Note from the editor:

Nifemi Marcus-Bello on the cultural context of unauthored West African design; a 21st-century take on the Sony Walkman; resonances between the Gutenberg Press and smartphones; Front’s efforts to copy and replicate Sweden’s forests; Project 213A’s foot-based entry into furniture; Stephen Burks on what the design industry gets wrong; ProxyAddress’s efforts to change the systems surrounding homelessness; designs to create bricks from construction waste by Carmody Groarke, Local Works Studio, Kenoteq and StoneCycling; the marble landscape of Makrana, as explored by Studio Raw Material; smoked Ukrainian ceramics by Danuta Kril; Taf and Artek’s tribute to the E27 bulb; Citibin and New York’s design war against rats; Felix de Pass’s cutlery for Monoware; Fabien Cappello’s investigation of Guadalajara’s hojalata industry; silver jewellery by Hall Haus; Claude Dutson’s research into subverting the proprietary architecture of Silicon Valley; a study of climate control at the Boijmans Depot; and the fitness connotations of Terje Ekstrøm’s wiggly chair.