Issues

Design agenda: Sydney’s Studio Prineas, London-based Hût Architecture and the revival of the Memphis waterfront

Urbanism: USA
Walking in Memphis

The city of Memphis, Tennessee, was founded on the banks of the Mississippi river in the 19th century but its modern waterfront has long been defined by unremarkable swaths of turf abutting the famous waterway. Now, a 12.5-hectare portion called Tom Lee Park has opened as a dynamic public and natural space, refreshing the city’s most prominent landscape.

“The redesign was inspired by a desire for Memphians to come to the river to reconnect with each other and with the Mississippi,” says Kate Orff, founder of New York-based design studio Scape. “It’s also inspired by the story of Tom Lee, an African-American river worker who became a hero after risking his own life to save 32 people from a capsized steamboat in 1925. The space celebrates Lee’s legacy of generosity, while still confronting difficult and unfinished conversations about justice.”

Brought to life by Scape and architecture firm Studio Gang, the new design has organised the parkland into a series of zones that mimic the sediment flows of the Mississippi. Boasting structures made from timber, a river-themed playground, sports and recreation courts, as well as picnic areas, the park also works to strengthen the connection between downtown Memphis and the river, with locals now having a reason to venture towards the water.

More than 1,000 new trees and native plants have also been added to the space, helping to replenish and restore the local ecosystem.

The transformation has added a new civic common space where Memphis residents are welcome to gather, exercise, relax and attend events alongside the ecologically revitalised river corridor. “Our job was to design a park that aspires to meet Tom Lee’s spirit of generosity,” concludes Orff. “Communities in Memphis are so vibrant. We wanted to make a park that enables that grit and love and creativity to come together in one place – at the river’s edge.”

Design: Europe
Charged up

Frankfurt-based design firm E15 and Australian brand Zetr have joined forces to create a new flush-finished socket set-up to subtly incorporate power sources in office furniture. Called System 25, it can be fitted to E15’s own tables or integrated into products from other manufacturers. The nifty little gadget is composed of two parts: a power box which is fitted to the underside of desks and contains electrical charge, and a flush metal faceplate from which only essential cables, such as phone or computer chargers, emerge. Available in brass, bronze, steel or black steel finishes, there’s a host of options available to ensure that a table’s silhouette is no longer interrupted visually by clunky outlets.
e15.com, zetr.com.au

Architecture: UK
East-end makeover

London-based Hût Architecture have transformed a former military drill hall into a new mixed-use development in the UK capital’s East End. The property, which has been largely undisturbed since the 1930s, when it served the Royal Army Service Corps 1st Anti-Aircraft division, had seemingly been doomed to a gloomy future of use as a storage space and the dilapidated backdrop for grunge fashion shoots. But the restoration has breathed new life into the building in the form of new offices, apartments and a coffee shop.

Roof lights and translucent block walls ensure that natural light glows across the exposed structure and brickwork, while also illuminating the forest-green accent colour that defines the renovation. From sheets of corrugated iron and steel beams that cross the lofty ceilings, to plants and vines that tumble down the exterior walls, the redesign’s juxtaposition with the original industrial feel brings a sense of purpose to a neglected urban relic.
hutarchitecture.com 

For more on Drill Hall, click through to our feature here, where the project sets the scene for a fine selection of sofas, chairs and lighting.

Design: Australia
Q&A

Eva-Marie Prineas
Founder, Studio Prineas

Since 2004 the Australian architect Eva-Marie Prineas’s projects have focused on building on Sydney’s historic architectural legacy, “thinking more and building less”. We asked her about her responsible approach to building and the peculiarities of work in Australia.

How does a ‘building less’ approach end up improving your practice?
It’s the most responsible way for architecture to move forward. When you’re working with existing buildings, you have to think about what you need to keep and what you might not necessarily have to keep; these are the decisions that are important moving forward, so that you’re doing as little as possible, but with as much impact as necessary. 

Why is ‘responsibility’ your word of choice when describing your projects?
I feel that the word sustainable is almost an oxymoron in construction. Everything that we do is creating more of a carbon footprint. So it’s about being responsible about our choices and minimising the impact as much as possible. 

How do you create architecture that is grounded in place?
With a recent project, we developed the landscaping as a reference ecology for the local area. We went for a bush walk with our clients and looked at all the planting, then we came up with a beautiful scheme. Once the garden started to grow, beautiful fauna were coming to the site.
studioprineas.com.au

Culture agenda: New art spaces from Guadalajara to Warsaw and what’s next for the Australian Ballet

Media: Dubai
Q&A

Isabella Craddock
Editor, ‘Near+Far’

New Dubai-based publication Near+Far offers a Middle Eastern perspective on hospitality and travel. Its stories range from those on the Palestinian art scene to coverage of Dubai’s latest hotel openings. The magazine’s founder and editor, Isabella Craddock, tells Monocle about its audience, the tourism industry and her aim to dispel regional clichés.

Why is Dubai a fitting place to launch this title?
There’s space here for a homegrown, independent title such as mine. I have worked in publishing for more than 10 years but it’s still exciting to launch a new magazine.

What’s the main aim of your publication?
As the title suggests, I want to go near and far. The first part of the magazine is all about the Middle East. The second is about other places but with travellers from this region in mind – though anyone can read it.

Is tourism booming across the region?
Tourism numbers are very positive. Great hotels are opening, not only in Dubai. Saudi Arabia is also an exciting place for tourism. In Near+Far, I try to dispel the clichéd image of the region as one of camels and desert dunes. There’s more to it.

To hear the full interview with Isabella Craddock, click here.

Art: Poland
To those who wait

Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej (MSN) has been a long time coming. “There are newspaper articles from the 1950s arguing for a dedicated modern-art museum in Warsaw,” says Sebastian Cichocki, its chief curator. Now it has finally arrived.

The museum was originally slated to open 10 years ago. In 2005 planning began in earnest for the new building on Plac Defilad, the capital’s central square, next to the Stalinist-era Palace of Culture and Science. The project, however, was beleaguered by several false starts and delays.

After such a long wait, it seemed that the only appropriate way to celebrate the museum’s launch was with a three-week party. In October, the MSN’s curators lined up more than 160 events over 16 days, including performances by US musician Kim Gordon and Lebanese contemporary artist Tarek Atoui. The festivities and a rich public programme will carry on until the full opening in February, when visitors will be able to see the full extent of the collection, which focuses on art made since 1989.

“Much of this space was handmade by craftsmen from Warsaw,” says Thomas Phifer of the 20,000 sq m building. The New York-based architect’s design is a minimalist box in white concrete. “There’s a sense of abstraction,” he says. “It’s very simple, very heavy and all about the light.”

The MSN’s ground floor is open to the public and serves as a shortcut across the square, where the city is building a performing-arts theatre (also designed by Phifer) and a park. A symmetrical staircase takes visitors up to the galleries, which range from compact rooms to vast, skylit spaces. Resisting the trend for flexible exhibition spaces, the MSN has opted for a fixed floor plan. On every floor, windows and balconies overlook the Palace of Culture on one side and a shopping centre on the other. “Moving through the building, you have different framed views of the city,” says Phifer.

The location of the MSN is fitting, as it sits between structures from Warsaw’s communist past and its subsequent commercial boom. “Poland was the best student in the class after 1989,” says Cichocki, referring to the country’s embrace of capitalism after the fall of the Iron Curtain. “But it always lacked a magnet.” It might be a few decades overdue but Polish art finally has a venue that stands on its own.
artmuseum.pl

Art: Mexico
Centre of attention

When José Noé Suro discovered a former funeral home in Guadalajara’s Americana district, he knew at once that it was where he would open the city’s latest art space, Plataforma. Not only was it central and in a creative area but the 1970s modernist site would also provide ample exhibition space. “The bones were perfect,” says Suro, who called on the expertise of architect Sergio Ortiz for the project.

Suro had long dreamt of an art hub that could provide a platform for the burgeoning regional talent that he already knew and worked with in his ceramics business. His collaborations have also included international designers and architects, such as Kelly Wearstler; he has welcomed artists in residence from across the globe too.

At Plataforma, Suro has brought in renowned curators – including Madrid-based Agustín Pérez Rubio, former director of Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León – to develop exhibitions with artists from Guadalajara and Mexico’s interior. Also on display are pieces from Suro’s private collection. Meanwhile, a bar just opened and a restaurant is in the works. “We will show visitors what is happening in the region,” he says.

Ballet: Australia
Q&A

David Hallberg
Artistic director, Australian Ballet

The Australian Ballet’s new production, Oscar, reimagines the life and work of Oscar Wilde through dance. It’s an ambitious commission that celebrates love in all of its forms. Here, David Hallberg, the company’s artistic director, tells Monocle about using Wilde’s life as source material, the power of storytelling and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s brilliance.

Why did you and Wheeldon bring this story to life?
The life and writings of Oscar Wilde have been explored before but never really in the ballet world. I want to tell bold stories that people can relate to.

Do you feel that you have broken new ground?
People have said so but that wasn’t the intention. Wilde wrote beautiful stories and also had a troubled existence. He was tried for gross indecency with young men, served two years of hard labour and died not too long after he got out of prison. We wanted to tell this honest story. I hope that this paves a new path for more courageous storytelling.

How do you create the building blocks of a character through dance?
It takes a great choreographer such as Wheeldon to evoke the wit and character of Oscar Wilde through movement. He has told Wilde’s story not through the words that he wrote but through the life that he led.

Music: UK
Playing it by ear

The Marquee Moon in northeast London is a bar of two halves. At ground level, you’ll see traces of its past life as a pub: an oak parquet floor, leaded windows with streaks of green stained glass. The formidable array of DJ equipment dotted around the building signals its new function as a listening bar. The downstairs space was once a club with “a little 60-capacity dance floor”, says co-founder Eugene Wild. Now it’s a sleek, seductive world of mid-century lamps and stools, half-moon booths made from teak and sapele, and banquettes, tiles and speaker grills in shades of deep orange.

The listening-bar concept has its roots in the jazz kissa – bars or cafés playing US jazz records that emerged in Japan in the late 1920s. Many of these venues banned talking, such was the veneration towards the perfect sound. In recent years, more relaxed interpretations of the idea have spread across the world.

Wild and his business partner Stuart Glen have worked together since 2018 and today run five businesses in London. The Marquee Moon was partly inspired by the fact that its customers were increasingly going to late night bars. “As they’re maturing, so are we,” says Wild.

The DJs who play here are briefed to steer clear of “run-of-the-mill” electronic dance music. “We know that these DJs have amazing record collections. So, we want to encourage them to play like they would in their living room to a bunch of mates.” The downstairs area is acoustically treated and the JBL speakers are rigged for quality, not volume. Unlike a traditional Japanese kissa, conversation is encouraged. And Wild promises the occasional airing of punk band Television’s 1977 album Marquee Moon, the bar’s namesake.
themarqueemoon.uk

Berlin’s Eternithaus returns to its roots

In 1957 the Hansaviertel, a quiet neighbourhood between Tiergarten and the river Spree, drew more than one million people to gawk at how good living in West Berlin could be. The occasion was a building exhibition, Interbau, where more than 50 leading architects, including Alvar Aalto and Oscar Niemeyer, had designed modern, near-nature homes that were in sharp contrast to the cramped Plattenbau being built in communist East Berlin. Today one of the Hansaviertel’s most beloved buildings, the Eternithaus, has been returned to its original purpose as a space for living well – and, perhaps, showing off a little. And this time around, it’s available for rent.

Fulds was founded by Sarah-Joan Fuld, who runs a design agency, and her brother David, who lives and works in the Eternithaus and runs a personnel company. The slender building has a glass-walled ground floor, topped by seven two-level maisonettes. “There were always people standing outside, looking in,” Sarah-Joan tells Monocle. “We thought that we needed to share this with other people.”

Sarah-Joan was already running The Fuld, a townhouse in Munich used for events. Keen for a Berlin project, David gradually took over leases as apartments freed up in the Eternihaus. After a two-year project to renovate and furnish the spaces, the ground-floor Glass Block Room and two maisonettes are now available to hire for meetings, dinners, exhibitions and parties.

The Eternithaus itself was designed by German architect Paul Baumgarten on a plot of land bordering Tiergarten. Tasked with making compact family homes, Baumgarten felt that it was improper to create gardens right next to Berlin’s most beautiful park. Instead, he chose to raise the homes and give them windows in three directions, plus large balconies that feel nestled among the trees. The building takes its name from its sponsor, Eternit, one of Germany’s largest manufacturers of construction materials. After Interbau, it became the site of the firm’s offices and employee homes.

David came across the Eternithaus in 2007, when he was seeking an office space for his fledgling firm Fuldwerk. “The ground floor had been empty for years and was in terrible shape,” he says. “There were seven layers of carpeting and plastic covering on all the windows.” He slowly returned the heritage-listed building to its former, airy character. As well as organising employee trainings, he often rents the space to film crews and friends – and has thrown many parties himself. But when more maisonettes were freed up, the siblings realised that there was potential to create an official venue. “We want to bring in life here,” says David.

First came a six-month effort to bring the apartments – many of which hadn’t been renovated in 40 years – up to scratch. Respectful of the original design, the pair laid new floors, updated a new bathroom and kitchen and painted the walls. Sarah-Joan handled the interiors. The furniture is almost all mid-century, acquired from dealers including Studio Schalling in Sweden and Morentz in the Netherlands, alongside Berber rugs sourced from Thomas Wild in Berlin.

No expense has been spared. Downstairs, meetings can be chaired around a 6.5-metre-long rosewood table, while the apartments have original Eero Saarinen tables and Jean Prouvé chairs. Some furniture is by architects who participated in Interbau, such as Arne Jacobsen’s Series 7 kitchen-table chairs. “We try to fill this, bit by bit, with really good things,” says Sarah-Joan. Contemporary accents come courtesy of Berlin-based designers and artists, including Gonzalez Haase’s triangular Lola light and works by Wolfgang Flad.

Despite the substantial investment of time and effort, the siblings are not too precious about the space and hope to host lively dinners and raucous parties. “You can always paint the walls,” says David with a glint in his eye. That is not to say that the Fulds aren’t picky about who they welcome into the Eternithaus. “If someone were to book an event and come in with ugly plastic tables – I would probably throw them out.”
fulds.berlin

Homeware brand Via Arno debuts to provide a commercial platform for artisans

After walking around this year’s Homo Faber, the Venice biennial dedicated to craftsmanship that took place in the grounds of a former monastery on the San Giorgio Maggiore island, visitors were invited to step into a quiet refuge tucked away next to the lagoon. This was the home of the event’s bookshop but also the first physical manifestation of something more ambitious: Via Arno, a new start-up from luxury behemoth Richemont. It made its debut this autumn. Its mission: to promote the “beauty and spirit of human making”.

Richemont, which owns jewellery and watch houses from Van Cleef & Arpels to Cartier, has long relied on craft to create best-in-class pieces. With Via Arno, the group is paying it forward by giving artisans a new global platform, connecting them with buyers and helping to safeguard their vocations.

Stepping inside Via Arno’s Venice pop-up feels like entering an impeccably decorated living room or, perhaps, given the corner bar and piano, the lobby of a hotel. A wall mural by Mayeul Gauvin is flanked by multiple mirrors; soft rugs and a host of other design objects are scattered throughout the space. At the centre of it all, Annia Spiliopoulos, CEO and co-founder of Via Arno, sweeps in to greet Monocle in a flowing red dress. A trained classical ballet dancer from Greece who went on to work in film and music, she is a long-time resident of London, where Via Arno is headquartered.

Spiliopoulos is clear about what Via Arno is and is not. “This is human-made craft,” she says. “Design comes into it but it’s not design. It’s the woodworker applying their skills, or a marquetry maker or candle maker.” In short, Via Arno aims to provide a commercial platform for artisans from around the globe to sell often bespoke or custom-made goods.

Spiliopoulos admits that she is still fine-tuning the details with her team but she envisions the bulk of Via Arno’s business being B2B. It will work with companies and architects that need to furnish homes or offices with unique pieces. Potential customers will be able to browse and shop on Via Arno’s soon-to-launch website. The platform will tell the stories of the 800 or so people it works with – a number set to grow as the company expands. The artisans, in turn, pay a service fee for each transaction.

The fledgling business doesn’t have plans for a permanent showroom for now, relying on select events such as Venice’s Homo Faber and online retail channels. When it comes to the latter, Spiliopoulos is keen to point out that Via Arno isn’t striving to be the next Amazon or Etsy. For one, people need to be happy to wait for what they’ve ordered; the artisans, each selected for their expertise, work at their own pace. “If you want to hit a certain level of excellence, it’s a smaller crowd,” she adds.

At first glance, the objects on display at the Homo Faber salon – from an espresso cup from Kihara in Japan to a stool from Brazil’s Fernando Mendes – may seem different to the rest of the Richemont portfolio. Founded by South African magnate Johann Rupert and based in Bellevue, Richemont has become an authority in jewellery and watches (Montblanc, A Lange & Söhne and Vacheron Constantin are also part of its portfolio) and has planted its foot in fashion with the likes of Dunhill and Chloé. But just as luxury conglomerates such as Chanel and LVMH have looked to safeguard craft by acquiring artisanal workshops and spearheading Métiers d’Art programmes, Richemont is equally committed to the idea. “Richemont has a tradition of long-term investing in craft,” says Spiliopoulos. “It’s a sensibility that cuts through the whole group.”

Richemont runs an annual craftsmanship programme that hunts for new talent in timepiece and jewellery making, while Rupert is also the co-founder of the non-profit Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship (which sponsors Homo Faber). Clearly, his connections in the craft world are helping to lay the foundations for Via Arno and will prove invaluable when the business looks to scale.

Like other Métiers d’Arts programmes looking to protect specific skills and traditions, there’s an existential element to Via Arno. Spiliopoulos and her team are aware of the ways in which machines have been eliminating craft jobs – a pattern bound to accelerate with the rise of artificial intelligence. Via Arno’s artisans are offered as the resistance to this shape-shifting world. “With the onset of rapid developments in technology, what is left of the human element in anything that we do?” says Spiliopoulos. Via Arno is a celebration of what its CEO calls “human faculties” and our ability to create beautiful objects that are the product of hours of toil and patience.

It’s an ambitious undertaking with a vast scope, spanning what Spiliopoulos broadly defines as “lifestyle”. While there are prerequisites – artisans must operate independently and be transparent about the provenance of the materials they use – a Via Arno item could be anything from a pair of earrings to a set of golf clubs or even a boat. In fact, an example of the latter is bobbing on the water a short walk from the Homo Faber site. A pristine vessel with distinctly mid-century aesthetics from Swedish builder J Craft, it comes in at more than €1m. Just like Spiliopoulos, who says that Via Arno works with artisans with at least a decade of experience, the craftspeople behind J Craft take time to mature. “I employed two people a few years ago with 20 years of experience in leisure boats,” says chief technical officer Johan Hallen. “I consider them boat builders but not ready to build a J Craft.”

As Via Arno navigates its own waters, it will have to question everything about the luxury landscape, even the definition of craft itself – a word so frequently used by brands that it has started to lose its meaning. How will Via Arno renew it? “Here [at Homo Faber] you’re starting to get a taste of what Via Arno stands for – and that’s the only way,” says Spiliopoulos. “I invite you to find something in here that, whether it’s to your taste or not, is not beautiful and made with love.”

These €70,000 bikes are helping German athletes to make faster tracks

Aspiring engineers in Germany typically do not have a hard time landing well-paid jobs. After graduating, almost all of Orfeo Nil’s classmates headed to Stuttgart or Munich for well-cushioned careers in the car industry. For his internship, however, the Brazilian-born 27-year-old sought out a nondescript workshop in Schöneweide, southeast Berlin. When he meets Monocle, he is wearing protective glasses and polishing a black carbon-fibre disc. The component will become the wheel of one of the world’s fastest track bicycles. “There’s no other bike like the ones made at FES,” he says.

FES is short for Institut für Forschung und Entwicklung von Sportgeräten, the state-funded organisation that propels Germany’s athletes to victory. The institute produces kit used by Olympians across 14 sports, including most that Germany excels in: cycling, rowing and canoeing in the Summer Games; luge, bobsleigh and skeleton in winter. Though this year’s Olympics were disappointing for Germany, FES was involved in almost a third of the country’s medals. In the 2022 Winter Games, its share was more than 75 per cent.

With a staff of 90 – mostly lean Germans with aerodynamic buzz cuts – everything is manufactured from start to finish across FES’s three floors, which contain offices as well as carbon-fibre and steel workshops. “We cover so many sports, with everything under one roof,” says director Michael Nitsch. “I don’t think there is anything comparable in the world.”

FES was founded in 1963, when this part of Berlin was inside the GDR. With the Cold War as a motivator, East and West Germany were often racing helmet to helmet in Olympic velodromes. Many of FES’s bicycle innovations were quickly adopted across the Iron Curtain, including making frames from carbon fibre and switching from spokes to disc wheels. Preserved post-reunification, the institute works with a modest budget – about €10m in 2024. Only a few firms can rival the wheels moulded at FES. “Regulators often look for features that only FES have and ban them,” says Nitsch. “We take it as a compliment.”

At the workshops, the manufacturing process begins with the frame, made almost entirely from carbon fibre. It arrives pre-mixed with glue and rolled up like a textile, before being cut, moulded and baked into shape. “You have three things to think about: the feet, the hands and the ass,” says Nitsch. “The secret is how you position these things.” But this humility is partly obfuscation. The B20, FES’s latest model used at the Paris Games, is made from more than 500 components – all individually engineered and moulded in-house. The improvements included a tweaked fork (the bit that connects the wheel to the frame) and a carbon-fibre crank (the part that the chains bolt onto). “At this level, the improvements are tiny tweaks,” says Nitsch. “Everything counts.”

When Monocle asks whether we can take a bicycle out for a spin, Nitsch looks appalled. “We don’t even let these bikes roll on normal floors,” he says. “It makes no sense.” Only professional athletes – as well as the occasional lucky intern – are welcomed into the FES velodrome. Still, there is hope. Olympic regulations stipulate that all gear used by athletes must be commercially available, so FES bikes are for sale. These Weltspitze wheels could yet be ours – for a mere €70,000.

How chef Fabrizia Lanza is reviving Sicily’s culinary roots

“The allure of Sicily is that it is a small continent of unique flavours, with each part having its own identity,” says Fabrizia Lanza as she prepares a dish in the kitchen of her cookery school. “We have mountains, rolling hills and the sea. The soil is different – think of the rich volcanic terroir around Etna – and ingredients are distinctive. Food is varied, so a dish that you find in Messina might not exist in Catania.”

Born in Palermo to an aristocratic family, Lanza opted to leave her homeland behind at 18 years old to study art history in Florence. After almost two decades working at museums in northern Italy, the siren call of home lured her back to Sicily, where she decided to take up the torch and manage the culinary school set up by her mother in 1989. Nestled on the 600-hectare Regaleali estate, where her family has busied itself making wine for eight generations under the Tasca d’Almerita label, the school teaches students about Sicilian cuisine, from traditions and cooking techniques to ingredients.

There is much to learn about the island’s food, aside from classics such as ricotta-filled cannoli and pasta alla norma. Over the centuries, a succession of invaders brought new ingredients to Sicily and transformed its agricultural practices, leaving a lasting mark on the region’s culinary scene. “It’s a melting pot,” says Lanza with a sense of animation. “The Arabs brought sugar cane to us, so we started to make candied fruit and marzipan. Then the Spanish brought us the tomato and potato, which revolutionised our cuisine.”

The Anna Tasca Lanza school’s team of 12 welcomes more than 250 students every year, attracting a range of travellers from places as afar afield as North America and Australia. Even prominent chefs have enjoyed spells at the institution, including Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and Beirut’s Kamal Mouzawak. Some visit as part of a food-focused holiday to learn how to prepare specific recipes, such as stuffed calamari with currants and pine nuts, while those working in hospitality stay longer. The six-week Cook the Farm course, for example, is designed for anyone interested in food production. It involves trips to an olive-oil press and a flour mill, where students learn about ancient grains.

Foraging and on-site work in the school’s garden are part of the process. “These activities get people thinking about the environment and the produce,” says Lanza. Classes and meals take place within the idyllic Case Vecchie, a collection of stone structures from the 1830s surrounding a courtyard. Fig, lemon and orange trees frame the property, while a majestic old pine tree leads down to a swimming pool where attendees can unwind in the afternoon to beat the fierce Sicilian heat.

During Monocle’s visit, Lanza and her students take a trip to a local ricotta producer. She then whips up fried courgette blossoms for lunch in the school’s cosy kitchen space while Francesca Farris, the co-ordinator of Cook the Farm, gathers herbs in the garden. Meals are paired with wines made on the estate at the Tasca d’Almerita winery, a short drive up the road, and feature indigenous grape varietals such as grillo, nero d’avola and perricone.

Lanza emphasises the importance of seasonal cooking to her pupils and prepares food using regional ingredients. Some of these components, including ornate breads, are derived from religious festivals such as the feast of St Joseph, which takes place in March. Lanza has committed many of her recipes to paper through cookbooks that chronicle the incredible array of dishes found on the island. Her latest title, The Food of Sicily: Recipes from a Sun-drenched Culinary Crossroads, documents 75 of her most-loved dishes, from savoury to sweet creations. One of her favourite recipes in the book is cassatelle: ricotta-filled turnovers, from the area around Trapani, which locals nibble on at breakfast. Lanza enjoys dispelling myths about Sicilian food. “Most people have this stereotype that our cuisine is very spicy because the island is close to north Africa. But this is not so,” she says. “We derive flavour from ingredients such as capers, wild fennel and oregano.”

During her time at the school, an increasing number of young people have begun signing up for classes; there is lodging on the site for up to 14 guests. “When my mother started her classes, we mainly received older students and retirees; often Italian-Americans reconnecting with their roots,” she says. “Nowadays, it’s encouraging to see more people in their twenties and thirties coming to learn about cooking with fresh, quality ingredients.”

With so much delicious Sicilian produce, from olives and grapes to dense, pulpy tomatoes and squash, Lanza and her team stay busy by gathering and preparing meals. “The island truly is a bounty,” she says, savouring the taste of her words. “Take citrus as an example. There are vanilla oranges, blood oranges and lemons here. It’s a triumph.”

Lanza is also committed to exploring the lesser-known parts of Sicily’s culinary heritage. Her latest cookbook mentions a recipe for roasted cardoon – a thistle-like plant – drizzled in honey, which is traditionally consumed on a saint’s feast day. “This contrast between bitterness and sweetness is at the core of our religious festivals. It resembles life: a bittersweet story.”

Lanza is adamant that her school not only serves to pass on tradition and prepare regional specialities but also carves out space to experiment by engaging with outsiders such as chefs and journalists to exchange ideas about food. “Sicily has always been at the crossroads of the Mediterranean,” she says. “It’s a place where people have brought their own unique customs to enrich our table.”
annatascalanza.com

Pasta alla norma
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
Vegetable oil, for frying
900g firm aubergine, cut into 4 cm cubes
Fine sea salt
450g dried ziti or other tubular pasta
480ml high-quality tomato sauce, warmed
115g ricotta salata, grated
Handful of coarsely chopped fresh basil

Method
1.
Pour about 5ml of oil into a wide, heavy-bottomed pot and place over medium heat until hot enough to fry in.

2.
Once the oil is ready, lower the aubergine cubes into the pot. Do this in batches if needed to avoid crowding them in the oil. Fry the cubes for about 5 minutes, flipping occasionally, until golden brown all over. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the fried aubergine onto a wire rack or kitchen roll to drain. Sprinkle with salt.

3.
Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling, salted water until al dente.

4.
Transfer the pasta to a large serving bowl along with warmed tomato sauce, half of the grated ricotta salata and half of the basil. Toss gently to combine. Pile the fried aubergine over the pasta and top with the remaining ricotta and basil. Serve immediately. This recipe is taken from ‘The Food of Sicily: Recipes from a Sun-drenched Culinary Crossroads’ by Fabrizia Lanza.

Intelligent digital tools are reinventing peacemaking in Finland

From her office on Helsinki’s South Harbour, Johanna Poutanen can see the Presidential Palace, where Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin met for talks in 2018. Finland’s capital was also the favoured city for Cold War summits between US presidents and their Soviet counterparts and it remains popular with peacemakers thanks to the country’s history of neutrality and reputation for diplomacy. But in her role as head of digital peacemaking at the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) – also known as the Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation – Poutanen says that she wants to bolster Finland’s diplomatic savvy with innovative solutions for resolving conflicts. “Digital tools can help us analyse, visualise and present data to enhance understanding in mediation contexts, reach stakeholders who are difficult to engage in peace negotiations and disseminate critical information more effectively,” says Poutanen, who has just concluded a tender process for providers of “peace tech”, technology designed to help prevent or end conflict.

CMI has already used the AI-powered analytics tool Remesh to understand women’s priorities for peace talks in Sudan. In Yemen it used the Inclus platform to build consensus between political groups by visualising their agreements and disagreements. Elsewhere, Project Didi, which is based in Israel, uses “ripeness theory” to explain why parties in peace negotiations might be hostile to a proposed agreement at first but later agree to the very same terms. The Human Rights Data Analysis Group in San Francisco documents human-rights violations and verifies casualty data with machine learning. Peace Geeks in Vancouver operates a messaging platform for Ugandan victims of war crimes.

The trouble is that large data sets and data-driven tools for making peace can easily be turned against the people who they are aiming to protect. Take “big data” firm Palantir, which uses AI to analyse satellite images, open-source data, drone footage and on-the-ground reports. Lauded for helping to clear landmines and resettle refugees in Ukraine, Palantir, part-funded by the CIA’s venture-capital arm, is contracted to use the same technologies to supply information on targets for military forces. In the wrong hands, such tools could be exploited and used to attack vulnerable populations or manipulate peace negotiations.

We need strong regulations for the safe, ethical and moral use of peace tech. “Data protection and security are an absolute priority,” says Tim Epple, managing director of Edinburgh University’s PeaceRep initiative. “The challenge is preventing dual use of peace tech. Imagine, for example, if data collected on the ethnicity of respondents in a conflict zone gets into the hands of nefarious actors.”

Policing peace tech, which is often deployed in fragile states where governance is weak and accountability non-existent, won’t be easy. Can individual nations be trusted any more than big business or entrepreneurs to use technology for peaceful purposes? Of course, we’ll need top-down oversight by global institutions, such as the UN, itself a significant peace-tech developer, and a legally binding international treaty that expands the jurisdiction of war-crimes tribunals to cover the unethical use of peace tech.

But we should also use technology such as blockchain to track and publicly record the development and sale of any tech that could be misused, and mandate that all peace-tech systems have a “kill switch” if they’re found to be used for warfare. An international team of digital peacekeepers and cyber experts must be empowered to intervene, neutralising threats of peace-tech misuse in conflict situations. Ethical hackers swapping red hats for blue berets might be our best bet for ensuring that technology makes peace, not war.

How to get dressed: Maria Lemos’s pearls of wisdom

Maria Lemos certainly knows how to dress the part. The Greek-born entrepreneur has been running Mouki Mou, one of the most elegant retail addresses on London’s Chiltern Street, for more than a decade. Meanwhile, her showroom Rainbowwave represents best-in-class brands from around the world, from Athens’ leading jeweller, Ileana Makri, to artisanal Spanish label Masscob. Her knowledge of craft, textiles and the best makers to watch is practically endless – for autumn, she recommends keeping an eye on Parisian brand Carven. “We just introduced Carven to Mouki Mou – it’s exactly what I want to wear now,” she says.

A sharp point of view and an appreciation for quality inform everything that Lemos does. Whether she is dressing herself, selecting new labels to stock in her boutiques or choosing a location for her next project, she’s not one to follow trends or veer away from her own aesthetic. “I don’t ever want to be anywhere other than Chiltern Street,” she says, speaking of m.ii, a new shop she opened down the road from the original Mouki Mou. “It was about evolution, not just about having a second space. I don’t believe in duplication.”

Lemos has equally strong opinions when it comes to design and, as evidence, points to her longstanding collaboration with architect William Russell. For the interiors of m.ii, the pair created “a darker, richer environment” that features cork flooring, Cornish clay plaster walls and Portland stone shelving.

Over the years, Lemos has learnt to create a separation when shopping for her customers, rather than for herself. Still, she remains her best ambassador and her impeccable taste filters through to her shopfloor. m.ii, which also marks her first foray into menswear, carries handmade shirts by Oliver Church and mountain-inspired vests by Rier, both based in Paris, as well as oversized coats by Japanese label Arts & Science. Here, she shares insights on building an ageless wardrobe.

How do you shop for yourself?
I rarely do – in fact I only shop at the end of the Mouki Mou sales. I keep saying that I want to see my mistakes. I was recently wearing a wool Lemaire dress that I picked up at the end of the season because no one else had bought it, yet I kept getting compliments on it. These clothes are ageless by nature; you can wear items from years ago and everything fits together. You’re building a wardrobe over time – but that does require a level of confidence.

How did you find that confidence in your choices?
Something happens when you hit your mid-fifties – you really know where you’re going. Until then, you’re always trying different things out. It’s about knowing yourself and bouncing things off the people around you. That’s why I like being around young, creative people.

What does luxury mean to you, especially when it comes to your fashion choices?
In the past, for many people it was about buying into [established] brands, which have become oversaturated. I felt more luxurious when I was in Marseille and visited Maison Empereur, which sells cookware. Niwaki [also on Chiltern Street] offers the most luxurious experience: buying tools in a beautiful environment. You go to [London butcher] The Ginger Pig and it’s luxurious. Buying clothes should be the same; it should feel personal.

What are some of your most treasured pieces?
I keep pieces that are more than 30 years old and it’s all about quality. They might have cost a fortune at the time but they remain in amazing condition and I still wear them.

Any recommendations for the new autumn/winter season?
I love suiting and a black dress – [New York label] Fforme has done an amazing new column shape. I’d also suggest a pair of Marsèll heeled shoes in rust – I like the idea of a surprise colour – plus, a pearl necklace. Ileana Makri has done a special one for Mouki Mou that blends pearls and antique beads. That’s about it: a great pair of shoes, a black dress, pearls and I’m done.
moukimou.com

Simone Bellotti’s uncompromising vision for Bally

Picture Switzerland and you’ll think of high-end watches, artisanal chocolate, world-class financial services and the Alps. Luxury fashion, however, hasn’t traditionally been on that list. That was particularly true in recent years, as the country’s flagship fashion label, Bally, navigated choppy waters. The 173-year-old brand had been in a state of flux while its owner, German conglomerate jab, looked for a new buyer. In May 2023, however, Italian designer Simone Bellotti took over as design director and the label has swiftly turned things around. It was one of the most lauded labels at this year’s Milan Fashion Week, found a new backer in US investment firm Regent and now has the opportunity to turn over a new leaf.

Bellotti, who joined Bally from Gucci, worked quickly and with conviction, returning the label to its Swiss roots and defining a new Mitteleuropean silhouette along the way. In his hands, Switzerland’s well-rehearsed tropes have been worked into chic wardrobe staples, piquing the interest of international retailers including Luisaviaroma and Net-a-Porter, which began investing in the brand for the first time. “Bellotti has asserted a new vision for the brand that is synonymous with Bally’s heritage,” says Katie Benson, buying director at Net-a-Porter. “We expect him to move from strength to strength, with his ability to balance fashion and function.”

By achieving this delicate balance and staying focused on the company’s roots, the designer has been able to command the attention of fashion critics and consumers alike – something that his predecessors, who had been caught in the trap of jumping on trends and resorting to the conventional marketing playbook, repeatedly failed to do. “Bally’s leather pieces, Mary Jane shoes, jackets featuring new proportions and oversized men’s totes are now filling our wardrobes,” says Marta Gramaccioni, buying director at Florentine retailer Luisaviaroma, another new partner.

Behind the scenes, the Bally team, which is now split between Milan and Caslano, is rejoicing after years of uncertainty. In 2020 a sale to Chinese textile group Shandong Ruyi fell apart in public, as did an earlier attempt to get the business back on track by hiring Los Angeles-based Rhuigi Villaseñor, founder of streetwear label Rhude. Villaseñor’s strategy for reviving Bally – riffing on streetwear, celebrity culture and 1990s fashion – was at odds with a brand built on family values, pragmatism and the craft of shoemaking. Unsurprisingly, the collaboration ended after two seasons.

Bellotti’s vision is starkly different. “I wanted to play with clichés,” he tells Monocle, while walking through Bally’s showroom in a prime corner of Milan’s Porta Venezia. He picks up one of the biggest hits from his debut collection: the Bally Belle, a handbag structured in thick leather to evoke the shape of a cowbell. It’s the clearest example of Bellotti’s playful rummage through the brand’s history and wider Helvetian culture. The collection hanging in the cavernous showroom, a former cinema, gives a first impression of cool composure, with wool coats in army green and preppy polo shirts stitched with the Bally family crest. But upon closer inspection, you’ll spot lace-up work boots and leather skirts studded with tiny shepherds and edelweiss.

Another hit is a pair of Mary Janes, a flapper-era strapped shoe that has enjoyed a surge in popularity this year. Its basic design has been in the label’s archives since 1923; Bellotti simply updated it. “Any style of shoe that you can imagine, Bally has already done it,” says the designer, who has developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of Swiss history. He cites Monte Verità, an early-20th-century commune of artists and intellectuals on the shores of Lake Maggiore, as a source of inspiration. He has also introduced the Ballyrina, a dainty shoe stamped on the sole with the image of a dancer, with the word Bally forming the shape of the tutu. The logo is also an archival find that dates back to the 1940s, when wartime import restrictions prompted the company to offer Swiss-made dancing shoes.

Focusing on footwear is a smart move, not only because it’s one of the most appealing categories for entry-level buyers but also because it’s at the heart of Bally’s history. The brand was founded in 1851 in the village of Schönenwerd by Carl Franz Bally, a ribbon manufacturer who was inspired to pivot to shoemaking after a trip to Paris. Carl Franz was a keen businessman. The company started expanding internationally as early as the 1920s, turning Schönenwerd into an industrial hub. From its founding until 2000, Bally produced more than 150 million pairs of shoes.

The brand has always riffed on its Swiss heritage. Its signature handbags and trainers usually feature a red-and-white cotton stripe that nods to the company’s origins as a ribbon-weaving factory. The trend in the wider industry of abandoning traditions, redesigning logos and switching out staff is a relatively recent phenomenon, the result of a feverish game of musical chairs between fashion houses and creative directors. But that has never appealed to Bellotti. Instead, he wanted to immerse himself in Bally’s vast archives.

The Ballyana Museum in Schönenwerd stores every shoe model that Bally has made since 1851 and, in true Swiss form, they’re all meticulously preserved and catalogued. “There’s a whole world inside,” says Bellotti. “You can see the evolution of dressing and of society at large.” The Bally family has also amassed a museum-grade shoe collection from across the globe that rivals that of any big luxury house. Bellotti has spent a lot of time here opening boxes containing Inuit shoes or ancient Roman sandals. “Of course, you have so many ideas when you’re lucky enough to be working with such an archive,” he says.

Inspired by his discoveries, he has continued to print red-and-white stripes on Bally’s leather handbags, including a popular series of satchels, while tags with the family crest are proudly sewn on the sleeves of blazers and knits. His autumn-winter 2024 collection, titled Der Wanderer, was inspired by Engadin folk myths about a double-tailed siren that lures fishermen to drown in icy lakes. Also on Bellotti’s mood board were Appenzeller folk costumes that disguise people as trees, as well as portraits of Zürich’s 1960s rebel youth. The references inform his collections in subtle and often humorous ways, from the Fair Isle patterns fashioned into a pair of knitted shorts to the subtle flaring of the hem of a winter frock.

Bellotti says that brands should be built like personalities. “There’s the more serious part of us that helps us to make sensible decisions in life,” he says. “But nobody wants to be serious all of the time. But we also have a more irrational side.” He credits this philosophy to his time working with former Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele, who also succeeded in turning around the fortunes of a heritage brand – a luxury house that was founded, as Bellotti points out, 70 years after Bally. “You can create anything with your imagination,” he says. “What emerges is an inner world.”

In fashion, convincingly capturing that world is like hitting the jackpot. Bellotti seems to be well on his way to accomplishing this. The investment from Regent and the expected appointment of a new CEO (Nicolas Girotto, who helmed the label since 2019, stepped down in September, shortly after the acquisition) will give him an even bigger boost and allow him the luxury of time when it comes to executing his turnaround strategy. Despite the warm reception to Bellotti’s collections, Bally has not embarked on a marketing blitz. Meanwhile, the brand has flagship shops in Milan, London and New York from before Bellotti’s time but, so far, he has made no effort to overhaul them. “Bellotti and Regent are paving a clear relaunch strategy, sharpening Bally’s brand image and product offering,” says Mario Ortelli, managing partner of the luxury advisory M&A firm Ortelli & Co. “Once those areas of the business are developed, they will also be able to work on distribution and translate the progress that they have been making into higher revenues and margins.”

The creative director is clearly having fun. In the showroom, he picks up the Scribe, one of Bally’s more classic styles. Max Bally, a grandson of Carl Franz, designed the slim men’s dress shoe in 1951 to celebrate the brand’s centenary. Most shoes are made in Caslano in a process that involves more than 200 steps from start to finish. That level of craft can even surprise a high-fashion veteran such as Bellotti. “The stitches are perfect,” he says, looking closely at the pinpricks of thread that hold the leather in place. “Very few factories can still make shoes this well.” The only adjustment that Bellotti has made is to widen the toes by a few millimetres.

“Can you guess what this is?” he asks, pointing to the tip of the shoe. Here, the outer edge of the sole is curved slightly inwards. Barely half a centimetre thick, the concave detail could easily go unnoticed. Bellotti explains that the feature, called the double lambris, is designed to function as a tiny rain guard that directs water away from the leather of the shoe in wet weather. Despite a 23-year career spent at Europe’s top fashion houses, Bellotti had never come across such intricate functional details until he arrived at Bally. “I’m learning things,” he says.

Bally’s collections are produced with the same precision and know-how as watches in Le Brassus or chocolates in Vevey. “They know how to make things well,” says Bellotti. “That has been the constant over all of these years.” Everyone knows what Swiss quality means. Bellotti is just bringing this into our closets.
bally.com

Three designers who are setting the industry’s agenda, from typography to spiritual architecture

1.
The typographer
Mark Gowing
Graphic designer, Sydney, Australia

Mark Gowing is an Australian artist and designer whose 30-year career has been typified by type. His explorations of letters and language has been widely deployed across a range of fonts. He’s also a graphic designer, having worked on type for Artspace Sydney, identity and branding for Hopscotch Films and poster design for Euroluce Lighting.

It’s work that has seen Gowing win a gold medal at the International Poster Biennale in Warsaw – becoming the first Australian to do so – as well as awards from type organisations in the US, Japan and Mexico. In 2013 he was welcomed into the AGI (Alliance Graphique Internationale), a global group of leading practitioners. Additionally, as an artist, Gowing’s regular pilgrimages to the edges of typographic abstraction are increasingly informing his design work.

As Gowing prepares to launch his new type practice, The Letters, Monocle visits his home and studio in Newtown, Sydney, to chat about his new company, the future of design amid constant disruption and why he no longer views himself as multidisciplinary.

When did you discover design?
When I was about 13 or 14, my grandfather showed me the typography book he made when he studied signwriting. I still have this book full of his typography. He used to catch me drawing structural things and copying logos. He explained to me what typography was and I thought, “Yeah, that’s cool.”

So being an artist was never on the cards?
Growing up in country New South Wales, becoming an artist wasn’t really an option. I got work experience at a children’s book publisher on the Central Coast and just locked into it. By 16, I was hired as an apprentice and left school to start work. It was an amazing environment and the art directors just kept throwing me into the deep end and moving me around into different roles. It’s served me so well. Just get dirty and don’t be precious about your place in it all; that matters in the end but it doesn’t matter in the beginning.

When did you start designing typefaces?
I’ve been designing typefaces since the digital boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Apple Mac changed design and there was a big rift, of digital versus analogue, that was really exciting to be around. Digital font software made designing your own fonts accessible. Before that you were drawing types by hand and you couldn’t reproduce them effectively and efficiently. Suddenly you could design a font, key it in and use it in your own work.

It’s interesting, in light of the disruption facing design right now, that you saw the digital font boom as an opportunity.
The one thing that’s always defined the design industry is that it’s never been the same. Change is the only constant. I’ve never known it to be anything but that. I walked in the door as computers started happening, so I saw nothing but change from day one. It’s normal, healthy and good. What matters is thinking – and if you’re really worried about machines taking your job then I’m not sure you’re actually thinking. A generation grew up casting type out of metal but I would never have been able to make type without computers. So yes, there’ll be loss along the way but you can survive by relying on your thinking rather than your mechanical output.

You established Mark Gowing Studio in 1997. What will The Letters do differently?
I realised that I really needed to focus on the way that I practise because it has become very diverse and difficult to manage. So the entirety of my design practice will be officially typographically led. The Letters will offer retail fonts but we’ll also help customers with their trademark, their logotypes and high-level typographic problems. We’ll work on installations, posters and publications, and assist with all the normal design challenges but from a typographic point of view.

Has your expansion into fine arts changed your approach to design?
For a long time, design influenced my art but now art is starting to affect how I design things. If you look at the Bauhaus movement, they taught design as an art. Kurt Schwitters and Josef Albers didn’t say, “I’m doing design now, I’m doing art now.” They just made and didn’t really differentiate. I no longer see art and design as two things; it’s not as clear-cut to me as it once was. I don’t think of myself as wearing two hats. Instead I just feel like I’m wearing one big, weird hat.
theletters.co

2.
The craftsman
Ini Archibong
Industrial designer, Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Nigerian-American industrial designer Ini Archibong is known for work that taps into heritage and craft traditions. As part of Craft x Tech, a cross-cultural initiative that pairs craftspeople from Japan’s Tohoku region with international creators, Archibong recently collaborated with artisans who specialise in tsugaru nuri, a type of layered lacquerware. “Don’t ask me about the Karaoke nights in Japan,” he laughs. The result is Artifact #VII, a playful egg-shaped piece that emits a sound when you hover your hand over it.

You like to include spirituality in your design practice. Why is that?
Simply put, when I started on the journey to becoming a creator it was a spiritual mission. It took me out of a more mundane perspective on what I was here [on this planet] to do. For better or worse, being a designer is more than a job. I don’t necessarily design from a place of practicality. I make functional things but the way that they come about is intuitive.

Where does your inclination towards world-building come from?
Fantasy, comics, movies, cartoons. As a kid, I was in church on Sunday and reading every day. I loved books by CS Lewis and L Frank Baum. When I would read them, I was in a different world; it was my escape.

How does this translate to the project with the craftspeople of  Tohoku?
It was an amazing project to work on with the craftspeople, who went beyond lacquer: it’s the layers, the texture, all these things that give it the pattern it has. I love design that’s chaotic and that feels organic. The piece also emits sound, which reacts to your presence. It’s part of a wider series of artefacts that fit in to what I call a “mythology of the children of the diaspora”.

Which diaspora are you referring to?
That’s the question. It starts from the West African diaspora that I come from but there’s going to come a point, with a more globalised future, where everyone will be part of a diaspora. My goal with these pieces is to retell some of the mythology that has been told over the centuries in a new context, with a mentality focused on a globalised humanity. I keep it vague so people can fill in the gaps.
designbyini.com

3.
The spiritualist
Alison Brooks
Architect, London, UK

Following her graduation from Ontario’s University of Waterloo, Canadian-born, London-based architect Alison Brooks worked with Ron Arad before establishing her namesake practice in 1996. “I really wanted to work on public projects and housing, which was different to what I was working on with Ron,” she tells Monocle from the ground floor of her newly finished mixed-use building, Cadence, in Kings Cross. “Housing is the critical social and civic project of architecture because it impacts daily quality of life for its residents and the public.” It’s an ambition that she has since fulfilled, working on a host of award-winning residences and multi-residential housing projects across the globe. Here, Brooks elucidates on architectural spirituality and how best to translate the intangible – community, connection, nature – into bricks and mortar.

You established your practice in 1996. How did your early projects inform your work?
The first two commissions I had were the results of the only two letters I wrote when I first started, which is incredible. One resulted in the VXO House in London, which was the first private residence I designed. As an architect, such projects are remarkable because, when you design somebody’s private house, it must stand up to scrutiny every day from the same person – so you really have to master every detail.

Tell us about your latest project, Cadence.
It’s situated on an irregular shaped plot and has 163 apartments in the scheme. I always try to bring unexpected moments to my work and with Cadence it came in the form of its arches. It felt like a bit of a leap of faith because it sometimes feels like arches have been banished in contemporary architecture. The key thing with this design, though, is that the arches are at different heights and have different widths, which respond to the building’s structural irregularity and introduces dynamism. It means that Cadence looks it’s walking, in a kind of animal-like way, because there’s no order or rhythm to its arches. Its structure is more lyrical and organic, which helps make it feel more human.

What other methods do you use to make architecture feel more human?
The way I work is to try to respond to context in a meaningful way; context is everything in architecture. Context can be physical, cultural or even spiritual, which is something that I’ve been starting to think about more consciously. This comes partly from working in Canada and learning from its indigenous people’s worldview and way of thinking, and tapping into animism – the idea that nature is made up of beings with which we can form relationships. It also comes from spending summers in the Canadian wilderness; when you’re alone out there you really need to believe that nature is on your side.

How can this outlook relate to architecture more broadly?
We’re all trying to find ways of practising in a more sustainable and responsible way in response to the climate crisis but there’s also a crisis of meaning. We can start to address this by recalibrating our relationship with nature and bringing spirituality into our way of thinking about architecture. Architects talk about a sense of place a lot but there’s a spirit of place too. We also need to address social value and try to make places that help people feel like they belong to a community and place. Feeling at home somewhere is fundamental to human wellbeing.

How do you translate something intangible – spirituality, community and connection – into something tangible?
One of the ways this can be done is through form and materials. With Cadence, we used a particular orange-red brick which emphasised the mass of the building but also paid tribute to George Gilbert Scott and his masterful work at the nearby St Pancras Hotel and Station. A similar effect can also be achieved by tapping into both collective and personal memory. For example, by using elongated bricks and terrazzo for the public spaces in Cadence, the Venetian architecture that inspired both myself and Scott is evoked. On other projects, like Oxford’s Cohen Quad, I’ve used American black cherry, as a tribute to my mother who loved the material and sparked my interest in architecture.

Given that your focus is on residential architecture, how do you feel when a project is complete and people move in?
It’s like taking your child to their wedding; you kiss them goodbye and off they go to live their life. The building will change and you have to accept that. But if people are using it, it shows that they want to invest in the place.
alisonbrooksarchitects.com