Enzo Maresca's men look to boost their Champions League qualification hopes with a win at Stamford Bridge.

Reactive turn-based RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 only released yesterday, but it's already passed an impressive sales milestone. Read more

In a display of bravado and talent, 47 interior and landscape designers have transformed a historical 15,000-square-foot home in Lake Forest, Illinois, for the Lake Forest Showhouse and Gardens 2025, which opens for tours April 26 through May 25. Renowned architect Henry Ives Cobb masterfully blended classic architectural design with serene English-style gardens when he designed the 30-bedroom manse once known as Pembroke Lodge. Originally built in 1895, the residence sits on more than three acres and includes a formal garden, a tranquil reflecting pond, and a graceful limestone-domed gazebo. Finely finished Wisconsin limestone cloaks the exterior, which is adorned with classical details such as dentil cornices and balusters.It’s not the first transformation the house has undergone—in 1935, prolific Chicago architect David Adler augmented the home’s already storied pedigree when he renovated the interiors for the original owner’s daughter. Additionally, he designed a pool house and gated pool. Adler’s efforts were joined by Frances Elkins, his sister and a visionary designer herself who worked on many homes in the area throughout her career. The property remained in the hands of the same family until the ’60s. Then, a series of renovations in the ’70s and ’80s stripped the home of its traditional aesthetic, although the exterior remained mostly unchanged since its original design.The front porch of the 2025 Lake Forest Showhouse & Gardens by Cynthia McCullough Interiors Photo: Heather Talbert“The challenge for show house designers was to restore the home’s traditional detailing while making it a warm, inviting, and functional space for a young family,” says Susan Rolander, principal of Rolander Architects and one of six co-chairs of the 2025 Lake Forest Showhouse and Gardens. Challenge accepted: The participating pros took about 75% of the home down to the studs, updated its mechanical systems, added an elevator, and installed a smart home system in addition to replacing hardwood floors, wainscot paneling, crown moldings, baseboards, and casings. In some spaces, they discovered original millwork and wallpaper beneath layers, using the finds as cues for their restoration work. “It was like an archaeological excavation,” Rolander said. Throughout the numerous rooms on the first and second floors—including eight bedrooms with en suite bathrooms—and the outdoor spaces, the designers, mostly from the Chicago area, created the next evolution of the home while considering its history and holding some reverence for Adler and Elkins.“I felt like I was shaping a special piece of Chicago’s history,” said Celeste Robbins of AD PRO Directory firm Robbins Architecture, who renovated an upstairs bedroom into a sophisticated little girl’s room. From pink natural stone and sculptural tree lights to the hand-crafted Murano glass flower pendants and plaster vines on the fireplace, Robbins’s space exemplifies one of the most prominent design trends seen throughout the home: bringing in nature. Rebel House Design, another AD PRO Directory firm, deliberately referenced the organic by embellishing walls with an elegant botanical plaster installation, as well as working with a local artisan to create a bespoke cocktail table made of local limestone. “I paid homage to Elkins with our redesign of the reception room,” said Marli Jones, the creative director of Rebel House Design. “Her decidedly modern takes on classic interiors became our driving direction. Our ode to Elkins came in the form of the biophilic plaster wall design rendered with a local twist: Instead of acanthus and palm leaves, we referenced local wildflowers.”Joey Leicht Design decorated the salon. Ryan McDonaldNearby, the first floor hallway and stairwell, designed by Lauren Collander Interiors, evoke the joy of walking through a Parisian garden. A couture wall covering hand-embroidered with fern fronds envelops the spaces. Other designers took a more literal approach to the natural thematics. In the long and narrow gallery, Michael Del Piero and AD PRO Directory member Randy Heller installed a natural wisteria tree, which branches dramatically towards the ceiling. A two-sided, velvet-upholstered sofa adds further decorative intrigue, as do the sculptures and art.Join NowAD PRO members enjoy exclusive benefits. Get a year of unlimited access for $25 $20 per month.ArrowOther trends spotted within the home? Fearless visions of color and pattern. Take the salon at the front of the house, with its beautiful hand-painted and silk-embroidered wallpaper by Fromental and magenta lacquered doors. Or the garden room, which exudes a sunny disposition with bright blue treillaged walls and dining chair cushions upholstered in yellow. Ceilings, too, were treated. The Mahjong room’s fifth wall is coated in pink courtesy of White Couch Design, and a striped Schumacher wallpaper covers the ceiling of Cynthia McCullough Interiors’ foyer. Outdoors, the poolhouse cabana by Meghan Jay Design, employs soft yellows and blush tones in its light, playful atmosphere. Under the direction of Mandarine Home, the poolhouse pavilion became a vibrant entertaining room where floral motif grasscloth wallpaper complements furnishings and accessories that pop in purple and blue hues.Neutrals have their moment at the Lake Forest Showhouse and Gardens too. With its wash of warm whites and natural materials, the primary suite by Diana Wagenbach of Studio W Interiors is an oasis of calm. “Given the stately exterior, it made me lean into the Belgian interior design movement of quality materials and neutral tones,” says the AD PRO Directory member. Throughout the home, special details permeated every room, from a cove ceiling to a modern wall reveal and leather-lined shelves to handcrafted tile.“The designers this year blew us all away with their dedication to craftsmanship, artistry, and extraordinary attention to detail,” says Wendy Franzen, president of the Lake Forest Chapter of the Infant Welfare Society of Chicago. The charitable organization, which provides healthcare services to underserved communities in Chicago, is the beneficiary of this year’s show house.Step inside the Lake Forest Showhouse and Gardens 2025The salon by Joey Leicht Design Photo: Ryan McDonaldThe office by Birkman Interiors Photo: Ryan McDonaldThe reception room by Rebel House Photo: Ryan McDonaldThe dining room by Maggie Getz Studio Photo: Aimee MazzengaThe first floor hall and stairwell by Lauren Collander Interiors Photo: Ryan McDonaldThe ritting room by Unpatterned Photo: Dustin HalleckThe library by Kipling House Photo: Aimee MazzengaThe foyer by Cynthia McCullough Interiors Photo: Heather TalbertThe gallery by Michael Del Piero Good Design, Randy Heller Pure & Simple Interiors Photo: Aimee MazzengaThe main kitchen by Ablaze Design Group Photo: Ryan McDonaldThe scullery by DeCleene Creative Photo: Nathan KirkmanPantry hallway by Sarah Jacquelyn Interiors Photo: Dustin HalleckThe pantry by Sarah Jacquelyn Interiors Photo: Dustin HalleckThe mudroom by JenMarie Interiors Photo: Ryan McDonaldThe double powder room by Katy Evans Photo: Heather TalbertThe 2nd Floor Landing by Sarah Dippold Photo: Ryan McDonaldThe rotunda by Kaylane Kane Photo: Heather TalbertThe little girl’s bedroom/playroom by Theresa Hansen Interiors Photo: Katrina WittkampEn suite bathroom by Theresa Hansen Interiors Photo: Katrina WittkampThe Mahjong room by White Couch Photo: Heather TalbertThe English resting room by AD PRO Directory firm North Shore Nest Photo: Aimee MazzengaGentleman’s retreat by Anthony Michael Interiors Photo: Matt DriskellThe guest bedroom and bath by Aarti Shah Interiors Photo: Aimee MazzengaThe ladies office by AD PRO Directory member Emily Sturgess Photo: Heather TalbertThe cabana by Meghan Jay Photo: Heather TalbertThe kitchenette by Mason & Brass Photo: Sarah CrowleyThe reading nook back stairwell by R. Titus Designs Photo: Dustin HalleckThe vintage printed lady’s lounge by Courtney Petit Design Photo: Aimee MazzengaAnother girl’s bedroom by AD PRO Directory firm Robbins Architecture Photo: Aimee MazzengaThe ladies office bath by AD PRO Directory member Emily Sturgess Photo: Heather TalbertThe dressing room by Forward Fruit Photo: Heather TalbertThe laundry room by Suzanne Sykes Interiors Photo: Aimee Mazzenga

Ask just about anybody, and they’ll tell you that new cars are too expensive. In the wake of tariffs shaking the auto industry and with the Trump administration pledging to kill the federal EV incentive, that situation isn’t looking to get better soon, especially for anyone wanting something battery-powered. Changing that overly spendy status quo is going to take something radical, and it’s hard to get more radical than what Slate Auto has planned.Meet the Slate Truck, a sub-$20,000 (after federal incentives) electric vehicle that enters production next year. It only seats two yet has a bed big enough to hold a sheet of plywood. It only does 150 miles on a charge, only comes in gray, and the only way to listen to music while driving is if you bring along your phone and a Bluetooth speaker. It is the bare minimum of what a modern car can be, and yet it’s taken three years of development to get to this point.But this is more than bargain-basement motoring. Slate is presenting its truck as minimalist design with DIY purpose, an attempt to not just go cheap but to create a new category of vehicle with a huge focus on personalization. That design also enables a low-cost approach to manufacturing that has caught the eye of major investors, reportedly including Jeff Bezos. It’s been engineered and will be manufactured in America, but is this extreme simplification too much for American consumers?Simplify, Then Embrace DamageIf you haven’t seen the leaks and the reports of weirdly wrapped trucks hiding in plain sight, the Slate Truck is the first product from Michigan-based Slate Auto. Think “American kei truck” and you’re not far off. It’s a machine designed to be extremely basic, extremely customizable, and extremely affordable. Those are not your typical design goals, but then the Slate Truck isn’t the fruit of your typical design process. Wander through any automotive design studio anywhere in the world and you’ll inevitably come across a mood board or two, sweeping collages of striking photos meant to align the creative flows of passers-by. They’re a tool for helping a disparate design team to create a cohesive product, but where many such mood boards feature glamour shots of exotic roads and beautiful people, front and center in the Slate’s mood board was something different: a big, gray shark, covered in scrapes and scars.“It looks like a shark that has definitely been in more than one brawl and clearly has come out ahead because it’s still swimming,” says Tisha Johnson, head of design at Slate and who formerly spent a decade at Volvo. That aesthetic, of highlighting rather than hiding battle scars, is key to the Slate ethos.Instead of steel or aluminum, the Slate Truck’s body panels are molded of plastic. Or, as Slate calls them, “injection molded polypropylene composite material.” The theory is that this makes them more durable and scratch-resistant, if only because the lack of paint means they’re one color all the way through. Auto enthusiasts of a certain age will remember the same approach used by the now-defunct Saturn Corporation, a manufacturing technique that never caught on across the industry. Slate continues the theme through to the upholstery, too, a heathered textile that was designed to get better looking as it wears. The idea is to lean into the aged aesthetic. But not everybody will dig the shark theme, and so the Slate Truck is designed to be customizable to a degree never seen before on a production vehicle. Johnson says this is in contrast to the overly curated experience offered by many brands. She says over-curation by automotive designers results in situations like premium, luxury cars that are only available in a palette of disappointingly bland colors: “There’s usually only a fraction that you actually want, and those are always more expensive,” she says.Disparaging other brands for offering limited color choices might seem disingenuous coming from the designer of a vehicle available in a single shade. The Slate Truck, though, was designed to take advantage of the current trend of vinyl-wrapping cars. Its simple shape and minimal trim pieces mean that even amateurs can do the job. Slate will offer DIY kits that newbies can slap on in an afternoon and replace just as quickly based on mood.However, the biggest benefit of this monochromatic thinking might come in production.1/9Bare-Minimum ManufacturingIt’s probably no surprise to you that building cars is expensive. Elon Musk loves to bemoan just how complicated the process can be whenever Tesla is late shipping its next new model, but he’s far from alone in that assessment. What is a little less commonly known is just how expensive it is to paint those cars. Creating a facility that can reliably, quickly, and cleanly lay down a quality coat of color on automotive body parts is a complicated task. That task has only gotten more complicated (and thus expensive) in recent years, with greater environmental regulations and consumer expectations forcing manufacturers to find ways to offer more vibrant hues with less ecological impact. Mercedes-Benz just announced it’s building a “Next Generation Paintshop” at its Sindelfingen plant in Germany, and estimates place the thing’s cost at nearly $1 billion. By eliminating paint, and thus eliminating the paint shop, Slate’s manufacturing process is massively simplified. So, too, the lack of metal body parts. “We have no paint shop, we have no stamping,” says Jeremy Snyder, Slate’s chief commercial officer who formerly led Tesla’s global business efforts. Vehicle factories tend to have high ceilings to make room for the multiple-story stamping machines that form metal body parts. Injection molding of plastic is far easier and cheaper to do in limited spaces — spaces like the factory that Slate has purchased for its manufacturing, reportedly near Indiana. “The vehicle is designed, engineered, and manufactured in the US, with the majority of our supply chain based in the US,” Snyder says. The simplification goes simpler still. Slate will make just one vehicle, in just one trim, in just one color, with everything from bigger battery packs to SUV upgrade kits added on later. “Because we only produce one vehicle in the factory with zero options, we’ve moved all of the complexity out of the factory,” Snyder says.While most buyers will rightly fixate on the cost of the truck, the bigger story here might just be this radically simplified approach to manufacturing. “From the very beginning, our business model has been such that we reach cash flow positivity very shortly after start of production. And so from an investment standpoint, we are far less cash-reliant than any other EV startup that has ever existed, as far as I know,” Snyder says.As Slate tries to dash to production without tripping over the headstones of failed EV startups that litter the countryside, that leanness is key. It’s helped them attract some major investors. “The greatest industry magnates to invest in our company,” Snyder says. He declined to name names, but according to a TechCrunch report, one of those magnates is Jeff Bezos. “We don’t have a direct connection to Amazon,” Snyder clarified, but he didn’t rule out some corporate cooperation. “Who knows? Who knows if you’ll be able to purchase on Amazon? I don’t know.”1/6BYODThose vinyl wraps are literally just the first layer of what Slate’s designers are positioning as a, well, blank slate. They want owners to personalize every aspect of the vehicle, including its silhouette.Need room for more than two passengers? Slate has an SUV upgrade kit that will bolt onto the back of the truck, adding extra rollover crash protection and rear seats with seat belts to match, all in a package that’s easy to install at home. No, this isn’t a Subaru Brat redux. The seats will be forward-facing, and the whole setup is supposed to be strong enough to meet crash test regulations. In fact, Slate’s head of engineering, Eric Keipper, says they’re targeting a 5-Star Safety Rating from the federal government’s New Car Assessment Program. Slate is also aiming for a Top Safety Pick from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. This will be, in large part, thanks to a comprehensive active safety system that includes everything from automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection to automatic high beams.A mandatory part of today’s safety features is a digital rear-view camera. Typically, this view pops up on a modern car’s central infotainment screen, but the Slate doesn’t have one of those. It makes do with just a small display behind the steering wheel as a gauge cluster, which is where that rearview camera will feed. You’ll have physical knobs for controlling the in-cabin temperature controls plus the typical turn stalk and other switchgear, but that’s about it.The truck not only lacks a touchscreen for infotainment duties, it lacks any form of entertainment at all beyond whatever fun you can get from the 201-horsepower, rear-drive configuration. There’s no radio, no Bluetooth, and no speakers of any kind beyond for those required to play basic warning chimes. Many will consider this a cost-cutting step too far, but the interior was designed for ease of upgrading, with easy mounting space for anything from a simple soundbar to a full sound system. There’s an integrated phone mount right on the dashboard, but there’s nothing stopping you from bringing something even larger. I expect the low-cost Android tablet and 3D-printing communities to have a field day coming up with in-car media streaming solutions.The rather extreme omission of any kind of media system in the car is jarring, but it, too, has secondary benefits. “Seventy percent of repeat warranty claims are based on infotainment currently because there’s so much tech in the car that it’s created a very unstable environment in the vehicle,” Snyder says. Eliminating infotainment, the theory goes, necessarily boosts reliability. And reliability will be key because Slate is taking DIY to new extremes on the maintenance front, too.Sales and ServiceThe right to repair your devices is a massively important topic for everyone from smartphone users to smart tractor operators. Traditionally, auto manufacturers haven’t exactly gone out of their way to make DIY maintenance easy, partly because their dealers make so much money hawking cabin air filters and unnecessary coolant flushes.As an EV, the maintenance schedule for Slate Truck should be minimal (most EVs don’t need much more than an annual tire rotation), but for any warranty concerns, the company will encourage users to do the fixes themselves. At least when it’s safe to do so. “If you’re not going to break the vehicle and you’re not going to injure yourself, meaning high voltage, you can do service and warranty service on your vehicle yourself and have the videos and the helpline to support you to do that work,” Snyder says.That support network will be called Slate University and it’ll teach you everything you need to know. Don’t fancy yourself a shade tree mechanic? Or maybe you don’t have a tree to park under in the first place? Slate has a partnership with already-established nationwide service centers, where owners can take their trucks for any needed fixes. Upgrades can be performed here as well, including installing an extended-range battery that will bring the truck’s maximum range up to 240 miles. “At start of production, we will have coverage across the country for servicing your vehicle,” Snyder says. Snyder declined to say who will provide the service, but it seems reasonable to expect something along the lines of a Midas, Monro, Meineke, or perhaps some other nationwide service chain that begins with the letter M.And finally, how can you buy one? It should come as no surprise that Slate will follow Tesla’s footsteps by offering direct sales. No nationwide network of dealerships is planned. Instead, a limited set of pickup centers will pop up as needed based on preorder data. Or, if you don’t mind paying a little more, home delivery will be available.Preorders cost just $50 on Slate’s site, and deliveries are expected to start in late 2026. Slate hasn’t said exactly how much the truck will cost, only that it’ll be less than $20,000 after federal incentives — assuming those incentives are still in place in 18 months’ time.The bigger question, though, is whether consumers will actually be into such a simplified vision of what a car can be. The Slate Truck is a rolling rejection of the current, bloated state of American motoring, but it’s consumer demand that’s driven the market down this dark alley. Are those consumers ready for a rolling digital detox? Decoder with Nilay PatelA podcast from The Verge about big ideas and other problems.SUBSCRIBE NOW!See More:

The game arrives on Switch 2 this June.Josef Fares and Hazelight's latest co-op action-adventure Split Fiction is on the way to the Switch 2 this June and now to add this, Variety is reporting the upcoming movie adaptation has cast Sydney Sweeney.Sweeney's role has not been decided yet, but according to Variety's "sources" she'll be playing either Zoe or Mio. Jon M. Chu (Wicked) is reportedly directing and the script is supposedly being handled by the Deadpool & Wolverine screenwriters.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Busy week, so let’s get to it. Starting with federal regulations! Woohoo. Exciting stuff.  I’m talking about the U.S. Department of Transportation’s new Automated Vehicle Framework, which includes a standing general order (SGO) on crash reporting for vehicles equipped with certain advanced driver-assistance systems and automated driving systems. There were also some changes to the Automated Vehicle Exemption Program (AVEP). Briefly, the AVEP handles language and processes of domestic and imported vehicles receiving exemptions. I want to spend a bit more time on the SGO, which has more significant changes. The Trump administration says it streamlines the process; others, like Consumer Reports, disagree.The SGO ends a 24-hour reporting requirement and instead allows companies five days to submit a report if a vehicle with a Level 2 system is involved in a crash. As Consumer Reports notes, the new order also changes reporting requirements for when a vehicle with Level 2 driving automation has been towed away after a crash.  In the past, any vehicle with a Level 2 or above advanced driver-assistance system involved in a crash that DID NOT involve a fatality or hitting a vulnerable road user like a pedestrian or cyclist still had to report it within five days. Now the rule will only apply to vehicles with ADS (automated driving systems), which cuts out the bulk of vehicles on the road today.   That means if a Tesla that has Autopilot engaged (or a GM vehicle with Super Cruise or Ford with its BlueCruise system on) crashes and must be towed, it doesn’t need to report that to the feds as long as the incident did not involve a fatality, an individual being transported to a hospital for medical treatment, a pedestrian or other vulnerable road user being struck, or an air bag deployment. Reporting is still required for any vehicle with Level 2 ADAS (like Tesla Autopilot) or ADS that is in a crash in which there is a fatality, an air bag is deployed, a person is transported to the hospital, or a vulnerable road user is hit.  During an interview at a Semafor event, DOT Secretary Sean Duffy seems to give a nod to those rules (although he says “autonomous” and not “ADAS”) when he said, “What we want to do is be able to get good data, but if there’s a scraping of paint off of an autonomous vehicle, the reporting requirements became very laborious and challenging, and it slowed the process down.” Think I got this wrong? Reach out.  OK, on to the rest. A little bird Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Slate, the Bezos-backed EV startup, broke cover at an event in Long Beach, California. Many of the details that senior reporter Sean O’Kane reported in his initial scoop were finally presented to the public.  Earlier in the week, we published some other insider details thanks to some little birds that describe how leaders have internally described the Slate EV as a “transformer” — as in the animated “more than meets the eye” series. Turns out, that is exactly what the company is pitching to customers.  Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com, or Rebecca Bellan at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us. Deals! Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Ather Energy, the Indian startup manufacturing electric two-wheelers, cut the size of its initial public offer by 18% to 26.26 billion Indian rupees ($308.3 million). DoorDash wants to buy Deliveroo for $3.6 billion, Axios reported. Electra, the hybrid electric aircraft startup, raised $115 million in a Series B round led by Prysm Capital. Jay Park, co-founder and managing partner at Prysm, has joined Electra’s board of directors.   Fora, a travel agent startup based in New York, raised $60 million across Series B and C rounds. Josh Kushner’s Thrive co-led the $40 million Series C round. The venture arm of United Airlines has invested an undisclosed amount in JetZero, a startup developing a blended wing body design. Notable reads and other tidbits Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Autonomous vehicles Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai received some attention for remarks during the company’s earnings call about its self-driving vehicle unit Waymo. In response to a question, he said, as part of a longer answer, “There’s future optionality around personal ownership as well.” Waymo has talked vaguely about licensing its tech (presumably to automakers) before, so I wouldn’t read too much into this. But it’s certainly notable that Pichai said it in an earnings call.  Tesla has started testing its autonomous ride-hail service with employees in Austin and the Bay Area ahead of the company’s planned robotaxi launch this summer. Volkswagen of America and Uber plan to launch a commercial robotaxi service — using autonomous electric VW ID. BUZZ vehicles — in multiple U.S. cities over the next decade. The companies expect to launch a commercial service in Los Angeles by late 2026, although it will initially include human safety drivers. The news brought me back to 2017-18 — an era of partnership announcements, many of which never materialized. VW has a lot of work to do before it launches commercially, including gaining even the most basic testing permit.  Electric vehicles, charging, & batteries Aidan Gomez, the co-founder and CEO of generative AI startup Cohere, joined Rivian’s board. I don’t want to read too deeply into the appointment, but it does signal Rivian’s interest in applying AI to its own venture while positioning itself as a software leader — and even provider — within the automotive industry. Faraday Future somehow still exists and its board has appointed founder Jia Yueting as the company’s co-CEO, three years after he was sidelined following an internal probe into allegations of fraud. Side note: A Securities and Exchange Commission investigation remains ongoing. Tesla earnings supported a hypothesis I’ve had cooking in my brain for a while now. The company exists in contradictory realities. In one, Tesla’s profits are down 71% YoY, automotive revenues continue to fall, and its energy business is exposed to the U.S.-China trade war. In the other, Tesla is really an AI company that finally has the attention of its CEO Elon Musk and is on the cusp of launching an autonomous vehicle ride-hailing service and a cheaper EV — although it has yet to do either. Investors grabbed on to the Tesla-is-an-innovator reality with both hands and they really don’t want to let go — even if the reality is that anti-Musk sentiment is affecting the brand and is even an official risk in its regulatory filing. Musk’s comments about allocating more time to Tesla and less at DOGE helped push them there. If you want to catch up on all the nuggets in the earnings report and call, scroll through our Tesla earnings wrap-up.  Ride-hailing  The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Uber, alleging the company charged customers for its Uber One subscription service without their consent.  What is Lyft’s loss is Uber’s gain. Delta SkyMiles members in the United States can now start earning points when they ride with Uber or order delivery through Uber Eats as part of a recently announced exclusive partnership between the two companies. (Lyft had a partnership with Delta.)

Agrest and Gandelsonas: Fabric Object II Diana Agrest & Mario Gandelsonas Curated by Steven Hillyer The Cooper Union New York Through May 2 “Life didn’t end in 1989, we kept doing stuff,” Diana Agrest told me one morning a few days after Fabric Object II debuted in New York City, a retrospective about her and Mario Gandelsonas curated by Steven Hillyer. That remarkable stuff is now on view at The Cooper Union, where Agrest has taught for the past 50 years.  Michael Meredith originally staged a retrospective in 2024 about Agrest and Gandelsonas, Fabric Object I, at Princeton University. The Cooper Union exhibition, Fabric Object II, is that show’s successor and features many of the same works, albeit in a larger space with a widened purview. It celebrates Agrest’s five decades of teaching at The Cooper Union right before her and Gandelsonas’s archive is shipped to the Canadian Center for Architecture (CCA) for perpetuity. The exhibition speaks to how the work of Agrest+Gandelsonas Architects changed over the course of five decades. (Zhiye Feng/Courtesy The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive of The Cooper Union) CCA’s acquisition was facilitated by Phyllis Lambert, Sylvia Lavin, and Jean-Louis Cohen, prior to his untimely passing. “We’ve had a relationship with the CCA for ages,” Gandelsonas said. “In 2018, Sylvia organized a show at CCA. There was a room with architectural follies by Leo Castelli, which we were also a part of. We learned Phyllis loved our works. CCA eventually called and asked if we could donate our archives, which is what we did.” Fabric Object II features drawings, models, and sketches by Agrest+Gandelsonas Architects, but also dialogues between the subjects and John Hejduk inside a display table designed by MOS. On view are canonical projects like their competition entry for Roosevelt Island (1975); Park Square (1978), a study for a public space in Boston; Urban Fragments (1978) in Buenos Aires; Les Halles (1980) in Paris; and Urban Ready-Mades (1989), a proposal for Goose Island, Chicago, to name but a few. There’s also representation of Agrest’s unbuilt Museum of the Twentieth Century (1989), and their later works in New York City and China.  Urban Ready-Made 2, Goose Island, Chicago, Illinois,1989 (Courtesy The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive of The Cooper Union) Short essays by faculty at Cooper Union and Princeton University, where Gandelsonas teaches, shed new interpretations of the duo. Texts by Monica Ponce de Leon, Nader Tehrani, Marshall Brown, Michael Meredith, Sylvia Lavin, Stan Allen, Beatriz Colomina, Mark Wigley, and others complement ephemera from Gandelsonas and Agrest’s records. Tehrani’s short essay about Goose Island and the House on Sag Pond (1989–90), for instance, drew connections between the projects the architects hadn’t considered.  “For me personally, what I love about the projects, especially the earlier ones, is that they challenge methods of representation; they upend how we represent architecture and space,” Hillyer told AN. “I think, at a time when our students are so focused on digital technology and digital tools, it’s really important for them to be reminded of hand drawing’s great importance.” “Oppositional Binaries” Fabric Object II derives its title from Agrest and Gandelsonas’s philosophy of the city, which is part Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Donna Haraway, El Lissitzky, Konstantin Melnikov, Jacques Lacan, Jorge Luis Borges, and other influences. This philosophy is constructed of “oppositional binaries,” as Meredith points out in his essay. “Architecture is the consciousness of the city,” Agrest said to me while walking through the show.  Agrest and Gandelsonas were fellows at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS), the legendary New York City think tank Peter Eisenman founded. Building Institution. The Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, New York 1967–1985 by Kim Förster is a recent, exhaustive history of the IAUS, which told the Institute’s multivalent history in impressive detail. “We were some of the earliest fellows at the Institute,” Agrest said. “We were there until the end.” Architecture Between Memory and Amnesia, Suburban Center on the Mississippi, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Courtesy The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive of The Cooper Union) Flash forward 50 years, the evening of April 10, Eisenman and former IAUS students like Stan Allen gathered at The Cooper Union to welcome Fabric Object II, not long after the deaths of Anthony Vidler and Kurt Forster, two IAUS figureheads. “Stanley had been a student of mine in design at the Institute,” Agrest added. “He was Mario’s student in theory class there. As an intern, he drew so many drawings for us.”  Traversing Fabric Object II, my own experiences reading post-structuralist texts by Agrest and Gandelsonas in architecture school flashed before my eyes. (It admittedly took a few years to let Semiotics and Architecture: Ideological Consumption or Theoretical Work sink in.) The exhibition deepened my love of Constructivism, and helped me draw connections between their theoretical writings and built work. “This is an exhibition about hand drawing,” Gandelsonas said, “which is something Michael [Meredith] felt is missing today in architecture schools.” Both Agrest and Gandelsonas agree that, in regard to the synergy between writing and drawing, the act of making meaning is always done retroactively. “We write about the projects after we’ve done them, which is interesting,” Agrest added. “We never go into something and say, ‘This is what I’m going to do.’ Mario’s theoretical works are very different from mine, or at least they used to be. Oftentimes, people will ask me questions about my work, like ‘Why don’t you talk about theory more?’ It’s of course embedded in the work.” Display cases were designed by MOS. (Zhiye Feng/Courtesy The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive of The Cooper Union) Public programming and pedagogy intertwine at The Cooper Union, where Steven Hillyer and Chris Dierks stage shows in response to what’s happening in studio. For Hillyer, Fabric Object II was timely, like what Gandelsonas said in relation to drawing, but also a celebration. “This was an opportunity for us to have an exhibition of Diana and Mario’s work in New York just before it heads up north,” Hillyer told AN. “That’s a pretty momentous moment, and it was, in my view, deserving of a really important exhibition. It should be seen.” “Diana has been teaching here for 50 years,” Hillyer elaborated. “To be able to mount an exhibition about her and Mario’s work is special. There are projects here that Diana worked on her own, and projects that Mario did on his own. I love the fact that they are commingled here within that chronology.”

Samsung's flagship phone of 2025 launched earlier this week. Here's how it stacks up with the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL.

You’re now warned to delete the app — here’s why.

As with most applications being enhanced with GenAI, the creative world of AI-powered image and video creation continues to evolve at a tremendously rapid pace. It's no surprise then to see Adobe unveil a new version of its Firefly image generation models at the recent Adobe MAX event in London. Nor was it much of a shock to hear that the company had built a new Firefly web-based app (with iOS and Android mobile versions coming soon) around the technology. What did catch some people by surprise, however, was the company's move to integrate the image creation tools from several other GenAI model makers – including Google and OpenAI – into the new Firefly app. As Adobe explained, they heard loud and clear from their customers that, while they very much appreciate all the work Adobe has put into the Firefly models' ability to generate images and videos with no copyright-related concerns, there are several situations in which they want more options. For example, if a design firm is working with a client, the designers would likely want to use the copyrighted images, logos, etc., from that company in order to create new materials. Because of the way Adobe's Firefly models are trained and built – specifically without copyrighted material – that wouldn't be possible to do with Firefly. Leveraging image creation models from other vendors, however, could potentially allow those image variations with copyrighted material to be created. What Adobe didn't mention, though, is that creative people like to work with as many variations as they can. Bottom line is, they want more options. Because each image generation model works a bit differently, the outputs they generate have their own unique characteristics. It only makes sense then that designers were likely using other models anyway to get access to those different "looks." // Related Stories But by making the other models an option within the Firefly app, Adobe retains a bit more control over the creative process. This is especially true now, because new hooks in the Firefly app allow designers to take whatever is created from there – regardless of the model used to create it – and seamlessly pass it over to other Adobe creative apps, such as Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, and others. Frankly, it's a pretty clever way to turn what initially seemed like competitors into something akin to partners. A related but important development that Adobe unveiled is a new capability it's calling Firefly Boards-previously announced as Project Concept-that allows designers to put together and share a limitless-sized canvas of images-generated from any model or even copied from any location-in order to stimulate ideas. These "moodboards" in the Firefly app can then be used to iterate even more ideas with AI, based on the images that are placed upon them. It's an interesting way for Adobe to dip its toes into the pool of image creation with what could be copyrighted materials. However, Adobe also made it clear that any images created within the Firefly app will carry Content Credentials. These credentials allow companies to ensure whether the images they create were built with the copyright-free (and thus, safe for public use) Firefly models or with partner (or other non-AI source) models. Again, it's a great way to let companies experiment, but still provide them with the assurance of the commercial safety that Adobe has built its entire Firefly strategy and technology around. In addition to these integrations with other image and video creation models, Adobe also announced several major enhancements to its own models. Firefly Image Model 4 is specifically focused on creating even more photorealistic output than its predecessors and offers more options for control than ever before. Still images, for example, can now be created with a wider degree of camera angles, zoom levels, and much more. In order to encourage more experimentation, the company also offered a new option to create images in a lower resolution 540p format, which can be created much more quickly. Once designers find something they like, they can then crank out a full HD 1080p version for final use. The new Image Model 4 Ultra is a for-pay option with even higher resolution that's ideally optimized for what Adobe describes as "complex scenes with small structures." Both the Firefly Video Model and Adobe's Vector Model are now generally available, with important refinements in the areas of control options and resolution for each. As with other Firefly models, all the outputs these create can come from a simple text prompt and are commercially safe. One of the more interesting, and yet completely untouted, capabilities of the output that Firefly generates across all its models is a text description of what it has created. As simple as that may sound, it's actually very illuminating because it shows how the model sees the output. To put it another way, it gives you a way to reverse engineer the text prompt that created the image (or video). Given how incredibly important the exact wording of a text prompt can be in an image creation tool, this is a great way to better understand how Firefly "thinks." It's also an extremely useful training tool to figure out how to write better prompts as you enter them into Firefly, because prompt training is a skill that I'd argue most everyone is still working on improving. In addition to its direct image and video creation tools, Adobe also unveiled several APIs that are designed to let enterprise application developers tap into the capabilities of their Firefly models. As you would expect, the Text-to-Image and Text-to-Video APIs do what they say to let companies create applications that can quickly build libraries of creative content. The Avatar API is specifically designed to let companies build explainer-style videos with a digital avatar providing the narration. All told, it was a solid set of announcements that extend the reach of Adobe's Firefly tools into some interesting new areas. The company continues to clearly base its core value and differentiation in the area of AI-powered image generation on its ability to create commercially safe content that's verified to be free of any copyright infringement. For large organizations, this is a valuable capability. At the same time, Adobe also recognized that the creative users in these organizations-Adobe's core customers-need more flexibility in terms of how they work with AI-generated material. These latest announcements seemingly make progress towards addressing these needs, and they open up some interesting new potential options for the future. Bob O'Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on X @bobodtech