The strangest architecture competition ever?

[MUSIC] Hello and welcome back to Dazine Weekly, the podcast where we discuss the biggest architecture and design stories of the week. I'm Nat Barker, feature editor at Dazine. >> I'm Dazine's design editor, Jennifer Han. >> So, Jen, well, it's obviously been a huge week for news generally. It's been a relatively quiet one for design. But we still have two interesting stories to talk about. Can you tell us about them? >> Yeah, so big, big tech news this week is obviously the launch of the new Apple MacBook Neo, which is their cheapest ever. We're going to talk a bit about how they did it and why it matters. But before we get onto that, let's talk about this crazy design shortlist for a new landmark in Rotterdam that they're building as the next world wonder what is going on with that. >> Okay, yeah. So as you said, this is a really bonkers architecture competition. We want to talk about the designs themselves and we'll do that in a bit. But first, just provide some background on this. This was a competition initiated by a Dutch social enterprise called Shift, led by an entrepreneur called Don Ritsen. And Shift's MO, basically it's stated aim, is to encourage individuals to reduce their carbon footprints. In January 2025, so January last year, it announced this competition for, as you said, a new wonder of the world somewhere in the Netherlands. It was a very open brief. So they said they wanted it to be in the Netherlands, but they didn't say exactly where. They didn't also prescribe a function for the building. So they said it, they just wanted it to be a landmark to compete with the Eiffel Tower or Petro Temple in Jordan. That was what they said. And the main priorities were twofold. So one was something that's going to inspire a climate action in visitors and two, something that's going to showcase cutting-edge sustainable construction. One of the quotes from that, from the competition brief was that it should be a beacon of hope for human ingenuity. So yeah, it was a broad brief. They also didn't even specify whether it needed to be a new building, an installation, a repurposing of an existing building. As it happens, I think all of the finalists are designs for new building. So that's the avenue that the architects have chosen to go down. It's a 250,000 euro competition. So you get 40,000 euros as a finalist and another 50,000 if you win the competition. So this is well funded. There's a big carrot there for architecture studios. They're not entering this for free. They're getting paid to be shortlisted in the competition. And then I understand rightly, I think the final budget for the building itself is 240 million euros. 240 million, yeah. So chunky. That's a big, old, big, old development project. Yeah. There's kind of slight mystery there. We know that the funding for the 250,000 has come from Dutch investors. Is all the information we've really been given. It's not 100% clear exactly how this social enterprise shift has got the money to put behind this project. Maybe that's a tomorrow problem for them. They're kind of just trusting that they'll be able to encourage private businesses to pile in on this. Interesting also, because I think they want to build one of these landmarks on every continent following this. So that's another six times 240 million in theory. That's a good point. This is just the start. Yeah. The Netherlands one is just the start. They want to build six more of them, yeah, exactly. And so the finalists were picked in May 2025 by a jury, including some luminaries from the architecture and design world. Eric Chen, director of the Zaha Deed Foundation former director of the Noi Institute. Am I perhaps going to that probably? Yeah, I don't know what the Dutch pronunciation will be, but it's the new institute in the Netherlands, essentially. Eric Chen and also Ben Van Berkel, who's a founder of UN Studio, big Dutch architect studio. So there were 80 entrants and the five shortlisted designs have now been unveiled. And Jen, what do you make of them? It's a mixed bunch. So there's some big names in there. Heather Wicks studio is shortlisted, MVRDB, Macano. And they have definitely divided opinion. More than one, I think maybe two or three are pretty much went for the cover of building and plants strategy. Yeah, maybe we should talk a little bit about that phenomenon later on. Yeah, definitely very interesting. The MVRDB one has been the most divisive, but also probably I would say the most grabby. It essentially looks like this pile of moss-covered rocks sort of stacked on top of each other. And I actually think it's kind of amazing looking. And it's probably the most landmarky out of all of them. The others just kind of look like quite cool buildings, but like just your average building. But this is the most landmark looking out of all of them, I would say, if they were able to translate it well. But if anyone has seen MVRDB's Marble Arch Mound, it does really suck in the sun. Yeah, that kind of lurks in the background with this, doesn't it? So the Marble Arch Mound, a tourist attraction in London, which was opened in 2021 or 2022, a kind of post-pandemic thing. It was designed by MVRDB and it was a big, grassy mound with trees and plants on it, right? And it was kind of universally considered to be a total failure, including by MVRDB themselves. And they pointed to finger quite squarely at Westminster City Council, who were the client on that project. But it's difficult not to look at their design for this without remembering how the Marble Arch Mound went down, I guess. Yeah, it's another mossy mound. And in fact, it's called, I think Rotterdam Rocks, they're calling it, as in Dublin, Tondor, they're like rocks. Like it rocks. Yeah, rocks, exclamation marks. Yeah, but also rocks in Rotterdam. But if they were able to translate it better than the Marble Arch Mound, I actually think it looks really beautiful, very sort of dystopian, like a city overgrown, very sort of the last of us. It's a bit studio jibbly-ish as well, isn't it? Oh, yeah, I see that. Kind of castling the sky type thing. It's got artificial waterfalls coming down it. I mean, it is amazing. Maybe we should say a little bit. We'll talk more about that in a second. And maybe we'll. Maybe we should talk a little bit about some of the others as well, so that we're not neglecting them. Okay, fine. Yeah, tell me about the others. There were some big names on this list, not just MVR DV. So let's go through them in reverse order in terms of bonkersness. So ascending from most ordinary-ness to most sort of mad. So Meckanoo, another kind of big well-known Dutch architect studio, they put forward something called the House of Shift. So if I can describe it properly, it kind of takes the form of a rising kind of a mounted plaza with steps up it. And if you were stood on the plaza, then you would have large red pillars surrounding you. That would be holding up a large rectangular orange volume of a building above your head. Sticking out of that would be like a giant globe that from the renders seems to act like a bit of a glitter ball at night. And then attached to that, a big blue tower, basically. That one, to me. I mean, I've been to Rotterdam. It looks very Rotterdam. I don't really know if it counts as a. Is it. If you could categorise it as something that's going to be a world wonder, though? Yeah, maybe not world wonder, but it does sort of have a little bit of the trappings of a landmark because it reminds me of the Oslo Opera House designed by Snowheter, which I actually think is a really beautiful building and where it's placed in Oslo. I do think it's actually become quite a landmark for that city. And it has some of these same characteristics of being a sort of a building that you can walk on in. It's become this public space and it's actually used by people all the time. And I actually. I really love that building. But I don't think this. I mean, this is sort of like a worse version of that, I would say. Not. That reminds me. We should probably clarify exactly where this is going to sit to this building. So as we mentioned, we. Even though the initial competition didn't state where it was going to be, we now know it's in Rotterdam, obviously, if that wasn't clear already. And it was going to sit as part of a new waterfront district that's being built called Watercant. So that is where the site will be. It will be right on the water there. Heather Wick Studio. Another of the finalist designs. Heather Wick Studio, led by Thomas Heather Wick, obviously, another huge name in design and architecture. And kind of quite often synonymous with slightly like bold, wacky ideas. And three covered buildings. Although they actually were framed from it, I think, this time mostly. Oh, there's some trees in there, but it's much more subtle. Interior trees on the top level, I think, yeah. But can you tell me about this one, Jen? The details are kind of vague. It's meant to be modeled on a sort of reef. So it's a reef-inspired ecosystem, quote, unquote. And it's this six-tiered building that does sort of look. I guess it sort of looks a little bit like Coro. And I think it's meant to be sort of a museum-y type culture space, which again, they sort of just designed a museum, I would say. I don't know how that fulfills the world wonder criteria. Dazine Comet has had an absolute field day with his whole story. And a couple of them remarked that. Would they express surprise that the Heatherwick studio design seemed like one of the more sensible designs. But is sensible really what you want from a world wonder? I don't think the brief is like sensible. I think that's a totally fair. Totally fair talk. OK, how sensible do you think this one is? Jen, Office for Political Innovation, Spanish Architects Studio, led by André Jacques. Probably their best known for the Reggio School just outside of Madrid, which was last year when Dazine did our 25 most significant buildings of the 21st century so far. This was our pick for 2022. So that is a really cool building. I definitely recommend people look that up if they're not already familiar. But their design for this competition is basically modeled on a cross-section, I think. So it's kind of a glass facade, which is transparent. And then within that, it kind of offers a view of the inside of the building, which looks like it's basically made of wood. Again, there's loads of plants going on in there, all different stacks of different boxes. This competition is a real bingo card of aspects of iconic buildings. architecture that have been popular in the last 10, 15 years, right? And one of them is like stacked boxes. One of them is like plants on buildings and all that sort of stuff. What did you think of this one? I mean, it's sort of, I think, really hard to tell how good it is without having some more information about what's going on in the building. Like, it sort of almost looks like there's some kind of vertical farming system in there, maybe, which I think would be kind of crucial to know to judge whether it's any good. It's, you know, how is it really fulfilling this brief of exploring, you know, sustainable materials and sustainable construction and sustainable living, right? The whole point of this thing is to inspire people to make changes in their personal lives and to show that sustainable living can be fun and aspirational and beautiful. And it's sort of hard to tell how this fits that bill. I mean, it's right now it's just a glass building to me with like a funny shape. At this stage, the amount of detail that has been provided is fairly limited. It's a good story if you're a fan of slightly silly architect quotes. Obviously for political innovation said about this one, that it would be a new kind of landmark for the climate age, not a monument, but a working section through the world as it is becoming, a place where climate is sensed, understood and actively reshaped together. So we'll leave it to listeners to pass any meaning they can from that. The next one on the list is by ecosystemer Bano, another Spanish architecture studio. And now this one is really plant coverage, right? Yeah, I mean, I've seen this is like basically like any Stefano Brayri building with like some added orange stairs on the outside. Sorry to call you out like that ecosystemer. Well ecosystemer, they are known for this kind of they are one of these kind of plant covered, covered building studios. But yeah, it's funny, isn't it? This thing, you know, you mentioned Stefano Boweri and Bosco Verticali. That was another one of our most significant buildings of the 21st century when we did that series. But since then, this has become a massive, massive thing, putting trees in buildings, you know, Thomas Heatherwick's done it a bunch as we mentioned, even Foster and Partlers have got trees in the skyscraper that's going to be the Amex headquarters at the World Trade Center. You know, that's about as kind of corporate of a project as you could possibly imagine, and they're whacking trees in there. That's, it's just become such a, such a go-to now. Yeah, and commenters were definitely calling that out on the website. They were pretty much saying, you know, this just shows that establishment architects still think quote, "unquote sustainable" means growing plants on walls and getting a bream certificate. And someone actually pointed out that many of these, well, they called many of these schemes "hortocorturally illiterate", which I kind of love. I think just pointing out this idea that often architects will just be like, "Yeah, we'll put some plants on it." But obviously they don't really have any kind of understanding of what it takes to grow these plants and how to manage them and maintain them exactly. And often, when you see these buildings that were designed that way after a couple years of probably not very good management, they just end up looking really sad and limp and marble-arge-mount-ish. And also very interestingly, someone else pointed out that MBRDB themselves recently had an exhibition in Rotterdam, outlining some research showing that green features like facade planting can actually, in some case, is increase a building's carbon footprint because all of that stuff is so heavy that you need to build bigger foundations to hold it up. And obviously those are made from concrete and steel, which are really emissions intensive. And that exhibition pretty much concluded apparently that these trees would have to grow for hundreds of years to offset the climate impact of this building. And yet MBRDB themselves and all these other studios have obviously still decided that the way to communicate sustainable futures somehow is putting plants on buildings. Yeah, I mean, it does, you know, without wanting to jump to conclusions here, it does immediately feel that it walks into potential criticisms of green washing, doesn't it? That, you know, it's a visual statement putting trees on buildings more than an actually sustainable statement. I guess, you know, if you really wanted to make something sustainable, you would be using repurposed materials and that would be your focus, or you would be trying to work with an existing building. And as we said, like that isn't what the architects have gone for in this case. Or maybe there would have been like a really interesting version of making the whole thing like covered in solar panels and kind of exploring the new materiality and shapes that are possible using that like the latest generation of solar panels. Like I feel like there was maybe an opportunity here to take the materials and technologies of the future and show how they can define a new visual language. But I think I don't know that any of them have really done this. I mean, again, it's hard to tell without reading proper descriptions about what would be included in terms of sustainable mechanisms and materials. But if you had to pick a winner, Jen, are you am I correct in saying you're going to go with Rotterdam Rocks, the MV1? I think maybe yes, to be honest. I think the McCannu, Mecanu, one would be a close second, although I don't like this weird sparkly bubble that they've got at the top. I don't really understand what's going on with that personally. But I guess maybe the more interesting question also is is this even a worthwhile thing for them to be doing in the first place? Like is this a good way to spend 240 million euros worth of funding that could go to other climate causes? So that is the obvious paradox here, isn't it? Is the building a huge building? Is a strange way to fight climate change? And now, shifts argument is that you need to find a way to inspire people to change their behaviour. And that world wonders are a way of kind of capturing people's imagination. However, there is a huge environmental cost associated with a large development project. So it does feel kind of paradoxical. Yeah, and I guess I'm wondering a little bit at the conclusion here is like, can we point to any existing world wonders that have somehow changed people's behaviour? Like, what does that look like? I can't think of a single example of when that would have possibly been the case. So it feels like a bit of an intellectually peer to to me that someone would look at this building and be like, wow, I must recycle. Or well, I guess maybe if it was like using recycled materials in a really interesting way and displaying that visually maybe, but it can't say that any of them. Well, there are lots of mysteries here. I think it's fair to say and it's something that we're going to have to keep our eyes on. It would be pretty interesting if something crazy like the Rotterdam rocks does get built. That obviously a lot of things have to happen before that would become the case. But this is definitely one for us to watch. Moving on now to our second story for this week, Jen, there's been some big news from Apple. Tell us about this one. Yeah, so launching this week is the new MacBook Neo. It's Apple's new budget MacBook category and it's their most affordable laptop to date coming in at around half the price of the MacBook Air. So £599 or £599, so pretty much $600, you know, $600. And our editor Tom Ravenscroft was among the first to be able to try out IRL and you also managed to get an exclusive interview with Apple's head of industrial design, Molly Anderson, to get the full rundown on how they managed to achieve this pretty chunky price lash. And pretty much from what he said and from having a little play around with it, he was saying it still feels pretty much like a MacBook. And a big part of that is that they were able to retain the famous aluminium case, but the way they were able to cut down on the prices by developing this new manufacturing technique for the body, which will go into in a little bit. But the reason that's important is pretty much that every other laptop in this price category is plastic. So it will inherently, I think, feel a lot more premium than other things of this price range. And it also retains, you know, the same keyboard as the MacBook Air and Pro and it has a 12-inch liquid retina screen. So, you know, really good brightness, really good colour range for something of this price. And also it comes in these lovely fun colours. So you've got the standard silver, of course, but then I think they're main hero colours. This beautiful citrus yellow, there's a dark blue, there's a rose pink with colour-matched keyboard. So it's kind of like a fun little, it feels very nostalgic Apple, you know, back in the day when they had these colourful laptops. Yeah, kind of like the iBook era. It's a big story this, I guess, for kind of two reasons. One is just because there's Apple and people always obsessed with what Apple are doing. And it is very interesting that they are kind of the company where the genius of Apple is that they have managed to make premium products mainstream, you know, like, they've managed to convince the world that they need to buy a MacBook or they need to buy an iPhone, even if a lot of the time you don't really for what it's actually using, you know, they've managed to make premium products like the kind of middle point in that market and really dominate. So it's interesting that now they're kind of going for something at the affordable end that's like not what we normally associate with them. But it's also interesting from a design, like, challenge point of view, right? Because I think this is what came out of Tom's interview with Molly Anderson, which I found really interesting is that, you know, that brief of making a product that costs half as much as a MacBook Air, but still has that high quality Apple feel, the tactility of the keyboard and the aluminium and everything and the thing where, you know, when you open the lid, the bottom of the laptop doesn't rise up as well. Like, what happens on cheaper laptops? All of that stuff. And that wasn't just a case of downgrading certain things is what Apple would say. It was actually, they kind of had to start all the way again and go right back to like how they manufacture the MacBook and think about that process really, really carefully to produce something like to produce a whole new design, basically. So Jen, can you talk a little bit more about how they did that? Yeah, so I mean, in terms of like the actual specs of the laptop, obviously, there has been some level of downgrading, quote, unquote Dongrading so. Actually, the whole thing runs on the same chip as the iPhone 16 Pro, which I think is super interesting. It's the first time they've put a phone chip into a laptop. And that might make you think how could a laptop possibly run on this chip. But according to Macworld, they did a bit of digging. And this will essentially give you better single core performance than the 2024 MacBook Air, which runs on the M3 chip at almost half the price. So that actually does sound pretty good. It's just not going to be able to let you do lots of like more demanding tasks like video rendering pretty much. But I think that's not really who this is for anyway. I think this is like for students, it's for younger demographic casual users, that kind of thing. And then obviously, you know, you've got the lowest battery power of any current MacBook at 16 hours, which is, as I say, it's lower than other MacBooks, but it's still actually for devices in this price range really quite good. It's got eight gigabytes of RAM. So again, you won't be able to do lots of complicated tasks at the same time. Really, it's got no backlit keyboard, no Macsave charging, and a 512 gigabyte limit on storage. But for all these sort of compromises or concessions in the functionality that's in there, I think really what the brief was for the hardware team is that they didn't want to compromise on the feeling of the laptop, especially because the whole aim is that this will introduce a whole new segment of users to the MacBook, right? And so you kind of want them to have the same MacBook experience that you get with other laptops from Apple. And so, yeah, they kind of wanted the whole thing to feel the same. And so they figured out a way of still being able to use aluminum, which obviously the company is known for, by essentially, instead of. So the way normally a MacBook is made is that you have this single extruded piece of aluminum, like essentially an aluminum sheet that's kind of vaguely just slightly bigger than the final MacBook body is going to be. And out of this, they use CNC machines to carve the final shape. So it's just one solid piece of aluminum, which obviously is incredibly durable. But for this, they found a way to essentially use an additive process. So you're not cutting away material, you're adding material. So first, you heat and pressure shape the aluminum into the vaguely the shape of the body, and then you add material on to create the internal structure. So obviously, inherently, that's less waste because you're not cutting away material. So pretty much they were able to have the amount of material used. And also obviously the time it takes to machine is much lower. And also they've incorporated the most recycled material that they have to date. So 60% recycled material by weight and the aluminum is 90% reuse. So kind of taking all of that together has allowed them to shave, like, quite a big chunk of the price off. When you look at all that info, you think, "Why wouldn't they just use this for every Apple product?" But interestingly, they've said, "We look at each product as an individual case, like it's not something that we're thinking of adopting wholesale across our range." Yeah, I think it's because you do compromise slightly on the durability. Once you start having different components that are attached together, I think there's much more possibility of breakage or failure or something going wrong essentially. And pretty much for the other MacBook lines, the affordability is just not the primary thing that they're going for, the primary thing that they're going for is for the MacBook Pro. Obviously, performance for the MacBook Air. And I think both of those goals, if those are the core stated goals, I think to achieve those, you kind of want a solid body, like something that's really going to be durable. Interestingly, obviously, with the Pro and the Air, the name very much corresponds to what this unique selling point is. Obviously, they haven't called this, you know, the MacBook budget. They've called it the Neo. I guess they didn't really want to connote too heavily that it was lesser than. Yeah, maybe Neo kind of means new, doesn't it? And there's something to do there. This is definitely a MacBook that's aimed at people who haven't had a MacBook before. Right? So you kind of mentioned students. I'll see that. Maybe it's a sort of first personal laptop. So maybe that's what they're going for. I've got a couple of thoughts about this. And one is that it feels like this is quite a nice rare example of democratic design. You know, it's good to see that nice design is being made more affordable for a broader range of people. I think that's something that we call for a lot. And actually, these days, you just don't see it happening very much. So that is quite nice to see. At first, I thought that the MacBook Neo and the concept of making a more affordable MacBook, you know, and I'm reminded that also this week, Apple bought out the iPhone 17 E, which is like a more affordable version of the iPhone 17. At first, I thought that might be a kind of acknowledgement that this premium mainstream model that they've gone with is not working. As well as it has in the past or it's under threat. But now that I think about it more, arguably, I think more cynically, it's kind of a gateway into the world garden of Apple. This is how Apple likes to work, right? They like to lock you in and like, once you've gone Apple, you don't go back. And so, you know, you progress from your, once you've got your MacBook Neo, you want your iPhone, you want your Apple headphones, you want your Apple TV. Because they all pair together. And also, you've got your iPad storage. So all your photos are in there. So, you don't really want to switch to a Windows. Yeah. And now you've graduated and now maybe you'll upgrade to a MacBook Air and then after that, maybe you'll get a MacBook Pro even though it isn't necessarily what you need. So, I think that maybe that is kind of what they're doing. But it's interesting because they are really stepping on the turf of like Chromebooks and more affordable Windows laptops. Yeah, it definitely, I think this push for the affordability comes at a very interesting time because we're actually the tech industry is facing this looming RAM crisis. Some may call it Ramageddon. I've heard it referred to as Ramageddon. Ram crisis. I've not heard this time. What's going on? So pretty much because of this huge Surgeon AI data center, there's been a huge rise in demand for processing power, which is RAM. But there's only really three companies in the world that make the majority of the RAM that everyone uses. And since now they're prioritizing AI, there's fewer components for consumer products. So people are pretty much anticipating that PC prices are expected to increase by 17% this year and also obviously sales will probably correspondingly fall. And commenters have sort of positive that maybe Apple is trying to get in the head of these price hikes here and steal a good chunk of this budget segment to help them essentially weather this storm. That is interesting. And you know, it has been quite well reviewed the MacBook Neo as far as I've seen and there have been calls for an iPhone Neo. But if people were kind of hoping that this might be a signal that Apple is going to become a more affordable brand, I would just temper that optimism with the news that Bloomberg reported recently that Apple is working on a MacBook Ultra, which is like one step above the pro. So like a super, super high end MacBook. And apparently that's going to be touchscreen and stuff. So you know, this doesn't necessarily signal like a complete shift in the sands for Apple as a brand. But that is very interesting. The context about the RAM crisis. I didn't know that. I'm very relaxed about RAM to be honest. But maybe I should be. Yeah. I mean, I'm not in the habit of buying new devices. I'm not one of these people that's getting the latest version of whatever it is. I can't remember the last time I've bought a tech device. I mean, I'm using my design company laptop as my personal one. Sorry, design. Well, that is something I was thinking about as well with this story is like who actually buys a personal laptop these days with the shift to hybrid working for so many people. I think probably a lot of people are like, you know, I'm like you, I just use my design issued MacBook Air all the time. I don't have a personal laptop anymore. And I imagine that's the same for a lot of people. I guess unless you are a student or maybe, you know, you're retired. And if not, you know, maybe you're a freelancer in which case you would probably be going for one of the one of the more high end ones. But I wondered if that's part of what they're thinking now as well as the, you know, the average person just doesn't buy a MacBook for themselves anymore. So you need to target the student market a little bit more. Yeah. And obviously Mac offers that student discount. So it's actually a hundred quid cheaper even than this price. So I think it's $499 pounds slash dollars. That is correct. I mean, that is cheap, you know, like if you look at, I had a little look on a, you know, a tech retailer website before this, how much laptops basically cost because like you it's so long as it's a bought one. And 499, that would be really, really competitive compared to like a fairly standard, like plastic laptop that you get somewhere else. It's actually made me consider, I was very happy just using the company one. And then I saw the lovely citrus color way that they had. And I considered that maybe I should be standing on my own two feet and getting my own laptop. And I was like, I could actually be convinced to get that. Interesting. Yeah. I think there's something interesting about the colors as well. There's something about colourfulness. And you know, Apple have also said this is our most colourful MacBook ever that somehow reads as being affordable. You know, there's that phrase cheap and cheerful, which is probably not how Apple would want this laptop to be described. But there is something about being colourful and fun that kind of feels like it goes hand in hand with being a bit less, you know, if something's expensive, it has to be serious and monochrome, right? I would definitely love to know how they settled on those colours. I think there's probably an interesting story to be told there because obviously they just brought out their iPhone before this in that orange colour way that everyone loved. And in China, I think they started calling it Hermes orange. And it was quite iconic. So there, obviously, kind of, it was actually a marker of expansiveness. But I think that was also very specifically about the colour that they chose. So yeah, I would love to dig actually a bit into how they picked that. Because I guess, yes, like a citrusy green orange doesn't scream expensive. Yeah. But it is a criticism that's increasingly been leveled at Apple, isn't it? the Apple aesthetic. spread across the whole world and everything is this kind of attiliated, very clean look to it. Maybe they are kind of responding to that a little bit and wanting to bring color back into their product range. That's not a bad thing. I'm being well up for colorful tech coming back into our lives a little bit more. Yeah, definitely. I think this is poised to be quite a transformative launch to be honest. The editor of the tech review platform Tom's guide said it could be quote unquote the laptop of the decade just because of how much better it is than anything in this price range and how much it's probably going to steal market share from Windows in this segment. So yeah, things remain interesting. I will see how it actually sells and also whether it cannibalizes conversely sales of the MacBook Air, which obviously was previously the most affordable version. So it would be interesting to see how it plays out. Okay, that's almost it for us this week, but just before we go, Jen, do you have any recommendations for interesting design stories from this week that people should check out? Yeah, so there's actually been a bunch of fun news this week in terms of the design side of things. Nike or Nike, if you're American, unveiled a portable modular stadium kit with something like a thousand different parts that allows football to be played anywhere, whether it's in the mountains or in a desert. Meanwhile, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Chinese tech company owner showed off a robot phone with an articulating arm, which is quite wild to see. So I encourage you to look that up. And then back on our home turf in London, UK rapper Dave came to the O2 arena as part of his latest tour and our very own star child's talk to the set designer about creating a laser shooting piano for the show. So if that doesn't intrigue, I don't know what will. And then yeah, I think that's probably it from me. What would be your rec for people to check out this week? Well, now that you've given off phones with robot arms and laser shooting, what was it? Piano laser shooting pianos. I'm worried that this is going to sound a bit dry, but my recommendation, we published an opinion piece this week that I thought was really fascinating by a guy called Nick Foster. So Nick Foster, he described himself as a futures designer. He's worked with Apple, Google, Nokia, Sony, Dyson, lots of big tech companies. And in this piece, he's basically making a plea for software designers to use AI as an excuse to abandon the kind of seamless cookie cutter approach to app design that has become the norm. And that kind of makes everything, you know, all the apps that we use look and feel very, very similar. So his argument is basically that the drawbacks of generative AI, so basically it's unpredictable, it spits out weird stuff, it makes mistakes, could kind of become the basis for something that's much more new and interesting than what our apps and our software currently is. And he makes his interesting comparison with guitar amplifiers where, you know, when amplifiers were invented, they allowed musicians to play too much larger groups of people. And so they were very useful, but the problem was that with that came distortion. And technically, minded people spent a long time trying to engineer out all of this distortion. But while that was going on, artistically minded people, creatively minded people, AI musicians, decided to lean into that distortion. And that's where we got loads of new whole new genres of music like rock and roll, metal music, and then from there, basically electronic music as we know it today. So I just thought that was a really interesting kind of new perspective and maybe a more positive perspective on the emergence of generative AI, and it's kind of increasing dominance compared to what we normally hear. So yeah, I'd recommend people who check that out. That is super interesting. Yeah, I feel like some of the most interesting uses of AI that I'm seeing recently is people pretty much in dialogue with the AI. So you feed something into it, you see what it spits out, then you use that to iterate on, and then you feed it back, and you're kind of almost like using it to interrogate yourself and get new unexpected outcomes that you then do something new and interesting with. Yeah, almost like treating it on its own terms. Yeah, yeah. And I think he phrased it maybe like treating it as a material, right? So it's a material that you work with and that you use to inform the final outcome of the piece rather than letting it necessarily just give you an outcome and that's it. That's all we've got time for this week. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Dessene Weekly. Please do give us a rating and a follow on your chosen podcast app, and we'll be back next week with more on the biggest stories in architecture and design. [BLANK_AUDIO]