DESIGN DISPATCH

Craig Green Reflects on Human Connection, and Other News

Our daily look at the world through the lens of design.

Craig Green A/W 2023 and S/S 2024. Photography by Amy Gwatkin, courtesy of Craig Green

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Craig Green Reflects on Human Connection

For his 10th anniversary collection, Craig Green enlisted an unlikely prop in his meditation on human connection: wrestling dummies. These pillowy human proxies cling to models decked out in a Fall/Winter collection that’s bypassing fashion week and quickly goes from classic to conceptual. Head-to-toe denim yields to tent-like outerwear and ankle-grazing, obscuring knitted hats. “[They] almost feel like a way to interact with someone again—to learn what a leg or foot feels like,” he says. “There’s something beautiful about them.” —Jenna Adrian-Diaz

Jeffrey Gibson. Photography by Brian Barlow

Indigenous artist Jeffrey Gibson will represent the U.S. at the 2024 Venice Biennale.

Jeffrey Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, will represent the U.S. at the upcoming Venice Biennale. He aims to challenge the absence of Native American practices in visual culture and expand perceptions of Indigeneity. Gibson’s exhibition, titled “the space in which to place me,” will feature a multimedia installation and performances, exploring colonization’s impact on Native American culture and providing opportunities for Indigenous artists to create their own spaces and narratives.

OpenAi, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google form a body to regulate AI development.

Four influential AI companies—OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google—have formed the Frontier Model Forum to ensure the safe development of advanced AI models. The group aims to promote research in AI safety, encourage responsible AI deployment, address trust and safety risks with policymakers and academics, and utilize AI for positive purposes like combating climate change and detecting cancer. The move comes amid increasing efforts to regulate AI technology, with recent commitments from tech companies to implement new AI safeguards following a White House meeting with President Joe Biden. However, some campaigners remain skeptical of self-regulation and emphasize the need for independent oversight to represent the interests of those impacted by AI in the future.

Zaha Hadid Architects’ rendering for a new building at the site of the 2021 Surfside Collapse. Image courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects

The replacement building on the site of the Surfside Collapse will not have a memorial.

The site of the 2021 Surfside Collapse, where a 13-story condominium building in Florida failed, will not have a memorial due to plans by developer Damac to continue with a Zaha Hadid Architects design. The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s preliminary findings revealed design weaknesses, including the rooftop pool, as a major cause of the collapse. A town commission meeting, marred by controversy, discussed an ordinance to negotiate with Damac for memorial space but failed to pass it, leading Damac to proceed with the chosen design, leaving no space for the memorial on-site.

Fondazione Prada will rename its Milan cinema after Jean-Luc Godard in September.

Fondazione Prada will honor the late Jean-Luc Godard, a pioneering figure of the French New Wave, by renaming its Milan movie theater as Cinema Godard starting in September. Miuccia Prada stated that cinema is a space for new ideas and cultural education, inspired by Godard’s experimental and visionary works, and aims to promote cinematographic and visual languages. Fondazione Prada already hosts two permanent projects by Godard, and the cinema will continue to offer themed screenings, retrospectives, and restored films, along with inviting filmmakers like Werner Herzog and Rebecca Zlotowski for public discussions.

Centre Pompidou plans to open a branch of the museum in a Seoul skyscraper in 2025.

Hanwha Group of South Korea has completed an agreement with France’s Centre Pompidou to establish a branch of the museum in Seoul, opening in late 2025. The formal contract was signed, granting Hanwha licensing rights for four years to use the French museum’s properties for the Centre Pompidou Hanwha Seoul. The museum will be located in Hanwha’s skyscraper, 63 Square, after renovation, and Hanwha plans to hold two special exhibitions each year, featuring masterpieces from the Pompidou collections.

A Makaha kicktail skateboard, 1969. Photography by Caleb J Adams

Today’s attractive distractions:

High school shop class is showing students alternatives to traditional college.  

London’s Design Museum charts the seven-decade history of skateboards.

Are “entitlement and endless optimization” ruining everyone’s vacations?

Hundreds gather in Brooklyn to feast on a stew that’s brewing for six weeks.

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