Design Emergency

How can we make productive use of the unfinished buildings that litter our towns, cities and landscapes? In this episode of Design Emergency, Dominique Petit-Frère and Emil Grip, founders of Limbo Accra, a spatial design studio based in Ghana and the US, tell our cofounder Alice Rawsthorn about their mission to ensure that we make the most of the possibilities to reimagine, rebuild and reuse the thousands of concrete relics, which were abandoned before construction was completed..Unfinished buildings are a largely ignored, yet wasteful and damaging aspect of architecture and construction. Dominique, who was born in the US and is of Ghanaian and Haitian heritage, and Emil, who is Danish, recognised the scale of the problem after moving to Ghana in 2018 to open a studio in the capital, Accra. They explain to Alice how, having noticed the large number of abandoned, incomplete buildings in the city they have focused Limbo Accra on designing new ways to reinvent them. .Having started by transforming an abandoned site into a Ghana’s first public skatepark, Limbo Accra began a long term research project to identify unfinished buildings throughout Ghana, and to compile a digital archive of them and the possibilities of completing their construction. This research is now being extended across West Africa and, eventually, to the rest of the continent..Thank you for listening. You can find images of Dominique, Emil and their work at Limbo Accra on our Instagram grid @design.emergency and https://www.limboaccra.online/. Please join us for future episodes of Design Emergency when we will hear from other global design leaders who, like them, are 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.

“Investigative visual journalism is a fairly new discipline that combines traditional investigative reporting techniques with digital forensic and spatial analysis of evidence,” says Anjali Singhvi, senior staff editor for spatial investigations at The New York Times in this Design Emergency podcast interview with our cofounder, Paola Antonelli. “It involves using a lot of open-source visual materials such as photos, videos, data, drawings, architectural plans, to explain complex stories and to reconstruct news events.”.In this episode, Anjali tells Paola how she has drawn on her background in architecture, and the journalistic skills she has honed at The New York Times, to pioneer its use of the rapidly expanding field of using spatial investigations to uncover the truth about tragedies, disasters and human rights abuses. She also describes how she and her colleagues communicate their findings to readers using story-boarding, 3-D modelling and data visualization techniques to present clear, precise and compelling analyses of horrific events such as the impact of the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921 and a horrific fire in a Bronx apartment building that killed 17 people. “The goal,” says Anjali, “is to hold the people in power accountable and to give our readers the greater visual understanding of a news event.”.Thank you for joining us. You can find images of Anjali and her work on our Instagram grid @design.emergency. And you can tune into this episode of Design Emergency and others on Apple, Spotify, Amazon and other podcast platforms.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.

What could - and should - our future look like? Olalekan Jeyifous is committed to designing irresistible visions of a future in which humanity makes the best out of its many mistakes and thrives within the strictures of its self-inflicted handicaps. By doing so, he has had a remarkable effect on the architecture world - and beyond.From the Venice Architecture Biennale, where he won the Silver Lion in 2023, to the Museum of Modern Art, his work always delights and puzzles. Could these really be our futures? In this episode of the Design Emergency podcast, Olalekan tells our cofounder, Paola Antonelli, his idea of utopia and the role of speculation in guiding us towards positive change.Nigerian-born and Brooklyn-based, Olalekan puts his architectural training to good use and imagines our old cities reframed on new systems of communication, transportation, occupation, and exchange. He describes them all in rich visual detail with immersive collages, videos, objects, and even VR experiences. The characters in his tableaus are often smiling, gregarious, in charge of their destinies, imaginary and yet familiar. His communities are strong, and his economies an enticing mix of informality and creatively structures.You can find images of Olalekan and his 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 Olalekan Jeyifous, are helping us to envisage and, to build, better futures.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.

At a time when democracy is under threat in many places, what can design do to defend it? How can it help to reinvent our democractic systems and make them fit for purpose? In this episode, author and activist, Claudia Chwalisz tells Design Emergency’s cofounder Alice Rawsthorn why and how she is leading a global campaign to redesign democracy as founder and CEO of the international non-profit research and action institute, DemocracyNext.Born in Canada to a Polish family, Claudia has devoted the last decade to re-imagining democracy, first through her work at the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris and, for the past year, with her colleagues and collaborators at DemocracyNext. Claudia explains how DemocracyNext is championing citizens assemblies as inclusive and deliberative forms of decision making, like those that debated the legalisation of abortion and same sex marriage in Ireland, and assisted dying in France. She discusses the role of sortition (randomly selecting decision-makers by lottery) to making our democratic systems fairer, and describes why design is a crucial tool in this process..Thank you for joining us. You can find images of Claudia and her work on our Instagram @design.emergency. Please join us for future episodes ofDesign Emergency when we will hear from other global design leaders who, like Claudia, are 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.

Our world is becoming ever more fragile, as more and more migrants across the planet from the country to booming cities, and as more and more refugees are displaced from their homes to makeshift emergency villages that become permanent and expand uncontrollably. What can architecture do to address this? In this episode of Design Emergency, our cofounder Paola Antonelli interviews the Italian-born, Somali architect Omar Degan about his work in using design to support vulnerable communities. .Omar tells Paola how he and his team at DO Architecture and Design are focusing on specialize emergency architecture, and post-conflict reconstruction. Their work, in Mogadishu and beyond, reflects Omar's belief in using architecture as a tool for peace and progress in distressed areas. Following his post-graduate degree in Emergency Contexts and Developing Countries from the Polytechnic of Turin, Italy, Omar has specialized in developing culturally and historically relevant design solutions in fragile contexts. He co-founded FragilityLab in 2023 to focus on this and is currently at work on an expanded version of the United Nations guidelines for architecture in states of emergency.You can find images of Omar and his 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 Omar, are 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.

How can design help to heal fragile people, who have experienced abuse, poverty and oppression? In this episode, the Indian artist, activist and social designer Aqui Thami tells Design Emergency’s cofounder Alice Rawsthorn how she does this by designing new opportunities for healing and learning for vulnerable women and girls, for and trans and queer people.Aqui has personally experienced violence and bigotry as a janjati, or indigenous artist, who was born in the Himalayas. She tells Alice how since moving to Mumbai on her own as a teenager, she has addressed this by designing and delivering safe spaces and other urgently needed resources for people living in Dharavi, which is one of India’s biggest and most densely populated slums.As well as establishing Sister Library, South Asia’s first mobile, community-owned and run feminist library there, Aqui co-founded the Dharavi Art Room to provide art, design and craft classes for local women and children. She also pursues her activism by designing and printing zines and fly posters as part of the Bombay Underground publishing movement.At a time when India, Mumbai and Dharavi are changing at frenzied speed, Aqui explains to Alice how she plans to continue to use design as an activist tool to empower her friends, neighbors and collaborators and to help them to preserve their communities.Thank you for joining us. You can find images of Aqui and her 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 Aqui, 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.

As the climate emergency escalates, it is clear that the solutions we need are those that can be applied at scale. The materials scientist Veena Sahajwalla is at the forefront as she is already designing and delivering such solutions. In this episode, Veena tells Design Emergency’s cofounder, Paola Antonelli, how she is recycling huge quantities of abandoned tyres, clothing and other waste into new materials..Born in India, where she was the only woman on her university engineering course, Veena then studied in Canada and the US, and is now based in Australia, where she is Professor of Materials Science at the University of New South Wales and founding director of its SMART Centre for Materials Research and Technology. Dubbed “the rubbish cop” by her daughter for her obsession with reusing and recycling waste at home, her work is devoted to developing new ways of transforming waste into new raw materials to decarbonise industrial production..Veena explains to Paola how she has invented a polymer injection technology, Green Steel, which has already recycled millions rubber tyres to replace coal in steel production. She also describes how she and her colleagues have developed a process of recycling clothes and glass into Green Ceramics for use in construction and interiors, and a new type of local micro-recycling hubs. All of which, Veena sees as being important steps towards a zero-waste circular economy..Thank you for listening. You will find images of projects described by Veena on our IG grid @design.emergency. And you can tune into this episode of Design Emergency and the others on Apple, Amazon, Spotify and other podcast platforms. Please join us for future interviews with other global design leaders who are forging positive change..Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. .Hosted by Acast. See acast.com/privacy for information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, the Mexican designer Fernando Laposse talks with our cofounder Paola Antonelli about his practice, which focuses on the culture and the materials of non-urban communities, especially in his native Mexico. After studying product design, Fernando has focused his practice on working with rural communities in Mexico to develop new design materials from locally grown plant fibers, such as sisal, loofah and corn leaves, using processes that are steeped in the traditions of those places..Fernando’s interest in Mexico’s ecosystems has led him to find new ways of transforming natural materials such as corn husks into laminated marquetry used for wall coverings, lighting, and furniture, always collaborating with local communities on their production. This allows him not only to create long term employment opportunities but to shed light on the economic and ecological challenges they face . Through his thoughtful, extensively researched projects, Fernando addresses pressing issues such as the environmental emergency, loss of biodiversity, community fragmentation, migration, and the adverse impact of global trade on local agriculture and food culture. By documenting these issues and celebrating the transformative power of design, he provides insights and potential solutions.You’ll find more images of the projects described by Fernando in this episode on Design Emergency's IG grid @design.emergency. And you can tune into this episode of Design Emergency and the others on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Acast, and other podcast platforms.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.

Magdalene Odundo has made some of the greatest pots of our time. In this episode of Design Emergency, she talks to our cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn, about how she discovered the joys and challenges of making ceramics and their symbolic value in expressing our cultural identities.Born in Kenya in 1950, Magdalene spent her childhood there and in India before moving to the UK to study art in Cambridge, where she flung herself into student debates on identity politics. She then studied at what is now the University for the Creative Arts in the Surrey market town of Farnham and at the Royal College of Art in London. As well as being formally beautiful, Magdalene’s pots are rooted in her love of making and her understanding of the politics of her own identity, as Black African woman living in Europe, and her years of research into the ancient ceramic traditions of Africa, Asia and Central America.Magdalene tells Alice how she draws on that research to reinterpret historic forms, finishes and firing processes in her pots that evoke the drama and fragility of dance. Her ceramics belong to the collections of major museums, including the British Museum and V&A in London, the Art Institute of Chicago and The Met in New York. Yet she still lives and works in the same place in Farnham, where, after years of dedicated teaching, she has become Chancellor of the University for the Creative Arts.Thank you for joining us. You can find images of Magdalene and her work on our Instagram grid @design.emergency. And you can tune into this episode of Design Emergency and others on Apple, Spotify, Amazon and other podcast platforms. Please join us for future episodes when we will hear from other global leaders in different areas of design..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.

Few people have more experience of disaster relief than the great Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari. In this episode, she tells Design Emergency’s cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn, how she has dedicated nearly 40 years to helping people throughout Pakistan to rebuild their lives and communities after earthquakes, floods and other devastating disasters.Born in what is now Pakistan in 1941, Yasmeen became its first professional woman architect by starting a practice in Karachi. In 1980, she co-founded the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan to conserve the country’s historic architecture and quit her practice in 2000 to focus on that work. Five years later, when millions of people were killed or displaced by the horrific Kashmir earthquake, Yasmeen travelled to the region to help local communities with repair and reconstruction.She tells Alice what she learnt from that experience and her subsequent work in disaster relief, why the conventional aid system has failed, and how she is developing a “humanistic humanitarian” model of helping people to help themselves and then helping others to do the same. Yasmeen also describes how the world’s architectural practices could help to train the humanitarian architects of the future, as well as her current plans to build a million ecologically sustainable homes on floodplains across Pakistan and to design a floating village.Thank you for joining us. You’ll find images of the projects Yasmeen describes on our Instagram grid @design.emergency. Please join us for future episodes when we will hear from more global design leaders who, like the remarkable Yasmeen Lari, 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.