Design Line: 18 – 24 February
Response’s to the climate crisis feature heavily in this week’s Design Line. The World Around has announced the winners of its Young Climate Prize, the Venice Architecture Biennale has vowed to go carbon neutral, and architect Smith Mordak has been named head of the UK’s Green Building Council. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz is mucking around with Moncler to create a bizarre concept car. You can’t have it all, we suppose.
The youth are alright (image:The World Around).
A week of shortlists
Founded in 2020 by Beatrice Galilee and Diego Marroquin, The World Around is a New York-based non-profit “dedicated to making the best new ideas in architecture accessible to all”, with a central strand of this work being its new Young Climate Prize: a scheme to promote “radical and brilliant projects for climate resilience” from practitioners aged 25 and under. This week saw the announcement of the scheme's 25 shortlisted applicants, all of whom will now receive mentorship to further develop their ideas, and it is good to see that The World Around has lived up to its global name: in contrast to the design world’s tendency towards an internationalism that rarely extends beyond western Europe and North America, the shortlist brings together practitioners and proposals from Tierra del Fuego to Malaysia, Uganda to Russia, covering topics and approaches within climate policy and technology that are similarly wide-ranging. The programme is to culminate with the selection of three winners, who will present at The World Around’s 2023 conference in April, but there are perhaps greater pleasures to be gleaned in the breadth of its shortlist as it stands (which, for those interested, makes for a compelling browse).
A bit of Lee-way
Following his wholesale rebrand of Burberry, incumbent creative director Daniel Lee sent his first collection down the catwalk in London this week. Held in a tent in the fairly unglamorous Kennington Park, the fashion glitterati were kept warm with hot toddies, branded hot water bottles and blankets (which some guests allegedly made off with). Second generation celebrities Lennon Gallagher and Iris Law walked the show, a nod perhaps to the current cultural debate over nepo babies. The autumn/winter 23 collection doubled down on Lee’s return to a nebulous golden era of Britishness, mixing punky Cool Britannia clashing checks with nods to Burberry’s military tailoring heritage, plus a cute knitted duck hat. It’s an interesting time to revert a brand to its “roots” after five years of Ricardo Tisci’s continental influence; British supermarkets are currently devoid of tomatoes due to Brexit and soaring energy costs, with politicians encouraging shoppers to make do with homegrown produce such as, erm, turnips. Is Brand Britain even aspirational any more? Its trains, healthcare and postal system are stretched to breaking point and the country has become an object of pity for its European neighbours. The coverage from the fashion press was full of praise for the spooky lighting and horror-inflected soundscabe, and notably light on the discussion of Lee’s dark past. He departed his previous role at Bottega Veneta after some disgusting allegations about his conduct, something Kering hotly denied, but LVMH – and the fashion world at large – appears to be prepared to look the other way.
At least you wouldn’t need to worry about flat tyres (image: Mercedes Benz).
Quilty car
The fashion world loves a collab, with brands haphazardly crashing together to see what creative synergy (aka opportunities to make lotsa cash) emerge: for a textbook example, look at the recent collaboration of “unparalleled savour faire and craftsmanship”) between Nike and Tiffany&Co. Disegno does not normally care for such things, but this week saw a collaboration of such breathtaking, audacious silliness that we can’t help but stand back and applaud. Project Mondo G is an artwork created by Moncler and Mercedes Benz that is more or less exactly what you'd expect if you stuck those brands into Dall·E 2 – a Mercedes off-roader with quilty wheels and a stupid puffy roof. It’s creatively half-arsed, which is precisely why we love it. The work is part of Moncler’s ongoing Genius collaborative project (which has previously focused on working with designers, but this year seems to have pivoted more towards brands), and was described by Britta Seeger, a member of Mercedes-Benz’s board of management, as “much deeper than a sponsorship engagement.” This, of course, is nonsense, but so be it: at least it’s given us the rubbish, squashy car of our dreams.
Finally the V&A has enough room for Bowie’s extra-wide trews (image: David Bowie Archive).
Securing the Bowie bag
As the Victoria & Albert (V&A) museum expands, so too must its collection. This week, the cultural institution announced it has nabbed the archive of David Bowie, an impressive 80,000-strong collection of the superstar musician’s costumes, instruments and assorted ephemera gifted by his estate.“Bowie’s a polymath, he’s multifaceted,” said Kate Bailey, the V&A's senior curator of theatre and performance. “He was inspired by all genres and disciplines. He’s an artist who was working really in 360 — drawing from literature, but also drawing from art history.” He was also a complicated figure, notorious for sleeping with underage girls often drawn from the so-called “baby groupies”, teenagers who skipped homework to hang out – and be preyed upon – by stars. Whether the museum will wrestle with, or indeed acknowledge, this squeamish part of an artist’s legacy. Fans will have to be patient, though, the The David Bowie Center for the Study of Performing Arts – part of the V&A East Storehouse in London's Olympic Park – isn’t due to open until some time in 2025.
Changing tides in Venice
Venice, vulnerable in the climate crisis due to its low-lying coastal position, usually suffers from too much water with ruinous high tides flooding the city. But this week it’s suffered the opposite problem, with low tides and dry weather causing its famous canals to run dry. It’s particularly troublesome for its transport network of gondolas and water taxis, and points to a worrying trend of low winter snowfall in the Alps leading to drought-ridden summers. Visitors to this year’s Architecture Biennale may have to prepare for even more walking than usual. Planning for the event is in full swing, with curator Lesley Lock revealing more details of her programming for the theme of ‘The Laboratory of the Future’. Over half of the 89 invited participants will be from the Africa or the African diaspora, with the continent a particular focus. It will be the first time in the Biennale’s 18 editions that African design will be the headliner. a welcome shift from the design industry’s traditionally myopic focus on the West and Asia. In more good news, there will be the same number of women participants as men, and half of the studios represented employ five people or less. Climate change will be a secondary theme, with the exhibition setting the express goal of making the Venice Architecture Biennale carbon neutral. US studio SPACES will dedicate its national pavilion to plastic waste, and the British Council has named curators Jayden Ali, Joseph Henry, Meneesha Kellay and Sumitra Upham, who will explore the role of rituals in diasporic communities.
A change of topic
“It's clear we need to be having a different conversation,” wrote architect Smith Mordak for Dezeen after visiting the COP27 climate conference, going on to lament the fact that refusal on the part of governments and industries “to consider transformative social and economic policy” meant that efforts to address climate collapse were “not going to get anywhere”. Wise words, if you ask us, which was why it was with some pleasure that we learned this week of Mordak’s appointment as the new chief executive of the UK’s Green Building Council (UKGBC). A charity devoted to improving the “sustainability of the built environment, by transforming the way it is planned, designed, constructed, maintained, repurposed and operated”, the UKGBC has fine intentions, which it will need if it’s to help enact lasting change. Yet Mordak seems up to the challenge, stressing in their statement upon being appointed that “[our] actions over the next few years will have an outsized impact on the Earth’s ecosystems and on many generations to come.” The UKGBC has a tall order ahead if it is to initiate a “different conversation”, but at least in Mordak it has a dedicated and perspicacious leader to help lead the discussion.