Disegno Podcasts

Rapid refits and refurbishments are a familiar phenomenon within interior architecture – beautiful, functioning interiors are torn out by brands and institutions after only a few years to clear room for new interpretations of the space that can attract fresh engagement and interest. With the ecological costs of this approach clear, however, what could be done to mitigate this environmental impact?...

What is human happiness and is it something that we can specifically design for? Hosted in conjunction with Helsinki Design Weekly, The Happy Hour is a podcast that explores these questions in detail. Organised to coincide with Designing Happiness , the central exhibition and symposium of the 2025 edition of Helsinki Design Week, the podcast examines the way in which objects, urbanism and systems...

A live recording of Design Stories Brussels , a panel discussion hosted at Design Museum Brussels on 23 January 2025, which explored the challenges and opportunities of curating around women in design. The panel was part of Looking Through Objects: Women in Contemporary Polish Design , a research platform exploring women’s contribution to social change through design and creative practices launche...

AI technologies loom large in contemporary design discourse, but how well do we understand this new technology and the opportunities it presents? In recent years, IBM has been collaborating with Map Project Office and Universal Design Studio to design both AI hardware and the physical environments it inhabits, with the aim of making the technology more transparent and approachable. In this episode...

A live recording of How women might move design forward and engender social change through creative practice , a panel discussion recorded at the Royal College of Art in London on 19 September 2024. The panel was part of Design Stories London, a collaboration between London’s Royal College of Art and Warsaw’s SWPS University, supported by the British Council and Polish Cultural Institute London. I...

Screens dominate contemporary technology and the home, but we are regularly encouraged to see them as non-objects: glass voids that present a surface and nothing more. But what happens when we start to think of screens as objects in themselves, and how might we encourage more meaningful, intuitive interactions with technology by doing so? In this episode of  Where Next? Conversations with Map...

Sound design is well established across music, film and media, although the field’s importance to product design and architecture has historically been overlooked. Yet given the central role that electrical devices play in our lives, how can the sounds they emit be tailored to make our everyday experiences more intuitive, friendly and integrated in our environment? In this episode of  Where N...

We often think of technology and nature as separate things, but what happens when they come together? In this podcast, recorded live from the heart of Maison&Objet, host Oli Stratford discusses different approaches of combining technology and ecology with designers Simon Dupety, Suzanna Laskaridis and Felix Rasehorn. The episode digs into how new brands and young designers are seeking to creat...

How can design connect to nature? At January's 2024 edition of Maison&Objet,  Disegno  created a pair of podcasts, recorded live from the heart of the fair, to interrogate this question. The first episode sees the journal's editor-in-chief, Oli Stratford, speak with Mathieu Lehanneur about  Outonomy , an installation Lehanneur created as the fair's Designer of the Year. Lehanneu...

“Creativity” has become a buzzword – a tagline that brands and individuals deploy to describe how they approach business. But what do we mean when we use this word so freely, and what role can designers play within a business climate that already professes to be “creative”? In this episode of  Where Next? Conversations with Map Project Office , host Oli Stratford is joined by Mitzi Okou,...

The built environment is rarely designed with physical, cognitive or intellectual disabilities in mind, leaving our cities difficult to navigate, unwelcoming, and potentially dangerous for large parts of the population. So what can be done to make moving around more inclusive for everyone? In the final episode of season one of  Re-routing the City , host India Block invites guests Dom Hymas a...

What does mobility mean in the 21st century? In this episode of  Where Next? Conversations with Map Project Office,  host Oli Stratford is joined by designers Will Verity, Dr. Jiayu Wu, Andy Wheel and Liam Young to discuss how autonomous and electric vehicles are softening the barriers between private cars and leisure spaces. With a rising interest in how we spend our time in cars, does...

In the second episode of Re-routing the City host India Block is joined by Tim Fendley and Julia Thrift to discuss the ways in which different road users occupy public space. The conversation ranges from the positive impacts that well-designed roads can have on health, to the need for governments to take more holistic, long-term approaches to creating safe and comfortable cities for all. Can pedes...

In this inaugural episode of  Re-routing the City  host India Block is joined by Tim Fendley and Kate Jeffery to discuss the science behind our sense of direction. From discussion as to whether rats and humans share a universal internal compass to the study of yellow as a naturally understood warning colour, the conversation moves in multiple directions to ask: can design help our brains...

In this  Disegno  podcast, Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen of Belgian design studio Muller van Severen are interviewed about their  Oasis  installation for the upcoming Maison&Objet trade fair – a cocoon-like pavilion designed to offer visitors to the fair a moment of peace and respite.  Oasis  is conceived of as a total composition, not an exhibition, and will...

In this Disegno podcast the journal’s deputy editor India Block is joined by designers Marcel Wanders, Yves Béhar, Anahita Mekanik, Frederik Duerinck and Clark Scheffy to discuss how designers and brands can strike up purposeful partnerships with artificial intelligence. Speaking live from Milan Design Week 2023, the panel explores the implications, opportunities and frictions of the design indust...

In this fifth instalment of  Where Next? Conversations with Map Project Office , host Oli Stratford is joined by Laura Lebeau, Soomi Park, Zoe Schladow, and Bas van de Poel to ask how technology can be more sensitively embedded into people’s homes and whether it should be. While many examples of ambient technology are austere and built around black screens, the introduction of more...

To kick off season two of  Where Next? Conversations with Map Project Office , host Oli Stratford is joined by Rosalie McMillan, Peter Griffith, Seetal Solanki and Richard Stevens to unpick the complexities, biases and attitudes surrounding the use of plastics. While our heavy reliance on plastic, especially single-use plastic, is an undeniable problem for the planet, is the material currentl...

In this third instalment of  Where Next? Conversations with Map Project Office , host Oli Stratford is joined by Natsai Audrey Chieza, Afaina de Jong, Nick Rolls and George Garner to discuss the shifting roles of designers, and to ask whether the discipline is done with stuff. With a rise in digital products and services, new social and commercial models, and dynamic shifts in how we live and...

In this second instalment of Where Next? Conversations with Map Project Office , host India Block is joined by Dr. Destiny Thomas, Dan Hill, Emilie Robinson and Andrea Rosati for a panel discussing the future of mobility. Electric vehicles hold huge potential as society aims to cut its reliance on fossil fuels, but this is not the only issue facing mobility. Our cities are clogged with private veh...

In this  Disegno  podcast, the journal’s editor-in-chief Oli Stratford speaks with architect Cristina Celestino about the ideas infusing her Palais Exotique installation for the upcoming Maison&Objet. The pavilion has been erected at the heart of the fair and will provide a space dedicated to decoration and colour, traits traditionally prized within fashion design that frequently fac...

In this inaugural episode of Where Next? Conversations with Map Project Office the panel ask questions about the fetishisation of newness in design. Host Oli Stratford is joined by guests Richard Stevens, Mads Kogsgaard Hansen, Priya Khanchandani and Hella Jongerius as they discuss how the industry might adopt a different approach, in which products accrue in value as they age, are built around mo...

Imagining what the offices of the future may look like has become a ubiquitous topic within design given the disruption of the past two years. Yet when Maison&Objet put this question to the architect Franklin Azzi for its spring 2022 edition, Azzi felt that he wanted to take inspiration from the history of the office in formulating his response. In this Disegno podcast, Disegno's deputy e...

Disegno's editor-in-chief Oli Stratford catches up with Maison&Objet’s managing director, Philippe Brocart, to talk about the return of the trade fair to Paris this September, the reopening of the French capital, and how over a year of disruption has helped Maison adapt and create new approaches to programming for the design industry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information...

Welcome to the forest is the first episode of Words on Wood, a new podcast from AHEC made in collaboration with Disegno. Offering a deep dive into some of the big issues surrounding forests and how these affect design and architecture, you can listen to the whole series by subscribing to Words on Wood, available on all major podcast platforms. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inform...