Design: The Latest Architecture and News

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the British Pavilion. Find the curator statement below.

The British Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Biennale, entitled 'Island', was curated by Stirling Prize-winning Carusco St John Architects, working in collaboration with artist Marcus Taylor. Responding to the Biennale theme of ‘Freespace’ set by curators Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects, ‘Island’ sees the construction of a new public piazza on the roof of the British Pavilion, leaving the building below empty of exhibits.

At the piazza's centre, the Pavilion’s roof protrudes upwards through the floor to represent both an island, and an undiscovered world beneath. The programme for the British Pavilion sees a series of events including poetry, performance, film and debate, all interpreting interpretations of ‘Island’ and ‘Freespace’.

As part of our 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale coverage we present the proposal for the Saudi Arabia Pavilion. Below, the participants describe their contribution in their own words.

The first Saudi participation at the International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia will be located in the Arsenale and will feature an exhibition commissioned by the Misk Art Institute under the theme of “Un/Design.”

In a hilarious TED talk by world-famous blogger Tim Urban, the procrastinating brain is explained using three squiggly characters: Rational Decision Maker, Instant Gratification Monkey, and Panic Monster. For most of us who procrastinate without fail, the Monkey dominates while the Decision Maker suffers. Panic Monster enters the moment a deadline looms dangerously close—and that’s when all the actual work is done, amid much grumbling, self-loathing and lofty promises of never procrastinating again. But of course, we fail to keep our promises and the wheel keeps turning!

While the internet is full of lists and guides on how to stop procrastinating, for quite a lot of people, those somehow just don’t help at all. And while deadlines, as Urban points out, work for some in terms of getting the work done sooner or later, “long-term procrastination” affects those who must set their own deadlines—think business owners, PhD students, or freelancers. So, how do you get yourself to stop? You don’t! What you need to master is John Perry’s concept of “structured procrastination”—the same concept that Piers Steel earlier explained as “productive procrastination.” Read on for some advice gleaned from pro-procrastination literature.

The Cooper Hewitt Museum, also known as the Smithsonian Design Museum, has completed a digitization of its expansive collection dedicated to the field of design that spans thirty centuries and more than 220,000 objects. Now, the collection has been made available on its online page.

Unfortunately, I think that there is a big uniformity all over the world that makes everything very, very similar and very impersonal – very little imagination, I think. I guess it resembled me, this house, somehow.

This video from NOWNESS’ In Residence series features Swiss furniture designer Mattia Bonetti in his home on Lake Lugano. Bonetti is based in Paris but maintains this home in his birthplace: Lugano, Switzerland. Designing furniture since 1979, Bonetti is known for his vibrant designs, often full of historical allusions and in contrast to his subdued persona. In the video, the artist and designer mention that some of the home’s accessories were handmade by Bonetti himself.

Continue reading to learn about Bonetti's inspirations in restoring and adding to his lakeside home.

If you ever have those moments where you take a step back from your life and feel like you’ve suddenly fallen into a scene from a movie, you may appreciate the subreddit /r/AccidentalWesAnderson. Director, producer, screenwriter, and actor Wes Anderson is well known for creating scenes in his films that blur the lines between the real and the unreal. His extreme symmetry and restricted color palettes can often give the impression of a surreal, self-contained world. The purpose of the Accidental Wes Anderson subreddit is for users to post photos of real-world architecture and scenes they’ve stumbled upon that look like they could be stills from one of Anderson’s movies, with Redditors finding Anderson-esque scenes around the globe in everything from bathrooms to staircases to city streets. Even a viewer unfamiliar with Anderson’s films can browse the collection of photos and easily understand his aesthetic. Below is just a small selection of some of the most evocative photos to be found on the subreddit.

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Brazil-based architects Estudio Guto Requena, working with digital product studio D3, has launched an app that collects emotions to create a unique piece of jewelry. That, and some 3D-printed craftsmanship direct from the design you generate via their new app. Coined the Aura Pendant, the final product is an intricately woven golden pendant that can be gifted to yourself or a loved one.

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Rediscover a natural, unique and original material, with multiple applications for current architecture and design immovable over time, granite is a jewel of nature capable of providing exclusivity to any contemporary construction or finish. Its wide range of varieties and the incorporation of new cutting technologies and those giving a surface finish, provide us with infinite design possibilities.

Its character, beauty, high strength and excellent durability make it quite a unique material. It is undoubtedly the most advantageous architectural option in contrast to other types of products:

If you're reading this, you likely work in the design world, and as a result you may have heard of Scrum. It’s a design method originally introduced by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka in the 1980s to describe a process for product development, and later formalized for software development by Jeff Sutherland in 1995. It relies on the organization of a team and its tasks around the principles of focus and flexibility: focus on a singular task within a given time period, and flexibility in response to changing client demand, user feedback, and design challenges. Scrum keeps a project on schedule with the Sprint, where the entire team is working towards one important milestone within set dates, and continuously communicating potential impediments to hitting the deadline.

It can sometimes feel as if the world is divided into two camps: those who do not listen to podcasts (probably because they don’t know what a podcast is) and those who listen to podcasts, love podcasts, and keep badgering their friends for recommendations so they can start listening to even more.

Unlike other media, it’s notoriously difficult to discover and share podcasts – even more so if you’re looking for a podcast on a niche subject like architecture, design or urbanism. To help you in your hour of need, Metropolis’ Vanessa Quirk (author of Guide to Podcasting) and ArchDaily’s James Taylor-Foster (whose silvery tones you may have heard on various architecture and design audio stories) have come together to compile this list of eleven podcasts you should subscribe to.

This edition of Section D, Monocle 24's weekly review of design, architecture and craft, explores London's new Design Museum – a significant expansion for the institution at an entirely new location in West London. The interior spaces of the former Commonwealth Institute Building in Kensington, which is Grade II-listed, have been renovated by John Pawson. Alongside the museum’s Deputy Director, Alice Black, the Monocle team investigate the thinking behind the relaunch and how the spaces are designed to accommodate a shifting audience.

"When it comes to distinguished contests, Sub-Zero and Wolf’s Kitchen Design Contest is the crème de la crème", says Mikal Otten, owner of Exquisite Kitchen Design, Denver, CO. "Since winning the first place global award for Transitional styling, we’ve gained a tremendous amount of credibility."

Since its inception in 1993, the Sub-Zero and Wolf Kitchen Design Contest has become a coveted win in the industry recognizing kitchen designers, architects, interior designers, builders and remodelers for advancing outstanding kitchen design by celebrating their inspiring, innovative projects.

We want to see your designs for an architecture Halloween pumpkin! Download the design template below and illustrate/animate/build something that will squash us with your talent. We'll be accepting entries until October 24, at 12:00 pm EST and we'll publish our favorites before Halloween!

Establishing professional contacts in architecture – and well, in any field, really – has changed dramatically in the last decade, passing from the paper world to the virtual realm. However, small details can still make a big difference when it comes to captivating a potential new client or establishing a new partnership -- and these details aren’t unique to the virtual world.

Among these smaller, but powerful, details is the business card. Timeless and effective, the impact that a business card can have when meeting someone new cannot be overlooked. While simple, monochrome cards with muted prints are well liked among architects, exploring new forms, unusual materials and bold colors can result in a unique card that will leave a lasting impression on the person who receives it.

Below we’ve compiled some examples of cards that can serve as inspiration for architects, engineers, designers, landscapers and urbanists: 

"What if everyone’s thoughts hovered above their head?"
"What if buildings were sentient beings that could communicate thoughts and memories?"
"What if we let children design their own playgrounds?"

Created by designer Chanel Dehond from Manhattan-based design studio ICRAVE, IDEAS FOR THE BRAVE (IFTB) is a submission-based, open source platform for brainstorming. IFTB is open to the public, with the international design community as its target demographic.

Have you ever fallen in love with a city, and wished you could carry the image of the skyline with you everywhere you go? Now you can turn that longing into a reality with these cityscape-inspired rings by North Carolina-based jewelry maker, Ola Shekhtman.

UNESCO has inaugurated 47 new cities into its Creative Cities Network, with Detroit being selected as the first "City of Design" from the United States. The Creative Cities Network is a selection of cities across the world that promote the creation of creative and cultural industries, within the categories of crafts and folk art, design, film, gastronomy, literature, media arts, and music.

Following the release of their “Vertical House”, a prefabricated home designed for the tight, urban spaces of Japan, Japanese design brand Muji has showcased another set of ready-made habitats, this time a series of three minimalist “huts” at varying scales. Each hut, designed by a different designer, is intended as a retreat from urban activity and can be set-up in rural terrains.

The huts each explore a different material: an aluminum hut by Konstantin Grcic, a cork hut by Jasper Morrison, and a wooden hut by Naoto Fukasawa.