Dezeen rounds up our top 10 videos of 2024, featuring collaborations with studios MAD Architects and Future Facility, as well as institutions such as Triennale Milano, the Barbican and the Serpentine Galleries.
Fernando Laposse wins Bentley Lighthouse Award
Mexican designer Fernando Laposse was named the winner of the Bentley Lighthouse Award at the 2024 Dezeen Awards ceremony in November. In this exclusive video, Dezeen visited Laposse in his Mexico City studio, where he discussed his practice.
Laposse is particularly known for his work with natural fibres, including Sisal, a fibre created from the leaves of Mexico’s native agave plant.
His work engages with regenerative agriculture practices, including a recent collaboration with an Indigenous farming community in Tonaquixla, Mexico to address erosion and biodiversity loss in the area.
The awards jury praised Laposse for “reinvigorating waning craft skills and materials, in turn boosting local ecosystems and supporting his local communities”.
Find out more about Fernando Laposse ›
Minsuk Cho introduces his 2024 Serpentine Pavilion
In this exclusive video produced by Dezeen in partnership with the Serpentine Galleries in London, architect Minsuk Cho unveiled his 2024 Serpentine Pavilion, titled Archipelagic Void.
Cho’s pavilion took the shape of a star, organised around a central void. Each arm of the pavilion had a different purpose, with a tearoom, play area and library making up the structure.
He told Dezeen the space was inspired by traditional Korean architecture.
“I like to have people come in and feel at home – that’s what happens in Madang, in Korean traditional houses – and just freely explore what this space can offer and compose your own experience.”
Find out more about the 2024 Serpentine Pavilion ›
Ahead of his pavilion unveiling, Dezeen visited Cho in his Seoul studio, as seen in this video interview. Cho founded his architecture studio Mass Studies in 2003.
“This request [from Serpentine] felt like we were given a great riddle to demonstrate what this pavilion can do at this point,” Cho told Dezeen.
“We understand architecture itself is not a beginning-to-end narrative, but is part of a larger act that is in between many befores and afters,” Cho told Dezeen.
The architect discussed his design process when creating his Serpentine Pavilion, and its relation to previous projects, such as the Seoul Won Buddhism Wonnam Temple and the O’Sulloc Tea Museum pavilions, located in Jeju.
Find out more about Minsuk Cho ›
Alessandro Mendini at Triennale Milano
During this year’s Milan design week, Dezeen covered the opening of Triennale Milano‘s retrospective of Alessandro Mendini, in a video produced in collaboration with Triennale Milano and Fondation Cartier.
Titled Io Sono Un Drago (I am a dragon), the exhibition contained more than 600 pieces by Mendini across his 60-year career.
“Alessandro Mendini was a key figure of the last century, not just for design but also for art and architecture because he was able to link all these disciplines and blur the lines between them,” explained Michela Alessandrini, curator for Fondation Cartier.
The exhibition also featured a immersive installation designed by French designer Phillipe Starck, who was a friend and colleague of Mendini.
“Mendini is something special for me,” Starck said. “His brain was an atomic bomb of fantasy, with no limits.”
Find out more about Io Sono Un Drago ›
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art at the Barbican
Dezeen partnered with the Barbican Centre earlier in the year to explore its Unravel exhibition, which examined the political and transformative power of textiles.
The show featured over 100 works that made use of textile, fibre and thread from over 50 artists from across the globe, such as Judy Chicago, Shelia Hicks and Cecilia Vicuña, and spans from the 1960s to the present day.
Featured works explored themes of power, oppression, gender and belonging, and the show was intended to challenge the perception of textiles.
“Textiles are one of the most under-examined mediums in art history and in fact history itself,” Barbican curator Lotte Johnson told Dezeen. “They’re really this very intimate, tactile part of our lives and therefore perhaps the most intrinsic, meaningful way to express ourselves.”
Find out more about Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art ›
In the first of Dezeen’s workshop series with 3D software brand Sketchup, interior designer Tola Ojuolape explains how she used SketchUp’s tools to create a virtual library for London.
Ojuolape created a 3D model of a custom craft-focused library informed by the history and character of the Clerkenwell neighbourhood.
“Having a sense of place is incredibly important,” explained Ojuolape. “We chose Clerkenwell because it’s a place that I’m very familiar with. It’s where I started my career, it’s where my practice is based, and it also has a rich heritage of makers and foundries.”
Ojuolape’s design was split across each three levels, with each floor intended for a different use, such as studying, interaction and reflection.
Find out more about Sketchup x Dezeen’s workshop series ›
Future Facility at Design You Can Feel
Dezeen teamed up with technology brand ASUS to host an exhibition exploring the relationship between materiality, craftsmanship and artificial intelligence. In this video, Future Facility co-founder Kim Colin discusses the studio’s custom made SUSA device with Dezeen editorial director Max Fraser.
Dezeen and ASUS commissioned Future Facility to create a custom smart device for the exhibition, and Colin told Fraser how the SUSA was designed to be a “calmer” alternative to typical smart devices.
SUSA can be used for organisation and communication similar to modern smartphones, but intentionally suppresses entertainment and attention-sapping apps, focussing instead on more meaningful interaction. The device is created using’s ASUS’s proprietary Ceraluminium material.
“It’s a bit of a provocation about those ideas,” Colin said. “Ceraluminum offers us this opportunity to make a device that is different in the hand than any other device we’ve seen. This has a very different, much warmer feel.”
Find out more about Design You Can Feel ›
Ma Yansong discusses MAD’s Train Station in the Forest
In this one-on-one conversation, MAD Architects founder Ma Yansong discusses the studio’s first train station with Dezeen editor Tom Ravenscroft.
Located in Jiaxing, China, the station was rebuilt from the shell of a historic station building. Yansong told Ravenscroft how his team had explored the theme of time through the merging of historical and contemporary elements.
“When people come through this space they feel it’s more like a museum about time, they can understand the history, or the past, [or] the future of the city,” Yansong said. “You have the two elements in a collage together.”
The sprawling development features forested green spaces, a commercial area, and landscaped lawns that can be used to host events and festivals.
Find out more about Train Station in the Forest ›
Blond Laboratory at Milan design week
In this video produced by Dezeen for Blond Laboratory, founder James Melia takes us through the studio’s industrial design exhibition, which took place at this year’s Milan design week.
Blond Laboratory tasked designers with creating unique designs in response to a selection of found objects. Featured designers included John Tree, Sony Europe’s Hirotaka Tako and Maddalena Casadei.
The final designs were exhibited alongside the objects that inspired them in a historic carpentry warehouse in Milan’s Brera district.
“Often in exhibitions you see lots of final polished objects,” said Melia. “Very rarely the process of creating these objects is celebrated.”
Find out more about Blond Laboratory ›
Hydro 100R at London Design Festival
Designer Rachel Griffin discusses the “utopian qualities” of aluminium in this video covering Hydro’s 100R exhibition at this year’s Material Matters Fair in London.
Griffin was one of seven designers who was tasked with creating furniture or lighting pieces solely using Hydro’s Circal 100R extruded aluminium.
Griffin produced a modular folding partition called Serial, which comprised of a set of interlocking extruded aluminium pieces with an in-built hinge that can be combined to form screens of any length. Other designers featured in the show included Max Lamb, Inga Sempé, John Tree and Philippe Malouin.
“Aluminium has these utopian qualities,” Griffin said in the video. “The fact that you can take something, reuse it and it still performs the same, it still looks the same, it really does feel like a material of the future.”
