Nº 020 · Read
Looking Closely Is Everything
Craig Mod on learning to notice the world close at hand. A useful companion to a collection built around paying attention.
Craig Mod
NicheMisc — Read
Nº 001 · Read
The Orange
A small poem about an ordinary pleasure. Read it at the foundation, where the full text and its publication credit live.
Wendy Cope; published by Faber & Faber; presented by The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation
Nº 090 · Read
Fruit Walls
An account of walled gardens that used stored solar heat to grow fruit in colder places. An old design idea worth revisiting.
Kris De Decker / LOW←TECH MAGAZINE
Nº 012 · Read
Twelve faces, no answer
Twelve pierced faces, twenty small knobs, and no agreed explanation. These hollow copper-alloy objects survive from the Roman world, but their purpose remains uncertain. Ideas range from practical tools to ritual objects; none should be mistaken for a solved mystery.
Wikipedia contributors; archaeological context from the Norton Disney History and Archaeology Group
Nº 101 · Read
An app can be a home-cooked meal
A family messaging app becomes an argument for making small, personal things. Software as an act of care.
Robin Sloan
Nº 100 · Read
The Color of Memory
Grace Linden explores Albert Kahn’s ambitious photographic archive. Early colour makes the historical distance feel strangely small.
Grace Linden / The Public Domain Review
Nº 404 · Read
Into the Labyrinth
Look down. Dan Handel examines the carpets of large commercial interiors, where decoration and the management of space meet.
Dan Handel / Cabinet
Nº 026 · Read
Messages before electricity
Before electrical wires carried messages, movable arms on towers did the job. Claude Chappe’s optical telegraph turned their positions into coded signals, watched through telescopes and passed from station to station. This illustrated English account explains a communication network built from sightlines, human operators, and a shared code.
Kris De Decker / LOW←TECH MAGAZINE
Nº 099 · Read
The beauty of repair
Philip Ball considers repair as a creative act. A broken object can acquire a new appearance and a visible history.
Philip Ball / Aeon
Nº 045 · Read
The paths people actually take
Those informal tracks across the grass are a record of everyday choices. A design story you can look for on your next walk.
Kurt Kohlstedt / 99% Invisible
Nº 015 · Read
The Good Room
What makes a place worth spending time in? Frank Chimero moves from libraries and train stations to the spaces we inhabit online.
Frank Chimero
Nº 009 · Read
Nine lives, already in Shakespeare
Cats’ nine lives turn up in an unexpected place: Romeo and Juliet. In Act 3, Scene 1, Mercutio taunts Tybalt as the king of cats and threatens one of his nine lives. A familiar saying, caught inside a dangerous joke. This passage records the belief; it does not establish where it began.
William Shakespeare; edition presented by the Folger Shakespeare Library