Bevel: Canadian Interiors Conversations

With a new United States president in the White House already signalling a recommitment to the Paris Climate Agreement, environmental issues are encouragingly back to the top of many design and manufacturing agendas. For some companies, it always had been, as evidenced by the recently released Corporate Social Responsibility Report from Humanscale, one of the leading designers and manufacturers of high-performance workplace products with an aim of making a net-positive impact on the earth, and who

“When you start to deconstruct or question design, all sorts of questions emerge: How does design affect our behaviour, our use of resources, our choices and freedoms to participate in social, political or economic decision-making, and the extent to which we feel we have agency over our lives?” That is a point raised by Jan Boelen, a curator, educator and researcher in art and design who has been the head of the Master’s department of Social Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven since 2010. Jan is

What role does film play in shaping experimentation in architecture? How can film be used to document and archive different projects in the context of architecture school? Can film be used to make an architectural argument? From experimental thesis projects that use film as a means for discourse to shorts documenting the processes and dynamics of collaborative design studios, in this episode of Bevel we partnered with the Toronto Society of Architects to chat with student filmmakers, recent

Design is interdisciplinary by nature, therefore it is no surprise that design education is similar and provides a variety of platforms for students to learn different knowledge and skills from, and then apply those skills to solve design problems. That said, anyone watching the state of education can see that it is evolving at a rapid pace. Today’s parameters are much less defined and what is expected from both students and teachers is being re-evaluated. While today’s classrooms are undoubtedly

The COVID-19 crisis has forced corporate culture to radically adjust ways of working. The question facing us now is what will happen when the pandemic winds down and we emerge from quarantines? What’s likely is that awareness about workplace health and safety will be strong, and this awareness will have a direct impact on the design of physical environments, most notably, the surfaces we touch and how we interact with people after this prolonged period of social distancing. In the wake of the

Because of wide-ranging governmental policies created to enforce social distancing measures in efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19, some of the swiftest casualties have been the regular stops on the trade show circuit. Many show organizers either cancelled or postponed their events, but some of them were re-imagined as online or virtual entities. While a virtual trade show is seldom a desirable substitute for the real, in-person experience, it does offer several benefits for attendees

Interior design is a profession based on ideas meant to eliminate barriers between ourselves and our built environment, so it is wonderfully positioned to benefit from a mining of design inspirations that come from other industries, thereby breaking down conceptual barriers to create new forms, introduce emerging typologies, weave in themes, and more.