Four words – Lossless Audio, and Apple Arcade. These four words could just as easily the new iPod’s design brief. The Twitter rumor-mill’s working on overdrive after a few sources claimed that Apple could announce a new iPod this fall. A few designers even went so far as to create renders based on hearsay and leaks, and I’m absolutely here for it. A new iPod could be a pretty nifty product for a variety of reasons. Here are my thoughts.

Only last week Apple announced that lossless audio was coming to Apple Music. With a new iPod, it’ll be like Apple going into the music-streaming war guns-a-blazing. Spotify’s slowly but surely dominated this space, and the new iPod could almost be Apple signaling that it’s taking the music domain pretty seriously. The iPod could drum up major interest the same way the Moto RAZR did – nostalgia is a powerful force. Moreover, the hardware would be no different from the iPhone 5 or the iPhone SE, given that the renders look pretty much exactly like those devices.

Secondly, the new iPod has the ability to become Apple’s gateway device for a variety of iOS features (and probably even MagSafe, who knows). Kids could use it for listening to music, but could also potentially use the iMessage service on it. The iPod could leverage the power of Apple Arcade too, becoming a very affordable device that parents would buy for their kids in a heartbeat, tying them into the Apple ecosystem at an early age. The iPod has always been an impulse purchase (as opposed to the iPhone)… reissuing the gadget on its 20th anniversary absolutely makes a world of sense!!

Image Credits: Steve Moser, AppleLe257, and Apple_Tomorrow

Following the death of celebrated architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha at the age of 92, we look back at eight key projects from concrete houses to museums that cemented his global reputation.

Most of Mendes da Rocha’s work is in his native Brazil, but the architect gained international recognition during his career and won a host of awards.

A recipient of both the Pritzker Architecture Prize and RIBA Gold Medal, Mendes da Rocha was regarded as one of the major architects of his time.

The Brazilian architect’s most famous buildings are in São Paulo. Known for his work with raw concrete, Mendes da Rocha is considered to have modernised Brazil’s landscape from the 1950s onwards.

The Vitória-born architect died at a hospital in São Paulo on 23 May 2021 from lung cancer.

To mark Mendes da Rocha’s passing, here are eight key projects he completed during his career:

Athletic Club of São Paulo, Brazil, 1957

Mendes da Rocha first rose to prominence with his design for the Paulistano Athletic Club Gymnasium in São Paulo, which he completed at the age of 29 after winning a national competition for the construction of the project.

The brutalist stadium has a striking circular form with six concrete fins that jut out and support a circular concrete roof held by 12 tension steel cables.

Casa Mendes da Rocha, São Paulo, Brazil, 1967

As he developed his reputation, the Brazilian architect completed a series of private houses including one for himself.

Casa Mendes da Rocha was built alongside a twin house for the architect’s sister in Butantā, São Paulo. Both have modular, exposed concrete structures in what became da Rocha’s trademark style.

Casa Masetti, São Paulo, Brazil, 1970

Another private home built from the bulky concrete forms that he became known for is Casa Masetti, a 1970 house designed for the engineer Mário Masetti.

With two outdoor staircases, the São Paolo home’s exterior and interior spaces are closely connected.

Casa King, São Paulo, Brazil, 1973

Mendes da Rocha built Casa King from fair-faced concrete, with rooms arranged around a central courtyard.

The house sits on eight columns that raise the house above ground level so it is surrounded by the tropical vegetation that grows in the city.

Capela de São Pedro, Campos do Jordão, Brazil, 1987

Completed in 1987, this Brazilian chapel is defined by a large cylindrical column that represents Saint Peter’s role as a foundation of Christianity.

As with so many of his projects, Mendes da Rocha used concrete slabs to blend the chapel with its natural surroundings.

In 2016, British architect Jane Duncan described this trademark style as “raw, chunky and beautifully ‘brutal’.”

Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo, Brazil, 1993

The Brazilian architect completed plenty of public buildings including this renovation of Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo’s oldest fine arts museum.

Internal voids were covered by flat skylights, while Mendes da Rocha maintained much of the nineteenth century’s original elements.

The Brazilian Sculpture Museum, São Paolo, Brazil, 1998

Completed in 1998, the Brazilian Sculpture Museum, or MuBE, was completed by Mendes da Rocha after he was selected for the project in the 1980s.

In typical Mendes da Rocha style, huge slabs of raw concrete cover outdoor spaces. Originally slated to become a shopping centre, the site on which MuBE sits became a public square after successful lobbying by local residents.

The National Coach Museum, Lisbon, Portugal, 2015

In a rare project outside of Brazil, Mendes da Rocha modernised Lisbon’s National Coach Museum, which was originally built in 1905 and is one of the city’s most visited museums.

Thick slabs of pink and red contrast against grey tones to form part of the museum which houses one of the world’s most extensive carriage collections.

Photography is by Leonardo Finotti.

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English DJ and producer Daniel Avery recently released Together in Static, an album composed specifically for a live performance (taking place this Friday) at Hackney Church. “As with many things this past year, the project took on a power and a life of its own right in front of me,” he says in a statement about the work. “The original idea was to simply play a couple of small gigs at Hackney Church during the last lockdown. I started to make music specifically for the shows yet, as plans continued to shift, I fell deeper into the waves. I considered a 12-inch or maybe an EP, but by the time I came up for air, I realized I had a complete record I wanted to share.” From the album, “Hazel and Gold” has a decidedly optimistic vibe. For those who can’t make the socially distanced concert, Avery has a livestream planned for 23 June.

Twenty interior design students at New York City’s Pratt Institute present their final projects in Dezeen’s latest school show.

From a building that could purify contaminated floodwater to analysing how to improve user’s airport experiences, these projects by undergraduate and postgraduate interior design students at Pratt Institute explore how interiors affect our environment and behaviour.

Pratt Institute

School: Pratt Institute
Courses: BFA Interior Design and MFA Interior Design

School statement:

“The Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts in Interior Design at Pratt Institute has consistently ranked as the top interior design programmes in the United States and are considered to be some of the most prominent and influential. The courses prepare students to engage in critical inquiry and exploration – skills that establish them as innovators having an impact on the profession, the discipline and research on the interior environment.

“The programmes are architecturally oriented with emphasis on spatial articulation. They are designed to guide students in generating creative solutions by understanding craft, light, colour, and material research. Through theoretical and applied research, the curriculum addresses emerging and innovative technologies, interdisciplinary collaboration and sustainable practices. Both degrees focus on larger issues of ethical and social responsibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion through an understanding of global cultural history and its context.”

Solitary Living and Social Interactions in Urban Community by Bingyu Hu

“With different scales, functions and degrees of transparency, interior spaces serve as containers to protect privacy, stimulating communication and participation. As a result, they respond to individual’s lives while fostering community interaction.”

Student: Bingyu Hu
Advisor: Woody Rainey
Course: MFA Interior Design
Email: bhux16@pratt.edu

Activating Boundaries by Caitlin McMasters

“Activating Boundaries addresses the way generic airport experiences have become passive due to the overwhelming amount of stress placed on users throughout their journey. The effects of these emotions leave the user searching for entertainment from the consumerism offered post-security check.

“Based on research, the stress users undergo are elevated in periods of waiting and delays when the presence of large lines appear. Is there an opportunity to repurpose these boundaries? Can stressors be transformed into a sensory experience? How can we transition from the independent isolation of travelling to experience the journey of travelling together?

“This thesis allowed me to investigate the future of design amidst a global pandemic that has altered the way we perceive space and people. It investigates reconnecting people with each other.”

Student: Caitlin McMasters
Advisor: Dalia Hamati
Course: BFA Interior Design
Email: cmcmaste@pratt.edu

Harvesting Water: Reimagining Environmental Waters as Constructive Materials in the Resilient Coastal Interior by Kats Tamanaha

“By 2060, an estimated 13 million Americans will be displaced due to rising sea levels and coastal flooding. This thesis explores the possibilities of tidal, flood and stormwater as ‘materials’ in our built environment. Here their potential is shifted, from substances that destroy to resilient tools used to manage flooding.

“Water within the built environment is hidden, hyper-controlled through intricate plumbing systems and filtered for use. Water within the exterior is uncontrolled and often feared. Floodwater is contaminated, picking up traces of where it has been and what it has touched. As sea levels rise, areas formerly at risk for 100-year floods will soon be submerged at high tide. How can the interior adapt to embrace the new reality of water rather than avoid it?

“My project embraces the future of permanent tidal flooding. The building passively phytoremediates toxic water while creating an adaptive form of the interior. It explores possibilities of tidal, flood, and stormwater as tools for long-term, in-place resiliency in coastal communities facing an increasing risk of flooding.”

Student: Kats Tamanaha
Advisor: Irina Schneid
Course: MFA Interior Design
Email: ktamanah@pratt.edu

Fragment / Reconcile by Aoife McCaul

“Fragment / Reconcile addresses the complexity of living in a post-conflict, economically deprived community that struggles under the burden of the past. Following the events of the troubles and the death of a dominant industry, an entire generation is coming of age in Derry who have to navigate insurmountable unemployment rates and forge a path to peace with little to no outside support.

“To help mitigate the most pressing issue for youth in Derry, I proposed an incubator and teaching facility to build community resilience through a network of small businesses. The centre would provide the resources currently lacking to retain their workforce and make upward mobility possible within the city.

“Growth is made possible by the incubator’s interactive and reflective practices. It engages with the community on a macro scale while also encouraging individual healing on a micro scale. As the user moves through space, it transitions from a collaborative environment to a self-reflective one. An archive becomes the basis upon which to preserve and reflect the collective memory of the people it serves. By being informed by the past, they can move towards the best version of their future.”

Student: Aoife McCaul
Advisor: Melissa Cicetti
Course: BFA Interior Design
Email: amccaul@pratt.edu

Inhabiting In-between Space by Tao Sun

“This project puts forward new ways to inhabit in-between space. By breaking down interior elements one by one, a layering of interior and exterior space emerges and reinvents traditional spatial constructs.”

Student: Tao Sun
Advisor:  Edwin Zawadzki
Course: MFA Interior Design
Email: tsun4@pratt.edu

“We Learn Culture At Home” by Bridget Rodezno

“This thesis focuses on the home as a ‘central agent of change’ in response to the remittance between the Salvadoran-American transnational identity. Here, remittance signifies the value of a cultural currency by forming a multi-generational landscape of retraced rituals and reassembled emblems.

“At the beginnings of a discourse, there is an agency in how the home responds to generational, cultural, psychological and environmental issues to constantly shape, design and re-examine contemporary living.”

Student: Bridget Rodezno
Advisor: John Nafziger
Course: BFA Interior Design
Email: brodezn5@prattt.edu

“The Nest is a didactic and prototypical full-time detention centre designed for male adolescents who have committed minor crimes. It is a critique of the current antiquated prison form in New York City. It explores educational, healing, and therapeutic spatial relationships and rethinks surveillance in order to reform negative behaviours and support mental health issues.”

Student: Chaowei Wang
Advisor: Alison Snyder
Course: MFA Interior Design
Email: cwang31@pratt.edu

Moments of Movement by Kelli McGrath

“Moments of Movement investigates how interior space can directly affect one’s bodily awareness and interactions with the environment. Rather than habitually moving through space, space can be designed to heighten our awareness of our body and its relationship with the material world.

“The intention is to bring more awareness and appreciation to those small, everyday events that we often perform on auto-pilot. Although we tend to seek out spectacular events, life often happens in those everyday moments in-between. Rather than rushing past them, the users are prompted to slow down and experience those moments.

“The thesis proposes that the body will be part of a network where interactions and movements through thresholds directly affect the environment. By augmenting thresholds within a parking garage and adding screens, mirrors, enhanced lighting, walls and monitors, body movements will be figured as the form-making material of the project. As the body moves within and between various garage zones, it becomes part of a network and explores the relationship between the environment and agency.”

Student: Kelli McGrath
Professor: Brendan Moran
Advisor: BFA Interior Design
Email: kellimcgrath0817@gmail.com

Building Within Memory: Strengthening Place Identity in Deteriorating Environments by Claire Riordan

“Place-identity is defined by a person’s cognitions about the physical world around them. At their core are a person’s environmental past, made up of places, spaces and characteristics that have shaped their biological, psychological, social, and cultural needs.

“This thesis analyzes how the changing built environment can be used as a tool to reveal layers of place-identity. The mutual experience of change over time will inform the connection between the physical body and the spatial body, resulting in a stronger sense of self-identity.”

Student: Claire Riordan
Advisor: Francine Monaco
Course: MFA Interior Design
Email: criorda3@pratt.edu

Stage Fright by Allison Margret Piccone

“Through the theory that performance exists every day, stage fright occurs in domestic, banal settings. In this project, customers in a retail furniture store become performers during their perusal of the staged vignettes by subverting social thresholds and design standards, new social and physical relationships form, alleviating the stigma of stage fright.

“Set in the theatrical and historical furniture showroom – ABC Carpet and Home – the staged sets which aim to present a home setting are critiqued as performative. Hired performers act out different domestic activities and shoppers find themselves crossing the threshold from audience to performer. In their attempt to look at the furniture, test it and imagine it in their own homes, they become part of the performance.

“An open floor plan allows for programmes to cross over, as a bed becomes a seat in a dining setting. Some toilets are for show, while others have working plumbing. The sets have spotlights, curtains and a fly system that allows for changing scenes, as furniture flies overhead, adding a theatrical quality to the performance.”

Student: Alison Margret Piccone
Advisor: Alex Schweder
Course: BFA Interior Design
Email: allisonpiccone@gmail.com

House of Harmony by Huangyu Zhang 

“This thesis explores a shared harmonic environment for residents and tourists. It uses performance rituals to create a prototypical system for cultural interaction and social harmony in creative cities of music evaluated by UNESCO.

“Spatial devices create new relationships between tourists and residents, combining with daily events such as dining or lounging, and cultivating cross-cultural understanding through the universal language of music and integrating it into the celebration of rituals such as holidays and food.

“The rituals will create a specific spatial quality by increasing culture experiences by controlling the sound transparency and visualizing the vibration of sound.”

Student: Huangya Zhang
Advisor:  Nina Freedman
Course: MFA Interior Design
Email: zhanghuangyu1@gmail.com

Curating Urban Wormholes by Rianna Desai

“Curating Urban Wormholes explores the city through a new lens: by inserting cinematic experiences in sidewalk freight elevators that connect invisible, disparate moments in the cityscape. The elevators function as portals to parallel universes providing a social and cultural exchange between program and user.

“The project was inspired by the loss of authentic cinematic experiences due to the pandemic and the heterotopic quality of underutilized niches in the city.

“The network of temporary cinematic installations in sidewalk freight elevators reengages the city by activating unused, ‘other’ spaces, unlocking the city’s true potential. The curated serendipity of the wormholes invites the rediscovery of the urban landscape.

“These wormholes have a nodular quality that gives them an existence of their past the time of their installation, allowing them to leave behind traces in the urban fabric that add to the layered experience of the city.”

Student: Rianna Desai
Advisor: Karin Tehve
Course: BFA Interior Design
Email: riannadesai1998@gmail.com

Beneath the Surface: An Inquiry into Boundary as a Didactic Threshold to Promote Awareness by Nella Gray

“Beneath the Surface explores ways to create tension within layers of interior design to provoke awareness and empathy for evasive issues.

“This project questions the separation of people from systems of production and waste as it enables apathy towards the concealed relationship of consumption and environmental degradation.”

Student: Nella Gray
Advisor: Claudia Hernandez
Course: MFA Interior Design
Email: nschools@pratt.edu

Sonic Parallax: Sensory Velocity by Nil Karaer

“Borrowing existing materials inherent to the New York City subway station, such as the 3×6 tiles, the project will manipulate the surfaces of the City Hall Station to become an interactive, acoustical field of sonic densities. This experiential-interactive installation intends to address the notion of speed by making the acoustic field and the different paces of the city visual. In other words, rendering auditory data points visible to understand the functioning of NYC.

“The exploration is towards creating an interactive instrument activated through the movement of the users and the train in relation to the parallax effect.

“City Hall Station is underneath the City Hall Park, and the entrance is through the park. It is a loop station for Train Six: The station has existing skylights to the park’s surface.

“The project will be taking a material inherent to the subway station and recreate exposed surfaces in a different function, colour, and densities of tiles to highlight the notion of speed which could be experienced visually and acoustically.”

Student: Nil Karaer
Advisor: Annie Kwon
Course: BFA Interior Design
Email: nkaraer@pratt.edu

Various projects

Clockwise from top left:

Pools Under Pavement by Michael Antonio Warren (MFA Interior Design)
A Void: Rising Sea Level by Seung Heon Lee (BFA Interior Design)
Implicit Bias by Xinxiao Hui (BFA Interior Design)
Weaving Connectivity by Xiaoke Li (MFA Interior Design)
Breathing Rules by Yang Pei (MFA Interior Design)
Haptic Therapy Centre by Honghao Chen (BFA Interior Design)

The portfolio and thesis presentations of the Pratt School of Design MFA and BFA Interior Design Class of 2021 can be found on Pratt Institute’s website.

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Pratt Institute. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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Ken Garland, the graphic designer best known for redesigning CND’s peace symbol, has passed away at the age of 92.

The news of the British designer’s death was reported on Twitter.

“Sad news,” tweeted Adrian Shaughnessy, who is the author of a book about Garland’s work, Structure and Substance. “Ken Garland has died.”

“He died peacefully surrounded by family, friends and his wife Wanda. The world of graphic design is poorer without him.”

Writing on Facebook, graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook described Garland as “a man who was true to his principles and believed in design’s capacity for positive social change.”

“We will miss your honesty, your friendliness, your kindness and your wise words which helped us all shape the designers we are today,” Barnbrook added.

Garland, who was born in Southampton, England in 1929, graduated from London’s School of Central Arts and Crafts in 1954.

From 1956 until 1962 he was the art editor of Design Magazine, which was published by the Council of Industrial Britain, the precursor of today’s Design Council.

The graphic designer set up his own company, Ken Garland & Associates, in 1962. Among its work were designs for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), including a redesign of the peace symbol that would come to symbolise the movement.

Garland was also a writer whose work could be read in Blueprint, Eye and Designers Journal, among others. Among his most well-known writing is the First Things First manifesto, which he wrote in 1963. The manifesto called for a return to a more humanist aspect of design and was republished in 2020.

As well as articles Garland wrote five books on design and launched a publishing house, Pudkin Books, together with his wife, Wanda.

He also taught at the Royal College of Art, Central School of Art and Design and a number of other institutions.

Studio workers were “designers designing”

Ken Garland & Associates, the company founded by Garland, created designs for a broad range of brands and institutions, including the London College of Printing, the Science Museum, Jonathan Cape and Galt Toys.

The name was chosen to denote that the people working with Garland weren’t just “odd helpers.”

“Those who worked with me between 1962 and 2009 have always been designers designing – no secretaries, no typists, no donkey-workers,” Garland said.

“There were never more than three of them at any one time,” he added. “I intend no criticism of larger, probably more illustrious design groups when I say that, for me, an increase in size would have meant fruitless to-ing and fro-ing, more unexplained and unacceptable overheads, and less fun.”

Garland was also a photographer and published a number of photography books, and his firm designed toys for Galt Toys as well as the company’s graphics.

Garland awarded for “significant contribution” to graphic design

In 2020, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Medal at the London Design Festival for his “significant contribution to the development of graphic design since the mid-twentieth century”.

“I am delighted to be chosen as the recipient of one of the London Design Medals,” said Garland at the time. “At my age (91) I had thought I was a forgotten person – but no, someone still remembers me!”

“As to achievement: all my associates and I did for 50-odd years was to have a lot of fun at other people’s expense. We were so lucky!”

A number of design industry names have paid tribute to Garland on Twitter. Michael Bierut, graphic designer and Pentagram partner, wrote: “RIP Ken Garland, writer, educator, artist, and the conscience of graphic design, 1929-2021.”

British designer Craig Oldham tweeted: “Incredibly sad hearing we’ve lost Ken Garland. His unrelenting spirit is what design always needed more of, and without his energy is far poorer. He was inspiring to be around and also hilarious.”

Design Museum head of curatorial Priya Khanchandani said: “RIP Ken Garland. It’s hard not to love the graphic design of these mid-century issues of Design [magazine] that he created.”

Photography is by Unit Editions.

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