Disegno #41
The cover of Disegno #41 features a shark sculpture created by Hella Jongerius for The Graces, a fountain commissioned for the Vitra Design Museum (image: Roel van Tour)
Screaming sharks, digital art made physical, chairs for robots, textile waste converted into architecture, and hardware for independent community radio – all these topics and more are featured in the new Spring 2026 edition of Disegno!
Disegno #41 launches during Milan Design Week on 20 April 2026, but it is already available to pre-order through our online shop.
Our fourth themed issue looks at the role of experimentation in design, told through short stories about research, transformation, survival, adaptation and originality.
‘Patterns From the Hive’, Disegno #41 (image: Albrecht Fuchs).
Billy De Luca visits the studio of Ori Orisun Merhav, exploring the potential for bio-inclusive materials and construction techniques gleaned from insects.
Yuki Sumner digs into Maghras, an experimental farm in the Al Ahsa Oasis, unearthing stories of land, water, tradition, cuisine and making.
Nathan Ma spends time with Konstantin Grcic, examining the challenge to product design embodied by the Things, objects produced by Grcic’s experimental label 25kg.
Yashita Kandhari and Naila Tasnim organise an arts exhibition in Mumbai, all in support of Sister Library, the feminist community space and initiative founded by artist aqui Thami.
‘Arctic Capital’, Disegno #41 (image: Inuuteq Storch).
Ann Morgan travels to Nuuk with literary explorer Tété-Michel Kpomassie, uncovering the competing interests, forces and ideas of authorship shaping the contemporary development of Greenland’s capital.
Oli Stratford sits down with Lovot, the world’s first companion robot to have its own commercialised chair, courtesy of Takram and Karimoku Furniture.
Seetal Solanki offers an interpretation of experimentation as infrastructural survival, stitching together the story of The Revival and its efforts to address textile waste from the Global North being dumped in Ghana.
‘Common Frequency’, Disegno #41 (image: Paulina Fi Garduño).
Helen Gonzalez Brown gazes into Layer Canvas, the bespoke screen for generative art that forms the hardware component of a new subscription service for digital culture.
Albie Fay tunes into Radio Nopal, a community radio station in Mexico City that is powered by its design for the adaptable Mensajito.mx device.
Joe Lloyd wanders the hallways of Villa Beer, Josef Frank’s newly restored Viennese home that remains marked by the traces of its 20th-century past.
‘Beautiful is Their Glance’, Disegno #41 (image: Roel van Tour).
Darshita Goyal shops at General Items, a design store in Bengaluru from the team behind Tiipoi, examining the connections between exported craft and domestic appreciation.
Oli Stratford stares into the void with The Graces, Hella Jongerius’s shark fountain for the Vitra Design Museum that rages at the inequities of humanity’s relationship with nature.
Disegno #41 comes out in print on 20 April 2026, and is available to order now.
Disegno #41 includes:
Patterns from the Hive
Ori Orisun Merhav’s objects designed by insects
Billy De Luca and Albrecht Fuchs
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Dates Will Not Ripen Simultaneously
Water cultures in Saudi Arabia’s Al Ahsa oasis
Yuki Sumner
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Thingness
Konstantin Grcic’s 25kg platform provokes and plays
Nathan Ma and Roman Häbler
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She Called Us Her Sisters
Grassroots community fundraising with aqui Thami
Yashita Kandhari, Naila Tasnim and Renée de Groot
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Arctic Capital
Urban Development plans in Nuuk, Greenland
Ann Morgan and Inuuteq Storch
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Put Keyaki in Their Special Chair
Sitting with robots
Oli Stratford and Masahiro Sambe
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Sankofa Infrastructure
The Revival addresses waste colonialism in Ghana
Seetal Solanki and Natalija Gormalova
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To Infinity
Layer brings digital art into the physical world
Helen Gonzalez Brown
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Common Frequency
Hardware for independent radio in Mexico City
Albie Fay and Paulina Fi Garduño
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Reversing the Split
Restoring Josef Frank’s Villa Beer
Joe Lloyd and Hertha Hurnaus
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The Draw of Utility
Tiipoi’s store explores selling Indian design back to India
Darshita Goyal
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Beautiful is Their Glance
Listening to the cry of Hella Jongerius’s screaming sharks
Oli Stratford and Roel van Tour
Order your copy of Disegno #41 from our online shop. Or why not subscribe?