design” as a concept and then another is design in Switzerland. For me it’s diﬃcult to pinpoint what Swiss Design constitutes today. On the other hand, design in Switzerland is incredibly diverse and complex. 30.Claire Pondard (Claire + Léa)

I know a lot of new designers who are collaborating more, introducing diﬀerent paths of working and many alternative aesthetics too. 31.Youri Kravtchenko (YKRA and HEAD – Genève)

I always find it interesting when you cross one form of knowledge with another – like sewing processes in the kitchen, you know, stuﬀ like that. So I’m pretty interested in the crossroads you have when you don’t have a specific agenda. I wanted to engrave this into a building, or into colour or light, and use fiction as a tool. 32.Peter Hornung (Round Rivers)

28.Ini Archibong

My studio is here in Switzerland, but the people I’m working with are mostly in other countries.

Because of the different languages, Switzerland is made up of lots of little islands and feels smaller than it is. It’s a problem, but also has potential because everyone comes from a different culture and observes quite different consumerist behaviours. It’s a challenge to get people to come out of their bubble, but it’s also nice.

33.Marco Costantini (Mudac)

37.Mirko Müller (USM)

43.Adrien Rovero

We want to understand ourselves on a global scale. The world is like a mirror to reflect back on Switzerland. What is the definition of design here? Is it the same as Lebanon, Korea, South America? Why is it diﬀerent? What makes it diﬀerent?

It is a Swiss company, but you do not go to Switzerland to the headquarters very often when you work for us in Germany or in France.

I really love the situation geographically, because it’s amazing that in three hours you can be in Milan, in four hours you are in Paris, the airport is 60 minutes away from my door and we can fly everywhere. I love the feeling when I go abroad and have a super exciting moment discussing something and then I get back to my mountain and have the time and space to do the project.

34.Christian Paul Kaegi (Qwstion)

We don’t limit ourselves to Switzerland. I want to use our financial position to benefit the world, contribute to innovation on a global scale. As a younger generation, we should push for change. 35.Yves Béhar (Fuseproject)

The reality of living in a small country that has such powerful neighbours is the fact that in order to find an audience for your ideas and products, you often need to go beyond the country. Design innovation needs a large audience to find acceptance, and this is certainly something I was thinking about 30 years ago when I started working in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. 36.Ian Weddell (USM)

I’ve always had a view for the export markets and Switzerland is very well connected for this, particularly in Europe. Germany is just across the border, France is just across the border.

38.Thibault Brevet (AATB)

Our work is growing quite well in Asia, where I think they are very receptive. Now we are in Japan and we were in China over the summer. Our work makes a lot of sense in these places because they don’t focus on the novelty of robotics.

44.Matylda Krzykowski (CIVIC) 39.Marco Costantini (Mudac)

It’s why we need to collaborate with other people from other countries, to help them with the production of their own designs. As a country we have a duty. It’s important, definitely. 40.Mirko Müller (USM)

We have a good understanding that the Swiss market will definitely not be enough for a product.

Basel is a very distinct place. You have design, architecture and art and we juggle these themes within education. 45.Roger Furrer, Laufen

I can take a car and go to Germany and I can go to France any time and it takes 30 minutes.

41.Werner Baumhakl (Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

46.Claudia Perren

Of course in Switzerland you find everything, international brands working worldwide.

The triangle we find ourselves in, between France, Germany and Switzerland, means there is already a lot of internationalism in Basel, which is reflected in the school.

42.Marco Costantini (Mudac)

For me to go outside of Switzerland is to test projects and talk with people who design and work with them. I don’t want to work alone in my museum; I want to create a community.

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

(Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

The Fogo toy, designed for Fogo Island Workshop by Adrien Rovero Studio.

The Bukan magazine holder, designed for Mox by Charles O. Job.

I really love the situation geographically 47.Adrien Rovero

49.Carolien Niebling

52.Louise Paradis

We are a mix and match between German, Italian and French. People approach me and say they want to work with me because they think I have a more Mediterranean touch, because I’m from the French side.

For me they are like diﬀerent countries. Zurich is more of a financial city and Lausanne is smaller and has lots of schools so it’s more of a student city. Then you have the mountains, which are completely diﬀerent again. You have all these extremes, which give the country a unique diversity.

Because it’s a small country, competition between designers can be really high. It’s very challenging for designers to create in that sort of environment, which means they are always pushing some kind of boundary.

48.Matylda Krzykowski (CIVIC)

We do not just think about the borders of Switzerland, we have to include these other nationalities. Our culture is not formed by Swissness, our culture in Switzerland is formed by other nationalities that bring other identities, ideas, traditions and aesthetics. In the art and design departments you can see that people from other countries bring these ideas.

50.Florencia Colombo

You can live somewhere quite remote, but still be professionally and socially very active. We have the train at our door that gets us to Zurich, the airport, or Milan if you want. The transport system here is so incredible that there really is no obstacle in that sense. 51.Matylda Krzykowski (CIVIC)

The best type of school represents the world, not only a nationality. It’s from my own experience because I lived in London and was trained in the Netherlands. Nationality can be a toxic concept.

53.Florencia Colombo

Going back to a bit more of an analogue lifestyle is not at all counterproductive. It’s more productive in a way to have a little space in isolation and not constantly be involved in this sort of intense stimulation. 54.Ini Archibong

You know, it’s not necessarily a hub of work activity for me, but it’s actually a perfect place for me to concentrate, and detach.

Most of my work is outside of Switzerland.

and landscape is visible in my work.

55.Estelle Bourdet

I left Switzerland because I needed to see something else. And now it’s coming back and I get more and more interest coming from Switzerland. Slowly the community and platform is evolving. 56.Robin Winogrond

Switzerland has a tradition of great respect for design. It has an even longer tradition of great respect for nature, even if this nature now often takes the form of infrastructural or suburban landscapes. My work is grounded in these two arenas: a deep aﬃnity for the simplicity, clarity, and directness of Swiss design, as well as a fascination with the power of nature to mesmerise us and get under our skin. This fascination with the strangeness of Swiss infrastructural nature

57.Werner Baumhakl (Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

We educate the people. You have to be able to work with the whole world. You have to be keen to know everything. You have to be unbiased. You have to be skilled to work internationally. And we also encourage people to represent a Swiss form of design identity.

60.Charles O. Job

When I came to Switzerland, I taught at ETH and I was blown away. They had everything, you know, they had all the big stars coming for their reviews. And it’s aﬀordable, it doesn’t cost a fortune.

We educate the people 58.Sarah Kueng

61.Marco Costantini (Mudac)

We have great facilities, we have great libraries and they’re all free. And this system of making education nearly free is the best thing you can do.

Before Mudac I studied photography and contemporary art, and then taught theory of art at university. I think with design we can talk more openly and precisely about things that touch people’s real lives. It is more engaged with society.

59.Peter Hornung (Round Rivers)

They have a really high level of education. The Swiss people are very sustainable, they think and behave in a very sustainable way. This is diﬀerent from the perception that they are rich and can aﬀord everything and can travel everywhere and have the newest cars.

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

62.Carolien Niebling

I studied at ECAL and the means available to make a project were amazing, there was nothing missing. And if it was, they would help you source it.

The Data Vase, designed by Claire + Léa and produced by Manufacture de Sèvres.

63.Marco Costantini (Mudac)

67.Matylda Krzykowski (CIVIC)

71.Léa Pereyre (Claire + Léa)

We have set up a department to understand why we have so many designers in the Frenchspeaking part of Switzerland. We want to think diﬀerently about archives and create a new type of archive. We all think we know this history, but we don’t. Pure, simple, industrial – it’s much more than this.

I feel there is still this idea of reproducing what history has given us; instead, we have to look into today’s possibilities.

ECAL shows you how to be independent and teaches you how to find solutions in diﬀerent situations.

64.Florencia Colombo

Design is much more present in public space and infrastructure, it is state-driven and the visibility means it has a pedagogical element to it. 65.Marco Costantini (Mudac)

It’s not a question of education because change will come directly from the young students. A new generation that thinks more politically.

68.Tabea Wschiansky

The apprenticeship was a very lucky time for me. I was 15 when I started it and I didn’t know what to do, and this was good because we got to do everything and I was able to explore my creative voice. In Switzerland we have lots of diﬀerent ways to achieve our goals. 69.Thilo Alex Brunner (On)

We have ties to the design schools and everyone we employ brings a bit of their design school because Switzerland is so small. The level of design education in Switzerland is very high, but we also work with a very high number of creatives from abroad. This was just not the case 10 or 20 years ago.

66.Werner Baumhakl (Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

Students are super, super individual, we don’t have to teach them a programme or a dogma. We try to give them oﬀers. In this modern world with the big problems we have, it’s not a one man or woman show. It’s not about you and what you want, it’s about what you can bring to the table in collaboration with other experts.

70.Florencia Colombo

Living in this particular setting, it makes me think of deep time and I see all the geological layers. Despite living remotely and not having any museums, galleries or theatres close by, it’s still an incredibly intense node of history and full of cultural overlaps. This is a bit like an open-air museum of Swiss folk culture and I try to engage with that as much as possible.

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

72.Yves Béhar (Fuseproject)

It’s unclear which Swiss tradition I would belong to, outside of the fact that I’m obsessed with details and finishing things. I’m more attracted to change and innovation – being a designer is putting yourself in a position of learning and that meant moving away from Switzerland. 73.Charles O. Job

If you don’t go to university here they don’t frown upon you, because you’ll probably do an apprenticeship. So over a period of three or four years you actually do stuff and make stuff. That making stuff is the Swiss ethos – they do it really well. 74.Sarah Kueng (Kueng Caputo)

I’m more interested in the human than I am the machine. What are the daily activities of a person when they are building something? Value should be given to these workers and the apprenticeship system contributes to that.

75.Carolien Niebling

There are national bodies that are really trying to help in giving you funding, but also in coaching and travel. 76.Tabea Wschiansky

We know our financial privilege and we try to do something good. We have a brilliant system that shows us that design for social good is something that is needed and Switzerland is

the best place to explore these kinds of ideas. 77.Carolien Niebling

People value and spend money on craft, so it stays alive in their homes – it doesn’t just end up as museum pieces.

There are national bodies that are really trying to help in giving you funding 16

78.Heinz Caflisch (Orko gallery)

With the Ikea Foundation, however, we have an important player in Switzerland that works to promote and support research and prototyping for designers under the age of 32. 79.Florencia Colombo

There is a lot of experimentation due to the educational system and funding. And this is not just in design, but also in terms of social sciences. Collaboration between these two areas and between education and corporations is incredibly important here. 80.Nicole Chebeir Ragy (NOV Gallery)

Starting NOV Gallery, I wanted to try to create a window of opportunity in Milan so that recent graduates of the design schools knew what their next steps might be. I thought there wasn’t enough coverage of young Swiss designers on the international scene. I think Switzerland can sometimes be too discreet. 81.Thibault Brevet (AATB)

There is ETH and EPFL and we were surrounded by knowledge where we actually felt quite welcome. 82.Peter Hornung (Round Rivers)

Whenever you ask a Swiss person for help, they help you. A Swiss person cannot say no. When you have an idea people try their best

The F690 Coston backpack, designed and produced by Freitag.

The USM Haller system, designed by Fritz Haller and Paul Schärer for USM.

There are lots of stereotypes when we talk about design in Switzerland to help, this is hugely diﬀerent to other countries. They want to experiment, they want to make the impossible possible. They want to make innovation possible, and use the potential in young creatives. 83.Marco Costantini (Mudac)

There are lots of stereotypes when we talk about design in Switzerland, but at Mudac we never organise an exhibition about Swiss design.

84.Youri Kravtchenko (YKRA and HEAD – Genève)

We get very spoiled in Switzerland because everything works. We have both the weapon and the tool to make projects work.

than in Zurich, but it was done because it was a commitment to Swiss engineering and Swiss innovation. And we believe in all the values that come with this. 87.Ian Weddell (USM)

It’s very functional, it’s very minimal, it’s very universal.

85.Nicole Chebeir Ragy (NOV Gallery)

88.Marco Costantini (Mudac)

Craftsmanship is not necessarily associated with Switzerland, but we have some of the greatest ceramicists and glass makers, who have trained in Italy and all over the world, and who are now based here.

We are the children of Bauhaus design, but we then created something with typography, graphic design and industrial design that was post-Bauhaus. We never had a revolution like Italian designers and we have a sensibility that is very linked to sensitivity, but we have curators and designers who make a lot of crazy proposals.

86.Thilo Alex Brunner (On)

There would be cheaper places in the world to build a company

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

89.Mirko Müller (USM)

94.Ini Archibong

You can find this type of development in many Swiss companies. They have very specialist knowledge about what they are doing already, for example manufacturing many diﬀerent types of steel products. But then for some reason, they suddenly start producing furniture and using this knowledge and this experience to design very high-end quality products and furniture.

Once you’re actually here in the community you realise that this is a wild place. In every community you have eccentric people. You have, like, you know – everybody will focus on very rectilinear and gridded typography and everything like that, but then they forget about H.R. Giger. People don’t spend enough time digging.

93.Thilo Alex Brunner (On)

Switzerland as a brand still works incredibly well, but obviously you have to live up to it.

99.Carolien Niebling

Where other countries need to provoke, the Swiss stay more grounded.

95.Mirko Müller (USM)

For most of these 90.Nicole Chebeir Ragy (NOV Gallery) companies, their Realising projects in products are still Switzerland is superior, made in Switzerland. quite comfortable. That does make a diﬀerence when you 91.Adrien Rovero speak to potential The state understands that it’s very important to support customers or when Swiss design because it’s an you reach out to new economical development tool for the country. The number contacts. “Swiss of tools we have to support made”, I think, still design is amazing. indicates a very high 92.Ian Weddell (USM) level of quality. We are deeply rooted in our Swissness. I mean, firstly, it’s a family business. And part of it, you know, is about quality and longevity, it’s about durability, simplicity and clarity—I think these things are all hallmarks of Swiss design.

for 20, 30, 40 years. So they know exactly what they are doing. And in many cases you can even find generations of a family working for us.

100.Tabea Wschiansky

How big companies shift the perception of Swiss design is much diﬀerent internationally than nationally. For example, if Swiss people think about Swiss design they wouldn’t think of On Running, but people from other countries would. 101.Ini Archibong

When I got to Switzerland everything just lined up and everything was connected and made sense. I could show up, as a foreigner, and within an hour understand how the rail system works. The signs are legible. As a designer I could see that this was all a product of good design.

96.Ian Weddell (USM)

How you make it is just as important as what you design. 97.Werner Baumhakl (Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

In Switzerland you have a high firewall with people – they really want quality. 98.Mirko Müller (USM)

When you speak to people working in production, many of them have been working for us

102.Mirko Müller (USM)

In some countries the designer is often more important than the product, but in Switzerland they spend a lot of time and eﬀort developing something. At the end of the process there is a high quality, perfectly engineered product. The product comes first when it comes to Swiss design and then it’s not the result of one person’s work but teamwork.

Swiss design is changing

111.Tabea Wschiansky

The directors of our study programme were two women and we had lots of female teachers. This made a big diﬀerence for us as young women, that some eﬀort was put into giving us a voice. 112.Thibault Brevet (AATB)

103.Adrien Rovero

108.Peter Hornung (Round Rivers)

There is so much humour inside lots of things, it’s not stiﬀ at all if you look carefully.

Which fascinated me, because I realised no other fashion brand starts with sourcing its own raw material. When you start like this you automatically have a transparent supply chain.

104.Big-Game

There are no natural resources here, so knowledge is the resource instead. 105.Marco Costantini (Mudac)

Swiss design is changing because a lot of designers are concerned with ecology and sustainability and it’s altering the way we see and what we produce. It’s always a question of solutions for the future. 106.Christian Paul Kaegi, Qwstion

Ten years ago design was more about how we want this product to look, whereas now it’s the circularity that comes first. So material choices matter, details matter, and we integrate all that into a design that fulfils aesthetic needs as well. 107.Yves Béhar, Fuseproject

Design is not a nationalistic endeavour, it’s very much a universal endeavour. The best export of a country is its design culture.

109.Werner Baumhakl (Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW)

There is always a strong identity coming from craftsmanship, but also Switzerland does not have many natural resources. So we always think about how we can use the resources we do have in a responsible way. Do we need it? Why? How is it produced? These are the really important questions right now.

We are playing with the aesthetic of Swiss high-end precision machining. The watch-making heritage is something we like to play with. 113.Léa Pereyre (Claire + Léa)

In my work I’ve only been surrounded by engineers and I think that is maybe what oﬀers the freedom of exploring shapes and not having the constraints that you might have if you work in a design studio only. 114.Andrea Anner (AATB)

We are a design studio and art research practice really focusing on the question of robotics as a creative medium.

110.Roger Furrer, Laufen

115.Carolien Niebling

Democratic design – I think this is actually a very Swiss thing. To do something valuable with the design, but try to put it at a good price so you also get value for money: this seems to me to be a very Swiss approach.

I love realistic propositions, but they need a diﬀerent perspective to stand out. You can combine food science and design to generate a diﬀerent viewpoint, and that helps to create something new. In Switzerland, there’s a lot

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

Tipsy glasses, designed by Loris Jaccard and Livia Lauber, and sold by Ensemble.

The Fixpencil, designed by Alfredo Häberli for Caran d’Ache.

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

The Folding Sled, designed by Arno Mathies and Max Frommeld for Graf Schlitten 3R.

of space to be strange enough to get attention, but realistic enough to make sure it’s actually realised. 116.Tabea Wschiansky

The younger generation have so many different influences from social media and we are more aware of what’s going on around us. We have influences from different cultures and design scenes and this multiculturalism is really necessary. I really enjoy that we have so many different people from a variety of countries and we can learn from each other. This is needed for Swiss design to expand and mature more in the future. 117.Tara Mabiala

I was interested in looking at diﬀerent groups, like the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, to look at how that might be an answer to issues surrounding sustainability. 118.Tabea Wschiansky

Outside education the gender balance in the design scene is almost 100 per cent male dominated. When I developed Void my goal was to push more women and their designs. 119.Tara Mabiala

So I think that it’s really the new generations that are

starting to open up the conversation about fashion in Switzerland, which is quite diﬃcult because it’s not like Paris, Milan or London, which are historically embedded with fashion houses. We have a couple in Switzerland and there’s only a number of people who can be employed by them, so there’s a lot we have to do by ourselves and open up in creating conversations. 120.Nicole Chebeir Ragy (NOV Gallery)

The aspiration of a young designer today is very diﬀerent to what it was 10 years ago. Today they’re looking to make their work relevant to what’s happening in society. They really want to save the world. 121.Louise Paradis

Switzerland developed a modern style like no other country. Then in the 60s and 70s, they kind of revolted against themselves and developed burgeoning ideas that were kind of postmodern and new wave (with the work of Wolfgang Weingart and Hans Rudolf Lutz, for example). Now people are looking at these experiments and putting a contemporary twist on them, which makes them refreshing. 122.Yves Béhar (Fuseproject)

Design is an opportunity for tradition to evolve beyond its tradition. You take a Southern European designer and put them in Northern Europe and something new will come out of that cultural mix. In this way designers regenerate culture.

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

123.Mayar El Bakry (Cocinas Alterinas)

Design is political and we cannot remove ourselves from the political situation. We know that design is historically ableist, patriarchal, capitalist, extractivist and produces many forms of oppression. It’s hard to self-identify as a Swiss design practice because it connects to all of these things that we are very critical of. I’ve been socialised through design in Switzerland but I am also Egyptian and have a wide variety of visual references that I use. 124.Thilo Alex Brunner (On)

Switzerland is a super modest nation that has invented a lot, but wouldn’t really speak about it. This doesn’t work anymore, if you want to run a global company you need to be out there. Switzerland has to come out of its little cocoon because it’s a country where I really admire the amount of

innovation and the quality of work. It’s crazy high. 125.Florencia Colombo

Our energy is hydropower and comes from the mountain. So in terms of the day-to-day cycle there is a greater awareness of how energy and resources are used and it makes people very aware of the ecology and climate. This would not be so apparent in the city and I’m interested in how this can be used in design. 126.Heinz Caflisch (Orko gallery)

We are becoming more and more radical and free in our collaborations. In the end, it’s decided by a gut feeling. We don’t have any defined parameters. As we are currently focusing strongly on projects in architecture, we always try to create a counterpoint to the cleanly elaborated projects. We really like that and it gives us totally new possibilities and sharpens our sense for good design. 127.Estelle Bourdet

What I make is in between being functional and nonfunctional. That’s new in Switzerland’s design landscape, I think, where craft and gesture become the main focus in someone’s practice.

128.Livia Lauber

The designs that younger people are producing are a little less known because they sit outside of what is normally known as Swiss design. There is a lot of experimental design, however, and that is made with the quality people would expect from a Swiss product. 129.Nicole Chebeir Ragy (NOV Gallery)

Technology and design are coming together much more than in the past, a surprising element that people might not expect. This is not just in the production of pieces but in thinking about the purpose of the project as a whole. 130.Heinz Caflisch (Orko gallery)

The gallery scene in Switzerland is small but always on the move. This is a very positive situation. Ideas and new experimental spaces and formats are popping up all the time. 131.Yves Béhar (Fuseproject)

I found in the punk movement a sort of permission to break away from the Swiss sense of expertise. It said “To hell with that, just go make stuﬀ, go build things. They won’t be perfect but they will be an expression of the moment.” This was a big breakthrough because at the time Switzerland was less international. 132.Youri Kravtchenko (YKRA and HEAD – Genève)

I’m not only a teacher but also have my own practice. My students are set speculative projects but also real projects with money involved. We always

have one foot in speculation and another in reality. The most mesmerising moment is when they can mix the two sides together. 133.Thibault Brevet (AATB)

We want to explore the uniqueness of what we bring into the world, so it’s not just one more lamp or one more chair or one more couch. 134.Christian Paul Kaegi (Qwstion)

We felt that in the field there was a lack of sustainably made products. There were fundamental issues embedded in our systems that were preventing our society from developing truly sustainable solutions, and we really wanted to figure out how to solve those issues. We wanted to tackle sustainability from a global perspective and look at global supply chains. 135.Peter Hornung (Round Rivers)

In Zurich everyone has the same interest in making the environment better, and we can benefit from each other. 136.Livia Lauber

There is a lot of talent and that should have a bigger place in the design scene. Switzerland needs to show more facets of itself.

The Piccolo lamp, designed by Camille Blin for Zii Home.

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

The Bold chair, designed by Big-Game for Moustache.

Contributors Gabriela Aguije Zegarra is a Peruvian architect and design researcher based in Basel. She co-founded Cocinas Alterinas, a design practice that explores kitchens as spaces of care, resilience and resistance. cocinasalterinas.com / gabrielaaz.com

Big-Game is the design practice of Augustin Scott de Martinville, Elric Petit and Grégoire Jeanmonod, which is based in Lausanne. It works across design categories and the three founders also teach at ECAL . big-game.ch

Florencia Colombo is an ArgentineItalian curator based in Murg am Walensee, Switzerland. Her practice focuses on research, curatorial and editorial projects that deal with the history of material cultures. florenciacolombo.com

Andrea Anner is a Swiss graphic designer based between Zurich and Marseille. She co-founded AATB, a design practice exploring nonindustrial robotics. aatb.ch / superposition.ch

Camille Blin is a French designer based in Lausanne. He designs for both brands and galleries, and is also a professor at ECAL. camilleblin.com

Marco Costantini is a Swiss art historian and curator based in Lausanne. He is the director of Mudac, Lausanne’s museum of contemporary design and applied arts. mudac.ch

Ini Archibong is a Nigerian-American industrial designer based in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. His practice spans products, furniture, lighting and installations. designbyini.com Mayar El Bakry is a Swiss-Egyptian researcher based in Zurich. She co-founded Cocinas Alterinas, a design practice that explores kitchens as spaces of care, resilience and resistance. cocinasalterinas.com / mayar.ch Werner Baumhakl is a Swiss designer and educator based in Basel. He founded the industrial design practice Oﬃce Industrial Design and is head of ICDP at the Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW. oﬃce-industrial-design.com / fhnw.ch Yves Béhar is a Swiss designer based between San Francisco and Lisbon. He founded Fuseproject, a design practice that works across furniture, products, technology, and social enterprise projects. fuseproject.com

Estelle Bourdet is a Swiss-Swedish hand weaver based in Jostedal, Norway. Her design practice explores themes of inhabited spaces and the use of weaving as a daily practice. estellebourdet.com Thibault Brevet is a French graphic designer based between Zurich and Marseille. He co-founded AATB, a design practice exploring nonindustrial robotics. aatb.ch / superposition.ch Thilo Alex Brunner is a Swiss product designer based in Zurich. He is the chief design oﬃcer of Switzerland’s On sportswear brand. thiloalexbrunner.ch / on.com Heinz Caflisch is a Swiss architect and designer based in Chur, Switzerland. He founded Okro, a design gallery that explores contemporary design and making traditions across craft and industry. okro.com Nicole Chebeir Ragy is a Lebanese curator based in Carouge, Switzerland. She founded NOV, a design gallery that is devoted to platforming graduates from Swiss design schools. novgallery.com

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

Max Frommeld is a German designer based between London and California. His work centres on materials and manufacturing processes. maxfrommeld.com Roger Furrer is a Swiss branding expert based in Basel, focusing on design, art, architecture and science. He is the brand director of Laufen, a Swiss bathroom manufacturer whose headquarters are in Laufen, Switzerland, close to Basel. laufen.com Alfredo Häberli is a Swiss-Argentinian designer based in Zurich. His work ranges across categories, but centres on product and furniture design. alfredo-haeberli.com Peter Hornung is a German architect based in Zurich. He is the founder and creative director of Round Rivers, a fashion brand that turns plastic waste from Zurich’s Limmat river into clothing and swimwear. roundrivers.com Loris Jaccard is a Swiss designer based in Lyon. She works as a design director, having previously co-founded the Loris&Livia design studio.

Charles O. Job is a Nigerian architect and designer based in Zurich. His design practice spans furniture, objects and installations, and he teaches at the Bern University of Applied Sciences. charlesjob.com

Tara Mabiala is a Swiss-Congolese fashion designer based in Geneva. Her work examines sustainability and fashion, and draws on cultural and visual references from her multicultural upbringing. taramabiala.com

Christian Paul Kaegi is a Swiss industrial designer based in Zurich. He is the co-founder of Qwstion, a Swiss bag brand whose work prioritises legible supply chains and the development of more sustainable materials. qwstion.com

Arno Mathies is a Swiss designer based in Zurich. He is the co-director of the Space and Communication MA at HEAD – Genève. arnomathies.com

Youri Kravtchenko is a Swiss architect and educator. He is the principal at YKRA, a Geneva-based architecture oﬃce, and co-leads the Scènes de Nuit research project at HEAD – Genève. ykra.ch / hesge.ch Matylda Krzykowski is a Polish-born artist, designer and curator based between Basel, Berlin and Hallein. She is currently the artistic lead of CIVIC, a new platform at Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW. matyldakrzykowski.com / whatiscivic.ch Sarah Kueng is a Swiss designer based in Zurich. Together with Lovis Caputo she co-founded Kueng Caputo, a practice whose design work ranges across furniture, installations and objects. kueng-caputo.ch Livia Lauber is a Swiss designer based in London. Her design work covers products, furniture and spaces, and she is also the founder of Ensemble, a label that pairs experimental designers with skilled makers. livialauber.com / ensemble-shop.com

Mirko Müller is a German executive based in London. He is the CEO of USM UK, the British branch of Swiss modular furniture company USM. usm.com Carolien Niebling is a Dutch food designer based in Zurich. Her practice creates design objects, research, publications and workshops that focus on food and its connections to science and design. carolienniebling.net Louise Paradis is a French-Canadian graphic designer and educator based in Québec City. She is a long-time collaborator of Swiss type foundry Optimo and has written on the history of Swiss typography. ulaval.ca Claudia Perren is a German-born academic and trained architect based in Basel. She is the director of the Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW. fhnw.ch Léa Pereyre is a Swiss designer based in Lausanne. She is the co-founder of Claire + Léa, a studio whose work centres on design’s engagement with digital culture. claire-lea.com

Claire Pondard is a French designer based in Brittany. She is the co-founder of Claire + Léa, a studio whose work centres on design’s engagement with digital culture. claire-lea.com Julie Richoz is a Swiss-French designer based in Paris. Her work extends across furniture, textiles, accessories and installations. julierichoz.com Adrien Rovero is a Swiss industrial designer based in Lausanne. His work includes objects, lighting and furniture, and he regularly undertakes exhibition design projects. adrienrovero.com Ian Weddell is a British executive based in London. He is a sustainability executive for USM, a Swiss modular furniture company. usm.com Robin Winogrond is an American landscape architect and urban designer based in Zurich. Her built projects are grounded in theoretical work that is focused around the idea of “Geographical (Re)enchantment”. robinwinogrond.ch Tabea Wschiansky is a Swiss designer based in Zurich. With Tizian Naterop and Fabrice Aberhard, she is the co-founder of Void, a Zurich-based studio, workspace and gallery for art and design. tabeawschiansky.com / void-zurich. cargo.site

Masthead

Editor-in-chief Oli Stratford oli@disegnojournal.com Managing editor Evi Hall evi@disegnojournal.com Assistant editor Lara Chapman lara@disegnojournal.com Assistant editor Helen Gonzalez Brown helen@disegnojournal.com Subeditor Ann Morgan Creative directors Florian Böhm Annahita Kamali akfb.com Designer Studio AKFB info@akfb.com Publisher and commercial director Chris Jones chris@disegnojournal.com

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design was initiated and supported by The House of Switzerland Milano, a collective exhibition initiated by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and Presence Switzerland, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Aﬀairs. design.swiss Text The text of this publication was edited and arranged by Matthew Turner, who drew on original interviews by Lara Chapman, Evi Hall and Oli Stratford. Photographs The photographs show images of objects designed and/or manufactured by Swiss designers and brands, all shot in Switzerland by Nicolas Haeni. Cover The cover shows the Swiss Waste Jacket by Round Rivers, photographed by Nicolas Haeni. Special thanks to All of the contributors to this publication for their time and expertise, as well as the designers and brands who kindly loaned objects for its photoshoot.

Voices: A Story of Swiss Design

House of Switzerland M il a no

15.–21. April 2024 Casa degli Artisti desi

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Staying Power

Words Lara Chapman Illustration Leonhard Rothmoser The idea of instant success is alluring. Soaring to the top of a bestseller list or going viral overnight – these are the things that modern dreams are made of. But when the British indie rock band Glass Animals released ‘Heat Waves’ into the world in 2020, the song was anything but an immediate hit. Its nostalgic vibes and catchy tune contained all the right ingredients to shoot it to the top, but alas, they failed to catch. In part, the problem was timing. “I thought in the storm of the pandemic that this album would get blown away like a fart on the wind,” said Dave Bayley, the band’s lead singer and songwriter, in an interview with NME. Instead, the song and its album proved to be a fart that creeps up on you, violently greeting your nose long after the deed is done. A fart, so to speak, with staying power. With this in mind, it is perhaps fitting that, from the outset, the song’s music video contained a hint that success is often a case of simply sticking around. Directed by Colin Read, the video follows Bayley pulling a cartload of boxy

Sony ProFeel Pro televisions through the back streets of Hackney in London. Colloquially known as “Sony Cubes”, these high-spec monitors launched in 1986. They went on to enjoy a lengthy manufacturing run of 21 years, thanks to their popularity in medical, scientific and domestic settings. Despite not having been produced since 2007, the TV remains a steadfast heavyweight in the cultural sector, particularly in exhibition design. You may have spotted models in the likes of Noguchi (2021) at the Barbican or Charlotte Prodger: Blanks and Preforms (2021) at the Kunst Museum Winterthur, or hundreds of other shows in recent years (as documented by theblock.art). ‘Heat Waves’, then, is not the Sony TV’s first cultural rodeo. Its enduring success is largely linked to its practical, versatile form. While other TVs of this era taper inwards at the back, the ProFeel Pro’s casing is all right-angles and sharp corners, allowing it to be mounted flush against a wall, sit smartly on a plinth, or be tilted or stacked in any number of arrangements including multi-screen video walls. Its retro-cool vibes also lend it to a variety of curatorial narratives.

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‘Heat Waves’, too, nimbly oﬀers itself to many uses and arrangements. It has featured on a hugely popular (and reportedly frisky) Minecraft fan fiction series, as well as well-known video games, such as FIFA 2021 and The Sims 4; TikTokers use its chop-up-able lyrics to accompany a broad range of content; and it has been widely remixed – an activity kick-started when Glass Animals released individual audio files online as part of a remix competition in 2020. This multi-format appeal has led the song’s initially lukewarm reception to slowly heat up. In 2021 it topped the Australian charts. In 2022, nearly two years after being released, it reached #5 in the UK and #1 in the US after a recordbreakingly slow 59-week ascent. Two more years on, and the (heat) waves of success roll on. While the sleeper hit may have some distance to travel to match the cultural staying power of the Sony Cube, it is already well on its way. To date, it has been streamed over 2.8bn times on Spotify and 659m on YouTube, where hordes of fans praise its enduring appeal. “It’s already 2024,” comments @eriksonbornales4568 for instance, “but this song is still on my soundtrack 🙌.”

“which does mean a narrower audience – we very consciously want to go the other way with this and make it as accessible as possible.” The product may, therefore, have been incidental, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t commercially beneficial. “We sold out the first batch almost immediately, so it has been successful,” Arbel says. “14 has always been my lucky number.” Yet despite fitting a broader industry trend for portable lighting, there are ways in which the 14p breaks the mould. Whereas most portable designs are purposefully lightweight, the 14p is unashamedly heavy. “It’s like carrying a bowling ball,” says Arbel. “It’s solid glass, which is the reason it doesn’t break when you knock it about or drop it – there’s just a lot of mass there.” A glowing crystal ball, the 14p has, Arbel notes, a certain theatricality that sets it apart from competitors, becoming almost prop-like in its glazed inscrutability. “A lot of portable lights can be quite techy, whereas this is like you’re holding a magical orb,” he says, “and there’s really no correspondence between its mass and function, so it’s almost quite counterintuitive.” It is, in this regard, a classic Bocci product – a design that disregards conventional wisdom in favour of following wherever the material takes it. “It’s a light that kind of weighs you down,” says Arbel, “which is definitely a strange thing to have around. But for that reason, I like it.” Words Oli Stratford

Image by Fabian Frinzel.

A Non-Light Light-Founded in 2005 in Vancouver, Bocci has become widely known for its experimentalism in design, creating commercial lighting and objects that are decidedly noncommercial in character. Instead of slick, precise industrial production, the studio’s creative director Omer Arbel delights in manufacturing methods that incorporate improvised implosions, mismatched expansion coeﬃcients, and blended melting points, subjecting glass and metal to laboratory-style applications of heat, fire and electricity. The result are designs that are eccentric in both form and materiality: pendant lights where white glass has bubbled through an internal copper mesh, or brass coat hooks that extend in frills and loops like sea dragons. “In our factory, everything breaks,” Arbel tells me. “But the 14 never breaks.” The 14 is the product that Bocci launched with 19 years ago: pendant lights that took form as near-solid balls of cast glass. Created through the purposefully imperfect pouring of two molten glass hemispheres – a process that leaves a distinctive horizontal seam across the middle of the pendant – 14 diﬀused its internal light through the dimpled surface of its material, as well as through the air bubbles trapped within the glass during the casting process. At roughly the size of a grapefruit, the 14 was typically sold and displayed in clusters to form lighting installations, but in 2023 Arbel decided to reconfigure the design to function as a portable, chargeable lamp: the 14p. “We have the 14 all over the place in our factory, as well as hardware like batteries,” he says, “so we thought we might as well try it. This was an incidental thing that happened as opposed to a more deliberate action.” Nevertheless, portable lamps have become increasingly common additions to lighting brands’ portfolios, providing flexible lighting at a price point that is more accessible to younger consumers than purchasing multiple fixed lamps – the 14p, for instance, retails at $250. “As our ambitions have grown from an exploratory perspective, so have production costs,” Arbel acknowledges,

A Llama and a Legacy Words Lara Chapman Photographs Nicholas Calcott

When I went to California on a press trip hosted by the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity to immerse myself in all things Eameses, I did not expect to meet a llama named Lulu who enjoys spitting on visitors.

The Eames Ranch, designed by William Turnball in the 1990s.

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Instead, I expected to see chairs followed by more chairs – CHAIRS, GLORIOUS CHAIRS! Smoothly moulded and ingeniously constructed, these chairs would contain and support me as I used my time at the newly opened Eames Archives to revel in the designs and details of Ray and Charles Eames. Not wanting to mislead you, I should clarify that I did see a lot of chairs; I did sit in many of these chairs; and I did revel in the cleverness of probably the most iconic designers of the 20th century, but, really, it was Lulu who caught my attention. Before we go on, I should clarify that our volatile friend Lulu does not reside in the Eames Archives, which houses the more than 40,000 objects owned by the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity1 and has been welcoming visitors on curator-led tours of its collection since mid-February 2024. In fact, a llama in a design collection sounds like the plot of a strange dream. One imagines said llama munching away on a priceless one-of-a-kind furniture prototype, gnawing original paintings by Ray in the Archives Study Centre, and happily chomping on Charles’s engagement letter while curators and conservationists look on alarmed, horrified by the incalculable damage occurring. Really, truly, a nightmare… but I digress! Instead, Lulu lives on another site that is owned by the Eames Institute called the Eames Ranch. And, although it is called the Eames Ranch, it might be worth noting that Charles and Ray never actually lived on the Ranch, nor worked on it, nor even designed it. Now, I’m guessing you may have some questions. I imagine, for instance, that you may be wondering how a somewhat erratic llama has found herself a key

for a designer’s material and immaterial body of work – their objects but also their ideas? And is it possible for a legacy to continue to be useful, living and working, rather than simply a record of objects (albeit beautiful objects) from bygone eras? To answer all this, it might first be useful to understand what the Eames Institute actually is and how it came to be launched in 2022. Brace yourselves for a story that weaves and turns, but I promise it all connects in the end. For now, I’d suggest we begin at an ending. It is 1988 and Ray Eames (1912-1988) has just passed away 10 years-to-the-day after Charles (1907-1978). Lucia Eames (Charles’s daughter, and Ray’s stepdaughter), has been notified by the San Francisco government that her parents’ office at 901 Washington Boulevard in Venice, California, which is full of two lifetime’s worth of work, is to be red-tagged due to structural damage from an earthquake. “It was very urgent,” explains Llisa Demetrios, Charles and Ray’s granddaughter, “because if a building does get redtagged, once it’s red-tagged, you can’t go in.” Charles and Ray’s entire archive – their huge body of work, as well as their thoughts and musings scribbled down on scraps of paper, and the bits and bobs they have collected and stored over the years – is at serious risk of being lost. Luckily, Lucia Eames (1930-2014) possesses what her daughter, Demetrios, describes to me as a “silver tongue”, and she convinces the authorities in question that she should be given three months to empty the office of its contents. As quickly as she can, Lucia invites curators from museums including SFMOMA and Vitra Design Museum to come and take the contents for their collections; she contacts the Library of Congress to tell them it is time to make good on their agreement with Ray to acquire the 2D materials of the Eameses (a volume of material so large that it now occupies 120 linear feet at the Library of Congress and is estimated to include more that 130,000 documents according to An Eames Anthology, a wonderful resource compiled by curator and film producer Daniel Ostroff). These experts come and go, taking what they deem important, but after they have left there is still an extraordinary number of things in the building. “Mom always said it was like no one had even come at all!” exclaims Demetrios. So everything else is swiftly shrink-wrapped in plastic, crated and moved to a warehouse storage facility nearby. And I mean everything – whole drawers are

How do designers’ legacies come to be preserved or owned in the first place? What does it mean to be responsible for a designer’s material and immaterial body of work? character in the unfolding legacy of the Eameses. The answer is entangled with yet more questions: How do designers’ legacies come to be preserved or owned in the first place? What does it mean to be responsible 1

To be henceforth known as the Eames Institute or the Institute so as to save on my word count and make my sentences sound crisper, but please keep being curious.

The barn on the Ranch. The metal pieces on the wall are by Lucia Eames, who was a sculptor and artist.

Left: A display at the Eames Archives, where process materials, personal objects and final pieces sit side-by-side.

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“I remember going around what was a very dense array of materials in that house and being almost speechless.” —John Cary

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removed from their cabinets and wrapped with all their contents, including items such as chopsticks and half-used coloured pencils, still inside. “She wanted to keep it all because it was the most important story,” explains Demetrios. It is this huge collection of objects that the Eames Institute is now working to unwrap, catalogue, research, preserve and display. It aims to complete this extensive task by October 2024, marking five years of work, but we’ll come back to that shortly. The next year, in 1989, another earthquake hits California, damaging the new storage site and the Eameses’ items need to be moved again. Lucia decides to distribute boxes and boxes of the collection between each of her four children, figuring that the archive is safest if spread amongst their houses. In the meantime, Lucia sets about building a new site for the collection. She commissions William Turnbull, a Bay Area architect, to design it and subsequently moves there, along with much of the collection, in the mid-1990s. This site is now known as the Eames Ranch (which you might recognise as the home of our woolly pal Lulu). The Ranch is where most of the Eames collection stays for many years. Some of it is on display for the occasional informal visitors who get in touch or turn up after hearing about it from friends; some of it is used in the everyday lives of Lucia and Llisa, who both live on the Ranch; but most of it remains in boxes, drawers and crates in a barn – unused, unseen, unexplored.2 For nearly 35 years the Eameses’ material legacy is safe, but not really doing anything. Fast forward to 2017, when a man called John Cary discovers the Ranch. Now, Cary has been working at the intersection of philanthropy and culture throughout his career, and is looking for somewhere to host an event (he also happens to be an avid Eames collector via Craigslist and eBay). “Somebody said to me, ‘If you’re 2

looking for a great venue, the Ranch could be it,’” says Cary. So he goes to check it out. “I remember getting out of my car and Llisa just threw her arms around me and hugged me. And I felt so welcome.” This warm beginning was followed by an overwhelming few hours. “I remember going around what was a very dense array of materials in that house and being almost speechless. I was paralysed, I was over-stimulated by the whole thing, it was crazy.” He says goodbye to Demetrios and drives off while frantically trying to call his wife, but is thwarted by the lack of reception in the remote countryside. Further down the road, he gets through, “And I said to her, ‘I think my life has just completely changed,’” says Cary, still looking slightly awed by this turn of events seven years on. “And, in fact, it had,” he adds, smiling. For Cary soon hosts his event at the Ranch and Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, comes along and is similarly impressed. Then, between Cary, Demetrios, her family and Gebbia, it is decided that something more should be done with all this wonderful material, this wonderful site. “It was from that [event] that Joe Gebbia made the decision to start funding this [project], or at least funding it at a much higher level, and that I would leave all the work I had been doing historically to come here and start a nonprofit,” recounts Cary. “The initial intent was to simply open the Ranch to the public,” he continues, “because it was really word of mouth at that point.” But pretty soon, the Eameses’ grandchildren approach Cary and offer to sell the new nonprofit the entire collection – all the things that had been boxed up at that red-tagged office so many years ago. “I just want to emphasise,” says Cary, “that what the family has been able to do in terms of keeping this [collection] intact is rather miraculous.” Part of their motivation for selling the collection is to safeguard it further, to keep it together. “I’ve worked with a number of legacy families over the years,” explains Cary, “and basically, the further you get from the principal source, the more diffused the decision-making power is, the alignment, the resources.” So often these archives are eventually lost or damaged or separated. With this new extraordinary offer from the family, the scope of the project grows. “And so it didn’t make sense to put this historic thing under a new kind of creation or place.” So in 2022, after much discussion, “we decided to create the Eames Institute of Curiosity to hold the Ranch and the collection.” Demetrios is its chief curator, Cary its president and CEO, and Gebbia its main benefactor.

That is not to say the Eameses’ work or careers were neglected during this time. Other organisations were overseeing certain aspects of the Eameses’ legacy – the Eames Foundation was established in 2004 to work with the Getty Conservation Institute to preserve and welcome visitors to The Eames House; the Eames Office, first established by Charles and Ray in 1941, continued (and continues) to license and be responsible for the many Eames designs still in production by manufacturers, as well as the Office’s films and images. Furthermore, the museums who acquired objects from the red-tagged office curated, built and hosted displays and lent these objects to other museums, notably for the 2016 exhibition The World of Charles and Ray Eames, which was curated by the Barbican and toured globally. So the story of the Eameses continued.

The future of the collection is protected. Now the big question is: what to do with all this stuﬀ? It is this question that has underpinned the Institute’s work from then until now. Faced with such a huge collection, perhaps the most straightforward approach would have been a museological one. That is, buckle down and record, catalogue, and display the objects. Preserve and restore them. Research them and make

“We’re trying to take some of the best practices from the museum world but we’re also trying to operate like a startup.”—John Cary this research public. Given the volume of material, one imagines that this activity would have been plenty to occupy a large team for years to come. And the Institute is doing this (“What we’ve been doing for the past number of years is investing in the infrastructure and getting our arms around these invaluable assets and ensuring that they’ll be around for generations – really safeguarding and securing them,”3 says Cary) but they are also doing much more. For, while a museological approach is logical and necessary in many respects, The Eames Institute is, crucially, not a museum. It is, instead, what Cary describes as “a unicorn of a situation”, where “we’ve

To that end, they have a team of conservators and collection specialists, for example, who are working with Demetrios (who majored in history and has worked as an archivist and collections registrar) on unboxing, documenting and keeping everything they find, right down to an old cigarette-filter packet labelled “little scraps” that was found in a larger drawer labelled “paper scraps” in Ray’s neat and fastidious handwriting. It is stuﬀed with tiny metallic paper scraps, no bigger than a couple of centimetres. “They might be scraps of paper to some,” explains Sam Grawe, the Institute’s chief brand and marketing oﬃcer, “but when they are Ray Eames’s scraps, they become something else.” Furthermore, the Institute is making this research and its objects public (yes, even the paper scraps, which I have to admit are surprisingly lovely and charming) through various initiatives, including Demetrios-led tours of the Eames Archives; a publication called Kazam!; a series of online exhibitions and books about lesser-known aspects of the Eameses’ practice, including their tables and the interests and work of Ray. Furthermore, like a museum, they are making acquisitions and growing the collection. They are working to “reunite as much material as we can,” says Cary. By scouring Craigslist, eBay, auctions and fly-tipping sites, and consulting with Eames collectors and specialists, the team is sourcing objects that are missing from the collection. “We have figured out where some of the gaps are or what some of the needs may be,” explains Cary.

got a very excited and welcoming partner on the part of the [Eames] family, and specifically on the part of Llisa, and we’ve got an inordinately visionary and generous benefactor.” As such, the Institute is not limited by the many logical, financial and bureaucratic constraints that face most museums: it is operating under very diﬀerent conditions. “I think we’re trying to take some of the best practices from the museum world – for example, in terms of collections care and maintenance,” says Cary, “but we’re also trying to operate like a startup.” This startup mentality involves having room to experiment, being agile to embrace new opportunities and trying out new ideas. Bascially, the Institute is shaping and testing what it means to care for a legacy as it goes along. The result of this unicorn scenario is, Cary reflects, that “we’ve been able to do things that I never would have imagined possible.” And this is where Lulu the llama re-enters our story. Lulu’s primary role is to protect a flock of sheep on the Eames Ranch from coyotes looking for an easy snack – female llamas are very defensive of their herds.4 The sheep that Lulu fiercely guards, as well as the cows who live on the property, are part of the Institute’s ambitious plan to expand the Ranch into a site of agricultural research and a new gallery-like space for displaying some of the Institute’s collection to be housed in the Turnbull designed building, which is currently being renovated and retrofitted for this purpose. People will come for the furniture, and stay for the regenerative agriculture. The livestock on the farm are part of a decades-long programme that the nearby Windrush Farm has been undertaking to investigate the eﬀects of rotational grazing on soil health, as well as wider research around the climate crisis. The Eames Institute introduced this programme to the Ranch after purchasing the neighbouring property in June 2021, expanding the Ranch’s footprint from 26 acres to 350 acres of rolling hills and gentle creeks on land that was once the traditional territory of the Coast Miwok people. They have also introduced new projects and new research partners, including working with the Sonoma Mountain Institute and other ecologists, conservationists and educators.

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Provided they are not pregnant, in which case they abandon the sheep in the face of danger – a lesson, that the Ranch’s team told me they’d learned the hard way when Lulu’s predecessor did exactly that and was promptly fired. Llamas, we joked, do not get maternity leave.

Llisa Demetrios in the Collections Center of the Eames Archives.

For those who know Ray and Charles for their objects, furniture or architecture, this decision to invest in a massive agricultural property as part of the work to preserve their legacy may seem strange. “People may be like, ‘Agriculture?! What?!’” says Demetrios, “but I naturally see a connection.” She explains that while her grandparents never explicitly worked on a farm or a ranch or in agriculture, they were interested in ecology and nature, and how you could make people engage with natural phenomena that are usually invisible. They were also passionate and vocal about using their practice as a place for study, and learning from disciplines outside of design, including the natural sciences. So, while Lulu’s role seems simple – protect the sheep at all costs – it is much more layered than that. She is one of many moving parts of the Institute’s selfdefined mission, succinctly summarised on its website as being “to equip everyone with the lessons of Ray and Charles Eames, so that anyone can use design to solve problems”. This mission, then, is about creating an active sense of preservation in which the ideas of Charles and Ray can be preserved through use – by being passed on, by being applied to new areas and new problems. Legacy, the Institute demonstrates, is something living, breathing and useful, not simply something frozen in time. This conservation of the intangible aspects of the Eameses’ practice is just as important as conserving and preserving their material legacy because, as Ostroff points out in An Eames Anthology, Charles and Ray’s “ideas were as much a product of the Eames office as any of the compelling objects, images and films they created.” Lulu (along with her fellow creatures and plants on the Ranch) embodies the Eameses’ ideas. To further explain this connection between the Ranch and the Eameses, Demetrios cites one of her grandparents’ lesser-known projects: The National Fisheries Center and Aquarium. In 1967, the Eames Office was invited by the US government to design a national aquarium in Washington, DC. “To best understand the science of maintaining an aquarium of this scale,” explains Australian architect Darrel Conybeare, who worked at the Eames Office at the time, “the Eameses set one up in the office.” They installed 20 saltwater tanks, Demetrios tells me. Conybeare, in an interview published on streetfurniture.com in 2015, further paints the scene. These tanks, he says, were “complete with a large variety of saltwater marine life,

including an octopus[…]. The octopus became an oﬃce mascot of sorts and, at the end of the work day, would appear to wave a tentacle goodbye to those departing.” The oﬃce, then, became a kind of living laboratory for studying the needs of the creatures and the future visitors of the aquarium. The question driving this project, Demetrios explains, was: “How can you get people to care about something if they can’t look underwater?” To this end, they produced a film and an illustrated pamphlet that communicated the importance and idiosyncrasies of sea creatures, inviting people to ponder these mostly hidden beings. “Such detailed visual depictions of projects was characteristic of the Eames’ process[…],” says Conybeare. “Ray and Charles were passionate about storytelling and creating excitement for a new idea.” This fascination for making the invisible visible was a key theme of the Eameses’ work and Demetrios says that the Ranch’s team and its partners are asking similar questions: “How do you get people to care about something like climate change?” Or in other words, how do you make this invisible thing visible? Both the aquarium and the Ranch, then, to borrow the words of Charles,5 are “beginning to sneak up on the attitude that a scientist might take.” Sadly, the aquarium was never built due to budget cuts during the Nixon presidency, but the legacy of its approach lives on. The Ranch is described on the Eames Institute’s website as “a living laboratory” and “a landscape for cultivating curiosity, a working farm where the practices of design and regenerative agriculture are integrated to build a better tomorrow”. It is a site that applies the Eameses’ research-heavy and iterative process, which was mostly used to create furniture, objects and buildings, to agriculture, thus grafting their working methods, interests and ideas onto modern contexts and modern problems. “It’s just so exciting,” says Demetrios, “because it’s Ray and Charles, but it’s looking at it through a new lens.” Demetrios’s ambition to spread the ideas of her grandparents into fresh contexts isn’t, however, limited to the Ranch. “I want this thinking popping up in all kinds of ways,” she explains. “I picked agriculture with the team but it could have been anything, and I’m so curious where it’s going to pop up in other ways.” 5

Feedback

In an interview with Edward P. Morgan on the TV show Public Broadcast Laboratory, PBS, 1969 (the transcript of which is reproduced in An Eames Anthology).

One of the more unexpected places it has popped up so far was in the Institute’s acquisition of William Stout Architecture Books in 2022. It purchased the nearly 50-year-old bookstore, which The Architect’s Newspaper describes as “a mecca for architecture- and-designminded bibliophiles” from its founder William Stout, an architect and avid book collector, after learning that Stout was contemplating retirement and shuttering the store. “William Stout is a true testament to the importance of design, and his store is a complete treasure,” Gebbia told The Architect’s Newspaper. “The legacies of Ray and Charles Eames and William

that the Stout Architecture Books collection should be used and useful. On perhaps a more predictable level, Ray and Charles’s ideas are popping and fizzing in a number of ways at the Eames Archives, but what is surprising is the depth at which they are operating. The feeling that Ray and Charles’s thinking has infused every single decision in the space is tangible. The curatorial narrative and display, for example, are being approached as iterative entities that will be honed and improved over time based on visitors’ feedback, and constantly evaluated as to whether they still meet the needs of those who use the space. The initial display is based on questions that Demetrios and her mother have been most frequently asked over the years about her grandparents: What were Charles and Ray like before they met? What project is most representative of how they worked? What was their most famous work? In answering these questions through the display, they hope to meet the requirements of the public. “We’re just responding to a need that we saw, or [the needs] that people came to us with, just like Ray and Charles did with theirs.” But they are attuned to the fact that needs may change over time, dependent on the kinds of visitors that the Archives attracts. “What I love is we are testing ideas,” says Demetrios. For Charles and Ray, “there was always an opportunity to reconsider.” The iterative curatorial approach is “a way that we can imbue the exhibits with even more of Ray and Charles’s thought process, which is that they were always honing”. After our press group had the tour of the Archives, I was asked a number of times by the Institute’s team about my impressions – they seemed keen for honest opinion and rigorous discussion. I did not realise how deliberate this line of enquiry was until I discussed it with Cary the following day. “Even with the group of people that went through yesterday for the first time, we have already been debriefing in terms of what seemed to resonate,” he said, “and we’ll continue to optimise that.” When I asked what they had learnt, he replied that some of the “feedback we already got from a couple of attendees yesterday was that it felt, at moments, like it was very technical from an industrialdesign standpoint, and yet the unique part about the Eameses is really their ability to democratise design. Their values and social interests were of the moment, you know, as they were working during a war and post war. So we just, I think, need to figure out a way to foreground a little bit more of that.” It is in this attention

“[It’s] a way that we can imbue the exhibits with even more of Ray and Charles’s thought process, which is that they were always honing.” —Llisa Demetrios

Stout go hand in hand as some of the most cherished and influential people in the design community here in California, and it’s an honor to meld these two together through The Eames Institute.” The Institute’s preservation of legacy is not, then, limited entirely to the Eameses, but to what Ray and Charles may have found valuable (from bookshops to llamas). In this case, it is about keeping a key part of San Francisco’s design culture alive. The bookshop continues to run as normal and its staﬀ members, many of whom are architecture students in the area or recent graduates, continue to work there, with Stout taking a consulting role. The Institute has also acquired Stout’s thousandsstrong personal collection of architectural books and works, comprising 7,500 architectural and artist monographs, 2,500 architecutral theory books, hundreds of titles on photography and industrial design, drawings and lithographs by Frank Lloyd Wright, prints by many notable architects including Josef Albers and Tadao Ando, and, surprisingly, a gallery floor (in pieces) painted by Zaha Hadid. In doing so, they saved it from going to auction and potentially being separated to diﬀerent institutions. The power of his collection, the Institute believes, like the Eameses’ collection, is in its completeness. The team hopes to make these books into a public resource – perhaps through creating a library, or exhibition, or research archive – believing 76

The display is based on the idea of iteration, exhibiting many versions of components in various stages of development to give visistors a sense of how important honing was to Ray and Charles’s design process.

Feedback

to detail and willingness to learn that the agile, startup approach of the Eames Institute shines through. The display itself echoes this behind-the-scenes work – the honing, tweaking, responding – making tangible the Eameses’ philosophy and thinking. On a three-tiered shelf, there is what looks like the same chair presented over and over again – their identical bodies sit evenly spaced, carefully placed. At first glance, the aim of the display may seem to be about showing off volume, a kind of flex to demonstrate just how many objects are in the collection. However, those looking closely (or those directed to look closely under the knowledgable direction of Demetrios)6 will soon notice that each chair is slightly different – one may be centimetres taller or shorter than its neighbour; another, on a high-up shelf, may have the stamp of a different manufacturer underneath it; some will have different arrangements of screws or slightly different angles at which the legs taper. Other differences in design, further down the display, are more dramatic: a leg may have been added or repositioned; the seat’s material may have changed; a new colour may have been introduced. These variations are the outcome of the Eameses’ careful design process. They would, Demetrios explains, first make 50 prototypes in their studio, as well as building a machine capable of batch or mass producing the design; then, the staff in their office would produce 1,000 chairs, testing the design and its production method, perhaps leading to further tweaks along the way. Only then, once satisfied the process and design were the best they could be, would Ray and Charles hand the machine and prototypes to the manufacturer. But that wasn’t the end of the story. They would continue to improve designs long after they were in production, working closely with manufacturers to tweak areas where they observed structural weaknesses after years of use. This relationship between designer and manufacturer was unusual but the Eamses insisted that everything could always be improved and a design was never truly finished.

problems? These are the questions that seemed to be bubbling and fizzing under the surface during my time in California. It is hard to know the answers. There is, of course, a certain level of interpretation, selection, omission and authorship in stewarding

“They would often say: ‘What would Mies van der Rohe say? What would Frank Lloyd Wright say?’” —Llisa Demetrios the intangible aspects of a legacy. One likes to think the Eameses might be addressing the huge lack of aﬀordable housing faced by many cities globally, or considering how to make furniture that doesn’t destroy the planet. Perhaps it’s not important to know exactly what they would have been doing, as long as their materially rich collection continues to encourage others to put their ideas to work in useful ways. This sense of gentle background questioning is, as ever, an echo of Ray and Charles themselves. When I ask Demetrios whether her grandparents were aware of what their own legacy might be or how it would be used, she replies: “They would often say: ‘What would Mies van der Rohe say? What would Frank Lloyd Wright say?’” suggesting that they were both conscious of the importance of legacies to future generations of designers. “But I think that they were always looking ahead at the next problem to solve and never looking back,” she continues, so perhaps they weren’t so aware of their own legacy in the making. “So I think that they might be surprised and delighted… I hope!” In the same way that we can only speculate what Ray and Charles might be thinking about were they alive today, we will never truly know how they’d feel about their ideas being put to work in new ways. Nevertheless, it is nice to imagine that they would be as surprised (and delighted) as I am that there is a cranky llama named Lulu as one of the many parts of their living, breathing legacy. E N D

What would the Eameses be doing today? Where would they be focusing their attention, their practice? How would they have approached this world with many 6

The Eames Institute paid for Disegno’s travel and accommodation to visit the Archives and Ranch.

I cannot recommend the tours enough. Demetrios excitedly and warmly oscillates between describing the engineering details to tales of the Eameses as wonderful grandparents, capturing a side to them that is rare to encounter.

At All Scales Words Evi Hall Photographs Kane Hulse

In John Wyndham’s novel Trouble with Lichen (1960), biochemist Diana Brackley conceals from public knowledge her discovery and production of the lichen-based antiageing drug Antigerone. Although Brackley is accused of restricting knowledge of Antigerone for her own commercial benefit, it is gradually revealed that her motivations are chiefly political: selling her products to powerful women via a private clinic in order to lengthen their lives and thereby challenge patriarchal power structures. The appeal of Antigerone is clear, but it’s also used in Wyndham’s novel as an example of the power and political values that a commercial product can embody over and beyond its practical value to consumers. Even within a capitalist economy, there are often other forces guiding and shaping how we make and sell products.

Economies

So it was that I found myself, one unseasonably warm September evening in 2023, attending the launch of Normal Phenomena of Life (NPOL) in London’s Design District, an area of the city dotted with new-build offices vying for attention in the shadow of the O2 dome. I brought along a friend who doesn’t work in design and who was bemused and intrigued at my insistence that we attend the opening of, as I explained it, a “bio-design lifestyle brand”. She had only a loose grip on what bio-design meant; I an even looser one on what a lifestyle brand was. When we got there, we found a number of products created by NPOL: a series of prints made with algae-based inks, a bio-cement lamp, and a selection of outerwear called the Exploring Jacket. These jackets hung from scaffolding, delicately dyed in pinks, purples and blackcurrants, their colour achieved through a microbial dyeing process. Created in collaboration with designer Louise Bennetts and pattern-making studio Fabrika, the jacket was something my friend and I could agree on – we liked it. Having seen the exhibition, we left with clearer ideas: NPOL was a place we could buy things that had been created using bio-technology and the Exploring Jacket was one of them. NPOL was founded by Natsai Audrey Chieza along with Christina Agapakis, but it is also a culmination of a long-running body of work from Chieza, who originally trained as an architect before moving to study material futures at Central Saint Martins. Her earliest projects looked at microbial dyeing practices that allowed for a colour-fast finish with minimal water use; she developed this further as part of her practice, Faber Futures. This studio has, in turn, created a body of research in this area,1 as well as continuing to develop products and prototypes made with bio-technology. The Exploring Jacket is Chieza’s first commercial offering, however, released as one of the new brand’s “NPOL Originals”. NPOL is an online shop and brand. It makes and sells its own things, but is also a curated collection of things to purchase from other suppliers and designers. It champions bio-based production as being a more environmentally sustainable method of creating things and, as such, NPOL bills itself as “a place to nurture a new material culture for a planet-first lifestyle”. In the case of the Exploring Jacket, bio-technology offers a 1

production method that uses less water and avoids the use of harmful chemical dyes. Bio-technology can often oﬀer a means of cutting out the use of virgin plastics, as seen with the long-established interest in using mycelium-based materials. Alternatively, large-scale bio-technology companies are now using bacterial fermentation to turn carbon emissions and industrial-waste streams back into plastic. Chieza sees NPOL as a way to collect and promote these kinds of

NPOL was a place we could buy things that had been created using bio-technology and the Exploring Jacket was one of them. production methods – approaches towards design and manufacturing that she believes represent more environmentally sensitive choices in comparison to the use of virgin materials. The following roundtable discussion draws together a network of people and organisations who are part of the world that birthed NPOL. Much like a mycelial network, some of them are closely bonded, intertwined via frequent collaboration, whilst others lie further apart, occasionally exchanging information across intersecting disciplines. Chieza is joined by Ioana Man, lead designer at Faber Futures and product innovation lead at NPOL. Alongside them is Maurizio Montalti, a designer and director of research practice Officina Corpuscoli, as well as the founder of Mogu, a company that makes mycelium interior-design products such as acoustic panels and flooring. Kit Mcdonnell, by contrast, trained as a systems and molecular biologist, and is currently director of communications at LanzaTech, a company that uses bacteria to convert carbon emissions into ethanol for fuel or plastics. Rounding out the panel is Josef Shanley-Jackson of Mitre and Mondays, a design studio that is interested in using offcuts, found materials and exploring manufacturing scales, and which partnered with NPOL on the Gathering Lamp, a light made from bio-concrete. In Trouble with Lichen, Antigerone is saddled with the dual difficulties of scaling up to mass production and the societal fallout that comes from its discovery being made public. The extension of life it causes results in, amongst other things: a crash in the value of insurance shares; widespread panic at the predicted

Including the Museum of Symbiosis installation in the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.

Natsai Audrey Chieza, the co-founder of NPOL.

Economies

rise of unemployment caused by an un-ageing work force; and, in response to Antigerone’s original marketing towards women, a reactionary investment rush into women’s clothes shops.2 Products – even political or ideological products – have practical and economic consequences. NPOL, however, isn’t science fiction. It’s real life, and the conversation that follows shows the practical considerations attached to where bio-based design is now and where it might go in the future. Evi Hall Why launch Normal Phenomena of Life now? Natsai Audrey Chieza We’ve been working in the bio-tech

space for many years, watching these industry outputs develop and scale. It’s now an exciting moment to think about how we start to implement these solutions into our supply chains, but as consumer products. How do we remove the novelty from this topic and focus the conversation around craft and designing circular products with bio-materials? NPOL is a platform where we can experiment and prototype, with design leading this evolution. So we want to bring in craftspeople who can help us understand how to work with these materials and articulate them beyond the existing industrial narratives. We’re also bringing in storytellers to help us understand how you create meaning for the consumer. How can you make a consumer be part of the journey of caring for and maintaining these kinds of materials and products? Essentially, we’re asking what’s happening in the lab which then aﬀects how these materials are going to live in the real world. It made sense to prototype this through an online shop, but what are we going to put in it? It turns out there aren’t many products that are readily available on the market. So as a design studio we want to assemble the right kinds of makers and manufacturers to bring some of these products to life and think about what they will enable for the user. NPOL is this experimental space to ask risky questions about what is possible with bio-technology, put products on the market and see what happens. Evi There’s a lot of definitions floating around about what is considered bio-design and bio-technology. Is there a simple definition for this kind of design that’s out there? If not, why not? Kit McDonnell Oh gosh, that’s like asking a biologist how to define a species. You’ll get a diﬀerent answer 2

Yes, I know.

from everyone, as there are different practitioners coming to this from very different places. Even the word “design” is used so differently depending on whether you’re coming from a scientific background or a design-school background. Words matter. For example, one thing we run into at LanzaTech is whether something is classified as “bio-based” versus “biodesigned” or “bio-manufactured”. There’s actually a huge policy component that comes into that – what certain countries or organisations recognise as such either allows, or doesn’t allow, you to call things by certain words. Natsai But I think that’s so essential, Kit, to understand that there’s a regulatory framework determining the

“NPOL is this experimental space to ask risky questions about what is possible with bio-technology, put products on the market and see what happens.” —Natsai Audrey Chieza conditions that underpin how the field is maturing, for better or for worse. When we were thinking about what happens on NPOL, we asked ourselves: “What is bio-design on this platform?” Early on we decided to focus on materials derived from bio-processes or from the use of fermentation systems. We want to concentrate our efforts on developing the infrastructure and value chains for a consumer-led bio-technology industry that is young enough to take on new strategies to accommodate different kinds of outcomes. If a yeast is fermenting silk protein, that’s a human-mediated bio-technology-based intervention. If that silk comes from a silkworm, that’s a different paradigm altogether. We’re asking: “Do you need a bioreactor to start to scale this process?” If the answer is “Not yet, but we’re definitely going to need that to happen in the future,” then it starts to fit this very niche remit we have at NPOL. Maurizio Montalti When I started my practice in 2010, these definitions of bio-design didn’t exist. At first I used to refer to my practice as “growing design”. Among the various meanings it embedded, this definition references the generative agency of the microbial systems we were engaging with. Today, when talking about bio-design, you can think about a practice that employs the intelligence of living systems – fungi, bacteria, algae, and so on –

Economies

to create responsible solutions that let us reconnect with the cycles of a larger ecosystem. I think, however, this definition lacks depth about the key interaction and interdependence among human and non-human agents. For me, it’s fundamental to relate bio-design to the notion of encountering the “bio-other”, to allow us to tackle the disgraceful implications of selfish human behaviours which serve neither the planet, nor us. So, I often like to shift to a definition that pivots around cooperation, such as “nature co-design”, which then embodies an active collaboration rooted in mutual respect beyond exclusively utilitarian purposes, and which favours the eﬀective establishment of symbiotic entanglements among the realms of the living. Josef Shanley-Jackson I think you get into design and making things, and then you realise that you want to avoid putting bad things into the world. You start thinking, “Well, I’m not going to powder-coat steel any more, or cover it in plastic,” for example. What’s the alternative? One of the things Mitre and Mondays decided to do was work with some of these fabled bio-materials that everybody talks about. What we found was that you can’t access them. You can’t just buy them and start making things, because they’re not commercially available in the same way other materials are. So do we design our own materials? Or do we collaborate with people who are already making them? There’s all this amazing work going on researching and developing materials, but there’s very little happening on the execution side. You can’t go into a shop and buy something made from, for instance, bio-cement. That’s

design things. I’d like all design to happen this way, or at least to be transparent about the values that are underpinning its decisions. Those values could be completely different to ours, but we should be honest that there’s always an ideology behind the design decisions we make. We’re not saying that only biodesigners are able to nudge this field forward – we’re open to a plurality of perspectives. The result might be that we end up with more than just a few products on our platform; we’d see a whole generation of people working with nature filtered through their own values, and those shouldn’t be homogenous. Evi Do you feel like you have to work harder in terms of telling a story to get people to care about what you do? You’ve all put time aside to communicate the ideas behind your work; is that something you have to do with this kind of design? Kit There can be something so intimidating about integrating new technology into an existing system. Examples are the best frame of reference for folks who are new to this. I’m sure everyone here will have thoughts on what the best objects, products or pieces that can articulate this are. At LanzaTech we’ve partnered with a lot of different consumer brands to show what’s possible. Some of these are pieces that are evergreen and on store shelves, whilst others have been limited-edition collections. Each one creates a new opportunity to ask questions or engage people. Thinking about the work that Faber Futures and Ginkgo Bioworks3 did when I was there, we did plenty of stuff that wasn’t for commercial gain – creating the first museum label printed from DNA, for instance. There are so many questions that can come from that. Josef I think there’s this wider conversation happening where people are paying attention to what a company’s values are. I think one of the reasons why people fixate on the word “bio” is because it feels like an opportunity to change the way we talk about things from a consumer perspective. There are writers like Donna Haraway and Ursula K. Le Guin who it feels like everyone’s reading right now, and they’re trying to take that language [those writers developed] and apply it by communicating or collaborating with nature. I think that’s why people love this word “bio”. We’re tied up in this endless cycle of extraction and consumption, and people are looking for a new way of talking about producing and consuming

“I never really use the word biodesign to describe what we do, because I think it’s just design.” —Ioana Man

why it was so exciting when Faber Futures reached out to us. It felt like an opportunity to bridge that gap. Ioana Man I never really use the word bio-design to describe what we do, because I think it’s just design. It’s design based on certain values and principles that centres our impact on the planet, the people involved in the supply chains, and the culture that it puts into the world. We’re quite deliberate that those values should be eco-centric and equitable. We work with materials that reflect those values, but ultimately, we

An American bio-technology company that has collaborated with Faber Futures.

things that genuinely doesn’t harm the planet, and might even improve it. Ioana There are new ways of talking and thinking about things, but also doing things. A lot of the editorial that we’re now putting out through NPOL, but which is also happening across the board with the writing that everyone here is doing, tends to foreground different forms of collaboration and engagement between designers and materials, but also the different disciplines that need to be at the table to actually make the kind of complex work that we’re all committed to. We need to show rather than tell. I think a view under the hood always brings more nuance about what we put into the world. We start to build a community around supplychain development and transformation that has to happen as a consequence of putting things out into the world with these values. Maurizio I agree we shouldn’t underestimate the role that culturally driven practices play. But I don’t think it’s sufficient to consider the cultural part only. I see a strong relationship between the culturally rooted work that I’m developing at a studio level, and the industrial work I’m evolving through my entrepreneurial practice. The two are fundamentally complementary to each other. The studio practice is needed to generate visionary ideas by tackling critical questions that might at first provide for the emergence of intuition-driven and data-substantiated theoretical frameworks. However, in an industrial setting one is obliged to partly comply with the rules of the system that one wants to change, which typically focuses on growth and profit. At times it can feel like a painful compromise, yet it’s necessary to go through that as part of a period of transition. Bio-design shows possibilities for establishing new ways of conceiving value that go beyond the 19th to 21st-century models (i.e. value as financial capital). How can we culturally surpass the notions of perfection and efficiency typical of a hyper-optimised system (which is currently crumbling apart), particularly when switching to new systems rooted in the unique skills and values embedded within microbial living agents? You could say that attempting to concretely answer such questions is both the motivating stimulus and, at times, the headache that one must experience when driving such transition. Natsai In that way, I keep thinking about NPOL as a piece of vital infrastructure for the bio-tech space to unlock new ways of thinking about innovation, scale, product development, product market fit and so on.

NPOL has the freedom to act on what bio-technology companies are working on and explore how this can exist in other forms, not just what works for their current business model. We are bringing the practicalities of how you operationalise the technical and commercial realities of the bio-economy into much closer alignment with culture. You could do the same thing through other forms of engagement and alight on some really useful insights about the cultural implications or the possibilities of this technology. How do these change what it means to be human, and our relationship with the living world? We worked together with Kit to direct the Ginkgo Creative Residency when she was at Ginkgo Bioworks, and that programme asked the same kinds of questions: what are the implications of these technologies? What if bio-technology was sustainable? Does bio-technology allow us to consider new forms of community building? Evi Why bring these questions into a commercial brand? Natsai The commercial realm allows us to broaden these discussions and gain deep, real-world knowledge. It’s a critical space to test assumptions and understand better where the levers of power are for the kind of change we are working towards. For example, I was in a meeting today with an established and, some would say, traditional retailer, and for them it’s really important not to lean into the novelty of the science because the science is not the point of departure for their audience. If we’re talking to folks who want to understand the future of manufacturing, NPOL is a useful model. But if I’m talking to my mom, she’s going to ask, “What products do you have?” And I’ll say: “Did you see the lamp? It’s made with microbes.” That’s enough for her to say: “Really, how? Why?” And with the Gathering Lamp for example, working with Josef taught me that this is not just a space for bio-tech companies or consumer conversations. It’s also about bringing in other designers so everyone understands that this is just design and we need all of these forms of intelligence to move fast to implement the change we seek. Josef brought in important considerations around how we design for disassembly and how to ensure all components can re-enter the material flow. What we’re learning with this project is we need more people who’ve been thinking about sustainability outside of the narrow focus of bio-design. NPOL is a space to go deeper in ways that are not always possible for a traditional bio-tech company. What’s challenging for us is flipping between these two

Economies

domains. That’s why it’s really useful for us to work with copywriters who can communicate in a more earnest way to consumers. We always have to remind ourselves, Ah, the research project is a shop. We have to behave like a shop! Maurizio I think, however, that the question here is: How do we define the market? Is that something defined by a certain categorisation of products’ typologies? And within each category, is it correct to consider a limited run or edition as a product that truly demonstrates an eﬀective market potential? For instance, I’m thinking about myself as a designer around 10 years ago, when I was creating prototypes. Quickly, such objects became appreciated as artworks and, accordingly, I cultivated my artistic practice, evolving thanks to the wonderful cooperation with the museums and galleries I worked with. At that point, I could derive lots of value from very few pieces positioned in the art/design/cultural markets, both financially and philosophically. But that was also the origin of my frustration, which brought me to create an industrial company, Mogu. I felt the need to reach the real market, the one at scale and for the many, in order to manifest the fundamental shifts I was disseminating through my work. Hence, the question: At which point does it make sense to talk about markets, and therefore when can a product be really defined as such? Natsai I think the value of something like a limited edition is to understand how you bring well-conceived products to market no matter the constraints. We’ve learnt that there are bio-tech companies out there that aren’t at a stage where they can even make one kilogram of material. That’s how early this is. But does that mean we have to wait to have a tonne of material before we start thinking about what these things do? We don’t have time. Let’s get it working as a product because it’s real, it can be sold, and we’ve engaged with the regulatory framework of that product category to understand how to put it on the market. Then there’s another hurdle to jump: How do we engage audiences on the value and potential of these innovations? Not the B2B sector, but a wider public? Do we have to wait for 10,000kg of material? Let’s do it with one. It’s likely the outcome will be more interesting anyway, and the incentives that might exist for a startup with investors aren’t curtailing us or our understanding of what’s possible. At NPOL we have material suppliers where scale isn’t a problem for them. We could make 1,000 units a day if we wanted to, but we don’t because there

are choices to be made. The products we’ve chosen to make are shaped by other constraints. Are we working with sustainable or local suppliers, for instance? It becomes a false economy to understand value and realness based on size, scale and commercial viability alone. We’ve got to make it OK to also pursue things that are unscaleable and to ask other types of questions.

“I felt the need to reach the real market, the one at scale and for the many.” —Maurizio Montalti Ioana What we need to be seeing is both of those

scales coexisting. We need these drop-in replacements [bio-chemicals or materials that can directly replace existing products or supply chains without changing surrounding operations, Ed.] as well as the unexpected possibilities that come from putting these materials in the hands of designers like ourselves. So on the one hand it means big, toxic industries can be phased out as quickly as possible in favour of bio-materials, but at the same time we’re not missing the opportunity to bring more joy and create the excitement of new or unexpected uses, which can then feed back into the process. Natsai Exactly, and the limited edition allows us to get very good at making with these materials. We’ve now created four Exploring Jackets, and that was contingent on 24m of fabric, but also on a lot of lab research. If we aren’t a bio-tech startup, but we still want to make these products high quality, what’s the access to bio-manufacturing capabilities like for us? Who do we go to for contract manufacturing? We figured that out. And we experienced first-hand that it’s too bloody expensive right now to make bio-manufacturing accessible. There’s a huge gap in infrastructure in terms of the kinds of services that designers could access to bio-manufacture products at scale in the future. We don’t want this industry to be curtailed by monopolies, we want to see a distributed model with as much access to these technologies as possible. This will lead to true ingenuity. With the Exploring Jacket, we’re prototyping what a bio-manufacturing system that makes it possible for more designers, makers and artists to access microbial pigments and hone their own craft working with them looks like. Our incentives to continue this work are not tied to scale. 86

Economies

We are demonstrating impact in other ways, a lot of which only become tangible five years down the line. Evi Kit, what’s your experience of this from working at a bio-tech companies who collaborate with platforms or makers interested in consumer products? Kit From a B2B perspective the aspiration is always reaching “commercial scale”. I think that there’s a techno-economic value that’s embedded in the way

scale, but we’re also working with solo makers to try and understand why it’s just that one piece that’s possible. Perhaps it’s actually worth making an object to learn what’s at play. And if you build a single entity, one brand, one umbrella that can carry those diﬀerent strands at the same time then… you have a shop that holds products demonstrating all these diﬀerent capacities at any given moment, and that’s a very important repository to understand the possibility of bio-technology. Evi Why channel all of this innovative research into these quite familiar products and typologies such as furniture or fashion? Ioana At NPOL we never start with the idea that we want to make, say, a lamp with a certain material. The design briefs always come out of deep conversations with those who are growing the materials and expanding on the possibilities that the material reveals. Biomason4 could be using bio-concrete to make pavements, for example, and that definitely needs to happen. But because of the way in which the tiles are grown, we’re also able to make a lamp that is tactile, hard-wearing, and can be repaired or taken apart. It’s about asking: What is the material telling us it should be, and what can it bring out in the world? So let’s see what materials we get to work with, what conversations we have, and then new product categories – which we might not even have names for yet – might also emerge. Josef I think that recognisable typologies are essential. Because these are new ideas, new materials and new ways of thinking. If you can then present those in a recognisable format to someone, that really helps with understanding what’s going on. To present a new material and a new technology alongside a format which someone’s never seen before, that might muddy the waters of how special that thing is. There’s something very lovely about making a lamp because everyone knows what a lamp is. They’re not having to have a deep existential crisis about their life because they’re just looking at a lamp. But what the lamp is made from, how it’s made and the processes and people behind it, that’s the thing they can focus on. E N D

“I’m wrestling with this idea that the viability of a technology is conflated with its ability to work at commercial scale. Is this the only way it can manifest?” —Kit McDonnell that we think about the end goal. Whether that’s through the commercial-scale of production for a microbial system within a bioreactor, or it’s through the commercialised supply chain where we can take what our microbes are making and place it in that market. At LanzaTech currently we’re doing drop-in replacements so that you don’t even have to talk about the fact that biology is involved. For some of our partners the important thing is the quality of the material they are getting, or that they want to improve their LCA [lifecycle analysis] or reduce their environmental footprint. Or they just want to use materials that come from a diﬀerent feedstock: they could use virgin fossil carbon, but instead they could take above-ground carbon, recapture it and recycle it. Personally, I’m also wrestling with this idea that the viability of a technology is conflated with its ability to work at a commercial scale. Is this the only way it can manifest? Natsai One of the things that we’re discussing currently, is this notion of how synthetic biology or bio-tech could happen in a distributed way and happen everywhere. We have to think large-scale, small-scale and microscale, because there are going to be communities on this planet for whom the large-scale commercial doesn’t register, because the conditions don’t exist, be they regulatory or financial, to make an equitable transformation in this field. It crystallises the fact that the key driver has to be the myriad diﬀerent ways of approaching this. Right now, NPOL represents this weird third space where we can work with very, very large companies that are able to deliver at commercial

An American bio-technology company that uses microorganisms to grow structural cement.

Words Miranda Clow

Image by Fabian Frinzel.

From Image to Object.When things go wrong with people’s chairs or toasters or toilets, I’m the person at Jasper Morrison Ltd who receives their emails. While we may have designed your chair, toaster or toilet, I reply, we did not make it. Please could you get in touch with the manufacturer? But Jasper’s book The Hard Life (2017), a series of photographs of objects from rural life in Portugal, drawn from a collection in Lisbon’s National Museum of Ethnology, inspired us to enter manufacturing ourselves and make things we could sell in the Jasper Morrison Shop. Amidst The Hard Life’s sickles and hay forks were several object typologies that we felt could be useful in modern, urban living. What about that small terracotta barbecue on page 13? The studio conjured up the dimensions that would bring the photograph to life. It was imperative to have the barbecue made in Portugal. We knew a designer there who could help, and he soon became our intermediary to a distinguished potter. Over a year later, a small batch of barbecues arrived at the oﬃce. Those that survived the journey – half did not – beautifully captured the charm of the object in the photograph. Excited, we realised we had better try it. It cooked brilliantly. But the rim cracked dramatically from the heat. We tested one after another, always with the same result. A year later, we were able to find an intermediary to a new potter. We also realised that the barbecue in the photograph had metal bars. Could that hold the answer? This potter told us that his father used to make this very object and sent us a photograph of an exquisite example. We were encouraged,

but disappointed when a prototype arrived – it was in pieces, but still it was clear that it had lacked the elegance of our first model. We sent the potter our first model and a more detailed drawing, and asked if he could copy it. (It arrived at his studio broken.) A second prototype came from the potter, undamaged, and with metal bars and a protective, heat-resistant cement coating, but its character was even further from what we intended. When we tested this version, it cracked, and the protective coating drained away in the London rain. Another year passed and it so happened that a young designer in Portugal called Nuno Viola sent Jasper a gift of a mini barbecue similar to that in The Hard Life. He’d found it in a traditional ceramic shop. We told Nuno about our failed attempts to engineer the one in the photograph. Would he be interested in helping us? He quickly found a potter and we sent him our drawing. It was a few months before Nuno reported bad news. He had tested several variations made by the potter and they had all cracked. He sent us a sample anyway – it was the ugliest yet. In the meantime, Nuno had sent us photographs of a very tidy tinsmith along with his workshop and wares. In light of our failures with terracotta, why not try the barbecue in tin? The studio rustled up a new drawing particular to the material and, in no time, we received a prototype. It looked right, cooked well and stayed intact. Tin has transformed the charm of this object, but it has charm all the same. The mystery of the terracotta version remains.

Objects in Review

Scraps on Show Words Lia Forslund Photographs Alastair Philip Wiper

“It’s the future of everything,” says British designer John Tree. “It’s universally great. You can make jewellery and airplanes with it: it’s versatile, it’s flexible and it doesn’t need any finishing.” He leans across his desk as if telling a secret.

The material in question is Hydro CIRCAL 100R, an alloy made from 100 per cent recycled aluminium that is produced by Hydro, a Norwegian renewable energy and aluminium manufacturer. Before Hydro CIRCAL 100R, which will oﬃcially launch later this year, creating aluminium alloys using only post-consumer scrap had proven impossible – a technical challenge that is caused by paints, plastics, and other contaminants. What Tree is excited about with Hydro CIRCAL 100R, however, is its ability to avoid these issues through new sorting, shredding and melting technologies. “Old window frames and car parts – genuine post-consumer waste. We are going to be taking things out of landfill by designing with this material.” The benefits of this are twofold. The larger the share of scrap content in an aluminium alloy, the smaller the material’s carbon footprint as a result. Producing virgin aluminium requires much more energy than recycling existing metal – somewhere between 90 and 95 per cent, on average. As a result, Hydro’s use of 100 per cent recycled aluminium has a carbon footprint of 0.5 CO2e/kg, which means it is almost a zero-carbon material. “With Hydro CIRCAL 100R, we tap into a closed loop, with a record low-carbon footprint,” says Asle Forsbak, Hydro’s director of communications. “Hydro employs some 33,000 people worldwide and has the resources and competence to push the design industry into the future. At the same time, we’re relatively unknown to both designers and the public.” To show the world what its new material is made of, Hydro is adopting a somewhat unorthodox approach. Instead of teaming up with a conventional producer or manufacturer to create products from the alloy, it has gone straight to designers with a material brief whose outcomes will be exhibited in 100R, a design show hosted at Spazio Maiocchi during Milan Design Week 2024. The brief the designers, of whom Tree is one,1 received was open-ended, but it proposed two intricate constraints: firstly, they could only use Hydro CIRCAL 100R, and secondly, their entire object 1

Also invited to experiment with Hydro CIRCAL 100R were designers Inga Sempé, Max Lamb, Andreas Engesvik, Shane Schneck, Rachel Griﬃn and Philippe Malouin.

had to be entirely extruded through a 200mm tool. This brief, Tree tells me, gave him “complete freedom”. After all, it must be liberating to design a mass-produced item without a conventional client, and the idea of fast-tracked design exploration and material research with limited environmental repercussions sounds idyllic. I am, however, particularly mesmerised by the second constraint – how do you design objects to be squeezed through a 200mm hole? When extruding aluminium, the softened alloy is forced through a steel frame called a die – which looks like the tip of a giant pastry bag and dictates every inch of the design. “All the dies we do at Hydro are unique, which means that these designers were given carte blanche within a fixed radius,” explains Anders Helander, the project’s chief engineer. In other words, they could design the shape of the hole through which the metal would be squeezed, but the size of it was restricted. The designers approached their dies diﬀerently. “The most complicated profile is Inga Sempé’s,” says Helander. “I was afraid it would not make it given all its curvature, but it worked well in the end.” Max Lamb’s profile was also challenging. “At one point in the process, I had to show him a video of an aluminium-tooling machine exploding to illustrate the limits,” says Helander. “But that is all part of pushing ourselves.” To date, the projects have yet to burst any of the Hydro equipment. At his studio in London, Tree shows me some parts of his design for 100R: an aluminium chair. From afar, it looks like a spatial puzzle. “Helander and I had daily ping-pong sessions,” he says. “There was a lot of sketching, development files and photographs of prototypes. We just had to work very fast.” He shows me how the chair comes out of the 200mm die as one sheet, and is then bent perpendicularly to make legs and a backbone for the design. An aluminium seat and backrest – also cut from aluminium sheets – are then clicked into place using an intricate hinging system. It feels progressive – a classic shape entirely made using post-consumer waste, put together in a way I have never seen before. This kind of ambition is the guiding principle of 100R, which was initiated by

Hydro in conjunction with designer Lars Beller Fjetland. Serving as the project’s artistic lead, Beller Fjetland had begun collaborating with Hydro in 2023 when he designed Bello! for the company – an extruded-aluminium bench made using a predecessor of Hydro CIRCAL 100R that comprised nearly 90 per cent recycled content. Beller Fjetland is not designing for the new Milan exhibition, however, but has instead selected colleagues who share his passion for materials, engineering and design research. “We want to show that mass production and sustainability don’t have to be in conflict,” he says. “With extruded aluminium, we use less material, water, energy – less of everything.” Cut to Vetlanda, Sweden, where I’m watching a performance take place inside Hydro’s plant: aluminium extrusions are dancing out of large tooling machines. “Watching the aluminium running like a river onto the casting table – it’s just magical,” says Beller Fjetland. “The way the extruded profiles come out of the tools and are cut, placed on a rack, bent, and lifted onto a crane feels futuristic – it’s just like a sci-fi movie.” Workers in beautiful, silver, radiantheat-resistant coats monitor the stream of entrancing, hot, metallic liquid. While it is easy to imagine an aluminium facility might be dirty, dusty and dark, Hydro’s production site is bright and airy, and smells of warm aluminium, which leaves a soft metallic taste in your mouth. I’m impressed by the cleanliness – with a 100 per cent post-consumer waste material, I had pictured a factory full of mess and grit. Instead, most of the process is programmed to perfection. “While there’s very little physical labour in this production, it requires a skilled workforce controlling the machines,” Beller Fjetland tells me. Beller Fjetland believes that bringing designers closer to skilled workers and raw materials is a must in the current economic climate. “Today, manufacturers are firing their R&D departments and outsourcing everything, and I think we will see a downturn in product innovation as a result – we will end up with dumber products, and that’s not what I want for the industry.” He says this as we walk around the somewhat slimmed down

Stockholm Furniture Fair in February 2024, the day after visiting the factory. He is there to catch up with the 100R designers, many of whom are good friends. In light of exhibitor numbers having dropped from 620 to 270 in the last four years, the fair has reduced from three halls to two, and the mood amongst Stockholm’s design community is somewhat sober. One potential learning from the Hydro case feels clear: if you’re a material or technology company, you should step up and secure innovation from designers at a time when many design brands seem to be less able to aﬀord it. “To me, this is more like the way the big mid-century designers used to work,” says Beller Fjetland. “They were handson, investigating materials and being closer to production. Look at Charles and Ray Eames – what they did with plywood, for instance, is not far from the formula we are trying to apply here.” The parallel is intriguing: what began as bent plywood experiments in the Eameses’ home soon turned into refined plywood innovation when they made splints for wounded US Navy servicemen during the Second World War. Later, this process was applied to furniture pieces such as the 1946 LCW chair, dubbed “the chair of the century” by Time magazine in its 1999 millennial issue.

“Most of the time, designers are just being denied access [to industry],” says Beller Fjetland. “The sad thing is that to be able to start to think in the way of production-friendly, eﬃcient, sustainable design, you must get first-hand experience – visiting plants and meeting with these incredible people.” Beller Fjetland believes many material companies are currently underestimating what designers can do. “Maybe they’re used to working with the generation before us, some of whom may have been happy to sketch a chair on a napkin and leave it at that,” he says. “But today, I believe that designers love coming to the factory to see how things are made and to base their proposals on real engineering dialogues.” There is a show-don’t-tell approach to 100R that feels transparent and fresh. At its heart, it aims to demonstrate what is possible with a new material. “It’s an eﬃcient communication method,” says Beller Fjetland. “This is a true futureready material.” But this approach is not limited to the works on display. “Part of the strategy,” explains Beller Fjetland, “is for the designers to see each other’s work for the first time in Milan, and use that momentum as a forum, a final part of the journey.” To complement this idea of communal discussion, Hydro will also “welcome engineers, designers and decision-makers to participate,” he adds.

The variety of guests at the forum suggests that the story here isn’t just about the material. “The best projects come from a good collaboration with the engineer,” says Tree. “If you are both invested, the project becomes a bit like your child: it’s an exercise in co-parenting. You will both take responsibility and push things forward, maybe trying something you haven’t tried before, but caring equally for the outcome.” Beller Fjetland also likens the process to a relationship, albeit a diﬀerent one. “This past half a year has been like falling in love with design all over again,” he says. “Instead of working on a destructive brief for five years, compromising any passion that was initially there, this project has given me new energy.” 100R is an exhibition that proves a material point. But could this materialled process also represent a new format for the industry as a whole? Perhaps it could prompt an annual post-consumer, mono-material challenge, in which designers come together with engineers to push boundaries? Beller Fjetland has long-term plans: “I think it was the nerd mentality of the project that attracted these designers. We are not using fancy words or trying to sell anything; we are exploring design in a down-to-earth way and that it what we want to continue to do.”

The images on the following pages were taken by Alastair Philip Wiper at Hydro’s production facilities in Vetlanda, Sweden, and document the extrusion process that lies at the heart of the 100R project.

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motifs selected from a visual diary that Hashimoto’s studio has developed over the years, studying and recording patterns ranging from the cellular structure of trees through to fungus outgrowths in the wild. Realising the dense layering of Hashimoto’s chosen patterns as textiles required considerable technical expertise. “To achieve the desired eﬀect of transparency when a motif-ed circle interacts with an empty one, the digital ‘weave file’ feeds information into the Jacquard loom such that it uses a nylon filament yarn to create a finer texture in that common area,” explains Smith. “It sounds complicated, I know, but it works smoothly,” she laughs. The machine-woven translations of Hashimoto’s sculptural work may convert their spatial properties into two-dimensional patterns, but the textiles are now set to re-enter three dimensions in the form of furniture upholstery and wall hangings. According to Hashimoto, the textiles have great potential as building blocks for new spaces and other projects. “It’s about letting go and seeing how the creations live in this world,” he says. “I might see them on a waiting room sofa.” Words Rupal Rathore

Image by Fabian Frinzel.

Hanging by Many Threads-When artist Jacob Hashimoto was approached by textile manufacturer Maharam about a collaboration more than a decade ago, he admits to “dropping the ball”. It’s not that Hashimoto didn’t go on to work with Maharam – he created two installations for the company, Silent Rhythm (2011) and The Long Passage Towards Night (2012), both of which are now available as photographic wall coverings – but the possibility of designing a woven textile drifted. “It seemed like a missed opportunity for a long time, but I really didn’t have the [graphic] language to do this back then,” he shrugs. Based in New York, Hashimoto’s studio is known for its architecturalscale, three-dimensional installations intricately constructed from translucent rice paper kites that are hung from webs of black thread. These kites have cascaded down the ceiling of McDonald’s in Chicago and spanned the lobby of the US Embassy in Namibia, yet as the studio’s renown and commercial appeal has grown, it “has gradually moved towards flatter explorations,” says Hashimoto. “We’ve adapted our art to everything from bicycles to video games.” As such, when the opportunity to revisit a textile with Maharam resurfaced, Hashimoto was quick to pick up the ball. The first results of this revived collaboration, launched this year, are Midair and Beyond, two new textile series that translate Hashimoto’s rhythmic arrangements in space into patterns woven in cotton, nylon, and polyester yarn. “There was always a curiosity to translate Jacob’s very multidisciplinary creations, that range from paintings to sculptures, into woven textile,” says Ashley Smith, a senior designer at Maharam Design Studio. To explore this curiosity, Maharam’s team “has been working with Jacob to make digital products that are scalable and reproducible”. Across both series, Hashimoto’s three-dimensional arrangement of kites and motifs are condensed into iterative patterns. Midair, for instance, features occasionally overlapping circles suspended in expansive space. The circles are adorned with abstract

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Dear Things Introduction Silvio Lorusso Photographs Gerhardt Kellermann

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What is the object that you hold most dear? Mine is a racing bike. It is beautiful, no doubt, but that’s not what makes it special. What makes it unique is that I built it myself – or, to be precise, I built it with my friend Simon, who knew how to do it and showed me. He helped me along the way, but still made room for me to make mistakes and, therefore, learn. When I finally rode the bike for the first time, I experienced a joy I hadn’t felt in years. DIYR, a new collection of “social electronics” that includes fans, modular lamps and speakers, coupled with coat racks and hangers, promises to gift people a similar feeling. Pronounced “dear”, the collection’s acronym stands for “Do It Yourself Revolution”. These products, conceived by the Design Friction Lab of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, aren’t sold anywhere, but exist originally as instructions. They only become things when built – and customised – by people. DIYR objects are colourful but not shouty, transparent about the technology they carry, clearly understandable, and therefore repairable. While the tools used to assemble the products are easy to find (multimeters, drills, handsaws, etc) and most of the components are standardised, some parts are 3D-printed, such as hinges and bases – and it is these that often give the objects character. To create them, the designers encourage people to go to a local fabrication laboratory (fablab) or order them online. All the instructions and 3D-model files are published on the internet under a Creative Commons licence that allows for reproduction and customisation, except when it comes to commercial use. The project’s website tells me that “DIYR is here to empower You to do and to imagine. To take action and assume responsibility by doing yourself and contributing [to] the much-needed shift in the relations with the objects around you, with the industry, society and the environment.” And I do indeed feel energised, especially given that I actually need a floor lamp for my studio. Today, however, I won’t be hitting the hardware store, but am instead meeting Nitzan Cohen, the mind behind DIYR and the Design Friction Lab. After graduating from Design Academy Eindhoven in 2002, Cohen worked with the Siemens-Mobile Designlab and Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design, before leaving to found his Munich-based studio in 2007. There, he produced a series of one-oﬀ objects and spaces, as well as partnering with design brands such as Mattiazzi on

industrially produced furniture and products. Since 2015, however, Cohen has been less active within commercial design, focusing instead on education and research after having been appointed dean of the Faculty of Design and Art at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Since having closed his studio in Munich, Cohen now operates primarily through the Design Friction

“Our students need to figure out the ‘how’, but just as much the ‘why’ in design and art.” —Nitzan Cohen Lab, a research platform he founded at the university to operate at the “intersection of science and the industry”, and raise questions around the sustainability of design practice. As we prepare to speak over Zoom about DIYR and Cohen’s ambitions for the project, I realise that I want to know more about the values embodied by the Lab and its approach towards design. “As a decision-based practice stimulating the realisation of equitable common goods for people and the planet,” the Lab’s website states, “design is applied thinking in the infinitive: where to?” Silvio Lorusso Nitzan, you’re the dean of the Faculty of Design and Art at the Free University of BozenBolzano. How would you describe the “vibe” of the faculty? Nitzan Cohen With 350 students, our faculty is a relatively small one. It’s not an art academy, but an actual university, where Italian academic standards apply. However, among the faculties in our university, ours is the odd one out. In a way, we had to create our own reality. We have substantial resources and incredible workshops here, and this is part of the character of the faculty – we are not only busy with rendering things, but also with making them. At the same time, we have been nourishing a conceptual framework: our students need to figure out the “how”, but just as much the “why” in design and art. I would say it’s this kind of duality that makes the faculty unique, and shapes my role as dean. At times, I have to deal with diﬀerent voices and their dissonances:

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protect ourselves: we combine information to understand if something is a threat. The Iso_Isolator messes with our expectations. What is it, really? Is it a shelf? It has wheels, and each one can roll, but not all together, so they don’t work. Silvio You can’t really figure out what to do with it. It’s a dilemma. Nitzan Yes. It’s humorous but, at the same time, it explores aspects related to functionality, our perception of it, and the necessity to align our understanding with what we consider logical. Silvio Whereas the Iso_Isolator could fit well in one of David Cronenberg’s films, the InnoCell Bioreactor, a project developed by the Design Friction Lab, brings to mind a less shadowy type of science fiction. What is it about? Nitzan The bioreactor’s original seed was the bachelor thesis project of Emma Sicher, a student of mine. She was looking at the possibility of packaging SCOBY matter [“symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast”], which is generally used to make kombucha tea. We’re based in South Tyrol, which is Europe’s largest applegrowing region. Hence, there’s a lot of processing of apples. We realised that discarded apples, at any processing step, have exactly the same amount of sugar as fresh apples, and sugar is what drives the fermentation process. The first goal of the project was to define the optimal recipe for SCOBY to grow from discarded apples. This recipe has a generally positive eﬀect on our digestion, unlike standard SCOBY based on plain sugars. Silvio DIYR, meanwhile, is an ecosystem of electronic devices that the user can “build, hack, personalize, share, fix, and forever keep”. Can you tell me a bit about the collection? Nitzan I’ve long been fascinated by do-it-yourself. A number of years ago, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin commissioned me to do a DIY project for their weekend magazine. I came up with a wall clock where I only designed the hour hand. This was something that people could easily 3D print. It was quite playful and made me wonder about the possibilities of such techniques. After that, I really wanted to do a mobile phone. I thought that it would be so cool to design a DIY mobile phone and realise it. Silvio Something close to Fairphone, or Mathijs van Oosterhoudt’s open-source camera? Nitzan Exactly. But in the end, I didn’t have the means. So, I focused on the gap between components and

I have to be able to talk to both the inside and the outside of the faculty. Silvio This notion of dissonance calls in an important concept for your lab, that is, “design friction”. I’m reminded of a 2019 article by Anja Groten (founder of the Hackers & Designers network), in which she argues that “[friction] describes a moment of resistance in which two elements (people or objects) encounter each other and create a new condition”. On the other hand, you characterise it as being a counterpart of “Design

“Following the prescribed paths, both reasonable and unreasonable ones, won’t get us far. We would end up with a dull future.” —Nitzan Cohen Fiction”, and therefore as a form of disobedience to the expectations of the market. What does it mean to disobey? Nitzan Disobeying means acting in a subversive way, which is not meant to harm but to instigate. It’s like in the old poem ‘The Road Not Taken’. Our work asks: what if we take the less travelled road instead? This involves developing projects through various stages, and taking into account the broader context of the entire endeavour. Silvio It’s a bit like that meme where a person, instead of following the prescribed path (Design), takes the shortest, most reasonable one (User Experience)… Nitzan Following the prescribed paths, both reasonable and unreasonable ones, won’t get us far. We would end up with a dull future. But if we start with a fictional scenario, then we can start to explore multiple, more interesting possibilities. Silvio Is there a relationship between the work of the Design Friction Lab and some of your more paradoxical earlier products such as the Iso_Isolator, a somewhat unsettling tower of glass shelves whose trolley wheels were placed such that it couldn’t be pushed or pulled? Nitzan That object was about combinations. We are always combining information to make sense of things because that’s how our minds work. We see four legs and a flat surface – it’s a chair. This is also how we

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final products, considering that you can easily and cheaply buy parts and build sophisticated products in a relatively straightforward way, adding an extra emotional value that comes from personalisation. Silvio Ten years ago, it seemed that 3D printers were on the verge of bringing about a “third industrial revolution”, as it was dubbed by Jeremy Rifkin. This was part of the narrative fuelling the so-called maker movement. Did you believe in that promise? Nitzan On the one hand, there are almost 6,000 fablabs around the world; it’s an impressive knowledge-sharing network. On the other hand, when we look at what they’re actually producing, it becomes more difficult, as there’s a lot of nonsense and waste. A lot did not evolve as people predicted or hoped for, but I still see an incredible potential in providing fablabs with a kind of multi-layered recipe book. This is what we are trying to do with DIYR, where people ask: “Where is the store?” But there is no store. Silvio Perhaps tech journalists and commentators were asking a bit too much from fablabs, anointing them with a world-changing aura. Somehow, it was like asking a copy shop to carry out the revolution. Nitzan These are really the questions tackled by digital fabrication experts like Stefano Maffei. That said, things still need to happen, and DIYR is one of them, since it’s offering something that fablabs don’t have at the moment. It’s not the answer, but a small building block in furthering the idea of diffused manufacturing. Silvio My favourite objects in the collection are the speakers. I think this has to do with their sense of fragility (they literally shake) and transparency (you can see the naked amplifier board). They are a bit like Daniel Weil’s 1981 “Bag” Radio. Nitzan In designing them, we tried to ignore all the pre-existing speaker designs and go all the way with them. As designers, we are somehow programmed to think in the industry’s terms, so we had to remind ourselves that, no, we can do it differently and focus on how we would really like to use the product, as well as being able to repair it. In this sense, transparency becomes accessibility. Naked is beautiful. There are many fantastic references to that idea, as well as how we relate to the objects we use, like a Bang and Olufsen stereo system from 1993 where you swipe your hand, the doors open and you can insert the CD. It’s beautiful but also a little bit absurd, like Naoto Fukasawa’s wall-mounted CD player for Muji, which was very intuitive. At the time, for me, that was mind-blowing.

Another inspiration for us was Teenage Engineering, which makes these super-funky devices for making music. I really appreciate the logic behind them: there is something raw and punk about using technology that way. Silvio DYIR products have a clear identity – they aren’t stylistically neutral. The colour palette and materials make me think of Memphis and Alchimia. Is this a way to make technology more human or “warm”?

“One of our challenges was: how do you communicate that there are endless possibilities?” —Nitzan Cohen Nitzan Obviously, you can’t design without giving a shape. We wanted to be functional but also not shy, to give colour and be bold about it – to create something that looks new. One of our challenges was: how do you communicate that there are endless possibilities? This is almost a philosophical question, and a very important one for us. Silvio Perhaps DIYR borrows less from the style of postmodern design than it does from its ethos, which promotes multiplicity and recombination. After all, other products in the collection, such as the fans, have an aﬃnity with completely diﬀerent works, like the kinetic and programmed art of collectives like Gruppo T or designers like Bruno Munari. Nitzan Yes, we have many references. But in the end, what really matters is that the objects make sense for themselves, and possess their own contemporary logic. Silvio DIYR’s method of providing instructions and making use of readily available components has several precedents, like Enzo Mari’s 1974 Autoprogettazione? and Louise Brigham’s 1909 Box Furniture. Nitzan The thing is, I really like instructions. I shouldn’t say it, but as a student I used to steal rescue instructions from airplanes, since I found them both beautiful and a bit ridiculous. Instructions are like Esperanto: when they work well everybody understands them, and that’s also good for manufacturers since they don’t need to translate them into every language. So, we looked at many types of instructions, including many YouTube videos.

Distribution

Silvio And wikiHow, with its iconic illustration style? Nitzan Also Instructables. In our case, we had to communicate something complex but not complicated. In the end, we opted for illustrations, so that the style of the final products wouldn’t be fixed in photographs. Given the information they convey, I think we managed to make our instructions very, very compact. Silvio But, to be honest, these instructions are not for everyone. Not everyone is into soldering or likes to handle thermal glue. Who’s the “implicit user” of DIYR? Nitzan It’s true that DIYR might not be for everyone, but we should let go of stigmas and clichés. That said, I believe this could be very interesting for teenagers who are into techniques and technology. This could be one among many hobbies they develop in their young adult phase. And we should really de-gender technology! I hope DIYR can help. Silvio And what about the business model? Are you considering ways to make money with this? Nitzan We’re thinking about it, but for the moment the project is really open. I’d be really happy if this would give the industry a kick in the balls. More than constituting a business model, DIYR is meant to challenge current business models. If it becomes popular, it can manage to do so. The goal of this project is to make a diﬀerence, as naive as that may sound. Silvio The description of DIYR on its website reads: “Glocal [global + local] networks of knowledge exchange are fostered while the economic interest of market and industry are undermined through design activism, self-production and a welcome appropriation of form and function.” The R in DIYR stands for “revolution”. Isn’t that too much, rhetorically speaking? Nitzan This line might sound a bit presumptuous, but there is also a risk of being too dogmatic with the words we use, which can then limit diﬀerent interpretations. Here in the faculty, for instance, I’ve had many discussions about activism. There is no single definition, especially for what we’re trying to do, which is both a political endeavour and the design of a brand. DIYR might not be the solution, but it is a way to be resolute about bringing about change. E N D

“I’d be really happy if this would give the industry a kick in the balls. DIYR is meant to challenge current business models.” —Nitzan Cohen

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Words Ines Glowania

Image by Fabian Frinzel.

Just My Type.In 2014, a love story began with a stumble. BNAG, a German product design studio, wrote an email to the Berlin-based type foundry ABC Dinamo asking to use one of its fonts for free. Dinamo agreed and the world seemed perfect. But word of this union didn’t spread. “Someone in Dinamo’s team saw our project online and thought we’d stolen the font,” Oliver-Selim Boualam, co-founder of BNAG, recalls. “We received a warning.” And yet love found a way. Learning about the mix-up, Johannes Breyer, co-founder of Dinamo, stepped in to clarify the situation, and invited Boualam and Lukas Marstaller, BNAG’s other co-founder, for beers. It was, Boualam says, an “instant match”. Marstaller concurs: “This never felt like a one-night stand. It was obvious that this had a future.” Flirtations bubbled away throughout the years and, in 2019, the relationship moved to a new stage. Dinamo asked BNAG to create objects for Hardware, a retail venture that the foundry was planning to focus on type-inflected product design. “Our fonts are created digitally,” explains Fabian Harb, co-founder and head of type design at Dinamo. “We send them to clients and then the beautiful objects [that result] are created somewhere else. Hardware is a reaction to that.” At the time, BNAG had already worked on a project called the 1-2-3 Chair, which explored a dot-based system for joining wood using metal brackets, screws and typography. “We were super-happy with the chair, but the project always felt like a prototype of a prototype,” says Boualam. “When Dinamo contacted us, we thought pretty quickly that maybe this was the project we could develop.” In fact, Dinamo’s proposal became the perfect moment to progress product and type’s romance into a relationship. The results of this cooperation are the ABC C-o-n-n-e-c-t-o-r-s: metal brackets perforated with a matrix grid.

The system invites users to insert nails or screws through its grid to connect timber components. Thereby, even nonprofessional makers can build individualised furniture such as chairs, benches and tables. In addition, the screws can be arranged within the matrix to form the letters of a typeface. The full ABC C-o-n-n-e-c-t-o-r-s pack consists of eight plates of five diﬀerent sizes and styles, which are accompanied by an instructional zine for inspiration. In the spirit of blurring type and industrial design, the matrix grid led Dinamo to release a digital dot font as well: ABC C-o-n-n-e-c-t. The dots that make up the letters are shaped like screw heads, and the mono and proportional font comes in five styles, as well as Italics. Much like falling in love, the process of designing the ABC C-o-n-n-e-c-t-o-r-s hardware and typeface wasn’t linear. “It was like ping-pong,” says BNAG’s Marstaller. “We aligned the typeface to the grid and the grid to the typeface.” And, as love often does, it took time to grow. Five years of ping-ponging was needed to finish the project, because both studios had to balance this self-initiated aﬀair alongside commercial work. The pandemic added complexities too. In the end, however, the ABC C-o-n-n-e-c-t-o-r-s saw the light of day, launching at the end of 2023. Type design hooked up with product design. The digital kissed the physical. Wood married metal. A perfect love story.

Objects in Review

Words Hannah Rashbass

Image by Fabian Frinzel.

Holding a Dinner Party-“Usually it’s a chore to move something around a space, but you can take pleasure in putting your hands in Dinner Party,” explains Finn Thomson, co-founder of design studio Mitre and Mondays. Trough-like, mighty, and acid yellow, the design of Dinner Party, a new ceramic serving dish created by the studio for design platform Atelier100, began with its handles. Cut low into the sides of its ceramic body, these were inspired by a stone drain found on a street in Marseille. “The drain looked so lovely, I had to put my hand in,” says Thomson. Its comfortable fit – worn smooth by rainwater – was the inviting element that Thomson wanted to build into Dinner Party. “Once you have a handle, you can think about what you want to carry and where.” Although the conceptual move from drain to tableware may seem eccentric, Dinner Party blurs further typologies even within its function, serving as both dish and tray. This kind of multipurpose approach, says Thomson, comes from the studio’s desire to think about objects and spaces in new ways, and discover unexpected narratives in their designs. “We use culinary language such as ‘delicious’ and ‘smooth’ to talk about design because it’s about opening yourself up to more expansive ways of thinking,” he explains. “That’s part of Dinner Party. The handles prescribe how you should hold it, but we want people to experiment with use.” The product is manufactured in Portugal and when the team visited the factory producing the work they saw ceramicists holding Dinner Party by the handles as they carried the fired clay.

“As soon as we saw that,” says Thomson, “we said that’s how it should be glazed – using the handles.” They landed on a double-dip technique, whereby half the object was dunked in the glaze by one handle and then turned and dunked by the other. The result is a faint lemony line visible in the centre, the point at which the two dips cross. “Subtly,” adds Thomson, “you feel the handles through that line.” As a result of its unconventional form, the dish is flamboyant as a centrepiece, but still stackable and snug in square kitchen cupboards and compact flats. “Traditionally, round serving plates would be displayed on the wall, but we are interested in how people live now, which is often in a much more temporary way,” says Josef Shanley-Jackson, Mitre and Mondays’ creative director. Freya Bolton, the third member of the studio, adds that the challenge was “finding the fun in common sense”. The playful mix of typologies that make up Dinner Party are, however, most fully brought together through its handles. They reflect the story of its conception, are quietly present in its vibrant colour, and fit with its utilitarian aims. They invite the user to take hold of the dish and all that it represents.

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Index

Mona Alcudia – cargocollective.com/monaalcudia Studio Unosinotra – instagram.com/unosinotra

Editor’s note: Blankito was not Mona Alcudia’s first foray into riﬃng on Filipino archetypes. Her Master’s project at Design Academy Eindhoven in 2019 explored themes of anonymous labour, exoticisation and globalised manufacturing through the Peacock Chair – a piece of furniture that was originally produced by prison workers in Bilibid jail in the Philippines and shipped around the world. She hand-wove a peacock chair from secondhand baskets and put it in the centre of a karaoke booth, where people could sit and sing to a karaoke-style video made from clichéd images of the Philippines. —Lara Chapman

OBJECTS IN REVIEW: A FOLDABLE CANVAS p. 21

Inga Sempé – ingasempe.fr Triennale di Milano – triennale.org

Photographer’s note: Before meeting Inga Sempé in her Paris Studio, one of her two beautiful Siberian cats introduced herself to me and got her (or his?) portrait taken. —Albrecht Fuchs

DEVELOPMENT: STORIES OF USE pp. 13-20

Photographer’s note: My friend Jörg Boner and I landed in Algiers at midnight. On the conveyor belt my luggage wasn’t there, and the camera I was carrying in my hand was problematic in the eyes of the customs oﬃcers –

CONSTRUCTION: SOFT POWER ARCHITECTURE pp. 32-39

Jenny Nordberg – jennynordberg.se

Editor’s note: The colours of Nordberg’s chair are made from 3D bioplastic filaments whose hues are determined by recycled or natural dyes: blue from the woad plant, amber from willow bark, and black from recycled minerals and forest industry residue. “I love how shiny the chair is - that comes from the filaments used,” Norberg explains. “I love the colours, since I know how they’re made and there’s a depth to them. In real life the chair looks like a rendering, which is not something I expected.” —Evi Hall

OPINION: LEARNING FROM FAILURE p. 31

Counter Forms – counter-forms.com LƯU CHƯ – luuchu.com PHẠM ĐAM CA – phamdamca.free.fr Republish – republi.sh THY HÀ – thy-ha.com Vietnamese Typography by DONNY TRƯƠNG – vietnamesetypography.com

Writer’s note: Novelist NGUYỄN PHAN QUẾ MAI told me that “it took some convincing” to keep Vietnamese spellings of words in her latest book, which is otherwise written in English. In the translated editions of her novels, practices vary, however. With Russian, all the Vietnamese words have been transliterated using the Russian alphabet and the Vietnamese is unrecognisable. But in Italian, the Vietnamese has been left exactly how it appears in the English edition, no convincing required. —SHEILA NGỌC PHẠM

RESEARCH: THE PAST IS THE FUTURE pp. 22-30

Writer’s note: I was struck by Sarah Brunnhuber’s tenacity when faced with an industry that is simply not built for her methods. Recently, Brunnhuber collaborated with Berlin-based yarn research studio HILO to develop a stretch wool that isn’t woven with synthetics to produce

OBJECTS IN REVIEW: FRINGE BENEFITS p. 47

Hamed Ouattara – instagram.com/studiohamedouattara

Photographer’s note: When I started getting interested in photography, I didn’t have any female role models or inspiration, especially in authorial or exhibition photography, as there are very few female photographers in Burkina Faso. Initially, when I ventured into events, many were surprised to see an African Burkinabé woman taking photos. Some encouraged me, while others did not. Once, a man even said to me in my language: “Shouldn’t you be looking for a husband instead of being here taking photos?” I was shocked, but I knew what I wanted and where I wanted to go. After leaving my position as a secretary to fully dedicate myself to photography, I persisted in my passion. — Soum Eveline Bonkoungou

MATERIAL: TANGIBLE ACTION pp. 40-46

Jörg Boner – www.joergboner.ch Lütjens Padmanabhan Architektinnen – luetjens-padmanabhan.ch

polite, but very formal people. Despite a letter from the Swiss consul explaining the plan to shoot at the ambassador’s residence, access to the country turned out to be difficult. After an hour-long discussion, I spotted my luggage in the distance being carried by men in uniform. The suitcases had been marked with an S on all sides. I was delighted and ran to the officials saying: “S stands for ‘Surprise’?” The men looked at me without laughing and said: “Suspect!” At half two in the morning, I collected my luggage and we set off down the palmlined alley towards the centre of the Algerian capital. —Milo Keller

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Cat’s note:§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§ §§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§

PHILOSOPHY: FÜR EDWARD pp. 49-64

Writer’s note: One of the more recent developments in camouflage innovation is the Universal Camouflage Pattern by the US Army. It’s a cool design, composed of pixels of grey, beige and green, intended to blend into any environment. In reality though, it turned out to be ineffective in all environments and, after a decade of use, the pattern was eventually retired in 2012. For this blunder the US Army was accused of choosing aesthetics over efficacy in an ironic effort to stand out from the other camouflage patterns. —Tetsuo Mukai

OPINION: DAZZLE CAMOUFLAGE RHYMES WITH SHIPPING CONTAINERS p. 48

Stem – stem.page

her first form-fitting zero waste garments for Copenhagen Fashion Week. “We developed the first ball of yarn over a year ago and it took a really long time to try and find a spinning mill that would develop it,” she says. “So I just went to Berlin, developed and produced the yarn myself, and hand wove it all.” —Helen Gonzalez Brown

Writer’s note: I enjoyed this story from Charles Eames about the cancelled National Aquarium Project, which I came across in An Eames Anthology: “When the aquarium was dumped from its position of priority last year due to administrative decisions, we were left with some thoroughly interesting marine biological studies in our studio. In the last two weeks, in fact, we’ve given birth to two sharks, which we incubated for twelve months or so. So, we’re making some little concept films with things in

FEEDBACK: A LLAMA AND A LEGACY pp. 67-78

Bocci – bocci.com

Writer’s note: I now own a 14p, and like to use it to wander around my flat in the dead of night, clutching it in my palm to navigate the gloom. My life is growing more thrilling by the day. —Oli Stratford

OBJECTS IN REVIEW: A NON-LIGHT LIGHT p. 66

The Block – theblock.art

Illustrator’s note: I put this story forward to the editors, but forgot how I came up with the idea. I did another drawing for this piece which didn’t get used. It was about farts which stay in your nose, with a person crouching in each nostril. —Leonhard Rothmoser

Writer’s note: When I interviewed the designers, Oliver-Selim Boualam, the co-founder of BNAG, said: “For a product designer a chair is what type is for a graphic designer. With both, you start setting up an empty space.” An interesting comparison of two design outcomes that didn’t find room in my article, but it is still an inspiring connection between product and graphic design to think about. —Ines Glowania

OBJECTS IN REVIEW: JUST MY TYPE p. 115

Design Friction Lab – designfrictionlab.com DIYR – diyr.dev

Photographer’s note: Nearly a decade has passed since I last captured Nitzan Cohen in a portrait, back then serving as his industrial design assistant. I don’t know what’s in the water in Bolzano, but he has not aged a day. —Gerhardt Kellerman

DISTRIBUTION: DEAR THINGS pp. 105–114

Jacob Hashimoto – jacobhashimoto.com Maharam – maharam.com

Writer’s note: My Zoom interview with Jacob Hashimoto began with him telling me a story. When he was struggling creatively as a student at SAIC, “like all art kids do”, his father suggested he take up journal writing to inspire the flow of ideas. Hashimoto took to building kites out of origami paper instead. His attempts at flying these creations resulted in a wall full of broken kites that were plucked out of wherever they crashed. Well, that wall was his first installation. —Rupal Rathore

OBJECTS IN REVIEW: HANGING BY MANY THREADS p. 104

Hydro – hydro.com John Tree – johntree.net Lars Beller Fjetland – beller.no

Index

OPINION: SEEN ON SCREEN p. 65

House of Switzerland Milano – design.swiss

Writer’s note: In 2017 I was working in a Swiss hotel and one day, when I was complaining about not having much to do, the owner said, “Visit my friend who likes buildings”. He gave me the address and I boarded a train to a village near Chur. The friend turned out to be Peter Zumthor, who was just a few years away from winning the Pritzker Architecture Prize. He was remarkably good at table football. —Matthew Turner

HOUSE OF SWITZERLAND MILANO: VOICES (Insert)

Photographer’s note: Before the shoot at the aluminium smelter, I was told that it was a very dangerous place and they weren’t sure how close I could get to the action. “Sure,” I thought, that’s just what they say everywhere in Sweden, obsessed with health and safety. But when my guide, Sebastian, a smelter of 27 years, told me about the morning a decade ago when the furnace exploded and blew the roof oﬀ the building, almost killing several people, I started to watch where I put my tripod. —Alastair Philip Wiper

COLLABORATION: SCRAPS ON SHOW pp. 90-103

Jasper Morrison – jaspermorrison.com

Writer’s note: There’s another version of this story inside me. It’s about failure. It’s 2,000 words long, illustrated by a rogues’ gallery of terracotta failures. Please note, tin barbecues are still available exclusively from the Jasper Morrison Shop. —Miranda Clow

OBJECTS IN REVIEW: FROM IMAGE TO OBJECT p. 89

Faber Futures – faberfutures.com LanzaTech – lanzatech.com Mitre and Mondays – mitreandmondays.co.uk Mogu – mogu.bio Normal Phenomena of Life – normalphenomena.life

Blå Station – blastation.com pp. 2-3 Carl Hansen – carlhansen.com inside front cover and p. 1 Maharam – maharam.com p. 7 Ondarreta – ondarreta.com p. 4 Poliform – poliform.it p. 11 Rimadesio – rimadesio.it p. 9 Vitra Design Museum – design-museum.de outside back cover

ADVERTISERS

Oscar Lhermitte – oscarlhermitte.com

Writer’s note: Despite the fact the London plane tree is perfectly suited to meet urban needs, there are growing discussions of replacing it with an alternative species to reduce allergies from its pollen. Fair point. A walk in the park in the early summer can be a nightmare. —Oscar Lhermitte

END NOTE: NO RANDOMNESS p. 120

Mitre and Mondays – mitreandmondays.co.uk

Writer’s note: When working on this story the transcription service I used kept mixing up the words “bio” for “buyer”, a pleasing slip. —Evi Hall

OBJECTS IN REVIEW: HOLDING A DINNER PARTY p. 116 Writer’s note: During our interview, one of the designers of Dinner Party, Freya Bolton, admitted that she actually uses the dish to store her hair products, so it really is very versatile. —Hannah Rashbass

Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity – eamesinstitute.org

Cat Person – catperson.com Front – frontdesign.se Hay – hay.dk Layer – layerdesign.com LucyBalu – lucybalu.com Omlet – omlet.co.uk Papuk – papuk.co Studio Inma Bermudez – inmabermudez.com

ABC Dinamo – abcdinamo.com BNAG – instagram.com/bnag.cc

ECONOMIES: AT ALL SCALES pp. 79-88

the tank, because who could kill oﬀ their pet octopi and sharks?” He originally told this story in ‘Q&A: Charles Eames’, by Digby Diehl, published in West Magazine/Los Angeles Times on 8 October 1972. —Lara Chapman

§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§ §§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§ §§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§ §§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§. —Edward

Words Oscar Lhermitte

The London plane tree “Have you seen the forecast? Sunny all week with temperatures reaching 40°C.” “Well, we have to get used to it, don’t we?” —Two octogenarians sitting on a bench, in the shade of a London plane tree in the south of France. Urban planning is like any other form of design, just on a larger scale. You need to understand the context in which spaces are used, and make pragmatic decisions accordingly. It’s about laying out the infrastructure of how people live, work and play: buildings, communication systems, transportation networks, roads, and even trees. Have you ever looked at a London plane tree (platanus × acerifolia) and wondered why this species – which is so ugly in the winter after it has been pollarded (a severe pruning technique) – is so widely used in cities across the globe? London has them, obviously, but so too do Paris, New York and Sydney. Likewise, go to any village in southern France and you won’t find a single public

End Note

square without a plane tree. Funnily enough, it will always have a bench beneath it. There are simple reasons for this. The London plane provides shade – not just a little, but a lot. Its dense canopy makes it ideal for taking a break under on a sunny day. In addition, the plane tree has many characteristics that suit the requirements of a public square. Its branches sprout from high up its trunk, making it diﬃcult for people to climb, for example. Meanwhile, the London plane’s fruit is comprised of bristly balls of seeds that are nothing like fleshy cherries or walnuts – fruits that rot when they fall onto pavements. Bar clearing away its fallen leaves in autumn, the London plane requires minimal maintenance. What’s more, its roots grow horizontally, helping it withstand pressure and compaction from roads and paving, and, in turn, ensuring it does little damage to this kind of infrastructure. To put all this into perspective, just imagine how a Douglas fir would do in the city. A large area around its base would be inaccessible due to the tree’s low branches and its sap would stick to the hands of anyone who touched it, as well as attracting all sorts of insects. And it would provide minimal shade in return. Just as industrial designers need to use the appropriate materials to ensure their product performs correctly, urban planners need to select the right trees to serve their city. When it comes to fitting the brief, the London plane is diﬃcult to beat. So, next time you find yourself on a bench, calmly eating your sandwich or reading your latest copy of Disegno, take the time to appreciate the fact that you are sitting under a perfectly positioned and carefully chosen plane tree.

Image by Jeanette Teare.

No Randomness Collecting meaningful details in meaningless objects