The Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026 adds DeRoche Projects to its roster of exciting emerging architecture studios to know now. Meet the practice, based in Accra, Ghana, and explore one of its projects.

Who: DeRoche Projects

A key tenet of Glenn DeRoche’s practice is sustainability, which is centred on a proactive, highly mindful approach. He writes: ‘Sustainability isn’t approached as a checklist; it’s deeply embedded in our design process. Our projects don’t just minimise environmental impact, they actively foster ecological and social resilience through regenerative materials, passive design strategies, and resource-conscious construction methods.’

With this ethos at its heart, the Accra-based studio, founded in 2022, has slowly expanded its portfolio across almost all sectors – residential, cultural, and commercial. Civic, community-centred is a particular forte. The firm was widely recognised for its Backyard Community Club, a tennis training facility and community hub in Accra; dot.ateliers | Ogbojo, a residency for writers and curators in Accra; and Surf Ghana Collective in Busua (the last two created together with Juergen Strohmayer).

The studio is currently developing several residential schemes, both single- and multi-family housing, with the same experimental spirit and embrace of eco-friendly materials as in its more public-facing works.

What: Aburi Residence & Retreat

Conceived as a family of structures spread across the mountainous topography of Aburi, a short drive from Accra, this residential project is idyllically set within seven acres of forest overlooking the leafy Akwapim Ridge. The project negotiates its site’s steep level changes while remaining discreet and organically embedded into its natural surroundings. DeRoche explains: ‘The project understands the mountainside not as an obstacle to be overcome, but as a collaborator in the making of architecture.’

The result is a campus of six pavilions of varying sizes, connected through pathways across the landscape, designed to encourage interaction with nature. The design consists of a private residence, space for artists’ residencies, a wellness pavilion, a private gallery, a contemplative pavilion, a paddle court, an ancillary building, and a productive farm.

Large glazed expanses set on deeply recessed façades ensure both effortless visual and physical connections with the outdoors and shading to support thermal comfort indoors. Meanwhile, all primary materials, craft methods and labour have been sourced from within the country. For instance, the buildings are made using low-carbon concrete that incorporates locally produced pozzolanic ash as a replacement for cement.

Why: Architects’ Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

derocheprojects.com

In 2023, Broadwick Soho, a Martin Brudnizki-designed hotel, arrived on the corner of Broadwick Street and Berwick Street in London’s Soho with pink elephants on the façade, a rooftop bar upstairs and Italian restaurant Dear Jackie below ground as its red-roomed heart. Now, one of its central characters is being recast.

Beefbar gives Broadwick Soho a carnivorous new chapter

This autumn, Monaco-born Beefbar will move into the fun-loving property, taking over Dear Jackie’s subterranean space and ground-floor sister bar, Bar Jackie. The new address, Beefbar at Dear Jackie, opens on 10 September 2026 with bespoke interiors and a redesigned terrace for day-to-night dining – very useful in a neighbourhood where lunch has a habit of becoming last orders.

Founded in Monte Carlo in 2005 by Riccardo Giraudi, Beefbar has built its name by giving the steakhouse a Riviera-infused new identity: think prized cuts, glossy rooms, a bit of theatre, and enough international appeal to carry it to Paris, Milan, Mykonos, New York and beyond. The new Soho outpost will become its UK flagship, following the brand’s Chelsea opening.

Giraudi says he wanted Beefbar’s new UK home to have ‘real soul’, adding that Dear Jackie gives the team ‘freedom to be playful with the menu’. Broadwick Soho’s managing director Joshua Gardner puts it in typically Soho terms: ‘We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we care enormously about every detail.’

The menu will centre on Japanese Kobe, Australian Wagyu and Beefbar’s signature sauce, alongside London-only dishes including Wagyu shepherd’s pie and a truffle-laced Cordon Bleu.

Broadwick Soho is located at 20 Broadwick St, London W1F 8HT, United Kingdom

Set to be built just outside of Lawrence, Kansas, this new tornado- and fire-resistant project is more than a typical private ‘home’; it is an Earthship residence. ‘Earthships’ were conceived from one man’s vision for the future of housing. Michael E Reynolds founded the unorthodox utopian Earthship community, first in Taos, New Mexico, in the early 1970s, 'intending to create homes that don’t use fossil fuels or generate waste,' Beatrice Galilee reported for Wallpaper* in 2024. Now the community has expanded to more than 60 off-grid, fully independent, self-sustaining homes in Taos and up to 3,000 across the world.

‘I call it soft development,’ Reynolds previously told Wallpaper*. ‘They have a soft look because they’re also logically encountering the phenomena of the Earth. At the same time, you’ve got your own power, your own water, and your own sewage. You’re secure in the future.'

Explore the new Earthship residence design

The new proposal is conceived as a 'tornado- and fire-resistant Refuge Earthship'. It will include two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Embedded in its design are four ferro-cement vaults, which are thin-shell structural roofing elements made from cement mortar applied over layers of fine steel wire mesh and rods. These have been engineered to withstand fire and extreme winds.

The new residence, designed by Reynolds, will be constructed using ‘garbage’, including up to 1,000 tyres to form the structural columns, 16,000 used aluminum cans, and 1,000 old cardboard boxes. These materials are being collected locally, and donations are gladly accepted.

Earthship Biotecture – the name of Reynolds’ organisation as well as this approach to off-grid architecture – follows six principles covering basic human needs: building with natural and repurposed materials; heating and cooling through thermal mass; using wind and solar energy to create electricity; harvesting and filtering rainwater to provide drinking and wash water; containing and treating its own wastewater without external contamination; and producing its own food in an integrated greenhouse.

Construction will begin on the new building in September, with a dedicated Earthship crew including 25 students from across the world.

Says Reynolds: ‘We are very excited for the construction of this fire- and tornado-resistant Earthship in Kansas. The current state of the world makes this type of building not only necessary but essential to an incredible amount of people in and outside the US. I probably should not say this, but I cannot wait for the building to go through an actual tornado.’

earthship.com

Christian Dior launched the original Miss Dior in 1947 alongside his famous 'New Look' collection as an olfactory homage to his beloved sister, Catherine: a French Resistance fighter who survived multiple concentration camps and, upon returning to France, dedicated her life to cultivating flowers. The 1947 perfume was an unconventional chypre floral loaded with galbanum, gardenia, rose, leather and patchouli. A bold, attention-catching scent that was somehow both soapy and animalistic, and, much like Catherine, defied the norms of the time.

The modern-day Miss Dior Eau de Parfum is a softer, more feminine interpretation of the original with notes of rose (a nod to Catherine’s love of her garden), tinged with vanilla and almond, and a delicate touch of wood. It has become an icon in its own right, a fact that made it all the more difficult for acclaimed French illustrator and director Ugo Bienvenu to come up with a campaign concept for the scent that reflected its history while presenting viewers with something novel.

‘We decided to focus on three key themes: inspiration (Catherine Dior, Christian’s sister, his childhood and Provence), creation (Christian Dior’s first fashion show and the first time the fragrance was unveiled), and continuity, the fragrance’s place in today’s world (a tribute to the various advertising campaigns),’ says Bienvenu. 'We agreed on these ideas and developed a storyboard with Stephen Vuillemin and designs with Arthur Sevestre. We then set our animation team to work.’

The final creation is a joyful, technicolour celebration of the fragrance’s history, from its debut at Dior’s famous ‘New Look’ show in 1947, to its more contemporary iteration as a pink solution in a square, bow-topped bottle with the actress Natalie Portman as its spokeperson.

To develop the concept, Bienvenu and his team scoured ‘a huge amount of documentation covering the entire history of the fashion house and the fragrance’ that was given to them by Dior.

It is no surprise, then, that the film is steeped in historical brand references, some of which will be clear to those of the house, while others will only be spotted by the most devoted fans. It’s the first time the house has ever taken such an approach to the visuals for its fragrance. The finished product is not only playful but also points to Dior’s dedication to craft (the film’s backgrounds were created entirely by hand using gouache and acrylic paint) and commitment to push itself into modern and unexpected territories.

In the end, Bienvenu says, he tried to create a film that balanced the house’s history with a high-spirited vision. ‘We have tried to create a campaign that is dynamic, youthful, romantic and light-hearted too. Whilst highlighting that the fragrance is not new, it is deeply rooted in the history of the house and its creator. It features notes of time-honoured elegance.’

The campaign is now available to view on Dior's YouTube channel.

The original Chef restaurant in Almaty, Kazakhstan, has spent 11 years serving dishes from an 1881 recipe book. Its second address, Chef Medeu, carries that historical fixation into the foothills, close to the city’s celebrated high-altitude skating rink. Here, the 1881 date has become a design brief. Alexandra Tsipkun of Tsipkun Interiors has shaped the 112 sq m restaurant as a 19th-century country estate – domestic in scale, layered with collected objects and unmistakably Almaty in its details.

Wallpaper* dines at Chef Madeu, Almaty

The mood: snow leopards by the fire

The compact main room accommodates 32 guests across sofas, armchairs and tables of varying sizes. An eight-seat communal table stands at its centre and can be divided into independent groups, giving the floor plan several seating arrangements while preserving comfortable circulation. A chandelier, wall lights and illuminated shelving provide pools of warm light, supported by discreet technical fixtures directed towards tables and circulation.

The main event is a 2.6m ceramic fireplace created specifically for the restaurant. Conceived as an enlarged version of a traditional tiled stove, it was assembled from tiles formed and painted by hand by ceramic artist Svetlana Plotnikova. Snow leopards, apples, swallows, horses and poppies appear across its saturated blue, green and red surface, translating the landscape and symbols of Almaty into architecture.

Across the room, the custom bar combines metal, bevelled mirrors and an oak marquetry panel. Open shelving incorporates glassware, tableware and collected objects into the composition, while lime plaster marked with patina and craquelure sits alongside brushed timber, rough-sawn decorative beams and hand-painted window reveals.

The food: like 1881

The 1881 cookbook provides the historical thread; the menu itself ranges widely. The clearest regional notes appear in a game assortment of air-dried and lightly smoked roe deer, venison and saiga antelope; pelmeni filled with veal and horse meat; and horse rib marinated for 24 hours in spiced broth before being cooked for eight. Oxtail receives a contemporary treatment, cooked sous-vide, finished on the grill and glazed with an 18-hour veal jus.

Breakfast brings pancakes, gravlax, red caviar, whipped butter and scrambled eggs arranged on a silver tray with a glass of sparkling wine. Later in the day, the restaurant’s take on a ‘happy meal’ combines a truffle burger, potato boats, truffle sauce, sparkling wine and fresh truffle shaved over everything. Kazakh tea with milk and roasted millet, conifer tea made with spruce-cone preserve, and house infusions ranging from sea buckthorn to horseradish and garlic complete the picture.

Chef Medeu is located at 582/3 Kerey-Zhanibek Khandar Street, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Hot on the heels of the successful launch of the Rivian R2 – to almost universal acclaim – the all-electric American SUV maker has returned to the flagship R1 to give it some welcome updates for the 2027 model year.

The R1S now has the option of second-row captain's chairs, adding to the sense of space and luxury in a variety of different trims. Additional MY27 updates include new colour and wheel options for the R1T pick-up and the whole range gets a little bit simpler to understand, with three new trim levels, Premium, Performance and the flagship Quad, rather than emphasise the number of electric motors each uses (two, three and four, respectively).

There’s no change to the storming performance and impressive range capabilities of the R1 (the Quad model will hit 60mph in 2.5 seconds, whilst the Long Range R1T model has an official range of 420 miles), but the interior trim and exterior colours have all been overhauled to broaden the distance between the premium R2 and what is now evolving into a distinctly luxury vehicle.

Trim options include Slate Sky Signature, which combines grey leather with plaid and walnut, Black Mountain Signature, with ash wood accents and the very California-coded Ocean Coast Signature.

Opt for captain’s chairs and the cabin layout becomes six rather seven seats, with a centre pass-through for long item stowage. The new chairs also include individual folding armrests and integral cup-holders. They can also be folded to create a table space.

Rivian R1S, from $83,990, R1T from $79,990, Rivian.com, @RivianOfficial

Hot on the heels of recent residential projects in the UAE and Brazil, Pininfarina has announced its first foray into single-family houses with a new US project launched at Monterey Car Week 2026. The multi-faceted design agency, now led by CEO Paolo Dellachà, covers a huge spread of industrial and architectural design, so the new American venture is a natural next step.

Explore Pininfarina's first US foray

Dubbed the Collection Sei Design by Pininfarina and overseen by the company’s chief architectural officer Samuele Sordi, each of the six fully furnished estate designs is intended as a complete package, shaped, built, furnished and decorated by the Italian studio. All you have to do is bring the site – a plot of 20,000 sq ft minimum is required.

The project has come about via a partnership with luxury homebuilder Manny Angelo Varas and MV Group USA. Although each villa is unique, they each measure around 8,000 sq ft and have a shared aesthetic, particularly in the use of curved balconies, covered terraces, and sliding screens. The intention is clearly to ensnare the attention of those who obsess over the bespoke process, whether in a house, a car or a yacht.

The studio hopes that the famed Pininfarina script logo will be enough to carry interested buyers through to completion, with each property offered at a turnkey cost of $16,950,000 (excluding the price of the land, of course). The initial renders show the houses in a variety of locations, but it’s the Miami-adjacent plots that look the most convincing, with the curved balconies acting as a suitable foil for superyachts, not just supercars.

Dellachà tied the launch into the 60th anniversary of favourite Pininfarina design, the Alfa Romeo Duetto – also hugely popular in the USA. ‘We are proud to unveil this remarkable project as we celebrate the anniversary of the Duetto, one of Alfa Romeo's most iconic cars, a timeless symbol that has inspired generations of Americans,’ the CEO said. ‘Created with Manny Angelo Varas, Collection Sei Design by Pininfarina is driven by the same vision. Set in extraordinary locations, the six villas will embody the highest expression of elegance, combining timeless design with exceptional craftsmanship. Just as the Duetto became an icon of Italian style, this collection aspires to set a new benchmark for luxury living in the United States.’

Pininfarina’s Sordi describes the project as ‘not simply a luxury home, but a collectable residence – one that elevates the rituals of everyday life.’ As well as deploying familiar architectural tropes such as ‘dissolving the boundaries between architecture and landscape’, the six houses are sleek and modern without being especially avant-garde or progressive. For the right buyer, they’ll be just the ticket.

Pininfarina.it

America in the early 1900s was in a state of flux. A slow transition away from the country’s agricultural foundations and a movement towards an industrial, modern world were triggering seismic changes.

Thanks to parallel developments in photography, it is a cultural shift heavily documented, and one that's at the heart of Dulwich Picture Gallery’s new exhibition, ‘Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography’ (until 4 October 2026). Beginning in the early 20th century, when – thanks to the camera becoming a more affordable purchase for families – photography was becoming more democratic, the exhibition unites 38 of the era’s leading photographers, who capture the USA’s tumultuous volatility.

Tracing a chronological path through the century, the exhibition begins with Alfred Stieglitz’s The Steerage, an image that captured the sharp inequalities of class through the divide on an ocean liner. The reverberations from the Wall Street Crash in 1929 can be felt in important works by Dorothea Lange and Margaret Bourke‑White, who documented the devastating effects of mass unemployment and the debilitating poverty of the Great Depression that followed.

The physical space of the city takes shape in a multitude of ways, with photographers including Berenice Abbott, Arthur Leipzig and Ed Ruscha considering the architecture of the city itself, from the skyline to how the forms of the buildings and open spaces adapted to accommodate new demands in work and leisure. On the streets, Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander turn their lens to people creating new ways to live, while Peter Hujar documents the communities ravaged by AIDS.

‘American photography offers one of the most vivid and influential records of the modern city,’ says Alexander Moore, exhibition curator and creative producer at Dulwich Picture Gallery. ‘By bringing this remarkable collection to London, we invite audiences to reflect on how the rhythms, challenges and possibilities of urban life continue to echo through our own – a century of human stories told with extraordinary immediacy and invention.’

‘Portrait of a City: A Century of American Photography’ is at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 4 October 2026. Presented in partnership with Savings Bank Foundation DNB and created in collaboration with Lillehammer Art Museum

One afternoon in 1969, a group of shaggy-haired rock musicians took the stage during a music festival held on Monmouth University’s campus in West Long Branch, New Jersey. The band, a local Jersey Shore act called Child, was fronted by a 20-year-old named Bruce Springsteen. What ensued was a ‘wild, mind-bending show’, the student newspaper reported – so raucous, in fact, that neighbours complained about the noise.

Springsteen, of course, went on to achieve international superstardom and is considered one of the most influential American musicians alive today, with 20 Grammys, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction and ​​a National Medal of Arts from President Joe Biden. But echoes of that early performance still reverberate around Monmouth University, thanks to a new museum and research centre dedicated to preserving Springsteen’s legacy and sharing the ever-evolving story of American music.

Designed by New York-based firm CookFox Architects, The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music is about narrative, inside and out. Architect Rick Cook didn’t count himself as a big fan of ‘The Boss’ before taking on the project. But gradually, he fell under the singer-songwriter’s spell: ‘I actually fell in love with Bruce as a great American storyteller. That I understood, because architecture is storytelling,’ Cook says.

The building, located on the eastern corner of Monmouth University's campus (just a mile from the humble blue bungalow where Springsteen composed ‘Born to Run’), appears as a brawny, two-storey rectilinear box that, once the landscape is grown in, will hover amid a swaying meadow. While the massing is simple, Springsteen lore pervades the building, from the weathering-steel louvres that evoke the musician’s working-class roots, to a tree alongside the museum’s entrance that nods to a majestic Copper Beech that stood at Springsteen’s childhood home in Freehold, New Jersey. Most notably, a plank ramp leading to the front entrance forms an analogue of the Asbury Park boardwalk, where Springsteen first emerged on the local music scene. ‘How do you design a building that honours Bruce and American music? Obviously, start with a boardwalk,’ Cook says.

Like Springsteen, the museum collection had humble origins – one shaped by the Jersey Shore. The collection sprang from the Bruce Springsteen Archives, a repository of fan-collected items and ephemera related to Springsteen and his backing musicians, the E Street Band. At first, the 15,000-piece collection was stored at the Asbury Park Public Library; in 2011, Monmouth University acquired the collection and stored it in a small house on its campus. But as the collection grew (some items were even stored in the bathtub), it was clear that it needed a more appropriate home.

That’s when Bob Santelli, a Monmouth alum and veteran music journalist who’s helped curate the museum at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Museum and many others, stepped in as executive director. ‘The thought [had been] that Bruce’s memorabilia and archives would go to the Smithsonian or the Library of Congress. And the idea was no, it’s going to stay in New Jersey,’ Santelli says, who began covering Springsteen in 1973 as a cub music reporter. ‘He is so synonymous with the state of New Jersey – no one is as synonymous with their respective state as Bruce.’

There was only one thing left to do: ask the Boss for his blessing. Springsteen was hesitant about having a museum devoted to his legacy, but when the remit evolved to include the history of American music more broadly, he gave the project the green light.

The Boss also has thoughts about the building, according to Cook: when the architect showed Springsteen an initial design presentation, the musician offered just one word of feedback: ‘Badass.’

When visitors enter the museum, they encounter an airy atrium constructed of heavy timber, another nod to New Jersey’s historic factories and mills. The ground floor includes a gift shop and information desk, in addition to a theatre and galleries.

The theatre comprises one of the building’s boldest design moves. Fronted entirely by glass, the state-of-the-art auditorium can host films, lectures and, of course, musical performances. Little design details speak to Springsteen – flooring made from end-cut wood, and seats clad in a blue-jean fabric – ‘a little bit literal’, Cook jokes. Over in the gift shop, display cases, sporting merch including jewellery, posters and replica E Street Kings tank tops, are made from the stage flooring used in Springsteen on Broadway.

After watching an orientation video in the auditorium, visitors are directed to the galleries on the building’s south end, whose displays celebrate the evolution of the American musical canon. Via a series of interpretive vitrines, guests can get up close and personal with treasures ranging from Frank Sinatra’s shoes to Prince’s guitar and a Lady Gaga costume. A special exhibition, ‘Chimes of Freedom: Protest, Patriotism and the Power of Song’, spotlights music’s ability to spur change – items on display include the lyrics for Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land’ and Springsteen’s ‘Streets of Minneapolis’.

Upstairs, the Springsteen pilgrimage truly begins. The second floor is dedicated almost entirely to Springsteen and E Street Band history, with displays ranging from a recreation of Springsteen’s Rumson, New Jersey living room to a listening room that replicates live concerts. The objects on display are enough to bring any Boss fan to their knees, and include Springsteen’s first-ever song, written in 1967 when he was a teen; Grammy awards; an album of press clippings maintained by the artist’s mother; and the iconic blue jeans and white T-shirt worn on the cover of Born in the USA.

A separate area contains the museum’s research center, which includes spaces for study, listening and storage for archival materials. Visitors can make an appointment to view pieces from the collection, which now consists of more than 30,000 items.

‘You can get plenty of information on the Internet,’ Santelli says, but the museum aims to provide something else – a tangible connection to history. The director anticipates the museum will draw die-hard Springsteen aficionados and music connoisseurs alike. But he’s most interested in the impact the centre will have on people outside the music orbit.

‘We’re in a tourist area so we’re going to get Mr and Mrs Smith on a crappy day at the beach,’ Santelli says. ‘They may not be Bruce fans, but the idea is to give them a sense of Bruce's importance not just to New Jersey but to America.’

Cook, the architect, is one of those converts. ‘Music exists in a moment in time. Architects deal with things in space, physical things, but music is that magic that happens,’ he says. ‘Bruce is a magic act.'

Announced today (12 August), Ikea’s latest collection seeks to answer some pretty lofty questions: what is art, what can it do and why does it matter? Called ‘Konstrunda’, the collection – available from 1 September – includes 22 decorative objects, textiles and furniture pieces by seven artists and designers, whose brief was to bring art into the home.

Using the words ‘liberated, happy and fearless’ as a guide, Andu Masebo, Lisa Hilland, Igor Holtermann, Ingrid Leander Berg, Emanuele Stamuli, Lisa Reiser and Akanksha Deo have come up with a collection of adventurous pieces – mostly vessels and decorative objects that you could imagine displayed on a plinth in an art gallery, but also intriguing textiles and small pieces of furniture with out-of-the-ordinary forms and finishes.

To create ‘Konstrunda’, Ikea creative leader Karin Gustavsson says she deliberately chose people working across different disciplines and with a variety of materials and techniques. ‘Some are people I've worked with for years, while others I discovered through their exhibitions or by following their work,’ she explains. ‘“Konstrunda” is rooted in a belief that art should be accessible. Rather than focusing on a specific format, the collection invites multiple interpretations of what art in the home can be.’

In ‘Konstrunda’, those interpretations range from Swedish designer Lisa Reiser’s decorative tabletop objects, with their futuristic, fluid forms realised in glossy lacquered glass, to Andu Masebo’s tubular steel side tables, mirror-polished-stainless-steel doughnut-shaped vessel and geometric lacquered pine stools.

Akanksha Deo has created a series of ‘companion’ pieces, while Emanuele Stamuli has contributed black and white objects based on graphic, totemic forms, and Swedish designers Igor Holtermann and Ingrid Leander Berg have created cotton cushion covers, a rug and a mirror decorated with overlapping palm motifs.

One of the most recognisable names among the cohort is London designer Andu Masebo (recognised as a Future Icon by Wallpaper* back in December 2022), whose recent projects include bespoke furniture for TOG’s sustainable Black & White Building, modular tables for AHEC, an exhibition of birdhouses at the South London Gallery and a live design-research project for London Design Festival 2025. His pieces for the ‘Konstrunda’ collection translate a design language already established through that wider practice into objects available at an Ikea price point. He sees his objects for Ikea as prompts for customers to exercise their own creativity.

‘What I love about these objects the most is that they create the potential for the creativity of others in the home,’ he tells Wallpaper*. ‘Surfaces that naturally invite decoration, objects that reflect their environment and that change depending on what's arranged around and in them. Art isn't just an object, it's also an action.’

Trained in carpentry, metalwork and ceramics, Masebo has said in the past that his hands-on involvement in the making process has naturally led him to design objects with an air of honesty or truth to them – or, as he puts it, ‘things that engage with how they are made and that lean more into feelings than aesthetics’. The collaboration with Ikea has tapped into this inclination, showing up in his material and finishing choices, which he has kept deliberately simple ‘so that the making wouldn’t involve any unnecessary processes’.

For visual artist and in-house Ikea designer Akanksha Deo, whose playful work references Indian textile traditions, the pieces she has created for ‘Konstrunda’ are not just objects, but something closer to friends. They include ‘The Melting Pot’, a highly polished stainless steel vessel squeezed into itself, folding inwards like something caught mid-gesture. ‘The Custodian’ – a stack of building blocks with a mirrored centre – draws on the wooden toys of Channapatna, a small town in Karnataka, India, known for generations of turned-wood craftsmanship. ‘It watches over your space when you’re gone, and sits quietly with you when you’re home,’ she says. Meanwhile, ‘Confetti Carol’ – the name given to a hanging tapestry made from blue recycled polyester – exists simply to bring a little optimism into a room.

‘Growing up, I watched how easily reverence finds its way into small things: a stone placed on a windowsill, a leaf kept for no reason, a carved figure given a name,’ she reflects. ‘There’s something in us that wants to believe an object can hold more than its material, that it can watch, remember, protect.’

For Deo, bringing art into the home should be something joyful and even a little humorous. ‘Life is genuinely not that serious, and design that pretends otherwise tends to be exhausting to be around. A little levity goes a long way. We could all use more of it, frankly.’

For Ikea, ‘Konstrunda’ also feels like a further push into the territory of collectible design – something its experimental Ikea ‘PS’ collections and collaborations with designers including Gustaf Westman and Ilse Crawford have edged towards in the past, with some pieces later becoming sought-after on the secondary market. ‘Konstrunda’ brings some of the experimentation, individual authorship and art-object quality associated with collectible design into the realm of mass production.

‘We can bring distinctive art objects into people's homes at a scale very few others can,’ reflects Gustavsson. ‘For me personally, working at the intersection of art and mass production has been one of the most rewarding parts of this project. It was a constant balance between preserving the creative vision and finding innovative ways to produce it for the many.’

‘Konstrunda’ will be available worldwide from 1 September 2026

A collision of midcentury and 1990s references is an unexpected pairing, but it’s at the very heart of a new home in Australia, LDS II Residence. Located in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield North, and built on the lands of the Boon Wurrung/Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation, the residence is the result of two adjacent, existing residential structures being blended into a single, cohesive home for a family of six.

Tour this Australian house, born of two styles

Davidov Architects worked with its long-term clients on the commission's key parameters: ‘The brief was shaped by the rhythms of a large, active household, with a strong emphasis on creating spaces to support informal living and the demands of hosting significant social events,’ says founder and director Robert Davidov.

The project started with two buildings – a midcentury house and a boutique 1990s development comprising two interlocked, single-level apartments. ‘The buildings themselves became our primary source of inspiration,’ says Davidov. ‘We set out to retain as much as possible while bringing cohesion and continuity to the whole. We strengthened the underlying qualities of the midcentury house and carefully reworked the smaller building so that the two could operate as one seamless family home.’

The project became an example of utilising restraint, connection and continuity. Says Davidov, ‘It required a robust conversation with the existing buildings, understanding what should remain, what needed to be removed and where a small number of strategic interventions could have the greatest effect.’

According to Davidov, the greatest challenge was making two buildings from different periods, and their distinct floorplans, feel like a single house. ‘Two new links and a central courtyard became the key interventions. While relatively modest in scale, they reorganise the entire house, allowing the connection between the buildings to feel natural and intentional,’ he tells Wallpaper*.

This central courtyard is a defining element of the new building – creating space for connection. It used to feature a fence that separated two properties. Now it draws in light which filters throughout the home. Says the architect, ‘It expresses the central idea of the project: that a restrained intervention, carefully placed, can redefine the experience of a home.’

Inside, details nod to the home's midcentury heritage. There is an oak portcullis screen, blended pink marble Palladiana floors, and repaired original oak parquetry floors.

The architects designed the space to enhance a sense of arrival and then unfold gradually. ‘The house does not reveal itself immediately; arrival unfolds through a sequence of compressed thresholds, filtered views and moments of release. The experience is calm, grounded and slightly unexpected.’

Adds Davidov, 'Although the house has a generous floor plan and contains many individual spaces, it was important that each room retain an intimate scale and proportion. We wanted the house to feel generous without feeling vast, and composed without becoming formal.’

davidov.com.au

Depending on how discerning you are, when you choose a cocktail bar, you’re likely thinking about a few factors: the ambience, the bartenders’ talent, the drinks menu. Rarely, if ever, are you sparing a thought for the bar’s sustainability practices or their methods of tackling waste. That could soon change.

The bars creatively championing sustainability

Whether or not patrons realise it, bars can be pretty wasteful environments. Spilled drinks, ice, fruit skins, leftover ingredients and more all contribute to the footprint of a bar. With increasing awareness of our individual impact on the environment, that attitude is shifting. Many bars are taking their attempts at sustainability a step further, with unique approaches and methods that only add to their creativity. These aren’t just hippy spots, either. Several of them were featured on the inaugural list of Europe’s 50 Best Bars that dropped on 1 July 2026.

Take Himkok, in Oslo, a multi-award-winning cocktail bar and distillery. They source all ingredients locally, follow environmentally friendly production techniques, and implement methods to reduce water use. Their distillery is powered by renewable energy, and everything is made on-site. World-renowned Angelita, in Madrid, exclusively uses local produce and makes everything in their bar by hand with cutting-edge techniques like ancestral ferments, distillates, vacuum methods and modulated temperatures. More uniquely, they have a ‘no ice’ system that saves 45,000kg a year of water. Fura, in Singapore, takes things one step further. Founded by partners Christina Rasmussen (former head-forager for Noma) and Sasha Wijidessa, Fura is primarily plant-based, with ingredients harvested from their own garden. Perhaps controversially, non-plant-based items on the menu include the Jellyfish Martini, the logic being that it’s an ‘overly-prevalent’ species. If jellyfish isn’t for you, you can also enjoy ‘future proteins’ like crickets.

These kinds of extreme approaches to sustainability drive press around a bar, but they also impact every single aspect of how a bar operates and how a bartender works. Wanting to get a deeper idea of how these methods play out, we spoke to Hyacinthe Lescoêt, co-founder of Cambridge Public House, a spot in the Marais in Paris that combines the chill ambience of a pub with the expertise of a cocktail bar. When it comes to their approach, they prefer the term ‘responsibility’ over ‘sustainability’, believing it to be more defined. ‘As a business, we are responsible for our staff, for our community and for the planet. It is our duty to make sure we have a good impact,’ says Lescoêt. That commitment goes further than a vague statement; Cambridge is a B Corp that shares their ESG report and partners with an external agency to audit their emissions.

Day to day, they have a creative process that includes waste management from the very beginning. Their seasonal menu changes every week, and all of their cocktails focus on a local ingredient. More than that, it also needs to be completely used or compostable. ‘We still give all the tools and directions to the team to implement this in their creativity,’ says Lescoêt. ‘Yet, the best way of tackling waste is to not make any at all. Everything in the ingredients is used throughout the conception of the drink. And if we can’t, the last magic tool is a beautiful compost we have at the bar.’

Across Paris, in Montorgueil in the busy second arrondissement, restaurant and bar De Vie has a ‘farm to glass’ approach. They source their seasonal ingredients exclusively from producers and farmers in mainland France, ideally as close to Paris as possible. Seasonal means seasonal, too-fresh citrus fruits will only appear on the menu when French citrus is available; if they need acidity any other time, they use preserves or infused vinegars for acidity. When we asked about their approach to sustainability, they happily sent me a full, detailed rundown of their suppliers. Transparency is at the heart of their business.

There is a dialogue between the bar and kitchen that enables them to use up everything. For example, leftover fruit pulp from batches of wine or infusions produced by the bar team is processed in the kitchen and reincorporated into the menu. They do not use any ice at all in the bar, instead prebatching drinks. They have a refrigerated drawer unit that can be used as either a fridge or freezer, holding all batches at their desired temperature. I asked co-founder Barney O’Kane how this impacts the staff: ‘Working within this ethos means we have to carefully plan the next steps for all the stages of preparation and production associated with that produce. If we source carrots from a small farm, what will we use the carrot leaves for? We see these challenges as a positive, as it forces our hand and pushes us to create more interesting ways to utilise and re-utilise all our ingredients.’

While many of the bars championing more sustainable practices are in Europe, this is far from a localised phenomenon. Bars in Asia are particularly forward-thinking; Zest, in Seoul, has won awards specifically for its sustainable approach. They use at least one locally sourced ingredient in each of their signature drinks and are transparent about the exact farms they came from. Reka:Bar is a futuristic ‘cocktail lab’ specialising in inventive cocktails in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that is currently listed as one of the World’s 50 Best Bars. Founder Nick Choo kindly took time out of a European tour to guide me through their process. Reka offers a signature menu called the ‘Domino Effect’ wherein every cocktail uses the byproduct of the main ingredient of one drink as the secondary ingredient in another, creating a ‘chain reaction’ of flavour and minimising waste while ‘creating an exciting story for guests.’

Aside from their signature menu, says Choo, waste from their drinks is repurposed in their food, and vice versa: ‘We try our best to use every ingredient wholly; for example, we turn banana peels into a delicious gel garnish for one of our cocktails.’ Additionally, they work with ethical farmers who don’t use fertilisers and pesticides, such as A Little Farm on the Hill, whose ethos is that their farm grows soil, not plants. The bar itself is also designed to minimise the use of electricity with techniques such as all-LED lighting and an insulated interior to cut back on air conditioning. Prioritising sustainability doesn’t hold Reka back from being a boundary-breaking bar; the boundaries give them more licence to be creative. In their new ‘Magic’ menu, they recreate the flavour of expensive and high-carbon-footprint fruit such as lychee with low-carbon-footprint ingredients such as celery and guava.

Cocktail bars have long been stages for creativity, innovation, and, let’s face it, showing off. It’s not enough to just put together a nice martini anymore – it’s a competitive scene, and with hard times for the industry, bar professionals have to get more inventive all the time to save money, tackle waste, save money and get customers through the door. These ground-breaking sustainability practices do all of that and more, making a genuine impact on their footprint across the world while still delivering first-class experiences to guests. And as guests, if we can support sustainability initiatives and still get a delicious drink and memorable evening out of it, there’s really no losing.

In little under two decades, California-based specialist Singer Vehicle Design has become one of the pre-eminent suppliers of highly luxurious reimagined and re-engineered Porsche 911s. The company, founded by Rob Dickinson in 2009, creates bespoke machines to order, from meticulously detailed cars that evoke 1960s and 1970s classics through to outrageous performance machines like the Sorcerer.

Over time, the Singer project has extended into timepieces through the Singer Reimagined brand. This new project, revealed at the 2026 Monterey Car Week, is perhaps the most ambitious yet. Working hand in hand, Singer and luxury French house Louis Vuitton – a name forever associated with high-end travel – have conjured up a pair of unique cars and a universe of matching accessories.

First up is the Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer - Classic, the mainstay of the Singer fleet based on an original Type 964 coupé chassis. Resplendent in LV’s colours of saffron, cobalt blue and yellow, it is joined by a Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer – Classic Turbo, a cabriolet model developed with Nicolas Ghesquière, Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of women’s collections, finished in Calcaire Lutétien white. Trimmed in Cognac leather and wood, the two cars offer an outlandishly detailed dive into the design and crafting skills of each company.

It all started with a clock. According to Louis Vuitton watch director Jean Arnault, ‘this unique and remarkable adventure began with a request for a dashboard clock for a car reimagined by Singer. In addition to the design and production of this clock by La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton workshops in Switzerland, it quickly became apparent to us that this collaboration with Singer could extend to the personalisation of every functional element of the vehicle, enhancing them through our expertise in leather craftsmanship and watchmaking.’

Dickinson concurred. From the initial request for a unique Tambour dashboard clock, the journey expanded into two cars and their associated accessories. LV wanted Singer to dive deep into its repertoire and responded in kind. ‘The specifications chosen by Louis Vuitton exposed us to techniques and methods developed over decades of experience,’ he says. ‘They trusted us with their esteemed brand, their traditions and their vision and it was a joy to bring our two worlds together.’

The clock remains at the heart of the project. This mechanical timepiece is fully detachable and can be converted into a desk clock. The inspiration was the Tambour watch, an evergreen 21st-century design. As Singer and LV note, ‘once integrated into the cockpit, it soon became clear that Louis Vuitton’s involvement could not be limited to this single timepiece’. From there, the entire instrument binnacle was reshaped, taking the classic five-dial array that has defined the 911 since its inception in 1963.

This alone took a year of work, as the graphical and sculptural face of the Tambour line was used to reinterpret the speedometer, rev counter and auxiliary gauges. The dashboard itself was finished in blue leather to match the cobalt hue backing on the new dials, while the bright orange lettering is a classic LV visual trope.

Mission creep continued, until the entire car was reshaped. Singer’s lead designer for the project was Octave Chany. ‘The aim was to create a true synthesis between Singer’s architectural and timeless language and the Louis Vuitton culture, characterised by refined materials, travel and expression of style,’ he explains. The end result is a co-branded project, a first for each company.

The Classic and the Classic Turbo models are true Californian pieces, both in terms of the colour palette and the chosen accessories. That’s most evident in the Classic’s unique roof rack, tailored to hold a Louis Vuitton trunk or the specially crafted surfboard that comes with the car. The board was handcrafted in Angers, France, with LV Monogram marquetry in blond oak and rich walnut.

There is even a pair of LV skis, handmade in the French Alps from wood, Titanal aluminium alloy and steel. The saffron in the 911 Classic’s bodywork is familiar to Louis Vuitton customers as a core component of the company’s packaging. It’s also the same shade used in the travel trunks the house created for Citroën back in 1924.

The interior of the Classic is naturally finished leather, in line with the leather accessories, details and trim used across Louis Vuitton’s luggage range. Here, the VVT leather is deployed across the entire cabin, a project executed by Singer’s experienced vehicle trim team using techniques also common to bag making, such as stitching and embossing. Plastic is nowhere to be found; instead, switchgear is almost exclusively made using hand-finished metal, anodised and electro-plated to achieve the right colour finish.

‘Projects of this scale and exclusivity allow for a level of attention to detail that is unusual in the automotive world,’ says Chany. ‘Every transition between materials, every metallic reflection, every knurled surface, every mechanical interaction and every graphic element has been meticulously considered, often at an almost microscopic level.’ Lift the rear engine cover and you’ll see how far the attention to detail has gone – even the fuel and oil caps utilise Louis Vuitton watch typography.

The Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer – Classic travel collection

The accompanying collection of accessories and clothing required the entire house’s involvement. ‘Every department at Louis Vuitton has contributed to this unprecedented cross-disciplinary endeavour, from trunk makers and leather goods artisans to the fashion and footwear teams, and even the watchmakers from La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton,’ says Jean Arnault.

These include a racing jacket, unique shoes, the LV Remix Derby, perforated driving gloves in cobalt blue and a helmet of carbon and glass fibre with calfskin leather trim. Even the cloche key holder and the car keys themselves are custom made.

The Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer – Classic Turbo

The collaboration’s Classic Turbo is a cabriolet with a nautical flair, thanks to the close involvement of Ghesquière. The white body, timber trim and leather upholstery are a deliberate nod to the classic era of motorboat design.

‘Automotive design is a passion that has always lived within me. My collaboration with Singer has been a chance to reconnect with this fascinating world – a magnificent opportunity to explore truly exceptional automobiles, says Ghesquière. Details include teak decking in the luggage compartment and gold accents throughout the car, with leather fastening straps on the hoods. On the cabriolet, the timepiece is given a new location in the centre console.

The project not only spanned LV’s collection of workshops and ateliers, but also Singer Vehicle Design’s two facilities. The Classic model was built at the company’s California location, while the Classic Turbo was crafted in Singer’s UK premises. ‘The project has provided us with new insights and fresh perspectives,’ says Arnault. ‘A fruitful collaboration that has also highlighted the synergy and enthusiasm across all departments of the house.’

As a functional work of art, each car is a peerless expression of both brand’s values. The Classic Turbo is a little more lairy, as turbo-charged Porsche cabriolets are apt to be, and both cars have an almost fetishistic attention to detail, with all those straps and fastenings and leather.

A capsule collection for the Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer

‘It was important to remain faithful to the idea of a functional and useful vehicle,’ says Singer’s Chany. ‘Beyond aesthetics, the car had to continue to express the emotional notion of travel, so deeply rooted in the DNA of Louis Vuitton, while preserving the purity, handling and technical integrity that define Singer.’

SingerVehicleDesign.com, @SingerVehicleDesign
LouisVuitton.com, @LouisVuitton

Heatherwick Studio has unveiled its new design Stateside, which sees the transformation of a forgotten civic space in Louisville, Kentucky. The open area, titled Belvedere, is located downtown, nestled between the city’s commercial centre and the Ohio River.

Off the back of opening London’s Olympia this July (2026), the UK architecture firm has been busy fine-tuning Belvedere’s details, aiming to create welcoming public spaces that will include spacious pavilion-style structures and vast amounts of planting.

Heatherwick Studio unveils plans for Belvedere civic space in Kentucky

Elevated above a main road, the site spans approximately four American football pitches. The new design transplants outdoor gathering into the city, inviting people to meet friends, host community events, and watch performances near the waterfront.

The defining feature of the proposal is the Firefly Pavilion. The striking structure is designed for everyday use throughout the year but also acts as a platform to host events.

Belvedere originally opened in 1973 and slowly weathered, eventually appearing disjointed from the city. The firm worked closely with the community to hear their insights, which informed the project's development. Construction of Belvedere is expected to begin this autumn, with a grand opening anticipated in 2030.

‘For more than 50 years, the Belvedere has been a stage for public life in Louisville. But over time it’s become barren and disconnected from the energy of the city around it. My studio’s design is about restoring the buzz and sense of connection of its early years by creating a greener, more welcoming urban heart, where everyday life can take place: from chance encounters and children's play to festivals, performances and community celebrations,’ says Thomas Heatherwick, founder and design director of Heatherwick Studio.

‘Our goal is for the newly reimagined Belvedere to reflect Louisville’s unique character, and bring people together again across generations, backgrounds and interests, and go on to become a place that local people proudly call their own.’

heatherwick.com

The newest residential project by Stylus Architects offers another take on the classic Victorian terraced house extension. The London-based architects, recently featured for their Green Lodge project in Roehampton, turned their hand to another south London site, this time in an awkwardly shaped back garden plot.

Discover this ingenious London house extension

The clients called for a larger, more inclusive kitchen space, one that integrated better with the rear garden and brought light deeper into the traditional long floorplan. As the architects note, the existing house posed a challenge, for ‘no wall meets another at 90 degrees’. Rather than straighten up the lines, Stylus delved deeper into the angles, using the tapering form of the floor plan to maximise the sense of space. A new faceted brick garden façade amplifies the irregularities.

‘Etta House isn't a project about unusual geometry,’ explains architect Matthew Withers. ‘Geometry was simply the tool. By listening carefully to the site, every design decision, from the overall plan to the smallest brick detail, became part of one coherent architectural idea. The design is sophisticated. But the experience is simple.’

In many respects, the project is a straightforward one, especially in London where the Victorian terrace has proved an adept and flexible staging ground on which to expand, extend and alter. What sets Etta House apart is the way the new addition feels like a cohesive whole, a natural extension of the original structure that also has the character of a standalone pavilion.

The wedge-shaped floor plan flares out towards the modest London garden and the architects have ensured that the alignments of walls, windows and rooflights follows the established lines. One of the stand-out features is the ribbon of rooflight above the kitchen counters, running the full length of the extension and terminating above the opening into the front reception rooms.

Brick is also used on the interior, with chalk grey bricks and lime pointing creating a softer light. They’re paired with off-white plaster walls, timber floors and ribbed wood joinery on the kitchen. Deep green cupboards provide a splash of natural colour.

At the rear, the garden façade is formed by two angled brick blades, one housing an inset bifold door that opens onto the decking and the other framing a tall glass window that aligns with the rooflight. The walls are set slightly apart by a brick or two, creating depth, shadow and a bold sense of form.

To ensure this geometric precision is maintained down to the millimetre, Stylus set out drawings for the rear brickwork, as well as commissioned bespoke bricks, so that the edges were crisp and not interrupted by joints. The absence of any 90-degree angles is keenly felt but used to the project’s advantage.

StylusArchitects.co.uk

As one of the auto industry’s longest-ever teaser campaigns finally draws to a close, Jaguar has eked out a few more column inches by releasing four images of the interior architecture of the upcoming Type 01.

These images are the first sight of the official production-ready interior, ahead of the car’s unveiling in New York in early October 2026. Closely hewing to the architectural language of the Type 00 Concept, the car will be a strict four-seater in this particular configuration, thanks to the retention of the central spine feature.

Whilst the concept dipped into materials like travertine, there’s no stone to be found, only a palette that ‘reflects the enduring beauty’ of the missing masonry, and a brass-inspired finish on the spine. It certainly makes for a strong statement, with a minimal approach that exudes 1990s-era residential and retail minimalism, think back to the heyday of Pawson and Silvestrin, with long, unbroken lines and large areas of massing.

According to Thomas Holden, chief interior designer at Jaguar, the Type 01’s interior is directly inspired by the exterior forms. ‘In contrast to the horizontal interior design norm, we emphasise its dramatic longitudinal nature through the central spine – an architectural statement that creates four individual spaces,’ Holden explains. ‘With authentic materials, technology on demand and reductive flowing surfaces, Type 01 presents unmistakable drama and theatre that will define the modern luxury automotive interior of the future.’

The instrumentation itself is yet to be revealed, although a wide-angle screen is visible behind the two-tone steering wheel. In the centre console, controls have been minimised with just a slender smartphone-sized touch screen providing the main interface. The rear-view mirror, also a digital display, is located at the base of the windscreen, rather than in the conventional spot.

A glass roof stretches the length of the cabin, with the console bisecting the front and rear seats; additional functions, such as concealed storage, are out of sight for now. The new Jaguar leaper logo – released right at the start of the whole process back in December 2024 – can be found on the door.

‘Jaguar Type 01 is the first production car to follow our new creative philosophy. Unmistakable from every angle, the interior is no different,’ says Jaguar’s MD Rawdon Glover. ‘With Type 01, we wanted every journey to be an occasion, from how it drives to how it looks and how it makes you feel. With a confidence-inspiring GT driving position, clean and sophisticated technology and dramatic styling, Type 01 has an interior like no other.’

A camouflaged version of the car was seen winter testing earlier this year, and a wrapped Type 01 also made its dynamic debut at the 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

This week, the finished production model will be seen on American shores for the first time, albeit still swathed in disguise, at Monterey Car Week, alongside a celebration of Jaguars old and new at the Pebble Beach Concours.

Jaguar.com, @Jaguar

In 1994, German fashion designer Jil Sander commissioned Michael Gabellini to conceive her Milanese HQ, which would occupy a former palazzo and cinema on the city’s Piazza Castello. The architect had recently designed Sander’s inaugural Paris store, housed in a Beaux-Arts building on Avenue Montaigne originally built for Count de Lariboisière in 1890 and later occupied by the French couturier Madeleine Vionnet. Retaining its regal façade, the interior was transformed with what Gabellini would describe as ‘radical simplicity’ – linear planes of limestone, flooded light, floating surfaces – a reflection of Sander’s approach to clothing, which saw her strip away the extraneous in search of a purity of design (though she is most associated with minimalism, she has always eschewed the label, preferring the terms ‘pure’ and ‘modern’ when describing her work).

The Milanese HQ was built on a similar conceit. Within the building’s neoclassical shell, the interiors are an exercise in cool restraint: ascending a two-storey staircase, adorned with matte nickel hardware, guests reach a reception room that leads to a vast limestone promenade connecting the various rooms. It also takes you into the space’s nexus: a sunken, multi-use ‘theatre’, used, at turns, as a photography studio, meeting space, showroom and setting for the house’s runway shows. The offices are beautifully empty: so much so that the views of the neighbouring Castello Sforzesco – its Renaissance grandeur glimpsed through the arched windows that line the space – become a form of decoration.

The HQ has served as something of a muse for the Italian designer Simone Bellotti, who became the house’s creative director in early 2025 after a brief but acclaimed stint at Swiss brand Bally. His time there, from 2022-2025, saw him deemed a fashion editors’ favourite for collections that married rigour and restraint with off-kilter silhouettes – jaunting peplums, sloping shoulders, raised-up necklines – and an influence of subculture (his heavy use of leather drew on the work of Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger, renowned for his portraiture of local teen biker gangs in the 1950s and 1960s). He also spawned a handful of successful accessories for the brand, including the ‘Plume’, a loafer-cum-boat shoe that remains ubiquitous in style circles today.

Taking over from husband-and-wife duo Luke and Lucie Meier, who exited Jil Sander in early 2025, one of Bellotti’s first moves was to bring the house’s runway shows back into the space. He would show his debut S/S 2026 collection at the HQ in September 2025, part of a watershed season shared with numerous other creative director debutants (15 designers began their tenures across the various fashion cities, including Matthieu Blazy at Chanel and Jonathan Anderson at Dior). ‘I was interested to see all this excitement about what was happening in fashion,’ says Bellotti. ‘It was almost like people talking about football teams. I think it’s good for the industry.’

For that first show, models – including Guinevere van Seenus, a Jil Sander muse who memorably appeared in the house’s seminal Craig McDean-shot campaigns in the late 1990s – walked the length of the HQ, before dipping into its central theatre via a slanted runway clad in industrial studded black rubber. Clean and precise, the setting was a reflection of the collection itself, which Bellotti described as an attempt to return Jil Sander to its essence.

‘I remember my first day. I was nervous because they asked me to do a speech for the whole staff,’ he says. ‘We were in the headquarters, on the Castello side. When you are there, you start to understand what the brand is; you get this sense of light and modernity. But at the same time, there is the view of the castle, which is so classic. I realised Jil Sander is about the mix of these elements – when you go deeper into the archive, there is always this tension between something traditional, like masculine tailoring, and the need to make it light and open.’

As if a metaphor, several garments from the first collection were sliced across their surface, which critics likened to the work of Italian artist Lucio Fontana, though Bellotti says they were simply an attempt to capture the spirit of the brand: ‘Jil Sander is about showing and revealing the skin, the humanity, the body, and letting it breathe.’

Indeed, from the earliest days of the label (Sander opened a boutique in Hamburg in the late 1960s before creating her first official collection in 1973), the eponymous designer sought to streamline the clothing that surrounded her growing up in midcentury Germany. ‘People had a sense for cuts and quality fabrics. What was lacking in my view was modernity,’ she said in 2024 (in a Wallpaper* interview, as her monograph, Jil Sander by Jil Sander, was released). ‘Looking back, I realise I was part of a broader reawakening that influenced my childhood in Hamburg,’ she continued, referencing Germany’s rebuilding after the destruction of war and Nazi rule. ‘I was witness to a democratic reconstruction, a clearing away of anything standing in the way of a better future.’ (Sander would work at the house until 2000; returning briefly in 2003 for just over a year, and later in 2012, months after the exit of Belgian designer Raf Simons, before leaving again in 2013.)

The first garment Bellotti remembers designing at Jil Sander was a blue sweater, an addition to a pre-collection that had already been largely designed: ‘It was very simple, with a nice detail at the collar, very classic – like a T-shirt in wool’. Similar sweaters, contoured to the body and in colour-blocked shades, appeared in his first runway show, alongside crisp, shrunken tailoring, double-faced leather coats and blue jeans, while an intriguing eye for pattern-cutting led to jutting skirts inspired by Richard Prince’s Hoods, a series of paintings that used the bonnets of muscle cars as undulating metal canvases. The outward simplicity of other garments belied the hours of craft they took to construct – like a series of dresses and skirts made from hundreds of layers of organza-like fabric that fluttered open ‘like the pages of a book’.

Even if the final result is different, Bellotti says such attention to detail was influenced by the time he spent under Alessandro Michele at Gucci, a designer known for his maximalist collections that drew from the opulent annals of history (Bellotti was at Gucci for 16 years, working with Frida Giannini before Michele). ‘The approach is not so different,’ says Bellotti, who will often spend weeks researching fabric or perfecting a garment’s cut. ‘It takes an extraordinary amount of work to make something look simple.’

Looking back now, almost a year later, he sees the first collection as a palate cleanser. ‘The first show was about reducing and building a base to work on; it was important to do something that was precise and light. But with my second collection, I wanted to try and do the opposite. I always had this question in my mind: what can I add to a brand that is famous for reduction? So I thought about adding fabric, a useless amount of fabric behind the coat or the dress. I was [wondering] if something superficial can become essential.’

It led to an A/W 2026 collection, shown in February in Milan, that evolved the stark simplicity of his debut with flourishes of colour and texture: the vivid blue of a pair of tights appeared from beneath a tailored trouser, a pencil skirt came in leopard print, while a series of padded ‘mattress’ dresses saw Bellotti inspired by his late father’s career as an upholsterer. Other pieces were purposely worn in to make the collection appear ‘more real’ – a pair of scuffed suede pumps looked like they had taken a turn on the dancefloor – while an undercurrent of sensuality, evoked in slashes running the length of a skirt or dresses that appeared to be perpetually slipping off the shoulder, drew on Anders Petersen’s photographs of Café Lehmitz in Hamburg’s red light district in the late 1960s and early 1970s. ‘I’ve mainly worked with menswear, and it’s fun to work on womenswear and see all of the possibilities. I think it’s important to have something superficial,’ he said, likening the collection to an ‘olive in a martini’.

Another thematic thread was the idea of home: in a nod to the domestic, a rust-coloured carpet was laid the length of the Jil Sander HQ, which Bellotti chose once again as the setting for the sophomore show. ‘A home is a place one might seek refuge in or want to flee from,’ read the collection notes, a tension explored in Italian author and filmmaker Chiara Barzini’s The House above the Sea, a poem read by Kim Gordon as the show’s soundtrack. ‘We roamed the streets and crossed the bridges and then the oceans / We took trains and rides from strangers / Only to be home again... Escape and return are the same,’ it reads.

‘I think the idea of home was related to the idea of a house, a fashion house,’ says Bellotti, who describes the task of a creative director as a constant balance between reverence and departure. How do you live in a house that someone else has built? ‘When we are at home, if we are lucky enough to have a home, and even if we love it, sometimes we need to escape, to explore something new. What can I add to this brand? How far can I go, and what is the moment to stop? It takes a lot of experimentation and time. It’s psychological.’

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

All clothing from the A/W 2026 collection by Jil Sander (jilsander.com). Models: Marie De Clercq at Fabbrica Milano, Modu Fall at Elite Model Management. Casting: Suun Consulting. Hair: Daniele Falzone at Blend Mgmt using Phyto Paris. Make-up: Luciano Chiarello at Julian Watson Agency. Photography assistant: Kevin Ramos. Fashion assistant: Florencia Greco. Local production: Giacomo Barbon at Circus Studios.

On the Kona Coast of Hawaii Island, Seattle-based architecture firm Olson Kundig and San Francisco-based interior studio Leverone Design have completed a house set directly into a lava field, its hard volcanic ground softened at every turn by what's been built on top of it.

The clients are a pair of California-based professionals, parents to two college-age daughters, who conceived the property as a vacation home destined to become their primary retreat once the girls have left for good. Family was central to the brief from the outset: a house sized for a full table, and built to expand and contract with the household's rhythms, whether that means a quiet week for two or a home full of friends.

Tour a dreamy Hawaii house made for downtime

The couple came to Olson Kundig having admired the firm's Hale Lana residence, also on the ‘Big Island’, drawn to its restraint and approach to volume. Principal/Owner & Founder Tom Kundig recalls that the clients 'were interested in a residence composed of a series of high-design pavilions rather than a single volume', an ambition that shaped the project's orientation and circulation from the first sketches.

'Ultimately,' he says, 'the goal was not to impose on the landscape, but to create a framework through which it could be experienced.'

That framework depends on a roof whose horizontal line appears to hover on slender columns across long spans, its structural complexity hidden entirely from view. Achieving that reduction, Kundig admits, made the roof 'one of the project's most technically demanding elements', requiring close work with engineers to erase every trace of effort from the finished form.

Beneath that roof, board-formed concrete, larch and basalt stone extend the lava field's palette into the house itself, while slate-clad cedar volumes hold the more private, utilitarian rooms. It fell to Matthew Leverone, founder of Leverone Design, to decide how a family might actually live inside those rooms.

The clients already knew his work: a previous project of his on Maui had shown them Leverone could soften bold architecture without diminishing it, and here that meant furniture with 'sensuous shapes and soft textures' set against the house's clean lines – a wood-framed sling chair with a leather back and wool bouclé cushions, raw teak coffee tables shaped like seed pods, woven raffia left with its structure exposed.

In the primary bedroom, concrete walls and a larch ceiling create, in Leverone's words, 'a sheltering environment – like a natural cave open to ocean views'. His one spatial addition was an upholstered wall opposite the glass façade, which he calls 'a gentle gesture that doesn't shy away from the monolithic presence but instead stands with the same dignified character as the architecture itself'.

Elsewhere, Leverone traded wall-to-wall closets in the guest rooms for freestanding wardrobes in bleached larch, steel and leather – a calculated move that opens up the rooms while keeping every inch of storage the brief required. The same instinct guided the art collection throughout the house: a Paul Kremer painting in tropical blues and oranges greets visitors from the media room, and a Pedro Reyes sculpture, commissioned directly from the artist and set on the entrance axis, anchors the whole sequence with what Leverone calls its 'modernised Easter Island' stillness.

In the end, the house works because two creative sensibilities dovetailed here. Kundig set the terms with the roof, and Leverone filled in the rooms below, both working with élan and from the same instinct – reduce whatever isn't essential, then make sure what's left is warm enough to live with.

olsonkundig.com

leveronedesign.com

When The Weeknd brings After Hours Til Dawn to Wembley Stadium for five nights from 14 August, London will receive the latest version of a tour world that has been mutating since 2022. Under Swedish-Greek artist and scenographer Alexander Wessely, its post-apocalyptic cityscape has become a four-act architecture of collapse: a stadium-scale world where physical set, LED wall, light and smoke form a city that ages, fractures and outlives its performer.

‘The first city was still standing. This one is falling apart while you watch it,’ Wessely tells Wallpaper*. ‘The fracture isn’t a look, it’s the story told through the architecture itself.’ The image that unlocked this version was not a skyline, a screen treatment or a piece of pop iconography, but Abel Tesfaye rising from ash in darkness, caught in slow strobes, ‘coming up out of nothing’. From there, Wessely began thinking in ruins, classical fragments and archaeological remains – broken things with greater presence than complete ones. The stadium becomes an excavated future: sacred, abandoned and, as he puts it, ‘closer to a cathedral than a stage’.

Light is central to Wessely’s vernacular. His route into scenography passed through photography, and he still treats light as a way of giving objects physical consequence, not just visibility. ‘The screen builds images, but light builds mass,’ he says. ‘It’s what gives the real objects on that stage their weight and their volume, what makes them feel like something you could touch rather than something projected.’ Nothing here is lit flat. Every beam, shadow and surface is shaped so the physical world can hold its own against the scale of the screen.

Across the show’s chapters, the set and LED wall are made to blur until the seam disappears. The screen becomes the city continuing past the limits of steel, light and stage engineering. At its centre sits Hajime Sorayama’s patinated steel figure – chrome body, machine idol, relic from a civilisation that, as Wessely says, ‘mistook the machine for a god’.

Ahead of The Weeknd’s Wembley dates, Wallpaper* spoke to Wessely about designing collapse at stadium scale, making light behave like architecture, and giving an artist’s private descent a city the audience can stand inside.

Alexander Wessely on his apocalyptic set design for The Weeknd

Wallpaper*: After Hours Til Dawn began in 2022 with a post-apocalyptic cityscape. This latest chapter feels darker and more fractured. How has the set evolved since that first iteration, and did it need to age with the trilogy?

Alexander Wessely: This is a trilogy about a man losing himself, so the world can’t stay the same from start to finish; it has to carry the same damage he does. The set ages the way he ages. It starts whole, and it ends in ash. That’s more or less the whole idea. The fracture isn’t a look; it’s the story told through the architecture itself.

W*: How does the creative conversation work between you, Abel and La Mar Taylor?

AW: La Mar co-founded XO with Abel and has been his creative director from the very beginning, so he’s shaped this world alongside him for years. He’s the show director across all of this, and this was our first full-on collaboration, a real dialogue rather than a handoff. La Mar and I have gotten closer ever since the Coachella headline show we did in 2022, working together more and more. A lot of the show comes from Abel himself, real things from the past couple of years, fighting his demons in very personal ways. He sets the emotional truth of it, and we build the world that holds it. The best moments are the ones none of us could have reached alone. My job is to give the feeling an architecture, to turn what he’s living through into a space you can stand inside.

W*: Were there any key architectural decisions that shaped how the audience experiences the show?

AW: Scale, and where you put the human inside it. Everything was built so you feel the size of the world before you find the man in it. We used set extensions so the physical architecture keeps going past what your eye can actually verify, and at some point the stadium itself starts to feel like part of the ruin.

W*: What are the visual cues that distinguish each chapter of the tour – colour, pace, light, atmosphere – and how do they guide the audience through the story?

AW: Each chapter has its own state of collapse and its own temperature. The peak is gold, monumental, slow, worship at its highest. The middle fractures, colder, faster, the image breaking apart. The end strips it all back to a single figure in near silence. The colour and the pace carry the descent, so you never have to tell the audience where they are in the story. They feel the fall in the light before they’d ever read it.

W*: Where does the physical set end and the digital world begin? Is the LED wall a surface, a horizon, or a second stage? What can the screen say that the physical stagecraft cannot?

AW: The whole point is you shouldn’t be able to tell. That’s what excites me, that blur between what’s real and what’s not, practical or digital. It’s the same thing I chased at Sphere Las Vegas. The physical set is built to bleed into the screen, so the seam disappears and you lose the horizon. The wall isn’t a backdrop; it’s the world continuing past what you can actually build. What the screen does, that steel and light can’t, is change scale in a second. It can turn Abel into a giant and then into dust before you’ve caught up. The physical stuff gives you weight and truth. The screen gives you transformation. You need both, or the fall doesn’t feel real.

W*: The show is built around a vast urban landscape in collapse. How do you design a city that is meant to fall apart?

AW: You build it in stages. The city moves through different states of ruin across the night, so the audience isn’t looking at a collapse; they’re moving through one. The important part is that it has to start from something big enough that losing it matters. If the city didn’t feel monumental first, watching it come apart wouldn’t do anything. So a lot of the work early on was making it feel solid and real, so that when it starts breaking down later you actually feel the loss of it.

W*: How did you think about Abel’s body against that scale? Is he swallowed by the world, directing it, or surviving it?

AW: All three, and in that order. He starts vast, a giant at the peak of his own worship, gold, untouchable. Then the world turns on him, and he glitches, damaged, not in control of his own image anymore. And, by the end, he’s back to human scale, one to one, and then he’s gone. That arc of his body against the architecture is the whole story for me. He’s worshipped, then swallowed, then reduced to just a man, and the world outlives him.

W*: How closely do the lighting, effects and screen environments respond to the music? Are there any songs that demanded their own visual world outside the wider narrative?

AW: The whole environment is scored to the music; it breathes with it instead of sitting behind it, and, in some moments, breaks out of the wider story completely and demands its own world. A show this long needs moments that stop the narrative and hold you somewhere else for a minute before the fall keeps going. Abel’s catalogue makes that easy in one way and brutal in another, because the music already tells his life, so you’re working visually against ten years of that. It’s tough competition, honestly.

W*: Hajime Sorayama’s sculpture is central to the tour’s visual identity. It feels futuristic, weathered, erotic and almost archaeological. How important was that tension between machine, relic and body?

AW: That tension is the whole thing. Sorayama’s work sits exactly where mine does, between the machine and the body, the future and the ruin. His sculpture reads as something worshipped or dug up, a relic from a civilisation that mistook the machine for a god. I met him in Tokyo, and the language was immediate; we’re both circling the same question: what does the human worship when it doesn’t know what it believes anymore? The chrome body at the centre of the show is that question, made monumental.

alexanderwessely.com

In Sinu Architectes is a French firm that makes it into the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026, our latest annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: In Sinu Architectes

Focusing on renovation and rehabilitation, In Sinu Architectes takes a truly holistic approach with each of its projects. The studio, based between Paris and Barbizon, was founded in 2024 by architects Cassandre Verdier and Elena Cadouin, who embrace architecture, interior architecture, and design as different expressions of a single project.

Their research begins with a careful study of the context, from landscape and history to any existing structure and their clients’ ways of inhabiting space. The result is a portfolio of meaningful projects that enhance the natural qualities of their respective locations.

‘Each project is an opportunity to reveal the qualities of a site, an existing building, or a landscape,’ explain the architects. ‘We are interested neither in mimicry nor in autonomous formal gestures. What matters to us is the dialogue between architecture and its context: sometimes through continuity, sometimes through contrast, always through a relationship that enhances the perception of both.’

The pair are motivated by architecture’s ability to transform the way people use a place over time, how every element and detail finds its place. ‘Our design practice naturally extends our architectural approach. We place the same importance on designing a building as we do on designing a table or a light fixture. This continuity of vision lies at the heart of our identity,’ say the duo.

The name of the practice, In Sinu (meaning ‘within the folds’), reflects this philosophy. ‘More than an in situ architecture, we seek to create an architecture that settles within the folds of a territory – sometimes through continuity, sometimes through contrast – to establish a meaningful relationship between place and project.’

What: Maison de l'Orée

Before drawing, the architects first seek to understand a place: its light, topography, materials, history, and how the finished structure will be lived in. These elements become the project's primary material. This was no different for Maison de l'Orée, a project nestled amid woods in Barbizon.

The project emerged from a simple gesture following the client’s acquisition of the woodland adjacent to the plot. The architects reoriented the house towards this forest, centring the residence within its context, rather than it being on the edge looking in.

The residence boasts an organic material palette of ochre-toned timber cladding, which mirrors the site's pine trees and foliage. Inside, the natural material palette is continued. From oak joinery and bespoke cabinetry to a fireplace of hand-cut Fontainebleau sandstone – the same stone that is found in the surrounding forest – each detail is considered.

A brushed stainless-steel kitchen island adds a contemporary touch and also reflects both daylight and the shifting shadows of the trees. The commission also required furniture, with bespoke built-in pieces and freestanding elements to align with the design codes of the residence.

Say the architects: ‘Our approach is holistic. As architects, we conceive each project in its entirety, from its relationship to the site through to the design of the furniture and objects that inhabit it.’ Much like their ethos, Maison de l'Orée is a residence where interiors and architecture intertwine – with each other and with their context.

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios – a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

insinuarchitectes.com

‘The main purpose of my work is to provoke people into using their imagination,’ Verner Panton once said. Among his many colourful and fun-filled creations is a series of animal-shaped, modular sculptures now being reissued by Swiss furniture company Vitra (maker of the ‘Panton’ chair since the 1960s), as part of celebrations marking the centenary of the great Danish designer and architect’s birth.

The series takes its cues from Panton’s ‘Pantonaef’ system, produced by Swiss toy manufacturer Naef in the 1970s, which comprised elements that could be clipped together to construct a variety of different structures. Although mostly designed for adults, this system may well have inspired the later craze for the Rubik Snake and its millions of plastic fidget-toy offspring.

In collaboration with Verner Panton Design, Vitra has developed the ‘Panton Cubes’, a re-edition of Panton’s design classics in kit form. It includes four animal sculptures: a duck, a flamingo, a cat and a giraffe. Each kit contains the elements needed to construct the respective animal figure, and, as Panton wished, whichever shapes and combinations our imagination can come up with – the possibilities are endless.

‘The “Panton Cubes” are a wonderful addition to Vitra’s Verner Panton collection and highlight a lesser-known aspect of his work,’ says Stine Liv Buur, design manager of Classics at Vitra. ‘They demonstrate his playful exploration of geometry, colour and reflection, while translating these ideas into sculptural objects that invite interaction and imagination.’

The modular system consists of square frames that are assembled to form cubes, which are then linked with clips and fitted with coloured or chrome panels to create patterns and volumes. Whereas the original versions came in a matte finish, the re-editions feature glossy surfaces in a chrome finish or duo-tone colour combination, all based on Panton’s original colour choice and developed in close collaboration with Verner Panton Design AG.

‘At Vitra, we believe that colour has the power to influence mood and shape the way we experience our surroundings – a conviction that Verner Panton championed throughout his career,’ says Buur. ‘With their mirrored and glossy surfaces, the “Panton Cubes” interact with light, colour and space in a way that feels as engaging and inspiring today as when Panton first conceived them.’

The ‘Panton Cubes’ will be launched at the London Design Festival (12-20 September 2026) at Tramshed, Vitra’s London showroom in Shoreditch. New pieces by Berlin-based Studio Œ, Erwan Bouroullec, Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, and Panter & Tourron will also be unveiled.

Archival versions of the 'Panton Cubes' are currently on display at ‘Verner Panton: Form, Colour, Space’ (until 9 May 2027), a comprehensive survey of Panton’s work at the Vitra Design Museum’s Schaudepot near Basel.

Majestic places can easily become etched in our memory. Some spots are so beautiful that they may even inspire a Grammy-winning song, as is the case with Mendocino, California – the inspiration behind Willie Nelson and Lee Ann Womack 2002 rendition of 'Mendocino County Line.'

The lyrics speak to fading love. But they also evoke the idyllic coastal region’s lasting beauty. And that’s the reason why entrepreneurs Nadia Oka and Michael Topolovac selected a 53-acre plot of land there on which to build a retreat for their young family.

For the job, the couple tapped architect Mark Jensen. 'They have reverence for the land and wanted to do something really special up there, so I was immediately compelled,' Jensen, principal of the San Francisco-based firm Jensen Architects, says.

That 'really special' something is a linear glass, steel and cast concrete-structure that is as intentional in its modesty as it is balanced amongst the old-growth oaks in the surrounding woodland ecosystem. Set on a rolling hilltop at the northwest edge of the Russian River watershed, the 2,025 sq ft two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom home – with its clean, geometric modernist lines – feels more like an extension of the land than a juxtaposition to it.

'One of the unique things that really informed a lot about this home is the fact that they ended up building it mostly themselves,' explains Jensen. 'Michael's an engineer [and] built himself a welding shop up there and actually made all the custom storefront windows and pivot doors and cut all the metal cladding panels – it’s really insane how much work they did.'

That significant amount of work, as it turns out, wasn’t initially part of the plan, Michael, who was trained as a product designer and engineer, says. But as they spent more time at the site as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the family fostered 'a very deep engagement with the process and build' alongside the architects. He even modeled the entire house in OnShape (a 3D cloud-native CAD program) to help work through the various design elements he would undertake.

The overall design – one of three or four that Jensen presented to his clients – is rooted in the late British geographer Jay Appleton’s half-century-old 'prospect-refuge' notion of aesthetics that satisfy the innate desires for opportunity (prospect) and safety (refuge).

'I read Appleton’s [1975 book] The Experience of Landscape many years ago, and that theory has always resonated with me,' Jensen shares. He offers a cinematic metaphor for the approach: 'In all the classic Western movies, when you go into the saloon you sit with your back to the wall looking toward the door, otherwise the gunslinger’s going to come in and surprise you.' He continues, 'I think we’re just hardwired to want that kind of protection around us – and then to look out at that panorama!'

Composed of a board-formed concrete expanse, a steel skeleton and massive sheets of shaded glass, the home has 'some definite heroic structural moves,' per Jensen – including the dramatic, cantilevered roof. 'The entire roof is detached from the concrete wall, so you get a continuous skylight,' he explains. 'I have to say, you don’t often get balanced light in that way – and in the middle of the day when the light grazes the concrete, the texture of the board form really shows up.'

Aside from the thoughtful aesthetics of the project, sustainability and fire safety – given the area’s history of wildfires – were paramount from the start, so no combustible materials were used on the roof or exterior walls, including for the soffit underneath the roof that is composed of a Wildland-Urban Interface certified wood. The house also relies on solar power for electricity, and passive design techniques to minimise energy demands.

The most important resiliency measure is on the property itself: 'The brush has been cleared a fair distance around the house, and there are sprinkler systems and a second water tank so there’s capacity for firefighting,' the architect says.

No surprise, the architect's favourite spot in the house comes down to the prospect-refuge concept. He points to an open breezeway that divides the home's public and private wings: It’s an exterior space that allows you to look across from the pool all the way through the house and out to the western view framed by the walls which, arguably, makes it even more special – it’s a space they use a lot that blurs the boundaries between inside and out.'

As for the homeowners, it’s the future of the house that has made the whole project worthwhile. 'At almost every juncture, I would look at the material choices and the design approach, through the prism of "this is a life-of-the-house solution" for generations [of our family] to come,' explains Michael. 'It is the spirit of that – bringing this project to life with such permanence for those closest to us – which has been so deeply rewarding.'

In recent years, Edinburgh has become one of the most exciting food capitals in Western Europe, and one of the key players in this salivatory surge is chef-restaurateur Stuart Ralston. Glenrothes-born Ralston is a career chef who cut his teeth in New York before returning to Edinburgh to open Aizle in 2014. Ralston is hungry and restless; 12 years later, he has four restaurants in Edinburgh: Noto, Tipo, Vinette and Lyla. The last is the jewel in his crown. It occupies a regal spot in a Georgian townhouse on Royal Terrace, looking north over the city towards the Firth of Forth, and it holds one of the capital’s seven Michelin stars.

Lyla makes a night of it in Edinburgh

Since April 2026, Lyla has added four bedrooms upstairs to its offer. Each is named after an edible coastal plant: Aster, Linen, Samphire and Purslane. The rooms have been designed by Glasgow-based studio Scarinish, which also designed the restaurant on the ground floor in 2023. Across the restaurant and rooms, the designers have deployed a clever amount of warmth and character to soften the lofty grandeur of those Georgian proportions. In the bedrooms, dark wood joinery is balanced with bold and graphic textiles by Orcadian designer Hilary Grant. Furniture and lighting have brass details that glint among the painterly wall colours. The mood is hallowed, without being stuffy or pretentious. That legendary Edinburgh light completes the scene. Beds are huge and comfortable, which is what really matters after the epic tasting menu that takes place downstairs.

The food is still the star of the show at Lyla. It is a charismatic seafood-based tasting menu of great skill and imagination, heart and soul. We’ll confess to being a little tired of the tasting-menu format, but in Ralston’s hands it’s a deft and personal adventure. This is fare with flair; each dish is deeply intriguing and utterly delicious, a precarious balance that escapes too many chefs flirting with the Michelin crowd. Over three canapés, ten courses and four petit fours, we were introduced to squid-as-ramen; sorrel sorbet; laminated brioche with wild garlic butter; a crunchy langoustine with burnt apple; lobster, kingfish, halibut, scallop, trout and crab in forms each more beguiling than the last. It’s a fishy fandango, in the very best sense.

The experience of Lyla’s tasting menu has that magic ingredient all too often overlooked in fine dining: joy. And it feels all the more enjoyable, frankly, for our being able to roll upstairs to an epic bed, without even needing to consider engaging with the outside world. Satiated, swaddled, and rendered comatose, we then awoke from a magnificent slumber and had breakfast brought to our room first thing. A beautiful breakfast picnic affair, it consisted of fresh pastries, a banana-chocolate miso muffin, sea trout gravlax, cheese, berries, juices and coffee. Before catatonia took hold, we departed back to real life, grateful for 12 hours of wonderment, and equally grateful that those muffins aren’t within easy reach on a daily basis.

We took the opportunity to quiz Stuart Ralston about Lyla’s expansion from restaurant to rooms and the Edinburgh dining scene beyond.

Wallpaper*: Your restaurants each have a clear personality. What is Lyla's?

Stuart Ralston: Lyla’s identity is very much centred around Scottish seafood. Scotland has some of the finest seafood in the world, and I wanted to create a restaurant that put that at the forefront, treating it with the same level of care and attention that you might traditionally associate with meat-led fine dining. It’s a Michelin-starred restaurant, but the ambition isn’t simply about refinement. It’s about showcasing the quality of our waters, our producers and our coastline through a contemporary tasting menu. The experience is intimate, focused and ingredient-led, with seafood at the heart of everything we do.

W*: How does the ethos of your food at Lyla extend into the hospitality experience?

SR: The food and hospitality are completely connected. We put a lot of emphasis on making the experience feel personal and engaging rather than formal. We have a world-class front-of-house team that leads the service and creates the atmosphere in the room, but it’s also important to me that the chefs are involved directly with guests. Many of the dishes are served by the chefs themselves, who spend time explaining the ingredients, producers and thinking behind each course. I think there’s something special about hearing directly from the person who prepared the dish. It creates a stronger connection between the kitchen and the guest and gives people a better understanding of the work and care that goes into the food.

W*: Do the Georgian bones of the building inspire a certain mood that you play with in the Lyla experience?

SR: Absolutely. The building already had a sense of elegance and permanence before we ever touched it. What appealed to me was that we didn’t need to fight against that. Instead, we could work with it. There’s a restraint to Georgian architecture that I really admire. The proportions are beautiful, but they’re not trying to shout about it. That’s something we’ve tried to carry through the restaurant. The space feels considered and understated rather than theatrical.

W*: How has Edinburgh’s food scene evolved since you first opened Aizle?

SR: When we opened Aizle, there were already some excellent restaurants in Edinburgh, but the scene feels much broader and more confident today and has grown a lot. What’s been particularly exciting is seeing a generation of chefs and operators building businesses with a really clear point of view. There’s a willingness now to create something distinctive rather than follow a particular formula. People are building businesses that reflect their own personality, values and style of cooking, and diners have responded positively to that.

Lyla Restaurant & Rooms is located at 3 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh EH7 5AB. Dinner starts from £185 per head. Overnight stays for two including dinner are £715, while room-only rates begin at £345, both including breakfast.

Premium MP3 players have been gradually creeping back into the mainstream courtesy of high-end, ultra-high-quality devices like the Astell & Kern PD20 and the FiiO M27. Even Sony, the original mobile music expert, has got back into the game with its premium-priced WM1AM2 hi-res Walkman.

But there’s also a groundswell of change at the entry level. For too long, cheap MP3 players meant taking a chance on an off-brand player with dubious quality, fidgety UI and a lifespan that could be measured in weeks, not years.

As new generations of music lovers discover the joys of personally curated collections and cutting the cord from streaming services (although not necessarily the cord to their headphones), smaller, nimbler music players that ape Apple’s original iPod and Nano are coming back into fashion.

We’ve assembled a selection of five new ultra-compact MP3 players that bring a sense of agency and accumulation back to music listening.

FiiO Echo Nano

Small, inexpensive but powerful, the Echo Nano from FiiO is an aluminium-made portable music player that supports lossless formats as well as the ubiquitous MP3. The angular body is made from CNC-machined aluminium-magnesium alloy, finished in a rainbow spectrum of pink, white, sky blue, green, purple and titanium silver.

Controls are via a tiny 0.91-inch OLED screen, with a multifunctional metal scroll wheel to scrub through tracks and playlists. As well as a traditional headphone socket the Echo Nano’s onboard digital audio converter can also be used to process sounds from a laptop. Weighing in at just 33.5 grams, the player offers up to seven hours of playback and supports microSD cards of up to 256GB.

FiiO Echo Nano, $49.99 / €55.99 / £54.99, FiiO.eu

FiiO JM21

For a more extensive feature set, FiiO also offers the JM21. Recently upgraded to include 64GB of onboard memory and a larger battery for up to 12.5 hours of playback, the JM21 has an Android-based UI, both 3.5mm and 4.4mm physical sockets and supports microSD cards up to 2TB in size, making it an ideal way of backing up a lifetime’s worth of music into a portable player.

FiiO JM21, £199 / €259.99, FiiO.eu

Shanling M0 Pura

Despite its tiny size – 35.8g – the fourth-generation version of Shanling’s M0 Pura player can support the current maximum 2TB microSD card (equivalent to 400 DVDs or around 3,000 CDs ripped at high-resolution quality, or around two years of high-quality MP3 files). The little Pura certainly owes a physical debt to the form factor of the original iPod Nano, with a 1.54-inch touch screen that takes up practically the whole surface of the player.

Available in black, vibrant orange or berry purple, it comes with both a headphone jack and Bluetooth connectivity and battery life is a projected nine hours plus. Adjustable playback speeds are also available for mainlining podcasts.

Shanling M0 Pura, Shanling.com, £95.59 at Amazon

Hidisz AP30 Music Boy

Currently Kickstarting, the AP30 Music Boy from Hidisz blends the scale of a Nano with the aesthetic of the early Game Boy. Support for up to 256GB microSD is paired with a playful interface on the 2-inch screen. It even includes a ‘block game’ (ie, Tetris) that’s accessed via the D-pad. Bluetooth connectivity is paired with both sizes of headphone jack, and the overall aesthetic is kawaii meets Minecraft.

Hidisz AP30 Music Boy, Hidizs.net, Kickstarter.com

Innioasis Y1

No prizes for guessing the source of visual inspiration between the Y1 from Innioasis. Available in no fewer than nine different colours, this iPod lookalike mimics the classic click-wheel format. As well as support for practically every audio format ever conceived, the Y1 can also play MP4 video, offering four hours of playback at 720p HD.

A built-in FM radio – with recording function – adds to the available options, and the Y1 will also serve as a portable image viewer and audiobook player. Bluetooth connectivity is available, although a pair of wired earbuds are supplied in the package. The Y1 comes in three storage sizes, 64GB, 128GB and 1TB.

Innioasis Y1, $65.99 for 64GB, Innioasis.com, £65.99 at Amazon

Venice has no shortage of grand hotels, including a run of glossy new arrivals. But there's something reassuring about stepping into an icon. Hotel Cipriani, A Belmond Hotel, is exactly that: a Venice institution as established as the Biennale or the Film Festival.

For seventy years it has held its prime spot on the island of Giudecca, ever since Giuseppe Cipriani dreamed up a hideaway across the water from Piazza San Marco. Built in 1956, at the dawn of the jet-set era, it has amassed seven decades of stories: Paul McCartney signing the butlers’ guitars, Princess Diana reportedly declaring herself ‘home at last’ on its steps. It was Cipriani, at his own Harry's Bar (itself a haunt of the glitterati), who invented the Bellini, its rosy hue inspired by a Venetian sunset.

Wallpaper* checks into Hotel Cipriani, A Belmond Hotel, Venice

What’s on your doorstep?

Cipriani’s original vision was simple: a hotel close to Piazza San Marco, but far from its crowds. Giudecca still delivers on that promise, adrift, it seems, in a charmed world of its own making. An evening stroll here is accompanied by little more than the sounds of birdsong, the murmur of diners and water lapping the promenade.

Giudecca also serves as a reminder of why Venice is one of the most beautiful cities in the world: a mix of medieval, Renaissance and baroque architecture, arched bridges, and cafés and restaurants spilling onto wooden pavilions. Doge’s Palace, the Bridge of Sighs, the Grand Canal and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection are all within easy reach – though such proximity feels almost improbable from the tranquil folds of Hotel Cipriani.

Who’s behind the design?

Over the years, the property has expanded into the adjoining 15th-century Palazzo Vendramin and been acquired by Sea Containers before joining Belmond under LVMH in 2018. It is a storied history, but not one the hotel is content to rest on. A multi-phase renovation by Peter Marino – the architect and designer who has done much to define the modern language of luxury retail – is currently underway. This year, the transformation has delivered a Dior Spa and a reimagined Oro, the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant.

Marino, who chairs the Venetian Heritage Foundation and brings an insider’s grasp of the city’s craft traditions, has said his renovation isn’t about reinvention. Instead, he’s balancing three threads: the handcrafted heritage of historic Venice (Murano glass, antique furniture, museum-quality art); the glamour of the 1950s and ’60s ‘dolce vita’; and a current of contemporary art and design, drawing on the influence of the Biennale. His touch shows in the luminous, double-height lobby, its seamless flow into the fountain garden and pool, and in thirteen newly redesigned suites.

The room to book

Accommodations range from 21-square-metre Double Rooms to Exclusive Suites starting at 105 square metres. At the top end, the Palladio Suite offers 180-degree lagoon views, while the Dogaressa Suite looks across the water to Piazza San Marco.

The ‘room to book’, however, is of course one of Marino's redesigns – chief among them the Serenissima and Laguna Suites, where traditional terrazzo floors meet hand-blown chandeliers and 17th-century cabinets are set beside contemporary sculptures. The palette – creams, pale greens, warm bronze, silvery grey, soft blue – echoes the shimmer of the lagoon.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

Oro has been reimagined by Marino as an homage to gold, down to the gilded plates and table decorations. Chef Vania Ghedini lightly inflects local ingredients – shellfish, seaweed, 36-month-old Parmigiano Reggiano – with Maghrebi notes of her heritage: cardamom, verbena, sesame.

Elsewhere, dinner at Cip’s Club at sunset is hard to beat. Suspended over the water, the whole scene glows as gold-drenched as Oro. Chef Roberto Gatto keeps things hyper-local and unfussy – a fresh catch from the Rialto market, or a plate of traditional Veneto pasta.

Il Porticciolo is the hotel's beach bar, and no visit is complete without a Bellini made to Cipriani's original recipe at the Seagull Bar – sipped, as tradition dictates, alongside a plate of carpaccio. Breakfast is its own ritual: Marostica cherries, honey from the island of Sant'Erasmo and Pan del Doge while watching the gondolas and vaporetti on their morning rounds.

Where to switch off

This spring brought the Marino-designed Dior Spa, spanning two floors with five treatment rooms and a boutique stocking Dior beauty products. Hotel Cipriani is also home to the only Olympic-sized, seawater-heated pool in central Venice – the slightly farcical but happy result of a feet-to-metres miscalculation during construction.

Then there are the gardens – arguably the hotel’s ace in giving it the feel of a country estate rather than a city palazzo. Named the Casanova Gardens after the Venetian who is said to have courted lovers there, they're planted with rose-covered arches, Annabelle hydrangeas and pomegranate trees, and host, according to the hotel, a rabbit, three ducks and some chickens.

The verdict

Seventy years on, Hotel Cipriani still trades on Giuseppe Cipriani's original promise: the allure of Venice, without the crowds. Marino's renovation brings the hotel into the present while holding fast to the details that have long defined its legend: Bellinis at sunset, the cypress-filled gardens, and an archive of stories from the golden age of travel.

Hotel Cipriani, A Belmond Hotel, Venice is located at Giudecca, 10, 30133 Venice, Italy

Having frequented the optometrist for the past 25 years, it is hard not to notice the lack of inspiring interiors. Often greeted with two options: a moody space with ironically poor lighting and dingy carpets, or it is brightly lit, white, and clinical space; either doesn’t inspire the desire to have one's eyesight corrected. However, Wink offers something completely different. Spearheaded by Mitchell Zurek and Andy Kelly of Brud Studia the interior of the Australia-based optometrist feels like coming home.

‘Optical stores have always felt to me like the waiting room of a very wealthy dentist,’ says Andy Kelly, one half of the studio. ‘Everything is intimidating, and you're expected to make a very serious decision about your face in front of a stranger. They can be beautiful, but they're rarely relaxed. We wanted to make somewhere people forgot they were shopping altogether. Somewhere that invited leaning. Somewhere you wanted to sit, drink a coffee, open a drawer.’

The optometrist in Elwood, Melbourne, marks the duo's first retail interior project under Brud Studia. However, they wanted to create an environment which stepped away from behaving like a traditional retail space. Instead, they created a character.

Zurek and Kelly wanted to create a space where it felt like you were stepping inside someone else's world for half an hour. ‘Every decision was simply asking what our character would have done.’

They looked at the old English nursery rhyme, There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, ‘except this time she lived inside her glasses case, which itself lived inside a Simone Rocha egg clutch,’ Kelly shares. ‘She was part Iris Apfel, part impossibly glamorous grandmother. She tears bread without ever crushing it. Every object she has arrived through circumstance rather than shopping. She collected beautiful things but couldn't remember where she'd found half of them. Every surface held another story. Every drawer concealed another treasure; nothing matched, and somehow everything belonged together.’

Much like their worldly character, the interiors are well travelled, with references dancing between Milan apartments, 70s New York, and Australia’s suburbia influenced by European sensibilities. A retail counter was replaced with a kitchen, with a central island at the core of the space, as Kelly shares, ‘Counters separate people. Kitchens bring them together. The island asks clients to gather around it rather than stand opposite. It changes the entire rhythm of the space.’

Inside, the interior is complete with stainless steel, block colours, and timber joinery. Collectible design objects punctuate the space. It's an amalgamation of texture and tones, yet feels entirely cohesive, without a central piece fighting for attention. ‘Retail interiors often feel obligated to announce themselves immediately, but we were far more interested in creating a space that revealed itself gradually,’ explains the studio founders.

‘Even the boldest gestures, like the lacquered red cabinetry, exist within a deliberately domestic scale. There are tiny mosaic tiles underfoot, small drawers to open, carefully considered handles, mirrors that catch unexpected reflections, and lighting that quietly punctuates the room rather than dominates it. Nothing exists simply to be photographed. The experience unfolds slowly, rewarding curiosity rather than demanding your immediate attention.’

Glasses occupy a funny place in our lives, as they allow you to try out different versions of yourself and how you want to present yourself to the world. Kelly and Zurek agree: ‘They're practical objects, of course, but they're also one of life's great disguises. A new pair of glasses quietly permits you to become someone else. Wink is, technically speaking, an optometrist. But with the right frames and a hurried box of black hair dye applied in a petrol station bathroom, she's retail in witness protection.’

With many reflective materials from mirrors to the industrial mesh ceiling, each new glimpse offers another version of the space. ‘In an optometrist, you're constantly looking at yourself. Rather than disguising that fact, we exaggerated it.’ There is a disguised tension. And perhaps that is rather fitting.

brudstudia.com
winkoptom.com.au

The Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2026 welcomes Diana Salvador, a young architect, and her studio in Ecuador are joining our annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: Diana Salvador

Quito-based architect Diana Salvador’s practice is driven by a desire for innovation and functionality – on various levels. ‘When I think of architecture, I think of tectonic and constructive efficiency in every possible sense. With each new project, I dedicate myself to rethinking the way I design and, consequently, the way I build. I focus on a workflow that provides certainty and absolute control over performance, time, utility, and expenditure. This data allows me to make strategic decisions rooted in a genuine concern for the impact a building generates,’ she explains.

‘This is not an isolated pursuit. My personal quest for maximum efficiency is deeply linked to a desire for self-reliance – not out of arrogance, but from a profound yearning to be able to build with my own two hands. The reality is that for women in this profession, survival is an active, daily endeavour. I have accepted [...] to forge my own way of conceptualising a project, resulting in a practice that is more human, intimate, and accessible.’

Within this context, she adopts sustainable architecture principles, often working with eco-friendly materials and low-impact construction solutions. Her efforts have won her the National Award in Minimal Architecture at the Pan-American Architecture Biennial of Quito (2020) and a finalist position at the UIA 2030 Awards in Paris (2022).

‘What truly matters in the end is coherence and professional responsibility. Minimising our ecological footprint within construction practices is perhaps the most genuine act of reverence toward nature and the future generations that will inhabit it,’ she explains. The landscape and a communion with nature are her biggest influences, the architect adds.

What: Casa Sula

Set in the subtropical foliage of the Santa Cruz island of the Galápagos, Casa Sula is one of Salvador’s key examples of respectful, sensitive building systems architecture. The house was prefabricated in Quito over two months. Its components were then transported by sea to their final site, where the house was fully assembled in just 25 days.

The home, a contemporary version of a triangle house, is a sleek composition made of some 2,000 custom-made wood, metal, aluminium, and glass pieces (while over 17,000 screws were needed to put the project together, the architecture team flags). Smart passive cooling techniques, such as a gap between two layers of the outer skin, which allows air to circulate, were employed throughout in order to support the structure’s bioclimatic behaviour.

Sula - which is named after a Galápagos Islands’ endemic bird species - is Salvador’s second exercise with prefabricated technology. Many more will follow, the architect emphasises: ‘What sets me apart is how I inhabit my role as an architect: delivering a housing solution without leaving a scar on the environment.’

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

@diana_manzana_salvador

‘Funner came about as more of an art project,’ says Jonah Kaner, one of a trio of founders of a new haircare brand which launches this month with a 21-product routine. ‘Beauty has always felt emotional and expressive to me. But hair care specifically had started to feel a little cold and clinical – of course performance matters deeply, and the products have to work, but I felt there was room to bring back more feeling, more artistry, more curiosity.’

Cue Jonah, who is the son of Oribe founder Daniel Kaner (his father also serves as a co-founder of Funner, alongside his mother, make-up artist and entrepreneur Sonia Kashuk), draft cult agency M/M (Paris) and acclaimed British photographer Jamie Hawkesworth as collaborators on the project. The former has created the unique packaging – featuring undulating bottles, scalloped edges and expressive motifs – as well as the colourful circular branding, while Hawkesworth has shot an accompanying campaign.

‘Working with M/M Paris was foundational to Funner,’ says Jonah. ‘From the beginning, the ambition was not just to create packaging around formulas, but to build a graphic language that could carry the entire brand. I wanted the products to feel like objects with personality: something you would notice in a salon, want to pick up, and remember afterwards.’

The name itself was dreamt up by Daniel Kaner, capturing what Jonah sees as the essence of the brand: ‘[something] a little imperfect, a little unexpected, and immediately emotional. It is not about fun in a childish way. It is about the feeling of possibility: trying something new, seeing yourself differently, leaving the salon with a little more confidence than when you walked in. Hair can be serious because it is so tied to identity, but it should also be playful.’

But Jonah is also insistent that these products aren’t just about their outward aesthetics: each of the 21 products – a ‘full wardrobe for hair,’ as he describes – has been meticulously developed alongside stylists, and draws on ‘real-world salon experience’ (alongside a launch on the brand’s website and selected retailers, Funner has also debuted at a series of international salons). Formulas are sulfate-, paraben-, and silicone-free, covering a range of concerns, from colour protection to scalp care and hair longevity.

‘A salon product must perform under pressure. It has to work across different hair types, textures, services, and styling needs – and it has to earn trust quickly,’ he says. ‘For Funner, that meant developing products that support the health and longevity of the hair while also giving stylists creative flexibility. The science is there to strengthen the foundation: shine, softness, resilience, manageability, and protection. But the products also had to feel beautiful to use.’

The extensive product offering, says Jonah, was designed for both professional and at-home consumers to be able to create a routine that fits with their hair type and needs. As such, some are universal – like ‘Fixer’, a high-potency daily serum designed for all hair types, or ‘Handshake’, a handwash which removes product build-up from the hands – to those which address more specific concerns, like ‘Better Butter’, a one-stop curl texturiser, or ‘Humidity Shield’, which provides a ‘weather-proof shield’ to keep hair smooth and shiny.

‘The goal was to give people products that feel intuitive and flexible and to make confidence feel effortless,’ says Jonah. ‘You can keep the routine very simple, or you can layer depending on the hair type, texture, and desired result. The foundation is always healthy, expressive hair that feels ready for whatever you want to do next.’

As for what’s next for Funner, Jonah sees it as a project in constant evolution. ‘I see Funner as a world, not just a product line. Hair care is the starting point, but the brand was never meant to feel limited in scope,’ he says. ‘Over time, I want Funner to keep collaborating with artists, stylists, photographers, and creative people who can expand the way we think about hair and beauty. Ultimately, Funner should evolve the way hair does: constantly changing, deeply personal, and always open to transformation.’

Funner is available from shopfunner.com, as well as selected stores and salons worldwide.

Alec Doherty’s work flits between mediums. Known best for his work in sculpting, painting and drawing, the English artist is also drawn to the more personal, a cornerstone of his contemporary jewellery design.

Like in his studio-based practice, Doherty’s jewellery is born from a careful consideration of form and material, an essential nature which runs throughout his new fine jewellery collection, Ceremony. The six diamond rings which make up the collection are born from a simple concept – why save something special for one day only?

My dad wore a silver snake chain that had been soldered permanently around his neck by an old friend,’ says Doherty on where the idea came from. ‘I remember wondering why anyone would want to wear something forever. Looking back, I think it marked something important to him. It was a kind of ceremony. We memorialise moments with the things we wear. When I thought about making a celebration ring I naturally ended up at diamonds. Ceremony is my take on something really traditional, but I’m not a traditional designer.’

Doherty rethinks the traditional diamond ring by choosing a lab-grown diamond to sit in the 9ct gold band. ‘Natural diamonds have an incredible history. Lab diamonds start with none, and that really appealed to me. Their story begins with the person who wears them,’ he adds.

The rings are ripe for interpretation, eschewing fussy ornamentation for clean and simple silhouettes which put the focus on the diamond. For Doherty, they are a continuation of his artistic practice, rather than separate to it. ‘Drawing, sculpture and jewellery are all ways of working with material to understand or describe an idea,’ he says. ‘Usually the material feels as though it chooses itself. What I love about jewellery is that it doesn't stop with the maker. Once it's worn, it becomes part of someone else's life and takes on meanings I could never predict. That feels like a very special thing.’

alecdoherty.com

1970s Italian design is having a moment: from little-known furniture pieces to legendary design experiments, lighting and even bathroom taps, the year's new launches were punctuated by reissues of pieces that help paint a picture of this unsung decade in Italian design.

The 1970s in Italian design were largely defined by 'Italy: the new domestic landscape', a 1972 MoMA exhibition that reflected on the country's culmination of creative excellence following the industrial boom that represented the post-WWII period in design. It was a look at Italian design at a time when Italian design was reviewing itself.

Italian design critic Paola Antonelli, the MoMA's Senior Curator of Architecture and Design, drew a comparison between the political and social turmoil of the decade, and the current times of uncertainty. Antonelli noted how designers in the 1970s (and those taking part in the MoMA exhibition in particular) represented 'a culture that was really worried about the future of society. It's really interesting to see how designs that stemmed from a complicated moment are now being celebrated with nostalgia.

'Italian design has always been great: it was fabulous in the 50s. It was even better in the 60s, and in the 70s, was still great, but with this undertone of anxiety.'

Antonelli also explains how the evolution of Italian design throughout the second half of the last century took projects beyond their aesthetic and functionality, but made them part of a bigger domestic ecosystem (something the exhibition documented well and can be found in examples such as Joe Colombo's Total Furnishing Unit. 'It was a moment of real fervour,' concludes Antonelli. 'It had to do not with products, but rather with new ways of life. '

Great 1970s Italian design reissued for contemporary interiors

Cigno chair by Vittorio Varo, for Visionnaire

Originally conceived in the early 1970s for Visionnaire's parent company IPE, the Cigno chair by Vittorio Varo was fittingly chosen to furnish 'Déjà-Vu', a listening room curated by Marco Morandini during Milan Design Week 2026, that celebrated the decade's cultural spirit through design and music.

Parioli Cabinet by Lodovico Acerbis

A 1971 design by Acerbis founder Lodovico Acerbis, Parioli is a piece that brings architectural modularity to storage furniture. The wooden structure (in ash or walnut) disappears behind the geometry of satin stainless steel doors, whose design define the design with an expressive aesthetic informed by rigour and movement.

Sintesi by Ernesto Gismondi for Artemide

The first Artemide lamp designed by founder Ernesto Gismondi, the Sintesi brings the bare functionality that defined 1970s Italian design to the fore. A few essential components define its design, that is both practical and versatile, with two profiles that intersect to create a standing lighting object (and a wall version based on the same system). 'It’s like a magic formula and finding it is never guaranteed,' said its creator.

Alcinoo by Gae Aulenti for Artemide

Gae Aulenti's 1975 design for Artemide merges an appreciation for artisanal techniques (the mouth blown glass sphere) with an industrial language (the metal cylinder holding it). A sculptural home for an essential lighting idea, the lamp is a shell for three lightbulbs set at its base. 'It was tough, Gae has strong ideas (...)' Artemide founder Ernesto Gismondi recalled. 'And the moment you switch the lamp on, you realise she was right: the character fills the room with tiny traces of light.

T35 Trio by Pierangelo Gallotti

The 1970s marked a turning point for Italian glass brand Gallotti e Radice, who celebrated their 70th anniversary at Milan Design Week this year. In 1975, it developed a method of joining panes of glass with a simple stainless steel joint, enabling larger and more structurally complex pieces, such as the ‘T35 Trio' – a three-part coffee table set designed by Pierangelo Gallotti in 1975 – now presented in an anniversary edition in bronze-tinted tempered glass and brushed silver travertine. Text: Laura May Todd

Papero by Cini Boeri for Codiceicona

Cini Boeri's Papero was conceived in 1971 and reflects the experimental approach to craft and industrial design that defined the decade. Shaped as a duck (from which it borrows its name), the lamp features two impact-resistant opal polystyrene pieces connected by a chrome-plated steel plate with a black PVC profile.

Fachiro by Marzio Cecchi for Gufram

Marzio Cecchi's 1975 Fachiro for Gufram reflects the more playful end of the decade's design spectrum. Harsh looking but definitely comfortable to sit on thanks to the soft leather construction, the design is informed by the work of Cecchi's couturier mother and his ongoing observations of nature, and how it can dialogue with design.

Pallino by Elio Martinelli

A 1970s design by Elio Martinelli, Pallino is both playful and minimal. Dubbed 'a curious lamp' from its creator, the design of Pallino brings to mind an inquisitive character taking a peek at whoever is on the other side. 'Reintroducing Pallino means bringing back into today’s homes a touch of the formal lightness and chromatic boldness that made Italian design great,' comments Emiliana Martinelli, President of Martinelli Luce. 'It means choosing an object with a story to tell, one that still looks ahead together with those who own it.'

Joe Colombo for Mamoli

Joe Colombo's design was firmly rooted in the idea that 'all the objects needed in a house should be integrated with the usable spaces; hence, they no longer ought to be called furnishings but ‘equipment.’ His Total Furnishing Unit was originally presented at the exhibition 'Italy: The New Domestic Landscape' and among a bigger design idea for domestic living, it introduced the humble tap not just as accessory, but as 'an integral part of both the space and the domestic experience'. Mamoli's reissue of the tap design is only slightly updated for modern use, and reflects Colombo's idea of a home based on functionality.

One of the most fabled of all vintage Bentleys was the ‘Blue Train Car’, a Herculean battle between automobile and steam train initiated in 1930 by Bentley chairman Woolf Barnato, and his secretary, Dale Bourne, racing Le Train Bleu, the Calais-Mediterranée Express, on its return journey back to the channel coast. It’s an oft-told tale in Bentley circles, even though the actual Speed Six model that did the run was usurped for many decades by the better-looking and more appropriately dynamic Gurney Nutting coupé (a car that went on to inspire Bentley’s EXP 15 concept).

We’re re-hashing this story not to harp on about the past, but to make the case for the modern Bentley as an equivalent to transcontinental luxury train travel. Barnato and Bourne probably didn’t have the same creature comfort as the train passengers they raced, but you’d be hard pushed to find any modern train service that’s as plush as the interior of a contemporary Bentley. Throw in a surfeit of power, a super smart hybrid system and one of the best modern auto interiors on the market, and you have an unrivalled mode of transport for two (four, at a push).

The most recent variant of the Continental is this, the GT S. Superficially, the evergreen Continental appears to come in just two variants, a closed coupé and a cabriolet. In reality, the model is sliced and diced to indulge the whims of a demanding clientele. Choice is the watchword, individualism is the destination and complexity is key. There may only be one power train (a twin-turbo V8), but it's available in various shades of output and is wedded to a body and interior that offer up infinite variety of choice.

The GT S sits in the mid-range of the Continental line-up, above the ‘base’ model and the softer, more graceful and refined Azure model. Above the S is the performance focused GT Speed and above that the Mulliner version, which includes every conceivable extra before you even get to break out the colour charts.

As a result, the GT S is one more galaxy of possibilities to lure the modern Bentley buyer. On paper, it sits in the dead centre of the Venn diagram of the GT's ability - sport, luxury, touring, technology. It’s not the most powerful, nor the most luxurious, but in practice, these qualities have been refined and elevated over the years so that only the most self-conscious, spec-obsessed buyer will ever find their car wanting.

Chances are, however, that plenty of Bentley owners are just that, hence the depth and breadth of the option sheet and the nudge towards budget-busting options from Bentley’s Mulliner division. If all that wasn’t enough, a new Supersport variant will be along shortly, explicitly designed to temper those egos who don’t feel fulfilled by 671hp.

Our press car is resplendent in Spark Blue paintwork (a £19,425 Mulliner option), along with a pricey dose of carbon fibre trim pieces, a carbon fibre exhaust, and the essential rotating dashboard display – cheekily pitched as an essential design element yet still a £5,320 extra. In fact, by the time the checkboxes have been filled, this particular car comes in with £62,130 of optional extras against a list price of £212,500. Deep breath.

Having expended Orient Express-levels of outlay, are you getting an OE experience? Short of a butler or two, and the requirement to dress for dinner, we’d say yes. The GT S pulls like a train and has all the performance and refinement you’d ever need for long, long distance travel. It utters a throaty roar on cue but can glide in serene silence when more decorum is called for.

The twin-turbo V8 is backed up by a seamless hybrid system, adding 187bhp of power via a 25.9kWh battery. That’s more than enough for up to 50 miles of EV-only cruising, as well as the electric shove the battery adds to hard acceleration. Bentley’s system – found elsewhere in the VW Group – also allows you to divert kinetic energy back into the battery, either to charge it back up or to hold it at a predetermined level. Electric for cities, V8 for the open road – the perfect compromise.

All this adds weight to an already mighty car, a shade under 5m long and tipping the scales at 2,459 kg. It’s to Bentley’s credit that the GT has always felt rather more lithe than leaden, thanks to clever active roll control and a four-wheel drive system that parcels up the power and dispatches it to the right corner to achieve uncanny levels of handling and balance.

This particular example of the GT majors on a more contemporary approach to the interior, with a duo-tone cabin combining Gravity Grey and Klein Blue. It’s not exactly restrained – far, far more classical combinations can be achieved if wood, leather and chrome are your bag.

Switchgear, dash layout and user interface feel a few years off the pace, but very much in a good way given the industry’s recent over-reliance on screens. A Bentley is a tactile experience, regardless of the amount of technology paddling away beneath the smooth surface of the water.

Other criticisms? A bit more boot space wouldn’t go amiss for those LV trunks. For longer journeys, the rear seats are best suited to smaller-framed people who can pack light, even though it’s way more generous back there than in an Aston DB12 S. For two people, however, the Continental GT S makes every journey feel like the start of a precious minibreak, such is the sense of occasion, comfort and potential the car exudes.

Hybridisation has enabled Bentley to retain its heart and soul, amplifying and extending the power, sound and refinement of its cars. The Continental GT has stayed remarkably true to itself over many generations and technological evolutions. Can the company translate these qualities into the upcoming Torcal EV, now only weeks away from reveal?

Bentley Continental GT S, from £212,500, BentleyMotors.com, @BentleyMotors

The perennial problem of the urban space premium is given another solution via this new house from OGA. The Cottage Annexe is an infill project that makes canny use of a tough site in North London's Stroud Green Conservation Area. Bracketed by grand Victorian terraced houses, the site was previously occupied by a modest two-storey cottage and a scattering of one-storey outbuildings, considered all but undevelopable due to its location and scale.

Enter OGA, an architecture and interior design firm founded by Oliver Grimshaw. Based in Berlin, the studio works in the UK and on the continent, combining new build with renovations that span all periods of architectural history.

In Finsbury Park, the challenges were obvious. ‘The site had defeated previous attempts at development - a land-locked urban fragment with a contentious planning history and little obvious potential,’ the architects say, ‘The plot sat squeezed between established residential terraces, its awkward geometry and sensitive heritage context making it one of the more challenging infill sites in the area.’

OGA’s solution was to incorporate the bulk of the site into the built envelope, so the refurbished two-storey structure sits alongside a flowing, single storey living space interspersed with two new courtyards. In this way, the Victorian streetscape is barely impacted, whilst carefully interweaving the new structure along the boundary of existing back gardens.

From the street, the existing cottage now appears to be flanked by a robustly rebuilt garden wall; this is the new annexe, a single storey structure with a generous vestibule linked the old and the new alongside an open plan kitchen, dining and sitting area – here you’ll find the signature circular window looking back to the main courtyard. The new living space is flanked by courtyards north and south, with a guest bedroom/study tucked away behind the new boundary wall.

Privacy and space are the key objectives, with materials mirroring existing structures and helping conceal the mass and scope of the building within. The courtyards bring light into the south-facing site without encroaching or overlooking the surrounding houses. The refurbished cottage now contains a bedroom, bathroom and snug area on the ground floor and the primary suite upstairs.

As well as zinc clad walls, OGA have used London stock brick for its warmth, variety and harmony with its surroundings. The courtyards are minimal, with traditional cobblestones, moss and Japanese Acer to create a minimalist outdoor sanctuary. Inside, bespoke cabinetry, subtly changing levels and exposed ceiling beams create a mid-century feel in line with the client’s tastes.

‘For all its privacy, the house never feels closed off - light moves through it freely, and the gardens feel ever-present, a quality made all the more remarkable given the constraints of the site,’ say the architects. The new structure only serves to enhance the neighbourhood but also create a true private sanctuary that doesn’t impose on its surroundings.

OGArch.co.uk,

It’s been a characteristically busy few months for Nothing, with the launch of Phone (4a) and (4a) Pro, which were swiftly followed by the new Phone (4b). In terms of audio, the company has also seen unleashed the Ear (3a) series and the CMF Clip Pro.

All of this product has been overseen by Nothing’s London-based design team. Headed up by Nothing’s Global Design Director, Adam Bates, alongside a team that includes Lucy Birley, Associate Principal Design for Colour, Material and Finish (CMF, the industry term that gave its name to Nothing’s value line of tech) and Lead industrial designer Frank Lin.

Wallpaper* recently sat down with Birley and Lin at Nothing’s Kings Cross HQ to discuss the company’s current design strategy, and the influences, pressures and innovations that shape Nothing’s design language. Nothing’s studio often plays open house for launches and events.

Tucked away down a dead-end alley above the area’s thicket of rail lines, the non-descript building conceals a plethora of design and prototyping equipment, as well as a treasure trove of influential electronics from past and present.

One thing that stands out in recent launches is Nothing’s fresh approach to colour. This is Birley's purview. ‘My work is to expand the product palette,’ she says, ‘we’ve spent 18 months working on a more expressive palette that’s also softer and friendlier.’ It was only four years ago that Nothing arrived with a hard-edged, almost Cyberpunk styling approach, setting out its stall in a landscape of identikit Android phones.

‘It’s my job to think what the appropriate amount of colour is,’ Birley explains, and certainly the popping pink of the Ear (3a), which joins the yellow introduced in its predecessor, the Ear (a) earbuds, to start up a rainbow of potential.

These polychromatic stabs are not happening in a vacuum – they are carefully planned. ‘As designers, we want to undersell and over-deliver,’ says Frank Lin, ‘it’s so important to have a zoomed-out approach to colour, geometry and materiality.’

Colour therefore has to be chosen both for its harmonious presence in the product line-up, but also for its ability to be consistent in physical and digital form. ‘Most people experience a product for the first time digitally,’ Birley points out.

Nothing has always been about the details. The much-imitated transparent qualities of the early devices – prominent elements of which remain in the current line-up – were about ‘showing the level of care that we put into the product,’ says Lin, ‘there’s a saying in the studio about details – ‘God can see it’,’ he adds. The studio will 3D print over-scaled products to explore every nook and cranny of the design.

According to Lin, transparency ‘brings a level of rawness – you can directly see into a device, but you can also use it as a level of storytelling.’ He admits there’s a balance between honesty and abstraction in all Nothing’s products – those transparent backs don’t actually lay bare the inner workings of the phone but approximate them in a stylised way.

Once prototypes have been completed, there’s a period of reckoning. ‘We always sit with stuff for a long time in the team,’ says Lin, ‘everyone’s opinion is valid.’ Even a product as apparently simple as a pair of earbuds might go through 50 to 100 prototypes, which can then be laid out on tables for appraisal, sometimes alongside some of the sources of colour inspiration – a lipstick, a deck of cards.

Birley admits to being quite ‘magpie-like’ when it comes to seeing a colour in the wild and seizing it for future inspiration – ‘like a Prada mascara in Selfridges’. A huge library of colour samples has built up as a result. In practical terms, how a colour is applied is almost as important as the shade itself.

‘Surface finishes affects the perception of colour profoundly,’ she notes, as does lighting, materials and forms, not to mention different colour combinations. ‘People are often drawn to colours without realising it,’ she notes, explaining how the initial introduction of pink ‘caused some consternation’ in the company.

Tonal shifts are subtle yet distinct – the pink comes from taking Nothing’s established red and then turning down the saturation. The yellow used on Ear (a) versus Ear (3a) is different too, fresher and slightly less vibrant – the same new yellow finds its way onto the ear pads of the Headphone (a) as the original yellow made them look too much like ear defenders.

Then there’s the complexity of bringing colour to a tightly packaged, highly technical device. Are transparent parts painted? How can light leaks be mitigated? What happens with things like glue bubbles, ventilation, heat transfer, etc? Consistency between sprayed prototypes, 3D printed components and manufacturing prototypes must all be considered.

‘You can definitely overwhelm the consumer with choice,’ Birley concedes, before adding that ‘I used to work in fashion and I’m chronically online’ to justify how her immersion in the world of colour serves as a filter for the brand.

Past Nothing products have nodded towards the product design of the 70s and 80s, but with this new wave of colour there’s an acknowledgment of the more vibrant 90s and Noughties. Lin cites the colour work of movements as disparate as Memphis and the Bauhaus, as well as the optimism of the lime green era of Apple and its imitators.

‘Nothing stands for expression and going against the grain,’ Birley says, ‘consumers want to see a range of colours but might not always commit to it.’ Nevertheless, colour creates a bond, not just with the Nothing brand but with the products themselves, encouraging retention and longevity. ‘What do you want from your consumer technology?’, she asks rhetorically, ‘we’re lucky to work for a brand that is not particularly concerned with following trends.’

Hence the way last year’s Headphone (1) brought back physical controls instead of haptic, touch-sensitive ones. ‘Touch is great, but what is the context?’, Lin asks, ‘tactility is essential. Ultimately, freedom is what we love and what we want. We just hope the rest of the world agrees.’

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Tilda Swinton is proposing pink lemonade in a navy silk Chanel two-piece from her dressing room at the Onassis Ready, a multimedia arts space in Athens. Her yellow-white hair is brushed back to reveal that extraordinary face. To her right sits one of her co-conspirators, the fashion curator, historian and director of Fondation Azzedine Alaïa, Olivier Saillard. For the past 14 years, the pair have created a series of highly original performances – often referred to as ‘living exhibitions' – in various museums and galleries. These thoughtful, thought-provoking acts seem conceived to unpick our collective fascination and often complex, multilayered relationships with clothing.

As a three-year-old, Swinton wore a white organza party dress. She vividly recalls in ‘The Biographical Wardrobe' – one of her and Saillard's most recent collaborations – the reaction this dress elicited in her elder brothers. ‘You look pretty…' they said, from the family staircase, ‘revolting!' She leans in to pick up the catalogue for her ‘Ongoing' exhibition, which opened at the Filmmuseum in Amsterdam in late 2025, before heading to Athens – it's co-produced by the Onassis Foundation – and will eventually tour globally. Flicking to a photograph of herself wearing said gown, a bow nestled neatly in her hair, Swinton, her voice comically teetering up several octaves, cries ‘I look fabulous!' She turns to Saillard. ‘Before that, I was wearing shorts or a jersey, but this was the first ‘we're getting you a dress' moment. And my brothers said that, but I thought it was fabulous, so there was this feeling that a piece of clothing is valuable, not only in the eye of the beholder, but that I liked it. I felt great in it. So, that was an epiphany for me about how clothes carry meaning.' She smiles. ‘What about you?'

Saillard begins. ‘When I was around seven years old, I discovered the attic. In the attic, I was completely alone and there were boxes and boxes of the clothes of my mother, my sisters, my father, very old pieces. It slowly became my room. I unpacked all the clothes from the boxes,' Saillard continues. ‘I put all of the garments on the floor, and I spent my time as a teenager sleeping on the clothes, smoking, reading… and I realised, when I joined the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in the 1980s, and after having slept in the storage room there, when I woke up, it was clear. I was in the same land, the same geography as the attic of my parents.' Swinton gently exhales. ‘Oh, how beautiful. Wow.' ‘This was my first immersion with clothes.'

Swinton conceived and curated ‘Ongoing' to illustrate a ‘fellowship' of collaborators with whom her creative exploration is both longstanding and active. It features directors Joanna Hogg (their mutual short film debut was 1986's Caprice); Derek Jarman (with whom Swinton made eight films and the only member of the cohort no longer alive); Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino, Jim Jarmusch and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, alongside photographer Tim Walker and Saillard. It is specifically not a retrospective and includes all new work with the exception of Almodóvar, who is represented by the short film The Human Voice.

Swinton and Saillard were introduced by a mutual friend, artist Katerina Jebb. Swinton recalls that, during their first conversation, Saillard expressed his increasing dissatisfaction with exhibition making and was looking for a way to bring new life to them. ‘It was like the beginning of this flame,' says Swinton. ‘I thought the way Olivier's curiosity leads him, it's a bit like a mystery quest, and that's the way I work. It was very easy and we made this agreement to find a way together to create living exhibitions. Though we didn't know what that meant yet.'

In 2012, at the Palais de Tokyo during Paris Fashion Week, they staged their first piece, ‘The Impossible Wardrobe'. More than 50 items from the collection of the Palais Galliera museum (where Saillard worked at the time), including anonymous items alongside the likes of Coco Chanel's hat, Napoleon's ceremonial dress coat and Schiaparelli's claw gloves, were either held, draped on the body or presented by Swinton. It took an hour. ‘It was a great statement to play with the museum's collection in a respectful way,' explains Saillard. ‘But also it was Fashion Week, and all of these garments were technically unwearable and none of them were for sale.'

Subsequent pieces included 2013's ‘The Eternity Dress', where the pair illustrated, on stage to music, the making of a dress from scratch in 60 minutes, while 2014's ‘Cloakroom – Vestiaire Obligatoire' involved Swinton interacting with items of clothing checked in by the audience; putting money into a pocket, tucking a hair under a collar, kissing a handkerchief. ‘It was radical,' Swinton admits. ‘It was about normal clothes.'

Between 2021-2025, they enacted ‘Embodying Pasolini' – an arresting rebirth of 30 film costumes originally created for the film director Pier Paolo Pasolini by Danilo Donati. Swinton has said of working with these cinematic ensembles: ‘There's still a spirit in them – they hold energy and can spark new dreams.'

The distinction between clothes and fashion is one of several recurring themes in Swinton and Saillard's work. ‘I'm not interested in the fashion of today. I'm always interested in past fashion, but the past could be yesterday,' Saillard suggests. ‘We all have labels, those that are well-known, and those that are not. But the only label I love is this invisible label we give to clothes; some trace of ourselves.' He pauses. ‘I think, step by step, we realised we had opened a door that was not an exhibition and not a fashion show, but something else through the art of the performance. Clothing is a performance every day. It's difficult to talk about clothes, fashion, without speaking about money, looks. I don't think we're talking about that. We are not selling anything.'

‘I think it's all about connection, and that's what clothes have in common with art. Art is about connection. Fashion is very often not about connection at all,' chimes in Swinton. ‘Very often, fashion is about disconnection… an obscuring of identity and a sense of artifice. But the clothes we're talking about, and actually I would suggest the clothes that we're wearing, this is true of all of us, are clothes that contribute a kind of honesty about who we are, and that means we're people who are willing to be seen. We're willing to be known, and we're willing to be in communication. And that's a significant difference between, I would suggest, clothes and a lot of fashion.'

In the days prior to our conversation and after it, ‘The Biographical Wardrobe' is performed multiple times, slightly differently each time, but fundamentally a study of their ever-evolving interest in clothing and how that plays into notions of an identity. It is a tender, hilarious, historical, ceremonious, affectionate sartorial portrait of life and death. It begins with an empty rack of coat hangers, recently found Jarman Super 8 footage of Swinton crawling through stones in a brown overcoat and bare feet unfolding gloriously in the background. Swinton wears her father's silk dressing gown from Harrods and impersonates her mother's make-up routine. She lovingly shares with the audience a sweatshirt that she co-owned with Jarman – ‘It has a little tear under the right armpit, but I can't bring myself to mend it' – and recites, like a poem, the 14 words, including ‘independence', ‘wanderlust' and ‘companionship', that are stitched and emblazoned on the front of a red Raf Simons S/S02 sweatshirt that Swinton wore the first time she met Guadagnino, and again in a new short they made together specifically for ‘Ongoing'.

In part inspired by a piece Saillard had made about his mother following her death – he had seamstresses repair her ‘very ordinary clothes in a very haute couture way' – and coupled with a more narrative approach they had introduced during ‘Embodying Pasolini', discussions for ‘The Biographical Wardrobe' began. ‘I was very interested to think about the way to present a wardrobe of someone like Tilda Swinton because, I have to confess, I have seen many exhibitions of famous people and it's always very frustrating to see their clothes without them. It often reminds me of when you cut the head off an animal and put it on a wall,' says Saillard, smiling. ‘There was a little ghost in the air of making something on my wardrobe,' says » Swinton. ‘And I remember being a little hesitant because I thought, ‘what does that mean?' Because, of course, he [Saillard] wanted it all to be about the clothes that I wear on the red carpet because he has this big fantasy that I live my life on a red carpet [laughs]. I was hesitant for that reason, but then…' ‘Well, that is a moment in the performance,' laughs Saillard, who does, indeed, briefly demand Swinton show him and the audience, somewhat hilariously, how to pose on a red carpet. Side note: ‘I prefer to wear high heels to stay awake,' is one of Swinton's red carpet survival quips.

To make the piece, the pair journeyed to Swinton's ancestral home in Scotland, where, she says, they did a lot of ‘digging' and ‘whittling down'. ‘We developed a code, because there was so much. The things that started to really resonate with us were those that had had more than one life,' she says. ‘The velvet dress I wore to the Edward II premiere is the same dress I wore to the Orlando premiere. These things were like tentpoles for us, and everything that had had more than one life, or anything related to an experience, found its place.'

This spring, another new work, ‘Silent Models', inspired by shop windows and mannequins, was staged at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, as part of Saillard's two-week residency, ‘The Living Museum of Fashion'.

‘It's a very strange, mystical thing,' says Swinton of the piece, which they hope will travel, possibly to London. ‘There's sort of a strange dance we do at the end.' Wearing a black silk dress that couturiers use for fittings, in a room with Joan Mitchell's mighty La Grande Vallée VI abstract oil painting hanging on the wall, Swinton performs multiple gestures, interacting with Saillard and various objects related to historical objects used to display clothing. Saillard might hand her a vintage male mannequin head, Swinton replicating its fake frozen face. At one point, a dressmaker's dummy is swathed in a Madeleine Vionnet violet gown while Swinton is dressed in a duplicate version – a kind of surrealist duet between something living and something not.

‘It is probably the performance that I had in mind since I was in the attic,' laughs Saillard. ‘I was always very fascinated by mannequins in windows. They're not real, not a nice object, it's not sculpture, it's not living. It's supposed to be alive, but it's absolutely not. ‘Silent Models' is a piece about bodies, about presence and absence.'

The latter is another topic that the pair repeatedly return to in their practice. In the ‘Ongoing' catalogue, Swinton says to Saillard that one of the important parts of their work together is that it allows her to be ‘fully present as myself, I'm fully awake… I'm like a vessel with which to carry these gestures, these pieces of clothing, to behave as a lightning conductor for time, for mortality.'

Indeed, the work Swinton and Saillard are making together is serious, curious, poetic and, at times, perfectly peculiar. It also has a strong sense of momentum and future promise. Swinton stands, brushing down her skirt, wrapping up the conversation, as they must dash to start conceiving what will soon become ‘House of Gestures' for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. ‘Truthfully, we have a lot more plans,' she says.

‘Tilda Swinton – Ongoing' is an immersive exhibition co-produced by the Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, and the Onassis Foundation, Athens

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

The Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2026 welcomes Hoyer Arkitektur, a young Danish practice joining our annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: Hoyer Arkitektur

Danish architect Thomas Høyer founded his namesake studio in 2022. With a headquarters in Ebeltoft on the Jutland peninsula, Høyer Arkitektur works on a variety of projects that explore architecture’s relationship with nature. ‘In an age marked by accelerating pace and digital overstimulation, the studio sees it as a central responsibility to restore our connection to the physical world - not as an act of protest, but of care; not out of nostalgia, but out of necessity,’ Høyer explains.

The architect’s philosophy revolves around feeling and slowing down, as he argues that silence, reflection and emotion can play an important role in daily life and should therefore be seriously considered in design - just as importantly as function tends to be. It is this detail and admiration for the everyday that sets his emerging practice apart.

Høyer explains: ‘We pursue a restrained beauty rather than the spectacular - stripping away the unnecessary to let light, tactility, craftsmanship, and material honesty carry the architecture. We treat the building site as a place of responsible dialogue with nature, and we see our practice not as a universal formula but as a language of relationships between people, materials, and landscapes — one we believe can grow in significance, not just in scale.’

What: Ebeltoft

The practice’s Ebeltoft project is a key representative of its overall approach, exemplifying how gentle architectural construction and a preference for organic materials can offer a result that is friendly to its natural surroundings. ‘Our biggest influence is the encounter between body and surroundings — the conviction that understanding arises not through thought and logic alone, but through lived, sensory experience of place,’ Høyer says, and this is evident in his design of this modest timber house.

Placed gently on a high plateau formed of ancient glacial meltwater valleys and hills during the last ice age, Ebeltoft is defined by its prominent roof with its deep overhangs. Created using a modular building system and organised internally as a series of communal areas, interconnected and without corridors, the house features a central atrium that connects users with the tree canopy and sky above. Meanwhile, a colonnade of timber columns wraps around it, forming a terrace across the entire house, making this residential project at once introverted and extroverted, adapting easily to its residents' needs.

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

hoyerarkitektur.com

The new Maison Hermès, on London’s New Bond Street, is one of the largest in the Parisian house’s network, an extraordinary feat of construction and craft that has been 17 years in the making (the premises were purchased by Hermès in 2009). By combining six Grade II-listed buildings, dating back to 1769, the store encompasses five floors, two roof terraces and 55 rooms, each with a distinctive design scheme that reflects their contents. The ambitious interior project was entrusted to Rena Dumas Architecture Intérieure, under the artistic direction of Denis Montel, and mines house codes of creativity, imagination and play.

New ornamentation, colour and décor, much of it sourced in the UK or commissioned from British craftsmen and artists, includes boiserie shaped in straw and horsehair marquetry; textured wall coverings made in Lancashire; panels of patinated copper; hand-finished walls in powder pink; hexagonal patterned parquet in oak; and carpeting created to reflect the cherrywood-panelled ceilings or patterned with English floral motifs.

Pierre-Alexis Dumas on Hermès’ new London Maison

These one-of-a-kind finishes and details sit side by side with historic Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian elements from the original interiors, while the space is decorated with more than 500 unique artworks, selected for the address by Pierre-Alexis Dumas, artistic director of Hermès and a descendant of the company’s founder.

Dumas drew from five sources for the project: the Emile Hermès Collection, the Hermès Collection of Contemporary Photographs, the Hermès Contemporary Creations Collection, the Antoine Platteau Display Collection, and the house’s drawings and graphic design studio. Two site-specific works, by British artist Jessica Wetherly and London-based illustrator Katie Scott, were also commissioned for the space. To mark the opening, Dumas spoke to us about this unique curation project.

What is the symbolic meaning behind using the word ‘Maison’ for Hermès?

It literally means the home of the Hermès family. Émile Hermès turned the family home in Paris into a ‘Maison’ when he opened the Faubourg Saint-Honoré store in 1926, as it is today. The Faubourg store is my ultimate reference; it’s the root, it’s the modern tree. But it is a Maison because it has a soul. A Maison is, for us, much more than just a display of objects. The goal is to give character to the space, and make people feel like you are in someone’s home.

Why did you choose London for the sixth Maison [after Paris, New York, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai]?

We make them when we find the right place. There was the opportunity to acquire the leasehold of these six buildings 17 years ago, and there was no doubt that one day we would have a Maison in London.

What was your point of departure when you began to furnish the Maison with art and photography?

My starting point was the cultural context. We are here in London in the UK as a French house. I was brought up and educated by my father [Jean-Louis Dumas, former president of Hermès] with the idea that wherever we go, we have to create a dialogue. We cannot come as conquerors and just impose the brand as it is. Then there is the zoning of the store, which area will be dedicated to which métier. Because then we can fine-tune and start to have a dialogue between the works and what is being shown. My grandfather, Robert Dumas, used to say that Hermès is the most British French house. I tried to reflect this by paying homage to the British culture.

Émile Hermès [the grandson of founder Thierry Hermès] started collecting at the age of 12, and his collection of objects and curiosities became the foundation of the Émile Hermès Collection. Why is this important at Hermès?

We never stopped collecting. In 1951, my grandfather continued, and then my father and uncles did so too, and it continues today – it’s never been interrupted. I say that because when we pick a new painting, I feel connected to my ancestors.

You have selected six works from the drawings and graphic design studio, including the beautiful leather panel on the first floor, to display in the Maison. Last summer, you said ‘dessin’, or drawing, is the heart of Hermès. Can you elaborate on that?

Drawing is the beginning of all creation; you have to draw your ideas. I can’t stress enough how drawing and designing are at the heart of a creative house. It’s a medium that is beautiful in itself. And I also think that in leather craft, we draw with stitching; the line of stitching is the equivalent of the pencil. This is why, for the new Maison, we asked a craftsman to transfer the drawing of a scarf into stitching on leather.

The scarf pattern stitched on leather is reminiscent of your 2010 offering for our Wallpaper* Handmade project: an iPad case and headphone case in Rouge Hermès Swift calfskin. You sent us a beautiful panel of leather with our asterisk hand-stitched. Do you remember making this piece?

I was looking at it the other day. Did you see the console and turntable? [Displayed on the third floor, they were created by Ateliers Horizons, the special métier at Hermès that creates unique objects and bespoke projects]. I told the team: it all started with Wallpaper* 16 years ago. We were really visionary then.

The artworks create a kind of visual narrative. What journey do you imagine for visitors?

I want them to get lost. It’s a labyrinth. We intended for it to be that there are too many things for people to look at so they’re going to have to choose for themselves. We’re in a home, so you don’t label the name of the artist or the name of the work. If something is intriguing, then you have to ask.

There are British coastal landscapes by artist Tom Hammick and photographer Jamie Hawkesworth, as well as by French photographer Aurore Bagarry. Why was it important to have both countries represented in this way?

We are a French house in London, so I asked my team to find contemporary British photographers that specialise in themes that we like. We love landscape photography, but it’s a vast subject. It was really to engage in a dialogue between both cultures. We came with a French eye to choose works from British artists.

Was there a significance to selecting artworks that reflect local culture, such as Magnum photographer Stuart Franklin’s Household Cavalry image?

When I was living in the UK, from 1998-2003, I commissioned a photographer to do a series of images for Le Monde d’Hermès [the in-house magazine] of the Household Cavalry. Then they showed me the Stuart Franklin image at the acquisition committee, and I thought that was part of the commission that I did 25 years ago, but it wasn’t. And at that time, I had met a young officer of the Household Cavalry who explained to me the work involved every day to shine his boots, which is an obsession, apparently. I was really impressed by the technique of getting the boots perfectly polished every day. The photo reminded me of that. There’s something similar at Hermès. We’re talking about being a perfectionist.

What was the brief given to Katie Scott for her site-specific artwork, an imaginary orangerie in the perfume and beauty area on the ground floor?

We’ve been working with Katie for ten years now. She was always very serious – in French, we could describe her as ‘faussement sage’ [‘falsely wise’]. For me, I like to push people towards their own eccentricity. I wanted each department to have its own character, like in a British home, in the way that the British are masters of colour. I told her I wanted to feel like a child. I want to go into that space and feel its magic; a little bit like Alice in Wonderland, a place where you lose a sense of reality and you enter a poetic space of wonder. What she accomplished went beyond my expectations.

What drew you to commission Jessica Wetherly, who created a lifesize rocking horse sculpture, mounted on wheels, for the Maison’s atrium?

I wanted to invite a young artist to make a piece that would be completely arbitrary, to display in the atrium, the heart of the store. Jessica and I got along well; she’s a very engaging, hardworking, creative artist. She came to our Paris offices to learn more about Hermès. I let her wander around, and she picked up a little glass horse on wheels, a toy, very delicate, from the 19th century, and she came back to me, and she said she wanted to do it big. Losing our sense of scale is childlike, an invitation to dream, to play. It also makes the space less intimidating, especially in contrast to the spiral staircase, and serves as a reminder that the horse was our first client.

The new Hermès Maison is at 166 New Bond Street, London W1.

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

The Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2026 includes Various Associates, a young Chinese practice that now joins our annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: Various Associates

From designing a skatepark in Qinhuangdao, to a beach club in Sanya, to fashion boutiques in Shanghai, and an Adidas flagship in Seoul – the work of Various Associates is indeed varied, spanning hotels, retail, residential, workspaces, galleries and urban spaces. The Shenzhen-based studio was co-founded by Qianyi Lin and Dongzi Yang in 2017 with a focus on cross-disciplinary and research-led design; the pair studied interiors and architecture, respectively, at the Royal College of Art in London.

This approach is driven by the duo’s ambition to activate original spatial experiences that are both holistic and transcending. In their work, the layers of a space – from branding, to product, to materiality and architecture – each commit to a guiding concept without hierarchy, resulting in an immersive vision. It’s a philosophy they describe as: ‘Working in the future for the present.’

To achieve this, the team has expanded beyond architects to include material engineers, artists, graphic and experience designers. This collaboration across disciplines elevates Various Associates into a ‘platform’ where ideas are central and conventions are always challenged. The mode of open-thinking and experimentation results in spaces where architecture, art and technology are blended and experiential potential is endless.

What: Gong's House

This curious house in the ancient village of Yongjia is built around the distinct social dynamics of a family reunion. Designed for the families of six siblings (30 people and counting), its challenge was to consolidate cross-generational needs and a rural-urban divide of lifestyles. To ensure separate activities can always be shared, spacious rooms are linked and layered with open connections. Games of mahjong between elderly Gong family members unfold alongside children’s playtime, supervised with ease by tea-sipping parents.

Ambient natural light and countryside views flow in through the abstract composition of windows that pepper the facade, echoing the ‘staggered orderliness’ of the vernacular houses of Jiangnan. Seeking to resolve the spirit of local rural construction and the efficiency of industrial urban methods, the architects developed a plant fibre brick that combines the intelligence of both, as well as being highly insulating and breathable, ideal for mitigating moisture during the rainy season.

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

various-associates.com

Bookending the new London Olympia development is the Hyatt Regency London Olympia. The hotel is housed within an old car park originally built in 1937, which featured a double-ramp system to handle growing automobile traffic. Now a west London hotel, the building still champions the early modernist style of architect Joseph Emberton, but integrates contemporary functionality into its interiors. The Hyatt Regency London Olympia is an ideally located respite, with access to live music, museums, and parks just a stone's throw away.

Wallpaper* checks in at Hyatt Regency London Olympia

What’s on your doorstep?

Emerging from the Kensington Olympia overground station, the Hyatt Regency London Olympia greets visitors with its curved glass facade. The west London hotel is set within the £1.3 billion Olympia regeneration; its modus operandi is a stylish hotel of convenience and efficiency. With swift connections to central London and Heathrow Airport, visitors can also amble to Holland Park, Kensington Palace, the Design Museum and the Natural History Museum.

Who’s behind the design?

Design studio Twenty2degrees was behind the design of the 204-room property. Creative director Joe Stella and his team wanted to create a space which felt calm and unfussy, sprinkled with Art Deco touches. ‘We are always interpretive when drawing on design influences, rather than literal. The carpets in the guestrooms are designed with striations of contemporary colour, supporting the hotel's contemporary aesthetic while subtly reinforcing the wider narrative,’ Stella explains.

Materiality plays a central part in the design. Steelworks such as brushed brass-framed reeded glass panels are found in public areas. Furniture was rounded at corners and columns ribbed to soften the space and nod to the Art Deco era.

The room to book

There are three suites and 11 room types; each feels fresh and crisp. Each room showcases fluid and curvaceous architectural form. The Regency Executive Suite with a terrace offers London views, a dedicated work area, and living space for longer stays.

However, the hotel’s King Bed Deluxe room is equally relaxing and a perfect place to unwind after a day of exploring. In the rooms, guests may spot visual codes which nod to rock artists who have performed at Olympia, including Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and The Chemical Brothers.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

What is refreshing about Hyatt Regency London Olympia is its adjoining restaurant, Idalia. Although accessible via the hotel lobby, the restaurant also stands alone with its own entrance, terrace and grand high-ceiling entrance. What usually fades into a hotel’s framework, Idalia stands out. It is found on the ground floor of the Grade II* listed Pillar Hall.

The cuisine is Asian meets European influences. Start with the Korean fried Gochujang chicken thigh with Siracha mayonnaise, and the burrata with broad bean pesto and pine nut crumb (I recommend asking for extra bread). Skip the lobster linguine and instead go for the miso-crusted black cod, with bok choi, chilli and spring onion, and pair it with beef tallow chunky chips and grilled purple sprouting broccoli. The cocktails are fun and delicious, but be warned it's sugar-coated glass gets quite sticky. Inside, marvel at the historic architecture but avert your eyes from large busts with synthetic pink wigs and plastic vegetation.

Where to switch off

Guests can find a dedicated fitness centre for those who find being active a good way to unwind. Otherwise, enjoy the public area, which is cozy and snug. Says Stella, ‘The design narrative is powerfully present from the moment guests arrive, but it doesn’t overwhelm, and there is so much for guests to discover on their repeat stays’.

The verdict

The Hyatt Regency London Olympia was designed for comfort and ease, which is exactly what it provides. It acts as an unfussy base to retreat to after exploring Olympia, London’s new cultural and lifestyle hub.

Hyatt Regency London Olympia is located at 7 Olympia Way, London W14 0EY, United Kingdom

Matthieu Blazy’s A/W 2026 show for Chanel drew on the natural world’s most dramatic story of transformation – that of the caterpillar and the butterfly. ‘Chanel is a paradox. Chanel is function, Chanel is fiction. Chanel is sensible, Chanel is seductive. Chanel is day, Chanel is night. It represents the freedom to choose between the caterpillar and the butterfly whenever you want,’ he said. ‘I wish to create a canvas for women to be unapologetically who they are and who they want to be.’

Indeed, the collection itself, which at the time we called a ‘fashion pick-and-mix’, moved between restraint and abandon, like its shimmering final act, where models emerged from the metaphorical chrysalis with metallic or mermaid-hued hair to the sounds of Lady Gaga’s Just Dance. It seemed to encapsulate the mood of the A/W 2026 season, one which mined fashion’s transformative power – from Prada, where models removed a layer each time they left the catwalk to reveal a whole new look, to the theatrical flair of Givenchy, Dior and Valentino. Or, indeed, the sultry glamour of Anthony Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent, where a reimagined version of Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘Le Smoking’ tuxedo seemed to have the power to change its wearer into someone else entirely.

It was in this spirit that photographers Antoine & Charlie and Wallpaper* fashion and creative director Jason Hughes approached our A/W 2026 September Style Issue cover shoot, which sees Australian model Aylah Peterson try on a series of personae in the A/W 2026 season’s most transformative looks. ‘We were really thinking about clothing’s power to forge a new identity; how a garment can entirely change the way that you feel, and act,’ says Hughes. ‘It required the incredible Aylah to be a real shape-shifter on set as she became a series of different versions of herself, with the help of our hair and make-up artists, Chris Sweeney and Megumi Matsuno.’

‘Another theme of the shoot was the idea of looking, or being looked at – and revelling in that feeling,’ he continues. ‘We shot the story at Landing Forty Two in the City of London, an event space on the 42nd floor of Leadenhall Building, here a stand-in for a corporate office block. Some of the images were treated to appear like Aylah was being caught on CCTV, while in others, she’s picked up the camera herself.

‘The clothing was chosen to be high impact throughout – silhouettes are dramatic, while a feeling of sensuality comes through in the textures, which include silk, lace and shearling.’

See more from the shoot below.

A version of this article appears in the September 2026 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today.

Model: Aylah at Premier Model Management. Casting: Suun Consulting. Hair: Chris Sweeney at One Represents using Sisley. Make-up: Megumi Matsuno at Of Substance using Chanel Summer’s Calling and No.1 de Chanel Body Serum-In-Mist. Manicure: Ella Vivii at The Only Agency. Digi tech: Olivia Estebanez. Photography assistants: Ugo Reyre, Tom Porter. Fashion assistants: Nathan Fox, Bonnie Bowley. Set assistant: Archie Thomson Production assistants: Danielle Quigley, Max Mazower. Retouching: SparkPost Studio

Film credits. Directors: Antoine & Charlie. Fashion: Jason Hughes. Director of Photography: Guillaume Périmony. Editor: Dmitry Khmelnitsky. Colour grade: Chrisrémy Berrefjord at TMLS.

Our fashion story was shot at Landing Forty Two in the City of London. Managed by event property firm Spaces & Stories, it sits within the RSHP-designed Leadenhall Building (affectionately known as The Cheesegrater), and exemplifies the quality and design flair found in Spaces & Stories’ curated collection of extraordinary venues, spacesstories.com.

In a new Wallpaper* summer series, architect Carlo Ratti explores Italy through the ordinary objects that define daily life. Meet the Autogrill Bridge, Italy’s ubiquitous motorway restaurant chain

Carlo Ratti on the Autogrill bridge

Here we are, in the middle of Italy's great summer exodus. Today we are driving along the ribbon of asphalt that links Milan to Naples, the Autostrada del Sole, “Highway of the Sun”. Through the shimmering afternoon heat, a vision appears ahead. What could it be? A truck that has strayed across the median? An oversized billboard? A giant frog about to leap, after plunging us into a Lilliputian world?

We accelerate, and a few hundred metres on, the mystery is solved… It is all three things at once: the Autogrill bridge (Autogrill is Italy’s ubiquitous motorway restaurant chain, so dominant that its brand name has become the generic word for a rest stop).

It straddles both carriageways with a shortcut that would be forbidden anywhere else on the motorway network. It is a branded landmark, complete with the inevitable Autogrill sign. And with its exposed structure, it resembles a nimble creature frozen in the instant before a jump.

Few people know that this innovative architectural type attracted some of post-war Italy's greatest architects and engineers, from Angelo Bianchetti to Pier Luigi Nervi.

In the 1960s, the motorway was one of the great stages on which modern Italy performed, and the bridge Autogrill became its suspended gallery. It connected not only the two sides of the road, but two Italies as well: north and south, outbound and homebound, families on the move during the summer migrations. At the time, Italy looked in awe at America's highways, yet instead of simply copying their model, it created something distinctly Italian: elegant, urban, and entirely its own.

One of Bianchetti's original drawings depicts the Montepulciano bridge Autogrill, now sadly demolished. Beneath a great asymmetrical T-shaped Corten-steel beam hangs the glazed bridge itself, visually lightened at one end by a dramatic cantilevered staircase. The carriageway below is so smooth it mirrors the sky. Along it glide improbable automobiles whose silhouettes recall Carlo Mollino's Bisiluro or Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion.

The real surprise, though, awaits upstairs. There, in the dining area, a sort of Newtonian inversion takes place. Looking through the windows that plunge directly over the traffic below, the building seems to rocket backwards at extraordinary speed while the cars remain perfectly still beneath it. 'It is impossible to step twice into the same river of sheet metal,' Heraclitus might have declared.

Even more impossible today, since the lack of long-term vision for Italy's motorways has led to the demolition of many of these remarkable structures. The iconic Montepulciano bridge Autogrill, mentioned earlier, was torn down in 2021. The one at Fiano Romano, just outside Rome, has stood closed for years and now risks the same fate. Many others simply deserve careful restoration to recover their original elegance.

Which is precisely why they deserve to be rediscovered. They could once again become what they once were: the manifesto of an optimistic country, confident enough to look to the future with lightness and imagination - and capable of creating elegance where one would least expect it, even above a ribbon of asphalt.

About 'Objectify' – a summer series from Italy by Carlo Ratti

Italy’s design canon has been told many times. The Bialetti moka pot, the Vespa, the Fiat 500, the Arco floor lamp: you know the list, and so does every airport bookshop and first-year design student. This column will discuss, poke, investigate, prod, ridicule and beatify the less glamorous Italian objects. They are the ones you ought to know, so that when you visit Italy, or spot apparitions of it on a friend’s social media, you can smugly point out: ‘Did you know the mosquito coil is a masterpiece of Italian design? The condom? The motorway toll transponder?’ Objects so ordinary that Italians walk past them, or handle them every day, without registering that someone, with a mellifluous surname, designed them.

Proust wrote a seven-volume novel because a small cake dipped in tea, the madeleine, unlocked an involuntary flood of memory. For followers of the Italian version of this column, published weekly in Il Sole 24 Ore, the nation’s favourite Sunday read, perhaps these objects will have a similar effect. For you, anglophone readers peering at this somewhere between Rummidge and Euforia, they offer something else: beach conversation topics, an eye trained on unexpected places, and perhaps a few new madeleines for when you visit the peninsula yourself. After all, objects are never just objects. As the great Milanese designer Achille Castiglioni of Arco-floor-lamp fame once declared: ‘objects should keep us company’. Especially during this scorching summer.

carlorattiassociati.com

A dreamy Paros house sits nestled in the picturesque fisherman’s village of Naousa, the Greek island settlement equipped with small boutiques and quaint cobbled paths. Welcome to Villa Sol Mare, a restored Cycladic house that preserves its original architectural language while welcoming comforting contemporary touches.

Inside Paros house Villa Sol Mare, a Greek island dream

The project was spearheaded by Isola Studio. Founded in 2021 by Chaido Kaproulia and Eva Lavranou, the Athens- and Corfu-based architecture and design studio restructured the original 90 square metre space to fit three bedrooms and bathrooms.

Cycladic architecture dates back to the early Bronze age, and was crafted by islanders to withstand harsh coastal weather, with white surfaces reflecting the beaming sun to keep the interiors cool. Although practical in nature, its distinct minimalistic style is now iconic, complimenting Aegean waters.

The Paros house's exterior looks like a postcard from busier sister islands like Mykonos and Santorini, with its hand-applied textured plaster, timber windows and Aegean blue shutters. Inside, local craftsmanship prevails. Terracotta flooring and timber joinery complement the white-washed plaster. The house feels fluid, almost ocean-like, each room rhythmically cascading into the next as harsh angles are softened by the use of smooth plastering.

The kitchen is set beneath a barrel-vaulted arch, where custom walnut cabinetry is integrated within plaster-sculpted surfaces. The bathroom offers a different material palette. Vanities are made from red travertine, and marble from the nearby islands of Tinos and Naxos.

The roof of the home is a tranquil oasis. The architects reinforced its structure to support a pool, which can be accessed via an unfolding sequence of terraces, garnished with native planting. Built-in seating and dining areas act like a series of courtyards. Here, visitors can enjoy the house’s connection to the island’s landscape.

The bespoke furniture and joinery spotlight the local craftsmanship (the island is known for its stonemasonry, marble and ceramics), while the house as a whole showcases Paros’ calming architectural nature. Ultimately, Villa Sol Mare is a place to gaze across the horizon and drift away to the chirping sounds of crickets, basking in the summertime heat.

isola-studio.com

Dharq Arquitectos is a Chilean architecture studio that makes it into the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026, our latest annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios

Who: Dharq Arquitectos

Patricio Huidobro founded Dharq Arquitectos in 2019. Based in Santiago, Chile, the practice looks to develop residential projects in rural areas where conventional urban services are absent.

‘Our practice sits between architectural design, construction, and research,’ explains Patricio Huidobro. ‘Many of our projects emerge from built prototypes or experimental structures that later inform residential work. This approach allows us to test ideas about structure, modularity, and environmental systems directly through construction.’

Many of the studio’s projects emerge from research on modular structures and essential forms of dwelling. Influenced by architectural and technological thinking, Dharq Arquitectos understands buildings as systems rather than isolated objects. Says Huidobro, ‘The exploration of lightweight structures, environmental systems, and minimal frameworks for living — developed by figures such as Buckminster Fuller or Reyner Banham — continues to inform how we think about architecture today.’

Dharq Arquitectos is motivated by the question of how architecture can enable habitation in territories where infrastructure is scarce or absent. The studio is interested in how minimalist structures can organise space and climate to support daily living.

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

Alongside designing residential homes, Huidobro has taught architectural design studios focused on housing at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile for the past thirteen years, while continuously researching themes of efficient infrastructure and autonomous habitation.

What: Sliding Doors House (Casa Corredera)

Chile’s Casablanca Valley is just 30 km from the Pacific Ocean, welcoming sea breezes and a refreshingly cool climate. Nestled in this coastal valley is Sliding Doors House, a single-family dwelling surrounded by pine forests and agricultural land.

Dharq Arquitectos explores the relationship between indoor and outdoor living through twenty-two sliding panels. These sliding doors help regulate light, ventilation, and privacy. The structure takes on a form similar to a pavilion. Its lightweight framework of timber floor framing and a galvanized steel roof structure is suspended on concrete piers, allowing it to be raised above its context.

When the panels are opened, the residence becomes an open space, fully immersed in the environment. Says Huidobro, ‘The architecture operates less as a fixed object and more as a climatic device capable of modulating transparency, air, and views throughout the day.’

dharq.cl

Welsh artist Gwen John is experiencing a well-deserved renaissance, one century after her only lifetime exhibition. A painter as sensitive to psychological interiority as she was the technical aspects of her craft, John’s contemplative portraits are currently featured in a touring exhibition moving from Amgueddfa Cymru to the National Galleries of Scotland before it travels to the US. 'She was such a remarkable painter and a remarkable mind,' says Charlotte Topsfield, co-curator of ‘Strange Beauties’. 'She was a thoughtful artist who was very analytical in her working methods. She was constantly reading and thinking about art.'

Born 150 years ago, John was deeply independent, among the first generation of women to receive a formal art education. She moved to Paris to pursue her painting career, where she was inspired by French modernism. The artist also converted to Catholicism in adulthood and regularly painted the parishioners at her Meudon church. 'She could create suspension, tension and intrigue with something very quiet,' says Topsfield.

Alongside small works on paper, watercolours and rare drawings, the exhibition includes a famous painting, ‘A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris’, which reveals John’s presence without showing her. The work features a simple table and chair placed by the window, a piece of clothing slumped casually over the arm.

'I love artists who are good at playing with the absent presence, and you feel the artist in the room through her possessions,' says Topsfield. Many of John’s paintings featured female subjects, some repeated in over 60 different works. 'There is so much depth to them and something slightly enigmatic. When you look at her female sitters you have a very strong sense of an interior life. You get a sense of these women as real people.' John also drew the orphaned children at her local church, later painting them in watercolour at her studio. The repeated motif of a black cat runs through her works, sometimes sitting or sleeping on children’s laps.

While her paintings suggest an enduring interest in women’s interior life and the community that surrounded her, Topsfield notes that a tension exists between the meaning we might read into her work now as a contemporary audience and John’s own drive. She was an avid follower of Cezanne, engaging with the Parisian avant-garde artists of the 1930s. John wrote hundreds of letters to Rodin and attended lectures on cubism.

'I think we instinctively want to know who her sitters are and have a strong sense of them, but at the same time, she was more and more influenced by modernist ideas and she was looking at the works as a pictorial challenge,' says Topsfield. The arrangement of forms and space were just as important as the individual within them. John famously wrote, 'a cat or a man is the same thing… it’s just an affair of volumes… the object is of no importance.'

The exhibition plays with ideas of strangeness, an idea that repeatedly came up in John’s notebooks. She described herself as 'God’s little artist, a seer of strange beauties, a teller of harmonies, a diligent worker.' As Topsfield sees it, 'I think she was trying to step back, look afresh and do away with preconceived ideas. She was very rigorous with everything, which can be slightly destructive as she was very intense with her emotions. She felt things very deeply and sometimes reacted to things in what could be seen as a strange way. At the same time, she had immense intellectual clarity.'

Gwen John at the Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art until 4 January 2027

Gwen John is exhibited as part of Edinburgh Art Festival 2026 edinburghartfestival.com

It will not have escaped your notice that ‘proper’ cameras are back, whether they’re decade-old point-and-shoot devices enjoying fresh popularity (and boosted prices), simple, screen-less digital snappers designed to focus the mind on the moment, or high-end semi-pro models designed to lure people away from their smartphone and back to more considered ways of image making.

Then there’s this, which sits somewhere in between. Sony’s RX10 range originally debuted back in 2013 as the Cyber-shot DSC-RX10, when the name ‘cyber-shot’ was still considered an essential and intriguing gateway into the world of digital photography (the name dates back to the 1996 DSC-F1). This is the fifth iteration of a camera that only reached its fourth generation in 2017. Sony has clearly been sitting on the model whilst watching the cultural shift in camera ownership and wondering when to step in and improve it.

The RX10’s secret weapon has always been its Zeiss zoom lens. Since the RX10 III, the camera has come equipped with a 24-600mm equivalent stabilized zoom, a massive piece of kit that lunges out of the camera body and brings the far distance into your viewfinder. The V is no different, with improved autofocus and burst modes.

Nine years of processor evolution has also upped the V’s speed and ability to handle large files, recognise and track subjects in line with Sony’s flagship Alpha cameras, as well as a high-res digital viewfinder and a snappier touch screen rear interface. Everything is better, in fact, from the longer battery life to the ability to shoot 4K/120 video and much, much more.

The Sony RX10 V is by no means a pocketable travel camera, although its sheer flexibility could conceivably cut down on packing if you’re normally taking two or three separate lenses. All in all, it offers a credible alternative to a digital SLR, capable of everything from serious portraiture, pro sports and wildlife work, to multi-purpose vlogging and simple point-and-shoot functionality.

Sony RX10 V, £2,199, Sony.co.uk, @Sony.UnitedKingdom

There is a reason serious design fairs tend to avoid the word ‘community’ – it usually signals the absence of one. Jia Curated, the Bali-based annual gathering founded in 2022 by Budiman Ong, Rudi Winata and Yang Yang Hartono, is an exception. Built around the Indonesian principle of gotong royong – communal effort, the kind that once brought villages together at harvest – it has quietly become one of the region's most anticipated creative appointments. The 2026 edition relocates to Pengembak Beach in Sanur, where 15,000 square metres of coastline threaded with mangroves and pine trees frames this year's theme, Nature Weave.

Explore Jia Curated's 'Architecture in Scale' show

Among its returning programmes, 'Architecture in Scale' stands out. A maquette showcase curated by Charmaine Chan, Design Editor, Culture at the South China Morning Post, the exhibition gathers 25 models from practices across Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan – including Kengo Kuma + Associates, andramatin, Elora Hardy's IBUKU Studio and Cheng Tsung Feng – each selected on a single curatorial diktat: that biophilia is load-bearing, not decorative.

Chan’s personal pick for the show's defining work is revealing. Elok House, completed in Singapore in 2007 by Chang Architects, crams a three-dimensional landscape into a narrow terrace plot just off Orchard Road, with light wells running down both flanks, a retaining wall that doubles as a waterfall and trees growing through apertures in the floor.

‘A squirrel once wandered in carrying a mango seed, which eventually took root in a wall and grew a sapling,’ Chan says. A model may struggle to capture that particular detail, but its spatial logic, she argues, shows you exactly how that could happen.

‘You can't really see a building when you're standing inside or beside it,’ she says. ‘A model cannot lie in the same way. If a building needs to breathe through a certain void, or a roof needs to shed water towards a specific point, the model must show how.’ At a scale small enough to see the whole system at once, a building's relationship with its site becomes instantly, completely readable.

For a fair committed to positioning Indonesian and regional design beyond the anonymity of craftsmanship into something more fully its own, Architecture in Scale makes its argument without rhetoric, using twenty-five maquettes, each a quiet proof of concept.

'Jia CURATED 2026' runs 13–17 August at Pengembak Beach, Sanur, Bali

jiacurated.com

Menorca never fully surrendered to mass-tourism logic. Development happened, of course, but the island’s reputation has long rested on economic life kept in conversation with landscape, conservation and the scale of its towns. In 1993, UNESCO recognised Menorca as a Biosphere Reserve, citing the island’s unusually compatible relationship between economic activity, resource use, heritage conservation and landscape quality.

Hotel Riviera has some of that same self-possession. Unlike the prescriptive Balearic hotel formula, it does not arrive dressed as a tasteful white box. It is orange, curved, stripe-happy, a little mischievous – the wild child of Menorcan hotels, one could argue. The 14-room boutique stay takes over the former Hotel Madrid, a traditional local hotel embedded in Ciutadella’s urban fabric, and gives it a pool-first new life. The building’s orange bands wrap its façade; inside, terrazzo, curves, mustard tones and retro stripes set up a spritz-coloured world before you have even put down your bags.

Wallpaper* checks in at Riviera Hotel Menorca

What’s on your doorstep?

Riviera sits next to the breezy Passeig Marítim, which opens onto a run of dreamlike turquoise coves, including Cala Degollador and Cala Gran. The hotel sends guests out properly branded for the task: orange towels, orange umbrellas (no confusion about where you came from). There are sea-facing restaurants nearby, but the better play is the 10-minute walk into the historic centre. Ciutadella’s old lanes come alive after dark: tavernas, small bars, shaded corners, and Bar Imperi for llonguet – the local bread – filled with sobrasada and honey, or whatever else the evening requires.

Who is behind the design?

The interiors are by Ilmiodesign, with Oscar Paradís Medina overseeing construction. The founders of the Madrid-based studio, Andrea Spada and Michele Corbani, looked away from the expected Menorcan palette and towards the Italian Riviera Romagnola of the 1970s, ‘an iconic era defined by vibrant coasts, striking beach umbrellas, and an unmistakable retro charm’. That reference gives Riviera its cadence: beach-town optimism, saturated colour, proper stripes and plenty of holiday glamour.

It is a deliberate swerve from the usual Balearic script. ‘We intentionally wanted to break away from the traditional Balearic minimalism,’ the designers say, citing the island’s familiar all-white look as exactly what they wanted to avoid. Instead, Riviera gives you warm terracotta, mustard yellow, mineral textures, traditional terrazzo, retro striped upholstery and rounded ceiling coves. Terrazzo is the anchor: a Mediterranean constant that lets the hotel flirt with Italy without losing its Menorcan ground.

On the ground floor, the façade has been opened so the reception-bar looks straight towards the pool, while orange bands wrap the building like a ribbon and glow at night. Inside, the courtyard behaves like a small urban lido: balconies running motel-style along the guestrooms, sunbeds below, orange-and-white tiling, striped umbrellas. Arrival, the designers say, was planned as a move ‘from the street to the oasis’.

The room to book

All 14 rooms have private outdoor spaces and are arranged across four categories: Double Piccola, Double Deluxe, Junior Suite and Suite Riviera. Some face the sea, others the pool, while larger terraces give the best rooms a little open-air theatre. ‘Every room has a unique story to tell,’ say Spada and Corbani – helped by a redrawn layout that gives each one either a view, a terrace or some more intimate relationship with the building.

The rooms keep the retro Mediterranean pace flowing: curved forms, warm tones, striped details and some very chic Mary Quant-ish flower lamps. Most of the furniture and room lamps were custom-made and adapted to each room type, while Marshall speakers, Dyson hairdryers and Malin+Goetz toiletries keep the stay practical as well as photogenic.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

After a Mediterranean-inspired breakfast, with buffet and à la carte options, the menu at the poolside restaurant shifts at lunchtime into holiday mode: açai and granola bowls, fruit with agave and lime, New York pancakes with peanut butter and brûléed banana, and a saltier run of eggs, shakshuka, ricotta toast and Riviera fries with parmesan fondue. The Benedict Riviera – brioche, poached eggs, smashed avocado and parmesan fondue – is a must-have. The pool bar serves cocktails and soft drinks until late afternoon, while day passes allow non-guests to use the pool and facilities, giving the courtyard a little local traffic.

Where to switch off

Wellness lives on the rooftop, which feels right for a hotel built around sunburst energy. The day starts with energising Pilates at 8 am; later, massages take place above the sea, wrapped in draped fabric, soft music and Mediterranean air. The treatment list keeps things simple: a Riviera massage with essential oils and energy work, a medium-pressure relaxing massage, a Swedish massage, foot reflexology and a facial massage. Back on the ground floor, the saltwater pool remains, naturally, the place to be from morning to evening.

The verdict

Riviera Hotel Menorca brings a very contagious hit of 1970s Italian seaside spirit to Ciutadella: compact, sociable, colourful and genuinely fun. It works because the attitude is matched by good service. Staff are warm, attentive and relaxed. Their T-shirts read ‘a little party never hurt nobody’, which says plenty about the hotel’s appeal. Riviera is not trying to be Menorca’s grandest stay, but the one you remember long after that last summer spritz.

Riviera Hotel Menorca is located at Carrer de Madrid, 60, 07760 Ciutadella, Illes Balears, Spain

‘For decades, the funeral industry has offered families generic products with little regard for individuality or design,’ says Urn Studios co-founder Merel Swart. Founded in 2024, the platform is reimagining memorial objects as thoughtful pieces that reflect the lives they commemorate. Building on their success in the UK, they have now introduced their first collection in the US.

Discover Urn Studios' US collection

‘Since launching Urn Studios, we’ve seen strong demand from customers in the US, so creating a dedicated collection with American artists felt like a natural next step,’ says co-founder Jonathan Hancock.

For this collection, the UK-based studio invited seven American artists to reinterpret the urn as an object of identity, intimacy and enduring design. Abbey Peters, C.C. Boyce, Hui-Yong Kim, Jesse Hamerman, Marianna Jamadi, Michelle Wen and Philip Kupferschmidt were all selected for their distinctive approach to form, craft and materiality. ‘We chose artists whose work feels contemporary, characterful and original,’ Swart explains.

California-based Philip Kupferschmidt of PK Ceramics created vessels animated by raised droplets and tactile glazes. Meanwhile, Brooklyn-born ceramicist Michelle Wen produced forms that reference historic ceramic traditions. Others, such as Hui-Yong Kim, explored a more sculptural, pared-back approach, while Marianna Jamadi of Kunokaiku designed a minimalist sculptural item that smartly integrates candles and flowers.

‘The collection is intentionally eclectic, bringing together pieces that express individuality while offering a fresh perspective on what an urn can be’, notes Hancock. Across the collection, bold handles, unexpected silhouettes, and irregular surfaces transform memorial objects into expressive celebrations of life.

‘What united the collection wasn’t a particular style, but a shared departure from the traditional idea of an urn’, says Hancock. By making contemporary options more visible and accessible, the studio hopes to broaden public understanding of what an urn can look like and the role it can play within the home.

‘Many people still aren’t aware that alternatives exist, because traditional, conventional memorial products remain the default’, adds Swart. Urn Studios also rejects the idea that empathetic design requires visual restraint. ‘We don’t see emotional sensitivity and bold design as being in conflict. If anything, we’d argue that the opposite is often true,’ says Hancock.

Looking ahead, the studio plans to expand its artist collaborations while also developing its first in-house range. ‘Together, these collections will allow us to offer an even broader spectrum of contemporary memorial design’, says Swart. This growth will enable the platform to offer an increasingly diverse range of options that reflect personal tastes, stories, and approaches to remembrance.

Ultimately, Urn Studios’ US collection demonstrates how thoughtful, expressive design can approach grief with care while moving beyond the conventional visual language often associated with memorial objects. The range reimagines the urn not simply as a vessel for ashes, but as a creative object through which a person’s memory and story live on.

President Donald Trump’s plan to build a 90,000 square-foot, privately-funded ballroom next to the White House has been mired in political and legal quagmire. That still hasn’t shut down work on the sprawling structure, which has been steadily rising from the ground since it broke ground last autumn.

But a federal appeals court ruled Friday that construction on the ballroom site cannot continue without direct congressional approval. The 2-1 decision, handed down by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, upheld an earlier decision by a district court to block work on the project.

‘Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence,’ the court wrote. ‘The President has no – and claims no – constitutionally assigned authority over that property, which is designed and maintained for the use of all Presidents, current and future, and for the American people.’

The decision marks another chapter in an ongoing lawsuit brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit that advocates for historic buildings and sites across the US, against the National Parks Service, the federal agency that oversees the White House and its grounds.

‘This is a great day for our country and for the American people's right to voice their opinions about the historic places they cherish, including the White House,’ said National Trust president and CEO Brent Leggs in a statement. ‘From the beginning, our position has been clear and consistent: the law states that only Congress can authorize the construction of a ballroom at the White House.’

‘This decision is particularly meaningful as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and advocate for renewed protections for historic preservation,’ Leggs added.

The defendants have 14 days to decide whether to appeal the decision.

President Trump, however, was clear about next steps. ‘We will be immediately appealing to the United States Supreme Court,’ he wrote on Truth Social – indicating that the ballroom battle is far from over.

The Wallpaper* Architects Directory 2026 includes Place of Work, a young practice out of Canada, which joins our annual round-up of exciting emerging architecture studios.

Who: Place of Work

With two bases, in Halifax and Toronto, Canada, this young studio was only founded four years ago by architects Jennifer Esposito, Duncan Patterson, and Will Perkins. The trio enjoy taking their cues from each project’s context and the region’s vernacular, just as much as they do from the everyday experience, they explain. ‘Ordinary things excite us,’ they say. ‘The way light angles across a wall. The sound a door makes when it closes. The coolness of stone under bare feet. We’re drawn to these specifics because they contain what is essential: ritual, site, material, time.’

Bridging the gap between ‘representation and reality,’ the real and the imaginary is ‘where architecture happens,’ they add. Place of Work may still be emerging, but it has a range of ongoing projects across Atlantic Canada and Ontario. It consciously picks commissions that allows them to work closely with clients and get stuck into the particulars and the detail in each and every design, the team emphasises.

Yet if you ask what the architects primary references are, the discussion comes back to context and setting. ‘[Our biggest influence is] Place. Not as a romantic idea, but as a physical and cultural reality that architecture either responds to or ignores. Architecture requires deep listening. Climate, topography, material culture, and history are forces that shape our approach. But place doesn’t mean anything without people. What we share is a belief that architecture begins with human ritual: how people wake, gather, retreat, and rest.’

What: House In A Meadow Between Forest And Sea

One of the team’s newly completed works, only delivered this summer, House In A Meadow Between Forest And Sea, is a bespoke single-family home in the rugged coast of Nova Scotia. The project, conceived as a summer retreat for a retired couple on the west coast of Cape Breton Island, offers a design that negotiates the dramatic environment with its powerful winds and the daily needs and rituals of its owners.

Working in close collaboration with landscape architects Brackish Design Studio, Place of Work crafted a floorplan that is orientated to offer both protection from the weather and views out towards nature. Two wings, one containing the primary suite, the other housing guest rooms and a den, are united by a central living space that connects movement and functions both inside and out.

True to their overarching values, the architects draw from the site’s conditions to elevate their proposal: ‘Light is treated as an orienting element. Clerestories bring warmth and a sense of time into the main living spaces, while north-facing openings frame views across the meadow. The resulting architecture is shaped by site, climate, and use—distinct from the landscape, yet deeply tied to it.’

Why: Architects Directory 2026

When the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory was conceived in 2000, it was built as our bespoke international index of emerging architectural talent. Now in its 25th edition, our annual listing of promising practices from across the globe (now comprising over 500 alumni) champions the best and most promising young studios - a snapshot of talent showcasing inspiring work from all corners of the Earth with an emphasis on the residential realm.

This year’s anniversary survey includes 30 young studios (one for each of the 30 years of Wallpaper*), from Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, France, Ivory Coast, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, India, Morocco, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, the USA, and Vietnam. Welcome to the promise, ideas and exciting architecture of the Wallpaper* Architects’ Directory 2026.

placeofwork.ca

Heinrich Simon’s famous 1874 saying, 'There is no such thing as bad weather, there are only good clothes,' rings true for those living in or visiting Scotland. It also resonates with the aptly named architecture studio Dress for the Weather, which has recently transformed a stone-built Victorian schoolhouse into Island Cottage, a contemporary family home.

Inside Island Cottage, a redesigned Victorian schoolhouse

Nestled on an island on Scotland’s west coast, the old former schoolhouse building contained the teacher’s quarters downstairs and a classroom upstairs. Now, the new layout features three bedrooms and an extension, with views over the sea to the Kintyre Peninsula and Arran.

‘The client had originally conceived the project as a rear extension to the cottage; but seeing the rear (and I’d say main) facade of the cottage for the first time, it was clear to me that we needed to work with it,’ explains project architect Matt McKenna. ‘The views out to the west from the site then determined the orientation for the extension. So, the existing site had already sort of determined the main moves. This then gave us the courtyard space that we have now, formed by both the historic and new facades.’

The home has an L-shaped plan. The existing stone facade has been restored with a new slate roof installed. The extension comprises a timber frame with large, glazed openings framing the expansive vista.

Inside, the bedrooms and bathrooms can be found in the original cottage, while communal living spaces are located in the extension. A new entrance area has been integrated, highlighting the exposed stone of the cottage and acting as a bridge between the old and the new.

‘The weathered timber cladding and stonework have helped give a neutral tone to the building, which sits well within the colourful landscape,’ notes the architect.

The residence is an example of how a design can champion both what was there before and what is on site now. Says McKenna, ‘ Whether you're in the hall where the gable of the cottage is exposed internally, or in the courtyard where we’ve tried to keep the composition equal, the overall experience is enhanced by bringing the old and new together. This gives the project a balance.‘

dressfortheweather.co.uk