Wallpaper 10

Hōraios – also of Greek origin – translates as ‘being of one’s

hour’. If you add up these definitions you end up with a

construct that is at once timely and timeless, one that carries

relevance and can exist beyond time. Finding or creating

beauty involves the act of revering something, arriving at its

core, and giving it meaning through rigour.

Paola Antonelli is senior curator, architecture & design,

and director, research & development, MoMA

NICHOLAS NEGROPONTE

Design & Nature

NN As the natural world and the artificial world

become more similar and eventually the same, will

we do better than nature or remain satisfied only to

be informed by it?

NEO Neither. We are approaching a ‘material singularity’

where there will be little to no distinction between ‘natural’

and ‘artificial.’ Designed objects (and the technologies to create

them) will exhibit functionality and behaviour equivalent

to, or indistinguishable from, naturally derived ones. We will

unite to a point of no return where it becomes unclear what in

our environment is natural, what is artificial. This is already

happening: CRISPR, a genetic engineering tool, is itself made

of 3.8-billion-year-old bacteria and archaea. Designers will be

judged whether they are nature users or abusers.

Nicholas Negroponte is an architect, founder and chairman

emeritus of MIT Media Lab

MICHAEL BIERUT

Design & Life

MB Can human beings create life? Should we?

NEO The ingredients for designing life from scratch are

pretty simple: all you need is a carrier of genetic information

that can enable growth, functional activity, and continual

change preceding death, and reproduction – if you care to

procreate. Artificial wombs and embryos made from skin

cells are already revolutionising reproductive biology. But as a

product designer you may not care about lineage: creating life

without reproductive functions will, for good or bad, result

in the design of living objects, even when designed as non-

reproductive humans, ie, alive bots with intelligence and no

shared ancestry: Blade Runners.

Michael Bierut is a graphic designer, educator and Pentagram partner

YVES BÉHAR

Design & Scale

YB I am fascinated by large scale: what would be

the largest-scale material ecology you could build?

NEO A planet.

YB What would be the smallest application of a

design that would serve a human purpose that you

could imagine?

NEO A photosynthetic tardigrade for the Mars

landing mission.

Yves Béhar is an industrial designer and founder of Fuseproject

334

Oxman with one of the Vespers

masks, designed and produced

in collaboration with Stratasys

Photography: Noah Kalina

∑

Neri Oxman