In Italy, you can buy a house for one euro. You read that right – across the country, municipalities have launched schemes to address the issue of Italy’s surplus of beautiful, historic properties, which are often abandoned.

These buildings often require significant investment in restoration. As a result, they tend to attract buyers with a passion for cultural preservation, eager to honour the past while contributing something new to Italy’s timeless landscapes.

A compelling example lies in Sambuca, Sicily, where Palermo-based architecture studio Didea took on the transformation of an early-20th-century home. The structure, partially embedded within Sambuca’s town walls, was essentially a ruin, with collapsed floors and rising damp. Yet Didea saw promise in its bones, embarking on a complete reimagining in collaboration with AirBNB.

The studio exercised restraint in the home's redesign. Decorative excess is eschewed in favour of simplicity and precision. The result is a space that does not nostalgically recreate the past, but gently weaves in threads of local identity.

Modern, minimalist elements are introduced, standing in contrast to original features – vaulted ceilings, enfilade rooms and timber and mosaic floors. Mediterranean-style walls in warm, muted tones are set against bold colour blocks and sculptural shapes, creating a striking visual dialogue.

One of the most distinctive elements of the home is the set of staircases, made from perforated steel and rendered in bold red and green. These, along with translucent doors, allow natural light to flow through the space, contributing to a soft, airy and quintessentially Mediterranean ambiance.

Every aspect of the property, including the furnishings, was custom-designed in what Didea describes as an ‘architectural tailoring process’. The result is a cohesive and refined interior, where nothing feels accidental and everything serves a purpose.

The home’s material palette – lime plaster, raw earth, and other breathable, natural components – supports thermal comfort and, by extension, energy efficiency. In this way, sustainability is built into the home, rather than being an overt proclamation. Plus, adds Didea co-founder Nicola Andò, ‘restoring what already exists is, in itself, an act of sustainability’.

The Sambuca project demonstrates how thoughtful design can breathe new life into heritage, standing as a culturally-sensitive case study for how Italy’s underutilised building stock might be revitalised. It gives this space a second life – allowing it, as Andò puts it, to ‘speak again through the experience of dwelling’.

Seventeen years ago, Airbnb changed the way that people travel. More than two billion guests later, the brand is synonymous with a place to stay, but now the company wants you to think of it as an enriching lifestyle. Introducing Airbnb Services, alongside a revamped Airbnb Experiences, and an all-new Airbnb app.

With the addition of 'Services', you can now have everything you would normally book, from a hotel to a blow-out to a massage, with a few clicks of a button. Need a private chef for tonight? Services can help. Travelling for work and want to keep in shape? Schedule a PT session right on the app.

Experiences, which currently allows locals to share their skills, has also been levelled up. Fancy a trip to the City of Lights? Don’t just settle for a ho-hum tour of Notre Dame – get a personalised tour by Axelle Ponsonnet, an architect who helped restore the landmark. Visiting Rome? Don’t merely look at art, but help restore a painting with the duo who took care of three Caravaggios. The list goes on, across more than 650 cities around the world, including wrestling with a Lucha Libre in Mexico City and making ramen in Tokyo with Michelin-recognised master Saburo Ishigōka – and this new app can deliver experiences and services in the same time it takes to call an Uber.

In 2024, the company launched ICONS and gave away 4,000 stays in iconic locations, such as Prince’s home in Minneapolis and movies sets including the ‘Up’ house. But in 2025, it is taking that exclusive access to another level – think getting glam with Sabrina Carpenter or delving into anime with Megan Thee Stallion.

Find out more in our exclusive interview with San Francisco-based Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky, who took us through the design of the new app. Chesky holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and this foundation has profoundly influenced Airbnb’s user-centric approach.

Wallpaper*: Why did you feel this was the right time for Airbnb to launch a service app?

Brian Chesky: I’ve always thought Airbnb could become more than just a place to stay, but we had to be ready. We had this idea 17 years ago and it grew beyond our wildest imagination. But if you go back to that very first weekend when we started Airbnb, we had three people stay with us, they came as strangers but left as friends. I think it was always about more than a functional place to stay. It’s about connection, it’s about people having an authentic travel experience anywhere in the world.

We were thinking for a long time, the biggest asset in people's lives is not their home, it's not the car, it’s their time. So, what if you could Airbnb people’s passions, their skills, and those parts of their lives could be shared with other people?

W*: How did you go about this process of creating a real connection with travellers in each city?

BC: We did a lot of research on our guests and we wanted to provide them with all the same services [of] a hotel but in a much more authentic, local, special way. So, we rebuild the product from the ground up. With services, we are starting with ten categories, from chefs to masseuses and hair stylists – just Airbnb this whole world of offerings and do it very simply in an app. We put everything in one place with tabs for homes, experiences and services.

You do not need to be travelling to use these services, you can use them in your own city. Some of the categories are photography, prepared meals, make-up, and personal trainers – such as a record-holding power lifter [in LA]; this is for people who want to become really great athletes. Others have their own local gyms, have trained celebrities, and you can get a session with them starting at just $75 an hour. In Austin, you can book a private chef or a James Beard award winner who will bring you a taco bar starting at $45. It’s easier to book than an Uber.

W*: Explain how ‘services’ are different than ‘experiences’ – what’s new about the experiences?

BC: This is different to the 2016 [experiences] launch – we are completely reimagining experiences. We had some big learnings from the last time. They needed to be more affordable, more unique to Airbnb and they needed to be merchandised correctly.

Experiences is the best way to explore a city with the locals who know it best. We really just wanted to find the most interesting people in the whole world. Airbnb Originals is the future of that product. In the top carousel for ‘originals’ [formerly ICONS] we have Megan Thee Stallion doing a cool promotional experience where she designed an environment [transform into your anime alter-ego with in her ‘Otaku Hottie Quest’]; we also have Sabrina Carpenter [step inside the ‘Short n’ Sweet’ set with Sabrina Carpenter for a day of glam, dancing, and espresso], and really well-known people. One of the reasons celebrities want to do this is because they want to develop a deep connection with their fans and show a more authentic side of themselves.

It's not all celebrities. If you want an experience in Paris at The French Bastards Bakery, you can learn to bake and create your own pastry. You can also see the other guests on the experience [in the app] and you can message them, share photos, and stay in touch after.

People are looking for things in social media that are real. But you know what’s real? The real world. In this world of social media and digital acceleration with AI, sometimes you want to ride a trend, but sometimes you want the opposite. In a world where we are spending more time on our devices, we want you to get off your devices and live in the real world.

W*: Will this simplify the travel experience for hosts as well as the guests?

BC: Now, there are tools for services and experiences [that] make it easy for hosts to adjust every aspect of their listing. We have rebuilt the app for the hosts, which is just as well designed as the guest app, [and it's] easy to create a service. There is a new ‘today’ tab. This is essentially where all your reservations are. We have a brand-new day calendar that we built to schedule people by the day or hour. Go to the ‘explore’ tab for service – it’s totally integrated. Itineraries show the door code to get into the Airbnb and also recommends experiences to do in that city. We designed a new profile with over 200 million verified identities, including an ID card. It’s becoming more of a social network in the real world.

W*: Explain the process for curating the best artists, restaurants, and activities for each city.

BC: We’ve spent years evaluating what makes a good-quality, unique and authentic experience in each city. We did this in over 100 cities across 30 countries. We had to build a community of tastemakers and then we worked with them to recruit tens of thousands of some of the most interesting people in the world. We had to find the best chefs, trainers, masseuses; to do walking tours, we recruited architects. For every service and experience, everyone is handpicked for quality and expertise, and is vetted for licences and certifications.

A lot of the secret sauce of Airbnb is not just the app we are building but the community we are building of hosts and guests and how they all come together. I think after we announce this, we will get 100,000 applications for people to be service and experiences hosts. We are prepared. We help to merchandise everyone, take photos, get them on the platform, make sure they're priced correctly and make sure they're ready. Everything that we are offering you probably couldn’t even find on the internet.

W*: How did your design background play a role in creating the new app?

BC: We are moving away from a flat design. The interface is more animated, dimensional, vibrant and colourful, with icons that brings the world of Airbnb to life. It’s clean and you can see some of the craft that we put into it. We have one of the best software design teams in the world and I’m really proud of the work they have been doing.

You can see the value through and through. We obsessed over making something delightful and simple. Design is not just how it looks but how it works. It’s really intelligent. We designed a really cool identity card that works with different layers of translucency so that it reacts to movement when you turn the phone. It all comes together in this one app – it’s like many apps in one.

W*: What was your favourite part of this process?

BC: I think of myself as more of a designer than I do a tech founder or CEO, because I approach problems like a designer. My job is being a CEO, but my spirit and my heart – the way I approach a problem is the way a designer would.

My favourite part of the process was that I basically sat with these teams who were developing these products every single day, poring over these problems. How do we find these people all over the world? And make sure everyone has credibility? And how do we make it as easy to book a chef as an Uber? How do you build tools to make it really easy for the host? How do we design an itinerary that brings everything together?

Every day there was a new design problem that I had to solve, but at the end of the day [I felt] like we had a breakthrough. Only to wake up the next day with another one. I think much of design is just continually solving problems, finding a way through this maze where you end up with this product that looks so simple, so inevitable, that somebody opens the phone, they use your app, and they almost feel like this seems obvious. No one thinks there are all these problems being solved, because it seems like it was always meant to be this way.

W*: Tell us how this will change the travel industry or landscape?

BC: Well, 17 years ago, we changed the way people travel, and we are going to change it again and allow people to start this whole new world that they didn't really know existed. Now we make it incredibly easy with the tap of a button for you to get almost anything you can imagine.

These ten categories of services, and the categories of experiences, are just the beginning, because we're going to be offering more categories of service, experiences in more cities all over the world. I eventually want to be able to Airbnb almost anything you can dream of. Use [the app] when you travel or also in your own city. And I think this could make the world more exciting, more delightful. It's an alternative to the way people live today and it can make [life] richer. I think millions of people can become hosts and can share their passions and their time with other people around the world. And I think this is nothing short of a reinvention of Airbnb. Now Airbnb means so much more than a home; you can Airbnb the whole world.

Note: During the recent Los Angeles fires, Airbnb provided free housing to 23,000 displaced people and is continuing to support by giving $16 million to Habitat LA and $1 million to local non-profits to help rebuild.

Airbnb is paying tribute to the musical genius of Prince with a chance to stay in the newly restored Purple Rain house, celebrating the film and song’s 40th anniversary. It’s the latest in a series of high-profile collaborations from the vacation rental giant, such as with Mathieu Lehanneur, designer of the Paris Olympic torch, who turned Musée D’Orsay’s clock room into an Airbnb, and last year’s Barbie’s Malibu DreamHouse experience hosted by Ken.

Airbnb introduces Prince’s Purple Rain house

The Purple Rain house provides an immersive experience that serves as a nostalgic homage to the 1980s cult classic and features elements from the original set design, unreleased tracks and memorabilia from Prince’s personal collection. The Minneapolis house, an authentic tribute to the American singer’s hometown, will be available for 25 exclusive one-night stays, each priced at just $7 per person – a nod to Prince’s favourite number.

‘We were lucky enough to be a part of the music scene in Minneapolis during such a pivotal era for rock music, playing with Prince in one of the most successful bands of our generation and starring alongside him in the Purple Rain film,’ say Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman – aka musical duo Wendy & Lisa, Prince’s chief collaborators – who are hosts of the experience.

Inside, guests are invited to indulge in a spa that nods to the music video for ‘When Doves Cry’, or explore a closet brimming with Prince’s most fabled outfits – behind glass, so available solely for admiration. For those looking to embrace their inner artist, a selection of vibrant 1980s-inspired garments, complete with hair, accessories and eye make-up, is included. Downstairs, the decor boasts a characteristic purple velvet wallpaper, complemented by a vintage 1980s stereo preloaded with the very songs that inspired the film's protagonist, The Kid.

The Muse lounge features a piano, drums and a guitar, while The Kid’s bedroom is decked out to reflect the movie, complete with Prince’s personal tape collection, which includes one of his demo recordings. Wendy & Lisa claim that the highlight of the house is a ‘secret space’: to gain entry, guests must attempt to activate the hidden door; once inside, a game of clues heralds the chance to win exclusive rewards.

‘The Purple Rain house stands as a tribute to our dear friend Prince, the timeless character he brought to life, and the lasting impact he continues to have. We hope the space gives fans a glimpse into the eclectic world Prince created, and visitors walk away feeling a little bit closer to him as an artist and person,’ remark the hosts.

Prince’s Purple Rain house is available to view now on Airbnb, and a chance to book will open from 2 until 6 October 2024, airbnb.com

It's not only the costumes in House of Gucci that have got our aesthetic impulses tingling, but the locations in the Ridley Scott-directed upcoming film too. The movie's cast, which includes Adam Driver as Gucci heir Maurizio Gucci, and Lady Gaga as murderous ex-wife Patrizia Reggiano, flit from one ostentatious scene to another, from the ski slopes of Cortina to the streets of Gucci's home city of Florence, from Rome to St Moritz. Nothing is more majestic than Villa Balbiano, the 18th-century palazzo on the sublime western shore of Lake Como, and the imagined home of Gucci family patriarch Aldo Gucci, the Gucci chairman and eldest son of the house's founder, Guccio Gucci, who established the then-leather goods brand in 1921.

You too can make yourself at home in the sumptuous setting, located in one of Italy's most sought-after luxury destinations, as& Villa Balbiano is now available to rent through Airbnb. The palazzo – which is one of the largest private residences on Lake Como – was once owned by Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio, and features six extravagant suites, designed by acclaimed French interior decorator Jacques Garcia. Exquisite gardens, bordered with manicured lawns and ornate fountains, were distinguished by the British Society of Garden Designers Awards (for historic restoration) in 2017. Think original trompe l'oeil frescoes by the Recchi brothers and Agostino Silva, inlaid marble gilded furniture, velvet upholstery and crystal chandeliers, and rooms accented with objets d’art sourced through Christie's and Sotheby's.

Indulge in an overnight stay at Villa Balbiano from House of Gucci

For those keen to indulge in an extravagant overnight stay, the Villa Balbiano host is offering a special, one-night stay, available through Airbnb on 30 March 2022, where two guests can access the majestic master suite, and its lavish amenities, including the first four floors of the home, the outdoor swimming pool, the private pier and the boathouse. Bookings for this one-night stay open on Monday 6 December at 5pm (GMT).

INFORMATION

airbnb.co.uk

With regional and local holiday travel continuing to rate highly with people around the world, Airbnb and Muji have shrewdly joined forces to allow hosts (and potential hosts) to kit out their homes with a thoughtful collection of useful essentials. Airbnb Host Essentials by Muji is a 23-piece, first-of-its kind kit, geared to enable hosts to refresh their living spaces with the design-forward staples needed to make every holiday home stay a memorable one. The discreet set is imagined to fit any type of holiday home, from beach huts and remote cabins to extraordinary escapes and urban apartments. 

Holiday home kit by Muji

Based on a traveller survey conducted by DKC Analytics that revealed the top items and rooms that contribute an exceptional stay, the assembled kit of essentials spans waffle towels, hangers, coffee mugs, porcelain serving ware, cleaning products such as a broom, dustpan and lint roller, and an assortment of classic Muji stationery for good measure. According to the research, travellers’ top five must-have holiday items included high-quality towels, glassware, coffee mugs and table settings. Other personal touches that help to make a place feel like home, such as having toothbrush holders and hangers, also help to elevate a normal stay to an exceptional one. 

‘Our philosophy emphasises a practicality and dedication to quality that enables a simple, good life, and we were immediately struck by the synergy with Airbnb in its values of hosting,’ says Taku Hareyama, Muji’s president of the United States and Canada. ‘Airbnb’s commitment to good hospitality and mission of providing authentic and positive experiences for its guests and hosts in the spaces that they live and stay is so core to our work, we were delighted to create a kit of essentials that would embody this philosophy of a commitment to reliable, quality basics.’

Available to purchase for $400, the Airbnb Host Essentials collection neatly offers hosts everything they need to comfortably provide for two guests. Its also priced for hosts to potentially earn back the cost of the kit quickly. Whether you’re planning on hosting or travelling in the imminent future, the knowledge that Muji’s essentials can be on hand to enhance each experience should be a comfort to us all.

INFORMATION

muji.com

The commercial success that Airbnb has garnered in the last ten years is undisputed. Not content with just becoming the market leader in short-term home rentals, the company has since gone on to offer its users travel advice, in-depth guides based on local knowledge, and personalized experiences lead by local hosts to further foster its tightly knit and ever growing community.

Speaking at Brainstorm Design this week, Airbnb’s director of transportation Jenny Arden emphasized that Airbnb’s approach was still very much rooted in design. ‘My role at Airbnb has been a design role. I’ve been a design director and so I’ve had the responsibility of representing the users – that’s the ultimate job to represent that voice and make sure that the customer has not been forgotten in the strategy, the planning and development. My transition is now into a business role [and covers things] you wouldn’t normally put the designer responsible for.’

She continues, ‘The reason we are doing this, is that we believe that first and foremost, as a business, we design the products that people need, that they want. Then from there, a strategy unfolds and you start to discover. A lot of what I do is similar to a start-up. I act as an entrepreneur and founder – there is no job too small.’

In her current role, Arden plays a galvanising force in shaping Airbnb’s latest ambition: to revolutionise the air travel and transportation aspects of travelling, as was revealed publicly last month. Building on the company’s aspirations to become a one-stop shop for all aspects of the travel experience, the company has also recently hired Fred Reid, formerly the CEO and founder of Virgin America, to serve as its global head of transportation.

While the exact focus on what transportation may entail for the company is still being kept under wraps, Arden states, ‘Our mission at Airbnb is to provide a world where anyone can belong anywhere. This really means you can travel to a community you’ve never seen before and feel like you’re a welcome member there, even if it’s just temporarily. My hope is that all that mission and vision can be achieved in all stages of the trip. There should be no lack of thought that went into the end-to-end experience.’ Watch this space.

Airbnb has already changed the world of hospitality, temporary accommodation and travel; now the innovative California-based company is throwing its hat in the ring of housing design too (following up on more recent developments in the field, by the likes, for example of Yves Behar). The company's co-founder, Joe Gebbia, has just announced the launch of Backyard, an initiative that aims to explore the world of homes in a unique way. 

Created through Samara, Airbnb's design studio and think tank, Backyard is set to look at how homes can be designed, built and shared in new and exciting ways. Using elements such as state-of-the-art techniques and smart-home technologies, the initiative will also draw on the company's wide-ranging insights into the domestic environment and its use, from the Airbnb community. 

A prototype under wraps, the designs will be drawing on forward-thinking elements such as sophisticated manufacturing techniques and smart-home technologies.

However this is not in fact a vehicle solely for designing and fabricating homes. ‘Backyard isn’t a house; it’s an initiative to rethink the home. Homes are complex, and Samara is taking a broad approach – not just designing one thing, but a system that can do many things. Backyard is currently in the prototyping phase', say the design team.

‘We began with a simple question', says Gebbia. ‘What does a home that is designed and built for sharing actually look and feel like? The answer is not simple at all. Other questions quickly emerged. Can a home respond to the needs of many inhabitants over a long period of time? Can it support and reflect the tremendous diversity of human experience? Can it keep up with the rate at which the world changes? Can we accomplish this without filling landfills with needless waste? It’s a tall order.'

Backyard has been quietly in development for a while and its exciting results are already starting to take shape; the team is in the process of prototyping ideas and ‘is looking to offer test units as soon as autumn 2019', says Samara. ‘[We will be] putting just enough into the world to learn how Backyard works in a variety of scenarios.' Stay tuned.

INFORMATION

For more information visit the website of Samara

‘When we started 10 years ago people were not staying in strangers’ homes,’ says Airbnb’s (AIRBNB, +0.00%) co-founder and chief product officer Joe Gebbia. ‘We needed to walk them across the bridge.’

But the company, now a $31 billion hospitality giant, proved that ‘with the right design, people could overcome the stranger danger bias.’ One of tech’s most successful start-ups and a Wallpaper* 2016 Game-Changer, Airbnb has helped 300 million travellers find accommodation in 81,000 cities around the world. But being successful isn’t enough, Gebbia told Tony Chambers of Wallpaper* at Brainstorm Design on Wednesday, outlining some of the ways that the company is leveraging its expertise to address displacement and revitalize communities.

Airbnb sees its strengths in creating trust between people who have never met, Gebbia said. ‘So we started to ask ourselves, where can we apply those talents around the world?’

Since 2012, Airbnb has been using its platform to locate emergency housing for people affected by more than 90 natural disasters in 20 countries, beginning with Hurricane Sandy in New York City, which rendered tens of thousands of people suddenly homeless overnight.

The company then set a more ambitious target: helping assist some of the 65 million people who had been displaced by conflict, natural disaster, or disease around the world. Airbnb launched its Open Homes programme last year with an ambitious five-year target of helping 100,000 refugees find a roof over their heads for the interim period after they’re resettled in a new country, from the time they arrive from the airport until they get back on their feet and start rebuilding their lives.

It was the ‘generosity in the host community to give back’ in the wake of natural disasters that Gebbia said convinced him that hosts would be willing to donate their spaces free of charge to help refugees. 

Gebbia also leads Airbnb’s design research lab Samara, which is applying Airbnb’s trust-based approach to rebuilding communities. The initiative’s first project brought it to the rapidly aging town of Yoshino in southern Japan, where seven out of eight homes now stand empty. Yoshino is emblematic of a nationwide problem: Japan’s population is declining by some 800,000 people per year, and rural areas have been hit particularly hard as younger people move to cities in search of work.

Collaborating with award-winning architect Go Hasegawa and using wood from Yoshino’s prized cedar forests, Airbnb designed a ‘shared home of the future’ that merges a community living space on the ground floor with rented sleeping quarters above.

‘People use our service because you want to connect with a locale,’ Gebbia said. Staying in a shared home like the Yoshino Cedar House that’s half community space ‘short-circuits’ the time it takes to feel immersed in a local place and culture.

The property is managed by a community cooperative that reinvests its proceeds, Gebbia said, while tourists help provide support for local craftspeople and artisans. In the past year, he said, the property has brought $150,000 to the town, and the company hopes it will act as ‘a beachhead’ to demonstrate how Japan can solve the fill its 8 million empty homes.

The project has been replicated in Civita, one of Italy’s ‘forgotten’ medieval towns, where Airbnb worked with artisans and all 10 local residents to restore part of a historic building into ‘a beautiful warm environment, and leverage our platform to create awareness for this tiny village,’ Gebbia said.

Ten years ago, Gebbia said, people didn’t expect that they would be staying in strangers’ homes; this past New Year’s Eve, the platform saw 3 million bookings in over 160 countries.

‘A company operating in the 21st century has a responsibility to go beyond the call of day to day business,’ Gebbia said. ‘It takes more than writing a check or cutting a grant to an organisation. It’s taking whatever you’re good at as a company and going out into the world and solving problems.’

The Brainstorm Design conference is jointly organised by Fortune, TIME and Wallpaper*, bringing together more than 300 top speakers and delegates from 33 countries. See more here

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Brainstorm design website

Airbnb co-founder and CPO Joe Gebbia and Bernhardt Design have launched a new collection of flexible furniture for the office and public spaces, unveiled this week at New York’s ICFF.

The ‘Neighborhood’ collection is based on a simple building block, developed with a modular and mobile design solution that allows for endless configurations. Gebbia created a total of 38 unique modules, making it the largest collection released by Bernhardt Design to date.

The modules include high-back designs for extra privacy during meetings, while a series of low-back seats encourage creative brainstorming; ottomans and tables punctuate the collection. All elements can combine to create large landscapes or more intimate settings, with integrated technology and sound-absorbing materials.

For the collection, Gebbia drew from his personal experience of frequently moving office in the early days of Airbnb, and the challenges he and his team faced to adapt existing furnishing to different spaces, while maintaining a sense of community and comfort. He was also able to put his product design training to good use – he studied at RISD before launching the company with fellow graduate Brian Chesky – and this collaboration was an opportunity to both reconnect with his design background and to develop a collection close to the Airbnb credo of openness and community.

‘At Airbnb, we celebrate the connections people make every day through our platform; connections with new places, new people and new cultures,’ he says, ‘[The collection] celebrates the beauty of these connections while providing comfortable, flexible solutions for the evolving workplace.’

The idea behind ‘Neighborhood’ is for the collection to not only work in an office, but in any public space, from airports to restaurants. ‘Joe’s idea of using two simple building blocks to create an entire community of flexible products was ingenious,’ says Bernhardt Design president Jerry Helling.

For Helling, Gebbia’s design prowess lies in the details behind the collection, such as the zig-zag stitching on each piece. ‘The beauty of the line is that it can be easily and instantly adaptable by the people using it,’ he adds, ‘rather than relying on an installation team to reconfigure a workspace.’

INFORMATION

‘Neighborhood’ is on view at ICFF until 24 May. For more information, visit the Bernhardt Design website

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Improvements in travel technology are moving a mile a minute. 2017 has barely geared up, and we've already seen an influx of travel-related tech emerge at Las Vegas' CES – from thumbnail-sized DataTraveler cards that hold enough movies to cover countless round-the-world flights, to immersive VR gadgets that take you to exotic destinations without leaving your sofa.

Above all, we've seen an upward swing in travel designs that put two concepts at their core: ease and enjoyment. User-led products are engineered to improve your trip while simplifying it, by building international communities and keeping you connected to them. Here are four recent tech launches accomplishing just that...

Airbnb Trips

There was a time that holidays were synonymous with relaxation and switching off. Now, the millennial traveler demands interaction and immersion, the familiar concept of 'slow travel' eschewing package holidays and all-inclusive snoozes on the beach.

Back in November, Airbnb's CEO Brian Chesky launched Trips – a break-out platform served by the existing Airbnb brand. From samurai swordplay afternoons to multi-day classic car road-trips in Malibu, Airbnb handpicks experiences, offering deep insight into local communities. Organised by place and passion, over 500 hosts have experiences listed in 39 cities.

Chesky explains, 'We want to make travel magical again by putting people back at the heart of every trip.' The experiences are community-orientated, stylish and immersive – three things that Airbnb's expendable income-laden audience look for. As Chesky said at the launch, 'travel has never really been about where you go, but it's about who you can become' – the backbone of the Airbnb ethos. With Experiences, Places and Homes already under the Airbnb umbrella, and Flights and Services to be added in the near future, Airbnb is evolving from a home rental site into a bespoke, contemporary version of the package holiday provider. Sign us up.

Raden luggage

You may not know it, but your current luggage is dumb. So thinks Josh Udashkin, founder of smart luggage company Raden. The impressive American businessman doesn't come from a typical design or technology background. His glittering – if unconventional – CV includes a doctorate in law and the title of global development lead at Aldo International. As a legalese global developer, he did his fair share of continent hopping, all too aware of the frustrations of the frequent flyer. So he dreamt up Raden, the connected luggage system.

The bags feature everything you'd expect from smart luggage, including a powerful, integrated phone charger and easy to use tracking technology. Two additions really set Raden apart: an in-built bag weighing scale means no last-minute unpacking before customs; and the Raden Support tool (similar to the one found in the Google Pixel) provides comforting tech support wherever you happen to be. 'We are alleviating the most blatant pain-points of travel and creating a community of travelers around the app,' he expains.

The beautifully designed, lightweight luggage is smart – but only as smart as it needs to be. Every technological element has a purpose. The integrated lock, for example, is reassuringly traditional. 'We could have put all sorts of unnecessary tech in Raden, but that would have made it a gimmick, not a product that would make day-to-day travel easier.' Case closed.

B&O Play H9

With 2017 set to be cluttered by fiddly, losable wireless ear buds, B&O Play is keeping things refreshingly large and cushioned with its latest travel headphones, the H9, released just before Christmas.

Concept and design manager Jakob Kristoffersen reveals his reasoning behind the need to keep things comfortable – and simple – when it comes to travel audio. 'When design is not conceptually founded – that is, designed for something else in mind than the traveller (like maximising profit) – technology can disrupt the most precious moments of your adventure.'

Appropriately for headphones that cancel out noise, the design is quiet and understated. Genuine leather 'ages with beauty and tell just as many tales as your camera', and is bolstered by soft lambskin and memory foam ear pads. Inside, the technology is just as traveller-driven. The technical wizardry of the active noise cancellation (ANC) cocoons ears from external annoyances, as does the industry-leading 14 hours of battery life.

Horizn Studios travel accessories

Aiming its wares at 'urban nomads', luxury Berlin-based newcomer Horizn Studios has locked on to the seamless travel trend. The brand's young, dynamic team is of the mindset that every journey – even the most mundane commute – has the potential to be an elegant experience. Encased in a hand-stitched, Italian leather pouch, the locally engineered charger inside keeps your smartphone topped up on the go.

Of course, minimal, well-crafted portable phone chargers are ten a penny these days. What elevates Horizn Studios is the add-on extras. It is committed to creating an internationally relevant travel hub. With every purchase, customers are offered an online travel assistant, promising 24/7 support and travel inspiration, from a team of dedicated experts, with an average response time of less than 60 seconds.

Technology is making the world feel smaller and more accessible than ever. And though there's certainly a place for digital detox, the personal touches, local emphasis and user-lead engineering of these designs mean we don't always have to disconnect, to reconnect.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Airbnb website, the Raden website, the B&O Play website, and the Horizn Studios website

Airbnb confounds for many reasons, though the most obvious one is that its success is based on a business model that ignores one of the first lessons we learn at our mother’s knee: don’t talk to strangers. We can only imagine what the first few investor meetings in 2008 must have been like.

And yet, fast forward nine years and the website – essentially a match-making service between home-owners and visitors looking for an alternative to hotel rooms – has already hosted 123 million nights. It’s also in the midst of seeking additional funding, valuing the company at $30bn – making it the second highest-valued start-up in the US behind Uber.

And like Uber, Airbnb has become a poster-child for the sharing economy, that nebulous but extremely valuable intersection between commerce and human connection. It has recast the idea of privacy, security and personal space. And all because Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, two graduates from the Rhode Island School of Design, found a way to take the components of trust between people who had never met, and design for it. ‘We didn’t come up with anything new,’ says Gebbia, chief product officer. ‘There were many websites like ours. Why did ours take off? Luck and timing played a part. The 2008 recession led people to consider new ways of earning supplemental income. But I believe the key difference was design.’

As Gebbia explains it, hospitality websites didn’t succeed because they were data driven. The humanity was missing. Through small but significant features such as quirky icons, intuitive booking forms and personal photos, ‘we designed an entire system that helped people reach this degree of trust. When we left the computers behind, we grew.’ And how. The company covers more than 34,000 cities. This summer, a million guests a night stayed in Airbnb accommodation.

Here, Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s CEO, recalls a lesson from Paul Graham, the founder of start-up incubator Y Combinator. ‘He told us it’s better to have a hundred customers that love you than to have a million that just sort of like you. If people love your product, they’ll tell other people about it.’

Not surprisingly, Gebbia and Chesky have already turned their creativity to other projects, though they remain opaque on the details. They’ve just launched Samara, an innovation and design studio, which brings together design and engineering experts to focus on ‘avant-garde and futuristic services’. Chesky adds: ‘Right now, we’re the Airbnb for homes. But what if we were the Airbnb for trips? What would that look like?’ As they say, stay tuned.

Airbnb is one of our 20 Game-Changers. Read about the other 19 here

As originally featured in the October 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*211)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Airbnb website

Photography: Jake Stangel

Airbnb's new Tokyo headquarters prove that the travel brand's famed 'belong anywhere' ethos extends to its employees as well as 60 million worldwide users.

On the back of lacklustre staff feedback forms, the drab Shinjuku corporate base was razed to the ground and reimagined. Neighbourhood, community and urban tranquility were the three interlinking concepts behind the new space, designed in collaboration with local interior architects Suppose Office Design to reflect Japanese culture.

A double-height, foliage-filled atrium leads to a generous communal kitchen and workspace, where bespoke finishing touches come courtesy of local manufacturers – New Light Pottery for the lighting design and contractor Setup for the adjustable height wooden office tables.

Masterminding the design from Airbnb's side was the in-house Environments Team, who are self-confessed 'culture-keepers', project manager Rebecca Ruggles explains. 'We carry certain standards through every Airbnb office, so when you walk in, you know where you are even without a logo on the door, but we also partner with the local employees to ensure that the design has a true sense of place.'

Airbnb staff committed more than just ideas and suggestions to the project. In the colourful Tijuana room, decorations were donated by the mother of one of the local employees, Saori Okura, whose travels through Mexico resulted in the impressive collection of artefacts that now line the sunshine yellow walls. In fact, the boardrooms read like pages in a travel guide – each one is inspired by a different listing that Airbnb has on the books, so staff can travel the world as they dash between meetings. All in a day's work.

INFORMATION

Photography: Periphery. Courtesy Airbnb

Airbnb, the new way of travelling, is working with the architect Go Hasegawa for the curator and designer Kenya Hara’s 'House Vision' exhibition, opening in Tokyo next month. And with Airbnb being in the business of lodging, it weighs in heavily on an exploration of 'the future of the home'.

'At Airbnb, we are always looking at what the future looks like and enjoy challenging the way we currently think about living,' says Joe Gebbia, the company's co-founder and chief product officer. 'Working with Go gave us the opportunity to bring these ideas to life, connecting our values of design and finding new ways to help communities.'

With an aging population and growing urbanisation, many of Japan’s rural villages are left diminished, which not only leads to financial hardships for the communities, but an abandonment of traditions and trade. So to address this the building, entitled Yoshino Sugi No Ie (or, Yoshino Cedar House), is created with provenance in mind – made with local materials by members of the local community.

'Through inheriting the modesty and the simplicity of the traditional Japanese old house, I hope Yoshino Sugi No Ie is going to not only harmonise well with local houses of Yoshino, but also will become a place to experience Japanese housing space for foreign tourists who visit this region,' Hasegawa notes.

Yoshino Sugi No Ie aims to be more than an exhibition piece; after being shown in Tokyo, the build will move to a permanent location in the town of Yoshino itself. The idea is for the community to share and experience the structure; thus, it’s 'going back to its place of birth to bring the vision to life'.

INFORMATION
House Vision’ runs from 30 July until 28 August. For more information, visit the ’House Vision’ website

The installations at Design Miami are always one of the fair’s main attractions. From specially commissioned structures that adorn designated areas of the fair grounds to the immersive exhibitions themselves, there is no lack of dramatic environments on site.

One highlight of this year’s fair, which takes up residence in Miami’s South Beach in early December, is an interactive setting entitled ‘Belong. Here. Now’, brought to life by Airbnb. Created with the Chicago-based architecture and design firm, Design With Company, the space will serve as a platform for visitors to come in and move around its modular components as they wish. It will also serve as a venue for a roster of creative talents, who will take up residency during the week.

Aesthetically, the installation is a playful fusion of traditional architectural elements and other familiar motifs. The components will be easily movable so that visitors can leave their own mark on the playful surroundings. 'We’re thinking of them as a series of nested rings. Each begins as a primitive shape: a triangle, a square, a circle, etc,' explains the duo. 'They are meant to look like winding lines that dance between the columns [and] offer basic variations for ways that people can relate together in the space.They provide a seemingly infinite variety of configurations for people to interact in new and unexpected ways.'

'A lot of our work looks at the intersection of narrative and architecture, or how physical space and storytelling collide,' says Stewart Hicks, who co-founded Design With Company together with Allison Newmeyer. 'Over the years, Airbnb has become a platform that, among other things, demonstrates how people live today and how they relate to their physical spaces.'

With a global mix of talents ranging from performance art and music to illustration and photography all in the cards, the residency is set to fruit all kinds of memorable moments.

'The installation is designed for people to experience the unexpected, inviting guests to come in with a sense of discovery and leave inspired,' says says Jonathan Mildenhall, Chief Marketing Officer of Airbnb. 'Belong. Here. Now. speaks to Airbnb’s mission to create spaces where people can belong anywhere.'

INFORMATION

’Belong. Here. Now’ will be on view opposite the entrance to Design Miami from 2-6 December

ADDRESS

Meridian Ave & 19th Street,
South Beach
Miami

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Unveiled as one of this year's landmark projects for the London Design Festival, Airbnb's installation in Trafalgar Square sees four British designers and studios define what home means to them. Jasper Morrison, Studioilse, Patternity and Raw-Edges were each invited by the San Francisco-based company to customise simple wooden pavilions to bring its vision of 'A Place Called Home' to life.

'Our interest in design pre-dates the company,' explains Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky. The RISD graduate has consistently combined a deep passion for the discipline with a philosophy that espouses a better quality of life. 'Design isn't just how things look,' he adds, 'it can be about rethinking entire systems for how cities connect with each other and how people travel.'

The four projects offer a panoramic view of domestic living, ranging from classic interpretations of the space alongside more conceptual views of a residence. British designer Jasper Morrison was inspired by the location itself and his house, which was created for a pigeon keeper ('Who else would choose to live in Trafalgar Square?' he muses), features a minimalist, plywood-clad interior where the designer placed his more austere furniture pieces.

Meanwhile, Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay of design studio Raw-Edges focused on a versatile living arrangement, creating a house with spaces and rooms that shift and change around a central lighting fixture (as Barbican residents, the pair know a thing or two about a well-considered living space).

Studioilse founder Ilse Crawford passed the brief back to the audience, challenging them to think about what home means to them - visitors are encouraged to answer the question via a dedicated Twitter feed. The designer used sound, videos and a specially-developed scent to convey an all-round domestic landscape.

Finally, in classic Patternity style, British duo Anna Murray and Grace Winteringham staged an interactive installation of oversized kaleidoscopes with repeating triangles, circles and squares, the ubiquitous patterns of life.

The quartet of installations share a special dichotomy: not only do they present a diverse point of view in design, but their location in one of the city's busiest areas will allow them to have a meaningful impact on the festival's visitors and passers-by alike. 'Even if someone doesn't understand the work of these designers, they can walk in here and experience what home is through their eyes - and for us this is an opportunity to make design accessible,' explains Chesky democratically.

The company now finds itself in an enviable position: Airbnb's original scope has vastly broadened and within a few years the brand now operates in the very privileged role of design supporter and patron. 'And we will continue to support design,' Chesky says, 'because I think a world with more design is a more tolerant world.'

Address 

Trafalgar Square
Westminster
London
WC2N 5DN

View Google Maps

For ten years we have cast our nets far and wide in our quest to uncover all that is excellent for our annual Design Awards. To wrap up the first decade in suitable style last month, we jetted over to San Francisco - the worthy joint winner of this year's Best City award - to throw a party inside Design Awards partner Airbnb's brand new headquarters.

A mariachi band serenaded guests - including the likes of Yves Béhar, the Haas brothers, Neri & Hu, Ambra Medda, and Johanna Grawunder – as they arrived en masse at the landmark 888 Brannan. Stepping through the doors, they were met by our gleaming Nendo-designed trophies, displayed on plinths, while pages from the Design Awards issued lined the walls.

Revellers then made their way into the building’s striking atrium, which was lit up in the prismatic colours of the cover of our February issue. Art director, illustrator and filmmaker Christian Borstlap’s eye-popping video of our Judges’ Awards was projected overhead, while shapes a-plenty were thrown on the dance floor below to beats provided by musician Adam Bainbridge of Kindness.

Bubbles flowed freely throughout the night thanks to Veuve Clicquot, while top local mixologist Rye on the Road offered up Caorunn Gin cocktails – including San Franciscos, of course. Guests enjoyed Asian-inspired nibbles with a twist, including steamed Berkshire pork buns and crispy panko-crumbed corn croquettes – a nod to our Best Bar Snacks victors. Our waiters, meanwhile, were clad head-to-toe in Levi's, winner of our Best Denim gong.

Not all good things must come to an end, however. Guests took home a bespoke tote bag containing a Wallpaper* City Guide to San Francisco, a miniature bottle of Caorunn Gin, chocolate from Pump Street Bakery (our Best Chocolate winner), a Levi's gift card, as well as a specially designed ‘Best of 10 Years’ commemorative supplement. Here's to another 10 years...