Hidden away in the Polanco neighborhood of Mexico City, you’ll find Clase Azul’s new home. This latest real estate acquisition by the brand joins their portfolio of beautiful destinations—from homes in Los Cabos Mexico to Brooklyn. Most recently, this stunning new venue played host to the tequila brand’s launch of their latest enigmatic expression, which honors Día de los Muertos. This special añejo is limited only to 3,500 bottles across the globe. Pulling notes from the beautiful marigold floral arrangements that are customary to the holiday (along with the beautiful candy skulls that adorn the windowsills of the homes), Clase Azul’s Día de los Muertos release tells the story of this incredible holiday in a flavorful and aromatic way. In advance of the celebration, we sat down with their master distiller, Viridiana Tinoco, to learn more about what makes this elixir so special.
Courtesy of Clase Azul
This latest Clase Azul edition is inspired specifically by Dia de Los Muertos. How does it differ from previous releases?
Día de Muertos is one of Mexico’s most emblematic traditions. At Clase Azul, as ambassadors of our culture, we’ve designed a series called “Nuestros Recuerdos,” with five decanters, each one telling its own story each year.
The 2023 edition is inspired by the aromas associated with the altars we set up for Dia de Muertos. With the distillate, I wanted to express those sweet notes of fruit and spices that envelop the ofrenda [a traditional offering]. To achieve this, I chose barrels that had previously been used for American whiskey and finished with Armagnac.
How long is this expression in casks?
25 months, first in American whiskey casks and finished in Armagnac casks.
Courtesy of Clase Azul
A big part of the Clase Azul brand is the beautiful bottle. What are some of the design details in this version?
The bottle is a celebration of Día de Muertos. The creative team collaborated with Mexican artist Jimena Estíbaliz to create a beautiful illustration on the decanter, celebrating with cémpasuchil flowers. And of course, the finishing touch on the decanter, an ornament bathed in 24-karat gold with a fine patina finish, completely made by hand by Mexican artisans over the course of two weeks.
Courtesy of Clase Azul
How is day of the day brought to life with this edition and how is the traditional marigold represented?
Along with the creative team, we wanted to first capture you with the decanter and that beautiful marigold color representing the cémpasuchil flower. Once you get to the distillate, we wanted to continue the theme of the cémpasuchil, and used Armagnac casks to create herbal notes throughout the spirit.
Courtesy of Clase Azul
What does this pair well with?
Matured pears, cashew nuts, duck with rosemary.
Are there special tasting notes for this edition?
Visually, we see a deep amber color with copper highlights. In the aromas and flavors, we get hints of peach, pear, plum, caramelized nuts, toasted oak and clove with an aftertaste of cinnamon and cacao.
The new colours in the EchoPanel collection are powder pink Dusk, cool green Mint, warm yellow Butter, rich brown Cayenne and green-brown Nutmeg, which join the existing spectrum of 20 hues.
New colourways include neutral tones such as Cayenne, as pictured on the Empire-style panel
Each colour has a dimensional, mottled appearance due to the product’s material make-up – each EchoPanel is made from 100 per cent PET, of which 60 per cent is from consumer-used plastics, according to the brand.
The new colours are available as applied to the brand’s existing array of seven CNC-cut patterns, including wavy Ohm, arch-shaped Palace and Empire, and pinstriped Align, Latitide, Longitude and Meridian.
Butter is a warm, soft yellow and is pictured on the Longitude-decorated EchoPanel
The panels are designed for use in commercial and workplace interiors in wall-mounted applications, as well as mounted to moveable screens and space dividers.
Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
What is humanity? From the Latin word “humanitas” we find the definition “human nature” and, within that, our unique and innate ability to love, have compassion and be creative.
If you look at the state of the planet, it is easy to feel like we’ve lost “our humanity” and our ability to love the place we collectively inhabit. From man-made conflicts to our inability to rebuild after natural disasters, it appears we spend more time justifying destruction than investing in tangible solutions.
Our future depends on how compassionate we are to our environment and how creative we are at successfully adapting to the changes that are happening all around us. The world desperately needs thoughtful and impassioned builders who believe in construction, not destruction. We need to train and empower a cadre of humanitarian designers and architects.
We will see more frequent and ever-stronger natural disasters. These cataclysmic events take only a few moments to tear apart a community, but generations to recover from. How we respond to disasters tells us a lot about our future.
The true disaster is often not the consequence of the natural destruction, but the man-made mistakes that can happen in the process of trying to rebuild communities. With climate collapse inevitable, we have allowed a bitterly divided public discourse and politics to dictate our future as a sustainable species on the planet. Let’s be perfectly clear: the planet will not end, we will.
We are ill-equipped to deal with the coming design challenges
Our world is changing due to the impact of our species upon the fragile ecosystems of our once-thriving planet. Instead of confronting this new world, we are distracted by rapidly accelerating technology and are addicted to digital and alternative realities. The more we disconnect from our humanity, the more we ignore the real-world changes facing our planet. We are in a moment of absolute urgency and we must work together to design a way forward.
Now more than ever, our associations, representatives and leaders must work together to invest in our collective future. If they don’t, it is imperative we create an alternative. One that goes beyond manifestos and ideation, but tangible solutions and new systems to implement projects. One that is willing to take on the politics of stagnation and hold our leaders accountable – not with protests but with solutions.
To do this we not only need to train and empower a cross-disciplinary army of building professionals, we need to call on academia to refocus curriculums for the future we face. We need to move from human-centered design to humanity-centered design. Three per cent of the world uses the services of an architect and there are many incredible schools of design and architecture that will train you for those clients.
For the other 97 per cent of the world, we are ill-equipped to deal with the coming design challenges. A few courses in passive-house design and net-zero building is not enough. For students that might be reading this, you do not work for your professors – they work for you. It is their role to prepare you for the future you will face.
Revolution in schools of architecture has happened before. In the 1960s, students from schools of architecture shut down campuses in the name of civil rights and social justice. The most well-known was in 1968 and the role of the Columbia University school of architecture in response to the Morningside Park gymnasium debacle. Some of those same radical activists who protested to force change to the curriculum are now the reluctant tenured professors and deans today.
Reflecting back, we have failed on the mandate to “design like you give a damn”. On a personal level, I am more at fault than many of my colleagues because in October 2013, I stepped away from the industry. Reasons aside, what followed was a self-imposed 10-year exile after a dark period of serious and deep depression. Having lost my faith in humanity, I had lost faith in my own humanitas.
It took years to rediscover the desire to embrace design as a vehicle for change.
During conflict or after any disaster, I often receive emails or texts insinuating that I am the reason we don’t have a system in place to respond. There are a litany of things I failed at with Architecture for Humanity, the humanitarian design non-profit that ran from 1999 to 2015, but the system we built was always an outlier; it was never meant to represent or supplement the responsibilities of the design or architecture industry. It was meant to exemplify the value of embedding ethics in our practice and that, when it comes to humanity, our industry has the love, compassion and creativity to respond.
It is my hope that the world’s designers can come together collectively to amplify the best of humanity
Being in the wilderness taught me that the problem with humanitarian design wasn’t the need, it was the lack of opportunity and support for thousands of design professionals who are not willing to watch the world burn or obsessed with designing habitats for inter-planetary colonizers.
The world is now more unstable and disjointed than it has ever been. There are a number of groups and organizations that are doing incredible projects around the world but it’s clearly not enough. Currently, humanitarian design is like the Dutch boy holding back the dike, except the villagers are not coming to help and the dike is about to break.
This summer, we quietly launched Worldchanging Institute, a research and development institution focused on design solutions to humanitarian crises. The organization is empowering designers and architects to circumvent the partisan quagmire that emboldens the status quo. It is leading a series of site-specific projects in addition to expanding Design Like You Give A Damn to become the world’s largest database of humanitarian design projects.
Additionally, we are focusing our attention on areas of the world that are at the frontline of these crises. The atolls and islands of the Pacific Ocean have only a few decades to figure out their future, and for the past year we have been working alongside a partnership of local organizations to support communities with a series of participatory design initiatives.
In 2024, Worldchanging Institute will take some of the lessons learned to host a series of programs to engage architects, designers, engineers and an array of creative individuals to tackle imminent challenges within these austere environments.
It is a very small effort within a monumental task, but we must start now. Whether it is through the Worldchanging Institute or another group, it is my hope that the world’s designers can come together collectively to amplify the best of humanity in a time when we are needed more than ever. In 1999, as a naive young designer, I begged for an evolution of the profession. With the world at the precipice, there is no time to beg; we need a revolution. For the future of our species, our choice is clear: design or die.
Cameron Sinclair is founder of Worldchanging Institute, an Arizona-based research organisation focused on architectural and design solutions to humanitarian crises. He also advises family foundations and NGOs on responding to disasters.
This article is part of Dezeen’s Designing for Disaster series, which explores the ways that design can help prevent, mitigate and recover from natural hazards as climate change makes extreme weather events increasingly common.
At Dutch Design Week, London-based food designer Leyu Li showcased three conceptual products that combine lab-grown meat with vegetables, called Broccopork, Mushchicken and Peaf.
The speculative project suggests how lab-grown meat might be cultivated on plant tissue, resulting in a range of hybrid meaty vegetables.
Broccopork, Mushchicken and Peaf are imaginary products designed by Leyu Li
Leyu Li presented the designs as part of Future Farmers Market, an exhibition of imaginary food products that formed part of the Embassy of Food at Dutch Design Week.
The designer also posted a series of TikTok videos from the pseudonym account Meaty Aunties, promoting the products to an audience who don’t know whether they are real or not.
The designer has marketed the products in videos on TikTok
Her aim is to explore whether customers would be more open to buying cultivated meat – which is grown from real animal cells – if it came in the form of vegetables.
“People share their plant-based food reviews everywhere and anytime at TikTok,” she said. “These findings make me more curious about how people will react to cultivated meat products in the future.”
The concept is for lab-grown meat to be cultivated on plant tissue
Cultivated meat has existed for some time, with the “world’s first lab-grown steak” created back in 2018. But it only became commercially available for the first time in 2020, when Singapore approved the sale of lab-grown chicken nuggets.
In November 2022, California-based Upside Foods became the first cultivated meat company to be granted approval by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“The supermarket shelves are filled with plant-based meat and cultivated meat is on the horizon,” said Li.
“What debates and dialogues will happen around lab-grown meat? How might in-vitro biotech change people’s daily lives and food culture?”
The designs suggest how lab-grown meat might be marketed to vegetarians and vegans
Although cultivated meat is slaughter-free it is not plant-based, making it controversial among vegetarians and vegans. A recent survey by vegan dating app Veggly found that only 24 per cent of vegans would be open to eating it.
Li’s products suggest how lab-grown meat might be marketed to consumers who are not used to preparing or eating meat.
Li consulted a cellular agriculture company to ensure the concept was plausible
Although the products are imaginary, they are based on the existing science around lab-grown meat. Li consulted cellular agriculture startup Hoxton Farms to understand “the plausibility of the current tissue engineering”.
This led her to think that meat could be grown on the surfaces of specific vegetables including broccoli, mushrooms and peas.
“Plants’ surface works as scaffolding and meat tissue cells are grown along these structures,” she explained. “So customers can easily capture both the existence of meat and plants.”
The designer designed a brand around these products, creating packaging that shows what these products might look like.
She presented the designs at the Future Farmers Market at Dutch Design Week
Her TikTok videos suggest the products have already been made available to food influencers, showing how they might be prepared for a meal. So far, her videos have garnered more than three million views and thousands of comments.
“The responses to this series of videos were incredibly varied,” said Li.
“Some individuals genuinely believed in the existence of Broccopork and were very concerned about this biotechnological development. Interestingly, some people saved the post with plans to purchase Broccopork in the future.”
Future Farmers Market was on show at Evoluon in Eindhoven during Dutch Design Week 2023, which ran from 21 to 29 October. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.
British industrial designer Michael Young has joined Dezeen Awards China 2023 as a judge. Here, he selects five projects that best reflect his work.
Young, who is based in Hong Kong and has worked with industrial design for over 30 years, has a particular interest in technology and discovering new ways to interpret space.
“The core ethos of my work is that I question the value of objects, be it in market, material or technology in the time in which they are required to exist – hopefully as long as possible,” Young told Dezeen.
“I need my clients to be spirited so we can add a little bit of space dust to the atmosphere,” he added.
Currently Young is working on a housing project in Japan, which will launch its first show house in Tokyo later this year. Also in Japan, he is collaborating with traditional Japanese craftsmen to produce furniture for the Craft x Tech initiative.
In China, a series of retail stores called Michael Young Musea have been launched across the country.
Michael Young among Dezeen Awards China 2023 judges
Dezeen Awards China 2023 launched in June in partnership with Bentley Motors. It is the first regional edition of Dezeen Awards, celebrating the best architecture, interiors and design in China.
All shortlisted projects will be announced during the week starting 6th of November, with architecture shortlist projects to be announced on Monday, followed by the interiors shortlist on Tuesday, the design shortlist on Wednesday, and the designers of the year shortlist on Thursday.
The shortlisted projects were selected by our stellar group of judges for Dezeen Awards China, including architects Ma Yansong and Ting Yu, interior designers Ilse Crawford and Andre Fu, as well as industrial designer Min Chen, who joins Young on the design judging panel.
Read on to find Young’s views on the five projects that best represent his work.
“Moke restores and maintains British heritage. I have always been a Moke enthusiast since 2012, when I was commissioned to rebuild a Moke in Australia from the ground up out of old parts.
“This car is from the 1970s, which is a crucial period in many fields of creativity. It has been more than 20 years since the last Moke rolled off the assembly line in Portugal. The world has changed dramatically, so the car’s main requirements actually need adjustments too, including enhancements, improved road-holding, braking, suspension and so on.”
KEF LS60
“The quality of sound is tremendous thanks to the engineering team and also the form that is unique in the market.
“KEF and I have been collaborating on various projects including the designs of LSX and LS60 Wireless speakers. The collaborations show our vibrant imagination, sophisticated minimalism and innovative approach where designs achieve a fine balance of form and function with well-considered details.”
Sheffield armchair
“I love classic English armchairs but need my own spacey version, so I set up my own company to manufacture them, which I just launched in Shanghai.
“A key matter in the creation of the collection is the optimisation of sales within China. This involves due diligence to the best standard for current supply chains.
“All materials employed consider environmental impact by using a low-carbon material derived from renewable sources. For example, straw fibre makes up around 30 per cent of the composition in plastics.”
Omura vape
“We wanted to create a product that would step away from traditional vape device typologies to become a visually subtle object, reminiscent of matchboxes or old-school Dunhill lighters, which would help instil a sense of ritualistic approach to the whole experience.
“The design follows natural forms, informed by pebbles to provide an intriguing tactile experience. Its compact soft forms create an innate sense of interaction and attachment. I am very proud of the patented technology that helps make the consumer experience safer.”
Carbon bar stool
“The barstool is a feat of engineering, as well as design – a form which could not be realised in any other material. The cantilever seat is supported by just two thin stems, curving into the cross-shaped junction. Tying all the legs and footrest into one precisely engineered component.
“The result is amazingly light, incredibly strong, and visually fascinating. I think we just knocked carbon fibre out of the ballpark after working with the material for almost 20 years.”
The photography is courtesy of Michael Young.
Dezeen Awards China 2023 Dezeen Awards China is the first regional edition of Dezeen Awards, to celebrate the best architecture, interiors and design in China. The annual awards are in partnership with Bentley Motors, as part of a wider collaboration that will see the brand work with Dezeen to support and inspire the next generation of design talent in China.
What happens when one of the most luxurious automotive brands in the world teams up with one of the most luxurious bicycle brands in the world? That would be the J.Laverick Aston Martin .1R — the direct offspring of a fruitful partnership between the two high-flying British luxury brands, who are jointly calling it the “world’s most bespoke, advanced and meticulously engineered road bicycle”. This design is definitely bespoke, considering that no two Aston Martin .1R bikes will be created the same —and it isn’t exactly clear how many will be constructed in total — seeing as how every purchaser who orders from Aston Martin’s “multi-award-winning” online configurator will receive a personal invitation to get their own unique Aston Martin .1R fitted at Aston Martin’s HQ in Gaydon, UK.
Evidently, Aston Martin’s Gaydon HQ is where a new owner can individually select and install their bells and whistles (literally) after mixing and matching Aston Martin’s signature color schemes — which mirror those of the prestige British auto designer’s most popular luxury vehicles — on the tubes, lugs, forks, stem, seat post, and handlebar drops via the aforementioned configurator. For what it’s worth, yes, you can also choose between saddle and handlebar type. Right now, it’s not clear how much this will all cost, but it makes sense to expect a higher price than most other J.Laverack bicycles, which start at around $5,000.
This advanced titanium road bike design uses a mixture of 3D-printed titanium lugs and sculpted carbon fiber tubes for a lightweight yet sturdy build without any exposed bolts on the outer body. Aston Martin’s designers call this a world first, and I can’t deny it looks like a cross between a bike and a sports car. Though, calling it a “sports bike” would be redundant. That said, Aston Martin’s Executive VP and Chief Creative Officer, Marek Reichman, dug into this idea even further in an official press release, calling the Aston Martin .1R a “titanium hypercar on two wheels.”
Its max speed probably doesn’t equal that of a shiny new Aston Martin supercar, but it’s likely the speediest (and sturdiest) bicycle we’ve ever seen. Several elements of the ($3 million) Aston Martin Valkyrie’s engineering and design process made their way over to the .1R, including the bicycle’s 40-micron badges. The wheels themselves, plus the stem, also use similar processes. According to Aston Martin, “The hypercar’s wheel design can be glimpsed in miniature in the titanium piston caps of the brakes on the bike, while if you inspect the beautifully machined cups on the threaded bottom bracket of the .1R and you will notice parallels with the central wheel nuts on an Aston Martin Valkyrie.”
Architecture studio Perkins&Will has placed a series of greenhouses on top of a concrete structure to create this agricultural research centre in California.
Called Riverside Plant Research One 1, the two-storey structure was created for the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (CNAS) at the University of California Riverside campus east of Los Angeles.
The facility is designed to support agricultural innovations such as drought-resistance crops and gives the university the ability to test novel agricultural techniques year-round.
Perkins&Will created a research facility at University of California, Riverside
“It’s really a machine, a tool for research,” said Perkins&Will Los Angeles design director Yan Krymsky.
“But beyond that, we wanted to create a structure that spoke to the legacy of the university,” continued Krymsky.
Agricultural research has been taking place at the university since the early 20th century. The building sits amongst a cluster of greenhouses that have been in operation since the 1960s.
It features labs and greenhouses for agricultural innovation
The 30,000-square-foot (2,787-square-metre) facility comprises a ground floor with serrated concrete walls. These help stabilise the temperature of potting rooms and growth chambers inside, located alongside staff amenities including a lobby, breakrooms and restrooms.
A series of narrow floor-to-ceiling windows are recessed into these walls to allow light in while not sacrificing the stable temperature inside.
Its concrete base helps to maintain consistent internal temperature
The upper level consists of 16 greenhouse “modules” arranged horizontally, each with a gabled roof and cladding made from double-pane polarized glass.
Each module can operate its own specific climate, allowing for a diverse range of experiments to take place at any one time. While some of the units have air conditioning, much of the facility’s temperature is controlled by an evaporative cooling system, which Perkins&Will said allows “temperatures lower than other research greenhouses on the campus”.
Riverside Plant Research One 1 opened in 2021. Since then, experiments that have taken place there include the testing of bee pollination in different climates, the cultivation of drought-resistant rice and the potential for certain plants to decontaminate soil.
“We are anticipating placing priority on projects that need more specialized environment, things that need humidity and more accurate temperature control,” said CNAS director of agricultural operations Peggy Mauk.
Researchers at the site have been developing drought-resistant crops
If you’re an iPhone user with a taste for leather cases, you might already know all about Native Union’s knack for designing high-quality accessories, like their leather MagSafe iPhone 14 case, made in collaboration with Maison Kitsuné. Now there’s a similar cruelty-free Italian leather-inspired band for your Apple Watch. It’s made of Yatay, a leather-like compound that makes up the construction of Native Union’s gorgeous (Re)Classic Apple Watch Band design, and you can get your own for $59.99.
If you told me the (Re)Classic Band for Apple Watch in its light brown Kraft colorway was made of repurposed mycelium — fungal threads spanning long distances underground, which mushrooms blossom out of — I absolutely would not believe you. And yet, that’s one of the many all-natural resources used in the synthesis of Yatay by Coronet.
It sounds like everything from Native Union’s stainless steel clasp to its comfortable, soft-lined backing is made of recycled materials. (Re)Classic style is finely textured, giving it a sophisticated look that does quite a bit to distract from the fact it… isn’t made of genuine leather. Still, the high level of craftsmanship lent to these intricately-designed plant-based leather wristbands is difficult to deny.
All of Native Union’s straps come with integrated lugs, which connect directly to the Apple Watch — specifically, the little cutouts on the top and bottom of the Apple Watch where a wristband is locked in place. That means they blend naturally with any color configuration, and Native Union really wants to emphasize how important that is, citing the integrated lugs as a central focal point of (Re)Classic design ethos on its official product page:
“We designed (Re)Classic Band to match the textured elegance of (Re)Classic Case for iPhone and AirPods, now for your Apple Watch. Made to be a refined complement to your digital timepiece, we went one step further with fully wrapped integrated lugs so that the straps becomes a seamless extension of your Apple Watch without any visible hardware. A leather-like strap with wrapped lugs is something we’ve been searching for for a while now, so we made it ourselves.”
If you own one of the older Apple Watch Series, don’t worry: these bands come in two sizes that are compatible with every main-line Apple Watch model, depending on the size you wear. Though, you’ll want to specifically order the 38/40/41mm configuration if you’re rocking an Apple Watch SE or SE 2. And likewise, you’ll want to go for the 42/44/45mm measurement if you’re planning to attach one of these fine wristbands to an Apple Watch Ultra or Ultra 4.
In our latest interview as part of our Dezeen Jobs: How We Recruit series, Sue Emms, chair of architecture studio BDP‘s North Region, discusses the importance of diversity in the workforce.
Sophie Chapman: Can you please tell me about the projects BDP delivers?
Sue Emms: We work on socially motivated projects, including infrastructure connecting northern cities and greater access to talent by supporting education and sport in socially deprived areas as a catalyst for the regeneration of our towns.
I think it’s important to note that while we are a global company, our roots were grown in the north [of England]. We’re very passionate about the social, economic and cultural regeneration of our northern cities.
Sue Emms is the chair of BDP’s North Region
Sophie Chapman: What’s your opinion on how recruitment has changed in the past 10 years?
Sue Emms: I would say there has been a huge change around recruitment and I think one of our key drivers is diversity. We are a very diverse practice in terms of what we offer, with different sectors and disciplines. But it’s really important that the diversity of our people represents the communities we’re designing for.
We’ve had a recent drive around creating an inclusive recruitment toolkit for our future talent. We partner with Manchester and Liverpool-based social enterprises, enabling us to do a lot of work with school children, getting them to understand the built environment and architecture.
Our outreach often focuses on underrepresentation within the profession – we’re making sure that we’re hitting a demographic that wouldn’t imagine being an architect or going to university. We want people with different perspectives and different life experiences.
We were one of the trailblazer practices that supported the Architectural Apprenticeship Route and we are one of the founding practices of Sheffield University‘s Collaborative Practice course – those new pathways into the profession are really important for us and they broaden our talent pool.
BDP’s projects include the Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport
Sophie Chapman: Have you noticed any changes in how applicants vary for specific roles, or have you seen a rise in more diverse applicants for certain roles?
Sue Emms: We’ve employed 17 graduates in our northern studios this summer alone, and when you look at the split of which universities they’re from, it’s so much more diverse than it would have been five years ago.
If you look at architecture and interior design roles, we have a higher number of female applicants coming through now than males. I think at graduate level, we’re also very diverse, certainly in terms of race and gender. However, when we look at engineering and more senior roles, we definitely struggle more with the gender balance.
It’s really important for us to take people around the studio when they come for their interviews and showcase that inclusive studio culture. We also want to make sure that we are diverse and that interviewees can see people like them succeeding in the practice.
Sophie Chapman: During the interview or application process, is there anything that you’re doing differently than you did 10 years ago?
Sue Emms: For graduates, it can be quite daunting coming into the studio for your first interview to launch their career. So, once we’ve made the shortlist for interviews, we team them up with someone at BDP, a buddy – often someone who went through the process a couple of years ago. They would have a meeting beforehand where our staff can offer advice and graduates can ask any silly question about BDP. It’s really informal and it’s very supportive.
I think it helps inclusion and drives social mobility as well, which is so important for our professions. For those from less-privileged backgrounds who might not have peers or family members to support them with writing CVs or preparing for interviews, I think it has been a great support. And this, in turn, has improved our talent pool.
BDP’s projects often focus on regenerating northern cities
Sophie Chapman: What advice would you give to people who are looking for a job at BDP?
Sue Emms: At BDP, because we are quite diverse, we’re very different. So I would come in with an open mind and make your role what you want to make it – BDP gives you that opportunity.
I also think it’s important to understand our company values and how they align with yours – I would look at those synergies before you come in. Our values are strong and support the recruitment of diverse talent.
And finally, while our recruitment process is quite informal, as it’s important to make people feel comfortable, you need to stand out. We often receive 250 applicants when we can hire eight to 10 people. Your portfolio and cover letter are really important. While we don’t want to read essays, we do want to read something with a little bit of spark.
One of BDP’s ongoing projects is the Castlefield Viaduct in Manchester
Sophie Chapman: Why do you use Dezeen Jobs for your recruitment?
Sue Emms: We are very much looking to the next generation of architects and designers, and I think there are few better places to do that than Dezeen right now. If you look at the roles available at BDP, it’s not only architects and architectural assistants but executive assistants and the head of acoustics, for example. We’ve used Dezeen Jobs for a diverse selection of roles.
Find out more about BDP by visiting its website. View current and future vacancies by checking its company profile on Dezeen Jobs.
Photos courtesy of BDP.
Dezeen Jobs: How We Recruit series
This article is part of Dezeen Jobs: How We Recruit, a series of interviews to mark Dezeen Jobs turning 15, which explores changing hiring practices and future recruitment needs for companies around the world.
Chosen through an international competition, ICRAVE was tasked with designing the interiors of the public spaces within the MSG Sphere Las Vegas by Sphere Entertainment – the giant venue’s operator.
Upon entering the MSG Sphere Las Vegas, visitors are ushered through an arched passageway
The scope included the building’s entry bridges, lobby and guest welcome areas, the main concourse, food and beverage outlets, as well as private artist dressing rooms, and VIP clubs and suites.
In the main atrium, the building’s curves continue across the intersecting balconies and bridges
While the building’s exterior is covered with 580,000 square feet (53,900 square metres) of programmable LED panels, the inside glows with bands of coloured indirect lighting.
“The spectacle that is Sphere on the outside sets the stage and bar for how magical the designed experience ICRAVE was tasked with must be on the inside,” said the studio, which has offices in New York City and Miami and is led by Lionel Ohayon.
The colourful indirect lighting throughout the public spaces can be customised for different performances
Upon entering the venue, visitors are ushered through a series of repeated illuminated archways before arriving in a vast eight-storey atrium.
Here, the building’s curved form is continued through a series of sweeping balconies and bridges, which intersect at different points across multiple levels to create “a sense of continuous motion”.
Thresholds and doorways are also shaped as either circles or ovals, while beside the escalators, a 160-foot-tall (49-metre) scrim wall hanging acts as a huge lenticular light installation.
Reflective black terrazzo flooring creates a sci-fi feel within the public spaces, which is further enhanced by the coloured lighting.
Thresholds and doorways are shaped as circles and arches, while black terrazzo flooring reflects the light
“The lighting sets the tone and ‘performs’ as part of the Sphere experience from entry, to Atrium activation, to showtime, and as you transition out of Sphere and back to the bustle of Vegas,” ICRAVE said.
The studio also designed the various food and beverage spaces within the venue, each carrying a distinct character.
Each of the food and beverage outlets features a different design
Tucked into areas where the ceiling height is lower, these bars and food vendor spots include fluted panels, dark counters, and more indirect lighting.
Throughout the building, mathematical graphics added to surfaces are derived from the equations used in the Sphere’s construction.
In the dressing rooms, artists can enjoy lounge areas and massage chairs, as well as makeup stations, private bathrooms and showers
Meanwhile, the VIP viewing suites feature a mix of absorptive and reflective materials intended not to distract from the performances.
The venue can accommodate up to 20,000 visitors
“In an effort to create a transformative entertainment space that takes artists and fans out of the mundane and into the future, ICRAVE sought to bring life to every inch of Sphere, not just the stage,” said the studio.
“With a sophisticated mix of lighting, soundscape, visuals, ambiance and tactile elements, audiences and the artists will have a captivating experience like nowhere else in the world.”
A huge scrim wall behind the escalators acts like a lenticular lighting installation
The Sphere began its programming in October with a concert by U2, featuring visuals by designer Es Devlin, artist John Gerrard and more on an enormous wrap-around screen.
A similar venue was also planned for London, but the government put the project on hold earlier this year to give the Secretary of State more time to review the proposal.
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