Unsurprisingly to anyone who was online this year, one of the most repeated names when the Grammy nominations were announced last week was Charli XCX, whose album, Brat, earned seven nods. The Recording Academy also nominated Charli XCXs creative director, Imogene Strauss, for Best Recording Package (alongside branding agency Special Offer) for the ubiquitous, neon-green artwork of Brat.In addition to her work on Brats packaging, Strauss was integral to translating it to arenas for Sweat, Charli XCXs co-headlining tour with Australian pop artist Troye Sivan. Sweat, which included 22 stops between September 14 and October 23, was the biggest tour yet for both Charli XCX and Sivan, who sold out arenas with as many as 15,000 seats. Per Billboard, the tour brought in $28 million and sold 297,000 tickets to the 22 shows Charli XCX and Sivan played.But arena tours, in all their grandness, can also be quite staid. Strauss, who was the tours creative director, and production director Jonny Kingsbury were tasked with re-creating the messy, sexual, drug-addled nature of Brat and Sivans Something to Give Each Other in venues that also house Disney on Ice. They used set pieces from each artists solo tour, custom-built a transparent catwalk over a tunnel-like cage, and used intricate Steadicam work to make even the nosebleeds feel like they were part of the action.[Photo: Henry Redcliffe]We really wanted to lean into this dark, clubby lighting as the main focus, Strauss says, noting she wanted it to feel like youre in the club with Charli and Troye.When tackling Sweat, Strauss and Kingsbury had the advantage of having worked together on a previous Charli XCX tour in support of 2022s Crash. That tour traveled the world to several theaters and festivals, meaning the venueswith occupancies ranging from 1,000 to 6,000could be widely different. This constrained their show direction: Strauss says they were lucky if the stage was 40-by-20 feet and that their design needed to be consistent enough, but also able to be modified.Sweat was an opportunity to showcase the discipline that Crash taught Strauss and Kingsbury while letting Charli XCX off the leash. The artist has described Crashthe last of five albums she released under a contract with Warners Asylum Recordsas her major label sellout record and the era itself, her main pop girlie moment. The tour, with its colorful lights and massive columns, reflected this commercial image, Kingsbury says.With Crash, we were trying to fit it into the pop star concept that she was pursuing at that time, he says. On Brat, we were unleashed.[Photo: Henry Redcliffe]An arena thats completely different, but also still an arenaFor Sweat, Strauss and Kingsbury faced one new challenge: Meshing Charli XCX and Sivan together into one single show. Neither Strauss nor Kingsbury had worked with Sivan before, but Gordon von Steiner (Sivans creative director) was an old friend of Strausss and an expert in photo and video. Combined with Strausss knack for live shows, the two easily unified their visions.[Von Steiner] was super open to letting me lead on how to turn the things he was thinking visually into a live world, Strauss says. I definitely expected there to be way more friction, and there was none.Sweats stage showed off the synthesis of the two acts. Because both Charlie XCX and Sivan had been touring solo throughout the summer, producers were able to take piece of each set and incorporate it into the show: Sivan lent industrial scaffolding that dominated the stage, while Charli XCX brought a Brat-green drape that she emerged from at the beginning of each show.Simply due to their size, arenas are a challenge for concert production. With Sweat, Strauss and Kingsbury needed to find a way to fill the space with sound and lights without it becoming gaudy. More mega-club, less basketball game. With that, the duo decided to tone down the design.[Photo: Henry Redcliffe]Usually when you go to an arena show, theyre quite bright, and theres one huge set piece in the middle, Strauss says. As Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter toured on rainbow-fied color schemes, Strauss chose to lean into a darker palette. Doing a really dark show in an arena is pretty rare, and something that we really wanted to lean into.Kingsbury, who works with Cour Design, also led the charge on lighting. For Sweat, he used lighting tricks to invoke a smaller, clubby atmosphere. At the top of the show, a strip of lights sat high above the stage. Each time Charli XCX appeared, the lights were lowered closer and closer to the stage. By the time she came out to sing Vroom Vroom,they were just above her head, serving as her main source of light while flashing wildly.Instead of [the stage] feeling 40 feet tall, it suddenly feels 10 feet tall, Kingsbury says. It feels like club lighting in an arena by constantly shrinking the stage.In 15,000-person venues, camera work is also crucial to making an arena tour feel smaller. For fans way up in the balcony, jumbo screens may offer the only clear view of the artist. Many arena tours will use video that is 60-frames-per-second, shares Kingsbury. The Sweat video feed was a clearer 24-frames-per-second, with video shot every night by a Steadicam operator.Because the screens were made to look like billboards, Charli XCX could perform on them, screaming out her lyrics to fans on the far sides of the stage. Shes touching the people in the worst seats in the venue, but they end up being amazing seats for certain moments of the show, Strauss says.[Photo: Henry Redcliffe]Cages, platforms, and other technical odditiesThe tours biggest set piece was the cage, a long, transparent catwalk with a fenced-in layer below it. This underlayer gave Charli XCX and Sivan access to the floor from backstage, letting them get close to standing-room audience members. It also offered the set designers an opportunity to put their twist on a hallmark of the pop-star arena tour.Charli had been pretty adverse to having a catwalk because she felt like it was too pop, Strauss says. Her being on level with the audience, being able to interact with them more eye-to-eye, thats where the idea for the cage came from.[Photo: Henry Redcliffe]Kingsbury embraced the cage for its cinematic possibilities. When Charli XCX and Sivan came together toward the end of the show to sing their 2018 collab 1999, camera operators were able to film both from above and inside the cagewhere Sivan strutted to the end of the catwalk directly underneath Charli XCX. And, after Charli XCX spat on the catwalk during Guess, a camera operator could capture the shot of her licking it up, from below, in closeup.The shows first finale 1999 also had the tours biggest technical feat: A rising platform, lifting the stars up closer to the balcony. Platforms are a staple of arena shows, but aside from being emblazoned with the tour name, the lift moment still avoided maximalism.I wanted things to feel industrial, minimal, but still dynamic, Strauss says. It doesnt have this big poptastic element of, Oh, its a flying saucer! Its just a platform. Its the most minimal it can be, and were not trying to hide that.

Debra Whitman is an economist and expert on aging issues. As AARPs chief public policy officer, she leads global policy and research to help communities, lawmakers, and the private sector make aging easier. She has also served as staff director for the Senate Special Committee on Aging and as a researcher in the Social Security Administration.Below, Whitman shares five key insights from her new book,The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond.Listen to the audio versionread by Whitman herselfin the Next Big Idea App.1. Zip codes determine how long we live.On average, Americans live only 76 years. Our lives are shorter and less healthy than those of people in our peer nations and people in many poorer nations. However,wherewe reside in this country dramatically affects our lifespans. Between the longest-lived county, Summit in Colorado, and the shortest, Oglala Lakota County in South Dakota, there is a 20-year difference in average lifespan. And residents of West Virginia tend to develop chronic health conditions two decades earlier than those in Wisconsin.These disparities are linked to the social drivers of healththings like education, income, access to affordable health care, and zip code. Social drivers account for 60 percent of our longevity. The rest is split about equally between genes and the healthcare we receive.Not surprisingly, higher incomes equate with longer life: men in the top one percent of wealth outlive men in the bottom one percent by 15 years. There are disparities by race, too: Asian Americans live nearly 20 years longer than Native Americans.Certain state policies help drive health and longevity. These include the more obvious laws, like higher tobacco taxes, which reduce smoking, but also those related to minimum wage and paid family leave. We need to use this countrys abundant resources to create environments that support all of us in living healthier and longer.2. Health isnt just what we eat and how many steps we take.We can all take action to improve our health and extend our lives. Youve probably heard about the five healthy habits: a good diet, exercise, a healthy body weight, no smoking, and little or no alcohol. People who practice four of the five habits gain eight to ten years free of major medical problems such as cancer and heart disease.But mindset has a big impact. Harvard epidemiologist Becca Levy found that people with the most positive perceptions of aging live more than seven years longer than their peers with the most negative attitudes. The positive thinkers have fewer strokes and heart attacks, higher physical functioning, and shorter recovery times after illness or injury.The other big health enhancer in aging is relationships. Healthy relationships are linked to better immune functioning, lower blood pressure, and lower levels of inflammationall critical to good health. By contrast, prolonged isolation has roughly the same impact as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Researchers from the Harvard Study of Adult Development found that the best predictor of physical and mental health for people in their eighties was not cholesterol level or blood pressure but having had good relationships in their fifties.3. Cognitive change is normal as we age, but cognitive decline is not inevitable.Americans tend to overestimate the likelihood of dementia. About half of us believe we will probably get it when only about 15% of people between 75 and 79 have even mild cognitive impairment. And our chances of getting dementia have declined over the last decade, likely because of improvements in nutrition, health care, education, and lifestyle.The Lancetrecently identified 12 modifiable risk factors that account for about 40 percent of dementia worldwide. Some of thesesuch as air pollution and inadequate educationneed to be addressed by the government and the private sector. But many relate to individual behavior.Adopting the five healthy habits I mentioned earlier could help lower dementia risk with aging by up to one-third. Sleep is important, too. People who sleep seven to eight hours a night are significantly less likely to develop dementia than those who sleep five to six hours. Nurturing relationships and staying socially active lower the risk, as does strengthening the muscle of our brain with activities that involve memory, attention, and reasoning.Some cognitive faculties improve as we age: our grasp of meaning and the connections between ideas and our ability to think constructively. We tend to become more emotionally resilient. Our brains continue to change in our second fifty, but not all of that change is decline.4. Older workers are a boon to the economy.When I was a kid, the norm for many Americans was education, followed by a few decades of work, followed by retirement. The reality today is different. More older Americans are working than ever before, even as we see our skills become outdated with no opportunities for reskilling. The average age of retirement continues to creep up. Working while retired is the new norm, and many Americans will never be able to retire.Helping older people stay in the workforce benefits individuals, employers, and the economy. Among older workers, it slows cognitive decline and keeps people socially engaged. Employers with multigenerational workforces see more innovation and higher productivity in both younger and older workers. And older workers help grow the economy. Research has shown that age discrimination that pushed older Americans out of the workforce cost $850 billion for one year in lost wages, salaries, taxes, and consumer spending.But not everyone can keep working indefinitely, and we must better support those who cant. For people who want or need to keep working, we must address the barriers they face, such as outdated skills, caregiver demands, and ageism. About half of Americans are laid off or pushed out of jobs at least once after turning fifty. In the changing work landscape, we allworkers, employers, and lawmakersneed to reimagine what it means to earn and learn over a lifetime.5. We canand mustmake it easier to age well in America.The programs that support us as we age desperately need updating. Social Security hasnt been touched in 40 years, and our safety net programs remain stingy compared to those of our peer countries. The cost of long-term care in the United States can bankrupt people.We need a comprehensive Plan for Aging Well in America that tackles these challenges. This plan should address the disparities that cut the lives of some Americans short while others live comfortably into their nineties. It must ensure affordable long-term care for older people who are ill or disabled, while helping all of us stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible.Too often, we operate from a scarcity mindsetthe belief that supporting longer, healthier lives for older Americans will drain the resources needed for young people or that supporting young people is not connected to health in later life. But investing in our youngest citizens makes them more likely to be healthy adults. Creating a better society for older people lays a foundation for future generations.Improving health care, income, employment, and long-term services costs money. But the less we invest now, the more we will spend later to care for people as they age. And the benefits of such investments arent only economic. A healthier and more financially secure second fifty means less physical suffering and psychological stress, and more freedom to enjoy those final years.This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.

Dezeen Courses: for our latest courses roundup, we've selected six US-based courses covering a range of subjects including fashion design, historic preservation and urban design.This roundup includes both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at institutions across the US, available to American and international students alike.Below are six US-based courses featured on Dezeen Courses:Advanced Digital Media at Tulane UniversityThe Advanced Digital Media course atTulane Universityin New Orleans encourages students to critically engage with use of computational and data-driven methods of architectural design.Find out more about the course Master of Science in Historic Preservation at School of the Art Institute of ChicagoThe Master of Science in Historic Preservation course at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago uses the city of Chicago as the basis for theoretical and practical enquiry.Find out more about the course Post-Professional Master of Science, Advanced Urban Design at Cornell UniversityThe Post-Professional Master of Science, Advanced Urban Design course at Cornell University provides students with the knowledge to design environments that bring positive change to public spaces.Find out more about the course Master of Business Innovation in Service Design at Savannah College of Art and DesignThe Master of Business Innovation in Service Design course at Savannah College of Art and Design equips students with contemporary knowledge and skills around service design to lead organisations in both private and public sectors.Find out more about the course MFA in Fashion, Body and Garment at the School of the Art Institute ChicagoThe MFA in Fashion, Body and Garment at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago challenges students to explore fashion in a broader context, addressing its relationship with technology, sustainability and the wider community.Find out more about the course BSc Architecture and Inventive Technologies at University of Southern CaliforniaThe BSc Architecture and Inventive Technologies course at the University of Southern California empowers students to create designs for the built environment with interdisciplinary learning in science and technology.Find out more about the course Dezeen CoursesDezeen Courses is a service from Dezeen that provides details of architecture, interiors and design courses around the world.Click herefor more information.The post Six US-based courses featured on Dezeen Courses appeared first on Dezeen.

Architectural studio CAN has extended a terraced London house with a palette of wood and hemp and a large curved window that aims to redraw its connection to the garden.The Stoke Newington home, named Verdant House in honour of its jungle-like outdoor space, has been expanded with a timber-framed side and rear extension to meet the needs of a young family.CAN has renovated Verdant House in Stoke NewingtonVerdant House's original floor plan included a long galley kitchen with a low ceiling and a "failing" conservatory that was too hot in summer, too cold in winter and cut off the garden from the main house."The clients wanted a more interconnected ground floor that was much more focused towards the garden and allowed them to adapt the spaces as they grew as a family, open-plan but flexible," CAN director Mat Barnes told Dezeen.It is clad in corrugated panels of hemp fibreCAN has introduced an open-plan living, kitchen and dining area in the timber-framed extension, within which the floor is lowered by 20 centimetres from the rest of the home to create a sense of openness.Its interior is dominated by natural materials including an exposed glue-laminated timber (glulam) structure, which CAN said aligns with the client's request for a "forest-inspired" palette.Its centrepiece is a curved windowThe extension's structure comprises 85 per cent glulam while the exterior is clad in panels of corrugated hemp fibre designed to change colour and texture as it weathers over time. It is topped with a meadow-planted roof.Verdant House's centrepiece is its sweeping curved glass window looking out to the garden, which references a Victorian shop front. It is intended to reconnect the home its outdoor space after the old conservatory had left them "disjointed".The window is modelled on Victorian shops"Many Victorian shops used curved windows on either side of a central doorway, which allowed uninterrupted views into the shop window as a customer entered," explained Barnes."Why not do this from the inside out?"The clients requested a "forest-inspired" interior for Verdant HouseThe window's position next to the oversized glazed door now gives the owners dual aspect views, meaning they can view their garden up close and the northwest sky at a distance fromthe same chair.It was custom-built for the house and presented the team with several challenges, including making it large enough for strong visual impact but small enough to squeeze through the tight terraced house.Read: CAN adds fake mountain to Edwardian house in south London"As it's such an unusual item and we only found one supplier who would make it for us at a cost that was sensible," Barnes added.To add flexibility to Verdant House's open-plan layout, CAN introduced full-height hemp fibre curtains and Douglas fir shutters that allow the family to open and close off spaces as their spatial needs change.Bolted green trusses support the kitchen roof lightThe heart of Verdant House is now the light-filled kitchen, featuring a roof light supported by bolted green trusses. CAN also designed cabinet fronts, crafted from chiselled oak boards and stained with rich, dark-toned linseed oil."The project was about creating a soft but high-impact design that is personal to the client and celebrates natural materials," said Barnes."Every part of this home is crafted with intention, from the trusses in the kitchen to the way materials and textures come together to create a space that reflects the client's tastes and the way they want to live."Verdant House is named after its jungle-like gardenBarnes founded CAN in 2016, having previously been an associate at Studio 54 Architecture.His first solo projects include a blue and white striped house extension and a renovation of his own home in south London complete with a fake Disneyland mountain.The photography is by Rick Pushinsky.The post CAN relinks Verdant House with garden using statement green window appeared first on Dezeen.

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) recently transformed a former Aldi store into an extraordinary museum. This isnt something we see usually, but it is interesting to see the firm convert a humble store into something quite so impressive. The former store will be completely transformed into a paper museum with a light-filled space.A visually intriguing and eye-catching roof will top the structure, and remind you of a massive piece of paper, that seems to be draped over the building. It is located in Jutland, Denmark, and currently, there arent any photos of the original store. But we have caught a glimpse of the current museum building. Dive in!Designer: Bjarke Ingels GroupThe building occupies around 900 sq m, but it will be increased to double the size to host workshops, events, teaching rooms, offices, and storage facilities. The pre-existing building walls will be equipped with a new acoustic-regulating layer of paper art on the exterior. This paper art draws inspiration from origami, and it will include loads of glazing.The timber sourced will be from the same wood used to produce the paper. The museum will host paper-related exhibitions, and currently, it also includes a Paper-Plane airport and paper boats for children to interact and play with. It will be exciting to watch the exhibitions and events the museum will hold in the future.Paper art is about creating three-dimensional shapes and complex images from a monochromatic two-dimensional material a sheet of paper, said BIG boss Bjarke Ingels. By treating the roof surface as such a single sheet of folded paper existing and new functions are brought together in one unifying gesture. The expressive is accentuated by the clear, complexity arises from simplicity. And an obsolete supermarket finds new life under the floating curved roof.The Museum for Papirkunst is a fine example of how many architectural designs and firms are undertaking initiatives to conduct massive and ambitious renovations. They are taking steps to improve existing buildings and elevating them, instead of building new structures and creating more pollution. This is a commendable effort on the part of majors firms and designers.The post BIG Transforms A Former Aldi Store Into A Visually Stunning Paper-Inspired Paper Museum first appeared on Yanko Design.

Finally, you might actually crack open the DMG for campaign planning every once in a while.Some bad habits aside, it's a huge improvement.

Beef up your loadout in Space Marine 2 with the Neo-Volkite pistol.You won't need time to cook with this.

2D art of the week: Lei Chu

An evening at Kew Gardens with Acer taught me plenty about sustainability.

Dijkstras algorithm was long thought to be the most efficient way to find a graphs best routes. Researchers have now proven that its universally optimal.