Watch our talk with Irthi Contemporary Craft Council about empowering women in the UAE through craft

Dezeen has teamed up with Irthi Contemporary Craft Council to host a panel discussion exploring how contemporary design can help to empower local artisans and craftswomen in the UAE. Tune in here tomorrow live from 9am London time.

Based in Sharjah – one of the seven Emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates – the Irthi Contemporary Craft Council runs programmes that aim to support and empower local female artisans and craftswomen across the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast and Central Asia.

Together with a network of international architects, designers and artists, the council works with female makers at a local level to give them the means, knowledge and market insight to support themselves through their craft, while also preserving the region's craft traditions for future generations.

Jewellery designer Alia Bin Omair

In 2019, the council presented their first collection of design objects in an exhibition during London Design Festival.

The council paired 12 international designers and architects with 40 female Bedouin artisans living on the east coast of Sharjah to create a collection of products using ancient craft techniques from the region.

Farah Nasri, Irthi Contemporary Craft Council

Moderated by Dezeen's editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs, the panel will feature Farah Nasri, the council's assistant manager of curation and design, who will give an insight into the organisation and its aims.

Also appearing is jewellery designer Alia bin Omair, architect Faysal Tabbarah and designer and architect Abdalla Almulla – three of the 12 creatives who worked together with the Bedouin craftswomen for the council's premiere collection.

The three creatives will speak about their work with Irthi Contemporary Craft Council and discuss how the collaboration with the Bedouin artisans changed their view on their own practice.

The panel will also address the value in pairing local artisans with design practices and discuss how it can create long-term and sustainable economic empowerment for female makers in the UAE.

Abdalla Almulla, MULA

It will also explore what function artists, designers and artisans serve to a region's heritage and contemporary culture.

Based in Dubai, Bin Omair founded her jewellery brand in 2016, which uses materials and objects local to the UAE. For the exhibition, Bin Omair collaborated with craftswomen on a collection of gold cast jewellery inspired by the ancient technique of safeefah weaving.

Tabbarah is the co-founder of Architecture + Other Things, an architecture and design practice based in Sharjah and Aarhus, Denmark. For their contribution to the collection, the practice collaborated with local artisans to create a series of chairs and tables using sand and rocks.

Almulla is the founder of Dubai-based architecture and design practice Mula, who worked together with Barcelona-based ceramicist Pepa Reverter on a collection of sculptural clay totems that can be deconstructed to function as stools or tables.

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David Adjaye, Forensic Architecture and Daniel Libeskind donate works to support black women in architecture school

David Adjaye's gold sketch of multifaith complex The Abrahamic Family House and Mark Foster Gage's satirical plan for a Trump presidential library are among works for sale in an auction fundraising to support black women in architecture school.

Organised by architectural initiative ARCH, the auction launches today and will run for one week to raise funds for a scholarship programme for black women.

"To tackle systemic racism in the field of architecture and design, we need to make studying these subjects more accessible to aspiring black, indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) architects, who have historically been underrepresented and under-supported," said ARCH, which stands for Architecture for Change.

Top: David Adjaye's sketch of The Abrahamic Family House. Above: Daniel Libeskind's drawing of the Jewish Museum is in the auction

Nearly 70 architects and designers have donated architectural works to the auction including Daniel Libeskind, Hector Esrawe, Jennifer Bonner, David Rockwell, Jerome Byron, Sean Griffiths and Perry Kulper.

Among the items for sale is American-Polish architect Libeskind's charcoal sketch of his Jewish Museum in Berlin, which composed of a print with a hand drawing on top.

Also up for auction is Adjaye's drawing of The Abrahamic Family House realised in 24-karat gold leaf, and research agency Forensic Architecture's image of its Triple-Chaser project, which used machine learning to verify objects in human rights violations such as tear gas grenades and chemical weapons.

Michel Rojkind has contributed a laser-cut MDF model of his firm's concrete concert hall Foro Boca

ARCH will donate 100 per cent of net proceeds from the auction to the Desiree V Cooper Memorial Fund, which was established by the Architects Foundation in memory of the late, black female architect Desiree V Cooper.

Architects Foundation, which is the American Institute of Architect's philanthropic arm, said it aims to address the fact that black women are "hugely underrepresented", citing the statistic that less than 500 black women are licensed architects in the US.

Other items for sale include Triple-Chaser by Forensic Architecture

Originally founded in 2015, the scholarship was relaunched this year to support black women in their architecture studies at any National Architectural Accrediting Board accredited institution. Each recipient will receive $25,000 towards their education.

"With critical volunteer interest and support, Architects Foundation was able to relaunch fundraising for this award in 2020 and will award our first scholarship in 2021,” said James Walbridge, president of the Architects Foundation.

"Help us continue the momentum and honour Desiree's memory by creating a pathway to equity in architecture."

Mark Foster Gage created this  floor plan for an imaginary presidential library for Donald Trump

Mexican architect Michel Rojkind has donated a laser-cut MDF model of his firm's concrete concert hall Foro Boca and American architect Foster Gage is giving away a floor plan of an imaginary presidential library for Donald Trump.

Other architects, designers and studios who have contributed to the auction are Leroy Street Studio, Hernan Diaz Alonso, FreelandBuck, and Jean Pierre Crousse.

Items in the auction, like Fast Twitch by Perry Kulper, will form part of a digital archive

ARCH has teamed up with London-based Studio Fax and web developer Felix Steindl to create a pared-back aesthetic for the auction.

"The ARCH visual identity is a container, which translates into a platform that is able to gather architectural artefacts from all over the world to help a strong cause, as a community would do,” said Studio Fax founders Dario Gracceva and Aldo D'Angelo.

The platform will serve as a digital archive of works, showcasing the variety and styles of architectural drawings.

"Building the archive means that ARCH is not only creating a platform to raise money to support important causes but it is also providing a research tool for students and professionals," they continued.

"It is the perfect afterlife of an auction platform of this kind."

Mexican designer Hector Esrawe has donated this sketch from his sketchbook

ARCH is led by architectural designers Claire Haugh and Alison Zuccaro, fashion designer Lucy Haugh, editor Eleanor Gibson and digital strategist Sarah Berkman. It was founded this year in the wake of anti-racism protests in the US state after the killing of African-American man George Floyd in police custody.

It is among a number of initiatives that were established in the aftermath to address and improve racial equality in the architecture and design profession.

Earlier this year students and alumni of Harvard GSD also launched an online sale of items donated by architects and designers, including an IKEA chair signed by Virgil Abloh to fundraise for organisations that fight for racial equality.

Other examples to address racism include a Google Docs spreadsheet listing black-owned studios and anti-racism design conference Where are the Black Designers?.

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Stefano Boeri designs prefab vaccination pavilions for 1,500 Italian squares

Architect Stefano Boeri has designed prefabricated timber and fabric pavilions, which are set to house Covid-19 vaccination stations in piazzas across Italy from the first half of January.

Around 1,500 of the structures will be set up over the following months at the direction of Domenico Arcuri, the country's special commissioner for the Covid-19 emergency.

These will act as distribution sites for the 3.4 million Pfizer vaccine doses, which Italy is expected to receive in January after suffering the most coronavirus deaths out of any European nation this year.

Boeri's pavilion features a textile envelope

In order to facilitate a swift rollout, Boeri designed the pavilion's circular base and frame to be prefabricated from structural wood. This skeleton is encased in an envelope of water-resistant textile, which the architect claims is entirely recyclable.

On the interior, spaces are separated through a system of flexible textile walls, which is similarly prefabricated and designed to offer transparency while absorbing sound.

Its base and framework will be prefabricated from wood

"The Politecnico of Milano will start to work on a prototype in order to optimise the prefabrication so that the pavilions can be easily and quickly placed all over Italy," Boeri told Dezeen.

"The main reason, of course, is to increase capacity, to speed up the process of vaccination and to reach the entire Italian population," he continued. "Of course, providing a temporary pavilion in public areas can also help to spread the message: let's get vaccinated."

"Italy's public life is in our piazzas. We need to make sure that these pavilions will be reachable, comfortable and places that the community consider, for a period of time, part of their lives in order to defeat Covid-19."

Designed in collaboration with a team of consultants, the pavilion is organised around a central core, housing service areas for healthcare workers including toilets as well as changing and storage rooms.

To mitigate the environmental impact of setting up a slew of temporary pavilions, Boeri designed them to be easily dismantled and reused elsewhere.

In addition, the structure is intended to be energy self-sufficient with a ring of solar panels on the roof designed to provide enough electricity to meet the needs of the whole pavilion.

The pavilion will be energy self-sufficient thanks to solar panels on its roof

A large, pink primrose will be emblazoned on the exterior walls and the roof of the structure, allowing Italy's historic piazzas to "visually blossom" once again.

"With the image of a springtime flower, we wanted to create an architecture that would convey a symbol of serenity and regeneration," Boeri said.

"Getting vaccinated will be an act of civic responsibility, love for others and the rediscovery of life. If this virus has locked us up in hospitals and homes, the vaccine will bring us back into contact with life and the nature that surrounds us."

Boeri also designed the logo for Italy's vaccination campaign

Boeri's graphic flower design will also act as the logo for the country's communications campaign around vaccination. Under the slogan "With a flower, Italy comes back to life", it will feature in government messaging as well as on "information totems" that will be set up in public spaces to educate citizens about the process.

This weekend, Italy surpassed the UK to become the country with the highest coronavirus death toll in Europe, totalling 64,520 people.

Commissioner Arcuri has said that by September 2021, a significant number of Italians who want to be vaccinated against the virus should have received their shots.

The pavilions will be set up in 1,500 squares across the country

In this hope, Italy's Salone del Mobile fair recently announced that the event would be moved from its usual April time slot to September.

Architecture practice NBBJ has also proposed setting up prefabricated drive-through clinics, where patients could get treated and vaccinated against coronavirus without leaving their cars.

Set in hospitals' existing parking garages, these would accelerate the vaccine roll-out while allowing visitors to maintain a safe social distance from other patients.

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Old industrial building in Chicago transformed into artist couple's home and studios

Toronto architect Carlo Parente has renovated an old and dilapidated mason's shop in Chicago to create a live and work space called Facility for artists Nick Cave and Bob Faust.

Located at the intersection of two prominent streets in Irving Park, Facility restores and reuses several elements of the 1920's industrial building, which is composed of a two-storey masonry structure with three storefronts, a single-storey annexe and a garage.

Facility is housed in an old masons' shop in Chicago

Cave and Faust's primary goal for the renovation was to transform the building into a place to display their extensive art collections. However, they also desired a private residence, event space and studios for other creatives in Chicago.

To achieve this, Parente reconfigured the building to function as an open, flexible "framework" to display art and use as studio space, with some enclosed, private rooms positioned in between.

Many of building's original details have been preserved

"When Nick and Bob engaged me to collaborate, they had already carefully thought through their needs and they had considered the spaces of the various programme elements," Parente told Dezeen.

"They had a clear agenda of wanting these spaces to be able to act in a flexible and open manner with the display of their art and art collections as being primary," he explained. I began to think of the project as a framework for their work – the entire building as a transformative framework and platform for the production and presentation of their work."

"The fluidity of the space and the architecture-as-framework design works beautifully, creating a feeling of ease – lived in, natural, and humming pleasantly with activity."

Some old concrete columns feature graffiti from the building's past life

Parente's design for the overhaul involved retaining as many existing elements of the building as possible to celebrate the history of the space.

He transformed the single-storey building at the north corner of the site into the building's entrance, while also introducing a library, a lounge and a private studio space for Faust.

Artwork and an eclectic mix of furniture decorate each space

The annexe now links up with the ground floor of the two-storey structure, which contains Cave's studio, a series of communal workspaces, a washroom and a kitchenette.

The adjoining garage serves as a multi-functional space for events or making art, while the second floor of this building contains the artists' private residence, alongside an apartment for an artist-in-residence.

Original, worn masonry walls feature throughout Facility

Throughout, a number of worn, existing masonry walls have been exposed, alongside graffitied concrete columns, old plastered walls and even the remains of an old wasp nest.

"Nick and Bob embrace the vestiges of what was previously there, even an abandoned wasp nest that stayed in place at their request, now revealed by an opening in the ceiling," Parente explained.

An old wasp nest is exposed inside the greenhouse and sunroom

The original masonry walls are the only full-height walls left in the building, as Parente removed all the non-loading bearing walls to achieve the open space the artists desired.

Some of these walls are punctured by new openings, while circulation spaces have also been widened throughout to transform corridors into galleries and areas to gather.

Some masonry walls have been punctured by new openings

A few partial white-painted walls now divide each floor, creating different studio spaces at ground level and private living and sleeping areas on the first floor.

To allow users to adapt each space or achieve more privacy, Parente has also installed a series of pivoting and sliding partitions throughout.

The old gallery is now a studio and event space

All of the new architectural additions to the building have been chosen to deliberately contrast with the original elements.

This includes plywood furnishings that stand out against the masonry and directional changes in the patterns of the wood flooring to emphasise where gaps have been filled.

A roof terrace crowns the building and provides views of the city

The furniture featured throughout Facility also follows this patchwork approach, combining "an eclectic mix of pieces" collected by Cave and Faust ranging from floral, upholstered sofas to Eames' classics.

Every available surface is used to display art, including work by both artists and their collections that include pieces by Kehinde Wiley, Kerry James Marshall, Beverly Mclver and Titus Kaphar.

As part of the project, Parente also updated the exterior of the building. This included reopening the building's original storefronts to maximise the light inside and create exhibition spaces that displaying the work of the artists to passersby.

White walls line the bedrooms and private areas upstairs

To the southwest of the building, an old parking space has been enclosed with fencing made from recycled shipping containers. This now functions as a private, landscaped courtyard that is accessible from Cave's studio.

Facility is complete with a private rooftop with a sunroom and greenhouse, contained within a former shed. They are both orientated to the southwest to maximise evening sunlight and vistas of the city, described by Parente as "a quintessential Chicago view".

The building's old storefronts are now used as exhibition spaces

Other recent adaptive reuse projects featured on Dezeen include Annabelle Tugby Architects' renovation of a semi-derelict joinery workshop in a cow field in Cheshire, UK, to create its own studio and, in Arnhem, the transformation of an expansive production hall of an old nylon factory into a "cathedral-like" office space.

Photography is by Michelle Litvin.

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Osier ceramic pendant light by Mullan Lighting

Dezeen Showroom: Irish brand Mullan Lighting has designed its handmade Osier pendant light to look as if it was aged by time.

This weathered effect is achieved by adding "rugged", cracked lines to the surface of each ceramic Osier shade.

Mullan Lighting has designed the Osier light to look time-aged

The pendant is available in three muted hues from Black Clay and Blue Earth to Red Iron.

While the black and red versions feature a more distinct cracked effect and different coloured flecks, the blue version has a more subtle, aged aesthetic through a gradient of lighter and darker shades.

The pendant comes in three colours including Blue Earth

Mullan Lighting, which is based in the titular Irish town, has previously released another ceramic pendant that is designed to resemble the bark of a tree.

Product: Osier ceramic pendant
Brand: Mullan Lighting
Contact: contact@mullanlighting.com

About Dezeen Showroom: Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen's huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.

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