Exploring the most exciting interior designers working today

Phaidon’s By Design is an interior design book with a global remit: a true atlas of creativity showcasing the work of the studios behind some of the world’s most exciting contemporary spaces.

The publisher’s international offices collated the work of more than 100 interior designers for the book, nominated by an international jury including Wallpaper* editor-in-chief Sarah Douglas; artists Niki Haas and Laila Gohar; Graeme Brooker, head of the interior design programme at London’s Royal College of Art; and curator Aric Chen.

The jury’s brief was simple: to nominate studios that create interior spaces, and have produced work in the past five years, but without restrictions related to their specialism, age or location – making for a truly comprehensive overview of the best interior design today.

By Design: chronicling the work of the world’s best contemporary interior designers

The book’s 300-plus pages feature the work of interior designers such as Neri & Hu, Studioilse, Kelly Wearstler, Vincent Van Duysen, Teo Yang and Studio Shamshiri. The designers’ more recent and impressive interiors projects are presented alongside a studio profile. Featured, non-traditional creatives working in the interior design field include Italian film director Luca Guadagnino, as well as Maria Speake and Adam Hills of Retrouvius, a London-based studio better known for its work salvaging architectural pieces from sites prior to demolition.

Projects on show throughout the pages offer a wide geographical range (designers come from 30 different countries), and cover all kinds of interior spaces, from private residences to hospitality, retail and more.

‘The priority of the most innovative and desirable interior design of the 21st century, at least so far, is experience: designers today are most concerned about how their spaces will affect their inhabitants,’ writes Phaidon editor William Norwich in the book’s introduction. ‘In other words, how spaces are experienced; how they affect, much more than just how they are perceived critically. Designers are designing for people, not their peers and not their critics.’

Immersive photographs offer clear evidence of this concept, with spaces ranging from the minimalist to the decorative, contemporary and modern, and those where influences and reference collide.

‘Designers are also storytellers,’ continues Norwich, summing up today’s interior design panorama. ‘[They work] to create environments of warmth, interest, scholarship, personality, and craft. More than ever before, they design in the context for where their work lives: location, environment, sustainability, and also dreams and aspirations. Here is a veritable cornucopia of ideas and inspiration for you, whether you are about to commission a designer for your home or business or are looking for ideas you can adapt yourself.’

INFORMATION

By Design: The World’s Best Contemporary Interior Designers is published by Phaidon 
phaidon.com