Giorgio Armani, who died Thursday at the age of 91, helped reshape Western social norms and cultural paradigms.
Tag: design
September 9 – September 15, 2024
Students at the Saint-Charles school in Monaco are starting their school year in a classroom created by French designer Stéphanie Marin. Today, rethinking school furniture to reflect current teaching methods and respond to ecological challenges has become necessary — and designers are not short on ideas.
If rail is to become the preferred means of transport, it must inspire people to dream again. Designers and interior architects are on a mission to restore the image of rail travel. High-speed rail, night trains, luxury trains — each has its own challenges.
Long neglected in our homes, toilets are undergoing a revolution through both technological and design innovations. As we spend on average more than a year of our lives on them, consumers are increasingly looking for something more than purely functional.
An anthropologist who has focused on urban geography and violence, Omnia Khalil reflects on how her daily movement was shaped by architectural design in Egypt, a country where sexual harassment is a widespread and serious problem.
Throughout the ages, convents have been adapted and transformed to fulfil the needs of growing cities such as Portugal’s capital city Lisbon. Now more than ever, with an ongoing housing crisis, researchers, politicians and developers are looking at convents to be transformed into housing solutions.
The new “Sneakers” exhibition in Dusseldorf features pairs that sell for six figures and explores how the simple sports shoe became a global obsession.
Typography is a familiar sight on the streets, but it has also succumbed to fashions and the passage of time. Rescuing urban signage helps to preserve this part of our collective heritage.
Bye-bye blue bird, all hail X … Elon Musk’s recent rebranding of the Twitter platform app has sparked significant reactions from users and in the tech community, but brand designers also have their say. While rebranding can be for the better, success is never guaranteed — and can do more damage than good to a big name.
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How The Sari Conquered The World
The prestigious Design Museum in London – named European Museum of the Year in 2018 – is currently staging a landmark exhibition, The Offbeat Sari, all about this item of dress and the clamour of attention it is enjoying.
A highly subjective concept, the notion of comfort has evolved over time and place — but what does it mean today?
While it may make sense from a business perspective, healthcare facilities should focus on more than just optimizing space. Hospital architecture lessons from a pandemic.
Around the world, creative minds are coming up with bright (or at least, new) ideas to help people stay germ-free while returning to work, school or travel.
An experimental listening booth in Buenos Aires provides people a comfortable space to give honest feedback — alone and in anonymity.
There’s an old joke about the apartment complexes named after Khrushchev.
Mexico should consider revising copyright laws to protect its traditional arts and crafts, after use of native designs by an international brand sparked anger
A derivative of the Bauhaus revolution, the Isokon building brought modernity, and affordable rent, to conservative Britain — 85 years ago.
Five Argentine design studios are using ‘collaborative association,’ a format that eliminates competition among members, in order to export products and promote the ‘Argentine brand,’ Clarín reports.
Caught between the image-first expectations of social media, and consumer ideas about healthy eating, pâtissiers struggle to find a new recipe for success.
BUENOS AIRES — Mariana Stange has lots of market experience, particular in the corporate sector. She’s a realtor who specializes in helping firms move premises. For the best results, she uses scientific research, which may not be the standard practice, but it is very effective. The intersection of architecture and psychology has created neuro-architecture. “It’s […]
Post-modern design captures our cultural moment’s yearning for unique and inspiring objects, even if they are of little use. The French master pours it all into his legendarily inefficient lemon juice squeezer.
Baby Boomers, Gen Xers and Millennials have very different needs and expectations regarding workspaces. And yet, in many companies they’re expected to work side-by-side.
Bling and style are barriers that the Chinese-owned, Swedish-based company may not be able to overcome.
CAIRO — Strolling through Lisbon’s hilltop alleys in 2008, I came across a shop selling uniquely designed “upcycled” products, things made by reusing material that would otherwise be discarded. The items there included a milk-carton wallet, a liquor-bottle lamp and a cereal-box notebook cover. In my young, hopeful state, I felt right at home. It […]
CAIRO — There are 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet. There are four possible written forms for each letter, depending on whether it stands alone, or comes at the beginning, middle or end of a word. Then there are diacritic symbols, indicating the script’s correct pronunciation, which hover gently above or below each letter’s lines […]
To understand why design is important, take a look at Silicon Valley. Forty-two design firms in the U.S. technology hub have been bought up since 2004. About half these acquisitions were made this past year alone. The 25 startups that got the most venture capital financing were founded by designers. Google snapped up the two-person […]
BERLIN — The sight of a swing causes not only children, but also many adults, to impulsively sit down, push off with their feet and swing back and forth for as long as possible. This very impulse was a stroke of luck for Oliver-Selim Boualam and Lukas Marstaller, when the management of the Cologne Furniture […]
A cooperative that’s giving formerly jobless Argentines a second chance has evolved from a recycling enterprise into a flourishing sustainable-design business. Many of its partners could never have seen this coming when they lost their jobs back i
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Handbags made out of volleyball nets and soda cans, courtesy of one of the sisters of the Fendi family used to face assaults by animal rights activists.
Since 2000, China’s car industry has grown twentyfold. And to maintain strength in the market, German carmakers are creating designs exclusively for Chinese sensibilities.
Madina, a British artist and designer, has launched a collection of stamps featuring hip hop artists of the golden era of the genre, in the 1980s-90s. All photos: Madina For a very long time — until 2005 in fact — stamps in the United Kingdom only depicted members of the Royal Family. Except for a […]
TEL AVIV — Vincent van Gogh’s famous oil painting “Starry Night Over the Rhone” displays a wonderful enchantment technique. Occupying two-thirds of the canvas, the night sky is dotted with moon and stars, creating an illusion of movement, as if they were trying to burst out of the canvas. It’s not just a masterpiece. It […]
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Mini Architecture, A Gigantic Challenge
Making the most of the conditions and restrictions of size, shape and place is the essence of the architectural pursuit.
BEIJING — Summer shopping included the hunt for a new pair of sandals, which was also an opportunity to take stock in where the Chinese shoe industry stands. In itself, it is not surprising to find a “cohabitation” of different quality from different brands in a single shopping center. It’s also natural that different brands […]
The Chinese-born fashion designer creates clothes that react to light, sound, even a passing glance. What would Lady Gaga think?
The hotel’s location is practical, in one of the most sought-after areas of Edinburgh: just steps away from the railroad station, with the Old Town and Princes Street shopping only close by. Old and imposing on the outside, inside it’s all modern, minimalist, and even a little Scottish. Chairs in the reception area are upholstered […]
From Twitter to Dropbox to Airbnb, where office life is the good life.