Design Emergency Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli

How can we develop safe, sustainable ways of designing, making and building? In this episode, Alice Rawsthorn talks to Julia Watson, the designer, academic and activist whose years of research into the ancient nature-based technologies and sacred landscapes created by indigenous communities in remote parts of our planet promise to produce ingenious solutions to the devastating damage caused by the climate emergency.
Raised in Australia and based in the US, Julia spent 20 years researching the diverse ways in which isolated communities have drawn on ancient wisdom and readily available natural materials to design ecologically responsible ways of living. Among them are the 6,000 year- old floating islands where the Ma’dan community dwells in Iraq’s southern wetlands; and the living root bridges that defend the Khasi people against horrific floods in northern India.
Julia describes how having shared her research in the book Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism, she is now designing systems and protocols to enable nature-based technologies to be deployed on larger scales in other places, while ensuring that the communities who conceived them are fairly paid.
Thank you for listening. You’ll find images of the projects described by Julia in this episode on our Instagram @design.emergency. And you can tune into this episode of Design Emergency and the others on Apple, Spotify, Amazon and other podcast platforms. Please join us for future episodes when we will interview other design leaders who, like Julia, are helping to build a better world.
Hosted by Acast. See acast.com/privacy for information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Design has always been a man’s world. A white cis-man’s world to be precise. Thankfully, there have always been gifted and inspiring exceptions who have overcome the obstacles to make important contributions to design. This episode of the Design Emergency podcast celebrates some of the incredible women who have done so, as our co-founders, Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn pay tribute to the Hidden Heroines of Design.
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In this episode you’ll hear the stories of seven exceptionally talented and determined women whose courage, skills and resilience enabled them to defy gender bias by developing remarkable design innovations that have changed millions of people's lives for the better. Among them are Letitia Mumford Geer, a US nurse who patented the design of the one-handed medical syringe in 1896, and Ann Macbeth, a British embroiderer who empowered working class women to use needlework to learn new skills and forms of self-expression in the early 1900s.
Others include Colette Boccara, one of the most prolific industrial designers in late 20th century Brazil, and Yasmeen Lari, the first woman to practice architecture in Pakistan who has devoted the second half of her career to designing emergency housing and other forms of humanitarian support for the victims of floods and earthquakes.
All of our Hidden Heroines of Design faced daunting challenges to achieve their goals, as have equally accomplished designers who are trans, queer, of colour or don’t conform to the white cis-male archetype for another reason. We hope you’ll enjoy hearing how they overcame them.
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Thank you for listening. You’ll find images of the projects described in this episode - and the others - on our Instagram @design.emergency. Please join us for future episodes of Design Emergency when we will interview more remarkable design leaders who are helping to forge positive change in different fields and different parts of our planet.
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Design Emergency podcast
Presented by Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn
Graphic design by Studio Frith
Recording by Spiritland Productions
Hosted by Acast. 
See acast.com/privacy for information

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paola Antonelli interviews Sissel Tolaas, the Berlin-based Norwegian artist, chemist, and researcher who has dedicated her life to exploring smell in all its facets and expressions. With a background in chemistry and linguistics, Tolaas has developed an interdisciplinary practice that spans the fields of art, science, and technology, with a particular focus on olfactory communication and the role of smell in human experience.
Over the course of her career, Tolaas has conducted extensive research on the human sense of smell, exploring everything from the molecular structure of odors to the cultural and social contexts in which they are produced and perceived. She has created a vast scent archive comprising thousands of smells from around the world, and has used these smells to create a range of olfactory installations, products, and artworks that challenge our perceptions of scent and our relationship with the world around us.
Tolaas' work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world, and she has collaborated with a wide range of individuals and organizations, from perfumers and fashion designers to scientists and architects. Through her work, she has sought to expand our understanding of the role of smell in human life and to promote the idea that smell is not just a sensory experience, but a powerful tool for communication, memory, and identity.


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In this episode, Alice Rawsthorn interviews Nifemi Marcus-Bello, the Nigerian designer who is at the forefront of the dynamic new design culture now emerging in West Africa. Nifemi describes how he draws on his research into West African design and making – past and present – to develop new objects that reflect the region’s cultural identity.
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Born in Nigeria, Nifemi was brought up there and in Zambia, before moving to the UK to study industrial design in Leeds. After completing his master’s degree in 2013, he returned to Lagos and worked for the architect Kunlé Adeyemi there and then for MASS Design Group in Rwanda, before opening his own studio in the city in 2017.
Nifemi has since designed objects that are steeped in West Africa’s rich culture of making and improvisational design. Most are inspired by the vernacular products he sees in daily use on the streets of Nigeria and its neighbours, including Lagos water carts and Beninese bamboo blinds. His work is also influenced by historic West African artefacts, such as ancient Benin bronzes and 19 th century Igbo sculpture. Nifemi then collaborates with skilled local makers on fabricating his objects, which are smart, resonant, and engaging.
At a thrilling time for designers throughout Africa, when many designers from the African diaspora are moving there, Nifemi’s conversation with Alice paints a vivid and realistic picture of their impact on our youngest, most rapidly urbanising continent.
You’ll find images of the projects described by Nifemi 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.
Thank you for listening. Please join us for future episodes when we will interview other design leaders who, like Nifemi Marcus-Bello, are helping to build a better world in different fields and different parts of our planet.
Hosted by Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Formafantasma is a design studio founded in 2009 by Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi, with offices in Milan and in Rotterdam. Their practice is based on research, and their deep investigations into the ecological, historical, political, and social forces shaping the discipline of design today inform not only their critical and influential exhibitions and academic inquiry, but also the exquisite objects they have produced for commercial manufacturers of global renown.
In this episode, Simone and Andrea discuss with Paola Antonelli their use of design as a lens to and understand the world, and their reliance on the formal elegance of objects as Trojan horses to unveil unethical practices and exploitative systems of extraction that are entangled with design and production - exposing them so they can be dismantled. 
Three projects in particular, supported by solid, publicly available research and culminating in exhibitions, illustrate their approach. Ore Streams (National Gallery Victoria in Melbourne, 2017, and Triennale di Milano, 2019) focused on electronic waste, while Cambio (Serpentine, London, 2020) examined the global ecology of timber. Oltre Terra, which will open in May 2023 at the National Museum in Oslo, studies the systems of extraction and production of wool, and therefore the complex relationship between animals, humans, and the environment. 
You’ll find images of the projects Simone and Andrea describe in this interview on our Instagram feed @design.emergency. Thank you for listening!


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In this episode, Alice Rawsthorn interviews Fabrizio Urettini, the Italian art director, who has devoted the last six years to designing and delivering a remarkably imaginative and effective response to one of our biggest global challenges - the escalating refugee crisis. Helped by friends and fellow designers, Fabrizio has founded and run the Talking Hands workshops in the northern Italian city of Treviso where asylum seekers and migrants living temporarily in the area can learn design and making skills.
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Fabrizio tells Alice how hundreds of refugees and migrants have participated in the programme since he opened Talking Hands in a derelict army barracks in 2016. They have designed and made furniture, toys, and clothing for sale online and in local craft markets, and collaborated with nearby manufacturers and artisans, while learning new skills or enhancing old ones that could eventually help them to secure paid employment. As well as enabling asylum seekers and migrants to use their time in Treviso productively, Talking Hands runs language and literacy classes for them, and has had a significant impact on changing local perceptions of refugees.
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At a time when more than 100 million people, a historic record, have been forced to flee their homes due to conflict or oppression to seek asylum elsewhere in the global refugee crisis, Talking Hands demonstrates how designers and other creatives can help to foster positive change by empowering them to build productive lives in their new countries.
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You’ll find images of the projects described by Fabrizio 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. Thank you for listening. Please join us for future episodes when we will interview other design leaders who, like Fabrizio, are helping to build a better world in different fields and different parts of our planet.
Hosted by Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information
 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.