Design Drafts #2 in collaboration with PIN-UP
Nieuwe Instituut and New York-based magazine PIN–UP are proud to share the work of Alfonse Chiu, Angela U. Shyaka, Liara Roux, Michael Andrés Forero Parra, and Ibrahim Kombarji, the selected writers for the 2023 edition of Nieuwe Instituut’s Design Drafts programme — an open call for up-and-coming and mid-career writers to investigate, draft, and manifest new vocabularies in design beyond the canon. The writers' contributions foster Design Drafts’ ongoing research into alternative languages to write about design; how can such languages transform the narratives we construct, and the cultural schemas underpinning our physical realities?
13 February 2024
Design Drafts #2 is the result of an open call for up-and-coming and mid-career writers, which was announced in April 2023 under the theme Manifestations. From this open call, an independent jury, in collaboration with PIN-UP and the Nieuwe Instituut, selected five writers. Together with the writers, the Nieuwe Instituut and PIN-UP teams worked on their contributions to the magazine.
The final print publication was launched on February 1, 2024, at the Nieuwe Instituut in a hybrid conversation with writer and curator Alfonse Chiu, architectural designer and researcher Angela U. Shyaka, writer and indie adult film producer Liara Roux, architect and museologist Michael Andrés Forero Parra, and researcher and writer Ibrahim Kombarji, moderated by Delany Boutkan (Nieuwe Instituut researcher and project manager of Design Drafts) and Felix Burrichter (editorial and creative director, PIN–UP).
Design Drafts #2 Commissioned writing:
- Hope and the Uruhimbi; A Rwandan Fable on Sacred Space with Angela U. Shyaka
- 99 Names of God: The Misbaha as a Design Object with Ibrahim Kombarji
- Indecent Exposure: The Aesthetics of Sexual Desire with Liara Roux
- Cuir Architecture: Queer Voices From Latin America with Michael Andrés Forero Parra
- Lush Tropes: Re-evaluating Tropical Architecture with Alfonse Chiu
About Design Drafts at the Nieuwe Instituut
Initiated in 2022, Design Drafts is a growing writing and publishing network dedicated to investigating and drafting what it means to write about design today. Through collaborations between the Rotterdam-based Nieuwe Instituut and different magazines and publishing platforms, the Design Draft series stimulates emerging forms of design writing and discourse. A collective search for new languages to write design.
The media partner for the first edition, Design Drafts #1, was the London-based magazine Disegno, and contains contributions by writers Gijs de Boer, Chinouk Filique de Miranda, Kathryn Larsen, Malika Leiper, Bianca Nozaki-Nasser and Andrew Pasquier.
About PIN-UP
PIN–UP is a magazine and creative media company based in New York. Founded in 2006, it specialises in print and digital features with renowned architects and designers, critical essays, and photography portfolios on contemporary architecture, art and design.
