As part of our Surface Summer School lecture series, the Pritzker Prize–winning architect and Morphosis founder Thom Mayne spoke to students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design about designing the next mobile Covid-19 testing unit.

“I think I’d make an ice cream shop; when you get an ice cream, you get a swab,” Mayne joked to students, imagining his clever submission in their competition to design a mobile coronavirus testing unit. He encouraged students to think of the brief as a cultural project and to approach it on social terms in order to expand their creativity. He shared some wisdom that has guided his own illustrious career, which has been defined by an experimental style. “I’ve never won a competition that I didn’t break a rule,” he said. “Stay relaxed. This project is a serious subject, but you should really have fun with it.” Watch now and tune in tomorrow for a lecture by Michael Rock, founding partner and executive creative director of 2x4.

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In the early 1980s, Nathalie Du Pasquier became a founding member of Memphis Milano, the irreverent postmodern architecture and design collective started by Ettore Sottsass. The artist, who hails from Bordeaux, mostly designed “decorated surfaces”—textiles, carpets, and plastic laminates noted for a visual language of playful patterns and bold strokes.

Despite her indelible mark on Memphis, du Pasquier departed the group in 1987 to focus on painting. She began with figuration—crisp still-lifes based on careful arrangements of everyday objects. Eventually, she turned to abstraction, imbuing her works with visual cues inspired by travels to Africa and Novecento painting by Giorgio de Chirico and Giorgio Morandi. She soon began modeling her still-lifes on 3-D wood assemblages that she built herself. These gradual stylistic shifts are the subject of a new exhibition, “Space Between Things,” on view virtually at Pace Gallery through June 30, as well as three concurrent virtual shows that prove her vibrant visual language has lost none of its power since her Memphis years.

“Simply put, the very nature of how we work and live is always changing, whether it’s in response to new technologies, evolving work culture, or the Covid-19 crisis,” says Benjamin Pardo, executive vice president of design at Knoll. This insight forms the cornerstone of Knoll Design Days 2020, a two-day series of virtual programming that took place on June 9 and 10 (replays are currently streaming).

Building on the success of the company’s ongoing k.talks series and Women in Design Dialogues, the program explores Knoll’s research-driven perspective with today’s top thinkers in workplace strategy, product design, architecture, interior design, and textiles. Tune in for a studio visit with Copenhagen-based designer Thomas Bentzen, cocktail discussions with Barber & Osgerby, and insights on what makes a great workplace from Pardo, Antenna Design, and Rockwell Group founder David Rockwell.

Founded in 1966 with the entrepreneurial vision of Piero Ambrogio Busnelli, B&B Italia is a leading furniture brand that caters to both residential and contract markets. Based in Novedrate, Italy, the company has always embraced an innovative approach to manufacturing. Its internal R&D center forges cultural meetings and experiences with industry-leading designers such as Antonio Citterio, Piero Lissoni, Mario Bellini, Gaetano Pesce, Naoto Fukasawa, Barber & Osgerby, and others.

Surface Says: With B&B Italia, the Busnelli family has created a rule-breaking global force. The company’s vast portfolio of indoor and outdoor furniture includes category-defining products by the world’s leading designers.

Explore an oral history of Pyer Moss’s most unforgettable runway show.

Bisa Butler quilts life-size portraits of black people whose stories go untold.

Ryota Kajita captures the strange ice patterns of Alaska’s interior ponds.

Bjarke Ingels reveals a prototype for a Martian city in the desert near Dubai.