People and projects in the news
New York’s Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum announced the nine winners of the 21st annual National Design Awards in early October. “From shaping our parks and buildings to transforming the creative infrastructure and the ways we tell our stories,” said interim director John Davis, “the remarkable work of this year’s winners demonstrates the power of design in everyday life.” Among the recipients were international architecture studio Snøhetta, Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary designers Dlandstudio, Denver-based nonprofit design consultancy Catapult Design and American firm OJB Landscape Architecture.
The annual Belgian design and interiors exhibition Biennale Interieur named Ghent-based designer and Livable founder Sep Verboom as the 2020 laureate of its prestigious Designer of the Year award. Since founding his practice in 2015, Verboom has become known for community-engaged work that spans continents and countries from Brazil to the Philippines, leveraging both the economic and the social dimensions of design. “The Designer of the Year prize encourages me to continue my way of working,” said Verboom. “At the same time, it signals a rather neat message: Design is more diverse than often thought.”
Anandaloy, a combined therapy centre and textile studio in rural Bangladesh by German architect Anna Heringer, was honoured with the second annual Obel Award. The €100,000 prize honours “outstanding architectural contributions to human development” built within the past five years. Conceived as a space for those with physical disabilities, Anandaloy (meaning “The Place of Deep Joy” in Bengali) was constructed entirely of regional materials and by local craftspeople, exemplifying Heringer’s belief that “architecture is a tool to improve lives.”
Following an international design competition that saw three shortlisted proposals from leading practices across North America, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia has selected a team comprised of KPMB Architects with Omar Gandhi Architect, Jordan Bennett, Lorraine Whitman, Public Work and Transsolar to complete its new waterfront complex in Halifax. Their organic, three-storey scheme involves a number of design elements referencing local Mi’kmaw traditions and practices that together “signal a radical new beginning for the AGNS, the waterfront, Nova Scotians and the world of art,” according to KPMB’S Bruce Kuwabara.
Movers and shakers
Citing a number of systemic issues, from institutional politics to veiled forms of anti-black racism, Ghanaian– Scottish architect, academic and educator Lesley Lokko resigned as dean of the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at City College of New York in early October after only 10 months in the role. “My decision to leave Spitzer after less than a year is fairly straightforward: I was not able to build enough support to be able to deliver on either my promise of change or my vision of it,” Lokko said in an interview with Architectural Record. “My resignation was a profound act of self-preservation.”
In late October, the Chicago Architecture Biennial announced David Brown as the incoming artistic director for the exhibition’s fourth edition. The Chicago-based designer, researcher and educator will lead the conceptual development of the next biannual event; entitled “The Available City,” it will be an extension of Brown’s ongoing research on “the role that collective space can have in cities around the world today.” The exhibition is slated to open in September 2021 and will leverage digital platforms while also activating sites throughout the city of Chicago to explore issues of health, sustainability, equity and racial justice.
Later that month, the Pritzker Architecture Prize named its incoming director and jury chair for the 2021 award. Succeeding current director Martha Thorne, who has held the position since 2005, Paris-based academic and curator Manuela Lucá-dazio will assume the role of executive director following the announcement of the next laureate in March 2021. “It is, for me, an enormous honour to become the next executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize,” Lucá-dazio said in a statement. Simultaneously, 2016 laureate and ELEMENTAL founder Alejandro Aravena was named jury chair for the 43rd iteration of the accolade.
In memoriam
Renowned Japanese fashion designer Kenzō Takada passed away on October 4 at the age of 81 due to complications from COVID-19. After relocating from his native country to Paris, Takada founded his luxury brand in the early 1970s, becoming known for vibrant prints and designs marrying Japanese and European influences. In 1993, he sold the brand to LVMH, then officially retired from the company in 1999. “His amazing energy, kindness and talent were contagious,” the brand’s current creative director, Felipe Oliveira Baptista, said in tribute. “His kindred spirit will live forever.”
On the same day, iconic Dutch designer Jan des Bouvrie died at the age of 78 following a long battle with cancer. In the early 1960s, des Bouvrie established his own practice and went on to conceive a number of crisp white interiors (with which his practice became synonymous) as well as a range of products for manufacturers such as Linteloo. “Jan des Bouvrie, colourful as he was, made the world light and white,” his studio said in a statement. “Supported by an iron will and murderous discipline, constantly fed by an unbridled fantasy, Jan turned what seemed impossible into an opportunity.”