Coffee vending machine designed by a street vendor.   “We are buying artifacts from all over the country, made by common people, to constitute a collection of popular design. Our intention is to show the extraordinary resourcefulness of our material culture.” – Adélia Borges   Brazilian curator and former director of the Museu da Casa...

Delicate cloud lighting forms float over, and mirror, island seat forms below, like the puffy white clouds that sit over the many islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean. Aotearoa, the Maori name for New Zealand, means the “land of long white cloud.” It is not primarily to do with recyclable materials, efficient material use. To...

On April 19, Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey spoke here at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum about their work as owners of the legendary California pottery maker Heath, founded by Edith Heath in the mid-1940s. Their presentation had everyone thinking about the role of craft in manufacturing. They explain, “We believe that the craft of manufacturing...