Thought Starters

The Pod is going on tour for London Design Festival! First stop: The Brompton Design District. Today we met Sevra Davis of The Design Museum and Seetal Solanki of Ma-tt-er, a research design studio that explores the past, present and future of materials. Tune in for an invigorating chat about strange new materials, and how we can nudge them into mainstream use.

Spiritland founder Paul Noble & Southbank Centre's Bengi Unsal

​​​​​The art world can be uninviting, and the sheer number of galleries can feel overwhelming. One solution: the internet. ​​​​​Counter Editions is a platform selling prints and multiples by leading international artists. Director Robert Diament joins us in the Pod, along with actor and art collector Russell Tovey. ​

​Some of the most esteemed and enduring brands are those that build in their customers an emotional connection – they give us more than just practical function. A few of those them seemingly manage to create own worlds, and come to represent a lifestyle and system of values, too. ​One such brand is Rapha, the cycling sportswear company founded in 2004 – now with a global following, thanks to a biannual magazine, the international Rapha Cycling Club, its in-store cafes, and a 2007 collaboration with Paul Smith. ​Graphic identity and art direction has played a huge part in keeping this all coherent and consistent – and adding to or changing any part of the brand is delicate business. ​In discussion today: Jack Saunders and Paul Barnes, two people who are helping to nudge and navigate Rapha into a new iteration.

​​​​Does the world need another chair? It’s a question often asked in the design world, mostly by industry journalists who have a hard time getting excited about countless new four-legged additions to furniture showrooms from Milan to Mexico City. ​​​What is far more intriguing are the experiments in how we make, not necessarily what we make. From explorations of new materials, to developing circular economics, companies small and large are investing in finding new ways to create. ​​​Our guests today: Jane Withers, a design consultant, curator, and writer, who is also behind the Brompton Design District, and Brent Dzekciorius, whose company DZEK creates original architectural materials and products in collaboration with designers.​ You'll have seen the terrazzo he did with Max Lamb – big beautiful specks of copper, blue and green on white.

​​​It's possible your social media feeds have been completely flooded with dispatches from the Venice Biennale of Architecture. The international architecture exhibition has just launched, and will take over the coastal city with national pavilions, individual architects and curators exploring themes that have ranged from cities and society – or, in the case of this year: free space.​ ​​​Today's guests run Neiheiser Argyros, the international multi-disciplinary architecture practice behind this year’s Greek pavilion. Their interpretation of “free space” explores communal spaces of several universities around the world, inspired by Raphael’s fresco, The School of Athens. ​​​We invited Xristina Argyros and Ryan Neiheiser to join us in the Pod, just before Venice.

​For a fashion brand, success takes many forms.Commercial success is an obvious one. But then there’s cultural impact. And now too, it’s about an online following. Often the audience that lends a brand its relevance aren’t always the most active consumers. Today we talk about just that, fashion that is more than just clothing, it’s also a message. ​A little about our guests: ​Eden Loweth is one-half of the design duo that founded Art School, a fashion collective that is embracing and celebrating non-binary, gender-fluid clothing. ​Nathalie Khan teaches fashion history and theory at Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion. Nathalie writes often on the impact of technology on both the catwalk and the fashion image.

​​Sustainability is a word that gets frequently thrown around, but what, exactly, does it mean? Today on Thought Starters, Caroline Till of FranklinTill and Carole Collet, founder of the Material Futures master’s programme at Central Saint Martins talk about what sustainability means for the rapidly changing world of fashion and design.

​​It's been a decade of protest. And from the Women's march to the Brexit marches, what these large-scale political expressions carry with them is an outpouring of creativity. That's exactly what's explored at Hope to Nope, a new exhibition at the Design Museum in London. We were lucky enough to get the two curators, Margaret Cubbage​ and Lucienne Roberts join us in the Pod to record this episode, who told us the back story behind the exhibition and spoke more about the intersection between graphics and politics. ​​Hope to Nope runs at the Design Museum until 15 August.

​Today, we talk about architecture – its great triumphs, its failures, and where the world is headed. In conversation: architect Farshid Moussavi and writer and critic Phineas Harper. ​​Iranian-born Farshid Moussavi is an internationally acclaimed architect and educator, who founded her own eponymous practice in London in 2011, after first establishing Foreign Office Architects in the early 1990s. Her projects range from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland to the Victoria Beckham Flagship Store in London, with a portfolio that crosses continents and categories. ​Phineas Harper is the deputy director of the Architecture Foundation, an independent not-for-profit think tank in London, as well as being a critic, author and designer. He writes a regular opinion column for Dezeen, and is chief curator of the 2019 Oslo Architecture.

​​​The Gentlewoman and Gal Dem are two very different magazines combatting a common problem: how women are spoken to by women's magazines. To coincide with International Women's Day, we invited editors Penny Martin and Liv Little into the Pod to discuss their growing magazines, and the role of the editor.

​​​Sartorially speaking, London is home to some of the world’s finest craftsmanship. Look no further than Savile Row. But for brands that have been there for decades using traditional techniques for traditional garments – how to stay relevant? ​​​​We meet Campbell Carey of Huntsman (founded in 1849) and George Glasgow Sr or Cleverley (founded 1958). We discuss why different hands make different clothes, and working till you drop.

​​​It's the biggest event in the world, and one of the most recognisable brands. So what goes into designing for the Olympics? We speak to Chris Moody, Chief Design Officer at Wolff Olins, the global brand design studio tasked with designing London's 2012 Olympic identity. Joining him is James Hurst, principle at DesignStudio, who knows a thing or two about designing for sports mega-brands – in 2016, his DesignStudio completed the redesign of the British Premier League identity.

​​​Today we discuss art and ability. Intoart is an art and design studio that collaborates with people with learning disabilities, creating beautiful and thought-provoking pieces. Henry Ward is the former Head of Education at the Southbank Centre​ and currently is the creative director at the Freelands Foundation, whose mission is to support artists and cultural institutions to broaden audiences for the visual arts.​ ​​On the agenda: diversity in the art and design world, what it might take for museums and galleries to be more inclusive, and the perennial question – what is art, and who decides?

​​Airbnb is a tech company super success. Yet, it's also a multi-faceted, forward-thinking organisation, reconsidering architecture and space and how they can work for you (and for others). In 2014, Airbnb rebranded, moving to a more mature identity that is now known the world over; James Greenfield led that design work.

​​If you've been through White City Place recently, you'll notice a new light installation creating beautiful, glowing patterns. We invited Spandana Gopal, founder of Tiipoi to join us in the Pod to talk about the installation. Joining her, Afroditi Krassa, one of London's preeminent hospitality designers, behind the interior design of Dishoom, Itsu and The Perfectionists' Cafe.

​​Today things get a little spooky. We meet Tobias Revell and Natalie Kane, who together form Haunted Machines. ​Haunted Machines explores narratives of myth, magic and haunting around technology. They've recently participated in the Serpentine Galleries’ 24-hour event on artificial intelligence, machines and consciousness this year – called Guest, Host, Ghost – and most recently curated the Impakt festival 2017 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. ​​One the agenda: why we still haven’t shaken our industrial-era understanding of machines and technology, and the undeniable creepiness of Alexa.

​Yinka Ilori is a London based designer. He specialises in up-cycling vintage furniture, inspired by the traditional Nigerian parables and African fabrics that surrounded him as child. This past September, he create a colourful playground outside the CitizenM hotel in Shoreditch, the hotel group of which Robin Chadha is the Chief Marketing Officer. Together, they discuss what India and Nigeria have in common when it comes to design, and why it's so rare for adults to think about ‘play.​'

​Alex de Rijke is one of the founders of London architecture practice dRMM. They're currently up for the prestigious RIBA Stirling prize for their work on the new Hastings Pier. The winner will be announced in just a few days on Oct 31. In the meantime, Alex and Lee Mallett, urbanist and director of Urbik, joined us in The Pod. They discuss Hastings Pier and ask why it can be so difficult difficult to compel people to let you build anything interesting.

​Today we hear from two creative Londoners about their partnership at the Ace Hotel. ​Laura Houseley is a writer and consultant specialising in contemporary design, and the founder of the influential Modern Design Review magazine. ​Vickie Hayward is head of culture and programming for Atelier Ace, the in-house creative team at the Ace Hotel. ​On the agenda: This year's Ready Made Go installation, how the Ace Hotel uses design to create spaces let you do what you’d like; and Laura’s process in putting together a magazine.