We've selected five of the best US-based positions on Dezeen Jobs this week, including an interior designer in New York and a project architect in Los Angeles.
Soho House's newest location in Austin, Texas, contains leisure and hospitality facilities inspired by local artisanal practices and regional craftsmanship. The company is hiring a senior architect to join its team in either its New York or LA office.
Works Progress Architecture designed the Portland Flatiron building in Portland, Oregon, a mixed-use development comprising retail and office space. The studio is searching for project architects to join its team in Portland and Los Angeles.
Megan Grehl is looking for a junior interior designer with one to two years of experience to join its practice in New York. The studio collaborated with Moooi to create an installation for Salone del Mobile during Milan design week in 2018.
Malaysian gynaecologist John Tang has created a condom made from polyurethane that can be worn by both males and females during sex.
The Wondaleaf Unisex Condom can be worn internally or externally by males and females thanks to a sticky thermoplastic adhesive sheet along one side of the condom. The unisex design has been billed by the gynaecologist as a "world first".
It can be attached to the base of a penis and worn externally like a traditional condom. Alternatively, it can be flipped inside out, stuck around a vagina and inserted inside.
The condom itself is made from transparent polyurethane, which is commonly used for wound dressings. The material is just 0.03 millimetres thick.
Tang has developed a condom that can be worn by males and females
Tang, who founded Twin Catalyst Sdn Bhd, the company that manufactures Wondaleaf products, designed the condom after noticing that many of his patients were having trouble finding adequate contraception.
He hopes that the unisex condom will provide "non-discriminating universal empowerment" for users.
The condom has an adhesive that sticks to the skin
"Day in day out I am confronted with patients suffering from the side effects of contraceptive methods," Tang told Dezeen.
"We really want to change that," he added. "Perhaps by providing universal empowerment and comprehensive dual protections, Wondaleaf unisex condom will be able to help broaden our conversation on this dilemma."
Female wearers insert the condom internally
The unisex condom was designed to offer users more protection from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) than existing condoms as the adhesive flaps cover a wider surface area around the genitals.
"Wondaleaf Unisex Condom is basically a regular condom with an extra adhesive shield that provides an attachment means for the condom while at the same time covers the adjacent areas for extra protection," Tang said.
The designer hopes that the condom will solve common contraception issues
The gynaecologist also claims that the condom is less likely to "slip off" during sexual activities as it is quite literally stuck to the wearer's skin.
Additional benefits of the condom include that it is safe for those with latex allergies as unlike most condoms it is not made from latex.
According to Tang, developing the Wondaleaf Unisex Condom proved to be a more complex task than originally thought. The designer had to consider how to make a condom that was both easy to manufacture and comfortable for the wearer.
"It needs to be thin, soft, flexible, tough, waterproof and the greatest difficulty of all, to create a non-adhesive third dimension pouch with an integral adhesive shield extending out perpendicularly from the open end of the pouch," he explained.
"The adhesive portion of the unisex condom must be well covered before deployment, and during deployment, it should duly stick to the perineum without wrinkles and not sticking onto itself."
It is designed to be waterproof, lightweight and hard to slip off
Each Wondaleaf packet comes with two condoms. It is currently available online for Malaysian customers and will be launched internationally later this month following further regulatory approval.
San Francisco firm Aidlin Darling Design has completed a low-slung home in California's Palm Desert that is intended to contrast the boulders and trees found in its remote setting.
The three-bedroom family home is located on a rocky plateau in the arid landscape, with views of the Coachella Valley and San Jacinto Mountain Range.
This elevated vantage led to the name High Desert Retreat for the project, which earned a 2021 AIA Design Award in the interiors category.
High Desert Retreat sits on a rocky patch of desert in Southern California
Part of Aidlin Darling Design's brief was to protect the existing Pinyon trees that were found on site. This species of pine is native to the Southwestern United States, and can have a lifespan of up to 600 years.
"The structure would be exceedingly quiet and crisp in its geometry, intentionally contrasting the organic forms of the desert, and very low to the ground to minimize its presence," said the studio.
The low-slung building serves a family's holiday home
Because of the area's dry climate and predictable weather, the home is made up of a series of separate wooden volumes clustered under a large, overhanging roof.
In addition to the covered exterior spaces, the home also has concrete walls that form courtyards around the Pinyon trees.
The home's elevated vantage point provides views of the Coachella Valley and San Jacinto mountains
"While the wooden volumes house the critical program for the home, the entry sequence from garage to house is articulated by the orientation and form of two concrete entry walls," said Aidlin Darling Design.
"The parallel concrete walls not only frame the entry and the dining room beyond but most importantly the heroic view to the east and the Coachella Valley below."
Outdoor areas are utilised thanks to the predictably warm, dry weather
The main entrance to the home is covered by the overhanging roof, which is finished with a light wooden underside, into an all-glass dining area that separates the kitchen from the living room. The large glazed panels can open fully for cross-ventilation.
The architects describe this intermediate area as a "place to break bread, and capture both sunrise and sunset as well as breezes rising up the hillside and through the house".
Blackened wooden boards form the exterior walls of the enclosed volumes. The dark pine planks contrast the pale wood finishes that cover the ceiling, both inside and out.
"The materials of the home were chosen to quietly contrast with the lighter palette of the desert landscape," the studio said. "The interior is a collage of concrete, wood, stone, and steel, each responding to its immediate application to maximise durability while providing the home with warmth and a soulful nesting quality."
The architects wanted the interior to look warm and soulful
At the back of the home, overlooking the site's steep slope, a swimming pool runs nearly the whole width of the house.
Full-height glass panels at either end of the kitchen and living rooms also slide open to provide access to the pool.
Blackened wood surrounded the floor-to-ceiling glass panels
Nearby Palm Springs is famed as the epicentre of California desert living. Each year, the city hosts Palm Springs Modernism Week to promote its midcentury heritage and its preservation.
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Spatial designer and artist Adi Goodrich has filled the Dreams lifestyle store in Los Angeles' Atwater Village with colourful surrealist details, including a lobster phone and a "glowing" blue rock.
Goodrich created the store together with her creative partner and Dreams' owner, Monica Navarro, with whom she'd previously worked on the Wine + Eggs grocery store in the same neighbourhood.
The lifestyle store is located in Atwater Village, Los Angeles
The Dreams interior was informed by daydreams and the surrealist aspect of dreams, with in-store accessories such as a lobster phone that nods to artist Salvador Dalí's 1938 artwork.
"The store was inspired by the spirit of the surrealists who embraced irrationality, adventure and dreaming," Goodrich told Dezeen.
Dreams features warm terracotta hues and a contrasting blue sculpture
"The owners wanted me to design a concept store around this theme," she added.
"I aimed to design a space that felt like a journey. Not one idea, but many. To do this, it also needed to feel calm and directed so colour was used to evoke various feelings as a visitor passes through the space."
Undulating, curved shapes were used throughout the store
Dreams will sell homeware and clothing by both local artists and bigger brands, and was divided into various departments such as home, apothecary, books, children, apparel, and accessories.
When entering the store, which measures just 12 by 72 feet (3.6 by 21 metres), visitors are welcomed by warm peach and terracotta colours that give way to calmer blues and greens at the back.
At its very end, a large Klein-blue 'rock' adds another dreamlike feel to the interior.
Designer Adi Goodrich added a blue-painted rock to "ground" the store
"I wanted the rock to be a literal grounding point of the store," Goodrich explained.
"The rock is the main subject in the composition and embraces the irrational juxtaposition that the surrealists embraced. Anything goes, and I wanted to add a strange sort of natural element to the store."
The rock was painted in Blue Screen paint, which is completely matte and normally used to set out key backgrounds when working with computer-generated imagery.
"With such a bright blue paint which does not reflect any light, it really commands your attention," Goodrich said. "The blue rock was custom carved from foam and hard-coated, it’s basically a zoo rock."
The ceiling in the back has a sky print
The store also features a ceiling decorated with hand-cut medium-density fibreboard (MDF) shapes that symbolise events in the owner's life, an archway clad in Japanese tiles and a plexiglass-ceiling covered in floating clouds.
"The ceiling in the back of the store is a custom sky print on plexiglass we created with a printer I’ve worked with in my career as a set designer for the past 10 years," Goodrich said. "It took many printer samples to get the right color, ink opacity and sheen."
A lobster phone was informed by Salvador Dalí's art. The photo is by Adi Goodrich
The surrealist concept behind the interior also informed the shapes used on the custom-made furniture and lighting.
"I wanted a visitor to feel as if they were entering a shop that the surrealist artists would have not only created but visited," Goodrich explained.
A striped sofa in spring colours sits in the kids' section of the store
"I had recently read about Henry Van der Velde's Havana Tobacco Company cigar shop which used curvilinear lines on ceilings, doorways and furniture inspired by cigar smoke," she added.
"I was inspired to create a similar shop in which every corner was intentionally designed around a dreamy surrealist feeling. I used repetition in the round forms on both the counter and the soffit above the counter to refer to designs that were popular in the era of surrealism."
Dreams will sell goods by local designers and larger brands
Other notable store interiors in Los Angeles include the latest Apple Store, located in The Grove and designed by British studio Foster + Partners with indoor trees and a mirrored ceiling, and British-Ghanaian architect David Adjaye's pink concrete design for fashion retailer The Webster.
The photography is by Ye Rin Mok unless stated otherwise.
