Design Emergency
Design Emergency is a podcast where design curator Paola Antonelli and design critic Alice Rawsthorn explore how designers are tackling major global challenges, from the climate emergency to the refugee crisis and the impact of new technologies. Each episode features inspiring designers whose work offers hope for the future. The podcast is hosted on Acast.
Episodes
Francis Kéré on Building Stories
Francis Kéré, architect, educator, builder, and one of the most compelling advocates for architecture as a force for dignity, participation, and social transformation. Kéré’s architecture begins with people and for a building to exist, it has to traverse a process of listening, learning, and designing and fabricating together with the public it is meant for.Born in Gando, Burkina Faso, and based i
Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn on Crafts
In this episode of Design Emergency, Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli explore how craft has evolved into a powerful force for social, cultural, and environmental change. Design, art, and craft have had a long, complex relationship. For most of human history they were inseparable: the objects people made — textiles, sculptures, tools, paintings, ceramics, furniture — belonged to the sa
Irma Boom on the Future of Book Design
What is the future of the printed book? Does it have one? And, if so what will it consist of? Who better to answer this than the woman who is inconstestably the greatest book designer of our time, the brilliant Irma Boom. In this episode of Design Emergency, Irma tells our cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn, why the printed book is too important to join all the other analogue objects that have become exti
Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn celebrate the Hidden Heroines of Design on International Women’s Day 2026
Happy International Women’s Day! One of Alice and Paola’s favourite episodes of Design Emergency every year is the International Women’s Day Special in which they celebrate some of the incredible female designers, who, despite their talent and achievements, haven’t been given the recognition they richly deserve.Among them are the five Swedish women who founded and ran a School of Women’s Citizensh
Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley on Biotic Architecture
Architecture has long treated bacteria as an enemy to be controlled—dangerous foreign agents to be sealed out, sterilized, or erased. In their new book, We the Bacteria: Notes Toward a Biotic Architecture, architecture historians and curators Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley turn that assumption inside out (literally,) arguing that architecture should not be bent on shield
Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn celebrate Women in Tech on Ada Lovelace Day
Every year, the second Tuesday in October is designated as Ada Lovelace Day as a tribute to its namesake, Ada Lovelace, the 19th century mathematician and pioneering computer programmer who collaborated with Charles Babbage on the design of his remarkable mechanical computer, the Analytical Machine. To celebrate Ada Lovelace Day 2025, Alice and Paola are dedicating this special episode of Des
Maya Bird-Murphy on Architecture and Communities
How can we empower more people, particularly young people from disinvested communities, to engage with architecture, and to use it as a tool to improve their daily lives and future prospects? Maya Bird-Murphy, the Chicago-based architect and educator, tells Alice Rawsthorn how she is addressing this through the Mobile Makers programme of youth workshops and community engagement projects..Maya desc
David Gissen on the Architecture of Disability
Architecture’s traditional approach to disability revolves around “fixing problems” by securing adaptations that will allow disabled people to access the ideal world of full biocapacity. Architect and scholar David Gissen wants to “shift the conversation about disability away from a focus on the problems of a disabled user and their problems engaging with rooms and bathrooms and sidewalks,” he exp
Tosin Oshinówò on Designing Africa’s Future
In this episode of Design Emergency podcast, the Nigerian architect, Tosin Oshinówò, tells our cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn, how design and architecture can help to forge a fairer, safer, more sustainable future for Africa..One of the gifted young architects at the forefront of forging radical change in across the African continent, Tosin was born in Lagos and returned there after studying architect
Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn on Design and Infrastructure
Infrastructure is one of the most important areas of design, but is mostly ignored – until it goes horribly wrong. At a time when global investment in developing new forms of infrastructure is soaring, Alice and Paola discuss why it is so important to improve the design quality of the data networks, energy and water supplies, transport and sanitation systems and other aspects of infrastructure, wh
Hilary Cottam on Redesigning Work
What is a good working life in the 21st century? And how do we get there? In the latest episode of Design Emergency, our cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn, explores these issues with the pioneering social designer and social activist Hilary Cottam, who conducted five years of intensive research into how we could – and should – redesign all aspects of work, for her new book, The Work We Need: A 21st Centu
Sadie Red Wing on Indigenous design
One of the deepest, most often overlooked emergencies in the design world is the erasure of Indigenous knowledge systems—and the continued exclusion of Indigenous voices from the platforms where futures are imagined. Why is it an emergency? Because plurality, intended as the active celebration of diversity, is not just a matter of common sense and respect, but also a matter of survival. Native cul
Hidden Heroines of Design
Who are the Hidden Heroines of Design, the gifted, resourceful and determined women who have achieved so much in design, yet have never been given the recognition they so richly deserve? And why, do so many women, and people who are queer, trans or of colour, still find it so much harder to fulfil their design ambitions than their white cis-male peers?.To celebrate International Women’s Day 2025,
Julia Watson on Design and Water
As the global water crisis and climate emergency intensify, how can design help us to tackle the devastating food shortages, storm surges, rising sea-levels and other problems we face? On this episode of Design Emergency, the Australian designer, ecologist and activist, Julia Watson, tells our cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn how indigenous communities in remote parts of our planet have developed ancien
Pirjo Haikola on Designing for the Ocean
Coral are tough clients, as Pirjo Haikola knows well. The Finnish designer is renowned for her work on coral reef conservation and ocean biodiversity. Now based at the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville, North Queensland, right by the Great Barrier Reef, Pirjo is also a skilled diver. Spending significant time observing and documenting marine life firsthand has given her a u
Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn on Design and Human Rights
How can design help to defend and strengthen our human rights? And the rights of other species with whom we share our planet? At a time when rights and freedoms are under threat all over the world, Design Emergency’s cofounders, Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn, are marking Human Rights Day 2024 with a special episode on practical ways in which design is helping to protect our rights in excepti
Yvonne Jewkes on Design and Prisons
How can design help to make our failing prisons fit for purpose? In this episode of Design Emergency, our cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn, discusses the design deficiencies of one of the most troubled areas of many societies, our prison systems, and what can be done to make them rehabilitative rather than brutalizing, with the British criminologist, Yvonne Jewkes..Yvonne, who is Professor of Criminolog
Domestic Data Streamers on data and emotions
Why should we care about data? Not only because “data is the new oil,” as British mathematician Clive Humby famously said in 2006, but also because data sets can contain the values, culture, and future of communities and society. In other words, data is us. Domestic Data Streamers, a design studio based in Barcelona since 2013, has worked to redefine how we engage with data, moving from visualizat
Philippe Rahm on Climatic Architecture
How can architecture help us to address the escalating climate emergency? There are many ways it can do so: from ensuring that new buildings are designed to radically reduce carbon emissions during construction, to doing the same in terms of how they will function..The Swiss architect, Philippe Rahm, is at the forefront of this process through his experiments with what he calls climatic architectu
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on Climate Action
Things are not exactly looking up. While the climate emergency is undeniably advancing, however, a powerful cultural shift is also afoot––away from doomsday alarmism or resignation, and towards optimism.Despite being a wide-awake scientist, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is among those who are presenting to the world the constructive, energetic, even joyful side of the fight for climate justice.Ayana is
Jeanne Gang on Architectural Grafting
As architecture and construction are two of the biggest sources of carbon emissions on our planet, what can architects do to change this? In this episode of Design Emergency, the US architect, Jeanne Gang, tells our cofounder Alice Rawsthorn how she and her colleagues at Studio Gang in Chicago are designing new ways of reusing and repurposing existing buildings, as an ecologically responsible alte
Liam Young on building better worlds
Visions of future worlds by storytellers of all kinds––filmmakers, writers, designers, and other artists––play an important role in our evolution. Whether they are utopias or dystopias, visual or verbal, they invite us to imagine what we could make of ourselves and of our planet, for good and for bad. Australian architect Liam Young is among the most respected and effective contemporary speculativ
Sinéad Burke on Design and Disabilities
How can we make our lives fully accessible and inclusive? In this episode of Design Emergency, our cofounder Alice Rawsthorn explores this challenge with Sinéad Burke, whose mission is to campaign for inclusion and accessibility for everyone, for disabled people in particular..Having started out as a teacher in her native Ireland, Sinéad became increasingly involved in disability activism, determi
Kate Crawford on Technology and Power
Controlling technology means controlling the world. While this statement rings painfully true today, it is as old as the idea of technology itself. In other words, as old as humanity. In this episode, Paola Antonelli interviews renowned researcher, author, and artist Kate Crawford, a leading voice on the social, ethical, and planetary implications of all technologies––artificial intelligence in pa
Design and Workers’ Rights
Design has played a critical role in championing, developing and defending workers’ rights throughout history. In this episode of Design Emergency podcast, cofounders Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn, describe design’s impact on workers’ rights and on the constantly changing nature of work over the years..As well as discussing the design of the symbols and actions – from the red flag, to the va
Francesca Coloni on the refugee crisis
How can design help us to address such a tragic, terrifying global emergency as the escalating refugee crisis? What are the priorities for the humanitarian design teams striving to assuage such a catastrophe? What have they learnt from their practical experience in terms of what works, and what doesn’t? In this episode of Design Emergency, Francesca Coloni, Chief of the Te
Abeer Seikaly on the Power of Memory
In this episode devoted to tradition as a source and a force to build a better future, Paola Antonelli speaks with Jordanian-Palestinian architect Abeer Seikaly, whose interdisciplinary work is centered around acts of memory––her own, her family’s, and her people’s. Her research draws from ancestral Arab knowledge––particularly the textile weaving craft of Bedouin women in the
Hidden Heroines of Design
Who are the Hidden Heroines of Design, the gifted and ambitious women who have achieved so much in design, yet have never been given the recognition they so richly deserved? And why, at a time when there is widespread recognition of the need to ensure that every aspect of our lives is as divers and inclusive as possible, do so many women still find it much, much tougher to realise their design amb
Sputniko! aka Hiro Ozaki on speculative design and visionary entrepreneurship
Hiro Ozaki, aka Sputniko! (her high-school nickname) is a designer / multimedia artist / musician / educator / entrepreneur whose unique and multi-pronged career exemplifies a new, promising course for design and its transformative role for society. Hiro has gone from imagining future scenarios––richly described with stills and movies starring gifted young heroines and their fantastical objec
Limbo Accra on unfinished buildings
How can we make productive use of the unfinished buildings that litter our towns, cities and landscapes? In this episode of Design Emergency, Dominique Petit-Frère and Emil Grip, founders of Limbo Accra, a spatial design studio based in Ghana and the US, tell our cofounder Alice Rawsthorn about their mission to ensure that we make the most of the possibilities to reimagine, rebuild and reuse the t
Anjali Singhvi on investigative visual journalism
“Investigative visual journalism is a fairly new discipline that combines traditional investigative reporting techniques with digital forensic and spatial analysis of evidence,” says Anjali Singhvi, senior staff editor for spatial investigations at The New York Times in this Design Emergency podcast interview with our cofounder, Paola Antonelli. “It involves using a lot of open-source visual mater
Olalekan Jeyifous on eco-fiction and world-building
What could - and should - our future look like? Olalekan Jeyifous is committed to designing irresistible visions of a future in which humanity makes the best out of its many mistakes and thrives within the strictures of its self-inflicted handicaps. By doing so, he has had a remarkable effect on the architecture world - and beyond.From the Venice Architecture Biennale, where he won the Silver Lion
Claudia Chwalisz on design and democracy
At a time when democracy is under threat in many places, what can design do to defend it? How can it help to reinvent our democractic systems and make them fit for purpose? In this episode, author and activist, Claudia Chwalisz tells Design Emergency’s cofounder Alice Rawsthorn why and how she is leading a global campaign to redesign democracy as founder and CEO of the international non-profit res
Omar Degan on architecture and fragility
Our world is becoming ever more fragile, as more and more migrants across the planet from the country to booming cities, and as more and more refugees are displaced from their homes to makeshift emergency villages that become permanent and expand uncontrollably. What can architecture do to address this? In this episode of Design Emergency, our cofounder Paola Antonelli interviews the Italian-born,
Aqui Thami on design and communities
How can design help to heal fragile people, who have experienced abuse, poverty and oppression? In this episode, the Indian artist, activist and social designer Aqui Thami tells Design Emergency’s cofounder Alice Rawsthorn how she does this by designing new opportunities for healing and learning for vulnerable women and girls, for and trans and queer people.Aqui has personally experienced violence
Veena Sahajwalla on turning waste into new materials
As the climate emergency escalates, it is clear that the solutions we need are those that can be applied at scale. The materials scientist Veena Sahajwalla is at the forefront as she is already designing and delivering such solutions. In this episode, Veena tells Design Emergency’s cofounder, Paola Antonelli, how she is recycling huge quantities of abandoned tyres, clothing and other waste into ne
Fernando Laposse on the materials of design
In this episode, the Mexican designer Fernando Laposse talks with our cofounder Paola Antonelli about his practice, which focuses on the culture and the materials of non-urban communities, especially in his native Mexico. After studying product design, Fernando has focused his practice on working with rural communities in Mexico to develop new design materials from locally grown plant fibers, such
Magdalene Odundo on pots
Magdalene Odundo has made some of the greatest pots of our time. In this episode of Design Emergency, she talks to our cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn, about how she discovered the joys and challenges of making ceramics and their symbolic value in expressing our cultural identities.Born in Kenya in 1950, Magdalene spent her childhood there and in India before moving to the UK to study art in Cambridge,
Yasmeen Lari on design and disasters
Few people have more experience of disaster relief than the great Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari. In this episode, she tells Design Emergency’s cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn, how she has dedicated nearly 40 years to helping people throughout Pakistan to rebuild their lives and communities after earthquakes, floods and other devastating disasters.Born in what is now Pakistan in 1941, Yasmeen became
Deema Assaf on greening the desert
As the climate emergency intensifies, how can design help us to repair and revive our ecosystems? In this episode, Design Emergency’s cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn, hears how the Jordanian architect Deema Assaf is using her design skills to develop new solutions to the severe ecological threats facing her country by reviving the beautiful forests, which once flourished throughout Jordan, but disappea
Gabriel Fontana on redesigning sports
How can design help us to make the most of the benefits of playing and following sports regardless of our differences? In this episode of the Design Emergency podcast, our cofounder Paola Antonelli interviews the French social designer Gabriel Fontana who is designing new types of sports and sports equipment intended to make the experience as inclusive and empowering as possible..Gabriel, whose pr
Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn on Design and Violence
How can design protect us from violence? What can it do to identify new forms of violence, and old ones? Alert us to their dangers? Shield us from them? Repair the damage they cause? And prevent repetitions? In this episode, Design Emergency’s cofounders, curator Paola Antonelli and author Alice Rawsthorn, discuss one of design’s most important roles: defending us from violence.Paola and Alice dis
Piet Oudolf on design and plants
Having discovered the joys of gardening while selling Christmas trees at a garden centre, Piet Oudolf has become one of the most influential plantsmen and garden designers of our time. In this episode of Design Emergency, he tells our cofounder, Alice Rawsthorn, how his years of research into plants and their behaviour and love of wild gardens have revived obscure species and transformed our expec
Federica Fragapane on information design
At this turbulent, often terrifying time, we urgently need to understand what is happening in our world, and what the consequences will be. How can design help us to do so? In this episode of Design Emergency, Paola Antonelli talks with Federica Fragapane, the Italian information designer who is at the forefront of using data visualization, which involves analysing huge quantities of complex data
Slava Balbek on designing for Ukraine
What are design’s role and responsibilities in horrific wars like Vladimir Putin’s illegal. conflict in Ukraine? How can designers help their countries during – and after – such terrible tragedies? In this episode, Alice Rawsthorn talks with a designer who is confronting all those challenges – and more – the Ukrainian architect and interior designer, Slava Balbek.As founder of Balbek Bureau in Kyi
Julia Watson on indigenous design
How can we develop safe, sustainable ways of designing, making and building? In this episode, Alice Rawsthorn talks to Julia Watson, the designer, academic and activist whose years of research into the ancient nature-based technologies and sacred landscapes created by indigenous communities in remote parts of our planet promise to produce ingenious solutions to the devastating damage caused by the
Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn on the Hidden Heroines of Design
Design has always been a man’s world. A white cis-man’s world to be precise. Thankfully, there have always been gifted and inspiring exceptions who have overcome the obstacles to make important contributions to design. This episode of the Design Emergency podcast celebrates some of the incredible women who have done so, as our co-founders, Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn pay tribute to the Hid
Sissel Tolaas on smell and design
In this episode, our cofounder Paola Antonelli interviews Sissel Tolaas, the Berlin-based Norwegian artist, chemist, and researcher who has dedicated her life to exploring smell in all its facets and expressions. With a background in chemistry and linguistics, Sissel has developed an interdisciplinary practice that spans the fields of art, science, and technology, with a particular focus on o
Nifemi Marcus-Bello on design and identity
In this episode, our cofounder Alice Rawsthorn interviews Nifemi Marcus-Bello, the Nigerian designer who is at the forefront of the dynamic new design culture now emerging in West Africa. Nifemi describes how he draws on his research into West African design and making – past and present – to develop new objects that reflect the region’s cultural identity..Born in Nigeria, Nifemi was brought up th
Formafantasma on investigative design
Why do we need investigative design? In this episode, the Italian designers Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi tell our cofounder, Paola Antonelli, about their pioneering work in investigating design's impact on complex, often contentious areas of our lives, from the toxic, often illegal global trade in digital waste to the social, to the environmental devastation and exploitative employment pra
Fabrizio Urettini on design and the refugee crisis
How can design help to curb the human tragedy of the global refugee crisis? In this episode, our cofounder Alice Rawsthorn interviews Fabrizio Urettini, the Italian art director, who has devoted the last six years to designing and delivering a remarkably imaginative and effective response to one of our biggest global challenges - the escalating refugee crisis. Helped by friends and fellow designer
Mae-ling Lokko on building with agrowaste
The several billions of tons of agricultural waste produced each year worldwide - by raising plants and animals, and including stalks, husks, hulls, and manure - is both a problem and an opportunity. In this interview with Design Emergency's cofounder Paola Antonelli, the Ghanaian-Filipino architectural scientist, designer, and entrepreneur Mae-ling Lokko discusses the many effective and elegant w
Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn on design and human rights
One of design’s most important – and inspiring – roles throughout history has been to champion human rights. At a time when those rights are under threat in so many parts of our planet, we – Design Emergency’s co-founders, design curator Paola Antonelli and design critic Alice Rawsthorn – decided to host a special episode to discuss design’s record in helping to defend and strengthen human rights,
David Adjaye on architecture in Africa
We’re off! Our interviewee for this first episode of the Design Emergency podcast is the Ghanaian-British architect, David Adjaye. As well as designing some of the most compelling buildings of recent years, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C., David is at the forefront of the development of Africa’s dynamic architecture scene. In this interview
Design Emergency
Design Emergency is a collaboration between the curator, Paola Antonelli, and writer, Alice Rawsthorn, to explore design’s potential to help us to build a better future. On this podcast, you will hear from the designers, architects, engineers, and others, who, we believe, are at the forefront of progress in using design to forge positive change. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more
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