Dozens of framed photographs and paintings on the walls in Gabrielles cozy one-bedroom apartment in Boyle Heights showcase her artistry and cherished memories from trips to New Zealand and Europe. Her favorite is a black and white portrait of a miner in New Zealand panning for gold.Gabrielle (who is comfortable printing only her first name) feels she struck gold, too, when she moved into this light-filled apartment in September 2019. She calls the placewith an open kitchen, a large bathroom and a sweeping view over park greenery and palm trees to the snow-capped mountains outside of Los Angelesher safe haven, after feeling unsafe for several years.A professional gemologist whose family once had five jewelry stores in Hawaii, she had struggled with alcoholism and mental health issues, and a suicide attempt left her in a coma for five days. While she was recovering from major neck surgery and fighting to be granted disability, she was living in her car in Los Angeles for several months and in transitional housing for more than 15 months. She wondered if she would ever have an apartment again or be stuck in a hell hole forever.Gabrielles luck began to change when a California nonprofit called Brilliant Corners got involved. She had qualified for help from the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services Housing for Health division that gives priority to vulnerable clients with health issues. (Gabrielle contributes 30% of her income to the rent, and the rest is covered by the programs subsidy.) But when the Boyle Heights apartment in a former hospital opened up, the landlord didnt want to rent to her because of her bad credit. The real estate specialists at Brilliant Corners worked with Gabrielles case manager at the local nonprofit Life Steps to convince the landlord he was not taking a big risk in accepting Gabrielle as a renter.Brilliant Corners was founded in 2004 by several nonprofit service providers with the mission to find housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in three California counties. In 2014, it significantly expanded its mission to extremely low-income Californians and began operating theFlexible Housing Subsidy Pool, in partnership with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and private partners such as the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, as part of the Housing for Health initiative. The Flex Pool is a supportivehousing rent subsidy programthat helps match vulnerable individuals with available housing options.The key is its flexibility: For one landlord, it was a dealbreaker that the applicant had $3,000 in debt. So we paid off half the debt, says Kolby Vaughn, Brilliant Corners associate housing services director in San Diego, which has a Flex Pool that is funded by the Regional Task Force on Homelessness. For another client, cooking was really important so we spoke with the landlord [to see] if we could put a hot plate in his unit. These are the kind of hurdles we can overcome outside of the bureaucratic process.With a budget of over $200 million, braiding state, local, and private funding sources, Brilliant Corners has been able to make a significant impact. We have developed the capacity to administer over $10 million of rent subsidies every month, according to Brilliant Corners CEO Bill Pickel. To date, the nonprofit has placed nearly 13,000 unhoused people into permanent homes in Los Angeles, averaging about 200 people a month. Brilliant Corners contracts with government agencies, such as the L.A. County Department of Health Services or Veterans Affairs, other nonprofits and community partners, and pairs up with Intensive Case Management Services to help clients achieve and maintain health and housing stability.Its initial efforts in L.A. focused on the most vulnerable clients who frequently used costly emergency services. This is how Brilliant Corners makes the case that it actually saves the county money. According to a 2017Rand studythat analyzed the first two and a half years of the program, every $1 invested in the program saved the county $1.20 in health care and other social service costs. The idea is that once clients have stable housing, they have a better foundation to address other issues including their physical and mental health.Clients are typically referred by a government agency or a local case management nonprofit, Pickel explains, as was the case with Life Steps, the local nonprofit that helped Gabrielle. We meet individuals one on one. BCs housing coordinators provide support from the initial contact all the way through. They are sticking with one person and dont leave them alone once they are in an apartment, says Pickel. Most folks need some level of ongoing support.NPRcalls Brilliant Corners a real estate agency for the unhoused, because what distinguishes it from other housing programs is its dedicated team of landlord engagement specialists who build long-standing relationships with landlords so they know when a unit will become available. This strategy is considerably different from the normal bureaucratic process where overworked case managers need to find the time to canvas neighborhoods and rental portals for available apartments.Especially in California communities where the real estate market is so intense and vacancies are so limited, landlords have lots of choices and might go with someone who just landed a job at Google or Facebook, Pickel notes. How can low-income folks possibly compete in such a competitive market to secure a unit? We help put everything in place to match somebody with the unit. Brilliant Corners sometimes enters into long-term agreements with landlords; these could include guaranteeing rent from day one even before the tenant moves in and assurances that rent is paid on time.Manola Rodriguez, for instance, who owns and manages 50 apartment units in Antelope Valley with her husband, met Brilliant Corners representatives when they were canvassing the neighborhood in 2014. She has been renting half of her units to Brilliant Corners clients ever since. We believe in second chances, she says. Its very hard for people to function without a roof over their head.Despite its convincing model, Brilliant Corners has dozens of one-star reviews on online platforms where both clients and landlords complain that they have been unable to reach anybody at the nonprofit when problems arose, such as a rodent infestation or behavioral issues with mentally ill renters. But Rodriguez says that Brilliant Corners representatives were always there to assist with problems.To cut through even more red tape and avoid cumbersome bureaucracy, Brilliant Corners is currently developing five multifamily housing sites in L.A., totaling 376 units of permanent supportive housing. The nonprofit is also managing its own residential care homes.The situation is particularly dire in Los Angeles County, which counted more than75,500 unhousedpeople in 2023, an uptick of 9% from 2022. The homeless number in the city has gone up 10% to46,260, and more than2,000 unhoused people diedlast year in the city amidst the housing and fentanyl crises, more than six deaths a day. The alarming death rate, too, rises significantly every year.AHarvard studyshows that low-rent units under $1,400 a month have disappeared fast across all states, particularly in California. Were rehousing people faster and more people. Even though the number of people we are able to house is rising, the number of people who need affordable housing is rising faster, Pickel admits. What comes to mind is the unfortunate image of bailing water out of a boat, but theres more water coming in than we can bail out.On her first day in office in December 2022, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass signed an emergency declaration on homelessness, promising to cut red tape and fast-track affordable housing permits. Activists laud her efforts, but theyre far from enough. Billions are being spent. What are we doing wrong? Pickel asks. I think we have a multi-generational complex social problem that includes the failure to build enough housing at various income levels, including middle-income housing, workforce housing and deeply affordable housing. We also have a tragically fractured social safety net and an unfolding crisis of people in severe distress, whether its from mental health, substance abuse or so many other reasons. It is really hard to develop our way out of this problem. We would need something in the order of $10 to $12 billion a year. Thats a staggering number.Similarly, in San Diego, Kolby Vaughn says that more people end up unhoused for the first time than Brilliant Corners and other services can put in apartments. Many seniors are aging into homelessness because their pensions are not keeping up with housing prices. Since launching the San Diego Flex Pool in October 2020, Brilliant Corners has housed 900 individuals and families in need, with a focus on youth, veterans and those with complex health issues. But the need continues to mount: California needs1.4 million moreaffordable rental units.This is where Brilliant Corners sees a lever to offer landlords incentives to rent to their clients by giving them assurances other nonprofits cant. Were not building our way out of homelessness, Brilliant Corners housing coordinator Adriana Flores says. She has experienced housing insecurity herself. A lot of us have been in our clients shoes, she says, and she calls what she offers them a hand up, not a handout.Her client Brian Wearren is a success story. After being honorably discharged from the Navy and then having been incarcerated for 25 years for assault and robbery, Wearren faced some hurdles to finding housing: He had no rental history, no credit, and no income. But he found himself a one-bedroom apartment in San Diego on the 12th floor with a view over the city. Brilliant Corners helped him pay for application fees and furniture, and Flores assured the landlord the rent was guaranteed with his VA (Veterans Affairs) rent voucher. Now he works two jobs as a plumber and a fiber optics cable installer and wants to pay it forward.Im extremely lucky and had a lot of support, but not everybody is so lucky, Wearren says. I want to establish transitional housing for guys like me who come out of the military or out of incarceration.Thisstorywas originally published by Reasons to Be Cheerful.

As 2024 rolls into 2025, big changes are potentially afoot in the world of social media. TikTok is potentially weeks away from closure in the United States. X (the app formerly known as Twitter) continues to deviate from the mainstream under its ownership by Elon Musk. And in its place, the sun is shining on Bluesky.But there are other, deeper changes to social media that may be worth tracking in the 12 months to come, according to experts.Just as the rise of TikTok personalized, content graph-driven algorithm, and Blueskys choose-your-own algorithm approach means theres no one single trend that captures the online zeitgeist, so the smaller trends that we do encounter in our own niches are likely to be fleeting. The lifespan of trends has dramatically shortened, Itamar Leopold, creative director at Motion Array, a video and filmmakers platform, told Artlist Business for its 2025 trends report. Whats viral today may be forgotten tomorrow.While trends are getting shorter, the content that launches those trends is getting longer. TikTok is testing 30- and 60-minute video uploads on its app (which will have to survive the threat to ban it in the United States in order to make a meaningful difference there), while Snap and YouTube have both extended the maximum length of content users can create in-app to three minutes. Were likely to see that extend even further in 2025 as longform content becomes stronger.Within that fly-by-night world, there will still be plenty of opportunity to make money, which will ensure social media remains at the forefront, says Ray Grady, CEO of Worksuite, a freelance workforce management platform. Weve seen our customers work with more influencers than ever before, tapping into these members driving the creator economy at record rates, he says. The agency and client marketing teams that use his workforce management platform have seen a 300% year-on-year increase in the number of influencers they work with.Those numbers enable Grady to make a bold prediction: Influencers will be the fastest-growing freelance category next year because they are tapped by so many different industriesmarketing, advertising, entertainment, retail, public interest groups, and even politics, he says. Its not going to stop there. There is no limit to the various ways hiring them can benefit a brand, cause, or event.That points to further professionalization of the creator class, reckons influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy. Creators are emerging as the new media moguls, the company says in its 2025 outlook. Theyre launching their own production houses, and turning social-first formats into popular, high-quality, entertainment that rivals traditional media channels such as TV. Billion Dollar Boys key takeaway for what 2025 holds on social media: A further blurring of the boundary between creators and brands, where the former becomes the latter.One area that is less hopeful and positive is the rise of further risks of scams waged through social media. AI-generated social engineering attacks will evolve far beyond LinkedIn scams in 2025, says Steve Cobb, chief information security officer at SecurityScorecard, a cyber risk and monitoring platform.The use of large language model-powered bots has been prevalent on X as well as LinkedInwith the latter being used to engage in real-time chat with users to try and hoodwink them. But with a shift toward large multimodal models, which include audio and video as well as text outputs, theres a risk that we see more advanced ways of tricking people on social media, from video messages on Snapchat and Instagram to real-time calls on video conferencing systems.As threat actors leverage more sophisticated AI, expect to see realistic AI-generated Zoom meetings used to deceive and exploit targets, says Cobb. These immersive attacks will bypass traditional security controls, creating a new wave of trust-based breaches.

There is no escaping the tyranny of trends. But as 2024 draws to a close, we reached out to eight designers and architects, including Talia Cotton, Joe Doucet, and Pentagrams Giorgia Lupi, and asked them to play Ceasar for a day. Their task? Pick a trend that gets to live next year, and one that gets the thumbs-down.Stay tuned to see what trends will live to fight another year. In the meantime, here are the eight trends our panel voted out. (Teaser: AI only came up once.)Products designed for social mediaThe trend Id like to see disappear is fast-to-market goods created solely to grab attention in fleeting videos or viral posts. These products are often made cheaply, with questionable materials and little thought to long-term value or craftsmanship. Theyre designed for quick dopamine fixes, enticing consumers with aesthetics or gimmicks that dont often hold up once the product is in hand.The problem is, you cant truly convey the quality of an object through a casual video or staged photo. Quality is something you feelthe weight of a well-made object in your hand, the texture of premium materials, the subtle details that reflect care and craftsmanship. Designed-for-social-media products strip away this depth and contribute to the growing problem of products quickly destined for landfills. Ti Chang, industrial designer, cofounder and chief design officer, CraveArchesThe design trend I hope dies in 2025 is arches . . . just because there is a transition from one room to the next does not mean it deserves an arch. There is definitely a time and a place when there is historical rationale . . . but most of what Im seeing does not fit that rationale and is just lazy. Ben Willett, designer, founder, WilletMeasuring success by revenue over valuesIn 2025, I hope to see the outdated metric of equating a firms success solely with its revenue or square footage portfolio fade into obscurity. Architecture and design should not be measured by capital-driven parameters but by values like sustainability, social impact, and cultural relevance. The work we do shapes lives, communities, and ecosystems. Success should be defined by how thoughtfully a project engages its context, improves the well-being of its users, and contributes to a more sustainable and just world. Lets move beyond celebrating profit margins and instead champion the firms and designers who are actively making a difference. Pascale Sablan, architect, CEO, Adjaye Associates, New York StudioDesigners blindly following every new visual trendWere tired of the rapid-fire, repetitive, Instagram-focused design approaches from brands and studios big and smallwe owe ourselves (and our clients) more. Whether its the thoughtless implementation of AI-tools into the design process without critical thinking, the self-aggrandizing feedback loop of design solutions targeted at an audience of entirely graphic designers, or the vapid regurgitation of retro styles, things in our industry sometimes feel like theyre moving with a speed and thoughtlessness that is not conductive to long lasting good work. Connecting design moves to the content and context of a project rather than the broader visual trends of the industry as well as focusing on how the work will be implemented and appliedis a must. Giorgia Lupi, information designer, partner, PentagramThe AI aestheticIn 2025, the trend Id like to see retire is designs that look like they were made by AI. AI is a powerful tool, and designers should definitely continue to experiment with it to push its boundaries. But this year, still in its early stages, weve often seen creatives stop at the default aesthetic AI provides instead of evolving it. You know the one: perfect worldscrisp, smooth, and eerily polished. We saw it most recently in the Coca Cola holiday adand it simply didnt resonate. In contrast, controversial as it was, Pentagrams illustration direction for performance.gov was the first Ive seen this year that pushed really hard to make the AI truly follow their direction. We still have a long way to go, but Im excited to see more designers push beyond the natural aesthetic. Because if we dont, were no longer designingwere simply using a tool. Talia Cotton, designer, founder and creative director, Cotton Design70s Retro FuturismI was in Palm Springs for the recent holiday and spent some time walking through some furniture and antiques stores. I was struck by how a considerable number of pieces from the late 60s and early 70s look exactly like contemporary design; well beyond notions of the past influencing current trends, they seemed to be used as blueprints. These classic design pieces were, at the time, a reaction to the past and heralded an optimistic vision for what the future could represent. To simply borrow forms to create a new pastiche of something that already exists is a waste of talent and resources. If were going to copy anything, lets copy the ethos of the time and create a new vision for what the future could be. Joe Doucet, industrial designer, founder, Joe Doucet x PartnersGreen blingThe excesses of unrealistic representation of nature in renderings needs to evaporate. Design needs to evolve through deep knowledge of place: the environment, culture, and its context. We need to lead with ecosystem services and design our building and engineering systems to operate like the natural world around us. We can borrow from the intelligence and natural systems of a site to create holistic building systems. Likewise, buildings can reinforce their place by expanding the area, conditions, and resources for landscape to thrive. The ecology of the site and the technology of the buildings should interface with and support each other. Biology becomes technology. Sean Quinn, director of regenerative design, HOKBland finishesIts time to evolve past default finishes that lack character and durability. Thereare ways to invest wisely in your home toa greater benefit. Interiors, like fashion, invite you to balance highs and lows, and can yield significant returns with the right guidance for your budget. Emily Shapiro, interior designer and founder, TALD

British studio Will Gamble Architects has completed Flint Farm, a glass-lined extension to a farmhouse in North Hertfordshire that links to a renovated black barn.Named after its knapped flint plinth, the extension replaces low-quality structures that had been added over time to the Grade II-listed farmhouse near the village of Therfield.Will Gamble Architects designed the low-lying side addition to provide more space for a growing young family while improving the house's "maze" of entrance rooms.Will Gamble Architects has extended a farmhouse in North HertfordshireThe Flint Farm extension contains a kitchen and dining area wrapped by floor-to-ceiling glass, lending it a contemporary look that contrasts with the existing architecture.However, a flint base that corresponds with the walls protecting the surrounding agricultural barns helps tie it in.Similarly, its roof, which is topped with a crown of dark angular steel, is formed of shallow peaks and troughs referencing the black timber-clad gables on the late 16th-century farmhouse.The extension has a flint base that nods to its surrounding walls"The addition is unashamedly contemporary in appearance, to ensure that the farmhouse and the neighbouring outbuildings remain clearly legible," said project architect Miles Kelsey.While maximising space for the owner, the Flint Farm extension also improves the connection to an 18th-century agricultural barn next door.According to the studio, the barn had previously been "crudely" knocked through, undergone a number of haphazard repairs and used as a boiler room and clothes drying area.It contains a kitchen and dining roomSpotting the potential in the barn structure, Will Gamble Architects revamped it with a new entrance and informal living area, exposing its historic timber framing. A contemporary picture window has also been added to frame a view of the garden.Outside, the black timber cladding and clay tiles of the barn were removed, refurbished and reinstalled to help thermally upgrade the building, while its irregular roof pitch and uneven eaves were restored to retain its character.Read: The Parchment Works house extension built inside ruined stone wallsWith pink-painted lime render walls, the main farmhouse dates back to the late 16th century but had been altered over time with additions such as a single-storey extension and an unplasticised polyvinyl chloride (UPVC) conservatory on its northern flank.Will Gamble Architects was originally hired by the current owner to replace the dated conservatory and create an extension of a similar size, but the studio encouraged the client to focus on better integrating the black barn by replacing the old single-storey extension on its eastern side instead.Will Gamble Architects aimed to simplify the home's layout"We were able to convince them of the underlying potential of the barn and to locate the new extension on the side of the property, replacing the 20th-century element, and creating a more meaningful link between the barn and main house to allow it become part of the primary living spaces of the home," said Kelsey.Positioning the extension at this location also allowed the studio to design a new double-height entrance to the home with an oak staircase that has slender steel spindles.It sits beside an existing reception room in the original farmhouse, with links to the more private areas including a snug, study, kid's bedrooms and main bedroom.An existing barn was restored and linked to the extensionWill Gamble Architects sought to create "tactile" interiors for Flint Farm, defined by texture and pattern that echo the old farmyard. This includes polished concrete, blackened timber, natural oak and exposed structural elements, as well as touches of marble and terracotta.Given the farmhouse's heritage status, the project had a lengthy planning process, but Kelsey said it also threw up a few interesting surprises such as a historic well that the studio turned into a patio feature."We were spoilt for choice on areas that could be revealed," he said.The barn was originally built in the 18th centuryWill Gamble Architects was founded by architect Will Gamble in London in 2018.Its other residential projects include The Parchment Works, a house extension built inside ruined stone walls, and Palm Springs, a home in London that draws on desert modernism.The photography is by Johan Dehlin.The post Will Gamble Architects adds "unashamedly contemporary" extension to English farmhouse appeared first on Dezeen.

There is a very vocal school of thought that extols the productivity benefits of having more than one computer monitor. There are, in fact, some who strongly believe this that they have started to design not only multi-monitor accessories for laptops but also laptops with more than one built-in screen. You might not buy into the hype, but those that do are unfortunately forced to make compromises in order to adopt that multi-monitor lifestyle.Extra screens naturally take up more space, requiring you to have a larger desk if you dont already own one. Multi-monitor setups mostly presume a horizontal configuration, resulting in the aforementioned problem. Its also something you cant take with you if you happen to work more on a laptop, and portable dual monitors tend to be too expensive for their benefits. That said, we might be seeing a new generation of such external screens that aim for affordability and accessibility, such as this new product from MINISFORUM.Designer: MINISFORUMFor people who always work on a computer, a multi-monitor setup is still a luxury they cant afford. If youre the type to work on a laptop away from your desk, its both unfeasible and impractical. Portable dual monitors try to offer a more compact solution, but their price tags immediately make them a no-go for many people. If they were more affordable, we might see more interest in these accessories even among desktop users.The MINISFORUM MDSA156 is taking a stab at that problem. Truth be told, its biggest and perhaps only killer feature is its $231 price tag. Thats almost half of the cheapest portable dual monitor weve seen so far, and from a somewhat reputable brand no less. The question, however, is whether this dual-monitor design is actually a good thing.Compared to a side-by-side arrangement where all monitors are, in theory, on the same ergonomic eye level, a vertical configuration will have one of the screens lower than the other, forcing you to glance down a lot. In exchange, this takes up less space on your desk and even lets you easily rearrange your setup without having to mess with a bunch of cables, especially since this can use a single USB-C cable for both power and data.Laptop users will probably benefit the most from this as they can easily switch to a configuration that fits their needs wherever they are. In the office or at home, they can enjoy three screens, including the laptops built-in display. On the go, they can use either both or just one of the portable screens, depending on the available table space they have, and they can fold the display back to go into tent mode when sharing their screens with clients or friends. At 2.2lbs (1kg) heavy and 0.95 inches (2.4cm) thick, it might be stretching the definition of portable. Then again, you will be carrying two monitors, so thats not that surprising either.The post Portable dual monitor offers a more affordable mobile productivity solution first appeared on Yanko Design.

Inspired by the Halo videogame franchise, this stunning sci-fi landscape is a real-time render from Unreal Engine

Colour me perplexed.

We review the biggest artificial intelligence stories that affected artists and designers this year, and look for a few trends to track into 2025.

Villains were everywhere and more relatable than ever. Across pop culture, social media, and IRL, the phenomenon went full-on main character.

The plant-based-meat companys CEO, Ethan Brown, credits a series of attack ads with prompting a potentially sector-saving change of plan.