Category: Editing

Design as a Tool for Transition: The Atelier Luma Approach

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Design as a Tool for Transition: The Atelier Luma Approach. Designed by Studio Folder. Courtesy Studio Folder.

During this year’s Salone del Mobile, we finally presented to the public the book we’ve been developing for Atelier Luma, titled Design as a Tool for Transition: the Atelier Luma Approach. I co-edited the volume with Jan Boelen, and was thrilled to work alongside Studio Folder on this project, as they developed the editorial design and a fantastic set of maps and other visual treats that help tell the story of this ambitious and impactful project.
The book, a bi-lingual edition in French and English, combines insights from international experts with the visual storytelling of the first years of several projects, bringing together the wide network of this initiative and opening up new avenues of practice for the field of design. It is available here.

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Design as a Tool for Transition: The Atelier Luma Approach. Designed by Studio Folder. Courtesy Studio Folder.

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Design as a Tool for Transition: The Atelier Luma Approach. Designed by Studio Folder. Courtesy Studio Folder.

 

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Browsing Design as a Tool for Transition: the Atelier Luma Approach. Photo Atelier Luma.

Design as Learning

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Design as Learning: A School of Schools Reader, designed by Offshore Studio and published by Valiz. Image by Offshore Studio.

On the occasion of the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, A School of Schools, I edited the accompanying publication, Design as Learning: A School of Schools Reader. The volume was beautifully designed by Zurich-based Offshore Studio (as was the striking visual identity of the whole biennial, explored here in detail) and is published jointly by IKSV and Valiz. The Reader seeks to expand on the many narratives of the biennial and offers a series of critical reflections on the past and present of design education, with contributions by Danah Abdulla, Jan Boelen, Nadine Botha, Corinne Gisel, João Ferreira, Naho Kubota, Nina Paim and myself. Additionally, the book features interviews with Zeynep Celik Alexander, Claudia Mareis, Peter Land and Nelly Ben Hayoun, contextualizing issues on the past and present states of design education. And finally, a series of conversations with participants in the biennial looks at ways to approach design education today. Interviewees include Åbäke, FABB (Burcu Biçer Saner, Efe Gözen), Navine G. Kahn-Dossos, Ebru Kurbak, Mae-ling Lokko, Studio Folder, SulSolSal (Hannes Bernard and Guido Giglio), and Pinar Yoldaş. Below the back cover blurb:

Why do design? What is design for? These are forward-looking questions for a creative discipline that seems more slippery to define than ever. In a world of dwindling natural resources, exhausted social and political systems, and an overload of information there are many urgent reasons to reimagine the design discipline, and there is a growing need to look at design education. Learning and unlearning should become part of an on-going educational practice. We need new proposals for how to organise society, how to structure our governments, how to live with, not against, the planet, how to sift fact from fiction, how to relate to each other, and frankly, how to simply survive.
The 4th Istanbul Design Biennial, and this publication Design as Learning ask: can design and design education provide these critical ideas and strategies?

Swiss Grand Award for Design 2018

_DSC9042An impression of the atelier of Cécile Feilchenfeldt in Paris. Photo Marc Asekhame.

In May we presented the results of the latest volume developed for the Swiss Grand Award for Design series. The 2018 laureates of this award, given annually by the Swiss Confederation and the Federal Office of Culture, are Cécile Feilchenfeldt, Rosmarie Tissi and Felco. Once more I had the pleasure to interview all these wonderful practitioners and help make the book that celebrates their professional achievements. This year, the photos were by Marc Asekhame, and the graphic design by Krispin Hée.

Atelier LUMA at Palazzo Clerici

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The Atelier LUMA brochure, distributed this year during Milan Design Week at the Palazzo Clerici.

During the 2018 Milan Design Week, Atelier LUMA took over the courtyard of Palazzo Clerici, where, in four different studiolo structures, it presented recent outcomes of the material exploration and research they are actively conducting in Arles, in the South of France. I was happy to have worked on the project’s brochure, which was presented in Milan for the first time, and with a wonderful design by Andrea Anner, will continue to serve as a fantastic visual and conceptual introduction to the large-scale intervention that is taking shape in Arles. If you don’t follow the journey of Atelier LUMA, I warmly invite you to find out more on their website.

Swiss Grand Award for Design 2017

A detail of David Bielander's office in Munich. Photo © Gina Folly
A detail of David Bielander’s office in Munich. Photo © Gina Folly

I had the pleasure to once again work with the Federal Office of Culture, in the person of Patrizia Crivelli, designer Jonathan Hares and photographer Gina Folly in the publication celebrating the 2017 edition of the Swiss Grand Award for Design, a career prize bestowed upon distinguished Swiss designers of all fields. This year, the winners were David Bielander, Thomas Ott and Jean Widmer, whom I was humbled and honored to meet and interview for the publication.

Unmanned: Drone Venice Book Launch

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The Unmanned: Drone book launch in Venice.

It was under the blue hues of the Dutch Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale that we presented the first e-book of the Unmanned: Architecture and Security series. Titled Drone, this first issue combines several essays on the topic with reports on two events that took place at Studio X and Het Nieuwe Instituut. I was thrilled to be able to assist the very talented team of editors – Ethel Baraona Pohl, Marina Otero Verzier and Malkit Shoshan – in the making of this volume with dpr.barcelona, and was happy to participate in the launch discussion, where the editorial team was complemented by respondents Anna Puigjaner and Tamar Shafrir.

Swiss Grand Award for Design 2016

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Spreads from the Swiss Grand Award for Design 2016 publication. 

I was delighted to edit the publication celebrating the 2016 edition of the Swiss Grand Award for Design, a career prize bestowed upon distinguished Swiss designers of all fields. This was the tenth year of the award, which is given by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, and the winners were Claudia Caviezel, Hans Eichenberger, and Ralph Schraivogel. I had the pleasure to interview them and get to know better their work and practice, and it was also fantastic to work with the Federal Office of Culture, in the person of Patrizia Crivelli, and designer Jonathan Hares.

Designing Everyday Life

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Designing Everyday Life, MAO and Park Books, Zurich 2014

As part of BIO 50, the 23rd Design Biennial in Ljubljana, I edited Designing Everyday Life, a publication that accompanied the six-month collaborative process that was at the core of the event, while simultaneously reflecting on the state of contemporary design and contemporary design events. With contributions by Jan Boelen, Alice Rawsthorn, Justin McGuirk and David Crowley, among others, the book combines essays, interviews and follows the 11 teams that were brought together by BIO 50, from the kick-off to the materialization of their projects. It was truly a pleasure to work on such an ambitious project. Below a few excerpts of praise for the book.

“Rather than a series of product shots – typical of some other biennials – the catalogue has a scrapbook aesthetic that is replete with sketches, email exchanges, Facebook posts and photographs from field trips. It is an honest and meticulous documentation of the processes integral to the development of each project over the six month period.” Anya Lawrence, Disegno

“While the exhibition offers much to stimulate visitors, Boelen’s particular stroke of genius is Designing Everyday Life, the biennial’s companion text. Edited by design writer, Vera Sacchetti, the 534-page text reveals the glorious mess behind the exhibition’s cleanliness. Drawings, prototypes and even posts from Facebook pages illuminate how these processes of research, experimentation and collaboration worked. It’s a fascinating read.” Crystal Bennes, Icon

“By renouncing “iconic” design and focussing on real urgencies in the world, for which viable alternatives were sought and (sometimes) found, BIO 50 sparks the energy that is currently missing in most of the international design fairs. Moreover, the ambitions have landed in a thought-provoking catalogue, which will last as an optimist testimony of new ways of thinking, new ways of working, and new ways of presenting. The BIO 50 biennial proves that design fairs can reclaim the invigorating role they once played, by facing the real urgencies of the world and showing the surprising and on-going potential design has to offer.” Louise Shouwenberg, Dezeen

 

Farewell to Domus


Domus July/August 2013. Photo Delfino Sisto Legnani

The July/August 2013 issue of Domus marks my departure from the magazine, after a year and a half of intense learning and a lot of fun. It was an honour, a challenge, and an immense pleasure to work under editor-in-chief Joseph Grima and the Domus editorial team — among which Marco Ferrari and Fabrizia Vecchione—, creating a magazine and a website that truly captured the contemporary.

Personally, this period marks my most intense professional growth thus far, and I couldn’t be more thankful for the opportunity. For the moment, find all my collected writings at Domusweb here. And now, on to the next challenge!

The Collective Story


Unfold’s Stratigraphic Manufactury, part of Adhocracy. Photo by Benoit Palley

In order to celebrate the opening of Adhocracy at the New Museum, in New York, below is the essay Avinash Rajagopal and I wrote for the exhibition’s catalog, introducing the volume’s intentions and structure. The catalog is available at the New Museum store. Make sure to visit the show, which will be on through 7 July at Studio 231 at 231 Bowery.

The Collective Story
Avinash Rajagopal, Vera Sacchetti

At first glance, what does a film about superannuated gardeners in Barcelona have to do with 3-D printed ceramics from Antwerp, or an open-source tractor built on a farm in Missouri? The many manifestations of adhocracy—the conviction that societal change can come out of small interventions, little subversions, and closely-knit communities working without the aid of the powers-that-be—can be surprisingly, and affirmingly, diverse. If only all these local agents who create tirelessly within their own online and offline communities could speak to each other, then a powerful new mode of creativity could take over the world—or at least that is the dream.

Continue reading The Collective Story

The Adhocracy Reader


The Adhocracy Reader, page detail. Photo by Ethel Baraona Pohl

During the summer of 2012 I was lucky enough to be involved in the preparation of Adhocracy, an exhibition curated by Joseph Grima with Elian Stefa, Ethel Baraona Pohl and Pelin Tan for the 1st Istanbul Design Biennial. My collaboration with the team materialized in the exhibition catalog, which I co-edited with Avinash Rajagopal and Tamar Shafrir. The Adhocracy Reader was designed by Folder (Marco Ferrari and Elisa Pasqual), and in its 400 pages we tried to push the concept of a standard catalog and create a reader, evoking a standard college reader — a compilation of pre-published material. A series of introductory essays frame the exhibition’s premises and the catalog’s intentions, followed by a carefully curated selection of material on the projects on display in the exhibition, alongside a series of pre-existing essays. The whole catalog can be consulted on Issuu, and a Flickr photoset by Ethel Baraona Pohl can be seen here.

Concrete Mushrooms


Concrete Mushrooms. Photo by dpr.barcelona

During June and July 2012, I copy-edited and helped Elian Stefa finish the book Concrete Mushrooms: Reusing Albania’s 750,000 Abandoned Bunkers, which was then published by dpr.barcelona in August 2012. The book, in Albanian and English, traces the history and fascinating “bunkerization” of Albania during the last years of Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship, and proposes a series of uses for these now discarded military structures. The project was originally started as a research project at the Politecnico di Milano. In August 2012, Concrete Mushrooms was also one of the initiators of Concrete in Common, an exhibition at  the Kunst Raum Riehen, in Basel, Switzerland — which I reviewed for Domusweb —, and was presented as one of the projects in the Albanian Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition — Venice Biennale 2012.