The classic 1970s ‘Mah Jong’ sofa seems to be on Charli XCX's wish list. In her newly released song, 'Card Declined', her shopping list includes 'a handbag', 'a personality', 'a whole new life' as well as the Roche Bobois, hippy-coded sofa.

‘Mah Jong’ sofa: a 1970s seating landscape

The story of the ‘Mah Jong’ sofa started from an idea of German designer, painter, and sculptor Hans Hopfer, generally recognised for inventing the concept of a 'seating landscape'. His first designs, created in the 1960s for furniture company Mobiliar-Basar, included the ‘Bausystem’ (1965), a streamlined sofa bed design, and the ‘Mobiliante’ (1967), a unique piece that incorporated sofa, love seat and ottoman. Both concepts were based on an idea of essential forms, functionality and responding to the needs of modern life.

This experience led him to create the Mah Jong sofa, for French furniture company Roche Bobois, in 1971. A fully modular, ever-changing seating system, the ‘Mah Jong’ sofa was conceived to adapt to the constant evolution of domestic lifestyles. Bohemian in its execution and based on comfort, durability and flexibility, the ‘Mah Jong’ features a system of cushions upholstered in bold textiles; over the years, the sofa has been dressed by the likes of Kenzo Takada, Missoni and Sonia Rykiel.

For Hopfer, the creation of the ‘Mah Jong’ sofa coincided with the birth of his first child and a pivot towards thinking about a piece of furniture that would serve the life of a family. Initially dubbed 'The Forever Sofa', a name that is also a mission statement for a design piece, it was later renamed after the Chinese tile game its forms closely resemble. The design of the sofa is based on pure modularity, with a corner, back and flat bottom section, which users can combine into virtually infinite compositions.

At the time of its creation, it was an innovative idea to give people the agency to design their own sofa and living space through a series of pieces that could be configured in formats that best suit their users' needs. While the earlier models featured a more streamlined cushion design, over the years the sofa evolved with visible seams and irregular edges, looking like a refined DIY composition and enhancing its mission. Added platforms and outdoor versions (as well as adjustable backs) have expanded the design's scope within the home.

Defined by bold patterns that are often found in mix-and-match compositions and definitely better suited to large spaces, where compositions can truly bring to life its creator's original idea, it is undeniable that the ‘Mah Jong’ sofa makes for an exciting shopping trip indeed.

roche-bobois.com

The foosball table – aka table football or baby-foot – isn’t typically associated with luxury or design, conjuring images of dingy pubs and bachelor basements instead. Irish luxury furniture house Orior has set out to change that with a high-end foosball table for the discerning games enthusiast. There's no tacky plastic in sight, no garish green – just a beautiful, handcrafted piece that's as functional as it is striking. It will be available to purchase via Orior's website.

The table's solid wood frame is bold and blocky, anchoring the piece in a warm, rich walnut. The playing field is the real showstopper: 'Irish Green' and 'Orior Crema' marble contrast with the wood – a refined reinterpretation of the Crayola-green felt found on a typical table.

The clean, architectural silhouette carries through in the satin steel-lined interior walls, which lend a industrial counterpoint to the marble and walnut, and in the satin steel rods that run through the frame, capped with solid cast bronze handles. The players are carved from oak and finished with leather detailing and lacquer, while the goals are wrapped in leather. These materials elevate the table into a piece that functions equally as a game and a collectible design object.

There's a story behind the launch – timed to coincide with the recent Fifa World Cup final: Orior's company leaders met as teammates on the Savannah College of Art and Design football team, where a shared love of the sport sparked friendships that would go on to shape the next chapter of the business. The foosball table stands as a tribute to Orior's origins.

Fashion designer Jil Sander made her first foray into furniture design in 2025. Collaborating with the German furniture designer Thonet, she brought her minimalist yet innovative approach to reinterpretations of classic Bauhaus designs by Mart Stam, Marcel Breuer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Now, she has added two new designs to the resulting JS Thonet collection: the ‘S 411’ lounge chair and the ‘S 1070’ table. Both pieces, rooted in technical developments, offer contemporary takes on classic designs and are available in ‘Serious’ and ‘Nordic’ editions, comprising more sober and lighter colours and finishes, respectively.

The lounge chair takes its framework from a Thonet factory design that dates back to 1932. Its distinct, S-shaped tubular frame combines an elegant cantilevered form with sprung upholstery and is paired with a matching footstool for comfort.

In her design approach, Sander sees herself as closely aligned with the Bauhaus philosophy of elevating everyday objects by marrying functionalism with minimalist aesthetics, but also with Marcel Breuer in particular. ‘It was important to Breuer to combine industrial techniques and components with attractive, high-quality traditional materials such as leather, wood, and tubular steel. He strove to reconcile avant-garde aesthetics with an appreciation for comfort. This approach showed foresight and makes all the difference in the market today.’

She adds, 'The chair appears to defy gravity, in a spirit of constructivism, as if floating freely in space,' she says. 'I wanted to achieve this weightlessness without the glitz of chrome, grounding the “S 411”.'

The JS Thonet collection’s new ‘S 1070’ tables, meanwhile, are an interpretation of a Glen Oliver Löw design from 2004, which itself nodded to Bauhaus designs – in particular, Marcel Breuer’s 1920s ‘B 9’ nesting tables.

Sander has taken the clean-lined piece and added her own finishes and colours, her glossy tabletop nodding to the finish on a Steinway grand piano. ‘To me, colours are like musical notes that can speak to each other and resonate by association,’ she says.

Sander’s purist aesthetic echoes throughout the collection, as Thonet’s creative director Norbert Ruf notes: ‘Jil Sander’s designs have always represented laid-back, elegant luxury and her clothes are worn with pleasure year after year. [She] wants to use her products to convey a sense of value.’

thonet.de

Also in the JS Thonet collection

An often overlooked genre, outdoor showers are on the rise. Versatile and practical, they elevate outdoor spaces and offer both a pause from the heat and a practical solution to cool off in the Summer. A must-have poolside tool, we also like the idea of an outdoor shower as an indulgent, refreshing addition to a garden space.

We look at five recent outdoor shower designs that we'd like to have in our backyard right now.

Five outdoor showers we love

FormaLibera by Pierattelli Architetture for IB Rubinetterie

FormaLibera is a modular and customisable outdoor shower system by Pierattelli Architetture for IB Rubinetterie that is both a minimal design and an ultra-accessorised functional object. The idea, the architects explains, comes from showering in unconventional outdoor settings, from a field to a remote beach. From this, a first concept featured a portable version that comes with a dedicated kit and case to be easily transported and used anywhere. Evolving into a freestanding or wall-mounted shower system, FormaLibera is defined by accessory bars, soap holders and multi-purpose supports.

weareib.it

Pool by Roca

One of the leading bathrooms and faucets companies globally, Spanish brand Roca is expanding its offering outside the washroom and into outdoor spaces with Pool, a new shower that combines a minimal design with the company's expertise. The elegant, sleek outdoor shower is designed with versatility in mind, imagined for both residential environment as well as hospitality and wellness spaces. The minimalist silhouette is available in both wall-mounted and freestanding and a palette that will bring a joyful touch of colour to your garden.

roca.com

FFQT by Formafantasma for QuadroDesign

For their outdoor shower for Italian bathroom specialist QuadroDesign, Formafantasma decided not to reinvent the wheel, and instead to play on the genre's most intuitive iteration. 'Sometimes a design is effective when it is at its most subtle state, what stands out, are the services it provides,' say the designers, perfectly describing their concept. The outdoor shower is simply a stainless steel support onto which a standard hose can be installed: an ingenious way to make the most with a simple gesture.

quadrodesign.it

Bold by Natalino Malasorti for Cea Design

Cea Design's Bold by Natalino Malasorti is the result of extensive technological research to create a freestanding outdoor shower that is both minimal and powerful. The elegant stainless steel body is resistant to corrosion and the adjustable showerhead allows for options that include a rain jet or aerated rain jet, wider or closer.

ceadesign.it

Outdoor Shower by Cristina

This outdoor shower by Italian bathroom brand Cristina was conceived to be an unobtrusive, discreet presence in an outdoor setting. Its sinuous minimalist design is characterised by a freestanding design paired steel for durability and withstanding being exposed to all climates. Products like this outdoor shower affirm the brand's mission to offer 'solutions designed not to revolutionize, but to evolve what already exists sustainably and consciously.'

cristinarubinetterie.com

Today (8 July 2026), British designer Faye Toogood unveils her latest collection. ‘Bone, Roll, Slump’ comprises furniture pieces that have an air of the archaeological about them – objects that feel found or unearthed rather than made.

The first chapter, ‘Bone’, centres on a dining collection inspired by mudlarked bones and fossils. At its heart is the ‘Bone Table’, a monolithic superellipse carved from solid oak. Asymmetrical in form, it is available in an eight-seat version or a smaller, more circular table for six.

Rather than being lacquered, the oak is oiled, preserving its natural texture and allowing the material to age gracefully. Four circular piercings punctuate the tabletop, recalling the oversized timber plugs once used in traditional joinery. They expose the oak's vertical grain while anchoring the surface to its stout, rounded legs. The swollen, sculptural profile of those legs, shared by the table and its chairs, reference knucklebones – once used in games and divination.

The ‘Bone Chairs’, meanwhile, stand on two solid legs, adopting a primal stance. Beneath their tactile exterior lies a timber frame sculpted with wool, coconut husk and natural latex – upholstered in bouclé as standard, with other fabrics available. The family comprises a dining chair, an armchair and an oversized ‘Jumbo’ armchair.

Where ‘Bone’ feels excavated, ‘Roll’ is more contained, while retaining the collection's preoccupation with weight, volume and organic geometry. Three-drawer consoles and single-drawer bedside tables take the form of rounded timber lozenges resting on stout, trunk-like bases or, alternatively, cantilevering from the wall. The grain follows the curvature of each piece, while finishes include golden oak, rich walnut and ash stained in ‘Chalk’, ‘Putty’ or ‘Malachite’.

The collection concludes with ‘Soft Slump’ – asymmetrical, bagel-like lounge chairs which appear to collapse gently into themselves. The effect is achieved through an unconventional construction: rather than stretching upholstery taut, around four metres of fabric are gathered and cinched, a bit like the drawstring of a duffel bag, creating deep folds. Set atop either hand-forged, dimpled steel legs or industrial castors, Toogood insists these are also the most comfortable chairs she has ever made.

'Bone, Roll, Slump' is unique, intriguing and pleasingly tactile – a quality that makes it feel both contemporary and somehow elemental.

Pieces from the collection can be purchased from Faye Toogood’s website.

Today, two seemingly disparate worlds collide: the vibrant universe of British-Nigerian artist and designer Yinka Ilori MBE, and Dunelm, the UK's largest homeware retailer. As of today (8 July 2026), the pair are launching a summery new collection, available online and in selected stores.

Anyone familiar with Ilori's work will know that his visual language is joyous, often built around vibrant shades and geometric patterns (as seen in his recent London exhibition, ‘Joy Through Resistance’, and his Milan Design Week collaboration with Veuve Clicquot). That sensibility runs throughout the 40 pieces in the Dunelm collection, which spans furniture, bedding, lighting, rugs and soft furnishings, with prices ranging from an accessible £9 cotton jacquard hand towel to a £799 king-size boucle ottoman bed.

Ilori felt a personal connection to Dunelm's origins as a market stall in Leicester, having grown up around his parents' local supermarket in north London. ‘What struck me about Dunelm's beginnings was their love for community,’ he explains. ‘Growing up in a working-class environment, community was everything for my family. There were similarities with this and Dunelm's beginnings as a market stall – how they sought community.’

That focus runs through the collection. Many pieces draw on the diverse communities that shaped Leicester's textile industry across the 20th century, with floral patterns referencing national flowers from countries including India and Pakistan, in a nod to the city's Asian, African and Caribbean cultures. This commitment to authenticity extends to the campaign photography, which features real Dunelm employees.

Shop the collection

A handful of pieces have emerged as favourites among the design team and Ilori himself. The ‘Sweet Flows’ swivel chair (£299) is a colourful, pattern-rich armchair that he says ‘instantly makes you want to smile’. ‘Home interiors can be quite serious, so I chose a colourful palette and vibrant pattern that is immediately engaging. It sparks joy and stands on its own as a piece of art. It's also really comfortable!’

The ‘Bell LED’ lamp (£65), meanwhile, feels ‘very playful and nostalgic’, Ilori continues. ‘It's a classic and timeless piece that would feel at home in the 70s or 80s. There are also elements that feel quite art deco.’

The ‘Net Floral’ duvet cover set (from £16) reimagines the classic British net curtain with floral motifs, while the ‘Gerbera’ cushion (£26) combines crewel wool embroidery with a geometric floral pattern. The ‘Kaleidoscope’ floral round rug (from £135) is a handmade, 100 per cent wool piece with a textured, bobbled finish, and the ‘Half-Log’ sideboard (£599) brings a sculptural silhouette to life with a warm oak finish and chrome legs.

Both Ilori and Dunelm frame the collaboration around the shared belief that good design shouldn't be reserved for a select few. ‘I think it's important we design objects that are rich in storytelling, that speak to people in different ways and that celebrate unique ideas,' says Ilori. 'I hope this collection brings joy into people's everyday lives.’

Yinka Ilori's collection for Dunelm is available to shop from today.

If you love vintage furniture and British heritage design, this one's for you. Pre-loved furniture marketplace Vinterior is joining forces with British design house Liberty London on a five-piece capsule collection, launching today (1 July 2026), which pairs meticulously sourced midcentury and modernist furniture with fabrics drawn from Liberty's archive.

The collaboration is led by Liberty's head of design for home and interiors, Genevieve Bennett, who selected each furniture piece with specific fabrics in mind. The result is a tightly curated edit that bridges the design philosophies of both brands: Vinterior's commitment to circular furnishing and Liberty's century-and-a-half tradition of textile innovation.

Our favourite pieces from the collection include a ‘Cassina Maralunga’ two-seater sofa, originally designed by Vico Magistretti for the Italian manufacturer Cassina, now upholstered in Liberty's ‘Shadow Stripe Weave’ in ‘Amalfi’, a pattern drawing on Futurist and Vorticist influences. Equally covetable is an early 1970s ‘Alky’ chair, designed by Giancarlo Piretti and produced by Anonima Castelli, finished in Liberty's ‘Zig Zag Velvet’ from the ‘FuturLiberty’ range, a jacquard velvet referencing early 20th-century design and the energy of jazz-age dance.

The collection also features two 1960s Vico Magistretti ‘Carimate’ chairs, sourced from Vinterior's archive and dressed in Liberty's densely embroidered ‘Mount Stitch’ fabric in ‘Acacia’, a woodland and mountain-inspired print that pops against the chairs' red frames. A 1960s Swedish ‘Lamino’ footstool is covered in Liberty's ‘Cravat’ fabric in ‘Scarab Lacquer’, chosen to complement its curved silhouette, while a vintage 1960s beech standard lamp is finished with a bespoke Liberty lampshade in ‘Ottoman Spot’ velvet, a design inspired by a 19th-century artwork unearthed in the Liberty archive.

‘[Liberty’s] designs have outlasted trends for over 150 years, and the pieces in this collection have done the same. That's the spirit this partnership is built on: timeless design, beautifully made, built to last,’ says Vinterior founder and CEO Sandrine Zhang Ferron.

‘We were naturally drawn to fabrics from our FuturLiberty and The House of Liberty collections, inspired by the same 1960s-70s periods as the selected furniture pieces – each fabric felt perfectly aligned in history and aesthetic,’ adds Bennett. ‘Sculptural, curved silhouettes juxtapose dynamic geometrics, charming scenic landscapes and bold textures.’

With just five pieces available, this collection is unlikely to stay on the market for long. Shop the furniture below for a rare opportunity to own a timeless piece of design history, reimagined for the present.

Shop the pieces

When Roy Halston Frowick – the Iowa-born fashion designer better known as ‘Halston’ – designed a garment, he wanted to make it ‘more simple’, ‘more American,’ and ‘more contemporary’, he said.

Halston took a similar approach to his office design, located in an International Style skyscraper designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) in Manhattan. With its vertiginous Fifth Avenue views, red carpet, glass expanses and mirrored walls, the HQ embodied what made the designer the clothier of the 1970s: minimalism, freshness and a healthy dose of sex appeal.

The office also featured minimal chairs specially created for the fashion designer in 1979 by Charles Pfister, who led interiors at SOM for 15 years. The furnishings echoed the modernist qualities of the skyscraper they were in: a gleaming tubular-steel frame and a cantilevered profile that supported the sitter just so.

Though the chair design had the potential to become a design classic, it remained a one-off for Halston’s office. Nearly half a century later, though, SOM has dusted off the design and revived the chair in partnership with Ikonstudio, a contract furniture company owned by Teknion (an earlier collection resurrected designs from Louis Kahn’s archive).

Just like Halston’s own seats, the ‘SOM79’ chair features a hand-polished chrome frame and dark leather upholstery. Ikonstudio, however, has reworked it slightly, to align with contemporary manufacturing techniques, ergonomic principles and sustainability standards.

The company has also released a complementary ‘SOM79’ table, which features a matching tubular frame that, when viewed through the transparent glass tabletop, creates the form of an ‘H’ to honour its original patron.

The chairs were teased in May 2026 at New York Design Week as part of the Afternoon Light fair, and launched in June during Chicago’s Design Days. They are now available to purchase through Ikonstudio, to be specified in homes, offices and hospitality spaces.

And there is more in store for SOM: later in the year, in tandem with Form Portfolios, it will launch a new archival collection with the American furniture company Haworth.

‘These works emerged from a moment when architecture firms were deeply engaged in every aspect of the built environment,’ said SOM partner Julia Murphy in a press release, ‘down to the scale of the chair’ – a philosophy, clearly, that has never gone out of style.

So much time is spent thinking about adult-sized furniture that it is easy to forget the needs of children. A new exhibition at the design museum MK&G in Hamburg, 'Mini Furniture: Chairs for Children' (14 June to 1 November 2026), aims to change that.

The show looks at 130 child-centric chair designs across two centuries, with a European focus. It demonstrates how designers have taken small humans into account – in both practical and playful ways – and how those kids have engaged with chairs over time.

The designs span traditional high chairs to modernist creations bringing ‘high design’ to the younger generations. There are also chairs that are designed to support children’s social and creative development – showing that furniture can help us grow.

‘Children are not only an important part of our society, they are also the current and future users of the designed world,’ says Simon Klingler, the exhibition curator. ‘Yet design history is still predominantly told from an adult perspective – a perspective we are keen to broaden.’

‘We have observed that children would rather spend their time playing, exploring and moving around than sitting down,’ adds Klingler. ‘This is why we’re interested in chairs as companions, figures of identification and, at times, even playmates.’

The exhibition is arranged in four chapters: ‘Variety’, ‘Form: From High to Low’, ‘Function’ and ‘Colour’.

‘Variety’ displays the overall breadth of children’s chair designs, put in their historical context – from a miniature version of Marcel Breuer’s iconic B34 (3/4) cantilevered armchair (1929) to the Lou Lou Ghost (2008) by Philippe Starck, the ‘baby’ version of the Louis Ghost.

‘Form: From High to Low’ contrasts two distinctive children’s chair types rooted in practicality: the stool and the high chair. While low stools adapt to a child’s height, the high chair brings babies and toddlers up to the scale of an adult table, with a focus on safety and security.

Many high chairs show the potential for adaptability, like the well-known Tripp Trapp chair – originally designed by Peter Opsvik for Norwegian furniture-maker Stokke in 1972. ‘Its construction is so adaptable that it can be used from early childhood as a high chair through to adolescence as a regular seat, demonstrating how thoughtful design can grow alongside its users,’ says Klingler.

The exhibition’s ‘Function’ section is dedicated to chairs that go beyond seating and embrace play, while the chapter on ‘Colour’ looks to the role that colourful furniture plays in children’s wellbeing and psychological development.

‘The exhibition demonstrates that children’s chairs are far more than simply scaled-down versions of adult furniture – they constitute a distinct field of experimentation for materials, colours and design ideas,’ says Klingler.

During the process of research and curation, Klingler was surprised by how long modular and adaptable concepts have been around. ‘A hundred years ago, designers were developing high chairs that could be adjusted to different ages and needs by folding, repositioning or turning individual elements,’ he says. ‘Many of the issues we discuss today under the headings of sustainability and flexibility were already being explored in the design of children’s furniture at a very early stage.’

One of the exhibition’s key insights, says Klingler, is that good design is not an abstract concept, but an integral part of our everyday lives from the earliest stages of childhood. ‘It influences the way we perceive and engage with our surroundings, often without us even realising it.’

Here is a look at nine chairs from ‘Mini Furniture’.

Children’s high chair by Gebrüder Thonet, c. 1900

This beech, plywood and rattan high chair displays the elegant and innovative bentwood approach that Thonet became celebrated for. It features an inbuilt tray for food, that can be folded back, as well as a foot support.

Armchair by William Birch for Liberty & Co, c. 1900

This Arts and Crafts design in oak and rush shows how even long ago, children’s seating needs were being carefully considered and designed for, with a high-quality approach similar to adult furniture. Antique dealers have noted that these chairs would sometimes have inlays in the back panel depicting scenes from nursery rhymes.

Children’s ladder chair by Erich Dieckmann, c. 1925

Dieckmann, an important furniture designer of the Bauhaus alongside Marcel Breuer, designed this children’s wooden and linoleum chair in the 1920s. Rectilinear and minimalist, the chair doubles as steps that can be used to reach high shelves or surfaces.

Correction Chair, unknown maker, 1931

This English chair in mahogany is an example of how chairs were used to correct children’s posture, or otherwise harnessed as a disciplinary tool at school or home – a version of the ‘naughty step’.

Eames Elephant by Charles and Ray Eames / Eames Office, 1945

While the American husband-and-wife design duo was experimenting with moulding plywood into everyday furniture, they envisaged a group of animals for children to sit on and play with. The elephant has since become iconic, and is now manufactured by Vitra in recycled polypropylene or plywood, in a range of colours.

Rocking car by Hans Brockhage, 1950

‘I am intrigued by furniture that blurs the boundary between sitting and playing,’ says Klingler, referring to the rocking car designed by German artist Hans Brockhage. ‘These designs challenge conventional ideas of furniture by encouraging movement, interaction and imagination.’

The Rocking car is purposefully playful and inventively adaptive. Shaped to resemble a car, and move like one with its wheels, the wooden piece has climbing ladders at the front and back; once turned over, it becomes a rocking chair.

Zocker by Luigi Colani, 1972

Conceived by German industrial designer Luigi Colani, the bright orange Zocker chair reflects the bold style of the 1970s as well as the increasingly popular use of plastic for furniture. ‘I am particularly fascinated by the Pop Design creations of the 1970s,’ says Klingler. ‘Zocker conveys a sense of playful functionality while also evoking slightly nostalgic visions of childhood.’

Ergonomic studies informed the boulder-like design, resulting in a multifunctional chair that can also be used as a seated desk, a lectern-style shelf or a toy. Colani released a slightly modified version for adults a year later, but the design was first and foremost for children.

Ring of seats by Ginbande Design, 1991

This sculptural piece – which almost looks like a surrealist artwork – seats three children on an upholstered donut-like circle, complete with wooden backrests. It encourages social interaction and play – and has hopefully, over time, let to the cementing of a few friendships.

Hippo by Wolfgang Rebentisch, 1993

A colourful, geometric interpretation of a rocking horse, Hippo – designed by Rebentisch for children’s furniture maker Stokke – confidently invites play and movement.

There has been a loosening up of upholstery in recent years. Where tightly tailored forms once dominated, furniture with ruffles, skirts and softer silhouettes has become increasingly common. At this year's 3 Days of Design, Vitra offers its own interpretation with 'Bascule', an easy chair by Berlin-based Studio Πthat combines fashion-inspired upholstery with an adjustable suspension system hidden beneath its surface.

Named after the French word for 'seesaw', ‘Bascule’ features a generous seat wrapped in a loosely cut textile cover that drapes around the frame like a jacket. Beneath the upholstery, however, lies a mechanism developed by Vitra's engineers that automatically adapts to the sitter's weight, allowing the chair to move smoothly from an upright position to a near-horizontal recline.

'Like a cross between a swing and a seesaw,' explain designers Lisa Ertel and Anne-Sophie Oberkrome, who took the new mechanism as the starting point for the design. Concealed within the armrests, it responds to subtle shifts in body weight with a gentle rocking movement supporting a range of sitting positions, regardless of the user's size.

When it came to upholstery, Ertel and Oberkrome looked to tailoring techniques from the world of fashion – originally developed for ease of dressing and freedom of movement – and translated them into the chair's design. During development, fabric was draped directly onto working prototypes to observe how it responded as the chair reclined and returned upright. Different textiles produced distinct fold patterns and surface textures, emphasising the chair's changing form.

'It always got exciting when movement came into play,' say the designers. 'As soon as “Bascule” moved, you could see how the fabrics responded – where they stretched taut, where they fell loosely and where folds formed.'

The result is a chair whose appearance shifts with use, lending it an air of effortless nonchalance.

‘Bascule’ can be customised with fabrics chosen in a single colour or in combinations of two different hues for the inner and outer faces. It comes in a high-back version with an integrated height-adjustable neck cushion that adds to its anthropomorphic appearance, or as a low-back model. Bases are available in aluminium swivel and wooden versions.

The comparison to clothing extends beyond appearance. Conventional polyurethane foams and permanently bonded components have been replaced with materials and construction methods designed for repair, replacement and eventual recycling. Cushions are made from recycled fibres or V-Foam, a material developed by Vitra and BASF that the company describes as the world's first economically recyclable polyurethane foam.

The approach reflects Studio Œ's broader interest in honest, long-lasting design, with components that can be separated and returned to the circular economy rather than discarded.

Vitra sees Bascule as a design equally suited to domestic interiors and workplace lounges. For Studio Œ, meanwhile, it continues an approach focused on repairability, material honesty and longevity.

'For us, the comparison with a jacket couldn't be more fitting,' says Oberkrome. 'A favourite jacket you love to slip on, one that is soft, familiar and simply comfortable.'

‘Bascule’ will officially launch in September 2026, but a preview is on show at Vitra's Copenhagen showroom during 3 Days of Design (10-12 June). There, the chair is presented beneath a tent-like canopy of soft fabric within what the brand describes as an immersive sensory setting.

Vitra, Klubiensvej 22, Pakhus 48 2150 Nordhavn Copenhagen

vitra.com

When you think of the quintessential office chair, chances are you picture Herman Miller's 'Aeron'. When it launched in 1994, it rejected the foam-and-fabric conventions of office seating in favour of advanced suspension technology. It was more than a chair, it was a serious piece of kit – the product of an experimental ethos that Herman Miller shared with figures like Charles and Ray Eames.

More than three decades after it changed office seating, the ‘Aeron’ is evolving again, this time to reflect a further shift in how we occupy our working environments. Today, the company has announced two new colourways, material innovations and expanded size inclusivity for its flagship ergonomic seat.

Since its debut, the 'Aeron' has been synonymous with neutral tones – 'Onyx', 'Graphite', 'Carbon', 'Mineral' – cool, professional looks calibrated to the offices of the 1990s. Colour on the original ‘Aeron’ was always limited; early versions applied pigment only to the Pellicle suspension mesh, leaving a jarring contrast with the neutral frame. Material advances now allow a single consistent tone across both frame and Pellicle – a seemingly small detail that makes a big difference.

Two new, bolder hues now join the line-up: 'Jasper', a warm, earthy olive that leans into the biophilic design trend sweeping modern workplaces, and 'Nightfall', a deep midnight blue. These tones reflect a looser, more informal relationship with work – a merging of lifestyle and office.

‘Our research suggests that strategic use of colour can have a powerful effect on workplace engagement and individual productivity,’ elaborates Joseph White, director of design strategy at MillerKnoll. ‘Saturated colours in cohesive environments have the capacity to change our respiration, our blood pressure and even our body temperature.’

The 'Aeron' has always been a material innovator. In 2021, it became the first chair in Herman Miller's portfolio to incorporate ocean-bound plastics. Now, the aluminium base has been redesigned using generative engineering tools, shedding nearly two pounds without sacrificing durability. Combined with increased use of post-industrial recycled content and bio-based nylons, these changes are estimated to reduce the chair's global average embodied carbon footprint by 12 percent. ‘By using the right materials, in the right amounts, in a product built to last, Aeron shows what circular design can achieve at scale,’ says Gabe Wing, MillerKnoll's vice president of sustainability.

The 'Aeron's' ergonomic credentials, meanwhile, remain firmly intact. A sci-fi-sounding roster of technologies – PostureFit SL, Harmonic 2 Tilt, 8Z Pellicle – work in concert to support the body. The chair has also been updated for greater size inclusivity.

With over nine million chairs sold and a replacement rate of just 0.055 per cent, the 'Aeron's' longevity may be its most telling quality indicator of all.

The updated chair makes its public debut at Fulton Market Design Days in Chicago, 8-10 June 2026. UK customers can purchase the 'Aeron' here.

Fanciness is something that’s resonated with Jeremy Anderson since he was a young boy growing up in suburban Minneapolis in the 1980s. He remembers his mom gingerly removing cube-shaped crystals that hung off the family chandelier and, with characteristic Midwest practicality, placing them in the dishwasher for a cleaning. He remembers noticing the silky damask patterns on mattresses and yearning to play dress-up with dolls.

‘Boys don’t play with dolls,’ Anderson recalls of the prevailing attitudes of the time. Now, with a solo show of lighting, furniture, mirrors and vessels on view in New York with the prestigious London design dealers Gallery Fumi, ‘I am giving myself permission to tap into that energy in a way I really couldn’t,' he says.

The show, titled ‘Held In Light,’ is Anderson’s largest solo presentation to-date. He works primarily in ceramics, a medium he discovered while still in high school. After co-founding the renowned lighting studio Apparatus, Anderson returned to ceramics about six years ago, a career transition that’s allowed the W*400 designer to plumb even deeper creative impulses.

Anderson’s work takes familiar objects and furnishings and transforms them into something more otherworldly and whimsical. Rotund stoneware vessels are ornamented with blooming petals and fins that give them a friendly, creature-like sensibility. Ceramic chandeliers and lamps are ornamented with ceramic beads, a move that evokes traditional lighting while giving them a delightful anthropomorphic quality, like a swinging fringe haircut.

‘I am very inspired by classic forms and shapes. It’s about putting my creative voice on those shapes and making them feel more modern and weird,’ Anderson says.

Gallery Fumi’s founders took notice. For co-owner Sam Pratt, who grew up in Sierra Leone, it was the hand-made quality of Anderson’s work and their universal ability to stir up memories that gave it a particular resonance. ‘There’s an unusual sculptural thing [inherent to the work]. I also see something African about them,’ he says, adding ‘Just as important is Jeremy the person.’

For the ‘Held in Light’ show, Anderson has amped up the scale of his work with a selection of 21 pieces that include a dining table, cabinet and a daybed. Each features a bronze frame, cast to appear at once delicate and brawny, and embedded ceramic slabs painted in Anderson’s signature, meditative stripes.

One of the most eye-catching pieces is a new daybed that blends fantasy with a certain pomp. It features a French horsehair mattress covered in a silky Zak + Fox fabric (a gussied up version of a traditional mattress) and bolster cushions fashioned from a 19th-century homespun fabric.

The works are displayed as part of Gallery Fumi’s New York residency at Gallerie 56, an exhibition space in the podium of Herzog & de Meuron’s ‘Jenga’ tower at 56 Leonard Street. In a full circle moment, Anderson would often drive past the building when commuting to his studio in Brooklyn.

‘So much of what I make is tapping into memory and being able to play in a way I didn’t feel like I was able to when I was young,’ Anderson explains.

‘That’s why the making process and being hands-on is so important to me,’ he adds.’ That’s what it’s all about.’

'Held in Light' is on view at Gallery Fumi's New York residency at 56 Gallerie through 3 July, 2026.

To mark two decades since Kristian Byrge and Peter Bonnén founded Muuto in 2006, the Danish furniture brand has crafted a new piece in collaboration with Copenhagen studio Spacon: the 'Close to Heart' chair, launching at 3 Days of Design on 10 June 2026. Produced in a limited edition of 150 pieces, each made in Denmark from extruded aluminium, the chair is equal parts rational and romantic, with each of its profiles shaped like a heart.

The brief was framed around Muuto's anniversary theme, 'Next Chapters in Scandinavian Design', and thus came with a clear warning: avoid nostalgia. Rather than looking back, the question posed was what tradition becomes when designers push at its edges – a question that led the Spacon partners, Nikoline Dyrup Carlsen, Malene Hvidt and Svend Jacob Pedersen, to the chair's motif.

The heart emerged not just as a symbol, but as geometry. 'It has that perfect triangle on one side and then the double curve on the other,' says Hvidt. 'So the shape itself has this beautiful contrast between sharpness and roundness.' Immediately legible, it grows increasingly complex the longer you study it. 'The shape goes from something very simple and quite childish into something diverse and sophisticated when you really dig into what it offers.'

The choice to realise the chair in extruded aluminium echoes this conceptual tension – a material typically associated with industrial coldness, pressed into the service of one of culture’s warmest symbols. The designers, however, do not see this as a contradiction to be resolved. 'The warmth of the heart and the coldness of the aluminium should join together as you get further into the project,' says Pedersen. 'Aluminium has a lightness to it. It's mouldable, so it fits very well with the heart typology and its curved lines. So in the end, it makes more sense than the immediate contrast suggests.'

The aluminium has also been anodised – a finish that shifts the material's character even further: 'It's a bit more exclusive, and it has that quality where it absorbs all the surrounding light and colours in a beautiful way, which gives it a softness that we were very fond of,' explains Carlsen.

The 'Close to Heart’ chair sits within a broader strategic project that Spacon has been developing with Muuto around the anniversary and its 'next chapters' – one centred on the relationship between technical rigour and emotional resonance. 'Muuto has a highly professional team that constantly works with innovation in manufacturing. Meanwhile, they also have a love for aesthetics and sensory experiences – the feelings we can create through design,' says Hvidt. 'So this furniture is really about the meeting between system and feeling – or as we put it, "How can we make a system learn to feel?"'

Spacon's own philosophy runs along similar lines: a deliberately interdisciplinary practice spanning architecture, interior design, art and craft. 'We’re not being bound by one tradition or one historical way of doing things; [we try to be] more expressive and culturally open,' says Carlsen. For her, this is the 'next chapter in Scandinavian design': 'It's about taking inspiration from the core values of Scandinavian design – pioneering, thinking in new ways, building and creating – but being less restricted by traditional design language.'

The heart – that most universal of motifs – turns out to be an unexpectedly rigorous design proposition. Yet for Hvidt, the ambition behind the chair is ultimately a simple one: 'We're looking forward to people sitting in the furniture and hopefully having it bring smiles to their faces and spread some love.' As far as next chapters go, it’s hard to argue with that.

3 Days of Design runs in Copenhagen from 10-12 June

At Rho Fiera, during Salone del Mobile 2026, French designer Thélonious Goupil and Italian furniture brand Campeggi – a specialist in convertible furniture – took the foldout bed to new extremes. ‘Bienvenue’ is a compact wooden box that unfolds into a ‘guest room’ complete with bed, duvet, pillow and privacy screen.

Closed, the unassuming shell of stained and varnished birch plywood can serve as a stool, a step or a surface. A bean-shaped handle on its side makes it easy to lift; slide one panel away, and what's within is revealed. Out emerges a self-supporting foldable headboard and a Lycra-covered mattress, inflated via an electric pump, that expands into a complete sleeping space – including a partition to offer a sense of enclosure that places this well beyond the territory of the traditional portable bed.

The name, meaning ‘welcome’, signals the intent: ‘Bienvenue’ is imagined as a next-level solution for the overnight guest. Tongue firmly in cheek, it combines hospitality and design ingenuity – an optimistic proposition for an era of shrinking square footage.

The project grew from a conversation between Goupil and Guglielmo Campeggi at the Small Small Space gallery in Milan, where Goupil had exhibited ‘Paysage Industriel’, a series of lamps that also appeared on Campeggi's stand at the fair. Their conversation turned to a shared question: how do we inhabit spaces that keep getting smaller, and can well-designed objects help rekindle the art of welcoming others within them?

Goupil, a graduate of Ensci-Les Ateliers who trained at Ransmeier and Jasper Morrison, has long worked at the intersection of utility and cultural observation – an approach that extends to his co-direction of Collections Typologie, a publishing house devoted to the study of ordinary objects (from boules to the camping tent). Campeggi, meanwhile, has spent decades building a portfolio of transformable furniture. In ‘Bienvenue’, both sensibilities converge: an object that is as functionally impressive as it is culturally resonant.

Danish design company Gubi partnered with Italian rattan specialist Bonacina 1889 to reissue two designs by Italian modernist Tito Agnoli. The ‘P3’ lounge chair and ‘P3S’ chaise longue were first conceived in 1964 for Bonacina 1889 and feature the designer’s distinctive formal clarity.

Trained as a painter under Mario Sironi, Agnoli enrolled at the Milan Politecnico as an architecture student, before becoming assistant to Gio Ponti and later Carlo de Carli. From the 1950s, he worked with some of the most cutting-edge companies of the time to create furniture and lighting that encapsulate the modernist spirit of the mid-20th century through precise lines and modular thinking.

His long collaboration with Bonacina 1889 resulted in several chairs that explore the structural possibilities of rattan, cord and woven surfaces. The ‘P3’ duo of chairs encapsulates his linear thinking, with a structure based on a minimal metal frame supporting the rattan weave. ‘The brilliance of the “P3” lies in how it conceals its complexity,’ explains Elia Bonacina, CEO of Bonacina 1889. ‘Every curve demands precise control of tension and weave, yet the final form feels sculptural and effortless. It flexes with quiet strength and reveals the full expressive potential of rattan.’

‘What makes this collaboration powerful is the clarity of intention,’ says Marie Kristine Schmidt, CEO of Gubi. ‘Bonacina brings profound material knowledge; Gubi brings a contemporary, international lens. With absolute certainty in our respective expertise, the outcome feels inevitable.’

Over the years, the Danish company has become known for its sensibly curated reissuing of design icons of the past, from legends like Pierre Paulin, Mathias Rasmussen and Gianfranco Frattini among others. It is also no stranger to rattan furniture, having brought back to life Gabriella Crespi’s ‘Bohemian 72’ furniture from the 1970s.

‘This partnership grew from a shared love of rattan and a deep commitment to design,’ confirms Bonacina. ‘We worked closely, exchanging knowledge at every stage, shaping a result that reflects both our identities while speaking clearly to the present.’

The Gubi x Bonacina collection starts at £999
gubi.com

In the canon of design, one region stands apart – defined by a visual identity as distinctive as it is sought after: Scandinavia. Following the early 20th century, the Nordic countries became known for marrying modern industrial design with social-democratic ideals, producing objects that were simple, functional and affordable – and which continue to command an outsized place in the design conversation today.

Denmark remains a particular bastion of this tradition. The country industrialised later than many European counterparts, and traditional craftsmanship retained its influence even as modernism took hold, yielding a design sensibility that achieves something rare: minimalism with warmth. That influence has since permeated broader visual culture, felt in everything from Apple's product philosophy to the aesthetic of contemporary apartments, cafés and interiors worldwide.

The Danish design boom of the 1930s to 1960s gave rise to a remarkable generation of studios and manufacturers – many still deeply relevant today – responsible for some of the most classic objects of the last century. Ahead of 3 Days of Design 2026, running in Copenhagen from 10-12 June, we turn to the stalwarts of Danish design.

Carl Hansen & Søn 

Founded in 1908 in Odense, Denmark, Carl Hansen & Søn is perhaps best known for producing Hans Wegner's evergreen ‘Wishbone’ chair, which has remained in continuous production since 1950; other celebrated Wegner pieces include the ‘Shell’ chair and ‘CH25’ lounge chair. A champion of sustainably sourced wood and traditional craftsmanship, the brand's catalogue reads like a greatest hits of Danish modernism.

Fritz Hansen 

Established in Copenhagen in 1872, Fritz Hansen has achieved the feat of turning furniture into cultural artefacts – foremost among them, perhaps, are Arne Jacobsen's ‘Egg’ and ‘Series 7’ chairs. The brand collaborates with architects and designers to create icons found across the world – in airports, offices and living rooms – among the most recognisable objects of the 20th century. Piet Hein, Bruno Mathsson and Arne Jacobsen's ‘Superellipse’ table remains a masterclass in collaborative design, while Jaime Hayon's ‘Ro’ chair is a welcome addition to the roster.

Gubi

Gubi occupies a glamorous, slightly more maximalist corner of Danish design, making it a top choice for interiors that call for personality alongside elegance. Founded in 1967 by Gubi Olsen and Lisbeth Olsen, the Copenhagen-based brand helped revive the furniture of Mathieu Matégot, as well as produced the ‘Masculo’ chair by GamFratesi and the ‘Multi-Lite’ pendant by Louis Weisdorf. The catalogue has since grown to include the ‘Bestlite’ lighting collection by Robert Dudley Best and Matégot's ‘Tropique’ chair.

&Tradition 

Founded in Copenhagen in 2010, &Tradition stewards classics by the likes of Verner Panton, Viggo Boesen and Flemming Lassen while simultaneously championing emerging talent, harbouring a curatorial approach that respects heritage without being beholden to it. Panton’s ‘Flowerpot’ lamp is possibly among the most recognisable pieces in the collection, accompanied by classics like Arne Jacobsen’s ‘Bellevue’ lamp, Boesen’s ‘Little Petra’ chair and Anderssen & Voll’s ‘Inland’ sofa.

Louis Poulsen 

When it comes to Danish lighting, one name stands above the rest. Louis Poulsen has been shaping the meaning of light since 1874, but it was the brand's partnership with architect Poul Henningsen that sent it stratospheric – the resulting ‘PH’ series, engineered to minimise glare, remains one of the most sophisticated lighting systems ever devised. Verner Panton's ‘Panthella’ lamp and Arne Jacobsen's ‘AJ’ floor lamp round out an extraordinary archive. Based in Copenhagen, the brand continues to work with leading designers to produce luminaires that treat light as an architectural material.

Fredericia

Founded in 1911 in the Danish town of the same name, Fredericia is a furniture house with a roster that’s grounded, tactile and human – favouring longevity over trend-chasing. It includes Børge Mogensen's ‘Spanish’ chair, a rugged piece that has lost none of its authority since 1958, as well as key pieces from Hans Wegner and Nanna Ditzel. More recently, Space Copenhagen's ‘Palette’ and ‘Spine’ collections have added a compelling contemporary layer.

House of Finn Juhl 

The designer Finn Juhl arguably introduced Danish modernism to America, and this Copenhagen house exists to honour and preserve his body of work. Every piece – from the ‘Pelican’ chair to the ‘Chieftain’ – is produced with total adherence to Juhl's original vision, using the materials and techniques he specified. These are poetic objects, each as much sculpture as furniture, with upholstery floating free of the frame, as was Juhl's style.

Georg Jensen 

Since silversmith Georg Jensen opened his Copenhagen workshop in 1904, the brand has been synonymous with jewellery and homeware inspired by natural forms, which feel alive rather than geometric. The ‘Blossom’ pitcher, ‘Acorn’ cutlery, ‘Bernadotte’ serving collection and Henning Koppel pitcher are among its most beloved works, each underpinned by handcraft and material excellence.

Alexandre de Betak launched his modular sofa, ‘Le Takbe’, during NYC x Design, in collaboration with Paris gallery Pierre Augustin Rose's New York space in SoHo.

Over the past three decades, under the banner of his Paris-based creative agency Bureau Betak, de Betak built a global reputation for masterminding some of fashion’s most spectacular shows – from Dior’s delphinium-covered hill in the Louvre’s courtyard and the ethereal Berluti show, where shoes floated through the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, lifted by oversized white balloons, to Saint Laurent’s glittering spectacles beneath the Eiffel Tower. After founding the company in 1990, he produced more than 1,500 runway shows, installations and events that blurred the boundaries between fashion, architecture and art.

In 2023, de Betak opted to take a step back from the company to concentrate on his personal dreams as a designer and artist, creating ‘spaces of radical stillness where the viewer is not spectator but subject’. Working out of a mews studio in London’s Marylebone, his obsession with the tension between ancient and contemporary, low-tech and high-tech, remains constant. Recent works include a large-scale light installation coinciding with Frieze London 2025, and Chashitsu Hikari Schürli, a site-specific light sculpture unveiled during Gstaad Art Week in February 2026.

Alexandre De Betak’s sofa for Pierre Augustin Rose

The origins of the 'Le Takbe' modular sofa are deeply personal for de Betak, who first designed it for his own homes around the world, conceiving it for an informal way of living – for lounging, gathering, playing, and meditating, without hierarchy or prescription.

It is formed of a low platform, on which cushions can be freely arranged and rearranged, adapting to the rhythms of daily life. This first edition with Pierre Augustin Rose introduces removable backrests, offering a more structured seating configuration while preserving the openness of the original. The design is available in two sizes – a conventional rectangular sofa or a more expansive square shape – and two fabrications, either wool or linen, and it can be configured as a daybed, sofa, or something in between; a small landscape within a room, shaped by whoever inhabits it.

Founded by Pierre Bénard and Augustin Deleuze, who were later joined by Nina Rose, Pierre Augustin Rose draws from the legacy of 20th-century masters while remaining resolutely anchored in the present. Their work reflects a refined balance between memory and invention, with form, proportion and materiality approached with precision and restraint. Rooted in a passion for singular environments, Pierre Augustin Rose creates collections that are both bold and nuanced, where furniture becomes a vehicle for atmosphere as much as function. At its core lies a clear ambition: to project a distinctly French sensibility into a contemporary, international context.

pierreaugustinrose.com

First conceived in 2020, Max Lamb’s 'Economy' chair started as an experiment in waste reduction – a theme that has recurred throughout the London-based designer’s practice. Its original form was hand-cut from polystyrene foam using hot wire and is the result of a series of prototypes that led to a structure that left as little waste as possible on the workshop floor. ‘It's taking what some people perceive to be artisanal into something more industrialised, much more practical, pragmatic and efficient.’

Case in point, the chair now makes its large-scale production debut, as part of Swedish design brand Hem’s furniture collection. The new edition, dubbed ‘Min’ is made of pine, a material that perfectly matches Lamb’s intuitive process. To produce it, individual timber elements are cut at diagonal angles and split to become the legs, back and seat, an exercise in material efficiency that speaks to Lamb’s ability to combine a distinctive design language with a particular attention to the possibilities of an object’s construction.

Max Lamb's Min chair for Hem: an exercise in reduction

Creating the chair involves a rigorous process of reduction: 'the design itself has been conceived to use almost half the quantity of material that would be required to make the same chair with square legs,' explains Lamb. 'By cutting the legs in half diagonally to create triangular legs, you end up with two legs for the price of one – or two legs from the amount of material it would normally take to make one.

'What gives the chair its personality and character is not necessarily about using as little material as possible. Rather, it’s about making one piece of material go twice as far as it otherwise would if the legs were square.'

Lamb's practice has historically been focused on hands-on making: his work has ranged from metal furniture bent by hand, to cutting up a tree to make a seating series, to taping up cardboard into chairs. 'The Min Chair has been developed and refined over a lot of iterations: all of the development and prototyping happens within my workshop,' he explains. 'Because I’m first and foremost a maker and run a workshop-based practice, I am able to refine the design in real time. I want to make sure that the design is responsive to material, the properties of the material, and the production process.

'The design is a consequence of the making process and my endeavour to achieve these efficiencies in production and material usage. The outcome is a chair that has personality, has an aesthetic, but that aesthetic and that personality are consequences of those endeavours to efficiency.'

Following a preview at Maison & Objet Paris in January, Lady Deirdre Dyson's 'Mélange' rug collection has now arrived at her flagship Paris gallery, and will land very soon at the London gallery too.

True to its name – ‘mélange’ denoting a mixture of different and often incongruous things – the collection is wonderfully varied and unpredictable. Rather than pursuing a single overarching theme, as Dyson typically does, she has embraced pure creative spontaneity.

The collection comprises seven distinct carpet designs, each entirely self-contained yet united by a shared spirit of play and wit. That spirit is expressed through a language of geometric and kaleidoscopic forms, and a palette rooted in warm taupe neutrals punctuated by burgundy, purple and burnt orange.

'I decided to move away from any preset objective and relied entirely on a random design process from ideas that just popped into my head,' says Dyson. 'There are references to past works using overlays and floating shapes, while some carpets appear figurative and others more angular and geometric. What did become evident is that the designs are characteristically mine.'

'Crystal' features a jagged graphic border evoking refracting light, punctuated by black silk highlights. 'Safari' plays with dramatic vertical frequency-like lines broken by earthy two-tone stripes. 'Triptych' and 'Moulin' share a centrifugal energy – the former setting animal-print triangles in burnt orange and camel against grey; the latter layering transparent triangles over a rich burgundy and purple ground.

'Glassy Greens' conjures the illusion of floating shelves rendered in delicate sea-green silks, each balancing a contrasting rectangular form. 'Pouch', true to its name, is a tactile, curved design with a fluid silk outline in layered taupe neutrals that lends it an almost three-dimensional quality. Rounding out the collection, 'O' is a purely geometric study in 100 per cent wool, in which overlapping rectangles, squares and circles are enlivened by an accent of deep framboise.

Most designs incorporate fine silk woven alongside Goodweave-certified Tibetan wool, handcrafted by Nepalese artisans. All pieces are made to measure, tailored to individual specification and available across a broad spectrum of colours – a fitting final note for a collection that, in Dyson's words, she hopes offers 'something for everyone'.

Deidre Dyson galleries are at 554 King’s Road, London SW6 2DZ; and 12 Rue des Saints-Pères, 75007 Paris

It was a visit to the Museum of Modern Art in New York that planted the seeds for architect and designer Hannes Peer’s latest collection for the Italian brand SEM. ‘On the museum’s top floor, there’s an entire room filled with the work of Louise Nevelson,’ recalls Peer, who was taken with the American artist’s stacked wooden assemblage sculptures from the 1970s. ‘That was the moment I decided to go all-in on this idea.’

That idea, specifically, was to translate that sculptural language developed by those midcentury artists into a contemporary collection of monolithic wooden furniture. The resulting collection, titled ‘Core’, is composed of eight pieces wrought in solid mahogany, rosewood and cherry – each defined by an abstract, carved façade. ‘The form of the pieces is rather simple,’ Peer explains of the concept, which also sought inspiration in the wooden volumes of the French designer Pierre Chapo, American sculptor Leroy Setziol’s rhythmic wall-hung carvings and artist and artisan Jean Touret’s tactile wooden surfaces. ‘But at the same time, the bas-reliefs are very intricate.’

In developing ‘Core’, Peer’s intention was to centre the process of handiwork – a discipline he sees as increasingly rare in 2026. Peer was born in the mountainous northern Italian region of South Tyrol – known for its long tradition of wood carving and carpentry – and his work is deeply informed by that culture of making he was surrounded by growing up.

However, when confronted with the realities of production, he quickly realised that the scale of the pieces – coupled with the fact that they are editions, rather than one-offs – meant that it required a more digital approach. ‘We designed everything in 3D, including the imperfections in the wood,’ the designer explains. ‘It was almost as if we were hand-carving it digitally.’ The forms are then milled using a CNC carver, which translates those digital reliefs into precise cuts in solid wood.

Yet, to complete the pieces, a master craftsperson finishes each one by hand. ‘We needed our own Geppetto,’ Peer jokes, referring to Pinocchio’s creator in the Italian fairy tale. Each element is refined by a carpenter, who then treats the surface with a beeswax finish to achieve the collection’s warm, honey-coloured tone. ‘It’s very digital, but at the same time extremely handmade,’ notes Peer, ‘which I think is quite an interesting metaphor for 2026.’

Among the collection is a monumental pedestal cabinet featuring shifting patterns that include a gouged wood grid, concave circles and repeating chevron motifs. There is a dining table, whose diamond-shaped base is zig-zagged with gouged wood sections that look like a series of carved strata, as if the surface had been cut back to reveal its layers. Peer also designed two wall-hanging panels, which strip away the functional aspect of the collection and crystallise it into purely sculptural art.

Peer presents the collection at the Spotti Milano showroom on viale Piave. The presentation, titled ‘Hardcore’, was conceived alongside SEM’s founder, Claudio Spotti and stages the collection in a stripped-back setting, highlighting the essential materiality of the carved wooden forms.

From 18 April 2026, 10am to 7pm, Spotti Milano, Viale Piave 27, 20129 Milano

sem-milano.com

In today's wellbeing-focused culture, awareness of the importance of sleep has never been greater. Sleep is connected to longevity, recovery and productivity, and people are more conscious than ever of how much they are getting.

Swedish bedmaker Hästens has long been ahead of the curve, viewing a bed not merely as a piece of furniture but as an ‘instrument’ that restores you. It is a philosophy the brand has pursued since its founding 170 years ago, long before sleep became a cultural talking point.

Now, in collaboration with designer Ferris Rafauli, Hästens is doubling down on that conviction: that what you rest on makes a profound difference to the day that follows.

This thinking underpins the announcement of two new 'sleep instruments' – the Grand Vividus and the Drēmər. The Grand Vividus was first introduced in 2020, with the Drēmər following as a second expression of the same philosophy. Both underwent significant development through 2024 and 2025, and have been arriving in selected partner stores since late 2025. 'A bed holds you, but a sleep instrument restores you,' says Jan Ryde, fifth-generation CEO of Hästens. 'The new Grand Vividus and new Drēmər bring that pursuit to an even higher standard.'

So what elevates these instruments above an ordinary bed? The Grand Vividus is handmade in Sweden from natural materials – horsehair, wool, cotton and flax – with up to 600 hours of craftsmanship in every piece. In true Scandinavian spirit, every material, layer and refinement either contributes to restoration or is removed. Nothing is superfluous.

The Drēmər applies the same principles, addressing key pillars of better sleep: support, sleep climate, quietness and recovery.

Hästens' broader argument is that the cultural conversation around sleep still doesn't go far enough. Rest, the brand contends, is the hidden variable behind how we live – and the object at its centre should be a tool properly optimised for its purpose.

Easily recognisable thanks to its detailed simplicity and strong Japanese influences, Federica Biasi’s work ranges from beautifully crafted wooden coffee tables to kimono-inspired ceramics. So when the young Milan-based designer was commissioned by De Padova to create a new armchair for its 70th anniversary, she seized the opportunity to weave her contemporary sensibility into the long and storied legacy of the Italian company.

‘The collaboration with De Padova comes from an encounter between different worlds, from people meeting and sharing visions,’ she writes. ‘The project reflects a dialogue between cultures, in line with the vision of its founder Maddalena De Padova, and marks the beginning of a meaningful collaboration.’

While Maddalena De Padova mostly looked to Scandinavia for inspiration, Biasi continues to draw on subtle Asian influences for this project. A reinterpretation of Japan’s archetypal floor chairs, ‘Edda’ is a perfectly balanced piece that both extends and redefines the language of the historic brand.

Unlike its traditional predecessors, it does have a pair of very short legs at the front; they are part of a simple black frame with two round bars that slope down backwards. Supporting a white upholstered section slanting in the other direction, it creates a design full of movement and dynamism.

The ‘Edda’ armchair ‘is a design that appears essential, yet holds a depth made of stories, details, and rituals’, says Biasi. ‘The stitching that defines its volumes, the soft padding, and the solid wood supporting structure come together in carefully balanced proportions conceived for contemporary interiors, where comfort and minimalism meet.’

Available with removable fabric, leather or velvet, the ‘Edda’ armchair is on display during Milan Design Week 2026 at the De Padova showroom on Via Cecelia, 7; and the Boffi De Padova showroom on Via Solferino, 11.

Keep up with all the latest news from Milan Design Week 2026 with our live blog.

The collaboration between Hannes Peer and Minotti has brought the Italian architect’s work to new horizons, elevating and distilling his sculptural and architectural approach into a refined, ultra-engineered series of designs that bear signs of both the creative gesture and the accuracy of the production.

Seen through the lens of Minotti’s sense of clarity, Peer’s designs have been among the most striking examples of translating an artistic sensibility into a functional, elegant furniture object.

Their latest collaboration, unveiled at Salone del Mobile 2026, features the ‘Blaine’ table, an object that speaks to both parties’ sensibilities while adding a new direction to their respective practice. Featuring a sculptural, cast aluminium base, the table nods to the work of Henry Moore and the modernist approach to casting that was recurrent in Florence Knoll and Ray and Charles Eames’ work.

‘It has always been a dream of mine to design a piece that works in that direction, that on one side is very organic, but also rather restrained in form,’ Peer tells Wallpaper* ahead of the launch. The architect's collaboration with Minotti has resulted in pieces such as the ‘Emmi’ chair or the ‘Nico’ table, both bearing signs of a sculptural, free-handed thinking while working perfectly within the company’s portfolio.

With ‘Blaine’, Minotti’s painstaking approach to refining its projects took a new direction for Peer, who started with what he describes as ‘wild forms’, which were then ‘reduced, edited, talked about’ with the company’s team over several months, ‘without ever losing sight of the original idea. It’s amazing to work with the Minotti team, sometimes there are up to 30 people in the room, five engineers, the whole family shows up, I see it as a sign of love and respect for us designers,’ he says.

The pieces’ final perfection, he explains is the result of ‘many hours, many conversations, many people working together. It’s more similar to a bottega than a big company, there is something so beautiful about that environment.’

The two trestle-like legs forming the base feature a gentle curve and an opening that looks carved, rather than moulded, exuding a sense of artistic elegance that looks much closer to a piece of art. ‘To create a cast object is a huge responsibility,’ says Peer. ‘I was always intimidated by it because the matrix that you use to cast, it's forever. You cannot [mess] it up. You have to be very sure that that is the one.’

As the son of an artist, this language comes naturally to Peer: ‘I think I've known Henry Moore before I've learned to count,’ he recalls. ‘I am very proud of my roots, and I think that is something that I always bring to a project.’

The table’s base will be available in polished or painted cast aluminium, with a top in either marquetterie wood or marble. It is not an object that is visually quiet: its presence holds a room’s attention, like an artwork. ‘I think that we're all storytellers. It's very, very important that each and every design comes not just as a single furniture piece, but rather with an idea of a home or an environment, that approach is super important, and that's where we connected so much with Minotti, who share this vision completely.’

Lightness, minimalist rigour and precise silhouettes have been founding principles of Vincent Van Duysen’s work. Now the Belgian architect makes his debut into the B&B Italia collection with a new chaise longue that encapsulates his design ethos while offering a modern interpretation of comfort.

‘This collection explores how structure can shape comfort, and how comfort in turn gives meaning to structure,’ explains Van Duysen. The design is based on an elongated structure holding a rattan woven surface, which stretches into a loop to create a gentle reclining form. The material’s tactile warmth is at the core of the design, and it was chosen for its breathability and organic lightness.

The structure is conceived to remain discreet, as the seat’s sensuous curve is the star of the show. ‘Every piece begins with a gesture of structure, but it ultimately exists for the body and the way we choose to live with it,’ continues Van Duysen. ‘Sometimes a small detail can completely transform an object. A simple chamfer or a continuous line can redefine the way we perceive a familiar form. The project is about balance, between structure and softness, precision and comfort, architecture and the body.’

Find out more at bebitalia.com and vincentvanduysen.com

Follow the Wallpaper* editors’ updates from Milan Design Week 2026 with our live blog

Founded in 2020 by architects Francesco Zorzi and Nicolò Ornaghi and photographer Delfino Sisto Legnani, the Milan-based brand NM3 is a project grounded in radical essentialism.

Working exclusively with a single material, steel, the trio produce objects as severely pared back as flat, rolled sheets of metal will allow. A shelving system, for instance, is reduced to little more than a grid of reflective metal planes. It is therefore somewhat surprising to learn of the breadth of references behind their first collection with Visionnaire, the luxury Italian furniture brand founded by the Cavalli family in 2004 and known for its opulent, materially driven maximalism.

‘NM3 is based on extreme minimalism,' says Zorzi. ‘But in this case, we worked in an entirely different direction. Formally, we were looking at very different worlds, such as aeronautical design, late Renaissance sculpture, and the modernist architecture of John Lautner.'

Given those shared points of reference, it makes sense that the collaboration was steeped in a mutual appetite for art and culture. Visionnaire art director Eleonore Cavalli first encountered NM3's founders at Artissima, the Turin-based autumn art fair that runs concurrently with the electronic music festival C2C, staged within the halls of the former Fiat plant. ‘We share an enormous passion for electronic music and contemporary art,' says Cavalli, who was drawn to NM3 for the purity of their forms. ‘Their pieces remind me of 1960s American minimalism, artists like Donald Judd and Dan Flavin.'

For NM3, interpreting Visionnaire's visual language – known for its lavish use of precious materials, often paired with boldly expressive, almost theatrical forms – proved a welcome challenge. ‘Their material palette is much broader and far more complex,' Zorzi admits. ‘But it was refreshing to finally work with new materials and new aesthetic codes.'

The outcome walks a careful line between the two worlds, as Visionnaire's sensual richness is filtered through NM3's restraint. Comprising nine pieces that combine glass, stone, wood and metal, the capsule collection includes a coffee table formed from solid blocks of Moltrasio stone, upon which an asymmetrical slab of cotissi glass has been gingerly placed. ‘Cotissi are leftover scraps from glass production. When furnaces are cleaned, these residues remain as thick drops or blocks of glass,' explains Zorzi. ‘Here, they were fused into a slab with a broken, irregular profile.'

A bed, meanwhile, sits on a base of textured Villanova stone blocks, supporting a Macassar ebony platform in a rich chocolate brown. ‘We often joke that it belongs to an evil character in a James Bond film,' says Zorzi, noting that it could just as easily sit on the set of Nocturnal Animals, the Tom Ford-directed film partly staged within a brutalist-style home.

Made from an extremely lightweight aluminium structure, the chaise longue, ‘Blob', has an undulating profile that appears at once organic and algorithmically generated. ‘We began with a two-dimensional sheet and, through design and drawing, it evolved into a three-dimensional shell,' says Zorzi. ‘The process is identical to our usual approach, but the formal expression is different. It's alien, almost spaceship-like.'

The collaboration also gave NM3 access to a level of craft expertise they had not previously encountered. ‘We've never worked with anyone capable of this degree of detail and precision, while also being able to fully understand our design, and translate it into production so effectively,' says Zorzi, who refined the collection over the course of a year alongside Visionnaire's technical and production teams. ‘The dialogue was stimulating and genuinely beautiful.'

Visionnaire's network of craftspeople, formed of independent and highly specialised ateliers across Italy, has been actively nurtured since the 1950s, when Carlo, Pompeo and Vittorio Cavalli founded IPE, the brand's predecessor, in Bologna. This strategy has enabled Visionnaire to expand far beyond upholstered furniture, encompassing bathroom systems, storage and kitchens in a wide spectrum of materials and styles.

The collection will launch at 10 Corso Como for Milan Design Week, while Visionnaire will also present at Salone del Mobile and its Piazza Cavour showroom, where it will unveil a collection with Marc Ange, alongside a curated section titled ‘Wunderkammer'. The latter will take the form of a listening room and will host a reissue of 1970s archival pieces by Vittorio Varo. The momentum follows a major investment in 2024, which marked a turning point for the then-20-year-old brand. It enabled Visionnaire to overhaul its Milan flagship, plan new global outposts and expand its production capabilities. ‘I hope Visionnaire will always remain disruptive,' says Cavalli. ‘Our design language should never stand still.'

nm3.xyz, visionnaire-home.com

It’s no secret we are keen on the graphic forms and elegant output of Milan-based Spanish David Lopez Quincoces, whose ‘Ark’ chair for the leading Italian company Living Divani was one of our highlights of Salone del Mobile 2023.

López Quincoces co-founded Studio Dragó with Fanny Bauer Grung in 2010, after working with Piero Lissoni on interior design projects. Like Lissoni, he is a long-term Living Divani collaborator, producing nearly 30 different designs for the furniture maker, ranging from circular black ‘Nina’ metal stools and plush ‘Gala’ leather armchairs to ‘George’s’ iroko wood and waxed rope outdoor chairs.

‘Greene’ bed, by David López Quincoces, for Living Divani

At this year’s Salone del Mobile, López Quincoces and Living Divani will be showcasing ‘Greene’ bed, a new member of a design family started in 2019 with the ‘Greene’ sofa and armchairs, and continued in 2022 with the ‘Greene’ modular system.

Like its relatives, the new bed features delicate, enveloping curves, designed to ‘define a soft and harmonious presence within the space’ and ‘convey a relaxed, effortless mood, expressing a refined and contemporary elegance’.

Its slender lacquered tubular steel legs and fabric- or leather-clad trapezoidal frame are paired with a surprising headboard, which appears flat from the front but is in fact composed of a pair of concave curves, like the simple outline of a bird in the sky.

These curves are filled with two generous cushions (Living Divani is renowned for its top-of-the range upholstery, with goose down and polyurethane padding inserts), available in the brand’s vast range of fabrics.

Blending a rigorous structure with soft comfort, the ‘Greene’ bed is a dreamy example of warm minimalism.

READ MORE: what to see at Milan Design Week 2026

Named after a Japanese woodworking technique, produced by one of Italy’s leading furniture makers and designed by global design studio HBA (Hirsch Bedner Associates), the new ‘Kumiki’ chair and armchair by Giorgetti combine traditional savoir-faire and cosmopolitan flair.

‘Kumiki’ collection, by HBA, for Giorgetti

After the ‘Hikari’ bar cabinet and ‘Kiranami’ screen, also inspired by Japanese design, ‘Kumiki’ is HBA’s third concept for Giorgetti. Inspired by a traditional Japanese technique that interlocks wood pieces without nails, screws, or glue, the walnut frame seats were conceived to showcase the beauty of the perfectly executed woodworking joint.

‘The chairs celebrate an honest approach to construction, expressed through exposed timber joints crafted using ancient methods that have been refined over centuries,’ says Kevin Shek, lead product designer at HBA Product. ‘Each connection is purposeful and visible, allowing the integrity of the craftsmanship to become part of the design narrative.’

Every joint between legs, crossbars, armrests and backrest is on show and deliberately perceptible to the touch, their handcrafted precision calibrated to millimetre tolerances for extra sturdiness. The structure itself recalls the Japanese Torii gate, a solid yet light presence defined by soft curves and a continuous interplay of narrowing and opening sections.

‘With “Kumiki”, I was interested in reduction, in allowing the structure to carry the identity of the chair,’ explains Chris Godfrey, co-CEO of HBA. ‘Every joint is visible because it has purpose. The dialogue between Italian and Japanese craftsmanship is not stylistic, but philosophical; it is about precision, restraint, and respect for material.’

Both models’ Canaletto walnut frames are available in natural, gray and dark finishes. The chair features a discreet recessed handle on the back that makes it easy to move around, while its upholstery is available in single or two-tone leather and fabric combinations.

The armchair version comes with a carefully designed recline and thick cushions in an elegant ‘soap bar’ tapered shape. Its visible lateral crossbars bring the volume closer to the ground and ensure greater stability (unlike the chair, whose crossbars are hidden to accentuate its verticality and lightness).

Along with other collaborations such as the Giorgetti Maserati Edition Collection, HBA’s designs will be on show during Milan Design Week 2026 at the Giorgetti Spiga – The Place space.

Kelly Wearstler, queen of the maximalist interior, will be at Milan Design Week 2026 to launch a new furniture collection designed in tandem with H&M Home. The Scandinavian brand is already renowned for its inspired fashion collaborations, but this is its first collaborative furnishings collection. It's no first for Wearstler, though, who has already notched up retail partnerships with the likes of Farrow & Ball, The Rug Company and Lee Jofa (not to mention her unforgettable dripping disco ball sculptures by Dutch art collective Rotganzen for her gallery initiative).

Partnering with the ‘best in class' across an array of mediums is in her DNA. And H&M Home makes a lot of sense in Wearstler's multi-faceted world. ‘Over the years, H&M has engaged in some incredible partnerships, from Karl Lagerfeld to Maison Margiela,' she says. ‘We wanted to be in that same boat. It was such an exciting opportunity.'

Milan Design Week: Kelly Wearstler and H&M Home at at Palazzo Acerbi

Through her eponymous luxury lifestyle brand, Wearstler has been designing objects since the 1990s, but she was keen to offer a collection at a more affordable price point, while still retaining quality and craftsmanship. Launching in 28 markets, the collection includes chairs, tables and lamps, as well as a series of tabletop items, ranging from wooden vases to drinking glasses. Anyone who has visited one of Weastler's luxury lifestyle-forward Proper hotels will immediately recognise her distinctive aesthetic.

‘We still had a lot of boundaries,' she says. ‘Every piece had to be modular, but it pushed us to be more creative.' While all the objects in the collection feel unique, Wearstler was also keen that they work with any environment. ‘I wanted to operate under the ethos of just offering great accessible design.'

To mark this double-debut moment, an installation, produced by Studio Boum, will be unveiled at Palazzo Acerbi, a 17th-century baroque palace that has long been closed to the public. Wearstler's excitement is palpable. ‘I wanted to make sure it was some place that could help tell the story of the collection. It had an emotional feeling for me, and it checked all the boxes.'

The palazzo, with its soaring columns and opulent frescoes, offers a striking juxtaposition with the collection's bold contemporary aesthetic. Building on concepts of routine, habit and modular synergy, the installation will include everyday objects, such as candlesticks, board games and clothing racks, which will form part of an immersive journey through the senses. ‘These objects are part of your daily ritual, and the way they all come together with texture and material, creates this beautiful tension,' says Wearstler. Materials were sourced from all over the world, using a mix of local workshops. ‘At my studio, there's always an attention to material, and we like to have a different hand at everything we do. When we design a hotel, we make sure we work with different workshops for every piece in a room.' Lately, India has proved to be a big draw for Wearstler, in particular, Jaipur and Mumbai. ‘I visited many workshops there and was just so inspired by that country – the culture, the people, the creative talent. You can just feel the energy.'

While her core philosophy has always been about creating beauty, there is a contrasting edge in her projects and personal style. ‘I would say my style is a free-spirited chameleon because every project is different, and every project is about the story. Whether it's a brand that we're designing for or a residential project for a family, we're still telling a love story.'

Kelly Wearstler H&M Home will be on show from 21-26 April at Palazzo Acerbi, Corso di Porta Romana 3, Milan. The full collection will launch in stores and online in September

Rimowa and Swiss furniture maker Lehni have announced a limited-edition collaboration – Rimowa Lehni – launching during Salone del Mobile 2026 – with two pieces of furniture designed specifically to store Rimowa cabin-sized suitcases at home.

These are the Rimowa Lehni Bench, an open-shelving unit that holds up to two suitcases side by side, and the Rimowa Lehni Drawer, a sculptural stacked-storage frame with a closed drawer for smaller objects. Both pieces, finished by hand at Lehni's factory in Zurich, are crafted in anodised aluminium in black or silver, and each shelf is lined with a scratch-resistant felt mat.

The partnership brings together two established names in aluminium craftsmanship: Rimowa has been creating its German-engineered luggage for over a century, while Lehni has been producing aluminium furniture in Switzerland since 1922. Notably, this marks the first time the furniture brand has adapted its modular system to create a purpose-built storage solution for suitcases.

Rimowa chief marketing officer Mathieu Plenier described the project as one that fuses both brands' heritages: ‘Together with Lehni we crafted made-to-measure pieces that perfectly marry our Swiss and German design backgrounds while celebrating our shared dedication to aluminium craftsmanship. This collaboration transforms the way our suitcases live at home, creating innovative storage solutions that are both purposeful and beautifully engineered.’

Lehni owners and directors Benedetta Agostini and Antonio Monaci called the result ‘technology and beauty applied to aluminium’, adding that it represents ‘a design product made entirely in Switzerland to the highest aesthetic and quality standards – characteristics that set both brands apart in the market’.

The collection will be presented at Milan Design Week at the Rimowa Lehni Visitor Centre on Via Achille Maiocchi 10, open 21-24 April 2026, alongside a curated selection of titles chosen by Swiss publisher Innen Publishing and a postcard-mailing station where visitors can send handwritten notes from Milan. A special window installation by local practice Studioutte will also feature at Rimowa's newly renovated Milan flagship.

The Rimowa Lehni Bench and Rimowa Lehni Drawer are each priced at €3,200 and will be available from 21 April on Rimowa.com and in select flagship stores globally

For American artist Dozie Kanu, Knoll was always a benchmark of design excellence. The Houston, Texas native was working across different design practices in New York City after graduating, and the company's work was a recurring theme; its essential contribution to the history of design was clear to him from the beginning of his career.

Ten years on, and the American company is now unveiling its first collaboration with the artist, a trio of tables that encapsulate his multifaceted artistic philosophy while speaking to the larger heritage of Knoll.

To be launched by Knoll at Salone del Mobile 2026, The Dozie Kanu Table Collection includes a console, a coffee table and a side table, characterised by a tasselled design in leather. Inspirations include an African drum, African ceremonial dress, and the fringed jackets popular in Texas Cowboy culture.

'True to Knoll design principles, Dozie's work expresses a singular cultural perspective that feels unmistakably contemporary,' says creative director Jonathan Olivares, whose first conversations with Kanu about the collaboration happened around the same time of his appointment as senior vice president of design in 2022. 'Drawing on a wide range of influences, he transforms reference into a kind of artistic alchemy. By approaching design through a sculptural lens, his pieces for Knoll animate space with a distinct attitude, while remaining direct in structure and function.'

Dozie Kanu: creativity at the cusp of cultures

This mixing of cultures is recurrent across the work of Kanu, who grew up in Texas with Nigerian parents, moved to New York at 18, and now lives in Portugal. His work – installations, exhibitions and the objects within – uses spatial design to explore themes of domesticity, memory and cultural belonging. Often created using found materials and scrap metals, the results of his practice shake up what is familiar through newly imagined forms.

'[Design] is an area where I feel like creativity for African diasporic people is present, but it's not fully pronounced in a lot of ways,' he notes. 'That's why I bring my upbringing and my biography into the work, and not only because it's what I really, truly know. It's where a lot of my truth comes from but I also think it's important for the history of design.'

He cites the African influence on contemporary art and sculpture in particular and the alienation that exists within that relationship – a territory that, he admits, he is still exploring through his work and beyond.

Dozie Kanu and Knoll

Having discovered his work in 2017, Olivares became a mentor of sorts for Kanu, essentially coaching him throughout the collaboration to give him the tools to create a series of objects that would work in a consumer-led sphere.

Olivares suggested that Kanu develop a piece from his 2021 installation Blood Type at Performance Space New York, an all-red room for which he created furniture that included a stool representing a rudimentary early ideas of the new table collection.

'[Jonathan] helped me understand how I should be approaching this, both fully understanding this landscape but also at the same time how to shake things up,' says Kanu. 'From there, we figured out a way to speak within these parameters.'

Another concern of the pair was that the collaboration didn't feel like a clash with Kanu's design-led artistic practice, which is why they landed on a series of tables. 'There's something that you're able to do with the table, you're providing a service, and there's something beautiful in the simplicity of that,' Kanu continues.

The original idea featured a reinforced steel bar structure on which a piece of leather was draped in a manner similar to a Nigerian drum, fringing down in a way that referenced 'the masquerade costumes that you would see in the villages from from where my parents were brought up.

'I felt like I was addressing a lot of biography with this particular story, which I think is important when thinking about material culture because of the absence of the black consciousness within [this area of design].'

Most importantly, Knoll was able to elevate Kanu's references while keeping his voice in the project: 'They found a way for me to speak as sharply as possible.'

He describes the final objects as being so precise as to become 'almost jarring': the way the tassels slightly hover above the ground, how they lightly sway as you walk past, it feels alive.

Despite being widely considered an artist, Kanu describes himself as an 'exhibition maker', a role that allows him to take a critical point of view through an aesthetically led practice. Coinciding with Milan Design Week 2026, Kanu will also be showing work at ICA Milano, in an exhibition titled ‘The Second Shadow. Dozie Kanu Mirroring Marc Camille Chaimowicz, with Shared Echoes and Kindred Spirits’, featuring his spatial response to the work of the late artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz, evoking the work of Jean Cocteau.

'There's an immersive quality to making exhibitions. You can pretty much fill [them] with any creative input or creative gesture that you would like,’ he reflects. ‘So the way that I look at this project is interesting,’ he adds of his Knoll collaboration, ‘because I'm curious to see what these objects from Knoll look like when thrown into the language of making an exhibition, and if the work is vibrating on a level where it can suspend your idea of it to the level of sculpture.'

doziekanu.com
knoll.com

Why should a bed be only a bed? It’s the question George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg, of renowned design studio Yabu Pushelberg, asked themselves with ‘Lanai’, a new bed design for Poliform launching at Salone del Mobile 2026 that offers not only sweet dreams but also plush seating and practical storage.

The duo were inspired by the multiplicity of functions of the contemporary bedroom, which is used not simply for various horizontal activities but also as a cosy home office during the day (Mark Twain and Winston Churchill, who famously worked from their bed, were pioneers of this trend) or a private screening room in the evenings.

‘Transcending the idea of ​​a simple piece of furniture and envisioning the sleeping area as a complete space for relaxation, time for oneself and one's passions, and moments of conviviality,’ the new design expands the bed's functionality with modular elements that layer like a natural landscape.

Designed to take centre stage in the bedroom, the resulting piece of furniture comprises a series of organic volumes, perfectly balanced with the straight, geometric lines of the dark wooden headboard and frame.

This collaboration marks Yabu Pushelberg's debut with the Italian company. 2026 also marks a key year for Poliform, who will be at Milan Design Week with Multitude, an installation at its new Milanese space of Palazzo Clerici. staged like a hidden garden in the heart of Milan, it will be designed like a forest to discover.

Faye Toogood’s Poltrona Frau debut from 2024 is etched in our memories as a brilliant example of how a creative mind can shake up a traditional furniture company. Working with the heritage of the Tolentino-based furniture manufacturer, Toogood created a collection of curvaceous furniture that she described as ‘English Folk with Italian Horsepower.’

Dubbed ‘Squash’, the collection featured mirrors, rugs and an armchair which, Poltrona Frau CEO Nicola Coropulis said, ‘epitomised the essence of a Poltrona Frau armchair, effortlessly evoking feelings of comfort, innovation, and forward-thinking creativity, all ensconced in a cocoon of leather.’

Lie Low bed by Faye Toogood for Poltrona Frau

Poltrona Frau is now unveiling the next chapter in this fruitful collaboration, presenting Toogood’s Lie Low bed (with matching bedside table) at Milan Design Week. Toogood’s sculptural approach to furniture design meets Poltrona Frau’s precise curation of forms and materials, and the result is characterised by the designer’s signature ‘chubbyness’, with a sculptural headboard that makes the most of the leather company’s expertise in the material. Rather than stretched tight, Toogood chose to leave the leather to ‘crinkle and gather’, revealing a sense of informal comfort.

‘I have been working with the artisans at Poltrona Frau for a couple of years now, and there’s nothing they don’t know about leather craft,’ observes Toogood. ‘I want to celebrate the hands-on knowledge and skill of the workshop, but propose new ways of thinking about process and material. Rather than being perfectly taut, the leather of the Lie Low bed is wrinkled, giving it movement and malleability. It’s a bed that entirely embraces you.’

fayetoogood.com
poltronafrau.com

Designed by the Milan- and Amsterdam-based creative collective Controvento for Fendi Casa, the ‘Peekasit’ seating range, with its leather shell and soft padded cushion, made its debut in 2023, taking its cues from the fashion house's classic ‘Peekaboo’ bag. Two years later, it was joined by the ‘Peekasleep’ bed (also designed by Controvento), an enveloping leather-upholstered structure that oozed comfort and cosiness.

This year's Salone del Mobile sees the series expand further with the launch of the ‘Peekachill’ armchair, which is conceived as a more intimate counterpart to the ‘Peekasit’ collection.

Starting with the original seating concept, Controvento reimagined the ‘Peekasit’ armchair in a smaller, more compact incarnation while still preserving its defining identity, designing an object with sleek, sinuous lines and exceptional snugness, with extensive customisation options available.

Its construction reflects the precise, coherent and sophisticated portfolio of the studio founded by Gabriele Chiave and Verdiana Vannini, who set up the multidisciplinary collective after working together at the Amsterdam HQ of Marcel Wanders for five years.

When Wanders closed his studio in 2022, Chiave and Vannini took some clients with them, including Fendi Casa and Audi. Both found their time working for Wanders to be invaluable in shaping their current design approach.

Through the intersection of storytelling, craftsmanship, innovation and emotion, we create impactful designs that deepen bonds between people, objects and experiences across disciplines,’ they say. ‘At the same time, we maintain a human-centered approach in all our designs, ensuring that innovation is guided by awareness, responsibility and impact.’

Collaborators since 1986, the Brianza-based designer Giuseppe Bavuso and furniture maker Rimadesio have together produced a string of acclaimed designs, including the ‘Sliparium’ sliding doors – the first in aluminium and glass , for which Bavuso received the first prize at the A’ Young & Design Award in 1994.

The brand’s one and only designer, Bavuso has harnessed the skills learned as an architect and designer in the automotive industry to focus on creating products with a highly technical core. In recent years, Rimadesio has branched out from doors, panels and shelving systems to include complementary furniture, giving him carte blanche to come up with a variety of seats and armchairs.

‘Ori’ chair, by Giuseppe Bavuso, for Rimadesio

Their latest piece, ‘Ori’, is a solid ash chair with a striking zig-zagging backrest designed to offer comfort and quality without compromising on a strong aesthetic identity. It comes stained in two colour options, black oak and thermotreated oak, and its seat can be made of natural or black woven cord, or upholstered in fabric or leather in any colour available in the Rimadesio collection.

Showcasing the brand’s focus on high-precision, custom-engineered products, it is beautifully crafted by the brand’s expert woodworkers, who work from its high-tech, solar-powered production facility in Giussano. The care taken in crafting its wooden frame is evident in the backrest, as well as in the elegant joints between the legs and the seat structure.

'My design doesn’t shout – it speaks quietly, it is full of content but it does not want to be ostentatious: it aims to express a concept of a home for living rather than for display,' once said Bavuso of his work for Rimadesio. 'We have set ourselves the objective of expressing a precise vision of the home, a vision in continuous evolution but firmly committed to the fundamental principles of quality, purity of form and durability.'

rimadesio.it

French designer Christophe Delcourt's latest creation for Baxter celebrates the spectacular organic motifs of Grove marble. This material is distinguished by its complex layered colours: across its dense background of warm brown and ochre tones runs a network of fine dark veins, a pattern recalling tobacco leaves or ancient weathered tree trunks. The stone is also dotted with softly defined milky white and ivory areas, resembling lichen growing on branches, or a dusting of snow on a barren forest floor.

Named ‘Zaho’ (after the Arabic word for ‘splendour’, ‘brightness’, or ‘radiance’), the new table lets the eye-catching Grove marble shine thanks to its subtle construction, with legs that unfold like pages of a book. Each angle reveals a unique shape and marble pattern.

‘Assembled in a corolla shape, the panels form an architecture like a millefeuille, sometimes with sharp edges, sometimes with soft, rounded lines,’ write the collaborators. ‘A base like a building, as light as it is monumental.’

The table is brushed with waterproof protective oil to ensure it survives long dinner parties intact, and is also available in a range of other, paler stones, including White Travertino and Bianco Gioia marble.

Delcourt is well-versed in highlighting the beauty of natural materials through his furniture designs: among his previous works for the brand is the ‘Lana’ table series, which showcased a matte Wildflower beige marble from Sicily.

baxter.it
christophedelcourt.com

At first glance, you might mistake this elegant tubular design for a simple riff on a Bauhaus classic such as Marcel Breuer’s 1920s cantilevered ‘Cesca’ chair. But a more careful observation will reveal that it is very much one-of-a-kind – a meticulously detailed creation by Nicos Zographos (1931–2023).

An architect and designer whose career spanned 60 years, Zographos was greatly influenced by the Bauhaus, worked under modernist master Gordon Bunshaft, and collaborated with some of the leading designers of the time, including Walter Gropius, I.M. Pei and Phillip Johnson. Today he is remembered as a perfectionist who endlessly refined his designs, producing bespoke – and now extremely collectible – pieces.

‘CH66’ chair by Nicos Zographos, for Karakter x Cassina

Case in point: Zographos' ‘CH66’ chair, originally designed in 1966 and reissued this year by Karakter with Cassina, a company whose first collaboration with the designer dates back to the 1960s. The design reverses the s-shaped Bauhaus cantilever, creating instead an equally elegant b-shaped seat using a continuous line of chromed tubular steel with gentle curves.

‘The chair is resilient, elastic, and so light it doesn’t encumber space with its mass. It was the closest I came to a pure and precise kind of chair,’ wrote Zographos of the ‘CH66’, today part of MoMA’s permanent collection in New York.

Its manufacturers describe it as ‘the essence of a chair, a calibrated balance between structural lightness and dynamic tension’, highlighting its rigorous and elegant silhouette that is the result of an in-depth study carried out in collaboration with the designers’ daughters Athena and Fotini Zographos.

The reissued chair, in respect of the original design, is made of four chrome or painted black stainless-steel tubes which have been bent and shaped with extreme precision and fastened with screws, intentionally left visible on the back to keep its upholstery in place. The seat and backrest, which have the exact same curve, are upholstered with fine saddle-leather available in a range of colours, secured with metal springs that ensure elasticity as well as comfort.

It's perhaps natural that a product line designed by an architect would end up being, well, architectural – and that's exactly the case with UniFor's newest furniture project created with the Swiss studio Herzog & de Meuron. To be revealed at Milan Design Week 2026, ‘MTM – Made to Measure' was designed by the Pritzker-winning architects for the Italian office interior specialist to tectonic results.

MTM – Made to Measure by UniFor and Herzog & deMeuron

The launch also represents an idea that has been a long time in development. The core of ‘MTM – Made to Measure' was originally conceived in 2022 for a standing table prototype for Herzog & de Meuron's Basel studio. This, in turn, helped inspire the modular benches for its Memphis Art Museum project in late 2024 (the building opens later in 2026). This newly announced furniture project and the concept's development towards its present iteration allowed the existing design ideas to mature and expand, evolving through material research and architectural thinking into a new life that is bigger in ambition, smoother in function, as well as customisable and scalable.

‘MTM – Made to Measure' encompasses a range of product sizes and typologies, from benches and sofas to coffee tables and even a table tennis table. What they all have in common is their structural system, a matrix composed of solid, angled frames. Their wood elements slot together in three dimensions in a version of the traditional castle joint. This creates a sturdy yet slender framework system, resulting in the piece's strikingly lightweight proportions. It also means that ‘MTM' can be incredibly versatile, as it can be adapted for length and scale. Meanwhile, as this construction method is applied throughout the collection, it results in a unified look regardless of product function, while affording a streamlined consistency in terms of production.

Complementing the frame's graceful appearance, the upholstered elements in the collection are clad in cork leather, which brings an unexpected, pleasingly tactile and durable look. The architects were introduced to cork while in search of renewable material alternatives during their furniture development work for the Pérez Art Museum in Miami (which opened in 2013). Drawn to the material's texture, feel and potential for customisation, they started using it in several of their projects, including the upcoming Memphis Art Museum. Here, the material palette also includes structural elements in solid wood and table tops in travertine, coloured glass and polished steel.

‘The strength of the series lies in its versatility,' says Ascan Mergenthaler, the senior partner in charge. ‘It is designed – as its name suggests – to be made to measure in its actual use, physical dimensions, purpose, and material quality. This series of furniture pieces is intended to bring people together. Whether as a large work or dining table, a group of sofas and benches, or a playful gathering around a table tennis table, the pieces encourage exchange and shared time. Their generous dimensions also make it easy for larger groups to come together.'

Herzog & de Meuron has a long-standing relationship with UniFor, having also designed its Milan showroom, and the building it sits in, the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. ‘MTM – Made to Measure' is just one of two launches by the collaborators at this year's Milan Design Week – the other being ‘Giuditta', a family of indoor and outdoor furniture for leisure and dining.

UniFor, Viale Pasubio, 15, 20154 Milan

herzogdemeuron.com
unifor.it

Like a poker player concealing its hand strength or a chessmaster’s confusing quiet moves and tactical maneuvers, this sophisticated games table by Armani Casa has plenty of tricks hidden up its sleeves.

An art deco-inspired ebony wood table covered in luxurious taupe leather, it features a central top that rotates to reveal a checkered playing surface in ebony and mable wood. Two side drawers are used to store the chess and checkers pieces, while each corner hides a pull-out cup holder.

‘Borgonuovo’ games table by Armani Casa

Named after the Milanese street where Giorgio Armani lived, it epitomises Armani Casa’s focus on exquisite materials and careful detailing. These include satin-finished light brass edging and elements such as the cup holder tabs, which are decorated with the house’s circular monogram, composed of a stylized G and A, reminiscent of a yin and yang symbol.

The art deco palette, leather top and triangular legs also nod to one of the Giorgio Armani’s greatest source of inspiration, the work of French designer Jean-Michel Frank: ‘I deeply admire Frank for his way with shapes and materials, the sense of elegance his work emanates,’ he said in an interview with Paul Smith for Wallpaper* in 2022. ‘It is something I always look at for Armani Casa.’ Both shared a taste for plain-lined but sumptuous furniture made of the best materials.

You could pair ‘Borgonuovo’ with Armani Casa’s ‘Sir’ backgammon set, clad in blue leather printed with the house’s monogram and containing chips in a marble-effect blue and sage green bioresin; or its ‘Tale’ tarot cards, featuring Armani clothes as well as furniture, fabrics, wallpapers and accessories.

Armani Casa has always had a playful streak: previous game-inspired designs include an ebonized oak card table with folding sleeves; a graphic walnut and lacquer side table with stripy square legs; and a large plaid decorated with a chessboard in ivory and brown and accompanying folding felt chess pieces.

armani.com

The output of Tokyo-based designer Fumie Shibata of Studio S stretches over 15 years and includes everything from leather school bags and suitcases to crystal paper weights, bamboo-shaped glass lighting and even capsule hotels – many presented in the perceptively named monograph Forms within Forms.

For her latest creation for Italian company Flexform, she has designed a shelf within a mirror – to be presented at Salone del Mobile 2026 – showcasing her distinctive soft, yet very precise shapes. Its name, ‘Soreto’ means ‘and also’ or ‘in addition to that’, reflecting both its multipurpose function, and its connection to the rest of the interiors, or what the designer calls a ‘boundary blur’.

‘A mirror is, by nature, a planar object that belongs to the wall. It reflects space, yet rarely participates in it,’ explains Shibata. ‘With this design, we sought to gently shift that relationship: rather than ending the edge as a simple frame, it is released into a horizontal plane – a shelf – allowing the mirror to quietly step out from the wall into the room.

‘This is not merely an addition of function, but the insertion of another layer onto the wall – blurring boundaries while introducing rhythm into space. A mirror for daily rituals, and also… a shelf that receives objects. A device that reflects space, and also… furniture that gives it depth.’

Softly connecting plane and volume, wall and furniture, ‘Soreto’ is made of curved sheet metal clad in cowhide available in all the colours of the Flexform collection. Designed to furnish spaces including hallways, bedrooms and bathrooms, it comes in various sizes, and is part of a new family of accessories comprising benches and clothes stands.

Shibata’s other designs for Flexform include ‘Eri’, an enveloping armchair inspired by elegantly uplifted jacket lapels, and ‘Enn’, a circular table with a conical base named after a Japanese word for connection and harmony.

design-ss.com
flexform.it

New York-based designer Nao Tamura frequently draws on her Japanese heritage for inspiration, as evidenced in her previous offering for Porro, the ‘Origata’ bench and console, which referenced kimono making.

Ryo bookcase by Nao Tamura for Porro

Her latest collaboration with the Brianza-based furniture brand sees her return to her Japanese roots, christening her bookcase ‘Ryo’, which means ‘edge’ or ‘ridge’ in Japanese.

The multifunctional system is composed of long horizontal shelves supported by adjustable triangular elements, created by folding a single sheet of aluminium. More than a mere bookcase, ‘Ryo’ is a sculptural object with a deconstructivist design language that goes beyond pure functionality.

The varying angles catch the light, creating eyecatching shadows, while the aluminium is enhanced by an almost invisible protective finish that preserves its raw texture and industrial character. It’s a piece that sits well within the Porro portfolio.

The 100-year-old brand is constantly evolving, staying deeply rooted in the present through meticulous research and creative collaborations, yet aspiring to timelessness.

From the long-standing and fruitful dialogue with Piero Lissoni, Porro’s art director for the past 30 years, to the renewed collaboration with Tamura and Dordoni Studio, and the debut of the renowned US-based studio Yabu Pushelberg, Porro explores new languages and typologies, shaping fresh narratives that once again transform the identity of its interiors without ever renouncing its own.

And while the purity and allure of its furnishings increasingly push research toward the boundary between industrial object and sculpture, between design and gallery, the brand broadens its scope by looking at the contract world, a field in which it has strengthened its own team in recent years, and to which it naturally speaks thanks to its production flexibility and bespoke manufacturing expertise.

For a process-oriented designer whose signature veers towards understated, sculptural luxury, Molteni & C is a dream collaborator.

‘For me, [they are] a living history of Italian design, with a very solid cultural and productive foundation. They represent an idea of Italian design that is rigorous, precise, and deeply connected to contemporary architecture and interior design,’ says Argentinian designer Cristián Mohaded. Salone del Mobile 2026 marks his debut project for the Italian company, a sculptural armchair dubbed ‘Corsetto’.

‘Corsetto’: Cristián Mohaded for Molteni & C

Fully upholstered and resting on a solid base, the armchair’s generous forms are seemingly held together by a leather frame, from which the textile-covered seat, back, and armrest balloon out. ‘Corsetto was born from the gesture of soft yet bold volumes, with strength, pressed into a very clean and defined form,’ explains the designer. ‘I was interested in creating a silent tension between something that feels generous and welcoming, yet contained within a structure. I wanted the piece to feel alive, breathing, and to be perceived as a living element in its entirety.’

The chair’s volumes are imagined to embrace the body, an effect enhanced by the material composition of the design. ‘Material was present from the very beginning,’ observes Mohaded, explaining that the two elements were essential for his concept to come to life. ‘Leather had to be present as that symbolic “corset”, more rigid, and from there we were able to enter into dialogue with a softer, complementary textile. Without being excessively complex, the beauty of the piece lies in the quality of its details: the leather craftsmanship, the stitching, and the joints, something in which Molteni especially excels.’

Mohaded’s work exists somewhere between art and design, with a strong sculptural quality pervading his pieces, whether functional furniture and objects or artworks. ‘Both begin from the same place,’ he concedes. ‘Furniture introduces use. It asks the form to respond to ergonomics and its context of use. But the thinking is continuous. My work as a product designer often carries a sculptural quality, and conversely, my works are constructed with a symbolic, cultural, and territorial depth.’

cristianmohaded.com
molteni.it

In a recent Substack post, Jill Singer, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Sight Unseen, recounted receiving, 20 years ago at her South African engagement party, an onslaught of homewares from designer Carrol Boyes. Her brand, Carrol Boyes, clearly an institution in its home country, has recently begun making inroads internationally, with an online store having recently opened in the UK. Singer writes of being mystified by the metal designs, which teeter between covetable surrealist-inspired pieces and gift-fair kitsch.

Singer’s feelings resonated when I saw the news of the UK launch. Initially drawn to the irrefutably ‘fun’ pieces in the sort of muted metals that are so popular right now, I found myself wavering as I explored the website. Some of the figurative items, a Carrol Boyes trademark, felt a touch cartoonish. But, confusingly, other pieces – like this vase and this mirror – capture an irresistible midcentury modern-meets-Art Nouveau aesthetic. Certain items, like this vintage bowl, trivet and cream boat, hit the mark of perfection. And there's nothing wrong with a bit of kitsch: figurative pieces such as this candle holder and these door handles are ideal candidates for introducing the sort of unexpected touches that make a space feel intentional.

Carrol Boyes was founded in 1989 in a small studio in Cape Town. The eponymous artist and designer left her teaching career at 35 to launch her own brand – which she did within six months and without a formal business plan, driven simply by the vision of transforming everyday household items into artistic statement pieces. Today, the family-run business, led by her brothers Charles and John Boyes, boasts 41 boutiques across South Africa and distribution in major department stores in the United States and Australia.

The brand’s metalwork, tableware and home accessories emphasise simplicity, functionality and a sculptural, fluid-lined aesthetic. Many pieces feature Giacometti- or Henry Moore-esque human forms executed in materials like pewter, aluminium and stainless steel (the brand also stocks ceramics, glass, wood and textiles). Think: a spindly aluminium figure holding up a bowl, Atlas-style; the glass top of a drinks trolley supported by two similar, splayed figures; and a pair of salad servers imagined as two profiles kissing.

The renewed interest in Carrol Boyes reflects, perhaps, the design zeitgeist of 2026. The designer's pivot from sculptural training to functional design mirrors a contemporary appetite for cross-disciplinary work, while the hand-cast pieces speak to a renewed interest in artisanal traditions. As Amy Dennis of Edinburgh’s Studio Sale notes in Singer’s post, vintage pieces that bear subtle irregularities and patination resonate more strongly than the brand’s recent, more polished items.

While Carrol Boyes’ designs may have caused me to momentarily interrogate my notions of taste, I’m happy to declare myself a disciple of the brand, which occupies a fascinating space between art and utility, humour and elegance. After all, nothing good is ever unanimous.

The Japanese tearoom, in its purest form, is a place to fully enjoy a cup of green tea. Traditionally measuring only four and a half tatami mats (slightly more than 7 sq m), the room is intentionally small to allow focus on one thing only: the preparation and drinking of tea.

Devon Turnbull, artist and founder of the audio brand OJAS, has taken this basic idea, given it an audiophile twist and, in collaboration with Japanese furniture maker Karimoku, designed an intimate space he calls Sound House for his ‘Between Space and Sound’ exhibition in Tokyo (on view until 5 June 5 2026).

'I’ve been wanting to make the Sound House for some time. The foundation of my “Listening Room” practice [a series of audiophile installations] is intention, and every time I’ve had the pleasure of visiting a tearoom, I think about how they are one of the best examples of pure intention. The function is very much the same as my listening rooms: a singular-focus room for contemplation,' Turnbull explains.

Beyond the space's small round doors (a reference to the nijiriguchi of a traditional tea house), an oversized matte black turntable takes centre stage. At one end of the small room sit two speakers, and at the other end, three low chairs invite guests to focus their attention on listening.

Everything within the Sound House has been custom-made, from the light grey tatami mats to a modern interpretation of Japanese sliding screens adapted as sound-absorbing panels.

‘The Sound House also solves a major issue with exhibiting high-fidelity audio. Most spaces are not suitable without substantial buildout to optimise the acoustics,’ notes Turnbull, but here, thanks to the production capabilities of Karimoku, a long-held dream comes true for the designer.

In the basement of the Karimoku Research Center, where the exhibition takes place, the full line-up of collaborative speakers and seating is on display. The speakers come in three sizes (Sanjo, Rokujo, and Nurikabe) and two colours: Turnbull’s signature pewter grey and natural oak. There are also two variations of acoustic panels and a modular seating system designed by Turnbull for intentional listening.

'I am a big chair and furniture collector, and never thought I had the authority to design a chair myself,' he confesses. The resulting system looks extraordinarily light with its open base (perfect for storing vinyl or books) and also comes in an ultra-low traditional Japanese version without the base, meant to be used for tatami room seating.

At the top floor of the exhibition, it is clear that Turnbull has had free use of Karimoku’s superior production facilities. An over-dimensioned subwoofer is flanked by two huge speakers, with a row of chairs arranged for optimal listening. The multi-cell horns on top of the two speakers are a one-of-a-kind rendition of Turnbull's horn speaker design, usually made of metal. 'I sent Karimoku the drawings for the horns, and next time I visited the factory, a prototype was ready,' he says. Wood gives a special warmth to the sound, its use made possible by Karimoku’s advanced 3D-machining technology.

'Music is the closest thing to magic that I’ve experienced. Listening with intention, on a hi-fi system, is like tapping directly into that magic current,' Turnbull reflects, describing his obsession with sound. Listening either in the Sound House or in the top-floor listening room can only enhance that feeling of magic.

The exhibition runs until 5 June 2026 at Karimoku Research Center 2-24-2 Nishiazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo. @karimoku_research

Devon Turnbull also has a listening room installation on show as part of ‘Art of Noise’ at Cooper Hewitt, New York, until 19 July 2026 – one of our must-see design exhibitions of 2026

We’ve had our first teasing hints of spring here in the UK, and suddenly we’re swept up in reveries of sun-warmed afternoons and long, lingering evenings. Our thoughts turn immediately to readying our outdoor spaces for the season ahead – and, more specifically, to furnishing them with the 2026 offerings from some of our favourite design brands here at Wallpaper*.

There was a time when outdoor furniture felt like an afterthought – functional, but stylistically lacking. That is no longer the case. Today’s design houses are unveiling collections that marry elegance with innovation, combining refined aesthetics with advanced technologies that make outdoor furniture more durable and versatile than ever.

Below, we present our favourite spring launches of 2026 – pieces we’re itching to put through their paces on the patio as the season turns.

Tectona

Tectona presents ‘Cicala’, conceived by designer Julie Richoz as a meditation on balance – between strength and delicacy, tradition and innovation. A graduate of ECAL who went on to collaborate with Pierre Charpin before establishing her Paris studio in 2012, Richoz is celebrated for her materially driven approach.

With ‘Cicala’, she orchestrates a dialogue between warm teak and polished stainless steel, pairing the tactile depth of wood with the precision of metal. Soft curves meet crisp lines in compositions that feel both architectural and light. For 2026, the collection expands to include a lounge set crafted through traditional cabinetmaking techniques enhanced by advanced metal technologies. Generous proportions and stackable elements define a line that embodies sobriety, elegance and comfort.

RH

RH’s Outdoor 2026 collection explores the intersection of contemporary vision and archival revival. In collaboration with Australian duo Harrison Condos and Nicholas Condos, the American brand unveils the ‘Brera Teak’ line – sculptural barrel-back forms anchored by tulip-shaped plinths, crafted from solid teak and detailed with handwoven all-weather rope. An alternative blackened teak finish further accentuates the natural grain.

Alongside these new introductions, RH reissues emblematic collections including ‘Antibes’, ‘Klismos’ and ‘Catalina’, each rendered in all-weather cast aluminium. Drawing from classical Greek precedents and neoclassical English garden traditions, the silhouettes balance sweeping curves with architectural clarity.

Molteni & C

Under the creative direction of Vincent Van Duysen, Molteni & C’s 2026 outdoor collection unfolds as a cohesive architectural narrative. Developed with long-standing collaborators Yabu Pushelberg and Studio Dordoni, and complemented by lighting created with Vibia, the collection integrates furniture, accessories and illumination.

At its centre is ‘Soleva’, a system spanning seating, dining and lounge pieces, characterised by slender tubular aluminium frames and vertical marine plywood slats softened with EVA coating. Powder-coated finishes in ‘Nuvia White’ and ‘Selva Green’ feel measured and elegant, while concrete and gres accents introduce sculptural depth. Modular sofas, stackable sun beds and adaptable tables underscore structural lightness and durability. Complementary lines – including ‘Chelsea Outdoor’ and the foldable ‘Club’ chair – extend the architectural coherence of the offering.

Cassina

For 2026, Cassina expands its outdoor universe with new systems and archival re-editions that, again, merge innovation with legacy. At its core is ‘Vidalenta’ by Patricia Urquiola, a modular collection conceived as a tranquil counterpoint to the fast pace of contemporary life. Voluminous cushions – made using recycled materials – rest on slender stainless-steel tubing, achieving a balance between rigour and warmth. Fluted tables in travertine, enamelled glass or iroko wood echo the structural cadence of the seating. Fully disassemblable, the system reflects Cassina’s research-driven approach.

The brand also introduces ‘Eloro Outdoor’ by Rodolfo Dordoni and the ‘Torei Outdoor’ tables by Luca Nichetto, alongside re-editions such as ‘Dalila’ by Gaetano Pesce and ‘Novetrenta’ by Vico Magistretti – extending an ongoing dialogue between past and present.

B&B Italia

B&B Italia marks 2026 with the outdoor debut of ‘Tufty-Time 20’ by Patricia Urquiola, celebrating two decades of the iconic modular sofa system. Reimagined for exterior settings, the design preserves its distinctive tufted geometry while adopting a sustainable, fully disassemblable structure suited to open-air environments. Ten modules – including a new curved element – enable fluid, convivial compositions.

Alongside it, the ‘Erica’ collection by Antonio Citterio evolves with expanded seating typologies, from curved sofas designed for sociability to high-backed versions offering intimacy and retreat. With corrosion-resistant frames, recyclable padding and generous proportions, the 2026 proposals reaffirm B&B Italia’s quest for continuity between indoors and out.

Over the past decade, Colin King has become one of the most recognisable names in design circles. A ballet dancer-turned-stylist, Ohio-born, New York-based King is known for his meditative compositions – minimal yet tactile – that helped define the restrained mood of early-2020s interiors, often framed by the design media as ‘warm minimalism’ or ‘quiet luxury’. In 2023, he added author to his list of titles with the publication of Arranging Things (Rizzoli), further cementing his role as a tastemaker. This month, he makes his first foray into furniture design with Danish brand Audo, launching a curved freestanding shelving design.

'Shelving felt like a gentle place to start,' says King, whose collaboration with Audo began with a collection of home objects, launched in 2022 (the same year the brand was acquired by Flos B&B Italia Group).

'A shelf is humble and intimate. It holds the quiet artefacts of a life: books with softened corners, objects gathered over time. It felt honest to begin with something that serves before it speaks. Not a grand gesture, just something steady and useful.'

Displaying all the hallmarks of King's style, ‘Crescent’ is realised in lacquered oak with a gentle crescent-shaped profile designed to look good from every angle. 'We tend to push storage to the edges, as if it should apologise,' explains King. 'I wanted to challenge that instinct. If a piece is proportioned carefully and resolved from every angle, it can participate in the room rather than retreat from it. For a shelf to earn the centre, it has to offer rhythm and presence. It must feel complete in the round. It needs to feel comfortable being seen.'

Its curved design – flat at the front and gently curved at the back – is available in two sizes. The smaller version lends itself to use as a console behind a sofa, while the taller version is better for use as a room divider in larger spaces. Adjustable feet allow it to be levelled, while rounded corners add a softness. 'I kept drawing straight lines and they felt resolved too quickly. The curve allowed the piece to feel more generous. There’s something about a crescent that suggests movement and embrace,’ adds King, of the form that subtly echoes his training as a dancer. Lacquered oak, he says, was chosen for its subtle luminosity. 'I didn’t want the material to feel precious or fragile, I wanted warmth with restraint; something that feels settled but still alive as the light shifts.'

For Audo, the piece is a welcome addition to the catalogue, which spans furniture, lighting and accessories. '“Crescent” responds to a need within our collection for storage and shelving,' says Joachim Kornbek Engell-Hansen, Audo’s brand and design director. 'But beyond function, what makes it compelling is the balance within the design – the dialogue between the strict, linear structure and the curved back that introduces a softer, more organic gesture. That contrast gives the piece a sculptural quality while still feeling architectural.'

King, who has also designed pieces for Beni Rugs (where he also serves as artistic director) and Calico wallpaper, describes his design process as 'slow and a little circular'. 'I sketch. I edit. I pin drawings to the wall and live with them. I build small models and move them around the studio. There are a few trusted friends I share work with. They’re honest in a kind way. Sometimes the most helpful response is simply a pause that tells me to keep refining. Sometimes it’s encouragement to stay the course. Both are gifts.'

Unlike many of Audo’s collaborators – architects and product designers such as Norm Architects, Gabriel Tan and Søren Rose Studio – King has brought the often overlooked role of stylist into sharper public focus, aided in part by his considered use of social media. In doing so, he has evolved into a brand in his own right, one whose aesthetic carries cultural currency. For Audo, partnering with King represents not only a design collaboration, but an alignment with that broader visual language.

'Our collaboration with Colin has always been very intuitively driven,' says Kornbek Engell-Hansen. 'It’s a relationship built on long-term mutual understanding and trust. The process with him differs from the more structured development paths we often follow with designers – there’s a certain freedom in not always knowing exactly where the journey will end.'

For King, the launch of ‘Crescent’ feels like a significant evolution in his non-linear career path, which has taken him from dancer to social media editor to stylist, writer and designer. 'Furniture asks different questions of me, and I’m drawn to that,' he reflects. 'Styling is about composition and editing. It’s about what to remove so something else can breathe. Furniture carries that same discipline, but it also has permanence. A photograph can be adjusted. A piece of furniture enters someone’s daily life. It has weight. That responsibility shifts the mindset and slows everything down.'

Have you ever stopped to admire the textiles upholstering the seats of the London Underground? The moquette fabric that covers them has become almost as iconic as the Transport for London roundel itself. Each line has its own motif, the most recognisable, perhaps, being Wallace Sewell’s 2010 ‘Barman’ design – a rhythmic composition that references city landmarks, reinterpreted in various constructions and colourways across the network.

TfL’s moquettes are more than hard-wearing seat coverings. They are visual and cultural signatures, instantly recognisable to riders and enthusiasts. These patterns have transcended the carriage interior, appearing in homewares and even fashion – a recent example is TfL’s ongoing collaboration with textile house Kirkby, whose third joint collection has just launched.

'Underground Vol. III' revisits eight archival moquette designs – used across the Underground and wider transport system from the 1910s – and transforms them into luxury upholstery velvets suitable for modern interiors. The collection experiments with scale, texture and trend-led colour palettes while preserving each pattern’s historic character.

Many of these designs trace their origins to the 1930s, when London Transport’s publicity officer, Christian Barman, commissioned leading artists and designers, including Marion Dorn, Enid Marx, Paul Nash and, later, Marianne Straub, to elevate transport interiors with bold, modern textiles. Their work transformed purely functional upholstery into a form of public art.

In Kirkby’s collection, ‘Chalfont’ revives a floral moquette once used in the first-class compartments of the Metropolitan Railway’s steam locomotives. Echoing the opulence of early rail travel, the design has been hand-drawn and woven as a two-tone cut-and-uncut velvet.

Elsewhere, ‘Brent’ is based on a 1936 design by Enid Marx, featuring a vibrant diamond motif that once upholstered District line carriages. Kirkby preserves its geometric precision while enhancing its depth and tactility through a cut-and-uncut velvet construction. ‘Caledonian’, inspired by a 1938 design by Marion Dorn for the Metropolitan line, reinterprets a classic tartan check, here simplified into a graphic, retro-inflected velvet. ‘Eden’ references a 1930s art deco-style houndstooth used on trams and trolleybuses – including the 601 route between Twickenham and Tolworth – refined into a smaller-scale, versatile velvet.

‘Bromley’ reimagines a 1960s stripe produced by Birr Fabrics for London Transport coaches as an all-velvet pile in contrasting tones. ‘Piccadilly’ draws on a 1994 geometric moquette introduced during refurbishment of 1970s Tube stock, its fragmented pattern reworked in cut and uncut velvet. ‘Northern’, which takes cues from a 1965 design by Marianne Straub once seen across multiple Underground lines and London’s double-decker buses, sees its interlocking geometric blocks enlarged to create a graphic statement. Finally, ‘Bakerloo’ translates a 1960s geometric moquette from refurbished Tube trains into a richly tactile, three-dimensional fabric.

Through thoughtful reinterpretation, 'Underground Vol. III' demonstrates how these historic moquettes continue to resonate – not only as nostalgic emblems, but as enduring examples of British textile innovation. In reweaving the past for contemporary spaces, Kirkby affirms that great design, even within settings as mundane as a morning commute, can leave a lasting impression.

kirkbydesign.com

Meteorological spring has officially begun in the Northern Hemisphere, and with it comes the return of outdoor living. Few launches capture the mood of the season quite like the new outdoor collection from Molteni & C. Faithful to the furniture brand’s philosophy, the collection does not treat exterior spaces as separate from the home, but as a natural extension of it – rooted in comfort, functionality and design excellence.

The 2026 collection is led by creative director Vincent Van Duysen, alongside long-standing collaborators Yabu Pushelberg and Studio Dordoni, and enriched by lighting developed in partnership with Spanish brand Vibia.

Conceived as a complete system of furnishings and accessories, the collection merges architecture, materials and light to form a cohesive, refined narrative. From modular seating to dining pieces and sculptural tables, each element balances structural lightness with formal rigour and meticulous detailing.

At the heart of the collection lies ‘Soleva’ by Vincent Van Duysen. ‘Rooted in the word sun, with ‘Soleva’ I wanted to evoke the warmth of daylight, the slow rhythm of light moving through space and tracing patterns across surfaces,’ he explains.

Spanning armchairs, dining pieces and a chaise longue, ‘Soleva’s’ architectural language is defined by a slender, continuous tubular frame that establishes precise proportions. Powder-coated in ‘Nuvia White’ or ‘Selva Green’, the lightweight yet durable aluminium structures are paired with vertical marine plywood slats finished with a soft-touch EVA coating. Concrete accents, seen in the ‘Louisa’ side tables and ‘Dalia’ tables, introduce a sculptural counterpoint.

The ‘Soleva’ sofa, available in two- and three-seat versions, combines supportive comfort with refined posture. Its rounded tubular aluminium frame is matched with vertical marine plywood slats in ‘Olive Green’ or ‘Siena Brown’, coordinated with ‘Selva Green’ or ‘Nuvia White’ structures. Cushions feature recyclable polyurethane inserts and water-repellent covers, while optional loose armrest cushions add flexibility.

The armchair and dining chair reinterpret the same architectural language in more compact proportions. A stackable sun bed, complete with adjustable mattress thickness and a linen-coloured Batyline backrest, is designed for both relaxation and practical storage. Completing the line, stools and tables combine aluminium frames with tops in gres or technical lava stone.

Elsewhere, the ‘Chelsea' outdoor collection extends Studio Dordoni’s interior aesthetic into exterior settings. Aluminium structures with die-cast legs are paired with distinctive woven polypropylene rope backrests. A modular sofa system, armchair, dining chair and side tables create flexible, convivial configurations.

Yabu Pushelberg introduces the foldable ‘Club’ chair – a lightweight, nomadic piece crafted in painted steel with a linen Batyline seat. Accessories complete the offering: ‘Dalia’ high and low tables in gres or cement; the ‘Fronda’ parasol in multiple technical configurations; and portable lighting pieces including ‘Closer’, ‘Meridiano’ and ‘Out’, developed with Vibia.

With these pieces, Molteni & C demonstrates that exterior living need not compromise on refinement or performance. The collection feels enduring: a sophisticated framework for living well, indoors and out.

molteni.it

This impressively analogue piece of kit is a custom drafting table, created by Madrid-based industrial design studio Caliper for the artist Daniel Arsham. Well known for his love of all things mechanical (and a former Wallpaper* cover creator), Arsham has worked with everyone from Tiffany & Co to Kohler and Hublot.

This particular project was strictly personal. Caliper, founded by the equally mechanically minded Quinner Baird in 2020, has taken the traditional drafting board and given it a distinctly contemporary twist. The ambition is to create the perfect surface and workspace for Arsham’s ongoing series of charcoal and graphite drawings, complete with a large-scale backlit surface and attached magnifying lamp.

Alongside this, the table incorporates a number of bespoke storage compartments – for tools, paper and charcoal – as well as lighting controls and the all-important charging ports. It's all formed from CNC machined aluminium, clear anodised and bead-blasted, with a high degree of bespoke manufacturing on display.

Every detail is out in the open, rather than hidden away, from the exposed gears of the lifting mechanism, with their perfectly machined winders, to the adjustable legs and sliding mechanism for the angled lamp on the rear of the board.

Caliper – recently seen on these pages with its colourful AA67 speaker for Alaska Alaska – built the entire drafting table in its Madrid studio before shipping it to Arsham’s HQ in New York.

Calip-er.com, @Calip.er

DanielArsham.com, @DanielArsham

At last Sunday's Grammy Awards (1 February 2026), Bad Bunny took home Album of the Year for Debí Tirar Más Fotos, released in January 2025. The album was also nominated for the first-ever Best Album Cover award, though that prize ultimately went to Tyler, The Creator’s Chromakopia. For the design enthusiasts at Wallpaper*, however, the Puerto Rican rapper’s album art holds special significance.

The image is deceptively simple: two white plastic chairs on a grassy lawn. They are the familiar stackable plastic kind you’ve seen a thousand times before – in gardens, on the street, in schools or other public buildings. These are ‘monobloc’ chairs – so named because they are molded from a single, continuous block of plastic – and they are arguably the most ubiquitous design object on the planet.

In the hands of Bad Bunny and Eric Rojas, the photographer behind the album cover, the monobloc chair becomes more than furniture: it is cultural shorthand, laden with memory and emotion. In Puerto Rico, these chairs are everywhere, drawn into circles by family, friends and neighbours to talk, laugh and share stories – becoming a symbol of community and identity. This is reinforced by the album’s back cover dedication – ‘to all Puerto Ricans around the world’.

Read alongside the album’s title, which translates to ‘I should have taken more photos’, the chairs take on a poignant register. They are empty, perhaps standing in for those no longer there: elders who have died, family members who have emigrated, a way of life slowly disappearing. All of this meaning is carried, improbably, by two plastic chairs. Herein lies the cover’s genius.

That said, what makes the monobloc so compelling is that it is both culturally specific and broadly nonspecific. Widely regarded as the most commonly used piece of furniture globally – found in cafes, markets, backyards, schools and festivals from Sweden to Sudan – it is the ultimate ‘everychair’.

During a talk in New York accompanying the Museum of Modern Art’s 2025 exhibition Pirouette: Turningpoints in Design, design critic Alice Rawsthorn argued that ‘few objects are as truly quotidian as the monobloc, which conforms to the dictionary definition of the word by being unalloyedly ‘ordinary’, ‘commonplace’ and ‘everyday’’.

Its success is rooted in its simplicity. The monobloc is produced in a single step, from a single material, typically polypropylene. It is lightweight, durable, weather-resistant, stackable and extremely cheap to manufacture. In a video accompanying Pirouette, head of architecture and design at MoMA, Paola Antonelli, describes the monobloc as ‘the culmination of a long standing desire among designers to create the perfect industrially manufactured chair’.

Prior to the mid-twentieth century, the idea of a chair with no screws of assembly required was virtually inconceivable. Advances in thermoplastics in the late-1950s made it possible to heat plastic pellets, liquefy them and inject them into a mold to produce a single, seamless form. In the 1960s, Danish designer Verner Panton, along with Italian designers Joe Colombo and Vico Magistretti and German architect Helmut Bätzner, developed the concept. The monobloc chair only entered true mass production, however, after 1972, when French engineer Henry Massonnet introduced the Fauteuil 300 through his company Stamp. His model reduced production time to under two minutes.

To Rawsthorn’s mind, the design leap occasioned by the monobloc echoes that of one of the earliest mass-manufactured chairs: the No. 14, developed in the mid-1800s by German cabinetmaker Michael Thonet – ‘the first chair designed to sell for the same price as a cheap bottle of wine, making it the first chair to seat modestly paid teachers as well as aristocrats’.

Crucially, Massonnet never patented the Fauteuil 300. As a result, it was freely copied by manufacturers around the world, incrementally modified again and again. By the early 1980s, polypropylene injection molding had been widely mastered, leading to billions of monobloc chairs sold over the following decades.

The monobloc is something of an industrial design holy grail, representing the purest expression of its ambition: a complete object, made in one process from a single material, and accessible to almost everyone as a result. But for some, that ubiquity has become a problem. Its critics condemn it as a symbol of throwaway culture, environmental harm and cheap consumerism. So common as to feel anonymous, the monobloc often seems disposable – an object with a short life and a long afterlife in landfill. From 2008 to 2017, authorities in Basel, Switzerland, even banned monobloc plastic chairs from public spaces, arguing that they detracted from the city’s appearance.

‘Not all turning points in design are wholly positive, as the monobloc illustrates by being a force for good in some respects and for bad in others. The monobloc’s dangers… stem from what was once its principal asset: that it’s made from plastic,’ Rawsthorn acknowledged, adding that it’s almost impossible to repair the chair when the plastic breaks, making it a poor candidate for circular economy practices.

‘[This] puts it on the lengthening list of innovations which were widely considered to be successful for much of the last century thanks to their functional benefits and technical sophistication, only to be condemned as ecological nightmares in this one,’ she continued. ‘What the monobloc – and every other once-celebrated design project facing the same dilemma – needs, is a radically redesigned successor.’

Whether you see the monobloc as a design icon or ‘ecological nightmare’ and eyesore, few objects have been more referenced and repurposed across art, fashion, film, memes and political protest, or come to represent so much – from globalisation and modernity to ordinariness and resistance. On the cover of Debí Tirar Más Fotos, the monobloc is rooted in Puerto Rican life, but it is a universal visual cue. Not bad for a chair.

It has been 100 years since Eileen Gray – the Irish designer and architect widely regarded as one of the most influential figures of 20th-century modern design – introduced her ‘Bibendum’ chair. With its bold, sculptural form, the chair challenged conventional ideas of what modern furniture could be, and remains one of Gray’s most recognisable and celebrated works.

Aram, which has held the worldwide licence for Gray designs since 1973 and worked closely with the designer during her lifetime, is marking the centenary with the launch of a limited collector’s edition. Released exactly a century after the chair was first conceived in 1926, the edition is restricted to just 100 pieces.

The ‘Bibendum’ chair occupies a rare position between functional furniture, sculptural form and cultural artefact. It is celebrated for its bold and unconventional construction: a backrest formed from a stack of padded cylindrical cushions, paired with a generously proportioned seat and supported by a tubular steel frame. The chair takes its name from the original Michelin Man, Bibendum – a reference that highlights Gray’s signature wit.

Throughout the late 1920s and 1930s, Gray incorporated the ‘Bibendum’ chair into a number of her most significant interior projects, including a 1933 commission for fashion entrepreneur Juliette Lévy. Early examples were upholstered in fabric or skai, a leather-like vinyl, and were shown at Gray’s Jean Desert gallery in Paris.

These original versions are now exceptionally rare, with only two believed to remain in private ownership. Today, the ‘Bibendum’ chair is most often encountered in museum collections. However, Aram’s long-standing relationship with Gray has enabled it to preserve the authenticity of her work while presenting it to new generations – the centenary edition reflects this approach.

Produced in collaboration with ClassiCon, the sublicensee for Gray designs outside the UK, the centenary edition is upholstered in Sørensen Duet nubuck gold leather, selected for its softness and evolving patina, and finished with a nickel-plated base that recalls the tone and sheen of early models. Each piece is individually stamped with its edition number, reinforcing its exclusivity and provenance.

A century after its creation, the ‘Bibendum’ chair remains as compelling as ever. The centenary edition not only honours Gray’s legacy, but also reaffirms the chair’s place as a landmark of modern design, destined to be treasured by future generations.