This project was developed for the course Page to Screen. This project asked us to do exactly what the course title promised: take a rich, sprawling archive from print and rethink it for screen. The challenge was wide open: take Arts & Architecture—15 years of content, 8 issues a year—and turn it into an app. The magazine covered everything from furniture and material trends to urban planning and art and we could pick anything.
The real task was finding what felt meaningful now, and making something that belonged on screen rather than a digital version of the print. After digging through the archive, we landed on the Case Study House program—a visionary effort to rethink American housing. That became our anchor. From there, we built Curate, an app that helps architects and homeowners design better homes together, inspired by modernist principles.
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Arts & Architecture was a groundbreaking American magazine that helped define modernism in the mid-20th century. Under John Entenza’s leadership in the 1940s–60s, it transformed from a design publication into a cultural force—shaping how Americans imagined lifestyle, space, and innovation.
With iconic covers by Ray Eames and photography by Julius Shulman, the magazine didn’t just showcase architecture, it sold a vision of modern living. Emerging in a postwar era desperate for change, Arts & Architecture championed optimism, experimentation, and an entirely new way of thinking.
Its most influential initiative, the Case Study House Program, launched in 1945 to rethink American housing through efficient, affordable design. While some of these homes leaned aspirational, the program promised a bold vision for accessible, modern living that still resonates today.
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Designing a home is an intimate process, and while technology can support it, we don’t believe it should replace the human connection between architect and client. Curate is designed to streamline the process without losing the personal touch. Architects begin by pre-populating a questionnaire based on initial conversations, covering lifestyle, family size, site details, and key priorities. Clients then review and adjust these answers, saving time and ensuring alignment from the start.
From there, the app's algorithm and the architect work together to curate a selection of Case Study Homes from Arts & Architecture’s archive, offering a tailored, thoughtful foundation for design discussions and moodboarding. The result is a process that’s collaborative, efficient, and deeply personal, just as building a home should be.
Most moodboards are just collections, images saved without clarity or follow-through. Curate’s Moodboard is designed to go deeper. Both architects and clients can add images taken from the Case Study archive, highlight specific elements, leave targeted notes and responses. A color-coded system shows who added what, keeping collaboration clear and organized.
This turns vague inspiration into focused direction, making it easier to understand what the client truly wants, and how to build it.
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While the Moodboard feature is about exploration, Comparison is where choices get made. Users can line up potential homes, closely examine them, and actively mark what works, and what doesn’t. From specific design elements to material preferences, every deetail is tracked, annotated and responded to.
This feature creates a clear, evolving record of preferences across many homes, helping both client and architect align on direction with confidence and precision.
When I started this project, I had no idea I’d be working on a real estate rebrand just a few months later. I was simply trying to make sense of a mid-century magazine and turn it into something relevant. But somewhere between moodboarding modernist kitchens and debating whether sunken living rooms still had a place, I accidentally began learning the language of architecture.
Fast forward, and I’m deep into branding Mantra Properties—talking about structure, form, lifestyle, and what it really means to build a home. Suddenly, all that research didn’t feel so random.
This project reminded me that design work always loops back around. What started as an app about old houses turned out to be the blueprint for understanding how to position new ones in Dubai.