The Right Stuff

An exhibition launching in April at New York's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum features textiles used in science and industry that are ravishing enough for the runway. Here we offer a preview, plus several pieces spun off from the materials theme: new applications for a 3D fabric, art composed of flesh, a crystalline spy building, a transgenic zoo, and light boxes filled with mystery.

Features

Cut from a Different Cloth
Fifteen years in the planning, "Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance" opens at the Cooper-Hewitt.
By Eve M. Kahn

Material Migrations: Bobble Camouflage
Three new uses for a 3D fabric.
By Jeffrey Bernett, Julia Hasting, and David Oakey

The Way of Some Flesh
A pair of artists challenges the ethics of cloning.
By Jessica Hemmings

All Creatures New and Strange
Man, beast, and architecture mingle in Peter Yeadon's Transgenic Zoo.
By Thomas de Monchaux

Everything Is Illuminated
How Robert Pratt McMachan finds mystery in transparency.
By David Sokol

So You Want to Be a Futurist?
Who are these people? And what do they do from 9 to 5?
By Tom Vanderbilt

The Spies Who Went in for Some Warmth
Tough on the outside, tender on the inside, a British building opens for espionage.
By Phil Patton

Playing for Keeps
A design competition kick-starts AIDS education in a South African town.
By Jessie Scanlon

Departments

.../letters
Protesting illustrations for a story about weapons.

.../update
Yad Vashem's museum opens. Grimshaw's spa doesn't. The latest from the designing moms.

.../note
On rising to the occasion of tragedy
By Julie Lasky

.../expo
Clearview Highway hits the road signs. Chickens cop a modern coop. Anglers get reel help.

.../q+a
Eames Demetrios on the ethics of knockoffs.
By Julie Lasky

.../rant
A design observer and Kerry supporter mourns the country she hasn't quite left.
By Barbara Flanagan

.../eco
Dutch designers transform trash into treasure.
By Jane Margolies

.../r+d
How Pininfarina built saftey into a two-seat car.
By David Sokol

.../n+n
Lloyd Hotel opens in Amsterdam with designer furniture you can buy.
By David Sokol

.../scape
Touring an Istanbul theme park stuffed with miniature monuments
By Gökhan Karakus

.../crit Transportation: Stokke Xplory
Reviewed By Ayse Birsel And Bibi Seck
Product: Push Braces
Reviewed By Michael Wiklund
Software: The Journey to Wild Divine
Reviewed By David Womack
Book: Disruptive Pattern Material
Reviewed By Tom Vanderbilt

.../flashback
I.D., March/April 1987
The New Culturetabs
Written and updated by Steven Heller