In this episode, Alexander Groves of Studio Swine and writer-curator Yoko Choy join Hanna Harris at Paimio Sanatorium to reflect on design as exploration, storytelling, and community. Groves shares how Studio Swine’s “adventure design” approach emerges from place, materials, and collaboration, while Cho highlights the studio’s shift from context-driven research to creating new collective experiences. Together they discuss narrative in design, the welcoming spirit of Paimio, and the idea of “creative health” as a way to reimagine how architecture can foster care and connection.

Studio Swine (Super Wide Interdisciplinary New Explorers), founded by Alexander Groves and Azusa Murakami, works across art, design, and film to explore the future of resources, craft, and sustainability. Their projects have been shown at leading cultural venues worldwide.

Yoko Choy, China editor at Wallpaper*magazine, is a design journalist and curator who has worked with institutions such as Art Basel, Beijing Design Week, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as brands including Hermès and Louis Vuitton.

This conversation was recorded at the 2024 Spirit of Paimio Conference, hosted in the iconic Paimio Sanatorium — Alvar and Aino Aalto’s modernist masterpiece from the 1930s. Discover more at www.paimiosanatorium.com.

In this episode, Spencer Bailey joins Petri Burtsoff at Paimio Sanatorium to reflect on memorials, memory, and architecture. Bailey discusses why Paimio itself can be seen as a kind of memorial — both to Aalto’s design ethos and to the lives once shaped within its walls.

He explores the role of abstraction and metaphor in great memorials, how built spaces can function as portals that change us, and why architecture has the power to preserve collective memory in an age of fleeting attention. Drawing from his own experiences as a survivor and his research on memorials worldwide, Bailey considers what today’s architects might learn from the emotional resonance of these spaces.

Spencer Bailey is a writer, editor, and co-founder of The Slowdown, known for his thoughtful insights on design, architecture, and culture.

This conversation was recorded at the 2024 Spirit of Paimio Conference, hosted in the iconic Paimio Sanatorium — Alvar and Aino Aalto’s modernist masterpiece from the 1930s. Discover more at www.paimiosanatorium.com.

In this episode, architect George Massoud of Material Cultures joins Petri Burtsoff at Paimio Sanatorium to discuss how architecture can reconnect with ecology and community. Massoud shares insights from Growing Place in London, where working with natural materials, knowledge exchange, and community empowerment come together as tools for resilience. Reflecting on Paimio, he draws parallels between the sanatorium’s legacy of healing and the restorative potential of materials and design today.

George Massoud is an architect, educator and cultural worker. He is director at Material Cultures, a design and research practice based in London.

This conversation was recorded at the 2024 Spirit of Paimio Conference, hosted in the iconic Paimio Sanatorium — Alvar and Aino Aalto’s modernist masterpiece from the 1930s. Discover more at www.paimiosanatorium.com.