Luke Shiels

I’m a pilot, designer, and the founder of a technology company called Interfere. I live in New York, the City of Ambition. Contact me at luke@interfere.com.

Preoccupations

• Achieving perfection, and wanting to work with a healthy paranoia for incrementalism and a desire to invent products that are genuinely revolutionary. If you’re going to change the world, keep working until your vision becomes obvious in hindsight.

• The nature of the built environment. I am fascinated by the narrative history of cities and how geography, economics, culture, and design influences the expansion, growth and decline of our surroundings.

Reading List

• Jacobs, J. (1961) ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’, Random House
• Klemp, K. and Ueki-Polet, K. (eds.) (2015) ‘Less and More’, Gestalten
• Norman, D. (2013) ‘The Design of Everyday Things’, Basic Books
• Atluru, A. (2025) ‘Make Something Heavy’, Working Theorys

In a society where mediocrity is too often the standard, and too often defended, there is intense fascination with those who detest mediocrity - who refuse to define themselves in conventional terms, and who seek to transcend traditionally recognized human capabilities.