Design

Design

Blending traditional English, modern, and Italian styles, Cotton aimed to decorate the 19th-century town house "as if they'd inherited the home from a kooky Italian nonna with fabulous taste," he told AD during the February 2023 home tour. Bold Pierre Frey carpets, tiger striped upholstery, intricate moldings, and brightly patterned wallpapers are among the home's lush details. "Lily is someone who lives with color in a deeper way than most. Her taste is bold, silly, fun, eccentric-it's exciting," Harbour told AD at the time.

In fact, the one Carlo Ratti Associati has designed can source its own energy, collect its own water, and support basic needs without outside help. It is because the design team used digital technology to study the local environment and build the structure so it fits well into the Alpine setting. They started it with a 3D scan of real rock formations in the Alps, where the scan captured the shape, size, and angles of the rocks

Early in my career, I was fortunate to cross paths with a mentor who changed how I saw design-and myself. He ran a small studio whose influence reached far beyond its size. He led with a quiet confidence and quick wit, showing how intelligence and humility could coexist in the creative process. I was passionate about the craft, but there was still so much more to learn about the tools.

The EDGEOFYØR Seat represents the perfect marriage of conceptual art and functional furniture, challenging everything we think we know about comfort and Halloween aesthetics. This limited-edition piece transforms Fyrn's award-winning Mariposa chair into a theatrical statement by removing over 80% of the seating surface, leaving only the precarious edge intact. The result feels simultaneously terrifying and beautiful, embodying the kind of design risk that separates true collectors from casual decorators.

A color space is perceptually uniform if a change of length in any direction X of the color space is perceived by a human as the same change. Non-uniform perceptual color spaces like RGB and RYB can have stark contrasts when transitioning from one hue to another hue. In data visualization, these contrasts can be mistaken as changes in the data rather than as transitions in the color palette.

Open to the public since May 10, 2025, the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale has entered its final month before closing on November 23. Curated by Italian architect Carlo Ratti, this edition, titled "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective." has brought together over 750 participants across 65 national pavilions and 11 collateral events, making it one of the most expansive editions in the Biennale's history.

October 2025 has been absolutely incredible for tiny home enthusiasts. We've seen designs that push boundaries, challenge conventions, and prove that small spaces can deliver big on style and functionality. These aren't your typical cookie-cutter tiny houses cramming everything into a loft bedroom. Instead, we're looking at homes that solve real problems and create genuinely livable spaces. What strikes me most about this month's standout designs is how each one tackles a different challenge in tiny living.

Launched in 2017 and co-curated by Make Architects, Sir John Soane's Museum, and the World Architecture Festival (WAF), the Prize celebrates the art and skill of architectural drawing across multiple modes of creation. Sponsored by Iris Ceramica Group and supported by ArchDaily as media partner, this year's edition attracted a record number of more than 200 submissions from around the world.

Villa Familia is a tropical biophilic getaway in a gated Parsi neighborhood in Lonavala, India. The family's brief was to create a generational home nurturing togetherness, balancing intimacy with openness. The home has a dual personality, externally a modern architectural figurine punctuated with greens, while internally adorned with ancestral Parsi heirlooms. The house seeks a dialogue between landscape and built form, wherein the verandahs and balconies become pivotal transient spaces in the tropics.

The Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction has announced the 20 winning projects of the 2025 Holcim Foundation Awards, recognizing contributions to sustainable design and construction across five regions: Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and North America. This year's selection spans a broad range of scales, from a 200-square-meter semi-permanent school in a Kenyan forest to major urban regeneration initiatives in Madrid, Dhaka, and Shenzhen, reflecting the diversity and reach of sustainable architecture today.

Somewhere in the Swiss Alps, at the end of a meandering lane within Valai's French-speaking region, sits Chalet Cocagne. Nestled between pasture and peak, the home also finds itself suspended between tradition and full transformation. Originally built in the 1970s, the structure's bones belonged to an era of low ceilings and small apertures, tasked to protect its inhabitants from inclement weather. It has since been reimagined by interior designer Marianne Tiegen as a modern residence inviting light, landscape, and layered textures beyond the threshold

In the architecture of modern visual culture, Peter Max occupies the intersection between image and ideology. His work absorbed the turbulence of the twentieth centurythe migrations, the media revolutions, the cosmic ambitions of the postwar worldand returned it to the public as color made conscious. To study Max is to study the aesthetics of optimism, rendered with the precision of a scholar and the audacity of a mystic.

Constructive Deconstruction by architect Siyu Zhu examines how processes of construction and dismantling can shape new forms of public space on Manhattan's waterfront. The project positions architecture as a transitory system rather than a fixed object, drawing from utilitarian structures such as scaffolding and fencing. These elements are reinterpreted as mediators between body, structure, and landscape. Focusing on the Lower West Side, the proposal introduces two temporal interventions across distinct urban sites:

At Borna-Park, life and work are intimately intertwined with the landscape.

I already use vertical storage throughout my home (like these wall-mounted hanging produce baskets), but I'd never thought to give the same treatment to a drawer organizer. As Christina Dennis demonstrates on her blog, Cozy DIY Home, a cutlery tray makes an unexpectedly perfect wall-mounted jewelry station. The compartments are ready-made for sorting delicate pieces, and the narrow shape fits in small spaces like a closet or bathroom nook.

It began with the forging of the Great Roles. Three were given to the Product Designers - immortal, wisest, and fairest of all creators. Seven to the Engineers - great builders and architects of the digital halls. And nine... nine roles were gifted to the race of Marketers, who above all else, desire reach and engagement. For within these roles was bound the skill and the will to shape the modern web.

Along the northern coast of Norway, the Lofoten archipelago extends into the sea, looking outward to the peaks, fjords, and inlets shaped by ice and wind. On Storemolla island, Danish design brand Vipp has unveiled its latest guesthouse - a timber structure designed by LOGG ARKITEKTER that perches lightly atop an array of stilts above the shoreline. Part of the new True North Lofoten Village, the cabin joins a series of contemporary lodgings masterplanned by Snøhetta, where architecture and landscape coexist in deliberate balance.

The fascination for all things Middle Eastern was part of a larger art and design philosophy known as the Aesthetic Movement. It began with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of the 1850s, grew to encompass William Morris and fellow designers and artists, evolved into the British Arts and Crafts movement, and ended with Art Nouveau in the first decades of the 20th century. The Aesthetic Movement began in Great Britain, but soon spread to other parts of Europe

Construction has concluded on the Grand Canal Gateway Bridge in Hangzhou, a new pedestrian and cyclist crossing by Zaha Hadid Architects. When it opens later this year, the bridge will unite the east and west banks of the Grand Canal, anchoring the 800,000-square-meter Seamless City masterplan and serving as the centerpiece of River Middle Park, an expansive 14.7-hectare public landscape along the water.

Urban Petranovic + 21 More SpecsLess Specs Urban Petranovic Text description provided by the architects.

Juzen Chemical Corporation, founded in 1950 in Toyama City, is a contract manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Situated between the Jintsu River and the Fugan Canal within an industrial park, the company decided to consolidate its dispersed offices, meeting rooms, and cafeteria into a new headquarters. The new building not only addresses operational efficiency but also reflects Toyama's natural environment and cultural heritage, while offering a workplace that enhances employee well-being and connects with the surrounding community.

If you need any proof that big things come in small packages, just look at a powder room. Though this small room doesn't have the most generous footprint - oftentimes, there's only enough room for a toilet and sink - it has the potential to be the perfect "jewel box" moment. You know, a place to take a step away from your home's typical aesthetic and think outside of the box.

While many historic trends should probably stay in the past, the best beanbag chairs are one item making a very welcome comeback. These playful pieces of furniture emerged on the design scene in the late 1960s when Italy's Zanotta Design commissioned Cesare Paolini, Piero Gatti, and Franco Teodoro to design the first beanbag chair. It quickly took off from there, becoming a laid-back fixture in basements and living rooms across the world.

When designing your dream kitchen, there's no better place to look for kitchen design tips than Martha Stewart. She's a kitchen design genius who has designed more than a dozen kitchens for her properties alone, with some of her properties boasting multiple kitchens. Over time, she's found what does and doesn't work for her, opting for kitchen concepts that are classically elegant and highly functional.

Plans have been announced for Dubai's first art museum, a private initiative called the Dubai Museum of Art (DUMA). Designed by architect Tadao Ando, the five-storey building will be built on an artificial jetty in Dubai Creek and shaped like a curved shell. The museum is a project from the Al Futtaim Group, a major Dubai conglomerate with a portfolio including car brands, consumer goods and consumer financial services.

At the end of the day, designers say you should always trust your instincts if you find yourself gravitating toward a vintage piece. "It's all about personality and curation," says Kerrie Kelly, CEO and creative director of Kerrie Kelly Studio. "[Thrifted] pieces bring authenticity, craftsmanship, and a sense of story that new items often can't replicate. They allow you to create spaces that feel evolved over time, rather than purchased in a single afternoon."

Tomas Jelinek designed the chest of drawers in 1995 after being inspired by the "somewhat bulbous, bow-shaped drawer fronts on Baroque and Rococo chests of drawers," according to IKEA. While they were being produced, Tomas used plastic to create the fronts, which gave them an almost wavy shape, and they came in fun colors (red being the most popular). Emily has the green version of the IKEA VAJER in her primary bedroom.

These skulls, though, are only the latest in a decades-long trend that, according to United States Patent and Trademark Office records, saw the rate of skulls and skeletons in American logos increase by a factor of almost seven from the 1980s to the 2010s. Throughout the last decade, skulls and skeletons appeared in nearly one of every 200 new U.S. logos, a number that has dipped only slightly in the 2020s.