Design Emergency

Francis Kéré, architect, educator, builder, and one of the most compelling advocates for architecture as a force for dignity, participation, and social transformation. Kéré’s architecture begins with people and for a building to exist, it has to traverse a process of listening, learning, and designing and fabricating together with the public it is meant for.Born in Gando, Burkina Faso, and based in Berlin, Kéré first came to international attention through a school he designed for his home village while still a student, in 2001. Built with local materials and the participation of the community, the project demonstrated that architecture could be elegant, climate-responsive, and socially transformative. Since then, his work has expanded from schools and clinics to national assemblies, memorials, museums, and cultural institutions around the world. In 2022, he received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the highest honor in his field.In this conversation with Paola Antonelli, Kéré reflects on his new book, Building Stories, which foregrounds sketches, conversations, memories, and acts of collective making rather than finished masterpieces. Together, they discuss participation, local knowledge, democracy, and architecture's capacity to create dignity, agency, and belonging.You can find images related to this interview on our Instagram grid @design.emergency. Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Design Emergency, Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli explore how craft has evolved into a powerful force for social, cultural, and environmental change. Design, art, and craft have had a long, complex relationship. For most of human history they were inseparable: the objects people made — textiles, sculptures, tools, paintings, ceramics, furniture — belonged to the same continuum of human creativity, skill, and material knowledge. Industrialization disrupted that balance, introducing divisions between art, design, and crafts, while often relegating crafts to the margins as decorative, domestic, and secondary to industrial production. Yet in recent years, amid ecological crisis, technological anxiety, and a growing desire for more meaningful forms of making, craft has returned with renewed urgency and visibility. Through a series of parables spanning continents and generations, Alice and Paola uncover remarkable examples of crafts as catalysts for social and cultural change: Ethel Mairet’s radical weaving experiments in 19th century England; Ruth Clement Bond’s quilting initiatives among African American communities in the American South; Fernando Laposse’s collaborations with farming communities in Mexico; and Theaster Gates’s transformation of neighborhoods and communities in Chicago through repair, making, and collective labor.Set against a backdrop of environmental crisis, technological acceleration, and renewed interest in material knowledge, the episode celebrates the re-emergence of crafts as a critical language for thinking about identity, ecology, community, and the future of making.You can find images related to the projects and people discussed in this episode on our Instagram grid @design.emergency. Please join us for future episodes of Design Emergency, when we will hear from other global design leaders who, through their work and ideas, are helping to shape positive change.Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the global water crisis and climate emergency intensify, how can design help us to tackle the devastating food shortages, storm surges, rising sea-levels and other problems we face? On this episode of Design Emergency, the Australian designer, ecologist and activist, Julia Watson, tells our cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn how indigenous communities in remote parts of our planet have developed ancient, nature-based design solutions to these threats..Julia shares examples of how natural water systems, many of them designed centuries ago, are already helping us to protect and replenish our dwindling water supplies, as well as to grow urgently needed crops on floating meadows and farms, and to establish natural fishing systems..Many of these projects are described in Julia’s forthcoming book, Lo-TEK: Water, which will be published by Taschen in June as a follow-up to Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism, one of Design Emergency’s favourite design books of recent years. In Lo-TEK: Water, Julia also explains how these traditional design solutions are being adapted to function on the vast scale we need to tackle the global water crisis, while stressing the importance of ensuring that the rights of the local communities who conceived them are always fully respected and protected..We hope you’ll enjoy this episode. You can find images of the projects described Julia on our Instagram @design.emergency. Please join us for future episodes of Design Emergency when we will hear from inspiring global design leaders who, like Julia, are using their knowledge and skills to work to build a better future..Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can design help to defend and strengthen our human rights? And the rights of other species with whom we share our planet? At a time when rights and freedoms are under threat all over the world, Design Emergency’s cofounders, Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn, are marking Human Rights Day 2024 with a special episode on practical ways in which design is helping to protect our rights in exceptionally vulnerable places..From an emergency treatment centre for people with disabilities in Gaza and a shelter for isolated elderly seniors in Ukraine, to floating sanitation systems to help Bangladeshi communities cope with severe flooding during monsoon season, and a project to help Sudanese refugees arriving in Chad to build sustainable homes in a traditional style for the region, all the projects discussed by Paola and Alice have already had positive impacts on human rights. Though they also share a cautionary tale of how-not-to-design a post-conflict reconstruction programme in a desolate area of Afghanistan haunted by years of war and poverty..We hope you’ll find this episode interesting. You can find images of the projects described by Paola and Alice on our Instagram @design.emergency. Please join us for future episodes of Design Emergency when we will hear from inspiring global design leaders whose work is at the forefront of forging positive change..Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why should we care about data? Not only because “data is the new oil,” as British mathematician Clive Humby famously said in 2006, but also because data sets can contain the values, culture, and future of communities and society. In other words, data is us. Domestic Data Streamers, a design studio based in Barcelona since 2013, has worked to redefine how we engage with data, moving from visualization through diagrams and other graphic tools to actual data interaction and performance. In this episode, Paola Antonelli speaks with founding partner and director Pau Garcia and creative and research director Marta Handenawer.With a background not only in design, but also in theater and improvisation, the founding members of DDS have set out to make complex information more human and accessible, evolving traditional data visualization into data experiences. They believe that data can move people emotionally, not just inform them, and they thus use every tool at their disposal––from analog, hands-on installations to generative AI––to make them come alive.Among their most remarkable projects is Synthetic Memories, “a public service for reconstructing lost or undocumented memories using AI” that not only allows citizens to see their remembrances in photographs or videos that never existed, but also to file them along those of family members, neighbors, or compatriots to form a collective archive. In the case of survivors, refugees, and migrants, it can be a way to document a past life for future generations and make sure cultures are not entirely lost.You can find images of Domestic Data Streamers’ work on our Instagram grid @design.emergency. Please join us for future episodes of Design Emergency when we will hear from other global design leaders who, like Pau, Marta, and their colleagues are at the forefront of positive change.Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Things are not exactly looking up. While the climate emergency is undeniably advancing, however, a powerful cultural shift is also afoot––away from doomsday alarmism or resignation, and towards optimism.Despite being a wide-awake scientist, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is among those who are presenting to the world the constructive, energetic, even joyful side of the fight for climate justice.Ayana is a marine biologist; the founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank dedicated to addressing climate issues in coastal cities; a frequent advisor on environmental policy and strategy to governmental agencies, foundations, and multinational corporations; and an author. Her most recent book, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, is based on 30+ interviews in which she pokes scientists, designers, curators, and policy experts with that hard question, arm-wrestling them into optimism. Ayana’s reliance on design and art, of particular relevance for Design Emergency, shows how instrumental these attitudes are if we want to imagine a better future for all, and then will it into being. In the book as well as in Climate Futurism, an exhibition she curated at Pioneer Works in New York, she paints a picture in which humanity successfully tackles climate challenges, offering actionable insights and highlighting the potential for a just and sustainable world.You can find images related to Ayana’s work on our Instagram grid @design.emergency. Please join us for future episodes of Design Emergency when we will hear from other global design leaders who, like her, are at the forefront of positive change.Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Visions of future worlds by storytellers of all kinds––filmmakers, writers, designers, and other artists––play an important role in our evolution. Whether they are utopias or dystopias, visual or verbal, they invite us to imagine what we could make of ourselves and of our planet, for good and for bad. Australian architect Liam Young is among the most respected and effective contemporary speculative designers and world-builders, focusing on the imagination of better worlds in which humankind recognizes its place and responsibility within nature––climate fiction.The climate crisis is real, and real ideas and solutions need to be implemented with urgency. The citizens of the world need awareness to pressure the powers that be and demand action, and even engineers and scientists need inspiration. However far-off they may seem, Liam’s visions are based on current and available technologies, which he studies in depth to mine their positive attributes and attenuate their dangers.Liam, who is based in Los Angeles and often collaborates with Hollywood productions as world-builder, discusses his personal practice, which explores the intersections of technology, culture, and the environment to create immersive narratives that envision alternative futures. By delving into two of his epic works––Planet City and The Great Endeavor––he explains how world building can shape our understanding of potential realities and inspire solutions to contemporary global challenges.You can find images of Liam’s work on our Instagram grid @design.emergency. Please join us for future episodes of Design Emergency when we will hear from other global design leaders who, like Liam, are at the forefront of positive change.Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Controlling technology means controlling the world. While this statement rings painfully true today, it is as old as the idea of technology itself. In other words, as old as humanity. In this episode, Paola Antonelli interviews renowned researcher, author, and artist Kate Crawford, a leading voice on the social, ethical, and planetary implications of all technologies––artificial intelligence in particular. Kate uses art and information design to manifest histories and connections that would otherwise remain invisible because of their long time span and complexity. The interview is centered around one of Kate’s latest collaborations with artist-researcher Vladan Joler, “Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power, 1500-2025,” an ambitious 24-m (ca. 79 ft) long fresco that was conceived during the Covid pandemic, perfected in the isolation of a monastery in Montenegro, and is now traveling around the world, after an inauguration at the Prada Foundation in Milan in 2023.Kate describes Calculating Empires as a visual history of the present––after French philosopher Michel Foucault’s theory––and shows how the dangerous intersection of technology and power we witness today has happened many times before. If we abandon our tendency towards short-termism, she believes, there is a lot we can learn from past experiences.You can find images of Calculating Empire on Design Emergency’s Instagram platform, @design.emergency. Please join us for future episodes of Design Emergency when we will hear from other important voices who, like Kate, are at the forefront of positive change.Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.