Stories
Sometimes Frivolous, Sometimes Philosophical
Jeremy Myerson looks at the changing landscape for design for the elderly through the eclectic and imaginative contributions to the 19 Chairs project.
Protest Too Much
The 2021 Turner Prize has gone to Array, the Belfast-based art collective that uses protest as its medium, just as the UK government seeks to criminalise peaceful civil disobedience.
The Clock and the Hunchback
Lemmi Shehadi speaks to the people working to rebuild Mosul’s multi-faith community by repairing the places of worship destroyed by the IS and US airstrikes.
Snap Happy
Enter the Disegno photography competition for your chance to win an Ayno lamp by Stefan Diez for Midgard.
Nothing About Us Without Us
Jesse Rice-Evans reviews Sara Hendren’s What Can A Body Do? and asks why discussions around adaptive design still refuse to centre disabled people.
The Crit #15: Garden Via Algorithm
The Crit welcomes Apple repair kits; says goodbye to The Tulip; despairs over Munger Hall; asks how AI can attract bees; and tracks a cow from field to sofa.
Virgil Abloh (1980 - 2021)
Disegno looks back on the genre-defying career of Virgil Abloh, the trailblazing Black designer who is dead at the age of 41.
Disegno #31
Disegno’s 31st edition is filled to the brim with exciting and insightful long-form journalism to restore your flagging spirits and warm your arterial cockles.
The Library is Open
Niall McLaughlin Architects’s timber library for Magdalene College, Cambridge, has won the Wood Awards’ 2021 Gold Award.
Chronology and Its Discontents
After the V&A’s U-turn, Glenn Adamson explains how museums have got themselves in a muddle when it comes to chronological order.
Take an E-seat
Inside the weird world of NFT furniture, where you can spend thousands on a chair you’ll never be able to sit on.
Data Centre Detectives
An exhibition in London reveals the secret lives of data centres, the hidden architecture that’s poised to take over the world.
Circle Back
Invisible Lines is a capsule collection of round glasses designed by a group of friends who posted the titanium frames back and forth across the globe during the pandemic.
The Tech Master’s Tools
After years of planned obsolescence and criticism from the right-to-repair movement, Apple is going to offer at-home DIY repair kits for iPhones and Macbooks.
Sludge Solution
Honext is the sustainable building material that solves sludge problems for paper mills by turning waste into a recyclable MDF alternative.
Circular Design, Two Ways
Odd Matter’s Afterlife crate for Supernovas is a durable and multipurpose home accessory made from recycled plastic that offers an alternative to fast furniture.
Solar Culture Club
From Disegno #29, an interview with solar designer Marjan van Aubel on her new sunshine-powered lamp Sunne and the dream of a solar democracy.
Reflections on Transparency
From Disegno #10, architecture writer Matthew Allen presses his nose up against the glass of the many windows of Grace Farms, the mysterious utopian community centre designed by Sanaa in Connecticut.