Crafting Modern Design in Italy, from Post-War to Postmodernism

The years between 1945 and the early 1980s are the most celebrated in Italy’s design history. From the rhetoric of reconstruction to the postmodern provocations of the Memphis design collective, Italy’s architects played a vital role in shaping the country’s encounter with post-war modernity. Yet as often as this story has been told, it is incomplete. Craft was vital to the realisation of post-war Italian design, and an area of intense creativity in its own right, and yet has been marginalised and excluded in design historiography

The Crusoe condition : making within limits and the critical possibilities of fiction

Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) is a perennially popular narrative, repeatedly retold in Robinsonades from science fiction to Hollywood blockbusters. Despite substantial academic interest in the novel, Robinson Crusoe has received little attention in craft or design history. This is surprising given the centrality of making to the novel, which could offer a useful tool for interpreting contemporary craft and design practice. This paper therefore offers a twofold making-based exploration of the novel: the first half explores what kind of maker Robinson Crusoe was, and what his making can tell us about craft. The second mobilizes the making in Robinson Crusoe to examine a selection of works by designers from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Although diverse, their designs can be all read as Robinsonades: defined as necessity-driven and narrative-led making within multiple limits that I define as the Crusoe Condition

Current issues in global furniture - Proceedings of the 8th biennial Furniture Research Group Conference. Missenden Abbey. Buckinghamshire New University 20 November 2013

'Current issues in global furniture’ attempted to capture contemporary views of where furniture is currently positioned from a world perspective. The first keynote paper firmly placed kitchen design into the field of furniture products showing that it has a similar stylistic development, but with nuances particular to its form and function. Ecological issues were raised concerning durability and the use of recycled components that perhaps to many is not what is expected within the domestic kitchen. Johnny Grey is no ordinary kitchen designer having designed and built kitchens all over the world within a wide range of budgets. Grey shows innovation in his adoption of green principles and especially in reusing components and materials

Common variants in Alzheimer’s disease and risk stratification by polygenic risk scores

Funder: Funder: Fundación bancaria ‘La Caixa’ Number: LCF/PR/PR16/51110003 Funder: Grifols SA Number: LCF/PR/PR16/51110003 Funder: European Union/EFPIA Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Number: 115975 Funder: JPco-fuND FP-829-029 Number: 733051061Genetic discoveries of Alzheimer's disease are the drivers of our understanding, and together with polygenetic risk stratification can contribute towards planning of feasible and efficient preventive and curative clinical trials. We first perform a large genetic association study by merging all available case-control datasets and by-proxy study results (discovery n = 409,435 and validation size n = 58,190). Here, we add six variants associated with Alzheimer's disease risk (near APP, CHRNE, PRKD3/NDUFAF7, PLCG2 and two exonic variants in the SHARPIN gene). Assessment of the polygenic risk score and stratifying by APOE reveal a 4 to 5.5 years difference in median age at onset of Alzheimer's disease patients in APOE ɛ4 carriers. Because of this study, the underlying mechanisms of APP can be studied to refine the amyloid cascade and the polygenic risk score provides a tool to select individuals at high risk of Alzheimer's disease

A manmade material

"With poo having stolen the limelight at this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, it’s time to investigate the design potential of this most taboo of human wastes.