The LIVING ROOM SESSIONS explore domestic infrastructures through their socio-economic histories, collective ownership configurations, and the impact of technological advancements and societal biases on living rooms. These sessions aim to cultivate new perspectives on homemaking and explore alternative cohabitation models.

To quote from Alice Rawsthorn’s contextual introduction to the Living Room, to which you can listen in full below:

“The function and aesthetic of every room in the home have constantly changed over time, reflecting shifts in power, wealth, politics, culture, taste and scientific advances. But few rooms reflect the first two – power and wealth – as much as the living room, which regardless of its occupants’ income, is typically the showiest space in the home.”

The podcast "Prada Frames: Being Home" is a project produced by KoozArch in partnership with Prada, and curated by FormaFantasma for Prada. You can listen to episodes on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Bios

Jayden Ali is an architect, artist and filmmaker, whose interdisciplinary practice JA Projects works internationally on public facing, cultural projects that strengthen communities and actively reflect on society. He is a trustee of Open City, and a Design Advocate for the Mayor of London. He has been recognised by numerous publications as a key voice shaping the life of cities, and is on the Architects’ Journal’s prestigious ’40 Under 40’ list. In 2023, Jayden co-curated the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, with the exhibition 'Dancing Before the Moon' being awarded a prestigious special mention.

Paola Antonelli is Senior Curator of Architecture & Design at The Museum of Modern Art, as well as MoMA’s founding Director of Research & Development. Her goal is to promote design’s understanding, until its positive influence on the world is universally acknowledged. Her work investigates design’s impact on everyday experience, often including overlooked objects and practices, and combining design, architecture, art, science, and technology. Among her most recent exhibitions are the XXII Triennale di Milano Broken Nature, Never Alone, on video games and interactive design, and Life Cycles, on the materials of contemporary design. The Instagram platform, book, and now podcast Design Emergency, which she co-founded with design critic Alice Rawsthorn, is an ongoing investigation on design's power to envision a better future for all.

Brigitte Baptiste is a biologist graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, with a Master's Degree in Conservation and Tropical Development from the University of Florida. She holds an Honorary Doctor of Environmental Management from Unipaz and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Regina. She was director for almost nine years of the Alexander Von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute and currently serves as rector of Ean University, a higher education institution focused on sustainable entrepreneurship. She is considered an expert in environmental and biodiversity issues and is an important leader in gender diversity, being recognized for her participation in international conferences related to these issues.

Beatriz Colomina is Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture and the founding director of the Media and Modernity program at Princeton University. Her books include Sexuality and Space (1992), Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (1994), Domesticity at War (2007), Clip/Stamp/Fold (2010), Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design (2016), X-Ray Architecture (2019), and Radical Pedagogies (MIT, 2022). Her exhibitions include Clip/Stamp/Fold (2006), Playboy Architecture (2012), Radical Pedagogies (2014), and Sick Architecture (2022). In 2016, she was co-curator of the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial.

Kate Crawford is a leading scholar of the impacts of artificial intelligence. She is a professor at USC in Los Angeles and a senior principal researcher at MSR in NYC. Her book, Atlas of AI, won multiple international awards including book of the year for the Financial Times. Her artworks have been acquired by museums such as MoMA and the V&A. Her latest art collaboration with Vladan Joler, Calculating Empires, premiered at Fondazione Prada in Milan in November. Kate was named in Time Magazine’s TIME100 as one of the most influential people in AI.

Elvira Dyangani Ose is Director of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). She has been the director and chief curator of The Showroom in London, as well as lecturer in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a member of the Thought Council, Fondazione Prada. She has previously been curator of the Göteborg International Biennial of Contemporary Art; curator of international art at Tate Modern, London; artistic director of Rencontres Picha – Lubumbashi Biennial, Democratic Republic of the Congo; curator of contemporary art at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (CAAC), Seville; senior curator at Creative Time in New York; and curator of contemporary art at the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM) in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria.

Keller Easterling is Enid Storm Dwyer Professor of Architecture at Yale. Easterling's books include Medium Design (Verso 2021), Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space (Verso, 2014), Subtraction (Sternberg, 2014), Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and its Political Masquerades (MIT, 2005), and Organization Space: Landscapes, Highways and Houses in America (MIT, 1999). Easterling is also the co-author (with Richard Prelinger) of Call it Home, a laserdisc/DVD history of US suburbia from 1934-1960. Easterling lectures and exhibits internationally. Her research and writing were included in the 2014 and 2018 Venice Biennales. Easterling is a 2019 United States Artist in Architecture and Design.

Alva Gotby is a writer and housing activist, working as an organizer for London Renters Union. She holds a Ph.D. in Media Studies from the University of West London and writes about feminist theory and politics. Her first book They Call It Love: The Politics of Emotional Life (Verso 2023) explores the role of emotion and intimate relationships in the reproduction of capitalist society. Her forthcoming book Feeling at Home: Towards a Transformative Politics of Housing (Verso 2025) investigates housing and domesticity in relation to gender, race, disability, and family in contemporary society.

Jack Halberstam is a David Feinson Professor of The Humanities at Columbia University. Halberstam is the author of seven books including: The Queer Art of Failure (Duke UP, 2011), and, a short book titled Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variance (University of California Press). Places Journal awarded Halberstam its Arcus/Places Prize in 2018 for innovative public scholarship on the relationship between gender, sexuality and the built environment. He is now finishing a book titled: Unworlding: An Aesthetics of Collapse.

Andrés Jaque is Dean and Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). He is the founder of the New York- and Madrid-based architecture practice Office for Political Innovation (OFFPOLINN), established in 2003, which works at the intersection of research, architectural design, and activism. Jaque received his PhD in Architecture from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and is the recipient of the Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts (2016), the Silver Lion 14th Venice Architecture Biennale (2014), the Dionisio Hernández Gil Prize (2001–2006), among other recognitions.

Kirstin Munro is Assistant Professor of Economics at The New School for Social Research in New York. While an econometrician by training, both the methods and substance of her work are shaped by insights from relevant social theory and economic inquiry outside the mainstream. Her book, The Production of Everyday Life in Eco-Conscious Households: Compromise, Conflict, and Complicity, was published by Bristol University Press. She serves on the Editorial Board of The Review of Radical Political Economics and the Editorial Advisory Boards of Global Political Economy and the Critical Theory and the Critique of Society Book Series.

OFFICE (Kersten Geers and David Van Severen) is a Brussels-based architectural practice, established by Kersten Geers and David Van Severen. They have received numerous honors and awards, including the Belgian Prize for Architecture, the Silver Lion at the 12th Venice Biennial of Architecture, and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Recent projects include the new Radio Télévision Suisse building in Lausanne, Switzerland, a satellite factory in Charleroi, Belgium, and the Knoll Pavilion for the Salone del Mobile in Milan, Italy. Kersten Geers and David Van Severen together serve as Design Critics in Architecture at Harvard GSD, and Geers is a Full Professor at the Academy of Architecture, Mendrisio.

Marta Segarra is a Research Professor at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and a member of the Laboratoire d’études de genre et de sexualité–LEGS in Paris. She is also a Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Barcelona. Segarra’s current research focuses on biopolitics and the posthumanities. Her latest books include: Humanimales. Abrir las fronteras de lo humano (2022) [Humanimaux: ouvrir les frontières de l’humain (2024)], Comunidades con acento (2021), Género: Una inmersión rápida (2021), The World We Need/El món que necessitem (with Donna Haraway, 2019).

Françoise Vergès is a writer and independent curator. Vergès is also Senior Fellow Researcher, Sarah Parker Centre for the Study of Race an dRacialisation at UCL and holds a Ph.D. in Political Theory from UC Berkeley.

Mark Wigley is Professor of Architecture at Columbia University. He is a historian, theorist, and critic who explores the intersection of architecture, art, philosophy, culture, and technology. His recent books include: Konrad Wachsmann’s Television: Post-Architectural Transmissions; Passing Through Architecture: The 10 Years of Gordon Matta-Clark; Cutting Matta-Clark: The Anarchitecture Investigation; Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design (with Beatriz Colomina); and Buckminster Fuller Inc.: Architecture in the Age of Radio. He has curated exhibitions at MoMA, The Drawing Center, Witte de With, Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and the Power Station of Art in Shanghai.

Mabel O. Wilson is Professor of Architecture and Black Studies at Columbia University in New York City. With her practice Studio&, she was a member of the design team for the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia. Exhibitions of her work have been featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale, SFMoMA, and Art Institute of Chicago. Her books include Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums and the co-edited volume Race and Modern Architecture. For MoMA, she was co-curator of Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America (2021).

Alice Rawsthorn is an award-winning design critic and the author of critically acclaimed books on design, including Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, Design as an Attitude and, most recently, Design Emergency: Building a Better Future. She is a co-founder with Paola Antonelli of the Design Emergency project to investigate design's role as a force for positive change. In all her work, Alice champions design's potential to address complex social, political and ecological challenges.

FormaFantasma is a research-based design studio investigating the ecological, historical, political and social forces shaping the discipline of design today. Whether designing for a client or developing self – initiated projects, the studio applies the same rigorous attention to context, processes and details. Formafantasma’s analytical nature translates in meticulous visual outcomes, products and strategies.

About

Prada Frames is a multidisciplinary symposium curated by FormaFantasma for Prada that explores the complex relationship between the natural environment and design. The collective effort aims to frame, analyse, contextualise, and define new perspectives on a plethora of themes. For its third edition titled ‘Being Home,’ Prada Frames examines the living environment as a framework to address contemporary challenges. The home is not merely a source of comfort; it acts as a shelter and an infrastructure of services. The extensive program of events takes place during Milan’s Salone del Mobile from Sunday, April 14 through Tuesday, April 16 2024 at the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi in Milan.