The Crit

This month, hosts Oli Stratford and India Block recap a trio of reports that examine Urban Heat Islands, reducing the carbon emissions of touring exhibitions, and building safer cities for birds. In products and projects they discuss the Bilboquet lamp by Philippe Malouin for Flos, football kits inspired by William Morris and conclude with an interview with Olivier Lacrouts, one half of Studio d-o-t-s, discussing their School of Phyto-Centred Design. 

Following a discussion of the sudden flurry of product design in cinema, this episode of The Crit sees the co-hosts unpack the unsettling allegations made against top architect David Adjaye, give their first impressions of Meta's new social media platform Threads, and discuss the opening of Young V&A, a museum revamp that's been overshadowed by the removal of LGBTQ+ content. This month's exclusive interview takes the form of a conversation with Paul Simmons, co-founder of Timorous Beasties, about pushing the technical boundaries of wall coverings.

In this episode of The Crit, hosts Oli Stratford and India Block celebrate their June birthdays and reflect on the month’s design goings-on. They discuss the merits and pitfalls of augmented reality headsets to exhibitions about email newsletters, to handy fold up sofas. Also featured is a teaser for the new issue of Design Reviewed, plus an exclusive interview with designer Ilona Gaynor about her research into the politics and labour of sleeping.

We take a journey to ethics town in this episode of The Crit, discussing the dubious developments around Adidas’s Yeezy range and the human rights abuses connected to mega-city Neom. In brighter news, we highlight some products and projects including Transformers by Konstantin Grcic, the Kyora balancing board by Studiomama, and the opening of the Farrell Centre in Newcastle. We end with a special treat – an interview with designer Jean Lee about Ladies & Gentlemen Studio’s new exhibition, Public Access.

In this edition of The Crit hosts Oli Stratford and India Block discuss notable moments during Milan Design Week 2023. This episode was recorded at Convene, 22 Bishopsgate. Thank you to everyone at Convene for their kind support. If you’d like to find out more about Convene’s workplaces in London and further afield simply visit convene.com.

A new year, a new episode of The Crit. This episode, the hosts discuss the amusing, confusing and inspiring tech products from Las Vegas’ consumer Electronics show; the rise of the pet apparel market and Front’s forward thinking design practice. Also included is a discussion of a Virtual Power Plant Partnership project, a nostalgic reflection on Sony’s Walkman releases and a special mention of Special Project’s interface design for a digital therapy service called SlowMo.

It’s December, which means the annual round-up episode of The Crit is out, looking back on design stories of note in 2022. In honour of the launch of Disegno’s new publication – Design Reviewed – we have updated the format of this year’s annual review. Design Reviewed is organised around 10 categories, each of which correspond to a different design output, so we’ve borrowed these same sections for this special episode of the podcast. Listen on for discussions of Elf bars, Dall-E, beyond human design, the year’s design villains and heroes, and much more.

This episode of The Crit looks back on design news in October, including sad happenings around The Line in Neom; the opening of Battersea Power station; the Kakao outage in South Korea; and Coperni’s spray-on dress.

To celebrate the upcoming launch of Disegno’s September issue, The Crit’s co-hosts give a behind-the-scenes view of some of the most topical pieces from the new issue, with sections exploring the Tolix Chaise A, a contested masterplan in Auroville, the unionisation movement in architecture, and much more.