Thomas Barnett
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Wisl by andstudio
Shaking off a hangover on a crisp Sunday morning kick-about with the boys; dunking a perfect basket on a court raked with the long shadows of a high-summer sunset; obliterating Janet from HR in a ‘friendly’ after-work squash game/grudge-match. These vignettes, I am assured by those who participate in such wholesome activities, capture both the hazy idyll and everyday reality...
National Portrait Gallery by Edit Brand Studio
In June 2023, a giant of British cultural life awoke from a three year slumber. The return of the National Portrait Gallery evokes a joy that is made all the keener when one recalls the troubled time in which it closed its doors: March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and public life evaporated in the announcement of that...
Woven by Adam Smith by Magpie
Coworth Park is a grand 18th-century manor-house-turned-luxury-spa-hotel, set among a profusion of wildflowers in a sumptuous patch of Berkshire countryside. It’s part of the Dorchester Collection: ten prestigious hotels scattered across the world, all owned (through the Brunei Investment Agency) by Hassanal Bolkiah ibni Omar Ali Saifuddien III, the Sultan of Brunei. Bolkiah rules as an absolute monarch, and personally...
Florentia Village by DNCO
On first hearing, ‘Florentia Village’ is a ridiculous name for a warehouse complex in South Tottenham, as if Hyacinth Bouquet had somehow risen from the grave and gained a seat on the borough council in order to render floridly Italianate a grimy chunk of East London. However, the name does in fact arise from an organic nomenclatural etymology: indicating ‘flourishing’ or...
Future Observatory by SPIN Studio
SPIN Studio continues its working relationship with the Design Museum (after branding its Waste Age exhibition in 2021 and Wim Crouwel’s first UK retrospective in 2011) by putting its inimitable spin (this won’t happen again, I promise) on Future Observatory, the museum’s ‘national research programme for the green transition’. Perhaps more so than any other studio working today, SPIN has...
Great Wrap by A Friend Of Mine
Cling-wrap, cling-film, stretch-wrap, Saran-wrap or food-wrap. Wherever you’re from and whatever you may call the ubiquitous, sticky, transparent stuff, it’s been keeping food fresh since 1949, when the first branded form of cling-wrap made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) appeared on the market. Once held up as a mould-thwarting modern marvel, the material is now widely derided as an environmental menace....