Leading a wave of new international openings in Portugal’s ancient capital, to include this autumn, The Standard and next year the Six Senses, Andaz Lisbon, designed by Patricia Urquiola, is a triumph of colour and carefully curated art, perfectly reflecting the city’s vibrant cultural melting pot.

Wallpaper* checks in at Andaz Lisbon

What’s on your doorstep?

Everything you might want really, starting with Lisbon’s most impressive square, the Praça do Comércio. Open to the water, this was once the gateway to Lisbon, where the grand caravels arrived in the Golden Age of Discovery to unload the gold and exotic spices from their travels or visiting dignitaries alighted to meet the King. Between this square and the hotel is the imposing Rua Augusta Arch, built to commemorate the city’s reconstruction after the devastating 1755 earthquake. Several of the hotel’s rooms look directly onto the arch, topped with, among other figures, the great explorer, Vasco de Gama; a unique view to wake up to.

Opposite it, along one side, is Lisbon’s Design Museum, MUDA, which houses fashion and design from the 19th century to the present day. A little further afield, but visible from the hotel, is Lisbon’s 12th-century cathedral and the even older Castle of St. George, which dominates the city’s skyline.

Who is behind the design?

Patricia Urquiola, leading her acclaimed design studio, Studio Urquiola, was responsible for the entire interior design concept, which immediately immerses the visitor in colour, warmth and creative detail. Inspiration came from Lisbon’s rich heritage, where past influences from Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Goa, Brazil, Japan and Macau are all woven into today’s Portugal. This is writ large in rooftop restaurant Luzzi, where blue floors represent the Ocean which connects these countries, vibrant African designs clad the ceilings, and wall décor mixes rope masks from Japan with bold murals.

Over-layering the vivid colours and textures used, art, curated brilliantly by Federica Sala, grounds us closer to home with the traditional Portuguese materials of local Lioz stone, cork, textiles, ceramics and tiles, much in evidence. Vibrant cork artwork by Beatrice Bonafini decorates the walls in the Andaz Lounge, the hub of the hotel, where the bar is a contemporary reinterpretation of Lisbon’s famous street kiosks. In the rooms and suites, bespoke furniture from Studio Urquiola and contemporary art, such as a geometric textile work in yellow, blue and white by Rosarinho Andrade or colourful abstract dyptychs by Farinha Rosa hang on the tactile wood panelling, adding yet more depth to rooms which come with a strong sense of place.

The room to book

I loved my Arch Suite, one of only four in the hotel, from where, through the Rua Augusta Arch, I could watch the wonderful Lisbon light rise on the shimmering water. But all the 170 rooms are charming. Filled with light, many with views on a quintessential Lisbon landmark, they come in calming tones with art which reflects the surrounding Lisbon streets, their vivid colours, gleaming tiles, and pottery, such an integral part of Portugal’s culture. The capital’s red roofs might well have been the departure point for the glossy red walls in the bathrooms, where red and white tiles also feature, with Lioz stone square basins. Mine came with a tub to sink into and a generous double shower. Amenities are Eleventh Hour from Byredo.

Minibar high?

Championing the best of Portugal, the mini-bar offers white port from the north, Ginja, a sweet and sour cherry liqueur from Obidos, beer from Sagres in the Algarve and a Portuguese gin, Sharish. Elegant, ribbed bottles of tonic water and lemonade come from the Spanish Tribute brand, and there is, of course, water and Coke. There is a Nespresso machine, capsule coffee and a variety of teas. A nice touch is the coffee cups, which come from Vista Alegre and are an interpretation of the famous Lisbon pavement mosaics.

Staying for drinks and dinner?

You definitely should, for the concept in the rooftop restaurant, Luzzi is an interesting one, and the food here is a serious delight. The menu, created by Bruno Alves, is billed as ‘modern Lusitanian cuisine’ and draws on the countries that are part of Portugal’s culinary heritage but uses ingredients essential to these countries’ cuisines today. Goa, Macau, Mozambique, Japan, Cape Verde, Angola and Brazil are all represented with dishes like kibbeh, a Levantine dish popular in Brazil served here with bulgur and a citrus tahini sauce, or the tuna tartare, which nods to the simple tuna pie loved in Cape Verde. Reimagined anew here, it is elevated with fresh rather than canned tuna, cream from the Azores, spices from Japan and piri-piri from Angola. Guinea Fowl might come in a clay pot with cachupa, another Cape Verdean dish, while puddings include a traditional, conventional layered cake from Goa, with a roasted coconut sorbet and a Port glaze, from the vineyards of the Douro further north.

Drinks, at the Bar in Luzzi or across the rooftop in the terrace where live music and the warm Lisbon breeze blow, are equally creative as are cocktails at the Andaz Lounge, on the ground floor, where home-made pennyroyal (an herb much used in the Alentejo) soda is mixed into Mojitos. There, too, Portuguese wines can be explored from a list which represents the best female winemakers; a nice touch. Soak it all up with the ‘street food’ served here, the kind of popular snacks that can be found in the iconic kiosks which dot Lisbon’s squares and avenidas. Cod fritters, chicken empanadas and meaty croquettes. Save room, though, for the Basque cheesecake made with sheep’s cheese from Portugal’s mountain range, the Serra da Estrela. It is a triumph.

Where to switch off

As yet, the spa has not been opened, but there will be both a spa and a gym in the future. Currently, there is a room on the ground floor which has been equipped to serve as a temporary gym with weights and treadmills. Meanwhile, the rooftop overlooking the Rua Augusta Arch (there is a little niche with a table in it, which has a bird’s eye view) is as good as it gets for downtime.

The verdict

This is the first Andaz to open since it has been rebranded by Hyatt, after their acquisition of another lifestyle brand, The Standard, and its more upscale positioning is evident. Visually compelling, it dazzles with warmth, storytelling and respect for its location.

Andaz Lisbon is located at R. do Comércio 132, 1100-060 Lisbon, Portugal

Saunas are having a moment. From Finnish-designed Lowlu saunas opening in London, to the debut of France’s largest sauna, Sant Roch, and Klafs’ innovative S1, the world’s first retractable sauna, hitting the US market, it seems that everyone is seeking a soothing reset, both physical and mental. Longing for something similar while touring Salone del Mobile 2026, we saw Italian wellness brand Effe unveil its collaboration with Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola, a partnership that unites wellness architecture with contemporary design.

‘Baluar’, as the new sauna and hammam collection, is rooted in its material selection, light, and shape. Urquiola wanted to redefine the concept of wellness spaces, and worked with Effe to focus on the relationship a person has with their own place of regeneration. Using this as a framework, Urquiola envisioned the modular collection as a compact piece of complete architecture.

Patricia Urquiola reimagines sauna and hammam for Effe

The finished system unites both hammam and sauna in a single modular unit, while offering flexibility to form different compositions. This nods to the brand’s ‘Petra SH’ modular system, which launched in 2025 and features a home sauna, hammam, and a plunge bath all in one. Effe also noted that 'Baluar' can be combined with other elements and adapted to different spaces; whether it becomes part of a spa, for example, or stands alone, it blends Urquiola’s design and technology to create a truly immersive wellness experience.

The Spanish designer drew inspiration from the bastion, a projecting architectural element of medieval fortified buildings that provided protection for those looking out over the surrounding area while defending the property.

‘I wanted to transform this architectural element into a wellness space, a compact, almost archetypal space where you can relax and unwind,' says Urquiola. 'The system combines a sauna and hammam in a modular structure that adapts to any environment, while still making a bold design statement.’

You could say that 'Baluar' acts as a modern-day bastion, offering a space of protection where bathers can cocoon and switch off from everyday reality.

Other design details include heat-treated lime-wood cladding in a dark or light tone, controlled lighting and narrow vertical grooves, all of which add architectural integrity, while also setting the mood for an immersive sanctuary.

‘Patricia Urquiola’s ability to blend heat, material and function is taking us in a new direction, where the focus is no longer just on the technology but on spaces that speak to the emotions,’ says Effe CEO Marco Borghetti, ‘places where heat and steam rituals can offer an emotional experience to bathers.’

effe.it

‘Girls run the world’, the poet Beyoncé once said. In the design world, though, female creatives are still sadly underrepresented and under-recognised. Progress is being made, but the design and architecture professions are historically male-dominated – and great work created by women often doesn’t make it to highlight-level at major design events.

Wallpaper* aims to redress that imbalance. In Milan, where our editors are currently on the ground reviewing all that's noteworthy during Design Week 2026, we keep track of the achievements of incredible female creatives in the city – from Salone del Mobile president Maria Porro, injecting new ideas into one of the oldest design institutions in Italy, to trend-setting curator Valentina Ciuffi, whose Alcova has become an example of championing creativity from all corners of the profession, and doyenne of collectible design Nina Yashar (watch our Ground Report interview), whose galleries Nilufar and Nilufar Depot are among the most important places to discover design.

We also have a careful lens on the work that Patricia Urquiola is doing at Cassina, in terms of both innovation and championing an emerging generation of creatives; and the electric energy with which Visionnaire art director Eleonore Cavalli finds the most exciting ways to shake up her company's strong heritage (through unexpected collaborations with the likes of metal stalwart NM3, for example).

Here, we gather a small directory, spotlighting just some of the women whose work has defined this year's Milan Design Week. For many more, follow our coverage on Wallpaper.com, where you’ll find the likes of Federica Biasi and her respectful interpretation of Maddalena De Padova's legacy; the inimitable Bethan Laura Wood, reinterpreting Baccarat's baroque and subverting its rules; and Nao Tamura and her sculptural origami furniture for Porro that leave us marvelling at her creative gestures every time we encounter them.

Nine female creatives to know at Milan Design Week 2026

Faye Toogood

Faye Toogood is the queen of prototyping, and this Milan Design Week has made it even clearer that the British designer is the best when it comes to visualising ideas in compact ways. We are particularly fond of her mini carved butter sofas, a prelude to her collection of seating for Tacchini (aptly called ‘Butter' and comprising different modular elements, or ‘slabs of butter’: a three-seater sofa, an armchair and a storage unit). But her miniature-making prowess was also evident in the perfectly compact ‘Lie Low’ bed, for Poltrona Frau, and the folded paper experiments that represent her ‘Crease’ collection for Meritalia, inspired by flat-pack constructions.

And while the life-size versions of these furniture design concepts are magnificent in their own right, seeing the ideas unfold in small scale (and in such imaginative, expressive ways) always puts a smile on our face.

Linde Freya Tangelder

The work of Belgian designer Linde Freya Tangelder (also known as Destroyers Builders) is a powerful whisper. Over the years, the designer has built an aesthetic identity that is unmistakably hers, based on a version of minimalism that is multi-material and takes modularity to unexpected horizons. At Milan Design Week 2026, Tangelder and Cassina staged a display at 10 Corso Como titled 'Fluid Re-Collection', an immersion into her creative world that includes her furniture, objects and study models placed in conversation with the lighting design she has been creating with the Italian company since 2022.

Ambra Medda with Amy Tai

'I love being part of a city that is changing and evolving at such speed,' said design curator Ambra Medda, who recently moved back to Milan from her longtime base in London. Her new creative space in the city hosts its inaugural exhibition, co-curated with design historian Amy Tai, bringing together the ceramic work of Greek designer Leda Athanasopoulou and textiles by the Chinese artist Yumo Yuan.

Read our interview with Ambra Medda

Elisa Ossino

Elisa Ossino's secret garden with Molteni & C is a much-needed oasis of peace in the middle of Milan ('What a beautiful gift to the city', we overheard someone say on our visit at the beginning of Milan Design Week). Titled 'Responsive Nature', the verdant installation takes over Garden Senato in a way that is both poetic and also a stage to showcase the company's new outdoor collections (including new pieces by Ossino herself). Through five environments, Molteni & C's furniture is set amid tropical plants, architectural ruins overgrown with foliage and water features that make you feel like you have left the city and have stepped into an otherworldly natural paradise.

Kelly Wearstler

Kelly Wearstler, queen of the maximalist interior, made her Milan Design Week debut to launch a new furniture collection designed in tandem with H&M Home. ‘We still had a lot of boundaries,' she told us. ‘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.' 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 Wearstler's luxury lifestyle-forward Proper hotels will immediately recognise her distinctive aesthetic.

Read our interview with Kelly Wearstler

Marta Sala

Milanese gallerist Marta Sala founded her namesake company, Marta Sala Éditions, in 2015, with the aim of building a platform dedicated to limited-run design collections rooted in architectural rigour and material precision. Eleven years on, that vision has been entirely realised – in no small part thanks to her longstanding collaborations with some of the most exacting figures in design. At Milan Design Week 2026, she launched a new collection with Herzog & de Meuron, making its debut at the inaugural edition of Salone Raritas.

Read our interview with Marta Sala

Natalia Criado

Since founding her eponymous brand in 2018, the Milan-based, Colombia-born designer Natalia Criado has been developing a body of work that reads as both functional object and sculpture. This year at Milan Design Week, Criado worked with Laboratorio Paravicini – the Milanese ceramics brand run by Costanza Paravicini and her three daughters, Benedetta, Margherita and Bona, known for their deftly hand-illustrated ceramics. 'I had been aware of their work for some time, and what drew me in was not only the craftsmanship, but the structure behind it, a family-run studio largely composed of women,' Criado says.

Read our interview with Natalia Criado

Sophie Lou Jacobsen

For the past several months, New York glassware designer Sophie Lou Jacobsen has been spending more and more time in Milan, developing her latest collection inspired by the famed local aperitivo culture. 'In New York, we have happy hour, and in France, there is apéro, but aperitivo is a ritual really ingrained into daily life in Milan,' says the designer, who aptly titled the collection 'Disco Aperitivo', a nod to the 1980s style that still defines many of the city’s historic bars.

Read our interview with Sophie Lou Jacobsen

Lina Ghotmeh

Lebanese-born, Paris-based architect Lina Ghotmehhas built a reputation for immersive, site-responsive work, and was also behind one of the most anticipated installations of Milan Design Week, at Palazzo Litta, transforming the historic building's courtyard into different pockets of calm, culture and conversation during a frenetic week. ‘At a time when the world is bombarded from several standpoints, I wanted a place that cherishes joy and human connection. It is a setting that gently slows people down and allows them to engage with one another and with the place around them,’ she explains.

Read our interview with Lina Ghotmeh

See our guide to what’s on at Milan Design Week 2026 (until 26 April), and follow the adventures of our editors on the ground in our live Milan blog.

This is the latest instalment of The Inside Story, Wallpaper’s series spotlighting intriguing, innovative and industry-leading interior design.

If you’re toying with the idea of buying yourself a skiing retreat, let this be the inspiration you need. Spanish architect and designer Patricia Urquiola has turned her attention to the Swiss Alps, unveiling Maya, a collection of 17 residences and penthouses in Andermatt Reuss in the heart of Andermatt.

Maya sidesteps rustic clichés – no saccharine chalet nostalgia here – in favour of something more cosmopolitan. Set along the town’s central retail boulevard, the development comprises 14 apartments and three penthouses that fuse contemporary minimalism with tactile warmth. Urquiola’s signature is evident in the layering: gentle, earthy tones offset by moments of colour, and sculptural lighting casting a soft glow across bespoke and collectible furnishings.

Light is the protagonist here. Private loggias, enclosed by curved floor-to-ceiling glazing, frame views of mountains and woodland, while expansive windows pull the landscape in. Materiality is handled with a confident, almost sensual touch: fireplaces carved into walls of green Salvan stone; oak cabinetry and herringbone parquet underfoot; textural, authentic finishes. Urquiola nods to traditional Swiss architecture – its timber structures, intimate scale and reliance on local materials – yet recasts these references through organic forms and innovative techniques.

Colour, too, is reimagined. Rather than retreating into a predictable palette of creams and pine, Urquiola introduces rich greens, earthen browns and mineral greys – tones drawn directly from forest, rock and soil. They echo the surrounding landscape while lending the interiors depth and dynamism.

‘I think, when we talk about reinterpretation, it’s a process much like the evolution of classic designs or reinterpreted pieces of music,’ says the designer. ‘We’re not discarding the past, but rather allowing it to evolve with the tools, materials and technologies of today. In the case of the Maya residences, we honour the tradition of Alpine homes – the warmth, the natural materials and the connection to nature – while integrating modern comfort, sustainability and innovation.’

Community and sociability are central to Maya. Urquiola imagines residents as design-literate, outdoors-inclined and convivial; living spaces are therefore calibrated for gathering, dining and evenings spent recounting days on the slopes.

That ethos extends to the building’s culinary offering. The ground floor is home to IGNIV Andermatt, created in collaboration with celebrated Swiss chef Andreas Caminada, whose three Michelin stars and 19 GaultMillau points speak to a culinary ambition that mirrors the project’s design credentials.

Maya moves decisively beyond the ‘Swiss chocolate box’ cliché. Rather than leaning on nostalgia, the project demonstrates that Alpine homes can feel warm and cocooning through thoughtful, modern interplays of texture, tone and proportion.

Recreate the mood...

In summer 2026, Spanish architect Patricia Urquiola’s distinctive vision will embark on the high seas. Fresh from several recent hospitality projects – including her suite designs for the Jumeirah Capri Palace and Il Sereno – Urquiola has just announced her latest collaboration with the luxury ocean-travel brand Explora Journeys. She has authored the design of the ship’s ultra-exclusive Owner’s Residence, a spacious luxury living space with 180-degree views.

Patricia Urquiola designs exclusive residence for Explora Journeys

When Explora Journeys was launched in 2021, it debuted as a new luxury cruise venture from the Italian shipping company MSC Group. The brand was founded by the Neapolitan Aponte family, whose history in the maritime world reaches back to the 17th century. Explora organises multi-day and week-long journeys that focus on culture, scenery and wellness, in destinations as far-flung as Alaska, the Mediterranean and the Arabian Peninsula. Now, with the addition of Urquiola to the fold, the brand is positioning itself to appeal to an audience with an appreciation for sophisticated design.

Urquiola, who has been designing hospitality spaces since the opening of the Mandarin Oriental Barcelona in 2010, notes that both the choice of materials and the configuration of the space required a different approach due to its maritime setting and constant motion. ‘The space is always moving, so you really need to create a fluid transition between the different areas of the suite,’ she explains. ‘And for the same reason, you’re much more likely to reach out and touch the walls, so we chose finishes that are warm and inviting, yet highly tactile.’

For the furnishings, she selected several pieces from the Milanese furniture brand Cassina, for whom she has served as creative director since 2015. She also designed custom elements, including a 3D-printed chandelier made from recycled plastic, conceived to echo the form of a ship’s sail.

The new ship, Explora III, is scheduled to enter service in summer 2026, with its maiden voyages beginning in early August. The launch will mark the next major milestone in Explora Journeys’ expansion, extending the brand’s presence across an increasingly global range of itineraries.

explorajourneys.com

This week, Patricia Urquiola returns to Frankfurt’s Heimtextil fair (until 16 January 2026) to unveil 'Among-all', an installation exploring the Milanese designer’s textile exploration through an immersive, experiential journey. It is a demonstration of the fair's bold approach in support of textile innovation and the opportunities for creativity within the field.

At the heart of the installation is a series of radical experiments, typical of the designer’s practice. Looking at the possibilities of recycled textiles, Urquiola has brought together several innovations in the field, which are placed in a visual conversation within the fair.

‘Form should not be the main objective of design,’ Urquiola tells Wallpaper*, describing her work as a designer as being like a ‘dialogue with matter’. The objects on view are connected by a shared material ecology, the result of new ways of repurposing and recycling in collaboration with fabricators and studios that are leading material experimentation.

Patricia Urquiola presents ‘Among-all’ at Heimtexil 2026

One of the core elements of the display is a series of objects made of different interpretations of Econyl, a material created from discarded fishing nets and textile-industry waste (a corner of the space is dedicated to the material's original form, and a screen explains its processes). The material comes in two forms, used by the designer to experiment with the possibilities of industry and craft. In its textile form, it appears as a fringed upholstery fabric, used to cover a large seating object created in collaboration with Moroso and CC-tapis, an evolution of a design from 2025 that also suggests new seating typologies.

Econyl also appears as the starting point for solid objects: in its pellet form, the material is used for a collaboration with manufacturing company Caracol, comprising sculptures that exemplify a true collaboration with a machine. Urquiola asked: what happens if we let the machine paint freely with the material? The result is a series of fluid forms that resemble textiles or three-dimensional paintings in their apparent softness, while also speaking the visual language of craft.

Urquiola emphasises the importance of working with recycled materials, of elevating waste and experimenting with the scope of new, regenerated material options, even though the result may be a less controlled exercise than we are used to in design today.

Working between digital, AI-powered images and the three-dimensional world, Urquiola also presents a new approach to the Euclidean grid, shown here both as a decorative frame to the installation (made of woven selvages from 13 Rugs, the German company which also collaborated on two felted rugs on diaplay) and as a visual guide for an on-screen figure that visitors can control with their body. But she is keen to stress the obsolete nature of such a grid in contemporary creation: 'It's part of our culture, but it doesn't carry the same value anymore,' she explains. 'For me, design is not about controlling forms anymore, it's more about a negotiation with matter, a dialogue, a process.'

Rather than providing a series of practical tools for designing domesticity, Urquiola's display reaches into uncharted territory to suggest how design can rethink old ways and explore a new dialogue between creator and material.

At the centre, visitors are welcomed by a silver creature, zoomorphic but abstract, made with Ohoskin, an Italian textile innovation created from discarded orange peel. Futuristic in its silvery guise, it's an interpretation of a digital object that Urquiola first presented at Heimtextil in 2025, and further developed for 2026.

'We are a nexus of coexistence between craft and industry,' concludes Urquiola. 'I don't believe in purity, and through my work, I propose a new dialogue of woven ideas. I don't believe in perfection, I'd rather strive for transformation.'

Unveiled earlier this week at the CID – Centre for Innovation and Design at Grand-Hornu in Belgium, Patricia Urquiola. Meta-Morphosa (on view until 26 April 2026) offers a focused look at the Spanish designer’s work from the past five years. The survey is presented as part of Europalia España, the Belgium-based international arts festival dedicated this year to Spanish culture. Rather than a conventional retrospective, the exhibition homes in on Urquiola’s ongoing research into materials and making, spanning furniture, textiles, surfaces and experimental installations.

Across the exhibition, Urquiola’s practice is framed through the idea of metamorphosis: objects that shift between craft and industry, tradition and technology, familiarity and invention. Many of the works on display explore hybrid materials and regenerative processes, including recycled wool, plastics, wood, glass and marble, reflecting the designer’s long-standing interest in circularity and the full lifecycle of products. Digital tools also play a role, informing both production methods and the increasingly fluid, organic language of her recent designs.

The scenography leans into Urquiola’s more imaginative impulses. Hybrid creatures, marine forms and fantastical details appear across rugs, stools and surfaces, highlighting a personal visual language that is brought into sharp focus by the exhibition format.

Urquiola's large body of work is typically absorbed in fragments, its narrative dispersed across showrooms, trade shows and design events where she is typically presenting a single product with a brand. Brought together in one place, however, these critter-like forms and organic references reveal themselves as a consistent undercurrent, allowing connections to be drawn between projects and a more coherent sense of Urquiola’s creative universe to emerge. The grouping also sharpens the tactile dimension of her work – the emphasis on surface, softness and material touch – which can be harder to register when pieces are encountered in isolation.

This sense of an ‘inner world’ culminates in the final room, centred on a large tapestry inspired by the journey of Saint Anthony in the desert of the Thebaid – used here as a metaphor for learning and transformation. The surrounding iconographic elements extend this narrative.

A short philosophical thread runs through the exhibition via a conversation with Italian philosopher Emanuele Coccia, whose reflections on metamorphosis frame change as a continuous, inevitable condition of life. As Coccia puts it, it is ‘the closest that life comes to death’. In Urquiola’s hands, however, metamorphosis is less about rupture than adaptation – an ongoing process of forming, deforming and recomposing in response to a world, and an industry, in transition.

Patricia Urquiola. Meta-Morphosa runs through 26 April 2026

Patricia Urquiola has teamed up with Copenhagen-based design firm Tableau to present a new textile collection for Kvadrat. Unveiled to coincide with Chart 2025 (28-31 August), Copenhagen’s contemporary art fair, the textiles are inspired by forestry and nature in the Nordic region.

Patricia Urquiola presents ‘In Nature We Trust’ for Kvadrat

Designed by Patricia Urquiola for Kvadrat, the collection, ‘In Nature We Trust’, is rooted in the form and colour of the natural environment. It is being presented initially via an installation by Tableau at Kvadrat’s Copenhagen showroom – ahead of an autumn release – which sees the fabrics draped like a canopy and wrapped around tree branches and furniture alike to create an immersive textile forest for visitors to explore.

Coupled with the whimsical installation is a dreamy tablescape, also staged by Tableau (whose past projects include the design of a mental health space in Copenhagen and bringing a Poul Gernes flower lamp to life). Each object, from vases to fruit and plates, is also enveloped in the new textile range.

Delicate bark-like striations are woven into the installation design, while the soft tonal colour palette – from deep blues and olive greens through to warm oranges and lilacs – makes an elegant feast for the eyes.

Urquiola has collaborated with Kvadrat since 2013 and released several textiles, including the world’s first upholstery textile made of 100 per cent ocean-bound plastic (which won a Wallpaper* Design Award in 2024).

The installation is on display at the Kvadrat showroom, Pakhus 48, Klubiensvej 22, 2150 Copenhagen

Set on Lake Como’s eastern shore, in the quaint town of Torno, Il Sereno is an architectural marvel. Built on top of a former stone boathouse – or darsena – it marries the site’s history with a contemporary, modernist-inspired structure in a palette of colours and materials reflecting its lakeside context.

Since Il Sereno opened in 2016, the 40-suite hotel has drawn guests keen to drink in the views of the southern Italian Alps and glassy water. However, opening for the 2025 summer season, the new Darsena Listening Suite offers a different sensory experience, where sound and design converge.

Il Sereno’s new Listening Suite: modernist interiors meet high fidelity

Much like the rest of the hotel (including the architecture, interiors, uniforms and even a fleet of boats), the new suite was the collaborative work between Spanish architect and designer Patricia Urquiola, and hotel founders Luis and Angelica Contreras. They have worked with the designer consistently (unveiling an Urquiola-designed penthouse in 2021, and swim-up suite in 2023) since the property’s opening. This new chapter holds a special place for Luis Contreras.

After travelling around Japan, he was inspired by the country’s dedicated spaces where vinyl records are enjoyed with quiet reverence, known as listening rooms or bars. Taking this concept and design codes, Contreras applied them to the new suite. Soundproof walls with textured detailing, coupled with acoustic fabrics, ensure smooth, high fidelity. Walnut furnishings and speakers nod to the rest of the hotel, with its midcentury modern-inspired flair.

At the core of the suite is the sound system. An audiophile’s dream set-up, it includes a McIntosh vacuum tube amplifier, a refurbished Revox B77 reel-to-reel player and speakers made from the same wood used throughout the hotel (noce canaletto), weighing over 200kg. Contreras provided his personal collection of over 500 records. Genres vary from pop and classic rock to bossa nova and jazz, although it is evident that Contreras is a big Genesis fan. ‘Guests can request records prior to staying,’ notes Claudio Cadeddu, Sereno Hotels’ chief commercial officer. ‘We want to create a Babylon library of music.’

Large sliding doors divide the suite's various areas, allowing you to create an intimate space, an invitation to lounge on the floor surrounded by a sea of records as you queue up tracks.

‘Going down the rabbit hole of high-end hi-fi was a lot of fun,’ says Contreras. ‘When designing the equipment, I first went down a path to build an artisanal system, and got to meet some incredibly talented people who could do “old-fashioned” hi-fi systems using (mostly) old tech. It was lots of fun, beautiful, and eye-wateringly expensive. I eventually decided against it because the systems are just too delicate and difficult to use to leave them inside a hotel room. Then, for a while, I looked into getting a vintage system, spending hours on the internet looking at listings of old equipment. High-end hi-fi, in a sense, is not that different from old cars. The good ones don’t lose value, and owners usually take good care of them. Again, I also decided against it.’

He continues: ‘In the end, I went with mostly new equipment reissued using classic old designs – the original design of Klipsch speakers is from 1938. The exception is for the reel-to-reel tape player, which is a Revox machine that’s over 50 years old, beautiful, but less user-friendly and more delicate. We’ll see how it goes, but it’s a stunning machine, the reel-to-reel is what inspired everything else and it was a must for me to have.’

Almost a decade after its opening, Il Sereno feels like a hotel that has successfully captured the essence of Lake Como – no easy feat. The surrounding nature is the protagonist here and has romance at its core. ‘When we started, when we had only a beautiful site and a blank piece of paper, before we had hired any designers, we came up with a guiding principle: no matter how beautiful and curated the spaces we create indoors, the real star is what is outdoors,’ says Contreras. ‘The goal was to integrate the interiors with the lake landscape, and to have transparency in the building so that no matter where you are in the hotel, you are in contact with nature.’

The structure comprises a series of loggias topped by a flat garden roof, inspired by Italian architect Giuseppe Terragni’s 1930s Casa del Fascio in nearby Como. Upon arrival at the hotel, guests are welcomed through a 20ft-tall entrance door and gardens planted by vertical garden specialist Patrick Blanc.

There’s a Michelin-starred restaurant, Il Sereno al Lago, headed by chef Raffaele Lenzi, where the lake-level views are framed by the original boathouse arches and the menu prioritises Italian spirit and simplicity in ingredients. The hotel has its own shoreline, including a private beach, and the 18m infinity pool is equipped with an underwater sound system.

When Il Sereno first opened in 2016, Urquiola told Wallpaper* she wanted the interiors to have a subtle connection to the surroundings. ‘What guests see from the view – the water, stone, greenery or boats – is reflected in the interiors of the hotel. I have tried to integrate the identity of the place in a contemporary way. The lake is all about integrity.’

As for the latest addition, the new Listening Suite, Contreras says, ‘I don’t want to mislead by giving the impression this is a “perfect listening room”, because it isn’t. We had to make compromises to have it all. This is a beautiful 2,000 sq ft hotel suite with private dining facilities and direct access to the lake that has a listening room. Sound experts may cringe when they see the speaker is near a glass wall, that is not optimal for sound. But I don’t think it’s hard to argue that to see the lake and feel that one can “go fishing from the room” as one listens to music is a good compromise!’

Il Sereno is located at Via Torrazza, 10, 22020 Torno CO, Italy

The next chapter of one of Capri’s most storied hotels comes courtesy of Patricia Urquiola Studio, a new era that's defined by connection, coincidence and creative lineage.

The Jumeirah Capri Palace (formerly the Hotel Europa Palace and later the Capri Palace), was shaped in the 1960s by Italian designer and architect Gianfranco Frattini. The original commission was secured through Cesare Cassina, co-founder of the eponymous design house. Urquiola, who has been Cassina’s art director since 2015, was the perfect designer to reimagine five of the property's suites.

Studio Urquiola and Jumeirah Capri Palace: a match made in the Mediterranean

‘Capri is special to us for many reasons,’ says Alberto Zontone, CEO of Studio Urquiola. ‘Not just for its past, but also present and future.’

The Italian island’s longstanding dialogue between architecture and design served as a conceptual anchor for the project, specifically Casa Malaparte, an icon of Italian modern architecture that has been a muse for figures ranging from Ettore Sottsass to Philippe Starck.

The designers also had a more personal connection to the island. It was here, during the inaugural edition of Nomad Capri, the itinerant platform for collectable design and contemporary art, where Patricia Urquiola unveiled Hand Written Stories in collaboration with curator and critic Hans Ulrich Obrist in 2017.

Jumeirah Capri Palace’s five new suites exude the breezy spirit of all those influences. Collectively titled Mariorita – a tribute to the wife of Mario Cacace, Hotel Europa Palace’s original proprietor – the project unfolds as a meditative exploration of contrast. A serene lounge acts as a prelude, setting the tone with soft whites, pigmented blues and earthy neutrals – cultivating an organic and tactile atmosphere. Terrazzo flooring nods to Capri’s heritage, while hand-crafted Vietri terracotta tiles wrap the columns.

From the Junior Suite Anacapri View to the Deluxe Suite Terrace and the ultra-private Suite Terrace Pool Side, each space distills the luminous essence of the island–'its organic elegance, its layered history,’ muses Urquiola.

‘Each suite is conceived as a serene microcosm, where tactile materials, natural light and fluid forms evoke both comfort and Mediterranean sophistication,' she adds.

Some open onto expansive terraces that stretch toward the Bay of Naples; others frame Mount Solaro through arched windows. In all of them, nature is never far. Undulating plaster walls echo the rhythm of waves, while indoor greenery softens edges.

Furnishings reflect the same ethos. The Erasmo plant pots are made from a sustainable cement-based mix, and Flos’s Almendra lighting system, inspired by almond branches, is entirely recyclable. Meanwhile, Bolete armchairs from Andreu World are entirely compostable and biodegradable.

‘The project would not have been possible without the mastery of local crafts, especially the iconic Vietri tiles,’ says Urquiola. ‘But our vision extended beyond tradition.’

Case in point: the Torchon mirror by 6:AM, a Venetian glass studio that blends traditional glassblowing with modern aesthetics. Elsewhere, Urquiola's hand is evident in bespoke details – such as a picturesque embroidered tapestry and her Simoon tables for Glas Italia, born from an exploration of sustainable possibilities in glass design.

The dialogue continues outdoors, where the pool area and open-air bar embrace the landscape. ‘We wanted to offer guests a suspended moment – somewhere between sea and sky,’ she says. ‘This project was about honouring the spirit of Capri while creating new memories through design.’

Studio Urquiola for Jumeirah Capri Palace articulates a renewed vernacular for the beloved island, following tradition but without being too literal, and experimenting with materials that tread more lightly on the environment.

jumeirah.com, patriciaurquiola.com

I’ve always been fascinated by the ritual of the tea ceremony, especially in Japan, Korea and China,’ says Patricia Urquiola. ‘It is a form of meditation. It’s choosing to dedicate time for yourself. It is the physical comfort of the warmth of the cup and the tea, with the mental comfort of the experience.’

Urquiola is one of 25 artists, designers and architects commissioned by Loewe for Milan Design Week 2025, which sees the cross-cultural and ritualistic nature of tea considered by designers including David Chipperfield, Dan MacCarthy, Takayuki Sakiyama, Rose Wylie, Jane Yang-D’Haene, Akio Niisato, Shozo Michikawa and Lu Bin.

The teapot, holding a unique place at the intersection of culture, history and ritual, becomes intertwined with personal meditations by the artists and designers when considering the significance of the tea ceremony. Once elevated to become a figure of design, the teapot both removes and reinforces its comfortable functionality. Loewe’s enlisted creatives, reflecting on its role in the family and community, have marked this contrast in teapots created in traditional mediums, such as porcelain and ceramic, complete with eclectic twists on material and form, from plays on proportion to offbeat silhouettes and subverted design tweaks.

For Urquiola, the physical form a teapot inspires is as significant as the philosophical role of tea. She muses upon its introduction to ancient China, followed later by its journey to Japan, in a design that considers the tea ceremony’s integral role in social standing. ‘[I’m fascinated by] how an object and a gesture can create an experience that goes beyond function,’ she says. ‘The teapot’s form is designed not only to hold and pour tea, but to guide the hands, control the flow and shape the rhythm of the moment. Its weight, texture and temperature become part of the ritual, engaging the senses in a way that feels both intimate and intentional. Simple actions – pouring water, holding a bowl, taking a sip – become gestures of presence. There is a beauty in this culture of attention, the way each movement is deliberate, each object carefully chosen.’

It is a sensual physicality that Urquiola draws on with her design, which blurs the lines between form and function, the silhouette spilling over a teapot’s classic parameters to create a more abstract form. Named ‘Ardilla’ (Spanish for squirrel), it embodies the duality of the animal, capturing both its playfulness and its purpose.

‘In designing this teapot, I wanted to capture that duality: the energy of movement and the sense of tenderness and gathering that the squirrel evokes,’ Urquiola adds. ‘There is something beautiful in the way the squirrel collects and holds, whether it’s storing food for the future or pausing to observe the world around it. I sought to reflect this in the teapot’s form: a vessel that holds warmth, inviting a moment of pause. The design plays with organic curves and tactile elements, creating an object that feels natural in the hands. The tail, with its characteristic curve, becomes both a sculptural detail and a functional element.’

Other designs take their cue from tradition, with Simone Fattal and David Chipperfield choosing to uphold the teapot’s historical elements. For Fattal, the pull is also a personal one, a nod to the reassurance of a recurring tea ceremony. ‘I started having tea every day a few months before the civil war in Lebanon started, in the spring of 1975,’ she says. ‘I had just moved to the first apartment I owned, and every afternoon saw me on the balcony with my tray and teapot.’

It was a habit that continued through exile, travel and displacement. ‘This ritual became the anchor of the day, helping [me] to go through all the difficulties,’ she adds. ‘This pause – the fact that one took time to sit and ponder and enjoy the wonderful taste of tea – became the support I needed for what was going on. Tea in the Arab world is extremely important. Many people travel with their own mix of teas and when they are in a café, they order hot water, paying for a tea but then using their own.’

Fattal was inspired to create her teapot in porcelain, opting for a simple design with
a woven leather handle. ‘I see so many artists using treasures of imagination to create all kinds of extravagant shapes and forms for teapots. But I chose to keep it simple. And to keep its shape close to the traditional. I find that more conducive to the joy of using it for this convivial moment.’

David Chipperfield agrees, drawing on his long relationship with Japan for a celebration of the elements that are so integral to its culture. ‘The tea ceremony is a representation of the importance of ritual and of doing simple things with care and attention,’ he notes, choosing to work with Galician ceramic artist Paula Ojea and jewellers Noroeste Obradoiro in bringing his design to life. ‘At a time when innovation seems to be overvalued, I was interested in making something predictable, something that looks like a teapot. In sketching its form, I also looked for inspiration among the extensive collection of ceramic objects that I have accumulated over the years.’

‘Loewe Teapots’ is on show from 7-13 April during Milan Design Week 2025, alongside a selection of exclusive homewares produced by Loewe for Salone, at Palazzo Citterio, Via Brera 12, palazzocitterio.org, loewe.com, patriciaurquiola.com

This article appears in the May 2025 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands from 3 April, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Icon of modern and contemporary Italian furniture, B&B Italia, has unveiled the Tufty-Time 20. The release marks the 20th anniversary of one of B&B Italia’s best-selling sofas, the Tufty-Time modular system designed by Patricia Urquiola.

The contemporary evolution of the iconic sofa preserves the essential characteristics of the Tufty-Time: the modularity, of course, is a defining characteristic, as is the sinking, enveloping comfort. Changes have also been made: the new model has even more padding, and the seat height has risen by a few centimetres. Additionally, a thick Dacron layer placed between polyurethane and fabric makes for an even softer, more cushioned feel. Tufty-Time 20 also comes in a new fabric: chenille with a bouclé effect, which blends sophistication and tactility.

The Tufty-Time 20 is composed of 14 modules, offering versatile, fluid compositions. B&B Italia has added a curved module, which enhances and expands the system’s potential, allowing for rounded layouts that are particularly conducive to hotels and offices, encouraging face-to-face interaction. ‘Tufty-Time is a very flexible system,’ says Demetrio Apolloni, B&B Italia’s CEO. ‘The modules allow for the creation of countless configurations, from linear sofas to sofas with chaise longue, corner sofas and ‘islands’ that provide a 360-degree seating solution. Tufty-Time is able to adapt to the changing needs of the living spaces and the people inhabiting them.’

Elsewhere, the sofa now offers the option of complete disassembly, ensuring that all the components and materials can be reused or recycled at the end of its life. This reflects the evolution of not only the Tufty-Time, but also the brand, which now incorporates a focus on responsible environmental behaviour into its business model.

To accompany the 20th anniversary Tufty-Time model, B&B Italia has also released a new coffee table series designed to fit neatly between the sofa’s modules.

When the original Tufty-Time launched, following a collaboration between B&B Italia and Urquiola on Fat-Fat and Lady Fat, a series of small tables inspired by the once-popular sand-filled ash trays, it was an immediate commercial success. ‘It redefined the concepts of comfort and modularity, merging the spirit of Chesterfield and capitonné traditions with a modern lifestyle,’ says Apolloni. ‘It re-visited the theme of modularity from the 1970s, to then arrive at an informal, versatile system with a young, relaxed attitude. It offered an alternative to conventional sofa types.’

Since 2005, the Tufty-Time has gone through many iterations: there was the original Tufty-Time, Tufty-Time in leather, Tufty-Too and Tufty-Time ‘15 (all of these versions are still part of the B&B Italia’s catalogue). With Tufty-Time 20, the system steps into the future while continuing to respect the integrity of the original and remaining true to its innovative spirit.

bebitalia.com

The dining table is the heart of the home—a place to gather, share meals, and, for some, even work. A great design balances durability and practicality with tactility, warmth, and comfort. Pedestal bases maximise legroom, while round and oval shapes foster intimacy; rectangular tables prioritise capacity. From foldable, space-saving solutions to bold statement pieces, here are a few of our favourites.

See also: our favourite coffee tables

'Colour Wood' dining table by Scholten Baijings for Karimoku New Standard

'Aalto' foldable table by Alvar Aalto for Artek

'Mensa' elliptical dining table by Filippo Carandini for Nilufar

'Planks' dining table by Max Lamb for Benchmark

'Specchio di Venere' dining table by Elena Salmistraro for LITHEA

'Simoon SIM04' dining table by Patricia Urquiola for Glas Italia

'Touch' dining table by Ilse Crawford for Zanat

'Cumberland' dining table by Scheibe Design

'Two-colour' table by Muller Van Severen for HAY

'Cahill' dining table by Bernhardt

The coffee table often serves as the centrepiece of a living room, combining functionality with artistic expression. While its modern form emerged in Victorian England, inspired by the growing trend of informal social gatherings, its roots trace back to cultures like the Ottoman Empire and East Asia, where low tables played central roles in daily life.

By the mid-20th century, designers such as Isamu Noguchi transformed the coffee table into a sculptural statement, pushing the boundaries of form and function. Today, its large, flat surface offers designers a canvas for experimenting with innovative materials and techniques, making it a statement piece that reflects the personality of its maker – and its owner.

See also: our favourite floor lamps and bedside lamps.

‘Meltingpot’ table by Dirk van der Kooij

In Dutch designer Dirk van der Kooij's studio, nothing goes to waste. The 'Meltingpot' coffee tables are crafted daily by the studio's colourist using unwanted plastic prototypes and colour tests, melted and pressed into moulds to create one-of-a-kind pieces. With their distinctive, plasticine-like patterns, each table tells a story of invention, circularity, and material transformation.

From €7,600, dirkvanderkooij.com

'Slon' coffee table by Ana Kraš for Matter Made

Ana Kraš’ 'Slon' tables, named after the Serbian word for 'elephant', debuted in 2015 with Brooklyn-based brand Matter Made. The design rode the rising edge of the 'chubby furniture' movement, which later defined an era of rounded, monolithic forms. Balancing cylindrical legs with a lightweight top, the 'Slon' collection includes a variety of pieces, from benches to tables, among them this portly coffee table.

From $7,100, Matter Made

'Hewn' coffee table by Sebastian Cox

British craftsman and environmentalist Sebastian Cox had been advocating for circularity in design long before it became a major topic in industry circles. The 'Hewn' coffee table, debuted in 2014 as part of his studio's 'Underwood' collection, is crafted from coppiced hazel sourced from his woodland in Kent, South England. The table’s hazel legs feature a rough, almost crude finish that provides a striking contrast to the smooth, neatly tenoned English ash top, grounding the design in its natural origins and highlighting the character of the materials​.

£625, sebastiancox.co.uk

'Plinth' coffee table by Norm Architects for Audo

A collection we admire for its simplicity and versatility, the 'Plinth' series was created for Danish brand Audo by Norm Architects, masters of soft minimalism (who also designed Audo's Tokyo store in 2024). The sleek marble podiums, celebrating the beauty and monolithic nature of stone, function seamlessly as side tables, coffee tables, or platforms for plants, sculptures, and lamps. Shown here is the 'Plinth Grand’, which is offered in four different marble types as well as Kunis Breccia stone.

From £1,250, available through Monologue

'Berg' coffee table by John Pawson for WonderGlass

Appearing like an ice sculpture, the chunky glass 'Berg' coffee table is the result of a collaboration between esteemed designer John Pawson and the skilled craftsmen at WonderGlass in Veneto, Italy. Made from cast glass, which gives its surface a slightly uneven ice-like quality, the table’s sculptural form highlights the possibilities of glass as a medium for delicate yet dramatic design.

£15,055, available through SCP

'Fortune' coffee tables by Egg Collective

Highlighting the hidden powers that objects and symbols hold, the sinuous 'Fortune' coffee tables by New York-based studio Egg Collective nestle together like jigsaw pieces. Available in three sizes and 12 shapes, the modular tables can stand alone or combine to create larger surfaces or sculptural landscapes. Crafted in burnished or polished stainless steel, select pieces feature an optional inlay composition that showcases symbolic motifs from Egg Collective’s 2023 ‘Snake Eyes’ collection. These symbols – such as Protection (Eye), Transformation (Serpent), and Eternal Love (Hand + Heart) – reinforce themes of mysticism and personal meaning.

From $14,000, Egg Collective

'Undique Mas' tables by Patricia Urquiola for Kartell

In 2023, Patricia Urquiola reimagined her existing collection of ‘Undique’ tables for Kartell to create ‘Undique Mas’ – softer, fuller and more generous pieces with an almost cartoon-like appearance. Realised in polyester-lacquered beechwood, the tables are available in three different shapes and sizes and in three complementary colours so that they can be easily arranged in convivial groups.

From £658, Kartell, also available from Heal's

'Monjiro' coffee table by Sori Yanagi for HIDA Sangyo

Japanese designer Sori Yanagi, a pioneer of postwar industrial design, combined simplicity and functionality with modern forms. His 'Monjiro' coffee table, part of the ‘Yanagi’ collection for HIDA Sangyo, features a round solid white oak top supported by a criss-crossed chrome base. Produced in Gifu Prefecture, it reflects HIDA’s century-old woodworking expertise and dedication to sustainability.

£1,818, available through Rarify

Coffee table by Si Hyun Park

Despite its industrial appearance, this bent stainless steel coffee table by Royal College of Art graduate Si Hyun Park is rooted in the practical values of Shaker furniture. Sturdy, lightweight, and low maintenance, the sandblasted stainless steel surfaces feature nature-inspired patterns such as tree bark and animal skin, resulting in an intriguing fusion of references. First spotted by us at London Design Festival 2024, Park later participated in 'Adaptions', a group show of hacked USM furniture at London design store Aram.

£2,300, Si Hyun Park

'Pastille' coffee table by Vonnegut Kraft

The 'Pastille' coffee table was created in 2018 through a collaboration between Brooklyn-based ceramist Natalie Weinberger and designers Vonnegut Kraft. Featuring a tactile matte black ceramic top with a pitted glaze, the table’s graphic stretcher base creates optical illusions, with moire patterns that shift depending on the viewer's perspective.

POA, available through Colony

Reflect on a year of trailblazing design with a look back at the top ten design stories of 2024 – as chosen by you, the readers. Wallpaper* magazine's most-read design stories of the year point to exciting firsts, like David Lynch’s debut installation at Salone del Mobile, and Patricia Urquiola and Kvadrat’s upholstery textile made from 100 per cent ocean-bound plastic. There are also collaborative triumphs, such as Rimowa and La Marzocco’s new espresso machine; and the celebration of a design classic, the Rubik's Cube.

Top 10 design stories of 2024

Patricia Urquiola and Kvadrat's sustainable upholstery

Named Best Recycled Material at the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2024, Patricia Urquiola’s Sport textile for Kvadrat was a collaboration with Swiss company #tide and is the world’s first upholstery textile made of 100 per cent ocean-bound plastic.

The post-consumer plastic used is collected within 10km of the coastline of Thailand, as part of #tide’s commitment to prevent the materials from reaching the oceans.

The resulting sportswear-inspired fabric features subtle tactile patterns enriching the surface and a colour palette defined by vibrant shades of purple, green and blue, as well as a series of neutrals.

Writer: Rosa Bertoli

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Design Dynasties: the powerhouse families of Italian furnishing

Wallpaper* met with eight Italian families who, generation after generation, have set the standards of furniture design across the globe. These 'Design Dynasties' generously shared the personal stories and experiences behind their success with our writer Laura May Todd. They spoke of their longest-serving pieces and the dynamics that have emerged from being both a family and a business. Through her photographs, Bea de Giacomo captures glimpses of their familial settings and their most cherished designs.

Writer Laura May Todd

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A new era for Iittala

‘Imperfect’, ‘disruptive’ and ‘unpredictable’ are not words often associated with Finnish design, least of all with Iittala, one of its founding fathers. But new creative director Janni Vepsäläinen is not afraid to use all three and apply them to the 143-year-old company. Iittala now hails a new era, led by Vepsäläinen, and marked by a new logo and collections that pay homage to Aino and Alvar Aalto's heritage.

During Stockholm Furniture Fair 2024, Vepsäläinen unveiled her first collection, within a former nuclear reactor in the city. It wasn't your average debut; London-based composer and artist Damsel Elysium performed a piece using glass ‘instruments’, ranging from 2m-long horns to bells and bottles, all hand-blown in the Iittala factory near Helsinki.

Writer: Emma O'Kelly

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Ikea and Raw Color's vibrant crafts

‘Tesammans’ means 'together' or 'in company' in English. It is also the name of the latest collaboration between Ikea and Raw Color, a studio based in Eindhoven and founded by Christoph Brach and Daniera ter Haar. The collection is full of playful designs, vibrant textures and an eye-catching colour palette.

Ikea’s creative brief to the pair was direct yet liberating – reveal the potential of the spectrum. ‘Raw Color possesses a distinctive grasp of colour’s potency, its emotional impact, and its role in shaping our living environments,’ Maria O'Brian, creative Leader at Ikea of Sweden told us. ‘We aim for this collection to spark creativity and empower individuals to craft vibrant and cheerful living spaces in their daily routines.’

Writer: Yoko Choy

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David Lynch presents 'A Thinking Room' at Salone del Mobile

Visitors to Salone del Mobile 2024 were offered a new cinematic experience. The revered director David Lynch – known for cult films like Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire and Wild at Heart – designed an exhibition entitled 'Interiors by David Lynch. A Thinking Room' on the grounds of the Rho Fiera. The exhibition marked a new kind of venture for the Oscar-winning auteur, but according to its curator, Antonio Monda, former artistic director of the Rome Film Festival, it came not totally out of the blue.

'A few years earlier I presented Lynch the lifetime achievement award at the Rome Film Festival, and when I visited him in Los Angeles I found him polishing a desk. I asked him, what are you doing? And he told me he designs furniture now,' recounts Monda. 'So when the Salone del Mobile invited me to commission a filmmaker for this special event, I knew he was the real deal.'

Writer Laura May Todd

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Rimowa and La Marzocco’s compact espresso machine

Rimowa, globally known for its premium luggage, united with La Marzocco, an expert in espresso machinery, to present a carefully crafted Linea Mini espresso machine celebrating German and Italian design and engineering.

Merging Rimowa's signature grooved aluminium with La Marzocco’s engineering, the Linea Mini is a compact design accessorised with bespoke compartments, and packs an artistic punch with your morning shot of espresso.

READ MORE

Ido Yoshimoto's sculptural pieces

We visited sculptor Ido Yoshimoto at his California studio, where he spoke about his work with wood, from his beginning as an arborist to his sculptures and furniture made with local reclaimed material – whether salvaged cedar, walnut or cypress, or old-growth redwood downed by disaster.

For Yoshimoto, making art is a way to figure out how things work, and how to fix what is broken. Sometimes it’s just repairing an old pepper grinder or cleaning a fish. But it’s also about living as nature, not with nature, an expression of curiosity and connection. Making art makes the world feel less mysterious because it’s tinkering in its highest form.

Writer: Shonquis Moreno

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50 years of the Rubik’s Cube

Hidden away in Budapest’s Buda Hills stands Hungarian inventor Ernő Rubik’s minimalist five-storey abode. Adorned with multiple scenic terraces, it stars an elevator that conveniently glides between levels and furniture of Rubik’s own design. 'Yes, I made other things, too,' he told Wallpaper* on a tour through his comfortable rooms, 'but people only want to talk about the cube.’

The cube, of course, is the Rubik’s Cube, the bestselling 3D combination puzzle that the inventor dreamed up back in 1974. Twisting and turning into some 43 quintillion permutations, the six-sided cube is clad in vibrantly tinted squares that beckon enthusiastic problem solvers.

Fifty years after its birth, we spoke with Rubik about the history of a design classic.

Writer Alia Akkam

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Air Play Moon Safari

While the ‘Air Play Moon Safari’ tour was in full swing across Europe, the USA and Mexico during 2024 (they're playing 2025 dates too), we explored the design of the French band's White Box stage. They played their intimate, retro-futurist classic album, in full, from a five-sided, white-walled, 21:9 aspect-ratio letterbox that faced its voyeuristic audiences like Hitchcock’s Rear Window property as reimagined by Californian modernists. 'It could be a home, it could be our world, our head… our architectural concept,' they said of the project.

Writer Simon Mills

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Designing the Olympics

How do you begin to design the Olympics? On the eve of this year's event, we pulled up a pew with Joachim Roncin, the director of design for Paris 2024, to learn more about gender-free mascots with a genital likeness and medals made from the Eiffel Tower.

This had been a five-year assignment with a sprawling, impossibly broad scope, a hard deadline, a global audience and – ideally – a positive legacy that will span generations of future citizens. The heat was real.

Writer Hugo Macdonald

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One competition, six teams and the fastest sailing boats of the ocean – the America's Cup is the oldest sporting trophy in the world that is still competed for. And now there’s a sea change on the horizon, as this year there will be not one but two trophies to fight for: the prestigious sailing competition, in which only a handful of female sailors have ever participated, is launching its first-ever women’s regatta, the Puig Women’s America’s Cup.

Introduced tonight (21 May 2024) at the Fundación Miró in Barcelona, the regatta will take place in the Catalan capital from 5-13 October as part of the 37th edition of the America’s Cup. Joining the six established official participants (New Zealand, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, the United States and France) are six new teams, from Spain, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, Sweden and Australia. They will all be competing for a new trophy designed by leading Spanish architect and designer Patricia Urquiola.

Patricia Urquiola on her Puig Women’s America’s Cup trophy design

Unlike the original America’s Cup trophy, a huge, ornate sterling silver ewer designed by Robert Garrard in 1848 and known as the Auld Mug, Urquiola’s design for the Puig Women’s America's Cup lacks handles so that the ‘the winning team can embrace it in its full form’. A multiple Wallpaper* Design Awards judge and winner (most recently for Kvadrat's Sport textile made from ocean-bound plastic), Urquiola decided to use the ‘simple, geometric figure of the cylinder, wide enough so that it wouldn’t need a base’.

‘I wanted it to have no classic elements, like the traditional handles, and to deform and open it at a certain point as if it were a large sail struck by the wind,’ explains the Milan-based designer. ‘The sail also has some vertical elements to emulate the movement of a great drape or cloth. We aimed to freeze, in a way, that instant when the wind makes matter react.’

Made of silver, with a height of 58cm and weighing about 5kg, the Puig Women’s America’s Cup trophy features an interior with a striking rose-gold effect that catches the light, like a flame. The top part of the trophy, which Urquiola likens to a billowing sail but which also resembles ripples in the sea, or even a woman’s long hairdo, is beautifully textured, its wavy forms the result of expert chiselling.

‘I trust that when the winner holds this trophy, it will be an object that connects to all the great breath of wind and energy that I hope this regatta will bring,’ says Urquiola. Sponsored by the Barcelona-based beauty company Puig (which boasts a portfolio encompassing brands such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Byredo, and Rabanne), the first standalone women’s race in the history of the America’s Cup is a truly momentous event. The last time an all-women crew took part in the America’s Cup was back in 1995, a USA team aboard the Mighty Mary.

It ‘is the most exciting initiative that I’ve seen for female participation in sailing in my career’, says Abby Ehler, offshore sailor and Puig Women's America's Cup event coordinator. Silvia Mas, a sailor from the Spanish team, concurs: ‘It will provide the racing sailors who are the very future of the America’s Cup with the ultimate platform to showcase their skills in a first-class fleet where serious talent will be on display.’

‘Sailing, Barcelona, and women are three words closely associated with Puig. We have supported sailing regattas for more than 40 years, we are a company born and rooted in Barcelona, and women are at the heart of our consumers and our people. This is why we decided to support this beautiful idea as soon as we learned that Barcelona would be the location of the America’s Cup in 2024, and that it would be the first time ever that a female regatta would be added,’ concludes Marc Puig, Puig chairman and CEO.

‘The Small Hours’, Patricia Urquiola's new bathroom collection, is the star of the show at Salvatori’s Milan showroom, at via Solferino 11, on the occasion of Milan Design Week 2024: it consists of wall-hung, countertop and free-standing washbasins, a countertop with backsplash, as well as shelves, drawers, a shower tray, a round bathtub, and LED-illuminated mirrors and other accessories.

Patricia Urquiola and Salvatori bring new textural contrasts to the bathroom

The Tuscan brand's formal aesthetic this year highlights its long-lasting relationship with natural stone, in new colours, textures, and combinations of materials. ‘We experimented with the contrast between the solidity of stone and smoothness of steel. “The Small Hours” is a title that addresses the theme of intimacy in a metaphorical way,’ says Patricia Urquiola. ‘It refers to those small private moments, which are dedicated to oneself.’ 

According to brand CEO Gabriele Salvatori, the collection is a clear representation of Salvatori's lateral thinking: ‘We first talked about a bathroom collection about two years ago. We had already worked together, because Patricia designed the “Taula” table for us and participated in The Village project – a collection of mini [houses] designed by renowned architects. But the bathroom project was something much more ambitious, so it took us a little longer to reach the final result.’

From the freestanding washbasin to the statuesque bathtub, a cylindrical shape dominates everything. The roundness softens the architectural rigour, and the use of steel for the inside of the bathtub and washbasin not only defines the volumes, adding tactility and shine, but it also makes the overall design lighter – and practical, as it reduces the weight of the structure. 

‘The idea of combining steel and natural stone was a gamble. Just as it was a gamble for Salvatori to start working on marble textures, which are now our strength,’ says Gabriele Salvatori.

‘Marble is not the only protagonist,’ explains Urquiola, indicating the floating shelves made of steel, wood and natural stone, and a stool in walnut wood. ‘The drawers can be easily added to the washbasin composition. The shelves look also like a bookcase, capable of entering other environments.’ 

Salvatori's neutral palette of Bianco Carrara, Crema d'Orcia, Silk Georgette, and Pietra d'Avola is enhanced for the occasion by more vibrant greenish hues, such as Verde Guatemala and Verde Antico. Depending on the craftsmanship, the pale green of the stone highlights the profiles, combinations, and the less smooth or intentionally rough approach, such as the curling at the base of the tub: ‘Our approach was respectful, consistent with the history and culture of Salvatori, and allowed us to play with materials,’ adds Urquiola. 

Salvatori also underlines the work on modularity, as well as on the customisation of finishes and compositions. ‘Finally, there is an increasingly strong focus on how the bathroom interacts with the rest of the house: for this reason, within the collection, we have included a series of furniture pieces that can act as a hinge between these different spaces, creating a harmonious sense of continuity,’ Gabriele Salvatori explains.

Among the available accessories are round and rectangular mirrors that can be personalised with the retro-illuminated phrase 'Believe me or your eyes'. 

‘Light is important to me,’ says Urquiola. ‘For this reason, we inserted it at various points, such as the back of the shelves or the shower ceiling.’ The light, which spreads gracefully on the stone before intensely reflecting on the steel, is not only intimate and delicate, but also almost meditative.

Salvatori Showroom

Via Solferino 11, 20121 Milan

16-21 April | 10am-9pm

salvatoriofficial.com patriciaurquiola.com

Read our full guide to Milan Design Week 2024

The Alder collection of tables by Patricia Urquiola for Mater makes its debut at Milan Design Week 2024, showcasing the company’s newly-developed material. Dubbed ‘Matek’, it is the result of years of research and development by the Danish company, who have been using waste from a variety of sources that include coffee bean shells or sawdust from wood production, bound with bioplastic and resulting in a composite material that can be press-moulded to make furniture.

'Mater was established in Copenhagen in 2006 by Henrik Marstrand, and the company's initial goal was to promote sustainable practices, which was not a common topic in the design world at the time,' says Mater CEO, Ketil Årdal. 'Since then, Mater has been at the forefront of sustainable furniture design and production. The company has transitioned from a sustainability-focused design brand to a green-tech company focusing on furniture design, always seeking innovative approaches.'

Alder tables by Patricia Urquiola for Mater

For the 'Alder' collection, Urquiola created four designs featuring soft edges and a cylindrical base, including two lounge tables with oval and square tops, a side table and a stool. Each piece is available in 4 colours that include Terracotta, Light Green, Sand and Earth Grey. The quartet of tables is made by shaping Matek around a steel frame (made of 94% recycled steel).

'The Matek™ materials enable the production of furniture using recycled and environmentally responsible materials,' explains Årdal. 'This is achieved by combining waste fibres with a waste binder. Coffee bean shells, a byproduct of the coffee roasting industry, and sawdust from wood production, are used as fibre materials. The binder material is made from plastic waste or a plastic-based alternative, with a shift towards using recycled post-consumer e-waste plastic. The combination of waste fibre and binder materials results in a unique compound suitable for press moulding, allowing for more efficient recycling of waste and capturing carbon in the furniture. In addition, a biodegradable version of Matek™ has been developed, made entirely from natural materials. This version uses biodegradable plastic derived from sugarcane as the binder material, enabling the material to decompose back into nature.

Each design can be disassembled and its components upcycled through Mater’s own ‘Take back System’, Matek being unique in the fact that it can be processed multiple times.

Mater's approach makes the company a fitting companion for Urquiola, whose ongoing interest and research towards innovation and sustainable practices in furniture design have been at the core of her studio's work for a while. 

'Collaborating with Mater was very interesting because of all the research they do on materials and production, especially with the different [types of bioplastic] and its behaviour when mixed with other materials, what happens when heated or pressed,' she explains. 'The design process was very smooth, because we shared the same values, we are informed and aware of the world we live in.'

‘At Mater, we continually strive to push the boundaries of traditional furniture production and its more sustainable journey into the future, concludes Årdal. ‘Our planet’s resources are not infinite, and we need to rethink antiquated ways of production now.’

The Alder collection by Patricia Urquiola for Mater is on view at Milan Design Week 2024, from 15 to 19 April 2024

Via Bartolomeo Eustachi, 51
Milano

materdesign.com
patriciaurquiola.com

Heimtextil in Frankfurt, Germany, the world’s largest and most international textile fair, is entering into a brand-new partnership with Milan-based, multidisciplinary design heavyweight Studio Urquiola. 'Patricia [Urquiola] is one of the most influential and impressive designers of our time and is always breaking new ground,' says Olaf Schmidt, vice president Textiles & Textile Technologies of the Messe Frankfurt Group, the trade fair and event organiser behind Heimtextil. 'She has so much passion, strength of vision and creativity, and a very strong commitment to sustainability. We think it’s a perfect match.'

Heimtextil and Patricia Urquiola

The textile fair is set to attract some 2,800 exhibitors from 60 countries and is a pivotal sourcing and trends platform for the global home and contract textile industry. Its team had been in talks with Urquiola for a while, but the partnership will come into effect with the 2025 edition of Heimtextil (14-17 January 2025). The pair are still very much in the research and planning phases, but the project will certainly entail a 'showcase' of sustainable textiles and interior design. 

'It's important that people see the way textiles and interior products interact and come together,' says Schmidt. Urquiola agrees, adding that the studio is 'working on developing textile products and showing how textiles can be used in product design, interiors and architecture'. Both see the new direction as an opportunity to open up Heimtextil to new and larger audiences too, 'not just sector specialists', says Urquiola, 'but everyone who is involved or interested or who can offer a different perspective'.

Patricia Urquiola's exploration of textiles

Studio Urquiola has always been passionate about the latest developments in the world of textiles (among its latest projects is Sport for Kvadrat, the world’s first upholstery textile made of 100 per cent ocean-bound plastic), and Urquiola talks of a growing interest in bio-fabrics (where micro-organisms such as fungal mycelium, for instance, are used to grow textiles to reduce water and energy consumption) or fabrics made out of hemp, seaweed, bamboo and even pineapples.

As far as production methods go, an interesting area of research is the 3D-printing of fabrics, Urquiola says, which completely eliminates waste of raw materials. 'There’s also a lot more interaction between design, biology and engineering now,' she continues, 'which is crucial because fabrics are our second skin. The range of applications for textiles is expanding and they are becoming much more than coverings, but also high-performance materials with acoustic functions that can regulate the temperature or filter the air.'

A future vision for Heimtextil

Heimtextil is also at the forefront of innovation, sustainability and trends in textiles, but collaborating with Urquiola, who uses fabrics in everything from the design of hotels (she recently worked with Ian Schrager on the Rome Edition), offices (such as Mutina HQ) residential and retail spaces to furniture, fashion, exhibitions and installations, signifies a shift towards the fair seeking to create a more emotional connection with the visitor. 'Textiles have a layer of temporality within them; they communicate visual and tactile feelings and express time as well,' says Urquiola. 'When you see a textile you have expectations about how you will react when you touch it and this creates a relationship with the user.' By conjuring up a highly designed and immersive experience and ambiance, Studio Urquiola and Heimtextil intend to show what sort of spaces and feelings can be evoked through the use of textiles.

Though the Studio Urquiola x Heimtextil collaboration has only just launched, Schmidt’s hope is that Urquiola’s openness to experimentation, creativity, ideas and knowledge will influence and permeate some of the other 50 textile shows Messe Frankfurt operates in 12 countries. Her input couldn’t come at a more propitious time for the fair operator and brand. Covid-19 delayed some of Messe Frankfurt’s planned openings and slowed existing platforms down, but things are now back on track, says Schmidt. 

A new textile show operated by the fair opens in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City in late February, while Heimtextil Colombia, which was due to launch in 2020, will debut in April 2024. Messe Frankfurt also recently became a shareholder in Kingpins, a premium denim show that takes place four times a year in Amsterdam and New York. 'So we have a lot of new projects and are working in new markets,' says Schmidt. For now, however, all eyes are on Heimtextil and the announcement of a collaboration that is sure to raise the design profile of the fair and the textile industry more widely.

The latest edition of Heimtextil is taking place 9-12 January 2024

heimtextil.messefrankfurt.com

Patricia Urquiola and Kvadrat have teamed up to launch the world’s first upholstery textile made entirely of recycled materials. 

Working with ocean-bound plastic waste, the Milanese designer and Danish textile authority have created Sport, in partnership with #tide, a Swiss company specialising in developing materials from ocean-bound plastic waste. The textile is made of post-consumer plastic collected within 10km from the coastline of Thailand, as part of #tide’s commitment to prevent the materials from reaching the oceans. 

Sport by Patricia Urquiola for Kvadrat

‘[With Kvadrat], we share the same philosophy that the highest standards in design and materials can be combined with important sustainable and ethical actions,’ says #tide co-founder Marc Krebs. ‘[We both] want to create a much-needed social and environmental impact that protects the oceans and supports coastal and island communities in their fight against plastic pollution out of 100 per cent ocean-bound plastic waste.’

As the name suggests, the collection is inspired by sportswear and nods to a high-tech aesthetic, with subtle tactile patterns enriching the surface and a colour palette defined by vibrant shades of purple, green and blue as well as a series of neutrals that range from greys to taupe. Each textile is defined by a two-tone contrasting composition, enhancing the design’s three dimensional effect. ‘The colours for Sport are divided into “salt and pepper” monochrome nuances, which illuminate the textile's high-tech graphic character, and solid shades which fade its texture away,’ explains Urquiola.

With Sport, Kvadrat and Urquiola affirm their commitment to innovation in design, as they constantly push the boundaries of domestic design to set the tone for future living.

kvadrat.dk

A version of this article appears in the February 2024 issue of Wallpaper* – dedicated to the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2024 – available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

The new Rome Edition opened its doors inside a former 1940s bank in the heart of the Eternal City. The hotel is the latest opening by hospitality entrepreneur Ian Schrager, who designed its spaces with elements by Patricia Urquiola, offering an intimate 91-room setting with a sophisticated aesthetic.

The Rome Edition by Patricia Urquiola

The Rome Edition is set within a fine example of Italian rationalism, a 1940s building by engineer Cesare Pascoletti and architect Marcello Piacentini. The building’s distinctive features include a central staircase of rare Cipollino marble sourced from Apuan caves, original lighting fixtures and architectural elements such as internal courtyards and sculptures.

The hotel is accessed via a garden that serves as a dining space as well as a piazza of sort, with the hotel ‘unfolding like acts in an opera’. The entrance to the building is designed as a jungle-like space featuring 400 plants including cascading jasmine over the facade, while an imposing bronze awning and lanterns transporting guests in a traditional Roman garden. 

The hotel’s lobby is defined by seven-metre high ceilings and travertine floors throughout, with bespoke seating and marble tables with floor lamps adding an intimate dimension to the imposing space. 

Among the hotel’s most striking features is its food and drinks offering, with hotel chef Paola Colucci looking after the Anima restaurant, three bars, a rooftop lounge, bar and pool, a show-kitchen restaurant, and dining across the courtyard. The self-taught Roman chef and founder of local restaurant Pianostrada has gathered an all-female team for the Rome Edition, offering a menu focused on traditional Italian dining with international influences. 

Continuing the hotel’s richly unique offering are the hotel’s bars: Punch Room and Jade Bar on the ground floor each bring a distinctive approach to mixology, while the seventh-floor The Roof features unobstructed views across the city, with highlights including the Pantheon and the Basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle. The rooftop location also includes a travertine plunge pool. 

editionhotels.com/rome
patriciaurquiola.com

Patricia Urquiola and Giulio Cappellini share a great respect for design's great masters, having both been inspired by the leading names that shaped the landscape of Italian and international design across the 20th century. This common fascination is evident in their work together, from the Terrazzo surface of the ‘Radical Fake’ desk that nods to Shiro Kuramata speckled patterns, to the structure of the ‘Lud'o’ armchair, so closely linked to Vico Magistretti's approach to design.

'Patricia is a much loved and undisputedly successful designer,' Giulio Cappellini told us. 'We have always been bound by a deep esteem and friendship, and I am proud to say that the first project realised by Patricia is a series of stone seats for the garden of my father’s house. For Cappellini, she created the “Lud’o” armchair, a product of great commercial success, but the piece I am closest to is “Radical Fake”, a small desk with unusual shapes and materials.'

Here, as part of Giulio Cappellini’s guest editorship of Wallpaper* October 2023 (also including an interview with Barber Osgerby on Cappellini, and Cappellini’s vision for the interiors of tomorrow), Urquiola tells us about her collaboration with Cappellini, and how it has inspired her throughout her design practice.  

Patricia Urquiola and Cappellini: interview

Wallpaper*: How did you meet Giulio Cappellini?

Patricia Urquiola: I met him when I was the head of design at Piero Lissoni Studio. I was a big fan of Giulio not only as art director, but also for his amazing installations. The first I remember was at Palazzo Morando in 1986, when I was still a student of architecture in Milan, dedicated to the Progetti Compiuti collection by Shiro Kuramata. Other impressive events were the first anthological exhibition in Cologne in 1994, curated by Achille Castiglioni; a show at Juliet’s House in Verona in 2002; and all the Superstudio installations. 

W*: What did you most enjoy about working with him?

PU: I think Giulio Cappellini revolutionised how we express design with a unique language and openness. He is one of the industry’s best talent scouts, nurturing creativity and pushing boundaries. His visionary leadership inspires the next generation of designers, leaving a lasting impact on the design world.

W*: How has your collaboration with Cappellini helped shape your career?

PU: My collaboration with Cappellini has been truly inspirational. Every project we do together begins with a series of engaging and insightful conversations. At the beginning, I did a special collection in connection to an exhibition, that was not put into production. That stays in Giulio’s house. 

One of our latest projects is ‘Lud’o’, a seating piece that holds great significance for both of us. As we discussed ideas and concepts, we found ourselves delving into the world of design heritage and drew inspiration from the work of Vico Magistretti. Presenting one of the initial prototypes to Giulio, it immediately became clear the connection with Vico’s design philosophy and approach. Our collaboration is a true journey of growth, pushing the boundaries of design.

W*: What is your vision for future landscapes in private and public interiors?

PU: We finally all understand the environmental issues must be solved. As designers, when we start working on a new product, we need to think of the afterlife of it as a crucial part. When I was younger, ‘the idea’ was the most important aspect of our work. I see now that the way we work has changed, that eco-friendly materials and practices are integral to creating responsible and environmentally conscious spaces. 

Moreover, technology will play a central role in shaping interiors, offering immersive experiences and enhancing user interactions. Seamless transitions between real and virtual worlds will become a natural part of interior design, enabling innovative and dynamic spaces. However, the common qualities defining designers have not changed: we all still need to be curious, hard researchers, unfearful of coming out of our comfort zones and always trying to go beyond the limit.

patriciaurquiola.com

A version of this article appears in the October 2023 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Back in 2019, Patricia Urquiola designed the ‘Hayama’ sideboard for Cassina, inspired by the haori, a traditional Japanese jacket worn over a kimono. With its oblique, minimalist shape and lacquered surface, it made a bold addition to any living space. Now there is a new member of the ‘Hayama’ family in the form of a bar cabinet, also designed by Urquiola. 

Featuring the same oblique form and lacquered finish as the sideboard, the bar cabinet sports cannete-effect doors, a mirrored interior that gives greater depth to the space, a glass shelf for bar accessories, and two drawers and two side compartments, which are perfect for storing cocktail paraphernalia. It also comes backlit with LED lamps, to create an ambient mood, and in a choice of 12 colours, including sage green, midnight blue, China red, marron glacé and cream. 

‘“Hayama” is a small city in Japan where I am currently working: Japanese culture is of great inspiration to me,’ says Urquiola. ‘The oblique sides of the “Hayama” cabinet give a different perspective that communicates a very essential language. Cassina has developed the ancient technique of lacquering to industrially produce this family, offering a new finish that has a rippled effect.’

This year, Cassina also celebrates its masters, from Gio Ponti to Gerrit Rietveld, with an exhibition titled 'Echoes', at Palazzo Broggi.  

Cassina, Via Durini 16

cassina.com
patriciaurquiola.com

When Patricia Urquiola – the Spanish multi-hyphenate whose eponymous Milan-based studio spans product, industrial and furniture design, as well as architecture and art direction – got to the point of showing her capsule clothing collection for Weekend Max Mara last February, she decided to break with tradition. Until then, the Italian fashion label had always presented its collections in its own Milanese showroom; instead, Urquiola chose the headquarters of rug manufacturer CC-Tapis, a label with which she has long collaborated. ‘Sometimes you just have to change the rules,’ she says. 

The collaboration itself marked a first for Urquiola. Despite having forged strong connections with the fashion industry throughout her career (she has worked on projects for Missoni, Salvatore Ferragamo and Louis Vuitton, and had a close working relationship with the late Virgil Abloh), this is the first clothing collection she has created. (Urquiola, though, is insistent it is not a ‘collection’ but ‘just a capsule’, ‘then you are braver and you don’t think about the responsibility,’ she says.)

It arrives as part of Weekend Max Mara’s Signature line, an ongoing project whereby various international creatives are drafted in each season to create a collection that fuses their own approach with the label’s heritage. Previous collaborators have included model Alek Wek, costume designer Gabriella Pescucci, interior designer Anthony Baratta, and artists Richard Saja and Donald Robertson. Urquiola is the tenth participant. 

The collaboration is an expansion of Urquiola’s comprehensive previous work with textiles that is defined by a broad if sometimes unconventional use of colour. She had always been aware of Weekend Max Mara – ‘I’m a woman, I live in Milan,’ she says with a smile – and says the appeal of this project was its allowance for working across disciplines with freedom, an unrestrained approach that she has long championed in her own work. ‘They described to me this idea that, through Weekend Max Mara, they wanted to share more and more conversations with people who are not from their world, to get the energy of colour, of having another approach to the work. They were really insistent on that.’

The capsule is titled Habito, a Spanish word that Urquiola explains means both ‘habit’ and ‘to inhabit’. ‘I approached [the capsule] not only as a designer but as a woman,’ she explains, noting that each item of clothing, which often features hybrid elements, is designed to reflect the needs and contradictions of everyday life. ‘I think the clothes that women wear are an emotional habit, they are the tools we need for living.’ That said, Urquiola notes that she was ‘not searching for a woman’s silhouette’, instead designing garments that felt stripped of traditionally gendered elements to create a reflection of the way she dresses day to day (often, she says, this emerges in the use of oversized, cocooning silhouettes). 

The capsule began in Max Mara’s archive, a place Urquiola was keen to explore at the start of the project. ‘They had all the pieces from the first collections, from the 1980s, and out of this came the dimensions, the oversized shapes, they were the volumes we were looking for,’ she says. As such, the collection comprises a series of coats – ‘coats are the most representative [pieces in the collection], the most hybrid ones’ – in variously amplified proportions, combining playfully juxtaposed fabrics (in particular, heritage wools and ribbed knits with technical nylon). Other elements include a vividly coloured gilet, reminiscent of her colourful CC-Tapis rugs that formed the backdrop of the presentation, giant clasp-top clutch handbags (a version of the house’s ‘Pasticcino’ bag), and shirting with expansive plissé sleeves. 

Urquiola believes that now is the time for such experimentation, ‘to do capsules, to put yourself in new situations, to give new voices to companies,’ she says, noting this approach was in part inspired by watching Abloh work so broadly across design disciplines. ‘This project with Weekend Max Mara was about mixing our ideas, a playful moment where you interact with different worlds, and other points of view. I came out of my comfort zone,’ she says. ‘Which is always a good thing.’

INFORMATION

A version of this article appears in the November 2022 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today!

weekendmaxmara.com
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Coinciding with Cersaie (the International Exhibition of Ceramic Tile and Bathroom Furnishings) in Bologna, ceramic tile specialist Mutina is presenting its latest products inside its renovated headquarters in Fiorano, Modena. The new Spazio Mutina has been designed by Urquiola Studio in collaboration with Mutina Projects Division as a space to host the entire brand universe – Mutina Collections, Mutina Interiors, Mutina Editions. 

Within this robust renovation, the showroom will present installations celebrating the brand’s relationships with designers such as Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Patricia Urquiola, Konstantin Grcic, Tokujin Yoshioka, Raw-Edges, Hella Jongerius and Barber & Osgerby, among others. An area will be dedicated to Mutina For Art, while the whole headquarters is furnished with pieces by brands such as Kvadrat, Vitra, Moroso, Cassina, Agape, Fantini, Frama, Artek, and Mattiazzi, alongside elements designed specifically by Urquiola Studio. 

As in Casa Mutina in Milan, the company pays attention to sustainability; measures include the use of the Grohe Blue Home water system, providing filtered flat or sparkling water to avoid the use of plastic bottles, while a photovoltaic system will be installed, and there is reduced use of asphalt across the buildings.

New products in the Mutina range include small tiles by Tokujin Yoshioka, along with a collection created by Vincent Van Duysen. There will also be new entries in the Editions series, with three new ceramic objects by Yoshioka, Van Duysen and Patricia Urquiola. The idea of approaching ceramics as an element for interior design is compelling: the Editions collection presents decorative objects that are entirely handmade, each of them signed and numbered to underline its uniqueness. The Editions family already comprises pieces by Nathalie Du Pasquier, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec and Avallone Studio.

The opening is a celebration for the company: guests are welcomed by a performance by choreographer Fernando Melo, followed by a dinner by restaurant Da Vittorio. They are then invited to discover the new garden, with more than 3,800 kinds of plants, conceived by landscape designer Flavio Pollano.

INFORMATION

mutina.it

Urquiola’s lighting system is available in six colours and nine versions, including the linear ‘Almendra S4’ and the ‘Almendra S2 Arch’

When architect and designer Patricia Urquiola debuted her ‘Serena’ table lamp for Italian lighting brand Flos at 2015’s Euroluce, the Salone del Mobile’s biannual lighting exhibition, it was an instant classic. Though the industry attention seemed to indicate otherwise, it was not, in fact, the only work of hers on display. Suspended from the ceiling of the stark white Ron Gilad-designed booth was another design, a prototype that never made it into production.

It was an experimental lighting system that played with the same aesthetics as ‘Serena’, which resembles a petal curving around a well of light, reflecting and diffusing its glow. But instead of the table lamp’s short vertical body, the hanging light was formed of willowy branch-like stems that hovered over the exhibition floor like the canopy of a tropical forest.

‘At the time, the technology was just not advanced enough for such a slim and simplified project to be produced properly at a large scale,’ recalls Urquiola. Unwilling to compromise on the form or the unique modular construction of the prototype, she reluctantly left the idea on the back burner for several years. ‘As an architect, I knew I needed this kind of modular piece, which we were not able to resolve when we made ‘Serena’,’ explains Urquiola. But she continued to envision the prototype in the hotel lobbies and haute restaurants she and her studio designed in the following years. And it was the first thing she thought of when Flos approached her again in 2019 to reprise their collaboration.

Over two years of development, Urquiola refined her prototype into ‘Almendra’, a modular suspended lighting system made of extruded aluminium and plant-derived polycarbonate. Formed of either straight or Y-shaped interlocking branches, it is illuminated by oval LED panels that fold over the boughs like the splayed pages of an open book and emit a soft, eye-pleasing glow.

‘In terms of form, ‘Almendra’ is a very simple piece,’ says Urquiola, whose bounding conversation style – a flurry of thoughts and ideas delivered at a breakneck pace – channels a similar energy to her playful, colour-packed projects, such as Lake Como’s rationalist-inspired Il Sereno Hotel (see W*229) or the soft-yet-sophisticated furniture she designs for Cassina, where she is the creative director. ‘But you can organise it in many different ways. Either in a linear composition, which is more severe yet simpler, or you can use the parabolic-shaped pieces to make it feel more organic.’ She envisions ‘Almendra’ as a versatile spatial centrepiece, hanging either as a singular piece or in complex compositions in both domestic landscapes and public spaces: ‘It takes the place of what, in the past, would have been a chandelier.’

According to Urquiola, the name ‘Almendra’, meaning almond in her native Spanish, is a reference to the seed of its namesake’s flowering tree, which inspired the lights’ ovoid shape. She reckons this can be traced back to childhood visits to Ibiza with her family where, each winter, orchards full of the spindly fruit trees burst into blossoming pink-tinged clouds. ‘Nature is just the best example of modularity,’ she says.

The seven-year gap between the initial idea and the eventual launch of ‘Almendra’ not only allowed for the modular design and sophisticated, streamlined form Urquiola originally envisioned, it also meant she and Flos could guarantee more sustainable production, in line with their visions for the future. ‘It’s something our R&D team has been working on for several years,’ explains Barbara Corti, Flos’ head of international marketing. ‘But Patricia really challenged us to find new, even better solutions.’

For instance, while the lamp’s body is formed of extruded aluminium, which is entirely recyclable, the LED modules’ casings are made of bioplastic, more specifically, a polycarbonate derived from pine oil, itself a by-product of paper production. It was also important to Urquiola that no adhesives be used in the production. Instead, the parts are held together by imperceptible screws, which allow the LED lights to be replaced and the entire fixture to be easily dismantled and recycled. This reflects the brand’s adoption of the ISO’s Life Cycle Assessment standards, which ensures sustainable practices from the production to disposal of a product. ‘It’s part of a re-evaluation of all of our processes,’ says Corti.

While ‘Almendra’ officially launched in late April, Flos plans to present the new system both at the Salone del Mobile and the Fuorisalone 2022, the latter doubling as the brand’s 60th anniversary celebration. Taking over a former industrial space in Milan’s southern fringes, the brand has planned a community centre of sorts, where it can host talks, plan workshops and showcase its upcoming projects within the context of its six-decade-long history. ‘There is no better time than now to celebrate the future,’ says Corti. And who knows, perhaps the seeds of a new endeavour, similar to that of ‘Almendra’ in 2015, will have the opportunity to sprout. 

INFORMATION

Almendra by Patricia Urquiola is on display at Flos Orobia 15 from 7 – 24 June 2022
patriciaurquiola.com
flos.com

A version of this article appears in the July 2022 issue of Wallpaper*. Subscribe today!

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Fabbrica Orobia 15
Via Orobia, 15

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Located a stone’s throw from Lake Michigan, the town of Holland in Michigan is better known for its annual tulip festival than its design chops. That hasn’t hindered the transformation of the Haworth Inn and Conference Centre, now known simply as the Haworth Hotel. Located on the campus of Hope College and originally opened in 1997, the newly reconfigured 48-room hotel has been given the Patricia Urquiola treatment – her first project in the region.

With 14 conference spaces and a new suite at guests’ disposal, the reimagined Haworth Hotel brings business and leisure together in an effortless gesture. Owned by the eponymous office furniture company, which is locally based, the hotel is tastefully appointed with furniture by Poltrona Frau, Cappellini, Cassina and Janus et Cie. The company’s trusted partners are also well-represented; lighting by Pablo Designs, rugs by Gan and textiles by Kvadrat bring an elegant tactility throughout the hotel interior.

A grand, spiral staircase serves as a dramatic focal point in the lobby, which has multiple areas to lounge, work and meet people. Brightly lit with an uplifting design palette to boot, the hotel delivers a dose of high design while still keeping in step with the local community. Given the hotel’s proximity and ties to Hope College, the hotel ballroom also serves as a dining space for the college’s students.

Upstairs, each of the hotel guest rooms is conceived to foster relaxation and wellbeing. Throughout the hotel, a calm colour palette, warm furnishings and sophisticated touches all come together to produce a functional yet playful atmosphere that caters to a wide-ranging clientele. With facilities including a full-service outpost of local coffee purveyor Biggby Coffee on the premises, the hotel successfully delivers on big-city comforts while retaining its small-town charm.

INFORMATION

haworthhotel.com

Lake Como’s Il Sereno Hotel and Milanese designer Patricia Urquiola unveil a new penthouse space, ‘inspired by Post-war Italian glamour, La Dolce Vita, Modernist Italian Designers’ as well as local silk-manufacturing traditions. 

The hotel originally opened in 2016, and expanded into a nearby 16th-century villa in 2018. When it opened, it was the first new structure to be built on the shores of Italy’s Lake Como in 70 years, with a design inspired by local architect Giuseppe Terragni’s Rationalist structures and a palette of colours and materials nodding to its lake surroundings. ‘The lake is all about integrity,’ said Urquiola, who referenced the architect’s rigorous lines in her façade design in glass, wood and stone.

Il Sereno Penthouse: a celebration of Italian design

The latest space to open at Il Sereno is the Signature Penthouse. A one-bedroom suite with breathtaking floor-to-ceiling views of the lake and mountains, a living and dining area as well as lake-facing garden and terrace, the space features a material-rich palette of Venetian Terrazzo floors, Canaletto Walnut ceilings and Ceppo di Gre walls. Throughout, Urquiola selected contemporary pieces (such as her ‘Love Me Tender‘ sofa for Moroso and ‘L60’ bed for Cassina) as well as icons of Italian design, such as Gio Ponti chairs and an ‘Infinito’ bookcase by Franco Albini and Franca Helg dominating the living space. 

The penthouse also marks Il Sereno’s first foray into e-commerce, with a dedicated digital retail space offering the penthouse’s key furniture pieces (from the sofa and bed to the chairs, tables and lighting), modern and contemporary accessories by Ginori, Venini, Bitossi and Salvatori. The shopping selection includes specially-commissioned rugs and blankets used throughout the hotel: ‘Guests were asking us about these pieces, so it felt like a natural move,’ says hotelier Luis Contreras, who worked closely with Urquiola on the hotel’s conception, design and future development. ‘We want to challenge ourselves and try to make something a little bit different,’ he says. ‘If possible, better.’

INFORMATION

Shop Il Sereno Hotel at serenohotels.com

ADDRESS

Via Torrazza, 10
22020 Torno CO
Italy

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Milan’s Triennale Design Museum has been having a banner few years. First, with its blockbuster Ettore Sottsass exhibition in 2017, closely followed by the Osvaldo Borsani retrospective this spring. Now, they have turned their attention to another grandmaster of Milanese design, Achille Castiglioni, born 100 years ago this year. Curated by Patricia Urquiola, who served as his teaching assistant at Milan’s Politecnico University in the late 1980s, and Federica Sala, it charts the prolific designer’s output starting from the 1950s to his death in 2002.

For the exhibition, entitled ‘A Castiglioni’, Urquiola and Sala sifted through over 1500 objects and projects in preparation, eventually narrowing the show down to 230 pieces, each illustrated by drawings, plans, notes and correspondence sourced from the Castiglioni archive. ‘It’s really an incredible quantity of documentation,’ explains Sala, ‘the stories behind objects that, until now, you only ever knew from their form.’ Spanning two floors, the exhibition is organised into 20 separate ‘clusters’ — based on the networked nature of a rhizome or mindmap — that speak to various attributes that have come to define Castiglioni’s life and work. ‘A simple gallery set up would have never been his way of working,’ explains Urquiola of the sprawling show, ‘we want curiosity to move you through the exhibition’. 

Starting with the cluster ‘The Grand Milan’ — where visitors enter the exhibition by walking under an archway of his iconic and ubiquitous Arco lamps — Urquiola and Sala kick things off by paying tribute to the designer’s hometown. Indeed, Castiglioni’s studio on Piazza Castello, which today serves as an archive and museum, is no more than a short 500 metres away from the Triennale’s home Sempione park. A highlight of this opening section is a plan he dreamed up in the 1950s to circle the Triennale museum with a model railway looping across its facade.

The idea inspired the exhibition’s eventual layout, a circular plan that exits the buildings at one point and climbs an exterior staircase to the second level before looping back. ‘If we had more time to plan,’ jokes Sala, ‘I think Patricia could have convinced them to build the train.’

From there, the exhibition moves into more subjective realms. Other clusters include ‘Redesigning’, which charts Castiglioni’s experimentation in perfecting existing objects. For example, artists’ easels, which resulted in his Bramante and Leonardo tables. There is ‘Reiterating’, exploring his use of repetition as a tool in composition, specifically in his light installations for Flos. ‘Keep It Simple’, showing his tendency for reduction and ‘Ready Making’, a partnership with Sony, that allows for animated interaction with his ready-made pieces, like the Mezzadro and Sella chairs, which make use of tractor and bike seats, respectively.

Urquiola and Sala even get down to the nitty-gritty of Castiglioni’s habits; a cluster called ‘Smoke’ is dedicated to Castiglioni’s love of cigarettes, ever-present dangling from his fingertips, alongside his ashtray designs for Alessi. But the exhibition’s joyful climax comes right in the middle, where a darkened room is filled with 100 Flos Parentesi lights — one for every year since his birth, like candles on a cake — flashing on and off at random to a soundtrack of everyday objects and snippets of songs.

‘Nowadays design is so untouchable,’ explains Sala of the decision to keep the exhibition loose and fun, ‘there is this obsession about design: there are design chairs, design cakes, design whatever. But that wasn’t the spirit of Castiglioni. You have to touch and live with design. It’s something that is so close to you.’ Though the exhibition is explicitly joyous, it remains a rigorously researched archive show. Those looking for the deep cuts will not be disappointed: original versions of Sanluca, Babela, Hilly and Irma chairs, among others, are all on glorious display.

More than anything, though, the exhibition feels like a homecoming. A humanising and intimate portrayal of a man who has done so much to furnish the 20th-century’s homes and minds. Rather than presenting it as a linear retrospective of Castiglioni’s work, Urquiola and Sala have infused the show with the kind of playfulness and humour that those close to Castiglioni remember him best.

‘The thought he put in our mind from the first day of university,’ says Urquiola of his influence on her own work, ‘is that when you are designing, you are doing something for someone else. It’s alive when people are using it. You have to create empathy and curiosity, that’s it.’

INFORMATION
‘A Castiglioni’ is on view at Triennale Design Museum until 20 January 2019. For more information, visit the website

ADDRESS

Viale Emilio Alemagna, 6
20121 Milano MI
Italy

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Patricia Urquiola makes her London residential debut this year with The Lincoln Square development in Bloomsbury. Due for completion later this year, the project by developers Lodha has been realised by PLP Architecture as a ten-storey residential block sitting firmly in the buzz of academia row – a cultural hub of literature, law, medicine and the arts.

Urquiola has designed the amenities at Lincoln Square – 17,000 sq ft of luxury, sophistication and warmth in the form of a pool, spa (with ice and mist showers), cinema, private club, snooker room, an on-site library and children’s play area. Each space exudes Urquiola expertise in seamlessly melding materials; bronze mesh gilding can be found in both ceilings and room dividers, while a mix of coloured glass, timber and marble create opulence throughout the spaces.

‘At Lodha we pride ourselves on working with the best designers in the world,’ says Gabriel York, managing director of Lodha UK. Urquiola’s spaces join interiors by design agency Bowler James Brindley, while landscape architects Gustafson Porter + Bowman (responsible for Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial in Hyde Park) will realise the residents’ private courtyard.

‘It was in the process of designing various aspects of Lincoln Square that I immersed myself in the world in which this beautiful building sits – not just physically, but also in an abstract way,’ says Urquiola. ‘The cultural landscape of London is one of the most exciting anywhere. It’s a city that makes you feel alive and is full of the riches of life.’

The twice crowned Wallpaper* Designer of the Year has also launched 30 limited-edition sculptural sand timers, each uniquely blown in Murano glass to celebrate the warmth and sensuality of the residential development. ‘This project made me more aware of the luxury of time, the investment we make in our education and in our understanding of culture and history,’ Urquiola explains. ‘The privilege we have in being able to expand our minds in these ways, is made possible by the luxury of time’.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Lodha UK website

’Sand Timer’ by Patricia Urquiola is available from WallpaperSTORE*

Aby Rosen and Space Copenhagen

The evolution of SoHo’s Howard Street from a sleepy pocket of Manhattan to a bustling hub of creativity owes much to 11 Howard. This 221-room hotel, a haven of restrained luxury within a former post office building, is the result of a partnership between Aby Rosen, owner of the Seagram building, and Signe Bindslev Henriksen and Peter Bundgaard Rützou, of Danish firm Space Copenhagen.

Introduced by design consultant Anda Andrei, the real estate magnate and the designers got to know each other on a grand tour of sorts. In Copenhagen, they dined at all the celebrated restaurants Space had worked on, among them the original Noma and Geist. ‘I was immediately drawn to them,’ he says. ‘There is good harmony within their partnership.’ Back in New York, he showed them around some of his favourite spots, as well as his own home. ‘I wanted them to understand how I live. It was an interesting dialogue, and they got it pretty fast.’

The designers agreed with Rosen to follow ‘a simple, tactile and holistic approach’ for 11 Howard. Muted colours and a judicious use of wood and leather are complemented by bold gestures, such as a spiralling steel staircase. ‘Their design has longevity,’ says Rosen, almost two years after the opening. ‘It looks fresh, as if we did it yesterday.’

Both parties speak of their relationship with unusual warmth. ‘Aby was charming, incredibly sharp and engaged,’ say the duo. ‘He showed us a lot of trust and freedom.’

‘I think they have reinvented and brought the freshness back to the Scandinavian look,’ enthuses Rosen, ‘and I would love to hire them for my home.’

rfr.com; spacecph.dk
Writer: TF Chan

Luis Contreras and Patricia Urquiola

Few hotels have balanced impact and discretion as masterfully as Il Sereno, the first collaboration between hotelier Luis Contreras and architect Patricia Urquiola. Opened in August 2016, it was the first new structure to be built on the shores of Italy’s Lake Como in 70 years, but its rationalist references (inspired by local architect Giuseppe Terragni) made it appear instantly at home.

The pair met several years ago, when Contreras’ parents attended a talk by Urquiola in Miami. ‘It was a reconnaissance mission: they wanted to see me in action before approaching me for the project,’ she explains. The Spanish architect was enlisted to work on the hotel’s interiors, but after visiting the site, she proposed a more holistic approach and staked a claim on both the architecture and the interiors. ‘The lake is all about integrity,’ says Urquiola. ‘Having multiple interlocutors on the building would have made the project confusing.’

There was still plenty of room for collaboration: Patrick Blanc was asked to create the green spaces (largely vertical, given the location’s topography). Contreras and Urquiola also worked together on a wooden boat for the hotel, produced by local company Cantiere Ernesto Riva, with a 1940s-inspired design. ‘From the start of the project, while we were solving complex structural problems, we were also adding more personal touches throughout the building,’ says Urquiola. ‘The way we worked, it almost felt like I was creating a private villa for the family.’

Just as they were finishing the hotel, Urquiola and Contreras began working on a second property on Lake Como. The hotelier had spent hours sailing the lake to explore its surroundings and had happened upon Villa Pliniana. Built in 1570, the property lay largely unused on the lake shore, about 1km away from Il Sereno. He became friends with the owners and obtained a lease for the villa. Contreras worked with Urquiola to create what he calls ‘a 90,000 sq m hypersuite’, a private residence with hotel service, also rented out for private events. While the building’s historical character was left mostly unaltered, Urquiola added contemporary furnishings and a neutral palette.

The architect insists that it was the collaborative element of the project that made it so special. ‘It was a creative encounter at a level that is higher than business,’ she explains. ‘For me, this is the new way to realise quality projects.’

www.ilsereno.com; patriciaurquiola.com
Writer: Rosa Bertoli

Kjetil Smørås and Claesson Koivisto Rune

Hotelier Kjetil Smørås and Mårten Claesson, Eero Koivisto and Ola Rune
Until recently Bergen offered little in the way of inspiring accommodation. Norway’s second city was dominated by dully efficient chains; the De Bergenske group, behind the Grand Hotel Terminus and Augustin Hotel, was the only local independent operator.

The balance, though, is shifting. Last year, De Bergenske’s Kjetil Smørås opened three new properties – Villa Terminus, Hotel Zander K and Bergen Børs Hotel – doubling its room count in the city.

Wanting to expand his family business, Smørås understood that contemporary design could give it a cutting edge and turned to Swedish architecture and design studio Claesson Koivisto Rune. Smørås’ mother had read about the studio’s work on Stockholm’s Nobis Hotel, completed in 2011. Her son studied the team’s resumé, then called them for a meeting and they quickly signed up. Designer Henrik Nygren was also brought in to work on the graphics and identity. ‘For me, it is very important to share an understanding of aesthetics with the designers,’ explains Smørås, ‘and that they have a passion for hotels.’ The design trio’s Eero Koivisto adds, ‘We told Kjetil that each hotel should have a unique atmosphere. We stay in many hotels, so we know what we like and don’t like. I favour spaces that feel like they haven’t been “designed”. We want to create spaces that just feel good.’

The partnership first bore fruit with the conversion of a 1770 wooden building, located next door to the 131-room Grand Hotel Terminus, into the 18-room Villa Terminus. Originally built as a home for the elderly, the structure went through a meticulous restoration, retaining its character while receiving a facelift fit for the 21st century. Each room is different and the building’s structural quirks are maintained, resulting in a hotel that feels more like a home.

On the same street, the 249-room Hotel Zander K opened as a modern counterpart to Villa Terminus, and has become a social hub for both visitors and locals. The most recent addition, the 127-room Bergen Børs Hotel, is the most upmarket in the portfolio. Occupying an entire block in the centre of the small city, this former stock exchange dating from 1862 is now a fashionable yet quietly luxurious place to stay, where contemporary design complements remnants of the building’s past. ‘Claesson Koivisto Rune has impressed me many times with its surplus of creativity. The designers are always enhancing my own ideas,’ reflects Smørås. ‘They have progressed the inherent qualities of Scandinavian design, celebrating natural materials in an authentic and contemporary way.’

And now, as Claesson Koivisto Rune continues to work with Smørås to refresh first the Grand Hotel Terminus and then the Augustin Hotel, one might think the hotelier will eventually embrace some downtime. He grins, ‘Well, I haven’t opened my last hotel.’

debergenske.no; claessonkoivistorune.se
Writer: Max Fraser

Yoshiharu Hoshino and Rie Azuma

Yoshiharu Hoshino and Rie Azuma
It was fortunate timing that brought together Hoshino Resorts’ CEO Yoshiharu Hoshino with architect Rie Azuma, who designs all his flagship Hoshinoya properties. They were both studying at Cornell University in the mid-1980s and, as there were few Japanese students on campus at the time, they gravitated towards one another and met to eat deep-fried tonkatsu pork chops at a local restaurant. Azuma remembers Hoshino talking about ice hockey; Hoshino recalls being impressed by Azuma’s dedication to her work. ‘I would often walk by the architecture building. I remember the lights always being on inside until late at night, and the sight of Azuma-san working late,’ he reminisces.

Their professional collaboration started in 1992. By then they were both running their respective family businesses; Azuma taking over her father’s architectural practice and Hoshino taking the reins of what was then called Hoshino Onsen Ryokan and had been operating resorts for over 80 years. He soon turned to Azuma for advice on revamping the family assets, and her first Hoshinoya resort, the Hoshinoya Karuizawa, opened in 2005.

Hoshino is clear on why he keeps coming back to Azuma: ‘Most architects design buildings, whereas Azuma-san designs the space. She doesn’t fixate on the colours of the walls, but rather on aspects like the ceiling height, or the way the space is built. Interior designs emphasising the latest styles become obsolete in five years, but the enrichment of space itself creates something timeless.’ For Azuma, who is involved from the earliest stages in any Hoshinoya project, the site selection is where she decides whether or not to press go on the design. ‘It needs to be unique, offer something special, or have some kind of cultural significance,’ she says. ‘Hoshinoya is about how you spend your time at the resort, how the design can help you relax, rather than just big luxurious rooms.’

Having opened the first Hoshinoya outside Japan, in Bali, last year, the pair are about to open Omo, a new type of urban hotel that Hoshino calls ‘a tower bed’. We look forward to enjoying more Japanese hospitality wherever this dynamic duo strikes again.

hoshinoresorts.com; azuma-architects.com
Writer:Jens H Jensen

The opening of Officine Panerai’s brand-new boutique in London’s New Bond Street, presents the perfect moment to look back on the results of the brand’s fruitful interior design collaboration with Patricia Urquiola. Having first breathed new life into the Paris home of the Florentine marque in 2014, the Spanish designer was set to work on an extensive renovation concept of its proud Florentine home – a small, early 20th-century workshop in the Piazza San Giovanni, opposite the Duomo.

It wasn’t just the spirit of the workshop that she set out to encapsulate – Urquiola was faced with the ultra-tricky task of expanding the tiny 58sq m space into a 285sq m boutique, while attending to the expectations of modern tastes. For a renowned tastemaker like Urquiola, a stripped-back approach was natural, but her choice of materials added sumptuous warmth of tone in the form of a geometric Striato Olimpico marble floor and walnut, brass and steel details.

‘Throughout its evolution, Panerai’s own design has been clean, contemporary and very modern. I have taken similar care with the boutiques design, reflecting and honouring these stylistic elements,’ she says. Her boutique identity has now been adapted to outposts in Hong Kong, New York and Miami.

Now, comes London. ‘I wanted a boutique that felt like you were at home, not at a shop – nothing too formal. New Bond Street is special and to be here is one the most important achievements for the brand – it gives us a chance to show everything that Panerai is, for new people to discover us. It’s not just about showing the products,’ says outgoing CEO Angelo Bonati, who has steered the watchmaker’s growth, partly guided by an immovable faith in the brand’s strong, graphic design, for the past 18 years.

Particular design details for London include engraved oak wall panels, rippling glass that shimmers around lozenge-shaped burnished brass vitrines. All these elements are a direct reference to Panerai’s oceanic past and its ownership and restoration of the classic Fife-built yacht, Eilean, the surprise star of Duran Duran’s 1982 Rio video.

A specially designed watchmaker’s desk is also situated on the lower ground floor, as is a cosy, customer lounge area, with its floppy leather Italian sofas. Lazing comfily in one of them, Mr Bonati, who had the foresight to hire Urquiola in 2011 pinpoints the success of their design relationship: ‘I first met Patricia when she worked on the design for the O'Clock: Time Design, Design Time exhibition at Milan’s Triennale Design Museum in 2011, for which we partnered. I asked her “Will you look at our boutiques and give them the soul of our historical boutique in Florence, and make them feel more warm and welcoming?” She came to see them with me and said: “I don’t want to change everything, there is nothing much to do”.’

‘Of course,’ he says, cheerily, ‘Patricia changed everything!’

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Officine Panerai website

Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola looked to Officine Panerai’s marine heritage for inspiration when she began work on her design for the Italian watch marque’s new 840 sq m mega-booth at this year’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) in Geneva.

Founded in Florence in 1860, Officine Panerai supplied the Italian Navy for many decades, specialising in precision instruments for the diving corps, and is today known for iconic models such as the Mare Nostrum chronograph.

Visitors coming aboard Urquiola’s showstopper of a booth, inspired by maritime architecture and nautical interiors, encounter an ocean-going ambience of brushed brass, cobblestone glass walls, wood panelling, banquettes and deck flooring all referencing an elegantly salty, luxury sailing vernacular. A reception desk of rope-effect wainscoting completes the yacht aesthetic, while glass vitrines redolent of nautical instruments showcase Officine Panerai’s latest collections and novelties.

Urquiola’s partnership with Officine Panerai began in 2011 when the Milan-based designer worked as art director on ‘O’Clock – Time Design, Design Time’, an exhibition at Milan’s Triennale Design Museum that included an Urquiola-conceived timeline of the  brand. In 2014 Urquiola redesigned Officine Panerai’s Piazza San Giovanni store in Florence, overseeing the transformation of the small historic boutique (the brand's first, it opened at the turn of the century) into a 285 sq m flagship. ‘I feel a great bond with Panerai,’ says Urquiola, ‘because I share the same values: a focus on design and technology, but not in an obvious, show-off way. There is credibility, consistency and quality”.

For the SIHH exhibition stand, Urquiola created 17 different rooms, each representing a different Panerai timepiece – L’Astronomo, Lo Scienziato, Luminor Due, Luminor Logo et al. ‘This new Officine Panerai booth not only brings together very different elements, blurring the lines between the traditional and the contemporary, but also allows Panerai watches to speak for themselves,’ says Angelo Bonati, the company’s CEO. ‘We found that we shared common ground: a love of design, rigorous execution, consistency with the history of the brand and a striving for excellence.’

For more information, visit the Officine Panerai website

From missteps, to mishaps to inevitable self-doubt, the creative process isn’t for the faint of heart. But instead of succumbing to the pressure, Spanish designer and architect Patricia Urquiola embraces the chaos of creativity.

‘She throws herself into each project,’ says Donna Corbin, Louis C Madeira IV associate curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. ‘She doesn’t just design something and walk away from it.’ In ‘Patricia Urquiola: Between Craft and Industry’, her first solo exhibition in the United States, the museum offers an intimate look at the method behind the madness.

‘The design is not enough,’ says Urquiola. ‘What matters more is the transparency of the process: concepts, initial choices, prototyping, applied technologies, materials, logistics, human relations and ultimately the way to work with four hands between designer and publisher.’

‘Process is so important to [Patricia],’ Corbin says. ‘[You’ll] have a better understanding of her work if [you] understand the process.’ Inside, one wall is adorned with photographs, sketches and models of some of her biggest architectural and interior accomplishments, including the Mandarin Oriental in Barcelona (2014), Lake Como’s Il Sereno Hotel (2016) and various Cassina showrooms.

Another wall highlights her prolific works for many major Italian players including the Flos ‘Chasen’ lamp (2007) and B&B Italia’s ‘Crinoline’ armchair (2008). When she designed ‘Crinoline’, Corbin explains, Urquiola prioritised consulting and collaborating with local craftsmen. ‘She has this amazing ability to connect with people, and it’s so much part of what she does,’ she said.

But while Urquiola’s process boils down to a detailed, awe-inspiring science, her pieces continue to have an element of surprise. ‘She makes a conscious effort not to repeat things,’ he continues. ‘She challenges herself and we wanted to represent that.’

In total, there are 28 pieces on display, from as early as 2002. Admittedly, Urquiola’s ‘Antibodi’ chaise for Moroso (2006), ‘Landscape’ tea set for Rosenthal AG (2008) and ‘Fishbone’ inlay for Budri (2012) look incongruous in the same room, yet they deftly encapsulate her Midas-touched and 15-plus-year career.

But her influence doesn’t end there: Urquiola, who is also art director of Cassina, received the Design Excellence Award from Collab, a group of individuals who support modern and contemporary design at the museum.

INFORMATION

’Patricia Urquiola: Between Craft and Industry’ is on view until 4 March 2018. For more information, visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art website

ADDRESS

Philadelphia Museum of Art
2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia
PA 19130

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

As part of this year’s  anniversary celebrations, Cassina commissioned photographers Armin Linke and Giulia Bruno to follow the work of its artisans. Here, a master carpenter assembles a ‘’699 Superleggera’’ chair, an iconic model designed by Gio Ponti for Cassina. Made of a natural ashwood frame and India cane seat, the ‘‘super lightweight’’ chair has been in production without interruption since its creation in 1957.

A squat 1940s workshop, set behind a single train track in blue-collar Meda, Lombardy, produced the first industrialised models for the Italian furniture maker Cassina. For a while, the Cassina family lived here too, running a small shop on the premises. While Milan, 20km away, became the pretty face of modern Italian design, here in Meda is where the Cassinas got their fingernails dirty. This year Cassina turns 90, and to mark the occasion, the pioneer of 20th-century Italian design got a manicure, facelift and more besides.

In Meda the Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola – Cassina’s art director for nearly three years – has transformed the old production facility into a post-industrial nirvana. Urquiola has sheathed the front courtyard in theatrical perforated-aluminium curtains,  smoothed the rough stone surfaces, built an ‘tower’ in perforated Cassina-red metal and reached into the back catalogue of Cassina maestri to furnish the cavernous spaces: 1949 side tables by Piero Lissoni as well as low ‘Refolo’ tables by Charlotte Perriand and ‘LC2’ sofas by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Perriand in updated sorbet-green and blue. To create an intimate breakout space she’s installed a replica of the Refuge Tonneau in the ‘refreshment room’. The futuristic mobile shelter was designed by Perriand and Jeanneret in 1938 and produced for the first time by Cassina in 2012.

The renovated central courtyard now features an ‘office tower’ in Cassina-red perforated metal, designed by the brand’s art director Patricia Urquiola. © Armin Linke and Giulia Bruno, 2017. Courtesy of Galleria Vistamare, Pescara

It all encapsulates beautifully Cassina’s philosophy, something managing director Gianluca Armento calls looking back to move forward. It’s counterintuitive, but I believe the truer you are to where you’ve come from, the more innovative you’ll be, he says, after unveiling the space to employees last summer. Inaugurating this new, bolder look for Cassina HQ is the culmination of two years of dusting-off and deconstructing old classics – from Gerrit Rietveld’s 1935 ‘Utrecht’ armchair, upholstered with Bertjan Pot’s triangle-pattern jacquard, to the relaunch of the ‘Pampas’ chair by Le Corbusier, Jeanneret and Perriand. Similarly, Urquiola’s streamlining and ‘challenging of the original architecture at Meda shows the real spirit of Cassina in a more modern way’, says Armento.

‘The soul of Cassina is making advancements on how we create things. What do we want to leave behind? Not just midcentury modern pieces, but an evolution. Keeping it authentic while modifying the angle and story is a science of how to maintain a glorious heritage. And anniversaries are part of that.’ A rather literal expression of that sentiment can be found in the HQ’s new gallery, metres from where co-founder Cesare Cassina first tested the soundness of Gio Ponti’s ‘699 Superleggera’ chair in the 1950s. The inaugural exhibition, by photographers Armin Linke and Giulia Bruno, follows Cassina artisans as they piece together furnishings such as the ‘Cicognino’ table by Franco Albini and the new ‘646 Leggera’, an updated version of the classic ‘Superleggera’.

Linke’s photographs zoom in on the tools of the trade: Bacci CNC routers for fashioning round-edged ash legs and computers equipped with sophisticated 3D programmes. Ultimately, though, the same hands-on method from the 1950s takes over. The process of capturing it, Linke says, was downright anthropological. ‘The “Leggera” chair is shaped by artisans who have been working this way for centuries, but also by the classical industrial process and finally the era of robotics. So you have one piece of furniture from three different eras.’

And so continues the dialogue between modernism and the present day, the intertwining of handcraft – ‘which is now often forgotten, but fascinating,’ says Linke – with the outer limits of digital technology. ‘Every component has a story, and finding that language to fit them together has an elegance, like writing software code or choreography.’

To expound further on the theme, this month Cassina releases its 90th-anniversary monograph – no mere coffee-table retrospective, but rather a treatise on the industry moving forward. Edited by Pin-Up magazine founder Felix Burrichter, This Will Be the Place taps contemporary experts including designer Konstantin Grcic, architectural historian Beatriz Colomina and architect Zhao Yang, and asks them to arrive at a vision of the future home based on their appreciation of the past.

The significance of history ‘as a point of reference of excellence’ is something Barbara Lehmann, director of Cassina’s archives, sets up in her introduction. ‘There can be no future without a knowledge of the past,’ she writes. Armento insists the brand has always looked forward a generation for creative input. ‘Some of the furniture we produce was designed over 100 years ago, but remember, the designers were in their twenties, thirties and forties, creating change, creating progress,’ he says. ‘That is still our responsibility, and that is what I want to pay tribute to.’

As originally featured in the October 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*223)

A replica of Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret’s 1938 Refuge Tonneau takes centre stage in the communal area of Cassina’s Meda HQ.

Models from the Cassina archive, including ‘Superleggera’ and ‘Leggera’ chairs, photographed by Linke and Bruno for the inaugural exhibition of the HQ’s new gallery space.

Cassina’s 90th-anniversary monograph This Will Be the Place (Rizzoli, €80).

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Cassina website

It is often a stretch to describe a bathroom showroom as visually stimulating – but when Patricia Urquiola is behind the design, things liven up. The Spanish designer has loaned her Midas touch to Laufen's new Madrid outpost, showcasing the Swiss bathroom brand's wares at their most desirable.

Located in an historic villa built in the early 1900s, the space has been conceived as a platform where designers and architects can get experimental with the brand's modern collections. Here, Urquiola embraces her Mediterranean roots by imbuing clinical bathroom ceramics with a little warmth.

Rather than staging mise-en-scènes, Urquiola has curated the products like sculpture – wall-mounted sinks and a pair of bathtubs mirror each other, arranged around a series of plinths. The Milan-based designer added hints of colour to the original architectural surrounds by way of dark marble plinths, vibrant side tables and tinted glass shutters that mimic the iridescent iterations of her ‘Shimmer’ collection for Glas Italia.

'The idea was to create a space with multiple functionalities,' Urquiola explains of the spa-like set-up. 'A new kind of showroom, where people can also work... an elegant and strict space.’ Wood, Perspex, resin and marble form the alluring backdrop to Laufen's ranges, which include collections by Konstantin Grcic and Toan Nguyen, both utilising the ultra-thin ceramic SaphirKeramik.

As a finishing touch, each room features a continuous black iron tube border, with gold corners for added elegance; a fine framing of Urquiola’s refined sanctuary in the Spanish capital.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Laufen website

ADDRESS

Laufen Bathrooms
C/Covarrubias 23
28010 Madrid

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At the beginning of her career as one of Europe’s most acclaimed and in-demand architects/designers, Patricia Urquiola embarked on a journey across Scandinavia, attending lectures, visiting ateliers and meeting designers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Her mission was driven by a desire to discover, to get out of her own comfort zone as a continental Europe designer. 'I wanted to make a connection with the elements, the aesthetics in Scandinavian culture, explore their materials and manufacturing techniques. Look at things with a different eye,' says Urquiola. 'That visit made an impression on me. It was a good connection. I discovered that we had so much in common... that even though I was from a completely different design culture, the architectural rigour to my work meant that we actually understood each other really well.'

Decades after that influential journey, Urquiola is back in the northern hemisphere again, collaborating with Denmark’s premier silverware marque, Georg Jensen. Following previous creative alliances with cutting edge designers such as Marc Newson and Zaha Hadid, the Georg Jensen 'Urkiola' collection features jugs, bowls, vases, trays and an angular candelabra, all made from distinctive, mirror-polish finish stainless steel, with contrasting handles and sections PVD-coated in coppery rose gold.

The 'Urkiola' pieces – bold, architectural, contemporary – are representative of a very modern Georg Jensen; a heritage, luxury marque with a history that spans more than 100 years but is always looking to the future, finding new ways to unite quality craftsmanship and a timeless design aesthetic with a distinctive Nordic vigour, integrity and authenticity.

For inspiration, Urquiola first delved into the Georg Jensen archives, her interest particularly piqued by the ribbed patterns on the classic 'Bernadotte' cutlery range. 'The recent trend for designers working with stainless steel is to make the pieces feminine, fluid and organic,' says Urquiola. 'With the "Urkiola" collection I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted to do something more rigorous. More strict and severe. The ribbed sections give the pieces a strength – both physically and spiritually.' The cylinder is the dominant form in the pieces with sections meticulously engineered to sit inside one another. The collection is resourceful and adaptable too; a vase can be used as a champagne cooler, a pitcher doubles up as an ice scoop, a bowl becomes a desk tidy.

So, why 'Urkiola' and not 'Urquiola'? Patricia was born in Oviedo in northern Spain (her bio playfully describes her as 'Spanish by birth, Italian by choice'), her surname originating from the neighbouring Pays Basque. 'Urkiola', also the name of a Basque country mountain range, is the traditional spelling of the name in the Euskara Basque language (a lexicon that doesn’t include a letter Q) while 'Urquiola' is its Spanish/Castilian rendering. 'Using that version of my name – Urkiola – as the name for the products is a way of coming back to my roots,' she explains. 
Certainly, there is a robust masculinity evident in the tabletop architecture of the 'Urkiola' collection that might well reference the warm, mountainous beauty of northern Spain. 'Those items, they look simple but they are actually quite complicated to make,' she says. 'I had never worked in stainless steel before but the people at Georg Jensen let my imagination run wild. I proposed something rather oblique; the intersection of two solids, one cylinder engaging a second, ribbed cylinder to create an interesting junction. The resulting pieces look simple but were actually quite complicated to accomplish.'

Designing the 'Urkiola' pieces turned out to be something of a learning process for Urquiola. 'Every project I do is an education,' she says. 'For instance, a few years ago I was asked to work with a porcelain factory in Japan. I went into that assignment thinking I had a pretty good working knowledge of porcelain and how to make it perform. It turned out completely differently and I learned so much more! It was a similar experience at Georg Jensen. This is a good thing because I’m curious. And I love to break a prejudice, including my own. Like all artists, I like to move forward.'

Urquiola's velocity as both product designer and architect continues apace with her latest venture – a spectacular new hotel on the shores of Lake Como. Designed, decorated and furnished by Urquiola and her Milan-based team, the recently opened all-suite Il Sereno offers panoramic views of the waterfront and the adjacent mountains. There’s also a private beach and an infinity pool. Guests have the choice of two custom-built Riva speed boats while each of the rooms is accessorised with items from the 'Urkiola' collection. 'We put the "Urkiola" tray and the little jar in each room,' says the designer. 'The hotel bar uses the ice bucket and the champagne cooler. The pieces make a connection with the simple design and materials of the building.' It's an elegant accent of Nordic cool in temperate, northern Italy.

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Georg Jensen website

ADDRESS

Georg Jensen
89 Mount Street
London W1K 2SR

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Indian architect Rajiv Saini has sprinkled his modern magic on the latest showroom for fabric house Atmosphere in Mumbai, bringing new life to the world of textiles.

Arranging the showroom more like desirable living quarters than a shop, the opulent palette of marble marries alloy and warm wood in a space that includes a lounging area and bedroom. Presenting the Bangalore-based brand’s luxury fabrics at their very best, the new Mumbai flagship is a world away from the minimalist concrete look that marks its other stores. A fresh clean glow invites the customer to imagine the Atmosphere catalogue of drapery, embroidery and velvets in their own home.

Dramatic window arches are a highlight of the boutique. Reaching the high ceilings of the two-level location, they are painted dark, juxtaposed with the natural light shining onto quilted cushions, acting as an area for customers to relax and browse the collections. Saini tells Wallpaper* these windows were at the forefront of the design: ‘I wanted these tall arches to become elegant sentinels.’

The crisp open-air space is speckled with contemporary design highlights like Patricia Urquiola's quilted 'Redondo' chair for Moroso and the 'Jules' chair by Claesson Koivisto Rune for Arflex, among other custom-made shelves and tables. Striking notes of Scandinavian design emerge in the subtle dove grey curtains and white washed walls; while the brass, Carrara and Nero Marquina marble, and honey oak finishes add warmth.

The collections themselves can be seen throughout the space: from the linens on the bed of the mezzanine floor to the cushions in the archways and of course, across the beautifully organised library. For a brand rarely in the spotlight, Saini gives Atmosphere a new lease of excitement.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Atmosphere website

ADDRESS

Atmosphere
1, Sunny House
Ground floor
Mereweather Road
Mumbai 400001

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The global trend for affordable design accommodation continues apace, finally making a presence in Milan, thanks to the canny collaboration between Spanish architect and designer Patricia Urquiola and budget friendly hotel group Room Mate.

Located smack in the city centre, a quick two-minute stride from the Piazza del Duomo, the 85-room Giulia is saturated in optimistic colour, with just a whiff of Milan’s famous mid-century mood. ‘It’s new, fresh, fun and welcoming,’ Urquiola states of the cheerful interiors. 

The prices might be economic, but the finishings are top-rate, with most of the furnishings designed by Urquiola and custom-made by Cassina, where she has recently been appointed creative director. In the guest rooms, bold armchairs by design brands Kartell and Moroso sit alongside lamps by lighting companies Flos and Oluce, while grid patterned Kvadrat curtains add visual texture. Downstairs, an eclectic mishmash of furnishings and colour combinations make up the lobby space, which is also lined with artwork commissioned by local creatives. 

The third property in Italy, following two openings in Florence, this is a busy time for Room Mate Hotels, who along with a Malaga launch, also this month, continues its international expansion at a dizzying rate.

ADDRESS

Via Silvio Pellico 4

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Konstantin Grcic and Patricia Urquiola need little in the way of introduction. Their always exceptional design work has earned them multiple and regular appearances in the pages of this magazine. Friends and first team talent for the same design companies, and joint winners of last year’s Wallpaper* Designer of the Year gong, the pair joined forces on this year’s judging panel. 

Meeting at Fondazione Prada in Milan – with Urquiola’s husband, and Grcic’s partner and baby daughter patiently in tow – the duo discussed who got top marks and why, across 11 different categories.

They admit they came to the task reluctantly – no designer is comfortable sitting in judgement on the work of peers, friends and colleagues. Luckily, many of the Judges’ Awards categories don’t require this kind of discomfort. And in others, the result was so clear cut there was little need for tortured debate. The Fondazione Prada, winner of Best New Public Building, was a case in point.

‘There were no compromises made,’ observes Grcic of the sprawling complex. It was designed by Rem Koolhaas’ OMA, which transformed seven early-20th-century buildings and designed three new structures, all of which pop up and play harmoniously in the vast campus. ‘The choice of architect, and the time span of developing such a project in all of its detail, make the building stand for the kind of quality that we see so rarely today.’ 

Urquiola agrees. ‘This kind of attitude, to think but then to also act, is so important,’ she says of Prada’s CEO Patrizio Bertelli and his wife and creative director Miuccia Prada, who spent over a decade planning the project. ‘As someone who lives in Milan, they have really given us something special,’ she adds.  

Urquiola was spellbound by the foamy, air-pierced aluminium that wraps around many of the foundation’s walls and inspired the pair’s on-site illustration of the space, created for this month’s limited-edition subscriber cover. ‘I’ve often seen this material but it’s never been well proposed,’ Urquiola says. ‘The way it’s been used here is fantastic.’ 

The designers were also in accord when it came to the Designer of the Year award. 

‘All of the contenders were great,’ Grcic says. ‘But the Bouroullec brothers have done such fantastic work over such a long period of time, they deserve it just a little bit more than the others. They’ve been going at it for 15 years, always at the top level. It’s incredible.’

‘It was very easy for me,’ Urquiola agrees. ‘They did a fantastic job this year.’ 

Other categories mulled over by our duo were Best New Hotel, which went to the Aman Tokyo (‘I’ve been there,’ says Urquiola. ‘The entrance is an incredible piece of architecture’); Best City, which went to Copenhagen (‘They seem to be creating a city for today for a citizen for today,’ remarks Grcic. ‘It’s very open minded’); and the twin fashion awards with Best Men’s Fashion Collection A/W 2015 going to Stefano Pilati at Ermenegildo Zegna Couture and the womenswear award for the same season handed to Phoebe Philo at Céline.

‘I feel very inspired by good fashion designers and what they’re able to do,’ Grcic says. ‘We keep designing tables, chairs and storage. They have to redesign the jacket, shirt and trousers. The choice of materials, fabrics and the construction of something three-dimensional is very interesting.

As originally featured in the February 2016 issue of Wallpaper* (W*203)

See the Design Awards 2016 in full – including our extra-special Judges' Awards - here

INFORMATION

Photography: Gianluca Fontana

But to the science. This year we have restricted the core top 100 list strictly to product designers. And employing complex algorithms, ‘big data’ and the purest subjectivity, we have ranked them according to influence, market value, quality and quantity of output, reputational shift and that more mysterious sense of momentum, of rightness for right now. Those who have had a good year will find themselves risen up the ranks; others may get that sinking feeling. We have also added extra lists: of architects who turn their pencils to product design; of CEOs and other corporate chiefs who have matched vision and ambition with surefootedness; of graphic designers who snap our grid; of interior designers who create and compose the most seductive of spaces; and of designers yet to hit 40 but already making an impact. Or course our rankings are a provocation, but they are also a mapping of power and influence, of larger shifts and forces.

Let the debate begin...

Sir Jonathan Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, has changed behaviours and created ‘needs’ we never knew we had, turning technology’s cult underdog into the world’s most valuable company. With Steve Jobs gone, and everyone alert to the slightest Apple miss-step, Ive is now facing greater public scrutiny. The many and various permutations of the Apple Watch and strap, and the offer of a high-end version – a shift from Apple’s usual policy of limiting choice and upgrades to under-the-bonnet performance enhancements – are seen as Ive’s innovations. And rumours and counter-rumours about the Apple Watch’s success, or lack of, continue to swirl. The latest chatter is that Apple is working on a self-driving car, currently being tested in California.  

Outside of Ive, Marc Newson is the world’s highest-profile industrial designer. The pair are also long time pals. Little surprise then that Ive recruited Newson to help out with the design of Apple Watch. He has no official title at Apple but Newson says that 60 per cent of his time is now spent on Apple business and he makes monthly trips to Cupertino. Newson already had watch experience, launching the Ikepod line in the 1990s. He has also designed concept cars for Ford so it seems a relatively safe bet that Newson is currently at work on the Apple Car. And if the last year wasn’t eventful enough for Newson, this May one of his ‘Lockheed Lounge’ chairs sold at auction at Phillips in London for £2.4m, the highest price yet paid for the work of a living designer.

London-based designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby have had a breathtaking year, capped by the publication of a monograph celebrating their work, and the award of the 2015 London Design Medal in September. This supremely versatile and gifted pair have been on an unstoppable tear ever since their universally lauded design for the Olympic torch in 2012 lifted them into truly rarified air. The pair now helm three studios, each founded to expand the range of projects they can take on, ranging this year from an understated shower control for Axor to the contract to design interiors, exteriors and livery for the new London Crossrail line.

An Eindhoven Design Academy alumnus, Jongerius’ career began with the Droog-infused Dutch design renaissance of the early 1990s. Always one of the most influential and intelligent voices in design, she made waves in 2015 with a call for restraint in the design world’s ceaseless quest for the novel. ‘It’s time to rid ourselves of the obsession with the new.’ She practised what she preached, too, finally unveiling the long-awaited fruits of a four-year process of revisions to her iconic ‘Polder’ sofa for Vitra, and revealing subtle tweaks to the design and scale of the collection, while remaining true to its groundbreaking aesthetic.

Oki Sato took Milan by storm in April with an audacious retrospective of his work over a single year, showcasing his impressive range and attention to detail in collaborations with companies ranging from Glas Italia and Moroso to Chocolatexture and Tod’s. In fact, he designed more than 100 different products over the year, and routinely works on more than 400 designs at any one time. This year, Sato, who initially set up Nendo ten years ago with five fellow architecture graduates, also received the crown for Maison & Objet’s Designer of the Year, opened a Milan office, and shifted into large scale architectural projects for the first time, winning commissions for a shopping centre in Bangkok and a station and leisure complex in Kyoto.

Ronan and Erwan’s stellar mid-career status was highlighted last year with the award of the 2014 London Design Medal. Subsequently, France’s most influential industrial designers revealed the ‘Kaari’ table collection, their first collaboration with Artek, and the ‘Palissade’ range of outdoor furniture for Hay, alongside strong new work for Vitra and Glas Italia. Next up is their first electronic product, the Serif TV for Samsung, which is intended to integrate the television completely into the sphere of domestic design.

A product launch seen by 4.8 billion TV viewers, a first solo retrospective at the V&A, commissions everywhere; to say Heatherwick has had a good few years is an understatement. The British designer’s King’s Cross atelier is a global creative hub, responsible for everything from London buses to gin distilleries. Heatherwick is the quintessential contemporary creator, an architect, engineer and designer rolled into one, with an obsessive attention to detail and a delight in materials.

From health-tracking wristbands to app-controlled thermostats, Béhar is the designer for our perma-connected age. Last year, Chinese conglomerate BlueFocus Communication Group acquired a majority stake in his firm Fuseproject. His XO laptops for One Laptop Per Child are now distributed in 60 countries.

This year Morrison, whose career began in the 1980s, curated the prestigious ‘80!Molteni’ exhibition in Milan and added a collection of mobile phones to his well-respected Punkt collaboration, but he will always be the ultimate Super Normal guy, with a cool shop, transforming the everyday into desirable objects, including this cafetiere for Rowenta from W*068

Our joint Wallpaper* Designer of the Year, the work of German design superstar Grcic combines analytical rigour, formal discipline and a twist of humour. Recent projects include chairs for Plank and Magis, sanitaryware for Laufen, and branding and interiors for the Hugo Boss IMOCA 60 racing yacht.

A graduate of Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and London’s Architectural Association, Arad is working on Tel Aviv’s tallest building, a show for the Royal Academy, and St Pancras’ sought-after Terrace Wires installation. He remains the design and architecture world’s great iconoclast

Despite his work for IDEO and the Muji CD player, Fukasawa’s sublime understanding of Japanese craft sensibility has few better expressions than last year’s ‘Cha’ tea kettle for Alessi, his ‘Roundish’ sofa for Maruni Wood Industries, this year’s kitchen appliances for Muji and his sleek smartphone model for KDDI.

Dixon remains one of Britain’s best-known design names, even outside the design community. His studio has been busy this year: working on apartments at Greenwich Peninsula and the Multiplex department store at Selfridges, and he has also just been secured by Caesarstone to work on a major collaboration

Hayon has long been revered for his radical embrace of colour, decoration and cartoon-figure curves. His recent highlights include a large ‘Urban Perspectives’ installation for Mini, sports-style pieces for Galerie Kreo, and a redesigned Room 506 at Arne Jacobsen’s SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.

Collaborator Bruno Borrione finally got his name on the door last year as he and Starck formed a ‘new’ design agency, S++B. Since then, Stark has revealed a 2018 hotel design for Centre Pompidou Metz, created a prototype home for PATH and had various Milan launches with Kartell, Flos, Glas Italia, Axor, Magis and Tog

Humberto and Fernando’s creative upcycling and design improvisation – influenced by the street life of Santa Cecilia, the area of São Paulo where they have their studio – has been the basis of a string of bestsellers for Edra, as well as big-ticket edition pieces. The pair also work with local NGOs and workers’ co-ops.

The Spaniard is constantly proving she is at the top of her game with her hugely covetable creations. Not only is she our reigning Wallpaper* Designer of the Year, but she has formalised her ongoing collaboration with the Poltrona Frau group, heading up its design sector and becoming art director of Cassina.

Windows for Prada and a collection and installation for luxury leather maker Valextra helped demonstrate the versatility of Gamper, who made his name in 2007 with the found-object speed-design project ‘100 Chairs in 100 Days’. Milan gallery Nilufar then commissioned him to do similar with discarded Giò Ponti pieces.

Milan-based Giovannoni is as adept at futuristic furniture as at cartoonish homewares. His ‘Bombo’ stool for Magis, with its swivelling plastic seat and adjustable chrome-steel base, is widely copied, and his ‘Girotondo’ tableware for Alessi has sold over ten million units. He is now opening an office in Shenzhen.

Born in 1932, Munich-based designer Maurer designed his first light fitting in 1966 after a life-changing trip to New York, where he encountered the pop art movement. Simply called ‘Bulb’, his debut design was a brilliantly witty take on what a lamp could be and marked the start of a legendary career

This year, industrial designer Lovegrove - pictured here in W*101 - has applied his ergonomic forms to photorealistic rug designs for Moooi, while 2014 saw him produce 3D-printed gold jewellery for the Louisa Guinness Gallery. Material science, form and technology dominate, as with Liquidkristal, an architectural glass designed for Lasvit

Following Charpin’s takeover of Apartment 50 in Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse in Marseille last year, he has now commandeered the Robert Mallet-Stevens-designed Villa Noailles in Hyères for a new show. Last month also saw the opening of an exhibition of his tables and ceramic vases at Galerie Kreo’s London outpost.

This year’s Wallpaper* Design Awards judges, Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu combine city block-sized projects with more delicate small-scale work, garnering design awards and commissions from Camper, De La Espada and Le Méridien, as well as creating a clutch of boutique hotels, flagship offices and private dwellings

Häberli credits his motivation to his Argentine upbringing, and his problem-solving abilities to his Swiss heritage. He became a star for his ‘Origo’ dinner service for Iittala in 1999, and has gone on to work for brands such as Moroso and Georg Jensen. This year, he was chosen by BMW to design its annual Milan installation.

Hays is the driving force behind luxury American furniture label BDDW. Based in Philadelphia, he is as much an entrepreneur as he is a designer, having built the company up from a small Brooklyn start-up to a respected handmade furniture empire, with a Milan outpost and its own general store, within ten years

The soft, rounded forms of Dutch designer Bakker’s everyday objects are carefully crafted in metal, wood, glass and ceramic, often the result of painstaking production processes. His delicate forms found the limelight in Amsterdam this summer with a solo exhibition, ‘Containing Content’, focusing on his pourers (pictured)

Twins Nikolai and Simon began life as Texan builders with a Hollywood twist, but their skill and experimental approach saw them branch out into design at the turn of the decade. Now based in LA, the brothers’ new surrealist style graces spaces like the city’s Ace Hotel and the Guerlain store in Paris.

Pictured: Beast stool.

An alumnus of the Alchymia, Cavart and Memphis movements, De Lucchi is an Italian design legend whose work graces museums across the globe. He is responsible for bestsellers like the ‘Tolomeo’ lamp for Artemide, and the ‘First’ chair for Memphis. His new coffee maker for Alessi looks set to join that pantheon

From Peckham bottle recycler to Design Miami jury member, designer Boontje, known for his craft-inspired ideas, has come a long way, and his ‘Garland’ light shades are now a modern classic. He recently developed a jewellery collection for the Van Gogh Museum. Next up is an exciting commission for PostNL.

Pictured: Boontje's 'Chamber of Wonder' exhibition, at Swarovski Crystal World in Wattens, Austria

British artist Anthea Hamilton made international news last month with an installation inspired by a 1972 model by Pesce. Now 75, the Venetian designer’s career spans over half a century, and he has always ensured that his colourful, often otherworldly designs go beyond function and aesthetics

Milanese architect Dordoni has spent his career designing and providing art direction for some of the biggest players in Italian design – Artemide, Cappellini, Minotti and Foscarini have all benefited from his creative input. More recently, he set up Dordoni Architetti to focus on his architectural projects.

London-based design duo Luke Pearson and Tom Lloyd have become the go-to practice for public-realm design, with past projects including innovative healthcare furniture for the NHS and street furniture for the city of Bath. Recent projects include a contemporary workplace furniture collection for Teknion

Renowned for his refined designs and forthright opinions, the godfather of Italian design has had a consistent and influential presence in the industry for over 50 years. A steadfast supporter of sustainable, open-source design and small-scale, local production, Mari’s principles have always been years ahead of their time.

Pictured: W*090

Belgian-Dutch duo Nynke Tynagel and Job Smeets continue to explore the boundaries between art and design. From a roller disco inside Buenos Aires’ Faena Art Centre (pictured) to the irreverent ‘Banana Show’ lights at Belgium’s Samuel Vanhoegaerden Gallery, the pair’s refreshing maximalism was prominently on display

Last year, Lissoni secured a major commission from Ritz-Carlton to create a waterfront complex in Miami and a minimalist setting for a Renaissance art show in Milan. This year, he presented ‘1:1 Piero Lissoni’, an exhibition held in a vast New York loft in collaboration with a host of Brooklyn design studios

Branzi’s ‘Heretical Design’ show at Italy’s MARCA museum reminded commentators of the designer’s astonishing breadth and fecundity. He is a frequent collaborator with architectural magazines such as Domus and Casabella, and his shelving systems continue to attract the plaudits of a younger generation

De Cotiis’ work ranges from interiors for T’a bistrot in Milan, and the Upper Hills development in Shenzhen, to furniture for Ceccotti and his own label Progetto Domestico. Last year, he opened a gallery in Milan, and launched a limited-edition series inspired by Beirut in collaboration with Carwan Gallery

Conny Freyer, Eva Rucki and Sebastien Noel formed Troika in 2003. Their installations blend techno-longing with video and interactive elements, and grace spaces from Heathrow’s T5 to major galleries. Recent work, like Dark Matter and Limits of a Known Territory (pictured), show a more brooding, sculptural side

The London-based Cypriot has taken his first proper dip into furniture this year, designing a sofa for SCP. Boasting a similar geometrical characteristic to his captivating lighting objects for Flos, the long-time Wallpaper* collaborator has shown he can master both delicate precision and a sturdy framework.

Woodgate has brought his pared-down sophistication to the likes of Cappellini and SCP. He drew international attention in 2008 with his ‘Surface’ table for Established & Sons, and in 2014 he crowdfunded his lighting brand to produce a collection optimised for LEDs, including the ‘Core’ pendant in translucent marble

Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings epitomise Dutch design diversity, creating fabrics and furnishings in an eclectic array of forms and colours for the likes of Hay and Moooi. This year they have released their first book, Reproducing Scholten & Baijings (pictured), which takes us on a journey of their creative development

A graduate of Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Gilad is one of those rare designers able to work with ease across varying scales of output, from limited editions to mass production. He even managed to reinvent the showroom with an inspired and witty conversion for Molteni & C in Brianza.

Sam Hecht and Kim Colin founded their London studio in 2002 and have since turned conceiving the beautifully useful into an art form. Their reputation rests on creating a few simple product designs, with a twist, each year for the likes of Muji, Droog, Herman Miller, Issey Miyake, and Established & Sons

Tokyo-based interior designer Katayama is head of Japanese firm Wonderwall, which strides across the globe from one hi-tech Uniqlo store to another, creating art-cum-retail projects like Ginza’s Comme des Garçons store, and a chocolate-bar ceiling for the café at Meiji, Japan’s largest chocolate company, along the way

The enfant terrible of Italian product design is never happier than when he is pushing the boundaries of taste. Recent work includes a hyper-masculine headquarters for his beloved AC Milan football team (pictured) and a much instagrammed, model-kit installation for Tommy Hilfiger at Milan’s La Rinascente store.

Wanders’ work ranges from breakfast pieces for Alessi to upscale interiors for the Mondrian South Beach hotel. The studio recently opened an appointment-only gallery space at its HQ in Westerstraat, housing the Dutchman’s collectable designs (which will set you back the best part of $40,000 at auction)

Baas has parlayed a winning way with colour-impregnated clay into a design empire, under his own name and, since 2012, as part of the entity DH PH. Despite this, he’s not too kooky to win awards, create iPhone apps or see his ‘Grandfather Clock Veneer’ sold by Phillips de Pury & Company New York for over $134,000

Focusing on sustainability, and characterised by robust raw materials and expressive lines, Motta’s furniture celebrates the exuberant energy of his native Brazil, and speaks to his passion for surfing, yoga and nature. This autumn he marks the 40th year of his career with a retrospective at New York gallery Espasso.

Pictured with Leandro Massarelli, June 2010, W*135. 

Tokyo-based designer Yoshioka creates installations exploring balance and transparency for clients like Swarovski and Cartier, while products for Glas Italia and boutiques for Issey Miyake (pictured) take more substantial forms. This year he held his first solo exhibition in Kyushu, at the newly renovated Saga Prefectural Museum

Born in Israel, educated in Switzerland and based in Paris, Levy’s vast resumé of work spans lighting, jewellery, graphic design, furniture and packaging. This year he added something new to the list, working with bentwood for the first time in a collection produced for Salone for the Czech company TON. 

Pictured: W*109

An apprentice of Michele De Lucchi for more than 11 years, Nigro is barely 40 but has already won the Designer of the Year award at Maison & Objet and designed collections for the likes of Ligne Roset, De Padova and Hermès (pictured). For this year’s Salone he created the scenography for Japanese car company Lexus

From traditional cabinetmaker to sought-after product designer, Diez’s career ranges from hi-tech manufacturing all the way through to contemporary kit furniture. The German designer - pictured W*158 -  has created products for Thonet, Moroso, Established & Sons, Hay and Emu, all of which share his trademark pared-down precision

Italian architect and designer Thun’s progressive, sustainably luxurious interiors are taking over the civilised world. This year saw the launch of Matteo Thun Atelier, devoted to handcrafted design, with a collection in glass and ceramic, as well as an island resort in Venice for Marriott, designed inside and out by Thun, pictured here

For more than a decade, New York-based designer Burks has pursued his ongoing fascination with the transformative potential of design in emerging economies. This plus stellar work with brands such as Roche Bobois, Dedon, Ligne Roset, Boffi and Swarovski saw him rewarded with a prestigious Cooper Hewitt National Design Award this year

Navone spent her early career working with Italian design doyens such as Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini. Her dedication to the craft of design is reflected in her lively work for brands ranging from Gervasoni and Crate & Barrel to Ercol, with whom she launched a seating collection this year, pictured here

A graduate of industrial design school ENSCI, Sempé - pictured here W*151 - is known for her versatility and lightness of touch. Since opening her studio in 2000, she has established long-term relationships with firms such as Ligne Roset and Wästberg. Her first cutlery collection, Collo-alto for Alessi, launched in Paris this year to rave reviews

Since his breakthrough in 2002 with the outlandish interiors for London restaurant Sketch, Duchaufour-Lawrance’s work has included identities for Air France and Yves Saint Laurent cosmetics, as well as furniture for Bernhardt Design and Ceccotti Collezioni, and lighting for Baccarat and Gaia & Gino.

Wired from the outset thanks to early chandelier collaborations with Ron Arad, Hussein Chalayan and Zaha Hadid, Waldemeyer’s work has tracked the LED’s rise as a source of entertainment. His technical background helps keep him on the cutting edge, with installations ranging from the wearable to the truly immersive

His latest monograph features a preface by Tom Ford and a forward by Zaha Hadid, but with a career that spans more than 60 years, the German-born Kagan has plenty of famous admirers to call upon. A prolific midcentury furniture designer with a sinuous style, this year he added a must-read blog to his many talents

Kitchen-design genius Wangen first turned heads with Boffi’s ‘K2’ monoblock, with a steel top that concealed the cooking system and slid out to become a dining table. He is currently reviving this own line with the minimalist ‘Forever’ kitchen, and he co-designed The Flushing Meadows Hotel & Bar, opened in Munich last year.

Hong Kong-based since 2006, Young has successfully married Chinese manufacturing capacity to his refined Old World design aesthetic. This combination is seen to best effect in his watch ranges, in his re-engineered Moke beach buggy and this year’s James Irvine-inspired ‘Chelsea Boy’ glass for WonderGlass.

Increasingly, the success of Jouin’s interior design agency JouinMankin is pulling him away from product design. His two-year refurbishment of a Saint-Lazare priory was shortlisted for a Wallpaper* Design Award, while the latest incarnation of his Rivea restaurant for Alain Ducasse opens in Las Vegas next month

Another year, another Red Dot award for Massaud, for a work chair and ottoman series for Coalesse. In recent years, the French designer has also completed some ambitious architectural projects and, for this year’s Salone, his first perfume as part of Brera’s Garden of Wonders exhibition (pictured)

The designs of Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard sit in foyers, museums, stores, restaurants, hotels and private collections around the world, a sensuous fusion of form and rigour. At this year’s London Design Festival, the duo marked ten years since their first major collection with new pieces for David Gill Gallery, pictured here

The husband-and-wife team celebrated 21 years of their design partnership Palomba Serafini this year. The pair turn their hand to everything from lamps and bathtubs to super yachts, and recently completed the first standalone Kartell by Laufen showroom, in Milan, in part to showcase their own collection

Texan designer Hunt founded her eponymous company in 1984, and it went on to become one of America’s finest design brands, collaborating with the likes of Lindsey Adelman and Christian Astuguevieille. In 2014, Knoll acquired Holly Hunt enterprises for $95m, starting a new chapter in the history of the brand.

Pictured: 'Angelika’ sofa

Hutten set up his studio in 1991, joining the Droog collective two years later. His work follows a ‘no sign of design’ notion, making for functional objects permeated by a playful, conceptual attitude, and features in the permanent collections of museums such as the Stedelijk in Amsterdam and the Vitra Design Museum

Having worked as a model and bag designer for Raf Simons, Verheyden veered into home accessories in 2009 with his wife, Saartje Vereecke. His simple forms allow his rich materials to speak for themselves, and encourage users to appreciate the rituals of daily life. Collaborators include Joseph Dirand and Rick Owens.

Anglo-Indian duo Jonathan Levien and Nipa Doshi draw inspiration globally. Standout pieces include a cabinet for BD Barcelona that nods to the corrugated roofs of shanty dwellings and an armchair for Hay structured like a Japanese hand fan. They also rebranded cosmetics label Madina.

Pillet honed his skills with Michele de Lucchi and Philippe Starck before setting up his own studio. Along with curvaceous furnishings for the likes of Modus, Porro and Tacchini, he has also created sumptuous spaces for hotels in France (pictured is his makeover of Hotel Pullman Paris Eiffel Tower) and Morocco, and transformed Lancel’s retail presence around the world

Industrial designer Rasmussen is brand director at Neal Feay, which specialises in anodised aluminium creations. The firm has collaborated with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Dior and Design Miami, and most recently produced a digitalised ocean wave for this year’s London Design Festival at Somerset House, pictured

Working under the studio name Ora ïto, Ito Morabito has amassed a portfolio as substantive as that of any French designer. His re-imagining of the rooftop gym of Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse into art space MAMO made him the natural choice to design Cassina’s beautiful LC50 tribute to the architect for D’Days 2015 in Paris.

Having given Dutch Design capital letters, Droog has grown into a mini-empire. Co-founder Renny Ramakers opened the one-bedroom Hotel Droog concept in Amsterdam in 2012, a store and gallery in Hong Kong in 2013 and published an anthology last year. In 2015, her mini hardware store concept turned heads at Salone

Furniture is rarely as refined as that created by Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen, with their rigorously austere pieces evolving naturally out of their creative backgrounds (his in sculpture, hers in photography). A colourful furniture and lighting collection for London’s Viaduct gallery this year hinted at a future direction.

Grawunder worked with Ettore Sottsass before going solo in 2001. She designs installations, interiors and objects, as well as pieces for the likes of Glas Italia and Boffi. She has a light installation at Robert, at the Museum of Art and Design in New York, and has had solo shows at Paris’ Carpenters Workshop Gallery.

Gitta Gschwendtner’s ‘Chair Bench’, which unites six iconic chairs from different eras and matches up their tops and bottoms randomly, is emblematic of her experimental approach to furniture. She has also designed exhibitions and is contributing to a new cancer centre for Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London

Parisian legend Pergay (sitting on the far left) continues to create in her eighties. She defined hi-luxe design before the current generation was even born (Dior, Hermès, Pierre Cardin and Fendi were all early adopters), and her vast back catalogue of curvaceous stainless steel designs has never been more coveted on the international auction circuit

Founded in 2006, the studio of Ralph Nauta and Lonneke Gordijn creates poetic works that tap into technology and nature. The duo’s Shylight installation at the Rijksmuseum, pictured, is shortlisted for a Dutch Design Award, while their kinetic glass installation for this year’s Venice Art Biennale explored human’s desire to fly

A furniture collection for Arflex Japan saw the quintessentially luxe designer experimenting with high-tech modelling systems to elegant effect. A former head of visual communications for Louis Vuitton, he set up his studio in 2000, creating crisply detailed interiors for the likes of Tacchini, Glas Italia and Ethimo

The line-up might change more often than a 1970s prog rock band (the studio started as a foursome in 2004, became a trio in 2009, and turned duo in 2014) but the work continues to intrigue. They bring a strong playful sensibility to their designs, creating products for the likes of Moooi, Thonet, Kartell, Moroso and Porro

The radical oeuvre of Israeli-born Benshetrit includes the shattered and reassembled ‘Vase of Phases’ for Rosenthal, and the brilliantly plumed ‘Peacock Chair’ for Cappellini. He also created an island of luxury residences in Abu Dhabi, the chic SoHo Synagogue in Manhattan, and is venturing into skyscraper design

Craig Bassam and Scott Fellows are masters of understated luxury. Their eponymous furniture line unites modernist architectural principles and artisanal production, and they have also collaborated with Bally, Herman Miller and Geiger. The duo launched a lifestyle gallery in Milan last year, and recently introduced a clothing collection, pictured

Stylist and designer Toogood imagined two opposite set-ups at this year’s London Design Festival – a cloakroom containing 150 compressed foam coats at the V&A, pictured, and a redrafted drawing room at Somerset House. Her client list includes Hermès, Tom Dixon and Comme des Garçons

Crafted in copper, hand-blown glass, brass and knotted rope, Adelman’s lighting designs have evoked everything from celestial bodies to sea creatures. The Manhattanite takes a hands-on approach and this summer created a music video to showcase her latest collection

The Brazilian designer spent his formative years working with Sergio Rodrigues before opening his studio in 2011. Recently named Maison & Objet Americas Designer of the Year 2015, he works mainly in wood and metal, producing furniture for his eponymous brand. This year saw new pieces in wood for Espasso (pictured) and his first monograph

Chan set up lighting design studio Isometrix in 1984. With a rare grasp of lighting technology, he has enhanced spaces such as Georges at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Wolseley in London, The Gramercy Park Hotel in New York, pictured, and The Upper House in Hong Kong. Among his collaborators are Jean Nouvel and Zaha Hadid.

Borrowing from a medieval armour-making technique, RCA graduate Hasan developed an acclaimed furniture range in hardened leather, which then translated into a Wallpaper* Handmade project with Poltrona Frau and a mannequin project for Fendi. He has also collaborated with Kvadrat and British interiors brand Linley

French designer Matali Crasset’s showstopping offering at this year’s Salone was the mobile ‘Self-made’ seat for Campeggi, which reimagined the sofa as a series of individual modules that could be carried like suitcases. She followed that up with a tabletop set that included impossibly understated, sycamore plates

A pioneer in the integration of technology and domestic design, French designer Lehanneur was this year appointed head of the Paris-based Aesthetics Research Centre of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, the world’s third largest smartphone manufacturer. A 20-sided wireless speaker for Binauric was another 2015 coup.

Pictured: an otherworldly set for Audemars Piguet at Art Basel 2014

Making everyday objects special, Bergne’s hits include his ‘Dizzy’ glass, with a conical base that gives a spinning effect, and the stackable and infinitely adaptable ‘Square’ chair for Tog. His broad output also includes a hot milk service for culinary think-tank Milk Factory, and the torch for 2015’s first ever European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan

Alonso’s work (stackable steel cutlery for Italesse, reclaimed wood chairs for the V&A and folding tables for Cos and Hay) belie his intellectual design process. He creates products that are understated, poetic and functional, and was one of the winners of this year’s Swarovski Designers of the Future Award.

Midwesterner Bernett’s foray into design began with a chance encounter with Le Corbusier’s ‘LC4’. His ‘Metropolitan’ and ‘Tulip’ for B&B Italia, pictured, which pay homage to Ejnar Larsen and Eero Saarinen, are among the best selling chairs in the US. He has also worked for Cappellini, Ligne Roset and Design Within Reach

Marigold is best known for artfully awry shelves assembled from branches and crates, and metal homewares that take on wooden patterns. His eclectic client list ranges from Oyuna to Paul Smith and Sony, and recent work includes bowls and cups for Meissen, and galvanised steel shelving for SCP.

Pictured: Split series, 2007

Azambourg has put himself at the forefront of material technology with fibre-optic lamps for Galerie Kreo, a leather-and-foam briefcase for Hermès weighing only 700g, and seating for Cappellini created with the same techniques as Bugatti racing cars. He recently launched his own label, Auto-Edition

Bracher trained in New York and Copenhagen, led Tom Dixon’s design studio and was then creative director for Georg Jensen. Cindy Crawford’s beauty mark informed his ‘Tod’ table for Zanotta. Having lent his talents to Herman Miller, Humanscale and 3M, he is now lauded as the future of American design

Slovenian product and interior designer Zupanc’s work is witty, visually delightful and pristine. Her commissions include Moooi and Moroso, and her ongoing collaboration with Sè was unveiled in Milan last year and expanded with new pieces in 2015. She also has her own brand of precious and whimsical furniture

Willenz, who founded his Brussels studio in 2004, has an industrial, minimalist style, making him a favourite of Established & Sons, Cappellini and Hay. This year he worked with marble brand Retegui on a series of mirrors (pictured), shelves and accessories, and created bold, geometric rugs for Ligne Roset, Menu and Nodus

Vivid colour is the signature of Italian designer Lenti, who founded her eponymous company in 1994 after training in graphics. Cheerful forms and high-tech fabrics (often designed in-house) have made her one of the most sought-after names in garden furniture. She has just released a line of rugs with Maharam

De la Fontaine trained with Richard Sapper and worked with Piero Lissoni and Patricia Urquiola before founding design collective Dante-Goods and Bads with his wife Aylin Langreuter in 2012 (pictured is a table from the brand). He has also worked for Rosenthal, among others, for whom his timeless ‘Format’ collection remains a best seller

Stockholm-based Italian designer Nichetto has worked for a host of major brands. His impressive 2015 output includes the ‘Nick’ bed for Molteni & C (pictured), the ‘Plass’ light for Foscarini and silvered-glass side tables for Verreum, all shown in Milan, plus an installation of new lamps for Swedish company Hem at the London Design Festival

Park’s poetic pieces are crafted from slabs of translucent resin, tinged in block colours and seamlessly joined, providing a thoughtful meditation on purity and ambiguity. The South Korean designer splits his time between Rotterdam and Paris, where he recently had a solo show at Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery, pictured

Tiles are generally the bottom feeders in the design world, standing on the very last rung in a long rank of product that deserves the attention of the world’s top architects and industrial designers. An exception to this rule is the Italian ceramic maker Mutina who in the span of just ten years has attracted a kilowatt-like clan of designers into its roster, including Patricia Urquiola, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, and Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby.  

'We started with Patricia in 2008,' says Mutina CEO Massimo Orsini. 'It took forever to even get an appointment with her, but then she got it immediately. Now she and the other designers realise that we do things differently; we bring design to ceramics.'  

The latest to be lured into this promise is Konstantin Grcic. Though the German designer is famed for his chairs, lights and furnishings, he’d never designed ceramics before. 'It’s a completely new world,' he said by phone from Fiorano, where Mutina was celebrating their 10th anniversary with an exhibit in their Angelo Mangiarotti-designed industrial headquarters. 'I’m very much a product designers. I never work on architectural elements — the walls and floors are always a given. So there was something very elementary but also very radical about tiles.'

Grcic cut squared tiles of 30x30cm and 60x60cm that each feature a different, partially glazed geometric form on the surface that creates a half raw, half finely glossed effect. The tiles come in six different earthy tones.     

'80 per cent of production of ceramics today are made from fake wood, or fake stone and it’s extremely annoying,' adds Ronan Bouroullec, who together with his brother Erwan also presented a new collection for Mutina, their second for the company. 'But now Mutina has entered in this field with a new direction, great quality and they’re such a big success.' 

Entitled 'Rombini', the Bouroullec brother’s tiles required two years of research and are composed of three models: tiles, mosaics and relief elements that can all be used together to create unusual surfaces. 

'The [Bouroullec’s designs] are very particular, but they follow their wonderful poetry, while Grcic’s are very rigorous and geometric,' Orsini remarks of the new collections.  'All of our work involves techniques that are never used anymore. The degree of difficulty is very high,but that’s also what makes us unique.'

Ever restless, Wallpaper* Handmade upped its perfectly proportioned sticks again this year, installing itself (well, we helped) in a semi-retired stretch of Milanese store fronts to create the Wallpaper* Arcade. We were determined that this year's Handmade event be the biggest, best and most bountiful yet. And so it was; not least our opening bash, now well established as Salone's swingingest party.

This year we were joined by Tom Dixon, Patricia Urquiola, Konstantin Grcic, Philippe Malouin, Maurizio Cattelan and many other luminaries who enjoyed the more interactive elements of this year's exhibition: including the Wallpaper* nail bar; live hair styling by the legendary Jimo Salako; and the remarkable 'Rotunda Seronita' snack bar, dispensing not only savoury treats but their own handmade cherry wood trays.

Of course, such scale and ambition does not come easy and we again have to thank the many friends, old and new, who provided invaluable assistance and supplies. The champagne flowed freely thanks to Veuve Clicquot, whose Re-creation Awards installation of re-imagined mail boxes proved a particular favourite, while Royal Salute served wonderful whisky at their remarkable 'Neolithic' bar, designed by Studio Mackereth and crafted by Jack Badger. The highest-grade grappa came courtesy of Nonino (try saying that after a few glasses) whilst beer was supplied by San Miguel (summer in a bottle as far we're concerned).

Given this year's culinary theme, the catering had to impress and we served up a monumental stretch of Italian favourites, including generous dollops of organic panettone gelato from local favourites, Grom. We also flew in St John sous chef Arnold Hoeksma who cooked up bone marrow pizza at the Emeco space while the young craftsmen Josh Fisher bent, beat and shaped metal into unique editions of Jasper Morrison's 'Alfi' chair.

The Wallpaper* Arcade – a collaborative effort in the best tradition of Handmade – was brightened by Kvadrat's spectacular multi-colour colonnade as well as the multidisciplinary delights of d3 Dubai Design District; the contemporary crafted carpets of AfghanMade; and Gufram's prickly pop-up lounge.

Finally, a huge thank you to the event sponsors, Veuve Clicquot, Hästens and Monoqi Business, and, of course, Leclettico's Claudio Loria, whose ambition and drive matches our own.

Philippe Starck, Patricia Urquiola, Ron Arad and M/M (Paris) were among the glittery, and largely well-behaved, guests at the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2015 party. Held at auction house Bonhams’ thoroughly modern New Bond Street sales room, guests sipped, never guzzled, champagne - Veuve Clicquot if you ask - and tackled ‘chinmi’, Japanese delicacies served in miniature takeaway cartons, just like the ones in the movies. (Peroni and Glenmorangie cocktails, including a smoky, pokey Yuzu whisky sour were also much enjoyed).

The exhibition design, by the generously talented friend of Wallpaper* Gary Card, gloriously showed off a selection of this year’s design winners while main sponsor BMW managed to squeeze its eye-catchingly curvy electric sports car, the i8, through the door (and parked the punchier, more pugnacious i3 outside). Tunes, as we heard them described, were provided by DJs Lou Hayter and Yasmina Dexter, who looked lovely on duty as did the waiting staff from the Cellar Society, decked out head-to-foot in G-Star, this year’s Best Denim winners.

Explore the Design Awards exhibition at Bonhams auction house

Guests left with a bulging goodie bag, which included: products from London Fields Soap Company, 'Moustache Wax' by Neville for Barber & Parlour, and 'Volcanic Ash Wax' by Windle & Moodie, all winners in our Best For Men Only category; a BMW laptop cover; a specially-made miniature pot of Negroni marmalade by Melbourne gin distiller Four Pillars, a winner in our Best Breakfast in Bed category; and a Wallpaper* City Guide of this year’s Best City, Tokyo. More committed guests took their haul to the Awards after-party, upstairs at L’Escargot. And after that, frankly, the details get blurred.

In time for its fifth anniversary, the Mandarin Oriental in Barcelona is expanding to include a further 17 suites, housed in a modernist building next door. Once again outfitted by Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola, the new suites feature warming woods, tactile upholstery and a palette of greys with lime-green accents, while the furniture is a mix of bespoke pieces by Studio Urquiola, along with Flos lamps, Moroso sofas and tables, and 'Husk' chairs for B&B Italia. Each suite comes with a private butler and lift access, but for the best experience, we recommend the signature Barcelona suite, which comes complete with its own outdoor Jacuzzi and solarium.

ADDRESS

38-40 Passeig de Gracia
Barcelona
Spain

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The most crucial creative moment in the development of Patricia Urquiola's new office furniture line occurred during her first meeting with the behemoth American producer Haworth over two years ago.

'I remember we were in a huge room with an immense conference table,' recalls the Milan-based designer, 'and the worst thing is that I was sitting on one side and they on the other side - so far away. I couldn't speak in this condition.'

Urquiola remedied the situation by jumping up from her seat and running around the table to sit eye to eye with her American colleagues, where she was then able to converse, sketch and interact.

This close encounter began the creative process for Openest, a line of office furnishings that debuted this week at Chicago's NeoCon design expo and swiftly won Best in Show out of 410 competitors.

Urquiola's idea is simple yet radical - especially for a company like Haworth, which did $1.4 billion in traditional office furniture sales last year. Rather than focus on the classic table schematic designed for large-scale offices, her designs are conceived to improve and foster communication and collaboration. The collection features sofas, pouf seating, tables and space-dividing screens, all of which function as flexible design elements that can be configured in a multitude of ways for both open or conventional work spaces. 

With fabric backs that create a cocoon effect and a reliance on soft textiles that recall the comforts of home, the pieces adapt to their environment, becoming as relevant for small team gatherings as for solitary moments of reflection.

Urquiola was inspired by the less rigid creative environments she has had the opportunity to work for in her career, but also by the informal ways in which Europeans tend to work spontaneously.
 
'America needs our [European design] approach,' she says, firmly. 'We work in a way that is closer, warmer and less formal, so it's easier for us to communicate.'

'Plus,' she adds, 'when people come to work, they need to feel good.'

Italian shoemaker Santoni has opened a new Patricia Urquiola-designed flagship store in Milan - perfectly timed to lure in the Fashion Week footfall.

The Via Montenapoleone space is instilled with the Spanish design doyenne's customary dash of geometry. A modular grid of brass display units lines the store, made from brass that has been etched and brushed for extra tactility in a nod to the footwear purveyor's emphasis on craftsmanship. Meanwhile, bronzed glass brings in warmth to the two different volumes - dedicated to men's and women's collections - as does polished walnut panelling.

The store is decked out with furniture designed by Urquiola herself. Some of the pieces have been pulled from her archives, such as the Molteni chairs, while others are bespoke furnishings (including the central display table).

Santoni's new boutique is its first collaboration with Urquiola but the venture's legacy will be far-reaching. In testament to the Spaniard's design prowess, the brand has announced that future stores will be modelled on her concept.

ADDRESS

6 Via Montenapoleone
20121 Milano

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