Design Books That Mine the Exotic

This article is part of our latest Design special report, about creative people finding fresh ways to interpret ideas from the past. Excavating deeply into design history, and the ways the past is continuously reinterpreted, can suggest paths to fresh ideas. These five new books reveal how much monastery desks, rosebushes tangled in ancient orchards…

Journey to a Center of the Earth

This article is part of our latest Design special report, about creative people finding fresh ways to interpret ideas from the past. The married founders of the architecture and design firm Roman and Williams, Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch, are known for their dramatic room schemes that often use saturated colors and layers of objects…

Disaster Prep Kits Get a Makeover

Before last year, Whitney McGuire hadn’t seriously considered stashing an emergency survival kit in her home. But as 2020’s record-breaking fire season descended on the West Coast, the attorney, sustainability strategist and mother, who lives in Brooklyn, found herself considering what she might need to prepare if climate change-related disaster were to strike closer to…