Dezeen Magazine

dezeen_iQ-Shoreditch-by-Naomi-Cleaver

"London is already degrading and demoralising for young professionals"

Comments update: interior designer and TV presenter Naomi Cleaver provoked a strong response from Dezeen readers this week after identifying student-style accommodation for adults as a potential solution to London's housing crisis.

Naomi Cleaver
Naomi Cleaver

Student digs: Cleaver, who has designed numerous student accommodation projects including iQ Shoreditch in London (main image), said that "young people are not as absorbed by the need to own property" nowadays, adding that a student-style typology could help regenerate urban centres around the country. Many readers were outraged.

"London is already degrading and demoralising for young professionals," wrote James. "This is just an insult."

"Of course we want to own property," added one guest commenter. "The difference is that we have to pass money over to private landlords because there is no alternative."

"I'm just making an observation based on actual fact," responded Cleaver. "Aren't designers supposed to be creative and free thinking, open to alternatives, not burdened with conservative aspirations?" Read the comments on this story »


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Apple iPad Pro and Apple Pencil

Rotten Apple? Apple used its annual hardware launch event in California last week to unveil the iPad Pro – a larger version of its tablet computer – and the Apple Pencil, which is aimed at professional artists and designers. But some commenters accused the tech giant of falling behind competitors.

"Why on earth would you choose this over a Microsoft Surface Pro?" asked Chris MacDonald, while JayCee described the iPad Pro as a "less capable" version Microsoft's tablet, "which came out over a year ago."

"Apple get a lot of stick for not innovating to the level of the iPod with every new product," concluded Grant, "but at the end of the day it is a company creating products to sell, not a not-for-profit research lab." Read the comments on this story »


Bauhaus Museum Dessau proposal by Young & Ayata
Bauhaus Museum Dessau proposal by Young & Ayata

Bauhaus bother: two contrasting designs were awarded joint first place in a competition to create a new home for the Bauhaus Museum Dessau, triggering a debate about the selection process for major architectural projects.

"Who's at fault here?" asked an unimpressed Igor Pismensky. "The judges or the architects who submitted the designs? If submissions are crap, so goes the winning design. Not what I would expect for honouring Bauhaus."

"The jury is the most responsible part in all the competitions," said one commenter. "Like the Guggenheim, here, we have few mediocre designs being chosen as the winning ones."

"I was interested in participating in this competition when I saw it," responded a guest commenter calling themselves Architect, "but I thought they would go for something more traditional." Read the comments on this story »


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Matter Design's Microtherme installation

Body image: photographs of an installation comprising voluptuous concrete forms concealed within a wooden box – featuring a woman in a bathing suit – prompted a discussion on the way women are represented in design.

"Boo to entirely unnecessary sexualised women in images," said James Juricevich, while a guest commenter described one of the poses used in the pictures as "infuriating".

Others strongly disagreed. "This image, given its context, appears as entirely appropriate," argued Jonathan Tuffin. "I suppose it depends on how much of an apparatchik you want to be about it." Read the comments on this story »