Greetings and welcome back to another Wednesday news roundup, complete with what you need to know to get over the midweek slump.

Here’s what’s going on today:

After finalizing its Knoll acquisition, Herman Miller is now MillerKnoll

On April 19 of this year, two titans of modern home and office design announced that they would become one; Herman Miller revealed that it would be acquiring Knoll in a $1.8 billion cash and stock transaction. The deal officially closed as of July 19, and now the combined company is known simply as MillerKnoll. MillerKnoll now collectively oversees 50 physical retail locations along with multi-channel e-commerce capabilities, a global dealer network, and a presence in over 100 countries worldwide.

Salone del Mobile.Milano elects Maria Porro its new president

Milan’s Salone del Mobile is still on for this September after skipping the 2020 edition due to the pandemic, but without its longtime president, Claudio Luti, who resigned in April over the scaled-back size of the 2021 furniture fair. Now, fair organizers have named a new president to replace Luti: Maria Porro. Porro previously served as the president of the Assarredo, the Italian trade association responsible for advocating for furniture, kitchen, bed, and other manufacturers. Porro will oversee this year’s “Supersalone” in Milan, a condensed show within a “village-like” setting that will do away with individual booths for exhibitors.

“I grew up with the Salone del Mobile,” said Porro in her selection announcement. “When I was a kid, my grandfather Carlo used to take me along to the pavilions at the old venue. I followed when the Fair moved to its new site in Rho, and I was thrilled to be able to attend the Shanghai Furniture Fair. Today, I am honoured to take on this role at such a vital and transformative time. I’d like to thank everyone who supported me. I hope to prove myself worthy of this event and its fabulous, successful heritage. I and the entire Board of Directors will be working to ensure that, as a unique and indispensable design showcase, the Salone rises to meet future challenges regarding sustainability, digitalization, research, innovation, creativity and inclusiveness, as ever maintaining the highest quality.”

Norway will bury over one billion tons of carbon dioxide under the North Sea

Norway has announced the launch of Project Longship, a $2 billion project to bury the country’s captured carbon dioxide below the soil of the North Sea. The ambitious plan, which Norway’s Ministry of Petroleum and Energy expects to open the first phase of in 2024, will inject up to 1.6 million tons of CO2, sequestered from oil and gas fields, below the sea annually. The carbon capture and storage project is ultimately expected to bury over 1.3 billion tons of CO2 and help Norway reach its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

H/t to Dezeen

Berlin’s Humboldt Forum opens to the public today after years of delays

The massive $802 million restoration and expansion of Berlin’s Humboldt Forum, an outgrowth of what was once a historic civic building into a contemporary art museum, is finally open to the public. Originally slated to open in December of 2020 but derailed due to the pandemic, the museum opens its doors with six exhibitions spread out across the first and second floors—Artnet News has put together a roundup of what to see now that the institution is open, but also notes the highly anticipated ethnological and Asian art sections won’t be open until September 22. If you’re planning on exploring Italian architect Franco Stella’s design, a hyperfaithful re-creation of the baroque sandstone facades of the Berlin Palace, now might be a good time to read our review of the project from earlier this April.

H/t to Artnet News

The AIA New York hands Justin Garrett Moore the 2021 Champion of Architecture Award

The AIANY has chosen Justin Garrett Moore as the winner of its 2021 Champion of Architecture Award (previously the Award of Merit), a 69-year-old accolade also bestowed upon the likes of Buckminster Fuller, Jane Jacobs, Kenneth Frampton, Ai Weiwei, and more. (Moore’s acceptance remarks at the awards luncheon on Tuesday can be viewed in full on his Instagram.)

The award makes sense, as Moore has been both a powerful advocate for the power of good design both in his former four-year tenure as the executive director of the Public Design Commission, New York City’s governmental design review agency, and in his current position as program manager for Humanities in Place at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Moore also serves on the federal Commission of Fine Arts, one of four new commissioners named by the Biden administration in May.

H/t to Archinect

Smoke from western wildfires blankets the East Coast for a second day

Wildfire smoke from 3,000 miles away continues to blanket the East Coast for a second day, turning the sun a dark red and smothering cities like Toronto, New York, and Philadelphia in a haze that’s visible (and smellable) even at ground level. Although the fires causing this are raging in California, Oregon, and Canada, it’s another small reminder that the climate is an interconnected global system that’s impossible to disentangle. A rainy cold front has started to chase the haze, which is causing unhealthy air quality warnings in affected cities.

H/t to the New York Times