Ep. 2 - Know Your Couch

After almost two years since we launched this podcast, we’re back to bring you some brand new perspectives on how to live in, design and fundamentally, enjoy - our homes. This is the Wellness Episode, so it’s time to get off the couch and start thinking about health, fitness and feeling your best at home. David Plaisant speaks to designers Woody Yao and Maha Kutay on creating interiors that make us feel better, we get some valuable tips from Harry Jameson on how to incorporate wellness concepts into the home and speak to a friend of the show Rosa Park Voices,Woody Yao and Maha Kutay, Zaha Hadid DesignHarry Jameson, Health and fitness expertRosa Park, Founder and Editor Cereal Magazine Presented by David PlaisantSound editing by Alex Portfelix

We go al fresco on this episode and talk to celebrated designer Philippe Starck about his new outdoor collection Oh, it rains! Plus we look at the history of taking the indoor out, and bringing the outside in with historian Penny Sparke and writer Catharine Rossi. Voices:Philippe Starck, ArchitectPenny Sparke, Design HistorianCatharine Rossi, Design Author

As many more of us have to work from home the question is more important than ever, we discuss ergonomics and comfort in design with Editor of AD PRO Katy Olson, design critic Annalisa Rosso and also hear from Piero Lissoni and Mario Bellini.

We jump on the piece of furniture that gives the podcast its name this week. From couch potato to couch surfer we look at how a large, soft object for the home has impacted our culture. Guests:Mario Bellini, architect @mariobelliniarchitectsRosa Park, Editor of Cereal Magazine @cerealmag Elizabeth Glickfeld, Design critic and founder of Dirty Furniture @dirtyfurnituremag Rosa Park, Editor of Cereal MagazineAs the editor and co-founder of Cereal—an independent biannual magazine celebrated for its distinct take on travel and style—Rosa Park has an eye for good design and quality craftsmanship, a well-tuned ear for strong cultural narratives.Park has lived a peripatetic existence, zigzagging her way across the globe from Seoul to Vancouver to Boston followed by a stint in New York where she cut her teeth working in fashion and beauty marketing for five years, before moving to Bristol to start fresh on a new career path that eventually led her to Bath where she launched Cereal alongside partner Rich Stapleton. When work brings her to New York, Park bases herself downtown. Elizabeth Glickfeld, Design critic and founder of Dirty Furniture Elizabeth Glickfeld is a design writer based in London. Writing across two- and three-dimensional design and visual culture, she writes for various publications including Eye, Disegno, Design Issues, Domus and Frieze magazine. She is co-author of the book 100 ideas that changed design (to be published by Laurence-King in 2015), co-founder and -editor of the independent design magazine Dirty Furniture and a lecturer in design history at Kingston University. She holds a masters degree from the Royal College of Art in Critical Writing in Art and Design and was a lecturer and tutor in design theory and history at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia. She has also trained and worked internationally as a graphic designer.

With our domestic life and work life experiencing such extreme change we wonder what the home will look like, 1 year, 10 years or even 100 years into the future. Looking how technology is changing the way we use the domestic space but also find out how the crafted and the tangible are more important than ever. We also look back to 1972 and what the future of design looked like back then.Voices: Lidewij Edelkoort, designer and trend forecaster, Ivy Ross, VP of Google Hardware Design, Annalisa Rosso, Editor of Icon Design, Catharine Rossi author.

Design at in its very essence is about crafting objects that can be made and used again and again. Italian design maestro Mario Bellini discusses that process and looks back 50 years to the creation of his iconic Camaleonda.Guest: Mario Bellini, Architect.

From radical, experimental design to brash, sensational advertising there are some couches that tell a story. We go on design voyage sitting on some masterful couches along the way, including Gaetano Pesce’s UP, Antonio Citterio’s Sity, Mario Bellini’s Le Bambole.Guests: Antonio Citterio, Architect, Piero Lissoni, Architect, Nina Yashar, gallerist and entrepreneur, and Catharine Rossi, author.

As we are using our homes like never before, we discover just how crucial the domestic space is to our culture. We trace the origins of modern home design and see how it can be both a refuge and platform of creativity.Guests: Michael Anastassiades, designer, Tom Morris, writer and interiors expert, and Professor Penny Sparke, design academic.

“The Couch” is a brand new podcast brought to you by B&B Italia. Over the course our first 7 episodes we’ll be sitting down, sitting back and listening in on designers, writers, collectors and curators to discuss the importance of the home and all the things we decide to put in it. As many of us are using the spaces we call home in a way like never before, we ponder on the past, present and future of domestic environments. The Couch, conversations on design is presented by me David Plaisant for B&B Italia, and is available online from May 2020.