The Monthly Dispatch

June 2025: Junction Making, Camp Life, and a new exhibition on mid-century modernism

Plus new books in the studio about speculative design, graphic design education, Mexican architecture, and more!

Jun 2

May 2025: Virtual Architecture, Graffiti in the City, a fashion designer's home garden

Plus, imagining a Scratching the Surface Eras tour!

May 5

April 2025: Design Fiction, Against Platforms, an Avant-Garde catalog for Standard Cables

Plus an experimental residential prototype and why we need to imagine new futures.

Apr 7

March 2025: Expanded practices, thinking through design history, and loud paper

Conversations with Formafantasma and Liz Diller, Mimi Zeiger's Loud Paper, and more.

Mar 3

February 2025: Thinking about LA, rethinking philanthropy, and remembering David Lynch

And a look at the new two-volume monograph from DS+R that both separates and blurs the lines between architecture and not-architecture.

Feb 3

January 2025: Brat Summer, Designer Coaches, and Tony Smith

Happy new year!

Jan 6

December 2024: The Smithsonian Design Triennial, applied arts, and Thanksgiving Square

Thank you for supporting Scratching the Surface in 2024!

Dec 2, 2024

November 2024: Alexander Girard, Independent Practices, and a new book on collage

Also! Talking about talking about writing about design.

Nov 4, 2024

October 2024: The Role of Design Education, Mid-Century Modernism, and Forgetting Fuller

In September we released our first episodes of the season. It feels good to be back!

Oct 7, 2024

September 2024: I.M. Pei, Black Mountain College, and Teaching Emerging Technologies

Plus, you can now support Scratching the Surface through our new Substack paid tier!

Sep 2, 2024

August 2024: Research-based practices, remembering Kenneth Grange, the excesses of postmodernism

We're gearing up for the new season of Scratching the Surface!

Aug 5, 2024

July 2024: Designer Birthdays, Literary Architecture Books, Noguchi Playgrounds

A round up of recent publishing, new books, and design news.

Jul 1, 2024

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