ILSE CRAWFORD

DESIGNER

There’s no better time to celebrate Crawford’s pioneering approach to wellbeing in a design context than the present, when the world craves connection, intimacy and nurturing. A recurring phrase that Crawford uses to describe her interior design work is ‘giving people a better reality’. The recipient of the 2021 London Design Medal, Crawford believes the point of an award is ‘about recognition for projects that might lead the way; it’s about looking at the outliers for the future’. She found Designer of the Year nominees Objects of Common Interest (page 102) particularly deserving by this metric. ‘They have what’s needed for the future: to start looking at design not as a noun but as a verb, and more integrated into our world, less attention-seeking,’ she says. She also admired Francis Kéré’s Slak education campus in Kenya (page 113). ‘The archetypal intelligence of that building was pretty great,’ she comments. ‘He’s come up with a design that makes education attractive, that makes sustainable building attractive, and viable.’ studioilse.com

This page, Ilse Crawford photographed at her studio in Bermondsey, London Opposite, The Rock in Whistler is a private residence conceived as an architectural extension of the Coast Mountains