Pairs is a student-led journal at the Harvard GSD dedicated to conversations about design that are down to earth and unguarded. Each issue is conceptualized by an editorial team that proposes guests and objects to be in dialogue with one another. Pairs is non-thematic, meant instead for provisional thoughts and ideas in progress. Each issue seeks to organize a diversity of threads and concerns that are perceived to be relevant to our moment. Thus, Pairs creates a space for understanding and a greater degree of exchange, both between the design disciplines and with a larger public.

This inaugural issue contains conversations with designers, academics and critics that take on the present from a variety of perspectives. There are reflections on major personal, disciplinary, or political turning points. There are reevaluations of moments in the past that shed light on social questions at the top of our minds. There are also discussions on gardening, book-making, publishing, and the conversation itself. 

Features the voices of Mark Bavoso, Alexandra Bell, Tatiana Bilbao, Jennifer Bonner, Michelle Chang, Nicolás Delgado Alcega, Teresa Galí-Izard, Vladimir Gintoff, Christopher Hawthorne, Kimberley Huggins, Kahlil Joseph, Linda Just, Paul Nakazawa, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Piet Oudolf, Robert Gerard Pietrusko, Jacob Reidel, Oana Stănescu, Pier Paolo Tamburelli, Günther Vogt, Thomas Weaver, Sarah M. Whiting, Kyle Winston, and Sara Zewde.

Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2021

22 x 16 cm, 224 pages