Desert by Design celebrates the interior worlds that exist in Earth’s most arid climes and, more importantly, the creative minds who inhabit them

 It is an ode to these landscapes—their sounds, smells, flora, and fauna—filled with equal parts mystery and beauty and a glimpse into the projects and lives of those who have chosen to call them home. Deserts are known to be sensitive ecosystems where adaptability and resilience become common currency, requiring humans to live within the environment rather than apart from it. The result is a people who are inspired by challenge and who constantly create and innovate, a notion that set in for Marfa, Texas-based desert dwellers Molly Mandell and James Burke as they took off on a quest to identify thirty incredible spaces across the globe. By area, deserts make up a third of the planet’s landmass, so Mandell and Burke had a lot of ground to cover. They made their way through the southwestern United States, down to Mexico and Argentina, and across the pond to Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, and the Canary Islands. They traveled to Rajasthan, India, and to a micro-desert in New Zealand.