The Design Line: October 29 October – 4 November
Design Line heads into November with another week offering a design spin on the latest news, including Twitter’s turbulent takeover, a plagiarism claim in the modern space race, and reaching peak celebrity halloween costume.
Musk memes while Rome burns (image: Twitter).
Free Bird
The dark cloud of Musk management has been on the horizon for some time and, after several failed attempts to wriggle out of the deal, Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finally concluded this week. The change has sent shockwaves of speculation through the internet, especially after Musk’s in-person firing of higher up staff members, including Vijaya Gadde, whom he had previously criticised for having “a left-wing bias” (with an announcement of further mass layoffs expected today). Musk celebrated the deal’s completion by tweeting “the bird is freed”, indicating that he plans to relax content moderation policies. No changes to the platform have been made as of yet, but it has been speculated that Musk plans to forgive previously banned users, potentially including former POTUS Donald Trump. Musk’s insatiable desire to be liked seems to have trumped his reasoning, however, as it’s hard to imagine exactly how these plans will be implemented to make any profit from his $44bn purchase. Twitter heavily relies on advertiser contracts that likely will not want to be associated with unmoderated content, leaving Musk in a large, bird-shaped hole of his own making. This could be the motive behind Musk’s suggested scheme of charging users $8, formerly $20, per month for verification, as well as a paywall feature, suggesting that there is a limit to how much he truly values “free speech”.
Nifemi Marcus-Bello is one to watch (image: Hublot).
In recognition of an award
Nifemi Marcus-Bello is a thoroughly contemporary industrial designer. “We believe in understanding what is available,” says the designer’s Lagos based studio, “without trying to force an ego on to the process.” It’s a fine sentiment – which particularly resonates in a climate in which considered use of material and local manufacture have become paramount – and one worthy of recognition. Kudos, then, to the 2022 Hublot Design Prize, which selected Marcus-Bello as the recipient of its 100,000 Swiss franc award. Launched in 2015, the Hublot Design Prize has quickly established itself as an award of some repute (doling out 100,000 Swiss francs a time probably hasn’t hurt), recognising an impressive panorama of different design disciplines and practices: previous winners include the research-based Formafantasma, multidisciplinary creative director Samuel Ross, and illustrator Mohammed Iman Fayaz, whose work explores race, sexuality and gender. Given that it would have been easy for a luxury brand-backed award to slip into recognising the glitzier elements of the design industry, the Hublot Prize deserves acknowledgment for the progressiveness with which it has approached the discipline and for the financial support it offers to new voices. Long may it continue.
Changes at the RIBA
This week saw a shake-up at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the industry body that represents the interests of architectural workers. Valerie Vaughan-Dick was made chief executive, saying she was “delighted to be joining RIBA at such an exciting time in its development and to being part of the transition to an even more effective business”. Vaughan-Dick, a qualified accountant who currently holds a top job at the Royal College of General Practitioners, will have her work cut out for her as the RIBA revealed it has an £8m hole in its budget despite implementing a range of cost-cutting measures, including sweeping redundancies and property downsizing. The organisation also announced its new director for diversity and inclusion… a white man. Robbie Turner, previously chief transformation officer at a pharmaceutical company, fills the vacancy left by his predecessor Marsha Ramroop. Ramroop, a woman of Indo-Trinidadian heritage, resigned after only a year in the post after swinging cuts to the diversity budget. On his Linkedin, Turner describes himself as “passionate about leveraging my own experience and privilege”, which is a nice sentiment, but he still seems a curious choice for a diversity post. Still, Disegno has high hopes for the incumbent presidency of Muyiwa Oki, who was voted in on a platform of architectural workers rights. One thing is for certain, 2023 is shaping up to be an interesting year for the RIBA.
The worm in the (candy) apple
This week began with the official date of Halloween, allowing us to feast on all the fallout from last weekend’s celebrations. The holiday has long moved away from its religious origins into something far more commodified, but our current social media age has helped to shift Halloween once again. Halloween is now Extremely Online, with the festival transformed into a celebrity costume contest in which the production values of the outfits and their associated Instagram “launches” only grows every year. While this virtual exhibition of creativity is a treat, the dramatic unveilings and undeniable artistry involved in the costumes opens them up to be criticised and consumed in the same manner as monetised media content. Among widely criticised poor-taste Pam and Tommy ensembles, and exhaustive pop culture references, only a few high-production costumes truly tapped into the somewhat lost light-heartedness that once defined the holiday. A particular highlight was Heidi Klum’s worm costume, spawned from the laborious efforts of artist Mike Marino and the Prosthetic Renaissance team. The costume was in the works for two years and launched flawlessly in time to be circulated alongside the current viral “would you love me if I was a worm” meme. In this case, we definitely do.
Interplanetary plagiarism
Nasa’s VIPER rover is an impressive bit of kit. Designed to explore the Moon’s South Pole, VIPER has drawn attention for its ability to inch-worm or “move its wheels in a special, caterpillar-like coordinated way that helps the rover get itself unstuck” – a neat trick when you’re exploring perilous terrain with no hope of human assistance should you become wedged. “Inch-worm”, however, may sound familiar to those who keep abreast of rover design news (and we recommend Disegno’s ‘The Tourists’ for those who would like to get into the field). China’s Zhurong rover, which has been exploring Mars for around a year, also features an unusual suspension system that simulates the movement of an inchworm to help cover fiddly terrain. This inchworm déjà vu has now raised eyebrows, however, with the South China Morning Post reporting this week that a Chinese space expert had deemed the VIPER a “copy of the Chinese design”. Now, Disegno is not anti-copying (if it’s a good system for crossing Mars, wouldn’t it be a bit dumb to not use it for the Moon too?), but there is a pleasure to be gleaned in the geopolitical role reversal: for years, design discourse has been dominated by mutterings about Chinese copies of European and American designs, with little acknowledgement of the country’s own contributions to the field (or, indeed, the ingenuity and creativity displayed in many acts of copying). What delicious schadenfreude, then, to see that the worm has finally turned in the world of rover design.
Preventable disasters
The week began with tragedy as over 150 young people out celebrating Halloween in Seoul’s Itaewon district were crushed to death in a 7m-wide alley after police failed to manage a crowded nightlife district. The preventable disaster highlights how important it is for authorities to take the layout of urban areas into account when planning for crowded events. Within hours there was more horror in Gujarat state in India, as the jhulto pul pedestrian bridge collapsed into a river during Diwali celebrations, killing at least 135 people, including 34 children. The 19th-century suspension bridge over the Machchhu river had only recently reopened after lengthy repairs. Built under British colonial rule, the bridge is less than 2m-wide and had become a tourist attraction for the way that it swayed as you walked over it. After a private maintenance company renovated the structure it reopened as a toll bridge with a maximum capacity of 125 – but it is reported that up to 500 people were gathered on it having bought tickets on the night of the collapse. As grieving families are left to pick up the pieces while official inquiries drag on for years, it’s a chilling demonstration of the danger posed to people keen to gather in large groups as Covid restrictions are relaxed, but where local authority plans and underlying infrastructure has not been adequately designed to protect them.