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FRAME is published six times a year by Frame Publishers Luchtvaartstraat 4 NL-1059 CA Amsterdam frameweb.com EDITORIAL For editorial inquiries, please e-mail frame@frameweb.com or call +31 20 4233 717 (ext 921). Editor in chief Robert Thiemann – RT Head of content Floor Kuitert – FK Editor at large Tracey Ingram – TI Editors Anouk Haegens – AH Lauren Grace Morris – LGM Business editor Peter Maxwell – PM Copy editors InOtherWords (D’Laine Camp) Design director Barbara Iwanicka Graphic designers Zoe Bar-Pereg Shadi Ekman Translation InOtherWords (Maria van Tol) Contributors to this issue John Jervis – JJ George Kafka – GK Kourosh Newman-Zand – KNZ Alexandra Onderwater – AO Rosamund Picton – RP Debika Ray – DR Cover PSLab London by JamesPlumb (see page 124) Photo Rory Gardiner Lithography Edward de Nijs Printing Grafisch Bedrijf Tuijtel Hardinxveld-Giessendam PUBLISHING Director Robert Thiemann Brand and marketing manager Leah Heaton-Jones leah@frameweb.com T +31 20 4233 717 (ext 951) Marketing intern Renata Sutton Distribution and logistics Nick van Oppenraaij nick@frameweb.com T +31 20 4233 717 (ext 981) ADVERTISING Sales manager Baruch Pichowski baruch@frameweb.com T +44 7471 093 909 Advertising representatives Italy Studio Mitos Michele Tosato michele@studiomitos.it T +39 0422 894…

cool, calm and collective

Stress in the workplace is on the rise. Now that most of us can work anytime, anywhere thanks to smartphones and laptops, we’re also expected to be up and running constantly, regardless of where we are – and to work faster and more efficiently to boot. Alarming news about stress dominated the media in the Netherlands while we were making this issue. No less than 17.3 per cent of the Dutch workforce – 1.3 million people – suffers from severe symptoms of burnout, a modern phenomenon that affects those between the ages of 25 and 34 in particular. In 2018 the economic damage to employers amounted to €2.8 billion in the Netherlands alone. On a global scale, the impact is dramatic and the damage incalculable. Enough reason, we felt, to dedicate…

sydney

At a prestigious award ceremony in Sydney earlier this year, one well-known designer turned up in a dress-shirt emblazoned with the words: ‘Counterfeit Protection Statement.’ Nothing too unusual about that, you might think – most creatives are driven to ensure the integrity of their output. Except that said awards ceremony was held in a showroom sporting knockoffs of his signature lighting. In design terms it was akin to Katharine Hamnett wearing a ‘58% Don’t Want Pershing’ T-shirt to meet Margaret Thatcher during the missile testing controversy in the mid-1980s. The Australian design industry is under attack from counterfeiters. While intellectual property (IP) laws automatically protect original work in the fields of literature, music and film, copyists can happily fake furniture, lighting and household accessories with impunity. Unlike the arts, industrial design…

mexico city

In October, the theme of this year’s Abierto Mexicano de Diseño was ‘Lo popular’ (‘the popular’). Online, the event’s curator, Mario Ballesteros (also the director of the city’s Archivo Design and Architecture Gallery), explored the idea of ‘popular design’. Does it mean accessible design? Or design that rejects the ‘designer’ and instead comes from the street? Or, echoing the sentiment of popular art, is it a ‘complete universe of indigenous production and material culture emanating from the people’? Right now, the Mexican design community seems concerned with shaking off design’s elitist connotations and proving that it is for everyone. Over the last few years, there have been a slew of businesses, sometimes positioned as social enterprises, working with artisans to reconcile traditional crafts, techniques and forms with a contemporary design aesthetic.…

1 what wework’s stumble means for the design of co-working spaces

WeWork represents one-third of all flexible office space in the US according to CBRE, while an analysis by Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. indicates that it is the biggest private-sector tenant in London, New York City and Washington. Competitors will be looking to learn from the company’s recent 83 per cent decline in value following its aborted IPO. And while the majority of these are tied to the overall business strategy, they extend to how WeWork outfitted its property portfolio. ‘Experiences, amenities, aesthetics – that is important to a certain point,’ Julie Whelan, head of occupier research at real estate services firm CBRE, told Recode. ‘But what’s really driving people to the space is flexibility, speed to market, and capital deferral.’ This is particularly true now that growth in the sector is…

2 how integrating hospitality can help make retailers more resilient

Twelve months to the date, department store chain Lord & Taylor closed its flagship on Fifth Avenue after more than 100 years in business. As we reported in the last issue, that property has now been sold to eCommerce brand Le Tote. Then in August, rival Barneys filed for bankruptcy and in October announced that all of its locations were likely to cease trading. In short, most legacy department store operators are calling time. Apart from the Nordstrom family, that is, which has just cut the ribbon on a 320,000-square-foot (30,000-m2) venue covering the first seven floors of one of New York’s premier pieces of real estate, Central Park Tower, the tallest of the new generation of super-tall residential developments dominating the centre of Manhattan. How will this store succeed where…