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The 2017 fire that burned down much of Enchanted Hills Camp in Napa, California had a silver lining. The camp was originally designed in the early 1900s for people with sight, but it has become a beloved retreat for the blind and visually-impaired for the last 75 years. When more than a dozen of its buildings were destroyed in the fire, the chance arose to rebuild the camp for the unique needs of the people who have been using it for decades. This really was never designed with the thought of access in mind, says Helen Schneider, associate principal and project manager at Perkins & Will, the architecture firm that redesigned the camp. Working closely with the camp’s owner, the nonprofit Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the architects made accessibility a guiding principle in its design, from the process to the final product. [Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will] The result is a modern wilderness retreat that integrates tactile and auditory clues throughout its site and buildings, making the camp experience more approachable for people with low- or no vision. The camp has been comprehensively reconsidered to accommodate its visually impaired visitors and staff, many of whom were consulted during the design process. The new design includes a camp-wide system of cane-detectable paths, hiking trails, and rooms designed to modulate background noises, and subtle details in interior furnishings. This is an experience and a property that reflects that it was created by and for blind people. You can’t find that anywhere, says Summer Dittmer, executive director of Lighthouse. The camp’s design was co-developed by Perkins & Will and an advisory board from Lighthouse, with blind and visually-impaired stakeholders offering feedback on early design proposals and insight into how the spaces in the camp would be used. During the early design stages, Perkins & Will created a large tabletop 3D model of the camp’s 311-acre site and 50-plus buildings and cabins. The model distinguished existing and proposed buildings by covering the new builds in rough sandpaper. Electrical tape and cords were used to mark the paths that weave up and down the camp’s 900 feet of elevation change. People who have been coming to camp for 30, 40 years, this was the first time they really got to experience a true-to-scale map that described the topography and the relationships of the buildings, the topography, the streams, the lake, says Schneider. [Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will] Pathways were an important part of the overall planning of the project, according to Schneider. The architects integrated a system of pathways throughout the camp that have notable differences of materials at their edges, making them easier for individuals using canes to detect their edges. [Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will] Perkins & Will also made special building plan drawings with raised ink to provide a tactical sense for the individual rooms and buildings they were proposing. This allowed visually-impaired stakeholders to offer pointed feedback on spatial layouts and the common challenges they face in conventional buildings, including disorienting furnishings, glaring light, and overwhelming acoustics. [Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will] Schneider says that feedback was especially informative in the camp’s main cafeteria and gathering space. The architects lowered the height of the ceiling in the part of the room where people collect food or bring back empty plates, making it easier to hear others and avoid collisions compared to the louder seating area nearby. The sound quality of being in the interstitial space of the building is a very different acoustic experience than being out in the open dining area, Schneider says. Dome-shaped infrared heaters also double as diffused light sources there, providing light without the bothersome glare of direct light. Blind and visually-impaired camp users also informd some of the smaller details in the project, like the notches cut into the front reception desk, where people can prop up a cane, or the subtly recessed vertical stile in a bank of cubby holes that serves as a tactical wayfinding tool. The places where the project shines are really in these moments where our stakeholders weighed in and said, you know, this is sometimes a pain point for me, Schneider says. [Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will] Given the site’s history of fire damage, fire resilience was another main focus of the design. Many of the camp’s new buildings feature fire-resistant exteriors of corrugated steel; others are clad in wood that’s an inch thicker than the code requires, adding additional fire resistance. A nearly 500,000-gallon water tank was built on site to store spring water in the summer, both for drinking and for emergency fire protection. Where possible, fire-prone building features like roof gutters, were removed completely. In one case, the design’s fire resilience and accessibility overlap. Perkins & Will designed a new dual-winged bathhouse for a swimming pool, and decided against using rain gutters that could be a trap for burning embers in the event of a fire. Instead, a gutter runs along the ground at the dripline of the roof to catch rainwater, and its metal grating serves as a cane-detectable surface and auditory clue. [Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will] A breezeway between the two wings of the bathhouse becomes another form of wayfinding, with a louder environment than the areas along the edges and beneath the overhangs of each wing. So there’s an audible cue for people who are entering the pool area, Schneider says. You know where you’re headed, both because you have this edge of the building to shoreline against with your cane, but you also have the audible cue that’s created spatially by the overhang. [Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will] Having this navigability built into the site and buildings of the camp opens new doors for the organization’s mission of promoting equity and opportunity for blind and visually impaired people. It’s a place for learning, Dittmer says. This is where many of them get their first taste of independence, as campers. The camp also operates year-round as a retreat, hosting corporate events and weddings. Many staff on site, from the head chef to the janitorial staff to the counselors, are blind or visually impaired, making the camp a kind of job training center and real-world case study of the role visually impaired people can play in society. Dittmer says hosting corporate events at the camp is becoming another way to advance the mission. It’s not just that they’re exposed to a camp that is for blind kids in the summer, she says. Seeing people who are blind and low vision working jobs and doing them well only encourages these big companies to open their minds and hire blind and low vision people. The camp’s new design, Dittmer says, makes all these goals achievable, from giving blind kids a place for exploration to providing low vision people the tools to find successful careers. If architecture could reflect possibilities and opportunities, this does it perfectly, she says.
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The top is a fine suede. The bottom is a stack of foam so tall youll instinctively pop an energy ball. You can wear it barefoot. You could run a marathon in it. I just . . . wish . . . it didnt look like an orthopedic pair of Vans. This is the Ahnu Sequence 1.1. Suede, launching today for $240. While you may not have heard of Ahnu yet (the boutique brand launched quietly in 2024), you do know the company behind it. Deckers owns brands including Teva, Ugg, and Hoka, which has celebrated healthy growth across its acquired brand portfolio over the past few yearssales across Deckers were up 17% over the past year. [Photo: Ahnu] Unlike its sister brands, Ahnu is being homegrown at Deckers to serve as a vehicle into court shoesthink classic sneakers silhouettes like Converse All-Stars, Adidas Stan Smiths, or Nike Air Force Ones and Dunks. But instead of a vulcanized rubber or EVA midsole, Ahnu is equipped with the same high-tech foams and carbon plates found in advanced running shoes for maximized comfort. [Photo: Ahnu] It very much looks like a classical sneaker, like something that’s more timeless, that’s easier to wear with any kind of garment, says Jean-Luc Diard, one of the original cofounders of Hoka who leads innovation across Deckers today. It packs in all the latest technologies without pushing it smash in your face. Thats the whole idea. Diard, a former elite skier who made his way into outdoor equipment and footwear design, was leading development at Soloman until 2007, when he got the idea for building a maximal-but-lightweight trail-running shoe, which became the Hoka One. (Outside ran a fantastic profile on Diard a few years back.) [Photo: Ahnu] His latest vision is to sell a court shoe thats sharp enough for a boardroom but performant enough to make a commute to work a breeze. The company has dubbed these super sneakers, and theyre designed to fill a hole in Deckers’s portfolio while establishing a new subcategory of shoe. One thing we started to identify at the start was the fact that, as a group, we were not really involved in the sneaker business, says Diard. We had running shoes, we had casual shoes, we had sandals, but we didn’t have, lets say, a significant effort being dedicated to the [traditional] sneaker. The original prototype Hoka. [Photo: Hoka] The rise of the foam stack Since Adidas launched Ultraboosts a decade ago, thick foam stacks have been a kind of arms race, growing taller and taller like the blades on a Gillette razor. The modern era of performant foamssolidified when Nike Vaporfly shoes started breaking Olympic records, circa 2020was just getting started when Deckers bought Hoka in 2012. Since then, Hoka’s rainbow-charred marshmallow midsoles have become comfort-first lifestyle shoes for many people. Their same elite technologies of advanced foams and carbon plates that lead marathoners to break records have a larger, second life for people who just want a softer day of walking for their knees. The aesthetic of shoes is shifting as a result. Midsoles have about doubled in height over the past decade, and what once seemed absurd is feeling more normal as the entire industry races toward what Diard calls dynamic comfort. Even the Jordan brand has launched a pillowy walking shoe. [Photo: Hoka] There a gap in technology between running and casual shoes, he says, and consumers whove stepped into the latest running technologies dont have interest in returning. [They say,] No, that’s done now. Now, Im moving to the next generation. Ahnu is essentially a running shoe, but its midsole foam has been tuned for a slightly lower impact of walking versus running, and its internal carbon plate is arced at a shallower angle than a racing shoe. With a rocker bottom, once you get used to your foot rolling forward with every step, I cannot deny that a pair of Ahnus become almost automatic to walk in. The grip of the TPU midsole is superb, even on wet surfaces (that brown you see on the bottom of the shoe isn’t rubber outsole, it’s just dyeallowing the entire midsole to be recycled as a single material). There are no stitches inside catching the top of your foot, either; and at just 200g apiece, they are a quarter the weight of a Converse All-Star. The shoes truly feel like a premium play on the lifestyle market. On is more lifestyle than Hoka, and so you know, why wouldn’t that On customer possibly buy Ahnu a year from now? Diard muses. But in my size 12, the Ahnus midsole proportions are just odd. An all-white Anhu colorway reads okay on my feet. With the suede top, I feel a bit like Im wearing Mschfs Super Baby crossed with a pair of Allbirds. Like, Im Tom Hanks in Big. Diard takes the criticism in stride, fairly noting that, for traditionally feminine silhouettes, the taller stack reads a bit more typical. He says theyre still fine-tuning Ahnus design language before taking it to scale in what sounds like a surprisingly patient process for a brand that wont target wide release until spring 2026. [Photo: Ahnu] The worst mistake you can get is putting pressure too quickly, too early, and then having a product that you start to scale that is not completely right, that is not completely ready, says Diard. Sometimes, it’s just tiny things that make the difference between success and failure. This patience is echoed by Deckers president and CEO Stefano Caroti, who sets a high bar for Ahnu, noting that the company doesnt want to sustain smaller brands like Sanuk, which it sold off last year. We want brands that can be at least half-a-billion dollars, says Caroti. Otherwise, it’s not really worth the effort, considering that we have two brands that are in excess of 2 billion with potential to be truly multibillion-dollar brands. Building a brand from scratch is not as easy as finding something that already works, and we have been good at amplifying brands, building brands that already had a DNA, he continues. We’ll see whether we . . . have the scalability and the know-how to do it. Were fortunate to have the time. [Photos: Ugg, Teva, Hoka] I will admit, though, having worn Anhus for a week now, my tastes have been slowly acclimating to their proportions, and perhaps my criticism will look archaic in a few years’ time. After all, we live in the age of the big midsole. And Deckers’s entire portfolio is embracing the thicker foam stack to fuel a genre-bending approach to otherwise traditional (and even tired?) shoe categories. Across the brands in our group, you will see many, many evolutions in that direction, says Diard. From the Teva Aventrail (an off-road running sandal) to the Hoka Speed Loafer (a sporty dress shoe that sold out a trial run in minutes) to the Ugg Tasman (an all-weather take on cozy). I think these hybrids are going to create [new] segments for our business, says Caroti. What is important is that you stay true to your roots and stay true to the DNA of the brand. The minute you try to be somebody you’re not, something you’re not, the consumer smells it immediately.
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E-Commerce
As President Donald Trump’s administration takes a sledgehammer to government agencies, Senate Democrats are opening their inboxes to whistleblowers. On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York announced a portal for people to send in their complaints. The cleanly designed website shows just a few boxes to enter details including name, organization, and contact information; there’s a submit button at the bottom of the page, and a short description at the top: Whistleblowers are a vital part of Congressional oversight to hold the administration accountable. If you would like to submit a whistleblower complaint, you can submit it here. It’s frictionless design applied to government oversight. The portal lets users lodge complaints about issues including retaliation, wasteful spending, fraud, and criminal activity, and Schumer said those who submit complaints will receive the legal protections afforded to whistleblowers. According to the Department of Justice, it is unlawful for any personnel action to be taken against you because of your whistleblowing, and other federal agencies have similar language about whistleblower protections. [Screenshot: Senate Democrats] Senate Democrats have a responsibility to fight back on behalf of American families as Republicans look the other way in obedience to Donald Trump, Schumer said in a letter Monday to his Senate colleagues. We are committed to working with these brave whistleblowers across America to fight back against the Trump administrations cruel and illegal actions. The website is a first step by the party out of power seeking to exercise oversight, and an alternate route for whistleblowers to air their complaints as Trump nominees take over federal agencies. Since Trump’s taken office and tapped Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, to lead a rebranded government agency to cut government spending without transparency, Democrats have criticized these efforts as overreach. I think this is the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly since Watergate, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told ABC News’s This Week on Sunday. The president is attempting to seize control of power, and for corrupt purposes. The president wants to be able decide how and where money is spent so that he can reward his political friends. He can punish his political enemies. That is the evisceration of democracy. The judicial branch has exercised its checks and balances over the executive branch, with judges blocking Musk’s team from accessing Treasury Department records, staying a deferred resignation offer to federal workers, and ordering an unfreezing of federal spending, among other rulings. In the minority in both chambers of Congress, though, there are limits to how Democrats can now respond. A viral moment in which Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat, asked fellow lawmakers what do we need? only to be met with a jumble of indecipherable answers seemed to sum up the opposition party’s flat-footed response. With their new whistleblowers site, though, Senate Democrats have landed on something coherent. What do we need? Your information about corruption, abuses of power, and threats to public safety. When do we need it? Now.
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E-Commerce
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