Happy birthday, DWA! We toast 20 years of great collaborations

It's been 20 years since architects Frederik de Wachter and Alberto Artesani joined forces to launch DWA, which has become one of Milan's quintessential design practices, creating spaces, exhibitions, pop-ups and objects. Working across disciplines, their practice is defined by aesthetic clarity, precision and a modern approach to materials and colour.

Projects such as the interior of Rome's Rinascente, and Cafe Populaire, a pop-up dining spot created with Lambert et Fils at Milan Design Week between 2019 and 2022, demonstrate the duo's ability to work on spaces that are engaging and functional – regardless of their purpose.

'Maybe it all started on any old day of the year 2005. Or maybe beginnings are always reconstructed in hindsight,' say the pair, who celebrate the milestone with a new book, designed by Milan studio LaTigre. 'Over time we accumulated traces: drawings, photographs, materials, notes. Some of them still articulate our design language, while others have fallen silent. This isn’t a story – there’s no order, no linear progression. What we have left is a succession of actions, or gestures. Someone once said that DWA lies in the interstices between those actions. And maybe that’s right.'

The book acts as an archive of memories for the studio, including 120 projects from the past two decades, and for the occasion, De Wachter and Artesani have asked twenty of their long-term collaborators to interpret their studio name, including Alberto Strada, Annalisa Rosso, Francesca Sarti, Samuel Lambert of Lambert et Fils, and Valentina Ciuffi.

But DWA also holds a special spot in Wallpaper's history: for as long as we can remember, the architects have been among our most trusted creative collaborators, helping us bring to life many editions of Wallpaper* Handmade, as well as our emerging talent celebration, Class of 2024 and Class of 2025, at Triennale Milano. At the time of writing, they are putting the finishing touches to the Wallpaper* Kiosk, to mark the launch of our Wallpaper* Travel Guides during Milan Design Week 2026.

Working with De Wachter and Artesani over a good chunk of these past 20 years has been one of our team's most cherished experiences, and their ability to bring our ideas to life and create experiential spaces that interpret our themes has made them a core part of some of Wallpaper’s most important moments.

So happy anniversary, DWA, and here’s to many more years’ working together.