Design Line: 29 July – 8 August
Reinvention is in the air for this week’s Design Line, as MIT works to shrink ultrasound technology into a wearable, The Met launches an AR app to complement its collection, and Walthamstow FC raids the William Morris archive. Meanwhile Unesco threatens to put Venice its endangered list and Muji gets into the Airbnb game.
Wearable ultrasounds could offer more regular breast cancer screenings (image: Canan Dagdeviren).
Ultra wearable ultrasound
The survival rate for breast cancer drops dramatically if not detected in the early stages, making tumours that grow in intervals between scans all the more dangerous – something Canan Dagdeviren witnessed firsthand when her aunt died aged just 49 of the disease despite regular checkups. Dagdeviren, an associate professor in MIT’s Media Lab, has co-authored a paper on a design for a wearable ultrasound scanner that could help people perform regular home checkups. Published this week, the paper proposes using a flexible patch that can be attached to a bra and used to guide an ultrasound tracker. “We changed the form factor of the ultrasound technology so that it can be used in your home,” explained Dagdeviren. “It’s portable and easy to use, and provides real-time, user-friendly monitoring of breast tissue.” The patch would be 3D-printed in a honeycomb structure to allow it to mould to the breast, while ultrasound technology could be miniaturised using a new piezoelectric material. The MIT researchers intend the wearable to be easy to operate at home, and hope that in future they can develop an imaging system no bigger than a smartphone, while training AI to analyse the images in place of a radiologist. It may be at the early stages, but it’s an exciting application for a wearable technology that could have positive health outcomes.
The Replica app will turn The Met into a digital treasure hunt (image: Metropolitan Museum of Art).
The MetAverse
Bold effort to open up art to new audiences, or metaverse gimmick? This is the question being pondered by Disegno after New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the launch of Replica, a new app that allows visitors to explore its collections in digital space. Developed in conjunction with Verizon (which the museum worked with in 2021 on an augmented-reality experience for some of its exhibits), Replica is intended to supplement an in-person visit to the museum, with guests invited to scan artworks into the popular Roblox game platform, where they are turned into digital accessories and items available for the user’s avatar. It is, the museum’s director Max Hollein claimed, an “ambitious exploration of educational initiatives that inspire playful connections with art in the museum as well as in the digital realm”. The scheme is undeniably well intentioned – providing new, supplementary pathways into and modes of engagement with art is a noble thing – but whether it works in practice remains to be seen. Attendances to the Met have fallen dramatically in light of Covid-19, while ticket prices for out-of-state visitors have risen dramatically. In light of these wider issues of accessing the museum, is the ability to scan Henry II's armour into Roblox really going to entice new audiences into the museum’s collections? A fine addition, perhaps, but clearly no silver bullet.
Venice might be about to get on Unesco’s naughty list (image: Cocoparisienne via Pixabay).
Unesco puts its foot down
The UN has taken Italy to task over its “lack of strategic vision” for defending Venice against climate change, overtourism and overdevelopment. A report published this week said that the city should be added to Unesco’s list of world heritage sites in danger, before “irreversible” damage is done. The threat of the list was invoked two years ago, but the Italian government staved it off with promises to ban cruise ships from the San Marco canal and begin an extensive conservation plan. Alas, the latter never materialised; although a sea wall has been built to keep out rising water, Unesco said it remains incomplete. Venice is in a tricky situation: the historic city relies on tourism to power its economy, but visitor numbers put increasing strain on its delicate architecture. The government has mooted bringing a day ticketing system for visitors, but that is also yet to materialise. Climate crisis also brings threats with it, both from the city’s flooding during the acqua alta – the peak high tide – to droughts where the canals run dry as the Alps receive less annual snowfall. If the UN votes to put Venice on the list, it should help encourage the allocation of resources to shore up the city. But it puts a question mark over the creative industries’ continued annual pilgrimages to the city for its art and architecture biennales. Should we stay away to save the airfare and spare the city from further destruction?
Will it be a five-star review for Muji Airbnb (image: Muji)?
Muji home away from home
We’re not the biggest fans of Airbnb here at Disegno, what with the platform’s legacy of driving up house prices and driving out residents everywhere from coastal villages to big cities. But it’s hard not to be curious when Muji turns its design eye to a project. This week, the first guests were welcomed at Muji Base Kamogawa, and we have to admit it looks pretty charming. Set amongst the terraced rice fields, Muji promises the stay offers visitors a chance to experience the Sayotama lifestyle – a traditional mode of living that sits at the juncture of human industry and the natural world. It being Muji, the house is full of accoutrements from the cult favourite homewares brands, ranging from bathroom accessories to snacks. The cult Japanese brand has ventured into hospitality before, including an entire Muji Hotel in Tokyo and Shenzhen (see ‘Without the Mess’ in Disegno #18) Apparently, the 100-year-old house in Kamogawa was vacant before Muji gave it a minimalist makeover, but the Japanese government remains understandably wary of short-term rentals and their impacts. In 2018, minpaku laws were bought in requiring rental owners to register their properties with the government. Hopefully the kinds of guests attracted to a Muji-designed living space won’t be throwing wild parties and annoying the neighbours.
This William Morris-inspired kit to fund women’s football is a worthy goal (image: Admiral Sporting Goods).
Morris and Co FC
“The past is not dead, it is living in us.” So spoke William Morris, socialist pioneer of the British Arts and Crafts movement and the textile designer behind many still-beloved nature-inspired prints. So he’d probably be pleased to see his designs living on in the new football kit of Walthamstow FC. Morris was born in the borough, and his old family home is now a gallery dedicated to his work. The first batch sold out in 24 hours, which is promising news for the club’s goal of using the proceeds to help set up a women’s football team – a notoriously underfunded wing of the sport (see ‘Pitch Dreams’ in Design Reviewed #2). Walthamstow FC’s kit manufacturer, Admiral, spent three years collaborating with the William Morris Estate to bring the designs out of the archive and onto the pitch. They settled on Yare (1882), a pattern created by designer John Henry Dearle who trained under Morris. The hand-drawn design was digitised and transposed onto the club’s shirts and shorts, with a dark and light blue version for the home kit and a full-colour version for the away. “This is a great way for us to bring the work of Morris out of the gallery and into the streets and football pitches for next season,” said Hadrian Garrard, director of the William Morris Gallery. Combining art history and kit design certainly puts a fresh spin on the beautiful game.
Architect and designer Rodolfo Dordoni has died this week (image: Minotti).
Rodolfo Dordoni (1954-2023)
Those seeking to form a picture of Italian design of the late-20th and early-21st centuries could do worse than examine the career of Rodolfo Dordoni, the Milanese architect and designer who sadly died this week. Dordoni’s work within furniture and lighting exuded the kind of luxury elegance and love of craftsmanship for which the country has become known, while his rolodex of collaborators reads like a who’s who of Italy’s leading brands. While Dordoni is best known for his work with Minotti, for whom he served as artistic director from 1998, he also formed relationships with Cappellini (acting as art director from 1979 to 1989), Flos, Cassina, Molteni&C, Moroso, Poltrona Frau, Artemide and FontanaArte. His death is a sad loss to the field, with Minotti’s CEO Roberto Minotti quick to pay tribute to the talent and dedication of a designer with whom he had worked closely for years. “We had the chance to work alongside a visionary, passionate, inspired man, who has been the protagonist of one of the most brilliant eras in the history of our brand,” Minotti said in a statement. “We acknowledge with sadness the news of his passing and we want to express our gratitude for his life, his work and for all that he passed on to us.”