Supermundane, architecture and landscape and another instalment of our summer series

August 12, 2025·28 min·2 clips

How do simple boxy chiringuitos in Mallorca make a rocky coastline look even more dramatic?

Nick opens in the studio, with Grace Charlton back from holiday and the mood already loose. Tans, sun avoidance, and beach routines become the way into design, which feels very Monocle: casual at the door, precise once inside. A Singapore design showcase appears early, but the programme soon drifts into graphic work, architecture, place, and summer noticing. Grace brings the travel thread. Her European route lingers on striped beach furniture, seaside style, and the mildly ridiculous but fair question of whether color, white stripes, and heat belong in the same conversation. Nick keeps poking at the logistics. Switzerland, Italy, and the South of France become more than dots on a holiday map. The rail chat gives the episode one of its better ideas: trains help make beaches, resort towns, and smaller communities feel connected and usable. Bodrum joins the itinerary, and even the joke about private jets, helicopters, or a van has a point. The show keeps circling around how places are reached, used, and remembered. The architecture talk stays broad without turning into a lecture. Landscape, mobility, and leisure sit around the designed objects like real life around a postcard. Rob Lowe closes with the clearest visual idea. As Supermundane, he talks about simple geometric shapes and why plain forms keep picking up new meanings. A circle is never only a circle for long. It can become a moon, a ball, or an atom once the setting changes. His book, Lost Ordinary Magic, fits the mood neatly: modest forms, visual play, and the oddness tucked inside familiar design language. Nick, Grace, producer May Lee Evans, and assistant Hunter Wang leave the episode with studio warmth and polished field note curiosity.

As heard by us

A breezy design episode where Supermundane, summer travel, and simple shapes all get room to shift meaning.

Monocle on Design drifts between Rob Lowe, better known as Supermundane, a conversation about architecture and place, and a loose summer jaunt through holiday design.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For a design chat that drifts from summer series banter into architecture, place, and simple shapes.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Monocle on Design