The Design Line: 19 - 25 March
A week in design brings news of the death of Stephen E. Wilhite, the creator of GIFs; the discovery of microplastics in blood; a long belated shortlist for the directorship of the Architectural Association; and much more.
A life well looped
Farewell, then, to Stephen E. Wilhite, the computer programmer who gifted the world the GIF. Wilhite sadly died last week in a Cincinnati hospital following complications from Covid-19, but news of the loss only arrived on Thursday. Wilhite himself may not have been a household name, but the highly compressed image format that he developed in 1987 while working for the online service provider CompuServe has changed the way the world communicates. Wilhite’s GIF (short for graphics interchange format) quickly developed into a means of highly shareable, endlessly expressive visual communication, beloved the world over as a key vehicle for goofy internet humour and rapid-fire responses on social media and messaging apps. “I saw the format I wanted in my head and then I started programming,” Wilhite told The New York Times in 2013, impressively underselling a piece of design that would become the cornerstone of internet aesthetics: forever funny, forever looping.
A swift appointment
In July 2020, the Architectural Association (AA) announced the sacking of its director Eva Franch i Gilabert, citing a “failure to develop and implement a strategy and maintain the confidence of the AA school community” following a vote of no confidence in her leadership. It was an ugly situation, venomous with accusation and counter-accusation, and one you would have thought the AA would be keen to move on from with the appointment of a new director who could unite its warring houses. Quick as a flash the AA set about its task, beginning its search for a replacement in December 2021, having presumably reasoned that leading educational institutions regularly go 17 months without direction. Maintaining its rapid pace, this week saw the school hurtle ever onwards, finally revealing its (admittedly impressive) shortlist for the position (Andrew Clancy; Dr Mark Morris; John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog; Ingrid Schroder; and Jill Stoner), with the eventual appointment due to come following presentations by the candidates in late April. A breakneck 21 months on, we may have a winner!
It’s in the blood
Everyone knows the world has a problem with plastic waste, but a grizzly escalation of the scale of the problem became apparent this week with the first documented discovery of microplastics in human blood. Publishing in the Environment International journal, a team of researchers revealed that they had found combinations of PET, polystyrene and polyethylene in the blood of 17 out of 22 anonymous donors. Perhaps we’re being unduly anxious, but that seems alarming – shouldn’t someone be, erm, doing something about this? Were traces of concrete, ceramic, glass or thermally modified timber to be discovered in our blood, we’d probably ask questions as to whether it’s wise to continue using these materials to quite the same degree, yet plastic production is expected to double by 2040. “The big question is what is happening in our body?” said Dick Vethaak, an ecotoxicologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and one of the study’s authors. “Are the particles retained in the body? Are they transported to certain organs, such as getting past the blood-brain barrier?” Wait. There’s a chance the stuff is in our brains too?
Tech doesn’t love EU
In one of the biggest tech shakeups in years, the European Union reached agreement on Thursday on its Digital Markets Act, a piece of sweeping new legislation that pledges to dramatically curtail the power of the tech giants and chop their empires down to size. Under the proposed legislation (whose approval is seen as a formality), the EU is targeting tech platforms that trap users within interlocking services, squeezing out potential rivals who might challenge their hegemony. The law is likely to see challenges in the courts, but it may mean Apple being forced to accept alternatives to its App Store on its devices; Amazon being blocked from using data collected from outside sellers to offer competing products; Meta’s WhatsApp required to allow people to send and receive messages from rival services; and Meta and Google set new limits for showing users targeted ads without consent. If successfully enforced, and not blunted by lawsuits, the act could herald a major redesign of the way in which digital services operate. And about time too.
Just your everyday town Sphere
As wide as the London Eye; as tall as Big Ben [1]; as curvaceous as a testicle – Populous’s proposed Sphere concert venue for Stratford, east London, has been granted planning permission. Despite receiving 850 objections (on account of it being a vast ball whose LED surface would display blindingly bright adverts in an area of the city already well stocked for venues), the Sphere was approved this week by the London Legacy Development Corporation, which deemed it to be “consistent with its town centre context” and able to “diversify the cultural and night time offer”. Now, perhaps the Sphere will offer thrilling culture and nightlife, but “consistent with its town centre context”? They know it’s a giant glowing orb, right?
A house in disarray?
Prior to her appointment as RIBA’s inaugural director of diversity and inclusion in 2021, Marsha Ramroop pledged to put the UK architecture body’s “house in order”. No more, Ramroop’s promise seemed to suggest, would RIBA pull weird shit like promoting a cooking class to celebrate International Women’s Day, or see its equality, inclusion and diversity manager blunder into posting “all lives matter” on LinkedIn. Alas, news broke this week that, little over a year in the job, Ramroop was leaving RIBA to “focus on other opportunities”. Ramroop herself has not commented on her departure, but that didn’t stop The Architects’ Journal pointing out that sources suggested her budget had been significantly cut. RIBA is now looking for Ramroop’s successor, but confirmed that all its departments had a “collective responsibility” to reduce operating costs and deficit. "Our EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion] work remains one of the key priorities for the RIBA,” a spokesperson said. Oh RIBA. Nothing suggests you’re committed to fighting the good fight better than slashing said fight’s budget.
[1] And, yes, we know that’s technically the name of the bell and not the tower, but just leave it alright.