Emily Pacey

I am a freelance design journalist, copywriter and editor based in London, writing for publications including Onoffice, DX-London and Green Futures. (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-41926133-1', 'tumblr.com'); ga('send', 'pageview'); Contact me on [email protected] / 07818 657 321

[emilypacey]

Digital start-up TechHub by Gensler

In this piece for Onoffice I visited the tech start-up incubator TechHub on Old Street roundabout in London.

[emilypacey]

MoreySmiths' Coca-Cola happiness factory

In this piece for Onoffice, I talk to MoreySmith design director Nicola Osborne about their exciting scheme for Coca-Cola's London HQ.

[emilypacey]

Fox Head HQ by Clive Wilkinson Architects

In this piece for Onoffice I speak to Clive Wilkinson about California-living and novelty architecture

[emilypacey]

Designliga's cavernous Munich workspace

In this piece for Onoffice Magazine, I speak to Munich design firm Designliga's Christina Koepf about designing the interior of their office in a former factory.

[emilypacey]

In this piece for Lexus Magazine I ask Israeli product designer Tomer Botner about Tel Aviv's artisan community.

[emilypacey]

Grand Designs Magazine product pages

Furniture with a space saving theme inspired a series of product pages that I produced for Grand Designs Magazine, which accompanies the long-running television series.

A considerable amount of research and a meticulous eye for detail were required to create this visually exciting and informative feature.

[emilypacey]

New website for Homesafe Doors

I have rewritten the website for door manufacturer Homesafe following its recent buy-out by a private equity company. The website, which is the main touchpoint for the company's retail and social housing clients, now features a down-to-earth, conversational tone of voice that reflects Homesafe's renewed ambitions in the PVC-u door market.

Greenwich Design and Bumblebee Design overhauled the website's design and functionality.

[emilypacey]

Transformer house

An algorithm that designs you a flexible apartment made with moving walls represents the latest in housing innovation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discovers Emily Pacey.

The benefits of working with an interior architect could become available to the average home-buyer if technology developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is commercialised. MIT has created a 'design algorithm' that crunches data about a client's lifestyle before producing plans for his or her ideal apartment set-up. The space-saving innovation features expandable rooms, moveable bedrooms, pop-up offices and gyms – all tailored precisely to the client's needs. In this piece for DX-London I discover the latest developments from MIT's City Sciences Initiative.

[emilypacey]

New website for Greenwich school

I have rewritten the website for Greenwich School of Management, introducing a lively and engaging tone of voice to appeal to potential undergraduate and postgraduate students.

The refreshed copy accompanies a radical redesign of the school's website by Greenwich Design and a new prospectus written by Fraser Southey.

[emilypacey]

In this feature for newly-launched luxury design magazine ALTO, I travelled to Switzerland to explore two premium residential developments in the Alps and on the shores of Lake Geneva.

[emilypacey]

The new architecture

The internet's democratising effect is producing a 'paradigm shift' in architecture and design, architect and Dean of Princeton University School of Architecture Alejandro Zaera-Polo told Emily Pacey and delegates at last week's Urban Age Electric City conference.

Citing the iPhone and Frank Gehry's design for Guggenheim Museum Bilbao as examples of the same dying aesthetic form, Zaera-Polo said, “Large buildings made from pliant forms and custom-made components is the old paradigm of the past few decades. I propose that that style is changing, with the new paradigm once again becoming one of assembled, discreet and accreted parts.”

For this piece for DX-London I attended the London School of Economics' Urban Age Electric City conference, reporting on an emerging architectural trend in which users become makers.

[emilypacey]

How to flood-proof a city

Working with nature, not keeping it out, is the Zen-like flood defense proposal of New York group Architecture Research Office.

ARO's proposal features a number of 'soft-engineered' interventions that work together to soak water up and let it run away. According to ARO, strategic streets in flood zones would benefit from having asphalt replaced with porous cast-concrete mesh blocks. Excess water would soak into the engineered soil beneath the blocks, instead of running into overflowing sewers. Earthen mounds would guard some areas of the Manhattan waterfront, but in other places open channels would actually let water enter the city. Plantings along the streets would also help soak up run-off, while expanses of green wetlands on slopes around the island's perimeter - plus an archipelago of off-shore artificial isles - would break surging waters. ARO's Adam Yarinsky says, "Our goal is to restore a managed dynamism between city and sea. Hard barriers are related to a vision of nature as something that humans manipulate or control without consequences. Wetlands generally negotiate a resilient relationship with nature and moves us towards sustainability." Plus, Yarinsky makes the point that their verdant beauty "adds value to the everyday quality" of New Yorkers' lives.

In this feature for DX-London, I talk to ARO founding partner Adam Yarinsky about his green scheme for keeping New York dry.

[emilypacey]

Is it 'home Swede home' for the UK?

Skanska is bringing its sustainability expertise, and Scandinavian style, to the UK housing sector.

British home buyers may not yet have sustainability at the top of their tick lists – but an influx of smart Scandinavian design could turn this around. The Brits have grown accustomed to modern developments of small-windowed Edwardian-style homes which express nostalgia for the past, yet fail to charm. Things look very different at Seven Acres, a plot of 128 homes in the new district of Great Kneighton, Cambridge. Here are sharp-angled, flat-roofed buildings with floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows, offering views of lofty rooms. This is design with zero tolerance for net curtains: you see right through from front to back.

In this piece for Green Futures, I visit Scandinavian housing developer Skanska's first UK development, in Cambridge.

[emilypacey]

How a new dynamic between consumers and brands will catalyse change

Today, saying the right thing isn’t enough to convince consumers about a brand’s commitment to sustainability. Emily Pacey finds out how leading companies are building their reputations through actions, and not just words.

Back in the day, brands offered themselves as a mark of style and stamp of quality on products bought to last, from kitchenware to trench coats to watches. Then, with the rise of corporate social responsibility, they sought to realign themselves with emerging ideals. In 2002, the global banking group HSBC launched an advertising campaign describing itself as ‘local’. In 2003, fast food giant McDonald'sintroduced a line of salads with low fat dressings, alongside the staple burger and fries.

In this piece for Green Futures, I ask branding experts - including former head of Interbrand Rita Clifton - about how big brands are communicating sustainable values to consumers.

[emilypacey]

RCA displays importance of design education

At a time when public funding for design education has been slashed, the Royal College of Arts' autobiographical exhibition The Perfect Place to Grow: 175 Years of the RCA proves the primacy of design to the UK economy, argues Emily Pacey.

The Perfect Place to Grow looks like the ultimate art school degree show: here are textiles by Robin and Lucienne Day, James Dyson's early prototypes, Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir's UK road signage system and designs for Liverpool Cathedral by architect William Lethaby. These design works sit besides art pieces by Tracey Emin, David Hockney and Barbara Hepworth, packed into three rooms displaying the cultural and financial worth of the talent nurtured at this small institution.

For this item for DX-London, I visted the RCA's new exhibition and interviewed Rector Paul Thompson about the impact of arts education funding cuts on the college.

[emilypacey]

Floating cinema

Duggan Morris Architects has never designed a boat before – or a cinema. For its latest project in East London, it will do both.

In this piece for DX-London, I speak to partner Joe Morris about his plans for the boat to screen films, host video art installations and offer tours of London's canals and waterways.

[emilypacey]

In this piece for Lexus Magazine, I ask leading neuroscientist Richard Wingate about ways of artificially modifying the human brain.