Imagine you’re at your local liquor store buying wine before a few friends come over later this evening. You can’t remember whether you have enough white wine for the folks that prefer it over red. Now, with Rocco’s The Super Smart Fridge, you can check from anywhere, thanks to its patent-pending Sight System, a feature that lets you look inside your fridge from afar simply by opening its connected app on your phone.
Courtesy of Rocco, by Christina Stoever
This is far more than an app-connected “smart fridge.” Rocco’s appliance is aiming to be the focal point of your home entertainment plan. With room for 27 wine bottles, 88 cans, or a mixed assortment, it can keep the party going without breaking up the flow of the event. Plus, it’s pleasantly noticeable, unlike most mini-fridges, which are often loud, cumbersome and a gaudy gunmetal or unsightly white color.
Courtesy of Rocco, by Christina Stoever
Instead, Rocco’s The Super Smart Fridge is made from welded steel in a bubbly yellow, matte white or swanky graphite color, with a reeded glass door—that helps keep UV light away from your wine and the fridge’s internal light out of your living room—and a dimmable interior bulb.
Courtesy of Rocco, by Plainsigh
Furthermore, the top doubles as a bar, which lifts off as needed to service the room. Or, if you keep it in position and populate it with accoutrements and garnishes, guests can customize their drink as they grab it. Storage itself is easy, whether a beverage is front and center or tucked into the back of the fridge: the shelves pull out all the way, leaving no canned or bottle behind.
Nguyen Khai Architects & Associates has created a glass house in Vietnam
Nguyen Khai Architects & Associates (NKAA) was given a simple brief that only requested one floor of living space and the inclusion of lots of outdoor areas.
The studio took this as an opportunity to design a home that is as much for the client as it is for local wildlife and plants, which it said now make up “the majority of the living members”.
It is named Labri and is positioned alongside a pond
“We asked ourselves what it would feel like to live under one roof with our botanic friends,” the studio told Dezeen.
“It was our wish to create a deeper connection between humans and nature in this modern and technological world.”
It is divided into four blocks that have trees growing from their roofs
Labri’s living spaces are divided into four staggered blocks connected by pathways and formed of a mix of glass and concrete. Each one is covered in sprawling vines and is home to its own large rooftop frangipani tree.
NKAA “randomly” placed the different-sized blocks on just over half of the 100-square-metre site, giving up the rest of the plot to a series of gardens and inner courtyards to encourage local wildlife.
Greenery weaves throughout the site
The roofs, which are accessible by fixed ladders, are intended to emulate the feeling of walking over a mountain while the four blocks are intended to evoke caves inside.
“Taking a walk on the top of the house is like walking through the rolling mountain range. Under the mountains, there are caves that are cool and safe,” said NKAA.
Inside Labri, one of the blocks contains a living and dining space, while another contains a kitchen. The other two comprise a bathroom and sleeping area.
The blocks are unified by their deliberately simple designs, free of internal partitions and solid walls allowing residents to “see through every space”. However, some privacy is provided to the outside by the vines and greenery.
One of the blocks contains a kitchen
NKAA’s combination of concrete and glass throughout the home was chosen to achieve a minimalist look, which it said was suited to the “concept of Labri, in which everything is just bare, simple and original”.
To prevent overheating, several openable doors and windows were used to facilitate natural ventilation, while the greenery helps to shade the interiors. Labri’s proximity to the pond also helps cool the air during the summer months, NKAA said.
Glass and concrete are used to create a pared-back look
There are very few things that can make your heart stop with their speed, and motorsport race cars are one of those. The suspense, tension, and adrenaline you feel as these four-wheeled demons pass by is enough to put people on the edge of their seats, literally. There seems to be an innate human fascination for speed and power, and race cars have long been the symbol of those aspirations. Of course, such qualities can also be found in other things, like the impressive pieces of technology that we call smartphones. It’s not surprising, then, that these two very different worlds would eventually meet, such as in the iQOO 12 Legend Edition that embodies the BMW M Motorsport spirit through its power and style.
This isn’t the first time you might have heard of an automotive brand lending its clout to a smartphone, whether in name or in design. In fact, the partnership between iQOO and BMW M started way back in 2019, resulting in the gaming-oriented iQOO 7 BMW M edition as well as an iQOO-branded BMW DTM car during the 24 Hours of Nürburgring race. This year, that partnership was again witnessed at the 2023 IMSA SportsCar Championship, and 2024 will see iQOO’s presence on a BMW M Hybrid V8 Hypercar at the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Of course, BMW M Motorsport is also leaving its own mark on the iQOO 12, specifically the special Legend Edition that will bear that exclusive branding. This year’s design, however, is a bit different and actually a little more subtle. The overall motif is still predominantly white, of course, just like many race cars. But instead of tall stripes in BMW M’s iconic blue, black, and red colors, the tiny stripes are actually embossed in a Clous de Paris pattern and located off the right side instead. In a way, the BMW M Motorsport is less in-your-face, subtler, and more elegant, allowing viewers to draw the associations between the two brands through the smartphone’s own prowess.
The iQOO 12, after all, is definitely a speedster, being one of the first phones to be powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset. It has a large and powerful camera system that is designed in the likeness of ship portholes, conveying the spirit of exploration. It isn’t just for show either, boasting a team that includes an Astrography Camera with an ultra-large main sensor, a periscope telephoto lens, and a wide-angle shooter. Despite the power it holds inside, the iQOO 12 Legend Edition still exudes beauty, grace, and comfort with its ergonomic contoured glass and nano-textured finishes. The flat edges and flat display perfectly complement each other, giving the phone a contemporary aesthetic that belies its nature a smartphone equivalent of a performance car.
With first-class features and a striking design, the iQOO 12 Legend Edition perfectly embodies BMW M Motorsport’s mantra of “Fascination Meets Innovation.” It delivers the performance to satisfy users’ need for speed while subtly capturing the visual and spiritual essence of a roaring race car. Already available in China, the iQOO 12 Legend Edition is slated to launch globally by the end of this year.
Architects need to listen to younger generations and take a collaborative approach to sustainability, according to a panel of design experts in this filmed talk hosted by Dezeen for developer Brookfield Properties.
The panel included Brookfield Properties director of design Pragya Adukia, architecture studio Foster + Partners senior partner Dan Sibert and architecture studio BVN strategy director Esme Banks Marr. The talk was moderated by Dezeen co-CEO Ben Hobson.
The discussion followed the publication of a report commissioned by Brookfield Properties and Foster + Partners, which surveyed workers’ thoughts on the importance of sustainability in the workplace.
The panelists discussed how younger generations are increasingly more invested in furthering sustainable practices in their workplaces, with the report finding that 93 per cent of people working in an “environmentally friendly office” felt happier in their job.
The panelists was made up of experts in architectural design and strategy
“We want to make sure that we’re hearing what people say, which is why we co-commissioned this report with Foster + Partners – to listen to what the younger generation at work was saying, to give them a voice around their own sustainability, ideas and goals,” Adukia explained.
“The idea of sustainability is really a community-based thing,” added Sibert. “[There’s] a generational shift. People are no longer interested in just sitting and letting it happen to them, they actually want to be involved in it.”
“Our approach has always been ‘this is what can be realistically achieved’, it’s not just a fancy hashtag or a strapline,” continued Adukia.
“Let’s look at the data points, that’s very strong evidence, and then talk about what can be achieved, how we can future proof it.”
The talk took place in the public square of the 30 Fenchurch Street offices in London
“People are more vocal about their beliefs and what they’d like to see, it’s a good idea to involve these people in bigger conversations, and then take on board what they want to see,” she added.
“We can’t plead ignorance, none of us can plead ignorance anymore” said Banks Marr, echoing the importance of listening to public opinion around sustainability.
“There are some baseline things that we need to fundamentally just get right in buildings, new and existing, first and foremost. Sounds quite simple, but a lot of people still fail to do it,” she concluded.
The panel discussed the importance of qualitative data and community feedback during the design process
The panel also discussed how approaches such as biophilic design could help lead to more engagement with the environment and green policy-making.
Defining biophilic design, Banks Marr said “it’s not [just] putting plants into a space. Biophilic design is a term that’s been used for such a long time and in lots of different types of ways, when actually it means all of your senses, your experience with the space and your connection to nature.”
“It’s a stepping stone, or a starting point, to taking a really ecological world view of things,” she added.
“If I’m in these concrete jungle cities that do not have any connection to nature, and I don’t experience that on a daily basis, it doesn’t live in my psyche. So how am I expected to care about it and create real change?”
“There’s a desire across the board, not just in the city, to make sure we’ve got spaces to live and breathe in,” Adukia concluded.
Similarly, the panel noted the importance of creating long-lasting and future-proofed spaces.
“We need to get ourselves into that mindset where we actually think about things for a much longer term, and think and design them so they will change over time,” said Sibert. “So, can the building be designed for multiple lifespans rather than a single lifespan?”
“One has to take the overall sense of why you’re building in a city like this,” he added.
“Why do we build where, what does it mean for the overall picture of carbon and regeneration? What’s possible, but why would you make these choices as clients?”
Co-CEO Ben Hobson moderated the discussion
To conclude the talk, Hobson asked each of the speakers what they believed the key challenges the industry needed to overcome were.
“I think one thing we could definitely get better at, which we’re perhaps not currently doing enough, is knowing when to invite the real experts to the table. We don’t have to know everything,” answered Banks Marr.
“Data is absolutely key,” Sibert added. “If we could allow ourselves to find both the right dataset for the purposes of the buildings we have, and also then make the way we manufacture it be database based, I think that would be a massive step forward for us as an industry.”
“Our more successful projects have been where we’ve worked collaboratively and transparently. For any change to be implemented, I think it needs to be taken on board by all of its stakeholders. And that’s not just as landlords or developers – tenants, individuals, everyone has to be on board vocal about what they want out of it,” Adukia concluded.
Form Us With Love envisioned the chair as a flexible platform that can be customised with various back and neck supports.
The chair is available in two different heights
The product takes its name from a vertical column that extends upwards from the seat, forming a backbone that these modular parts can be attached to.
“Spine’s design breaks away from the conventional image of an office chair and the platform has style at many levels,” said John Löfgren, co-founder and creative director of Form Us With Love.
“Through a choice of materials and colours, Spine is able to go from neutral to an eye-catcher that takes its rightful place in a room or indeed the entire office,” he continued.
Various back and neck supports fix onto a central column
As well as serving as a task chair, Spine can be adapted for use in a range of collaborative working environments.
The design reflects the increasingly flexible nature of today’s workplaces, which can grow or shrink over time.
“Instead of developing yet another chair, we combined our collective knowledge with Savo’s design philosophy and created a platform that meets the need for seating that can be tailored to suit changeable environments,” said Savo commercial officer Craig Howarth.
“Tomorrow’s workplace will be even more adaptable,” he continued. “Spine raises flexibility to a whole new level and makes hybrid furniture a reality.”
The chairs can be adapted for different workplace environments
Spine is available in both a standard-height version and a high version with a footrest.
The designers see the product being used across the different spaces of an office or studio, bringing a coherent expression while facilitating easy adaptability.
The modular nature of the design also makes it easier to repair or replace broken parts if the need arises.
The modular design makes it easier to repair or replace broken parts
It is the latest in a series of designs by Form Us With Love that set out to redefine the modern workplace, with others including the Cubicle furniture system for +Halle and the recyclable Epix chairs for Keilhauer.
An exposed raw concrete facade fronts the Trunk Hotel Yoyogi Park, which Japanese studio Keiji Ashizawa Design and Danish firm Norm Architects conceived as a minimalist retreat in the heart of the city.
Marking the third location in a trio of Trunk hotels in Tokyo, the design of the boutique hotel was rooted in the concept of “urban recharge”, according to Trunk chief creative officer Masayuki Kinoshita.
Trunk Hotel Yoyogi Park features a raw concrete facade
The hotel group said the idea was to balance the opposing elements of tradition and modernity as well as nature and the city and the melding of both Japanese and European craft.
Keiji Ashizawa Design created a textured concrete aggregate facade for the seven-storey building, which is punctuated with steel-lined balconies and overlooks Yoyogi Park’s lush treetops.
Guest rooms feature a muted colour and material palette
A total of 20 guest rooms and five suites were dressed in a muted colour and material palette featuring hardwood flooring and plush Hotta Carpet-designed rugs informed by traditional Japanese architecture.
Paper-cord chairs and tapered washi pendant lights contribute to the minimalist design
Delicate rattan partition walls delineate spaces within the rooms, which open out onto the building’s balconies that were fitted with slanted ceilings in order to encourage sunlight into each room “as if mimicking the gentle transitions of a day”.
“It’s been an interesting journey for us to find the right balance between a space that is relaxed and vibrant at the same time,” said Norm Architects co-founder Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen.
The interiors were designed to be both “relaxed and vibrant”
The rooms are also characterised by paper-cord chairs and tapered washi pendant lights as well as abstract artworks, amorphous vases and grainy floor-to-ceiling bathroom tiles.
On the ground floor, oak seating designed by Norm Architects for Karimoku features in the hotel restaurant, which includes a striking copper-clad pizza oven and the same rattan accents that can be found in the guest rooms.
Rattan accents can also be found in the hotel restaurant
“It is a very unique and gratifying experience in the sense that the architecture, interior and furniture, as well as the attention to detail, have created a space with such a strong sense of unity,” said Keiji Ashizawa Design.
An open-air pool club is located on the sixth floor of the hotel.
Sand-blasted concrete flooring was paired with thin bluey-green tiles that make up the infinity swimming pool, which overlooks the park below.
A “glowing” firepit can also be set alight after dark, intended to create a soothing contrast with the bright Tokyo skyline.
The Trunk Hotel features a rooftop infinity pool
The city’s first Trunk Hotel opened in Shibuya in 2017, while the second location is an offbeat one-room hotel in the metropolis’s Kagurazaka neighbourhood featuring its own miniature nightclub.
Red tiles envelop the roof and walls of this family home, which Vietnamese studio The Bloom Architects has arranged around a central courtyard in the city of Bao Loc.
Appropriately called Tile House, the home in the Central Highlands region is designed by The Bloom Architects to remain cool despite the tropical climate.
The Bloom Architects has created a tile-covered house in Bao Loc
The tiles on its facade facilitate natural ventilation, bringing cool air into the house through small slots in the wall, while the central courtyard helps to distribute air and light through the spaces.
“The house is located in a disadvantageous position in that it can only get good wind in the front,” lead architect Dinh Anh Tuan told Dezeen.
Tile House has an inverted trapezoid roof
“We decided to create a trap with a high roof system in the front and a low inside to get the wind and send it throughout the house, [leading] to the green spaces outside,” Tuan continued. “The house looks like a funnel, surrounded by wind holes.”
Tile House is defined by its inverted trapezoid roof, with all surfaces pitched towards the central courtyard. This open space allows for rainwater collection and is designed to provide thermal comfort in both the rainy and sunny seasons.
Small slots between the wall tiles let cool air into the home
“[In the] rainy season, the house acts as a funnel to collect water into an underground water tank and water it back onto the roof and trees around the house using an automatic irrigation system,” explained Tuan.
“[In the] sunny season, tiles surrounding the house prevent it from being radiated [with] heat,” they continued. “Combined with natural ventilation, the house is always cool.”
From the street, a white-painted wall acts as a base, supporting the angled forms of the upper portions house that are clad in the red-clay tiles.
On entering Tile House, a transitional indoor-outdoor courtyard space leads to the main living areas. These are oriented around the central internal courtyard, where a tree is planted beneath a circular lightwell.
Living spaces are arranged around a central courtyard
The living room, kitchen and dining room open directly onto this internal courtyard, and also onto small external patios with planted borders that define the perimeter of the plot.
All the living spaces and bedrooms have generous double-height ceilings, with large picture windows offering views of the green patios.
The children’s bedroom is on a mezzanine level
Internally, the house has a natural material palette with warm wood floors and joinery in the bedrooms, stone-tiled floors in the living spaces and grey textured panels in the bathroom. A standout detail of the interior is the children’s bedroom, which features a mezzanine-level reading nook accessible by a ladder.
Dutch designer Christien Meindertsma has developed a robot that can build three-dimensional volumes out of wool.
Meindertsma‘s robot, known as the Flocks Wobot, works in a similar way to a 3D printer to build up layers of wool.
Instead of printing out layers of filament, it uses a form of felting to create three-dimensional woven volumes.
Meindertsma’s robot works like a 3D printer to build up layers of wool
“The Wobot is a collaborative robot that makes it possible to build three-dimensional structures with wool industrially for the first time, without adding any material or using water in the felting process,” said Meindertsma.
“The three-dimensional wool structures that it creates are strong and soft at the same time.”
The project was made possible with the help of robotics company TFT, which worked with Meindertsma to develop a custom robot arm. This attaches to a “cobot”, which is a specific type of user-friendly robot.
The device uses a felting technique to bind the wool together
The attachment works with all different types of wool. However, Meindertsma has found it most effective with coarse wool varieties – like those found on European sheep – as they are more durable.
She believes the technique has many potential applications in design, with examples including furniture, acoustic products and insulation.
“It’s a technique you can use with any European wool,” the designer told Dezeen.
“The wool doesn’t have to be particularly fine and it doesn’t even need to be processed, just washed.”
The technique is most effective with coarse wool varieties
The Flocks Wobot was one of two wool research projects that Meindertsma presented at the recent Dutch Design Week, in an exhibition titled The Product Chronicles.
The other was a method for turning wool into soft blocks that can be cut into different shapes, which the designer believes could offer a sustainable alternative to upholstery foam.
Meindertsma will present a robot-printed sofa in her upcoming V&A exhibition
As the third instalment in the V&A’s 10-year-long Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures programme, the show will also include Meindertsma’s experiments in turning linoleum into a 3D material.
The centrepiece of the exhibition will be a robot-printed sofa, the first large-scale use of this technology.
Meindertsma has worked with different materials across her career, but wool is the one she has become most known for, thanks to projects like One Sheep Sweater and Fibre Market.
Her latest research developed after Rotterdam Circulair – a state-funded programme championing the circular economy – commissioned her to investigate the value of wool on the city’s grazing flock.
The designer has also developed a method of turning wool into soft blocks
As with most European sheep, this wool is not fine enough to be used for everyday textiles, so is typically treated as a waste product.
The results of this project were a series of objects that utilised traditional artisan techniques. But Meindertsma felt there was more opportunity to be found in modern manufacturing techniques.
These blocks can be cut into different shapes
“My conclusion was that traditional techniques still work well, but wool also deserves a modern technique,” the designer explained.
It was this that led her to experiment with robotics and 3D printing.
“There were some previous examples of people combining needle felting with 3D printing, but they weren’t people with knowledge of wool and how it behaves,” she said.
“I realised it shouldn’t be exactly like a 3D printer, because 3D-printed filament breaks with certain movements. But with strands of wool, you can do different things.”
The designer hopes to promote new uses for European wool, typically a waste product
Meindertsma is also experimenting with different blends of wool, adding in some recycled, dyed yarns as a way of introducing colour.
“My next step is to explore all the possibilities,” she concluded.
Snaking “rivers” of embedded lighting flow through the alleyways of a development in Oslo in the Delta installation by local studio Void, which incorporates motion-detecting sensors to create ripples of illumination as people walk past.
Located in an area of Tullinløkka currently being developed by real estate company Entra, Delta was created to be both a light sculpture and a wayfinding device that would encourage visitors to explore the new neighbourhood.
Cobbled alleyways are illuminated by snaking “rivers” of lighting strips
Running through cobbled alleyways, the lighting strips converge at a concrete “waterfall” in the centre of the site, which traverses a level change via a series of curved steps and a ramp informed by the smooth rocks of Norway’s coastline.
This provides wheelchair access through the neighbourhood, as well as a stepped seating space for impromptu gatherings and events.
Curved concrete steps form a “waterfall” in the centre of the site
“The main goal was to attract people into the narrow lanes and the courtyard of the quarter and to explore and discover what the inner area has to offer in terms of restaurants and nightlife,” Void CEO Mikkel Lehne told Dezeen.
“The lights lead the public into the space, help them find their way through, as well as bringing a sense of warmth and safety,” he added.
Aluminium profiles sit flush with the paving and concrete
To create Delta, aluminium profiles lined with acrylic glass were set flush with the paving and concrete, into which flexible, waterproof LED strips were then inserted.
Each four-centimetre-long segment of the lighting strips is individually controllable in terms of both motion and colour, and is connected to 24 motion-sensing cameras that detect the presence of visitors in order to create “waves” of light.
While ordinarily the lights are intended to create an “unobtrusive backdrop” of warm white, they can also be programmed for special events, such as in a light show choreographed by artists Bendik Baksaas, Kristoffer Eikrem and Fredrik Høyer to mark the installation’s opening.
“The general setting is a warm white light that interacts with the public as they move through and around the quarter,” Lehne said.
The installation uses motion-detecting sensors to create “waves” of light as people walk past
“The lights are full colour, and can be changed and animated to countless different settings – during Pride Month, for instance, a full rainbow flows through the installation,” he added.
“The idea is part of our philosophy at Void – to engage with people’s movement and presence and let our installations be influenced by them.”
The motion and colour of each four-centimetre-long lighting strip is controllable
The Las Vegas Sphere could set a new standard for tour design much like the iPhone did for mobile phones, set designer Es Devlin tells Dezeen in this interview.
But no matter how big a venue or how monumental her stage design, Devlin says her work is not primarily about creating a spectacle.
Es Devlin is responsible for seminal stage designs, including Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour. Top photo by Alfonso Duran
Instead, she argues that tour design, since its inception, has been almost entirely about recapturing the feeling of closeness that audiences were first able to experience when watching giant acts like The Beatles and Elvis Presley on their TV.
“The reason that tour design came about on a mass scale was because singers had always sung, records had begun to be sold but the TV was what arrived in the 1950s,” Devlin told Dezeen. “And it was this sense of intimacy in your own bedroom, in your own sitting room that a TV brought to an audience.”
“The last 60 years has been about trying to emulate, through 75 or 17 or three trucks full of stuff – of speakers and screens and pyrotechnics and lighting – the intimacy that you achieve by sitting and watching the TV.”
The Sphere is the “ne plus ultra” of tour design
With its giant 15,000-square-metre wraparound screen hiding nearly 160,000 speakers, Devlin argues Madison Square Garden’s Sphere venue in Las Vegas is the closest that stage design has come to capturing this ideal.
“It has, in a way, done the final magic trick, which is to put the screen and the speaker as one unit,” Devlin said. “So you do not see any speakers, you just see an almost infinite acreage of screen, in which the speakers are embedded.”
“You’re almost inside a film and the band are accompanying that film, and the band are augmented within that film through live relay.”
Devlin created a bespoke artwork to close U2’s Sphere show. Photo by Kevin Mazur
Plans to erect a sister venue to the Sphere in London were recently put on ice after local councils, members of parliament and a 2,000-strong petition voiced concerns over the fact that its glowing LED exterior would prove disruptive to the local area.
But Devlin believes that at least the interior set-up pioneered by the Vegas venue could set a new standard for tour design, much like the iPhone did for mobiles.
“It’s almost the iPhone-ification – in terms of a Jony Ive, ne plus ultra of phone design that then thereafter all phones will kind of emulate – it’s almost that applied to tour design,” Devlin said.
An Atlas of Es Devlin
Devlin spoke to Dezeen to mark the launch of her debut monograph, a 900-page tome titled An Atlas of Es Devlin that looks back at the last three decades of her career and took nearly seven years to complete.
The book compiles some 122 different projects, from her early work at London’s National Theatre to designing catwalks for Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent, two different Olympic ceremonies, various operas, a Superbowl halftime show and installations for the Tate Modern and the V&A.
“It’s a small object compared to a stadium,” Devlin said. “But the amount of energy myself and my team have put into it is as huge as any stadium show we’ve done.”
“It’s a black hole, in the way that it has contained a reverse Big Bang of everything we’ve done for 30 years, condensed into this one book.”
An Atlas of Es Devlin looks back at 122 of the designer’s projects. Image courtesy Thames & Hudson
The projects are presented first chronologically, through sketches and models from her archive, and later thematically through glossy photographs that reveal repeating forms and colours throughout her oeuvre.
“Every early version of this book felt kind of exhausting,” she admits. “It was too many projects. It looked kind of interesting, maybe even kind of impressive because there was so much variety.”
“But it didn’t quite add up to a thesis or a nourishing read. It took a lot of time to find a form that might offer some kind of useful communication to a reader.”
“We urgently need ritual”
Ultimately, Devlin hopes that accumulating her genre-bending work in one place will stand as a testament to the fact that designers today do not need to pick just one lane.
Instead, she says, they can and should be more “chameleon-like and amphibious”, working across disciplines to serve as a model for how societal divides can be bridged.
“The more connectivity we have between art forms, the further we’re likely to progress in these urgent conversations about understanding each other’s point of view,” Devlin said.
“Because you could argue that the crises we face now with what’s going on in the Middle East, what’s going on with our climate, what’s going on with social inequity and the cost of living crisis, all of these could be said to stem from a lack of ability to see through the eyes of others. And that’s what theatre has always been about – empathy.”
Among the projects featured is the set of Saint Laurent’s SS23 menswear show. Photo courtesy of Saint Laurent
Cultural gatherings, whether they are intimate plays or giant stadium concerts, have a unique ability to bring people together, she argues.
But so far, this function has largely been held back by seeing entertainment primarily as an industry, which is valued by the amount of money it generates rather than its larger societal impact.
“We urgently need ritual and we need ritual that isn’t monetised,” Devlin said.
“At the moment, we’re feeling the pain of seeing the worst of what humans can do to each other,” she said. “But if you can gather a group of human beings and invite them to all sing the same song, invite them to all feel the same thing, the best of humans comes out.”
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
