Jordan Hruska writes about art, architecture, and design from his home in Brooklyn, New York.
What Alexa Has F*cked Up
journalism
Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, the centerpiece of Paul Reubens’ 1980s children’s show, was a sanctuary for misfit youth and kooky adults alike. One of its quirks was how its home décor talked back to you. Today’s “smart homes” powered by AI devices just aren’t as fun as Pee-Wee’s campy domicile. Where did we go wrong? Read more.
Waiting For Peter Pan
ESSAY
New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal is perhaps the most maligned public building in the city. For August Journal, I trace the transit hub’s political and architectural history while meandering through some of its surreal chutes-and-ladders-like spaces. Read more.
An Open Book
ESSAY
Designer Enzo Mari sought to impart a sense of design literacy in his open-source Autoprogettazione furniture blueprints, which allow anyone to build furniture using standard issue lumber. For Gratuitous Type magazine and Design Miami/, I examine the history of his project and look at how his language has evolved in the age of open-source design. Read more.
Rethinking Design Thinking
ESSAY
Imagine the factory as a “pleasant place.” Activist and writer William Morris put forth this speculative idea at the height of the Industrial Revolution – paradoxically a time of great labor injustices. His idea of a rewarding workplace remains an audacious proposition some 135 years later in 2019. Today, workers worldwide express feeling threatened by the growing deployment of artificial intelligence, while others cannot develop skills fast enough needed to compete in increasingly more global arenas of business and production. It seems that methods of goods production inspire more anxiety and outrage on a regular basis than they do joy. In A Factory As It Might Be, Morris locates the conceptual and physical site of the “pleasant” factory at in a “harmonious combination of capital and labor.” The “conditions of pleasant work,” he continues, will be realized “when we shall work for livelihood and pleasure and not for profit.” How can Morris’ idealized workshop be designed? Read the essay from Social Label Works.
2018 Vanguard: Davies Toews
JOURNALISM
With their residential and public architectural works, New York firm Davies Toews directly confronts irregularities and constraints to transform potentially awkward moments into meticulously designed spaces and public installations. Read more.
Free Roaming: A Review of the 2018 Venice Biennale
CRITICISM
In an interview leading up to the 16th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale, the curators, Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell, of Grafton Architects, admitted that the theme they devised, Freespace, was difficult to define. Space that’s free? Free of what? Free for whom? Read more.
Architecture is a Sexual Practice
CRITICISM
Cruising is a covert act that takes place in plain sight. Cues like locked eyes, a turnaround glance, winks, gropes, all signify consent to approach one another. Its variant practices and habits form the subject of the Cruising Pavilion, an off-site group exhibition held during the vernissage of the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale. Read more.