The wait is over. Glittering gongs have been pinned on the past year’s world-rockingest people, places and very particular things, as we make our cut of the best in class for the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2018. Careers will be lifted, corks will be popped and tears will well. Here, we reveal the winners of the Judges’ Awards, our highest honours. And a thank-you to this year’s jury – British architect Farshid Moussavi; Nordic cuisine trailblazers René and Nadine Redzepi; Dutch infrastructural artist Daan Roosegaarde; master minimalist Jasper Morrison; and Ethiopian model, actor and campaigner Liya Kebede – for their time and powers of discernment. And the winners are...
The cultural world’s architect of choice
The haute cuisine couple of Noma fame taking New Nordic global
Wallpaper’s 2017 Designer of the Year takes minimalism cross-discipline
Art-tech mastermind making light work of urban installations
A tower of talents that span modelling, fashion and philanthropy
Santa Clara 1728, Lisbon
Best new hotel
Housed in an 18th-century pile on one of Lisbon’s most romantic squares, with views of the Pantheon and the Tagus River, Santa Clara 1728 is the fourth in a string of slick design-led properties from local hotelier João Rodrigues. The clean, modern interiors, by local architect Manuel Aires Mateus, are refreshing trimmings to the building’s ancient walls and worn limestone stairs that lead to the six spacious suites. Here, coarse linens, pale woods, armchairs by Carl Hansen & Søn and furnishings by Italian designer Antonio Citterio come together in a neutral palette boosted by a graceful duck-egg blue. Downstairs, unwind in the dining room under the warm glow of Davide Groppi’s ‘Simbiosi’ lights, with a glass of Portuguese wine and a comforting lunch made using fresh market produce, while you plan the best to see and do in Lisbon with the help of Rodrigues himself.
Pictured, featuring a Living Divani sofa and Davide Groppi ‘Moon’ light, the hotel’s entrance hall and reception area is a serene, welcoming space. Photography: Francisco Nogueira
Philippe Malouin
Designer of the year
Not only is our Designer of the Year one of the friendliest around, he is also one of the hardest working. In the last year, the multi-skilled Canadian has created a brutalist concrete pavilion (pictured) for a Swedish park, tubular lighting for Matter Made, a marble installation for Santa Barbara Museum of Contemporary Art and furniture for SCP. He has also launched an interiors studio, Post-Office, designing spaces for the likes of Aesop and Valextra. Malouin’s dexterity is dizzying. A robust minimalism runs through much of his output but also a determination that his designs should engage. Ultimately, his mission is a simple quest to ‘make good design that works’.
Pictured, Philippe Malouin and his core pavilion, shot at the Salon 94 design booth at Design Miami. The concrete pavilion was designed for the Superbenches project, an initiative that aims to regenerate a park in Järfälla, Sweden. Photography: Rose Marie Cromwell
Coffee mill, by Michael Anastassiades, for Carl Auböck and Sigmar London
Best domestic design
Regular coffee drinker Michael Anastassiades was determined to design a coffee mill, so he turned to Carl Auböck for help. The pair had already joined forces, on a pepper mill, and like the previous design, this new piece features Anastassiades’ subtle lines and Carl Auböck’s exquisite craftsmanship. The mill is crafted from a solid piece of brass or copper, with a tube concealing the complex mechanism inside. Another small cylinder, placed asymmetrically, acts as a handle.
Pictured, coffee mill in polished copper, £1,500, by Michael Anastassiades, for Carl Auböck and Sigmar London. Face oil for oily skin, €65; ceramic container, €145; scoop, €29; bowl, €39, all by Less. Photography: Paul Zak
Mexico City
Best city
On the back of the arrival of Fernando Romero’s Soumaya Museum and David Chipperfield’s Jumex, Mexico City is in a state of spirit-lifting rejuvenation. Its bar and restaurant scene is fertile. The international clamour for Mexican art has encouraged an explosion of gallery openings and an influx of talent. And now the city is World Design Capital 2018. The theme, Socially Responsible Design, was announced before a devastating earthquake in September, but has become a call to action, with some 100 architects, Mauricio Rocha, Pedro Reyes and Tatiana Bilbao among them, working towards a strategy for post-earthquake architecture. October sees Design Week Mexico, followed by Abierto Mexicano de Diseño. And while the city awaits a new airport by Norman Foster and Romero, this year it will welcome Torre Cuarzo on Reforma, Richard Meier’s mixed-use skyscraper. The Wallpaper* City Guide to Mexico City is published by Phaidon, £6.95.
Pictured, the controversial 60m-tall statue of Guerrero Chimalli, by Mexican sculptor Sebastián, installed in 2014, guards the main road to the eastern suburb of Chimalhuacán. Photography: Adam Wiseman
Zeitz MOCAA, cape town, by Heatherwick Studio
Best new public building joint winner
Grand gestures define Cape Town’s new Zeitz MOCAA. As a much-heralded cultural waypoint, the vast converted grain silos are proving to be a key draw on the city’s Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. Topped by the exclusive Silo Hotel, the new home to Jochen Zeitz’s impressive collection of contemporary African art is a concrete catacomb of galleries. Heatherwick Studio has made typically bold strokes at the building’s heart, making elaborate cuts into the structure’s concrete cylinders to form a towering, quasi-organic atrium.
Photography: Iwan Baan
Musée Yves Saint Laurent, Marrakech, by studio KO
Best new public building joint winner
Yves Saint Laurent’s Moroccan legacy is now complete thanks to the opening of this elegant new museum devoted to his life and work. Sited next to Jardin Majorelle, a historical garden saved from redevelopment by the French couturier in 1980, the 4,000 sq m museum houses exhibition spaces, a research library and an auditorium. Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty of Parisian firm Studio KO have gone for a pared-back approach, using local brick construction techniques wherever possible, and placed a circular courtyard at the building’s heart.
Pictured, the façade of the Yves Saint Laurent Museum, with lace-like brickwork and pink Moroccan granito stone. Photography: Dan Glasser
Ghat house, Chile, by Max Núñez Arquitectos
Best new private house
Set on the steep slopes rising up alongside Chile’s spectacular Central Coast, Ghat House, designed by the Santiago architect Max Núñez, is arranged as a series of boxes held up by 15 dynamically canted concrete columns. Inside, a concrete staircase rises up from ground level, while a similarly vertiginous external stairway steps down the length of the sloping façade, offering up far-reaching ocean views. From above, the house reads only as a series of wooden pavilions, with a spectacular hidden underworld below.
Photography: Roland Halbe
Maison du Danemark, Paris
Best new restaurant joint winner
Copenhagen studio GamFratesi has divided Denmark’s official cultural outpost in Paris into two distinct restaurants, dressing the spaces with a catalogue of its own covetable designs. On the ground floor, Flora Danica is an airy brasserie with herringboned marble and botanical drawings, while upstairs, the more formal Copenhague (seen here) is cloaked in dark leather. Both serve menus conceived by chef Andreas Møller as an ode to French-inflected Nordic gastronomy.
Pictured, Copenhague is furnished with Gamfratesi ‘Musculo’ armchairs and Kvadrat/Raf Simons textiles. Photography: Heidi Lerkenfeldt
Tak, Stockholm
Best new restaurant joint winner
An acclaimed chef, an award-winning bartender, a Norwegian hotelier and Sweden’s only sake sommeliers are just some of the ingredients that have come together to create Stockholm’s latest hotspot, Tak. Housed in a brutalist building and designed by local firm Wingårdhs, the two-storey space includes the largest outdoor terrace in the city. On the menu are homemade yuzu lagers, sparkling sakes, and Frida Ronge’s Swedish-Japanese dishes, such as tempura salsify with roe and sour cream.
Pictured, Tak features Japanese inspired gold partitions and Jasper Morrison chairs. Photography: Patricia Parinejad
Simone Rocha
Best women’s fashion collection A/W17
Featuring military-focused outerwear and fuzzy-toed Lucite heels, Simone Rocha’s A/W17 catwalk display of flower power at London’s Lancaster House offered novel variations on the brand’s signature Victoriana dresses – as seen here on our Awards judge Farshid Moussavi. The young designer’s velvet coats with army pockets were offset against dresses with delicate embroidery or broderie anglaise, while there were enough accessories to satisfy every taste, from jewelled sliders, tweed brogues and soft cuddle clutches in the shape of flowers and bows, to cross-body bags in supple black leather with utilitarian straps.
Pictured, Moussavi, at home in London, wears jacket; bell skirt dress, both by Simone Rocha. The table/bench was designed by Moussavi for Victoria Beckham’s London Dover Street store. Photography: Henry Bourne
Alexander McQueen
Best men’s fashion collection A/W17
Creative director Sarah Burton was inspired by the Irish playwright and consummate dandy Oscar Wilde. For A/W17, the designer drew on both the author’s life in London, where he lived in Chelsea, and his final days living in exile in Paris, at L’Hôtel on the Left Bank. The collection featured topcoats, skinny tailoring and regimental jackets, as well as brocade and jacquard flourishes. A recurrent motif of peacock feathers referenced the plumes painted above the bed of Wilde’s room in Paris.
Pictured left, Daan Roosegaarde in front of one of the gates in his Gates of Light series, located in Friesland, The Netherlands. This is just one element of his three-fold Icoon Afsluitdijk project, commissioned by the government as part of the restoration of a 32km-long 1930s dyke. Roosegaarde wears coat; shirt; trousers; shoes, all by Alexander McQueen. Photography: Lonneke van der Palen. Right, the gates of light is a series of historic floodgates painted by Roosegaarde with a new retroreflective material to glow in the headlights of oncoming cars
‘Dot’ braille smartwatch, by Dot
Life enhancer of the year
South Korean start-up Dot ‘strives to be a pioneer in accessible and affordable innovations for the vision impaired and the deafblind’. The design of its minimalist smartwatch is informed by the iconic style of Dieter Rams, and the technology behind it gives new meaning to the word ‘smart’, as this is the first time active braille technology has been integrated into a mobile device. Combining a lightweight aluminium body with a white plastic face and a choice of bands, the watch not only tells the time and date, but also offers notification on calls and messages, and can be combined with an app for further features.
Pictured, ‘Dot’ braille smartwatch, $299, by Dot. Photography: Paul Zak
Less
Best new grooming product
Few cosmetics brands take the bare beauty essentials as seriously as fledgling German brand Less. Its skincare range comprises just three products: two face oils and a millenniaold Moroccan washing clay called ghassoul. Unnecessary additives are eschewed in favour of a select batch of five raw plant oils, while the similarly economical packaging, featuring the brand’s slim minus logo, is devised by founder David Scherf. The clay can also be stored in a container designed for Less by Belgian architect Vincent Van Duysen. Less, in this case, is certainly more.
Pictured, dry skin face oil and Duysen’s container
Bild 9 television, by Bodo Sperlein, for Loewe
Best domestic design
TVs have traditionally been a bit of an eyesore, but in the past few years designers have given the medium some aesthetic reinvention. At the forefront of this has been Bodo Sperlein’s work for German TV brand Loewe. Sperlein’s latest design is part technological feast, part sophisticated sculpture, drawing inspiration from the Bauhaus and art deco. Supported by an elegant matt steel frame, available in Amber Gold or Graphite Grey, the Bild 9 comes in three versions – a floor model, one that can be placed on a console, or a wall-hanging version. When the Bild 9 is switched on, its OLED screen automatically glides upwards, exposing the soundbar, which offers 120 watts of sound power coming from six speakers. The TV also includes an intuitive interface, with an option for users to customise their home screen with apps, recordings or preferred channels.
Key features: Sleek TV that is part technological feast, part sophisticated structure
Materials: Steel frame
Price: From £6,990
MA770 speaker, by David Adjaye, for Master & Dynamic
Best domestic design
To design its first speaker, headphone brand Master & Dynamic turned to architect David Adjaye, who created a light, sinuous shape with a triangular back made of concrete and a removable steel grille. From its flat front panel, the speaker appears very simple, but the faceted back adds intrigue. ‘By using triangles, we introduced this gentle curve, which creates a sense of gravity in the form,’ says Adjaye. ‘It’s a beautiful old concept – the notion that richness isn’t necessarily on the outside.’ Master & Dynamic founder Jonathan Levine was set on using concrete for the speaker, and his team of engineers found the perfect solution in a polymer that provides increased dampening, reduced resonance from the enclosure, a purer sound and added durability. Concrete’s dampening qualities are five times better than wood, and ten times better than plastic. Other technical marvels include dual 4in-long woven Kevlar long-throw woofers, a 1.5in titanium tweeter and diamond- cut anodised aluminium controls.
Key features: A simply designed sinuous speaker with reduced resonance and a purer sound
Materials: Concrete, steel
Price: $1,800
Photography: Thomas Brown
Coffee mill, by Michael Anastassiades, for Carl Auböck and Sigmar London
Best domestic design
Regular coffee drinker Michael Anastassiades had wanted to design a coffee mill for some time, so he contacted Carl Auböck to help him develop it. The pair had already collaborated years ago, on a pepper mill, and like the previous design, this new piece for Sigmar London features Anastassiades’ subtle lines and exquisite craftsmanship. The mill is crafted from a solid piece of brass or copper, with a tube concealing the complex mechanism inside. Another small cylinder, placed asymmetrically, acts as lever and handle.
Key features: Streamlined coffee grinder crafted from a solid piece of metal with a hidden mechanism
Materials: Polished copper or brass
Price: £1,500
‘Sonar’ bathroom collection, by Patricia Urquiola, for Laufen
Best domestic design
Since launching its ultra-thin SaphirKeramik in 2013, Laufen has invited designers to experiment with the material. The latest exploration comes courtesy of Patricia Urquiola, whose ‘Sonar’ collection of washstands and bathtubs gives new life to the material’s exclusive qualities: trimmer thicknesses, high strength, lightness and glow. Her collection features architectural volumes and reinvents the bathroom aesthetic with simplicity and elegance, combining sharp lines with curves in an appropriately minimal way.
Key features: A bathroom furniture collection that combines sharp lines with minimal curves
Materials: SaphirKeramik
Price: On request
Turntable, by Yves Béhar, for Love Turntable
Best domestic design
Portable and compact, Yves Béhar’s turntable combines the pleasure of vinyl record players with a series of contemporary practical features. Equipped with a traditional stylus, it also has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity options, and can be controlled through an app. It comes with a base that can fit different record sizes, while the stylus is encased in a compact, sculptural arm that is just placed on top of the record to operate. The stylus features a polished copper underside, its design reminiscent of classical music instruments, while its sinuous shape bridges past and future.
Key features: A compact, portable vinyl record player with contemporary details
Materials: Aluminium, ABS plastic, copper
Price: $599
Antonio Citterio
Designer of the year
Some of the finest furniture we saw at Milan’s Salone del Mobile this year bore the signature of Antonio Citterio. Vitra presented his new ‘Grand Sofà’ series, a metal-framed design conceived as the centrepiece of a multifunctional family room. Featuring an angled backrest with a ledge, the piece was based on Citterio’s observations of modern daily life. Other new furniture designs include another sofa, for Flexform; a collection of chairs and tables for Kartell; and a series of Chinese-inspired wood and ‘Jens’ leather dining chairs for B&B Italia (pictured). The Italian designer has also been kept busy with architecture and interiors projects for Citterio Viel, the studio he runs in collaboration with Patricia Viel. Among their recent works are the interiors of a yacht for leading Italian company Sanlorenzo, Beijing’s Bulgari Hotel and a new flagship store for Technogym.
Established: 1972
Based: Milan
Key projects: Sofa designs for Vitra and Flexform; new collections of chairs and tables for Maxalto, B&B Italia and Kartell; interiors for Bulgari and Technogym
Jaime Hayon
Designer of the year
Jaime Hayon’s polymathic nature really came through this year, with projects as diverse as a Christmas cake for Häagen-Dazs, an outdoor installation of large-scale animal-shaped sculptures for Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, and, most dazzling perhaps, a carousel installation for Caesarstone set within the regal halls of Milan’s Palazzo Serbelloni. The Valencia-based designer even turned his hand to fashion, teaming up with Jasper Morrison to launch Jijibaba, a menswear label that cleverly mixes Hayon’s explosive humour with Morrison’s more restrained minimalism. As well as chairs for Viccarbe, Arflex and Wittmann, Hayon also led two interiors projects, leaving his playful mark on the Barcelò Torre de Madrid hotel and the Mar de Avellanas restaurant in Valencia.
Established: 2000
Based: Valencia
Key projects: Installation for Caesarstone; new clothing brand Jijibaba; new furniture for Viccarbe, Arflex and Wittmann; installation at High Museum of Art, Atlanta; interiors for the Barcelò Torre de Madrid hotel and Mar de Avellanas restaurant, Valencia
Philippe Malouin
Designer of the year
Philippe Malouin’s recent output has been particularly eye-catching. For Design Miami, the London-based Canadian produced Speed of Light, a site-specific work featuring LED globes running along a rollercoaster frame, while another large-scale project – the designer’s first architectural offering – was a brutalist concrete pavilion titled Core. Commissioned by Andreas Angelidakis and Felix Burrichter, it is part of the Superbenches project, an initiative that aims to regenerate a park in Järfäalla, Sweden. Malouin also produced seating for London shop SCP; lighting for American company Matter Made; new collections for Resident and the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara; and a modular marble wall-hung furniture collection for Marsotto, originally designed as a Wallpaper* Handmade project in 2015. His Post-Office interior design studio also worked on a new London flagship store for Valextra, for which Malouin designed display solutions in a soft pastel palette.
Established: 2009
Based: London
Key projects: Furniture designs for Marsotto, SCP, Matter Made and Resident; tables for the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara; installation at Miami Design District; new interiors and furniture for Valextra; a pavilion for the Superbenches project, Sweden
Cecilie Manz
Designer of the year
Cecilie Manz’s brand of Scandinavian minimalism has proved incredibly versatile, with the Danish designer applying her creative touch to a wide spectrum of multidisciplinary design projects this year. Her ‘P2’ bluetooth speaker is just the latest in a series of designs for Bang & Olufsen, with which she has been collaborating since 2014, while her recent furniture production includes chairs and tables for Muuto and Japanese brand Actus, as well as textiles for Georg Jensen Damask. Also notable is her ‘Atmosphere’ series for outdoor specialist Gloster, with subtle detailing and a muted palette. But Manz’s design virtuosity is perhaps best seen in her first bathroom collection, for Duravit. With the newly launched ‘Luv’ range, she has created an elegant new aesthetic for the smallest room.
Established: 1998
Based: Copenhagen
Key projects: Ongoing collaboration with Bang & Olufsen; furniture for Actus and Muuto; outdoor collection for Gloster; bathroom collection for Duravit; granite seating for the Design Museum Denmark
Michael Anastassiades
Designer of the year
Cypriot designer Michael Anastassiades has possibly had his busiest year to date. For the first time he experimented with colour in his lighting creations for the likes of Nilufar and The Future Perfect, and then also applied this new chromatic palette to furniture design, with a collection of marble tables for Salvatori. As well as designing new pieces for his own collection (which this year turns ten), Anastassiades also created a modular lighting system for Flos. Called ‘Arrangements’ and inspired by jewellery design, it consists of a series of geometric components that can be assembled in a chain to create a bold chandelier. Other projects include a seamless and minimalist coffee mill for Carl Auböck (shortlisted for our Life-enhancer of the year award); the design for the Cyprus Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale, featuring artworks by Polys Peslikas; and an exhibition of 13 mobiles at Atelier Jespers in Brussels.
Established: 1994
Based: London
Key projects: Coffee mill for Carl Auböck; coloured marble tables for Salvatori; design of the Cyprus Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale; new lighting collections for Flos, The Future Perfect, Nilufar and Michael Anastassiades’ own brand
Maison du Danemark, Paris, France
Best new restaurant
Copenhagen-based design studio GamFratesi has divided the Maison du Danemark, Denmark’s official cultural outpost in Paris, into two distinct restaurants, dressing the spaces with a catalogue of covetable pieces, among them its ‘Beetle’ and ‘Masculo’ chairs for Gubi, and ‘Targa’ sofa for Gebrüder Thonet Vienna. On the ground floor, Flora Danica is a contemporary Danish brasserie, with black-and-white herringboned marble and delicately drawn botanicals, alongside a light-washed conservatorium. Upstairs, the more formal Copenhague is cloaked in dark blue leather and Kvadrat/Raf Simons textiles. The menus at both restaurants have been conceived by Danish chef Andreas Møller as an ode to French-inflected Nordic gastronomy, which explains the traditional salads, herring smørrebrød and beef tartare in Flora Danica, and the fancier ris de veau and langoustines upstairs.
Location: 1972
Chef: Andreas Møller
Interiors: GamFratesi
Botanist, Vancouver, Canada
Best new restaurant
Located in a 48-storey, James Cheng-designed skyscraper in downtown Vancouver, the Botanist is the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel’s new restaurant. Local designer Craig Stanghetta and his studio Ste Marie – who are behind some of the city’s most fashionable dining rooms – have worked their magic on the 5,000 sq ft space, producing a décor inspired by the region’s lush forested landscape, with florals in muted pastel hues and an abundance of greenery. The concept extends to the food, with Mexican-born chef Hector Laguna sending out fresh and seasonal dishes such as charred octopus with asparagus, cauliflower, kohlrabi and spicy chorizo, or herb-crusted lamb with garlic panisse. The space includes a new champagne bar and the city’s first cocktail lab, serving signature drinks such as Deep Cove, with gin, sea buckthorn and blue algae.
Location: 1038 Canada Place
Chef: Hector Laguna
Interiors: Ste Marie
Kaléo, Beirut, Lebanon
Best new restaurant
Located in downtown Beirut, Kaléo is the first restaurant project of local design studio David/Nicolas. The duo has made quite an entrance on the city’s culinary scene with this lively space, housed in a post-war building and featuring interiors influenced by the architectural details of the churches of Byblos. An outsized wall rug from the Dreamstatic collection, designed by David/Nicolas for Moooi, sets the cosmos-inspired tone with a vibrant colour palette of stonewashed blue, pale pink and fern green. Textural delights also abound – the walls and the pendant lights both have a tactile popcorn finish, while the velvet upholstery by Pierre Frey retains gentle fingerprint patterns. Chef Georges Nkoula sends out contemporary European food, such as truffle ravioli and roasted lamb chops served with market vegetables and rosemary.
Location: Dr Fawzi Daouk Street, 24 Avenue du Park Building, Mina el Hosn
Chef: Georges Nkoula
Interiors: David/Nicolas
Tate, Hong Kong
Best new restaurant
Chef Vicky Lau trained as a graphic designer so she was always going to be one step ahead when it came to designing the new Sheung Wan location of her Michelin-star restaurant, Tate. Together with Hong Kong-based architect James Acuna, Lau has produced a crisp, understated design in a sorbet palette of soft pink and natural bleached timber, softened by sensuous upholstery and subtle lighting. The best seat in the house is the chef’s table, where you can watch the kitchen whip up the eight courses from one of the two tasting menus available. We suggest plumping for ‘All The Odes’, in which Lau pays homage to a series of ingredients to include dishes such as Ode to Meat – tender Kagoshima beef served with Jerusalem artichoke – or Ode to Scallop, served as an espuma, ceviche and dried.
Location: 210 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan
Chef: Vicky Lau
Interiors: James Acuna and Vicky Lau
Tak, Stockholm, Sweden
Best new restaurant
An acclaimed chef, an award-winning bartender, a Norwegian hotelier and the only sake sommeliers in Sweden are just some of the ingredients that have come together to create Stockholm’s current hotspot, Tak. Housed in a brutalist building, the restaurant has been designed by local firm Windgårdhs to feature a series of dining spaces separated by gold partitions that reflect the sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The space is set over two floors and includes the largest outdoor terrace in the city (it is also connected by a footbridge to the rooftop of the adjacent Spotify headquarters). Culinary director Frida Ronge churns out signature dishes that interweave Swedish ingredients with Japanese flavours, such as tempura salsify served with nori and topped with Kalix bleak roe and sour cream. Wash it down with a Japanese pale ale, homemade yuzu lager, or sparkling sake.
Location: Brunkebergstorg 4
Chef: Frida Ronge
Interiors: Windgårdhs
Hoshinoya Bali, Ubud, Bali
Best new or renovated hotel
For its first international venture, the Japanese resort group Hoshinoya could not have picked a more idyllic spot in Bali’s Ubud region. Framed by the remnants of thousand-year-old temple canals and the Pakerisan River valley, the 30 villas by architect Rie Azuma are strung along a dense three-hectare stretch of rainforest, rice terraces and shrines. The aesthetic cleaves close to the Balinese vernacular, with pavilions capped by roofs covered with alang-alang grass, wall carvings of flora and fauna by local artisans, and a long stretch of swimming pool that’s evocatively styled as lushly foliaged canal. A fantastical touch is delivered with trellised gazebos that hang high over the tree line for a bird’s eye panorama of the deep green forest canopy. The resort’s Japanese antecedents are recalled in a modern Balinese-meets-Japanese menu by resident chef Makoto Miyamaguchi that includes carpaccio paired with the pungent heat of sambal.
Location: Br Pengembungan, Desa Pejeng Kangin, Kecamatan Tampaksiring, Gianyar
Design: Rie Azuma
Room rates: From $675
Barceló Torre de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Best new or renovated hotel
This newly renovated hotel is set over nine floors of the iconic Torre de Madrid, designed by architect brothers Julián and José Maria Otamendi Machimbarrena. The skyscraper has been dominating Madrid’s skyline since 1957, and now has striking interiors to match its bold concrete façade, thanks to Spanish designer Jaime Hayon. The Madrid native has kitted out Barceló Torre de Madrid’s 258 rooms and public spaces with his signature playful humour and bold use of colour. Pops of neon, avocado and forest green hues set the tone for details such as art deco-style mirrors, orb lighting and a giant striped bear complete with gold top hat in the lobby. Here, the dramatic gold bar serves up an array of cocktails, perfect before heading to Somos, where chef Benjamin Urrutia churns out market-based fare by day and an eclectic mix of Mexican, Peruvian and European dishes by night.
Location: Plaza de España 18
Design: Jaime Hayon
Room rates: From €180
Hôtel National des Arts et Métiers, Paris, France
Best new or renovated hotel
On a Haussmannian chunk of rue Saint-Martin, where the Sentier and Le Marais neighbourhoods meet, is the new Hôtel National des Arts et Métiers. It has been designed by Raphael Navot (the man behind David Lynch’s Club Silencio), who has taken subtle cues from the nearby Musée des Arts et Métiers, an institution dedicated to invention, science and technology before mass industrial production. A natural palette of black marble, untreated timber and oxidised copper sets the scene for one-off pieces such as hand-painted linen panels by artist Gaël Davrinche in the restaurant, where chef Julien Cohen serves house-made pasta dishes, such as linguine with creamy sheep’s milk, on delicate Jars ceramic tableware. Surrounding a central courtyard, the rooms channel a similar sensibility with industrial cement slatted walls, ‘Tatra’ chairs and Kvadrat headboards. Don’t miss the Herbarium bar, where tipples are concocted using vintage perfume beakers within a wild forest setting.
Location: 243 Rue Saint-Martin
Design: Raphael Navot
Room rates: From €199
Four Seasons at the Surf Club, Miami, US
Best new or renovated hotel
More than 85 years after Miami’s Surf Club was founded by tyre tycoon Harvey Firestone, the property has been restored to its former glory and extended into a 77-room hotel. Designed by Richard Meier, the new building cantilevers over the original 1930s Mediterranean Revival clubhouse. Inside, the Paris-based designer Joseph Dirand peeled back the layers of time to restore the original detailing in the public areas, reinvigorating them with cinematic splendour. The bedrooms, meanwhile, have a 1920s loucheness, with splashes of green textile and veined stone contrasting with fluted cast-plaster walls, coffered ceilings and white marble bathrooms. Eateries are also in the hands of the greats. In his first foray outside the Amalfi Coast, Antonio Mermolia of Positano’s Le Sirenuse helms its Miami outpost. Thomas Keller of California’s French Laundry is also due to open a restaurant within the grounds, designed by Martin Brudnizki.
Location: 9101 Collins Avenue
Design: Richard Meier (architecture); Joseph Dirand (interiors)
Room rates: From $899
Photography: Kris Tamburello
Santa Clara 1728, Lisbon, Portugal
Best new or renovated hotel
Housed in an 18th-century pile on one of Lisbon’s most romantic squares, with views of the Pantheon and the Tagus River, Santa Clara 1728 is the fourth in a string of slick design-led properties from hotelier João Rodrigues. The clean, modern interiors, by local architect Manuel Aires Mateus, are refreshing trimmings to the building’s ancient walls and worn limestone stairs that lead to the six spacious suites. Here, coarse linens, pale woods and furnishings by designer Antonio Citterio come together in a neutral palette boosted by a graceful duck egg blue. Downstairs, unwind under the warm glow of Davide Groppi’s ‘Simbiosi’ lights with a glass of Portuguese wine and a comforting meal made using the freshest market produce, while you plan the best to see and do in Lisbon with the help of Rodrigues himself.
Location: Campo de Santa Clara 128
Design: Manuel Aires Mateus (architecture); Antonio Citterio (interiors)
Room rates: From €300
Photography: Francisco Noguiera
CoFuFun Station Plaza, Tenri, Japan, by Nendo
Best new public building
This upbeat urban masterplan is a new community hub at Tenri City station in Nara prefecture, Japan, designed by Nendo. The 6,000 sq m plaza features a series of white circular structures that serve as multifunctional pavilions hosting a café, shops, information kiosk, bike rental, a play area, an outdoor stage and a meeting area. The orbiting concrete forms are also historically informed, referencing cofun, the ancient Japanese burial structures common to Nara. The stepped layers lend themselves to all manner of functions, from seating and roofing to retail display shelves. More than a mere gateway, Nendo’s station plaza is a destination that weaves historical context into its design, engages with the community, and projects a sense of fun.
Key features: A playful plaza featuring multifunctional circular pavilions with stepped roofs that reference ancient local structures
Architects’ previous work: Siam Discovery boutique, Bangkok; Invisible Outlines exhibition; Fireworks House, Saitama, Japan
Photography: Daici Ano
Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa, by Heatherwick Studio
Best new public building
Grand gestures of the philanthropic kind define Cape Town’s new Zeitz MOCAA. As a much-heralded cultural waypoint, the vast converted grain silos are proving to be a key draw on the city’s Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. The new home to Jochen Zeitz’s impressive collection of contemporary African art – topped by the exclusive Silo Hotel – is a concrete catacomb of galleries and atriums. Heatherwick Studio has made a typically grandiose gesture at the building’s heart, making elaborate cuts into the structure’s concrete cylinders to form a towering, quasi-organic atrium.
Key features: Concrete industrial storage spaces transformed into a striking art gallery and boutique hotel
Architects’ previous work: Learning Hub, Singapore; 2012 Olympic cauldron, UK; Bombay Sapphire distillery, UK; UK Pavilion, Shanghai
Photography: Iwan Baan
Australian Islamic Centre, Melbourne, Australia, by Glenn Murcutt
Best new public building
Architect Glenn Murcutt’s mosque in Newport, Melbourne, translates Islamic design into its suburban Australian context. Working with architect Hakan Elevli, who brought with him an experience of the Islamic faith, Murcutt found a balance between maintaining architectural aspects essential to worship, and introducing features that modernised and related to the local community. Following the traditional mosque plan, a formation of 24 steel columns defines three bays of connecting spaces across two levels. But instead of the typically domed roof, a striking façade engages worshippers, while the minaret becomes an elevated wall, positioned at the entrance courtyard to signal visibility and accessibility. Glass doors open up into the double-height prayer hall, where coloured roof lanterns illuminate the space with triangular patterns of yellow, green, blue and red light. While the design is modern, the Australian Islamic Centre also references the long, column-supported rooms in the home of the Prophet Muhammad, built in the seventh century and considered the first mosque.
Key features: A contemporary take on the traditional mosque, featuring steel columns, raw concrete walls and coloured lantern skylights
Architects’ previous work: Fletcher-Page House, Kangaroo Valley, Australia; Moss Vale Education Centre, University of Wollongong, Australia; Bowali Visitor Information Centre, Kakadu National Park, Australia
Photography: Piers Taylor
Centro Botín, Santander, Spain, by Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Best new public building
Located on the seashore, looking out across the Bay of Santander, the Centro Botín is Renzo Piano’s first Spanish project, realised in collaboration with Madrid-based Luis Vidal + Architects. It’s a tank on stilts, sliced through the middle to reveal two glass façades and covered with thousands of effervescing ceramic scales. The building is wrapped with exterior circulation, opening up viewing platforms at every level to absorb the colours of the sky, the sea and the city. Contained within its curving form is an exhibition space for the Botín art collection, an event space and a restaurant. Beneath and surrounding it is a new public space with blue concrete paths and plazas, allowing people to walk around the edge of the bay, thanks to Piano’s initiative to sink a busy road beneath the ground.
Key features: An art gallery on stilts, with exposed structural elements, viewing platforms and a blue-tinted plaza
Architects’ previous work: The Shard, London; Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, Athens; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Photography: Enrico Cano
Musée Yves Saint Laurent, Marrakech, Morocco, by Studio KO
Best new public building
Yves Saint Laurent’s Moroccan legacy has been completed with the opening of this elegant new museum devoted to his life and work. Sited next to the Jardin Majorelle, a landmark historical garden saved from redevelopment by the French couturier in 1980, the 4,000 sq m Musée Yves Saint Laurent houses permanent and temporary exhibition spaces, a research library and an auditorium. Saint Laurent’s former partner Pierre Bergé tasked Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty of Parisian firm Studio KO with transforming decades of forward-thinking fashion into physical space, with all the requisite conservation and preservation strategies required for the exhibits. Their approach is pared back and minimalist, using local brick construction techniques wherever possible, and with a striking circular courtyard at its heart.
Key features: Intricate brickwork; traditional Moroccan materials such as Zellige tiles; striking circular courtyard
Architects’ previous work: Chiltern Firehouse hotel, London; Balmain boutique, New York; Aux Prés restaurant, Paris; Domaine Royal Palm, Marrakesh
Courtesy of Fondation Jardin Majorelle. Photography: Nicolas Mathéus
Solo House 2, Matarraña, Spain, by Office KGDVS
Best new private house
This is the second in a series of dream architectural projects planned by developer Christian Bourdais. Located in the dense countryside of Spain’s Matarraña region, and designed by Belgian firm Office KGDVS, the concrete plateau, shaded by sliding façades made of polycarbonate and mesh, can be altered to adapt to light and weather. The ring-shaped structure is intended to be almost invisible in the 1,000 hectares of landscape surrounding it. At the centre of the circle is a pool, and the surreal scene is completed by a series of geometric forms, painted by artist Pieter Vermeersch, which hold tanks and generators.
Key features: A ring-shaped residence that subtly blends into its forest landscape
Architects’ previous work: Cultural centre, Muharraq, Bahrain; Villa Der Bau, Linkebeek, Belgium
Ghat House, Cachagua, Chile, by Max Núñez
Best new private house
Ghat House is a tale of two different approaches. Set on the steep slopes that rise up alongside Chile’s spectacular Central Coast, the house, designed by Santiago-based architect Max Núñez, is arranged as a series of boxes thrusting out of the hillside, held up by 15 dynamically canted concrete columns. Inside, a winding concrete staircase rises up from ground level, while a similarly vertiginous external stairway steps down the length of the sloping façade, offering up far-reaching ocean views. From above, the house reads only as a collection of lightweight wooden pavilions, with a spectacular hidden underworld below.
Key features: A dramatic concrete, glass and wood beach house set on a steep incline facing the Pacific Ocean
Architects’ previous work: MAD Building, The Grange School, Santiago, Chile; 10x10 House, Las Condes, Chile
Photography: Roland Halbe
Remember House, San Francisco, US, by Edmonds + Lee
Best new private house
San Francisco real estate prices require a real commitment to making space, particularly if you want to take vertical slices out of existing, expensive floorplans. Edmonds + Lee made a bold decision to exchange square footage for space and light in this Noe Valley townhouse. From the compact courtyard garden to the double-height reception space, the white-walled interior is in stark contrast to the dark façade, with a minimal approach to detailing in everything from balustrades to storage. The end result is a winding vertical stack of white space, with views up and down between floors as well as out across the valley towards downtown.
Key features: A light and spacious five-storey townhouse with a dark façade and double-height white-walled interiors
Architects’ previous work: Switchback House, San Francisco, US; Summerhill Residence, Kenwood, US
Photography: Joe Fletcher
AF 82 cabin, Viggsö, Sweden
Best new private house
Arrhov Frick’s cabin on the island of Viggsö takes the traditional Swedish summer house to new levels of simplicity. The wooden framed structure elevates the open plan living zones and generous outdoor terrace high over a rocky site, respecting the existing trees while also giving panoramic waterside views from every window. Materials include translucent industrial panels for the roofs, chosen for ease of transportation to the remote site. Children and guests are given a sleeping loft, there’s a master bedroom behind the main open plan living space, and every vista is framed by the meticulous precision of the joinery.
Key features: Timber summer house on a rocky site elevated on wooden stilts to give waterside views
Architects’ previous work: Six Walls House, Nacka, Sweden; Ingarö House, Värmdö, Sweden
Swiss House XXXIV, Galbisio, Switzerland, by Davide Macullo Architects
Best new private house
This concrete house set on a hill in Galbisio, Switzerland, is somewhat of a statement in the landscape; a force ‘in’ nature. While it is based on the form of the cube, it resists its mould to prioritise living space. Lugano-based architect Davide Macullo stretched out the interior possibilities by energetically extruding the walls in different directions. He describes the three-storey house as a ‘constellation’ of spaces and experiences that are adapted to the pace of modern life – inside, unconventionally shaped rooms offer unique viewpoints and new opportunities for light and space at every turn.
Key features: Derived from a cube shape, this three-storey house extrudes in different directions to create a force ‘in’ nature
Architects’ previous work: Swiss House XXXII, Rossa, Switzerland; Jansen Campus, Oberriet, Switzerland
Mexico City
Best city
Better known to locals as DF (for Distrito Federal, its official name until 2016), Mexico City is having its moment. The capital’s Nuevo Polanco district was reborn in 2011 with the arrival of Carlos Slim’s Museo Soumaya, followed in 2013 by another statement art gallery, David Chipperfield’s Museo Jumex. Many of the historic districts, with their wide boulevards, terrace cafés and parks, are being rejuvenated into fashionable hubs. Contemporary Mexican cuisine has made it out of the capital’s kitchens and is being lauded globally; discover why over dinner at Sud 777, Pujol and Rosetta. What’s more, a clamour for Mexican art, and the continued discovery of new talent, has led to an explosion of galleries. Roma is the epicentre of the scene, but you could spend months exploring it. Across the city, Aztec temples, colonial edifices, modernist architecture and breathtaking new-builds all meld into the urban fabric. The capital is no longer a mere connection to the country’s other cultural playgrounds – it’s the beating heart of a nation that has taken its rightful place on the world stage.
New architecture: Torre Reforma, by LBR&A (2016); Centro University, by TEN Arquitectos (2015); Jumex, by David Chipperfield (2013); Museo Soumaya, by FR-EE (2011)
Under construction: The New International airport, by Foster + Partners and FR-EE
Hotels and restaurants: Downtown; Habita; Condesa DF; Pujol; Paxia; Sud 777; Rosetta
Cultural draws: Museo Rufino Tamayo; Galería OMR; Proyectos Monclova
Cape Town
Best city
The essence of Cape Town’s creative character lies in a mix-and-match attitude and a dash of improvisation, seen at hubs such as The Woodstock Exchange. The neighbourhood of Woodstock itself, which a century ago was the country’s workshop, is still a thriving arts hub, but now an increasing number of galleries is also colonising the CBD. Food and wine served in a jaw-dropping natural setting below Table Mountain is what the city does best; there is an abundance of hip bars and cafés, as well as exceptional fine dining. In summer, the upscale beach enclave of Camps Bay turns into South Africa’s de facto party destination. Finally, the recent opening of Thomas Heatherwick’s Zeitz MOCAA on the V&A Waterfront created a new landmark. The largest contemporary museum for African art in the country, it is a tangible sign that the city is heading in the right direction.
New architecture: Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), by Heatherwick Studio (2017); Stellenbosch University Faculty of Medicine, by MLB Architects (2014)
Under construction: Zero-2-One Tower (starting March 2018)
Hotels and restaurants: The Silo Hotel; Pod; Foxcroft; Blanko; The Pot Luck Club; The Test Kitchen
Cultural draws: Southern Guild; Stevenson Gallery; Design Indaba
Athens
Best city
Few cities in the world are as loaded with history as Athens. But there are appealing modern projects, too, most recently represented by Renzo Piano’s Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cutural Centre, which houses the National Library and Opera. It rises out of the suburban coastal landscape at Kallithea like a longstanding landmark, and is a totem for a community in need of inclusive, dynamic public spaces. Athens still languishes in economic gloom, and it’s not a global city, not yet, but it’s getting there. Stylish eateries (Capanna), shops (i-D), and first-class galleries (The Breeder) all rub up against traditions such as bouzouki, souvlaki and frappé. Documenta 14 welcomed a new international audience to the city, and a steady stream of cultural hotspots is popping up in revived districts such as Kerameikos. Walking is the best way to get to grips with the haphazard capital, and to discover the true aesthetics of what is a restless, sometimes tiring, but now undoubtedly intriguing city.
New architecture: Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, by Renzo Piano (2016)
Under construction: Athens Metro Line 4
Hotels and restaurants: AthensWas; In[n]Athens; Capanna; The IT Place; Nolan; Red Door
Cultural draws: Documenta; Benaki Museum; National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST); The Breeder; Latraac skate bowl
Courtesy of SNFCC. Photography: Yiorgis Yerolymbos
Singapore
Best city
It used to be that 24 hours here was enough. Not now. The new Singapore still has the retail obsession and state control, but the government has invested in soft power, from creative clusters such as the Gillman Barracks to the grassroots Design Centre and a necessary institution, the National Gallery. A burgeoning restaurant scene, crowded with cash-rich locals and expats fleeing Europe’s woes, is a stunning sweep of local flavours and pan-Asian techniques. Street fare is unbeatable and entire quarters have their own specialities. There has been a recent succession of superlative architecture schemes, from Studio Libeskind’s Reflections (pictured) to OMA’s The Interlace and Moshe Safdie’s Sky Habitat, all stepped terraces and flying bridges, Jean Nouvel’s Le Nouvel Ardmore, with its grids and recesses, Zaha Hadid’s rippling D’Leedon, and bold new architecture by the likes of SCDA Architects and WOHA. And there’s no better place to land, or depart, than Changi Airport, regarded as the best on the planet.
New architecture: SkyVille @ Dawson, by WOHA (2015); The Interlace, by OMA (2015); Learning Hub, NTU, by Heatherwick Studio (2015); Corals, by Studio Libeskind (2016)
Under construction: Jewel Changi Airport, by Moshe Safdie; School of Design and Environment at the National University of Singapore, by Serie and Multiply Architects
Hotels and restaurants: The Ritz-Carlton Millenia; Amoy Hotel; Summer Pavilion; Whitegrass; Odette
Cultural draws: Gillman Barracks; National Gallery; The Intan; STPI Creative Workshop & Gallery; Gajah Gallery; Pearl Lam Gallery
Photography: Phil Dunlop
Shanghai
Best city
Modern Shanghai is the epitome of China’s intense economic development. The continual construction here, fuelled by big government investment, is astonishing, and large international architecture firms (OMA, Tadao Ando, Heatherwick Studio) are vying for their piece of the pie. A burgeoning art scene has led to a spate of museum openings: two billionaires opened the Long Museum and Yuz Museum, competing to outdo each other in cavernous halls. They have since been joined by the West Bund Art Center, ShanghART and SCoP to form a cluster of venues in a post-industrial landscape. The dining and nightlife scene is more flighty – bars and restaurants open, close or morph into a totally different entity from one month to the next. Clued-up hipsters hop from supper to gallery to party to late-night karaoke session. It’s a ride you really shouldn’t miss.
New architecture: Bund Finance Centre, by Heatherwick Studio and Foster + Partners (2017); Lujiazui Harbour City Exhibition Centre, by OMA (2017)
Under construction: West Bund Art Museum, by David Chipperfield; CaoHeJing Guigu Creative Headquarters, by Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects
Hotels and restaurants: The Swatch Art Peace Hotel; Park Hyatt; Cachet Boutique; Fu He Hui; Calypso
Cultural draws: Long Museum West Bund; Rockbund Art Museum; Shanghai Sculpture Space
Photography: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Simone Rocha
Best women’s fashion collection A/W17
For A/W17, Simone Rocha’s diverse range of models paraded though the gilded doors of Lancaster House in London, in a line-up that featured military-focused outerwear, fuzzy-toed Lucite heels and novel variations on the brand’s signature Victoriana dresses. There were velvet coats with army pockets, offset against dresses with delicate embroidery or broderie anglaise. In terms of accessories, there was something to satisfy the appetite of every woman: jewelled sliders, tweed brogues, soft cuddle clutches in the shape of flowers and bows, and cross-body bags in supple black leather with utilitarian straps.
Creative director: Simone Rocha
Based: London
Key features: Military-focused outerwear, Victoriana dresses and Lucite heels
Courtesy of Simone Rocha
Balenciaga
Best women’s fashion collection A/W17
To mark Balenciaga’s 100th anniversary in 2017, the house’s creative director Demna Gvasalia delved into the maison’s archives. Inspired by images of its founder’s haute couture collections, Gvasalia created a series of dresses in the brand’s signature avant-garde silhouettes, from the baby-doll to the tulip shape. The collection also included more casual designs, such as oversized coats buttoned asymmetrically across the body, thigh-high sock boots and oversized knits. Accessories referenced mundane car parts and included tyre-cover totes and wing-mirror evening bags.
Creative director: Demna Gvasalia
Based: Paris
Key features: Couture-inspired dresses, check overcoats and car-part accessories
Courtesy of Balenciaga
Calvin Klein
Best women’s fashion collection A/W17
For his debut collection as chief creative officer of Calvin Klein, Belgian designer Raf Simons and his right-hand man Pieter Mulier presented a joint men’s and women’s offering that riffed on the visual tropes of Americana, nodding to everything from the Wild West to power-broker tailoring. Shown at the brand’s New York HQ, the collection featured rodeo-inspired shirts, toe-capped cowboy boots, delicate feathered dresses and full looks in leather and denim. There were sharp, city-centric suits, a skirt made from the American flag and transparent tops with varsity-stripe sleeves. Tailored coats and dresses came with wipe-clean plastic covers, or finished in quilted patterns.
Creative creative officer: Raf Simons
Creative director: Peter Mulier
Based: New York
Key features: Feathered dresses, plastic-covered coats and rodeo-style shirts
Courtesy of Calvin Klein
Dries Van Noten
Best women’s fashion collection A/W17
Dries Van Noten’s A/W17 presentation was the Belgian designer’s 100th catwalk show, an anniversary he marked by dipping into his own archives to unearth the greatest prints in his previous collections. The result was a beautiful mix of floral, graphic and colourful prints, sublimely cut into trousers, jackets and coats, and finished with androgynous flat shoes and scarves. Van Noten also recruited a host of models that have walked for him in the past, including Carolyn Murphy, Erin O’Connor and Alek Wek. They strode in exuberant pieces such as quilted velvet coats in tarnished gold, tangerine and red, fake fur coats in bottle green and purple, crêpe dresses, and powerful, wide-shouldered blazers.
Creative director: Dries Van Noten
Based: Paris
Key features: Archive prints, quilted velvet coats and wide-shouldered blazers
Courtesy of Dries Van Noten
Loewe
Best women’s fashion collection A/W17
Creative director Jonathan Anderson knows that Loewe’s client is grown up and refined, and designs accordingly. The brand’s A/W17 collection was no exception. There were dresses which mixed Lurex, jersey and white poplin, polka dot jackets with oversized pussy bows, gowns made with delicate patchwork panels of silk, deftly tailored coats and flaring trousers in buttery leathers. Anderson has brought a sense of the artful and the eccentric to Loewe, blending handiwork and organic hues with irreverent motifs, as in a floppy white hat printed with cartoonish loaves of bread, and cute pussycat handbags.
Creative director: Jonathan Anderson
Based: Madrid and Paris
Key features: Patchwork dresses, leather outerwear, irreverent accessories
Courtesy of Loewe. Photography: Ludwig Bonnet
Valentino
Best men’s fashion collection A/W17
For his first solo outing for Valentino menswear, creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli considered the concept of the modern gentleman – a charming character who chooses to blend heritage prints and slim bow ties with two-tone sneakers, baseball caps and tops with anarchic slogans. For A/W17, Valentino collaborated with the British artist Jamie Reid, the mind behind the Sex Pistols’ ransom-note style slogans, and presented caps, capes and duffle coats emblazoned with cut-and-paste intarsia typography. These rebel elements were offset by delicate pastel shades, such as sweaters in soft lilac wool, and boxy jackets in nude patent leather.
Creative director: Pierpaolo Piccioli
Based: Rome
Key features: Punk slogans, pastel suiting and baseball caps
Courtesy of Valentino
Calvin Klein
Best men’s fashion collection A/W17
Raf Simons and Pieter Mulier presented a combined men’s and women’s show (see Best women’s fashion collection A/W17) that offered a reimagining of American classics. Alongside cowboy-inspired boots and shirts, men’s looks included checked Wall Street suits, tailored coats that came covered with a layer of clear, shiny plastic, head-to- toe denim and sheer tops with varsity stripes. Standout pieces at Calvin Klein were a series of parka coats finished with colourful quilted linings.
Creative creative officer: Raf Simons
Creative director: Pieter Mulier
Based: New York
Key features: Quilted parkas and plastic-covered coats
Courtesy of Calvin Klein
Alexander McQueen
Best men’s fashion collection A/W17
Alexander McQueen creative director Sarah Burton was inspired by the Irish playwright and consummate dandy Oscar Wilde for A/W17. The designer drew on both the author’s life in London, where he lived at Tite Street in Chelsea and penned The Picture of Dorian Grey, and his final days living in exile in Paris, banished to L’Hôtel on the Left Bank of the city. Presented in a lookbook shot by Ethan James Green, the collection featured Edwardian topcoats, skinny tailoring and regimental jackets, as well as brocade and jacquard flourishes. A recurrent motif of peacock feathers referenced the plumes painted above the bed of Wilde’s room in Paris, while punky jewellery fashioned from safety pins completed the looks.
Creative director: Sarah Burton
Based: London
Key features: Tapered tailoring, regimental outerwear, peacock feather motifs
Courtesy of Alexander McQueen
Prada
Best men’s fashion collection A/W17
The 1970s loomed large as Miuccia Prada pulled together a heavy-on-the-corduroy A/W17 collection. Cords have never looked better in menswear as the brand played with the ribbing, from extra large to pin thin, using them on oversized flood pants, snug jackets, piped blazers and outerwear. Also from the loungewear lizard era were sweeping, leather-belted trench coats, styled with leather berets, worn off-kilter to give them a new slant, and fluffy fur belts. Outerwear came in the form of wool coats with multiple fur pockets, and anoraks with woolly shearling linings, while rebellious hippy accessories included seashell necklaces, lace-up shoes with colourful hairy fur, and trailing knitted scarves.
Creative director: Miuccia Prada
Based: Milan
Key features: Corduroy suits, seashell accessories and anoraks
Courtesy of Prada
Louis Vuitton
Best men’s fashion collection A/W17
Kim Jones’ A/W17 men’s collection looked to the dynamism and vitality of New York City, circa 1970-1990, when the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, Keith Haring and Andy Warhol became legendary for both their output and outfits. Louis Vuitton’s offering was an ode to this creativity, with the urban collection featuring easy-fit silhouettes. Cashmere, vicuña and alligator were cut into utilitarian shapes, while silk pyjamas were printed with collages of the brand’s advertising imagery from the 1930s. Also on show were pieces from a collaboration with New York streetwear brand Supreme, featuring bold accessories in bright tomato red, and Japanese denim and camouflage jacquard designs mixed with both the Supreme slogan and the Louis Vuitton monogram.
Creative director: Kim Jones
Based: Key features: Urban silhouettes, archive advertising prints, a collaboration with Supreme
Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
‘Offset’ shaving set, by Layer
Best new grooming product
London-based industrial designer Benjamin Hubert is perhaps best known for his furniture design. His eponymous studio rebranded itself Layer in 2015, and now applies itself to experience- driven design, small and large, for the digital world. His latest venture was conceived in collaboration with Follicle & Limb, which owns a series of barber shops across London. The shaving set comprises three interconnected parts: a badger-hair shaving brush and a two- piece case that transforms into a stand for drying the brush and a dish for the razor. The brush handle and case are made from rust-resistant machined anodised aluminium, and are held together by a hidden magnetic system. Called ‘Offset’, it aims to bring the barber shop experience into the home.
Key features: An anodised aluminium shaving set comprising interconnected parts held together by a magnetic system
Make-up range, by Nendo, for Naturaglacé
Best new grooming product
It was the deft touch of Japanese design studio Nendo that drew our attention to Naturaglacé, a brand that’s celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, Naturaglacé’s once unremarkable and minimal packaging has been given a facelift by Nendo, and now features watercolour brushstroke patterns in gentle pastel tints. Inside, the containers are a warm matte grey, to represent ‘the colour of earth’. Extending the painter’s palette theme, they feature a small indent for fingers to fit into. The range comprises 11 products, including foundations, lipsticks, eye colour and mascara, all made from 100 per cent natural ingredients and free from parabens, mineral oils and synthetic fragrances. Naturaglacé is a high-performing, guilt-free make-up palette, now with packaging to match.
Key features: A collection of 11 organic products presented in painterly packaging
Morning Aura Illuminating Crème, by Victoria Beckham and Estée Lauder
Best new grooming product
While celebrity endorsement doesn’t generally do it for us, we can’t knock a performing product formulated by an industry titan such as Estée Lauder. This Victoria Beckham and Estée Lauder range is beautifully executed, with curated colour palettes inspired by the world’s fashion capitals, but it’s the soft-focus trickery of the Morning Aura Illuminating Crème that has lured us in. A moisturising and brightening primer, it is the ultimate foundation product, designed to wash youthful dewiness over world-worn complexions. The cream can be used alone to help fake freshness, or as a base on which to build a more polished public face. Plus, the fuss-free glamour of the packaging, inspired by Estée Lauder products from the 1950s, is quite at home in our bags.
Key features: The ultimate foundation product, with a striking fluted packaging
Skincare range, by Less
Best new grooming product
The skincare market is polarising between technically-advanced wonder creams and priming products that are more transparent, natural and simple. Few take the bare beauty essentials as seriously as fledgling German brand Less, which, according to its founder David Scherf, is ‘minimalist through and through’. Its skincare range is tightly edited to just three products: two face oils (for dry and oily skin) and a millennia-old Moroccan washing clay called ghassoul. Unnecessary additives and preservatives are eschewed in favour of a select batch of five raw plant oils, derived from hemp, jojoba, grape, avocado and apricot kernels. The similarly economical packaging is devised by Sherf himself: charcoal-grey boxes are printed with the brand’s logo, a slim minus symbol. Inside, the two face oils are contained in medicine bottles, and a refreshingly basic grey pouch holds the clay, which can also be stored in a container designed for Less by Belgian architect Vincent Van Duysen. Other accessories offered in the range include a towel, bowl, scoop, brush and comb. Less, in this case, is certainly more.
Key features: A concise collection of all-natural, minimalist products
Soap, by Inuit
Best new grooming product
Inuit is a pioneering young skincare company from Barcelona. Well-travelled founders Mónica Bernal and her partner Eloy Lamadrid create all-natural soaps made out of three base ingredients: organic olive oil, alkali, and iceberg water (the latter is unpolluted water that fell and froze 12,000 years ago, and is gathered by sail powered boats with zero CO2 emissions). These may be extreme lengths to go to in order to ensure purity, but the gesture is intended to raise awareness of the effects of climate change. The brand takes inspiration from the Arctic and the tough but perhaps more elemental lives of the Inuit people. The work of Beatriz Monañana and Solo, the graphic identity and packaging is clean and bold; the boxes are made of recycled paper, each cube numbered to suit a particular skin type. All soaps are free of harmful ingredients and full to the brim with certified organic components including cold-pressed rosehip and argan, neem, jojoba, babassu and hazelnut, according to the needs of different skin types.
Key features: An extra-pure, eco-friendly soap made with iceberg water and wrapped in recycled paper
‘Dot’ braille smartwatch, by Dot
Life-enhancer of the year
South Korean start-up Dot ‘strives to be a pioneer in accessible and affordable innovations for the vision impaired and the deafblind’. The design of its minimalist smartwatch is informed by the iconic style of Dieter Rams, and the technology behind it gives new meaning to the word ‘smart’. This is the first time active braille technology has been integrated into a mobile device. Combining a lightweight aluminium body with a white plastic face and a choice of bands, the watch tells the time and date, offers notification on calls and messages, and can be combined with an app for further features.
Key features: Minimal design, tells time and date, offers notifications on calls and messages, can be combined with an app
Air purifier, by Livsdal
Life-enhancer of the year
Not enough attention is given to the quality of the air we breathe, especially in a domestic environment, so Andreas and Tobias Murray decided to take things into their own hands, partnering with Swedish design studio MP12 to launch a premium air purifier for the home. Handcrafted by artisans and fully customisable, the Livsdal purifier’s aesthetic is a contemporary take on the 19th-century Swedish Empire style. A structure of wood, stainless steel and natural stone conceals a state-of-the-art filtration system (produced by filter specialist Camfil), capturing pollutants such as viruses, pollen, bacteria and toxic molecules.
Key features: Made of wood, stainless steel and stone, equipped with a Camfil filter, can capture a vast range of pollutants
In-flight fabric amenity kit, by The Laundress, for Singapore Airlines
Life-enhancer of the year
For passengers at the pointy end of the plane, most situations have been tended to. Need sleep? Here’s a flatbed, pyjamas and eye mask. Time to wake up? Simply take your amenity kit to the bathroom and freshen up. Singapore Airlines has now taken the concept a step further, teaming up with New York brand The Laundress to offer premium customers a kit to freshen up their travel outfit. Containing deodorising Fabric Fresh, wrinkle-busting Crease Release and mark-removing Wash & Stain Bar, all in The Laundress’ Classic fragrance, it guarantees passengers arrive at their destination looking and smelling fabulous.
Key features: An in-flight travel kit for freshening up clothes that includes a fabric scent, and a wrinkle and stain remover
‘Solstråle’ solar panel system, by Ikea
Life-enhancer of the year
Ikea knows a thing or two about distilling good design into good business, so news that the Swedish giant has moved into solar is a heartening step towards a sustainable future. Delivered with typical low-key aplomb, the ‘Solstråle’ solar panel system – developed in collaboration with Solarcentury – offers three types of roof panel accompanied by a battery pack, taking the edge off utility bills by converting daylight into night-time illumination. This isn’t a new idea, but Ikea’s matter-of-fact functionalism will be sure to ramp up the adoption rate, taking us closer to a time when domestic solar installations are ubiquitous.
Key features: Three different types of roof panels, back-up battery pack
‘Oui’ seating, by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec
Life-enhancer of the year
As part of its 100-year anniversary celebrations, Kunsthal Aarhus, a contemporary arts centre in Denmark, commissioned Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec to create an outdoor seating installation for its garden. The resulting project – co-produced by Kvadrat – comprises four circular galvanised steel benches. One of the benches, which boasts a fireplace at its centre, has become a key gathering place outside the museum. ‘Taking fire to the heart of the city reminds us of gathering around bonfires,’ say the Bouroullecs. ‘Contemplating the flames gives rise to moments of collective interaction and daydreaming.’
Key features: Four benches, made from galvanised steel, create a place to meet and contemplate nature
Saerom Yoon
Officine Panerai Next Generation Designer of the Year winner
Based in Seoul, Saerom Yoon is a furniture design graduate of Hongik University. His early projects showcased a distinct inclination towards wood and natural materials, while more recent work has revived a 1960s material: acrylic. Using a technique he has developed himself, Yoon directly dyes the surface of the acrylic, giving the synthetic material a natural makeover by infusing the clear resin with subtle colour and turning it into something more crystalline. Natural blending and gradation between the different colours evokes distortion via refraction and reflection, creating a quartz-like optical illusion.
For the second year, Wallpaper* magazine and luxury watchmaker Officine Panerai have collaborated to create the Officine Panerai Next Generation Designer Award. Part of the 2018 Wallpaper* Design Awards, it is designed to champion the work of a young and prodigiously talented individual who has significantly contributed to the field of design during the past 12 months and looks set to create a lasting impact in years to come. Nominees for the Officine Panerai Next Generation Designer Award are young talent from around the world, including Dutch textile designer Mae Engelgeer; German product designer Tino Seubert; French artistic director Charlotte Juillard; Italian designers Guglielmo Poletti and Sara Ricciardi; South Korean furniture designer Saerom Yoon; and Polish artist Małgorzata Bany
Saerom Yoon was annouced as the winner on 2 March, and will be awarded by Wallpaper* Brand and Content Director Tony Chambers and Officine Panerai during an intimate Design Awards dinner with many other 2018 category winners and judges in attendance, including British architect Farshid Moussavi; Nordic cuisine trailblazers René and Nadine Redzepi; Dutch infrastructural artist Daan Roosegaarde; master minimalist Jasper Morrison; and Ethiopian model, actor and campaigner Liya Kebede.
Mae Engelgeer
Officine Panerai Next Generation Designer of the Year
Dutch textile designer Mae Engelgeer attended the Amsterdam Fashion Institute before completing a prestigious Master in Applied Arts at the Sandberg Institute and developing her first collection of textiles at Textiel Lab, a workshop part of the national Textiel Museum in Tilburg. In 2014 Engelgeer opened her own studio in Amsterdam, working on product design, installations and international collaborations. With her work characterised by colour gradients, block patterns and linear elements, Engelgeer combines craft, new technology and modern materials into beautiful textiles.
Charlotte Juillard
Officine Panerai Next Generation Designer of the Year
After a residency at Fabrica, Benetton’s communication and research centre in Treviso, Italy, French designer and artistic director Charlotte Juillard opened her own creative studio in Paris in 2014. Specialising in design and scenography, Juillard’s work stresses the importance of the skills and knowledge of craftspeople. Her sustainably considered pieces combine textures and forms, softness and femininity, and aim to inspire both pleasure and discussion. The studio now works across various creative disciplines, including furnishing, textiles, fashion, beauty and music, for clients such as Ligne Roset and Christian Lacroix.
Małgorzata Bany
Officine Panerai Next Generation Designer of the Year
Exploring a wide range of disciplines including sculpture, furniture and painting, Polish artist Małgorzata Bany’s work focuses on simple geometry and polished or textural finishes. In turns utilitarian and sensual, her creations – including Painting Furniture, a collection of geometric plaster furniture design in collaboration with designer David Horan for Form & Seek – consistently blur the distinction between art and design. Creating her own pigments, colours and materials, the Slade School of Fine Art graduate gives her paintings and sculptures tactile qualities, unique and minimal shape.
Guglielmo Poletti
Officine Panerai Next Generation Designer of the Year
Born in Milan, Guglielmo Poletti studied contextual design at Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands. His work pursues the definition of a personal language, an artistic identity which aims to trigger reflections on the meaning of form in relation to functionality or context. This search for the essence of things is evident in Equilibrium, his graduation project, which explores materials by introducing twists, suspension and tension to create a series of beautifully made sculptures. Intuition and a hands-on approach, combined with free experimentation, are essential starting points for the personal vocabulary of Poletti’s work.
Sara Ricciardi
Officine Panerai Next Generation Designer of the Year
Collaborating with Italian artisans, Sara Ricciardi’s Milan-based studio creates evocative objects that have a dramatic, uplifting effect on their environment. Her constant research draws inspiration from life and nature around her and from the beauty of materials and their colours. With partner Martina Salvato, Sara Ricciardi cofounded La Lattoneria, ‘an encounter between two different but complementary souls, Nordic accuracy and Southern explosiveness.’ Both contemporary and traditional, La Lattoneria products play with the rigorous shapes of 1920s architecture, taking inspiration from work by Italian modernists Giuseppe Terragni and Pier Luigi Nervi.
Tino Seubert
Officine Panerai Next Generation Designer of the Year
Straddling both product and set design, Tino Seubert’s work include colourful ‘Flute’ cast pencil trays, ‘Narcissus’ terrazzo and smoked glass vases, as well as sets for the lookbook of London fashion brand Solace. Born in Germany, educated in Italy and France, and now based in London, Seubert regards conceptualisation, design and production as a broad, cumulative process, immersing himself in the challenges of each step, and focusing on material as an integral part of the overall creative concept rather than a simple medium. He finds inspiration in history and contemporary art as much as material research and science.