With tiny unicorns, rocking horses, shrimp, skulls, lips, and sneakers, Cj Hendry’s newest exhibition is a mélange of roughly a million pastel beads that reference the artist’s visual world. On view at Salon 94 Design on New York’s Upper East Side from August 6-16, the aptly named Pastel invites visitors to interact with the art by reaching (or diving?) into a vast, swimming pool-sized pit of chunky plastic beads.

Photography by Alexis Salas

The impetus for this exhibit was the beading room at Space Club, an indoor children’s play space in Brooklyn, which has a long jewelry-making table with trays of beads. Hendry witnessed children—and adults—throwing themselves into the trays to touch and feel the beads and search for treasures. She decided to make the bead “tray” more accessible by expanding it to approximately 20 by 30 feet and more than two feet deep.

“When I think about it, all of my exhibitions do have a very childlike, play element to them because that’s always where my head goes,” the artist says.

Photography by Alexis Salas

Donning Cj Hendry–branded socks, Pastel visitors can wade through the beads and string together a bracelet or necklace or simply find beads to keep as a souvenir. Beads cost $1 each (or $50 for a canister of 75).

“I bet Salon 94 has never sold art for a dollar,” Hendry quips.

Photography by Alexis Salas

An Instagram sensation with close to a million followers (and counting), Hendry has attracted an alt-audience that might not be the typical gallery-going crowd. “What we’re building with Pastel should not be in Salon 94,” she says. “My world… as an ‘artist’ and Salon 94 as this proper, mega, real gallery colliding is just absurd.” But that’s part of the reason why the renowned gallery struck her as an ideal location for this installation.

Photography by Alexis Salas

“Salon 94 Design understands the importance of experimentation and audience connection,” she says. “This exhibition creates a bridge between the world I’ve built and a more traditional gallery context.”

Beyond the bead pit—Pastel’s centerpiece, occupying the entire first floor of the gallery—visitors can also view Hendry’s signature photorealistic drawings and sculptures upstairs.

Photography by Alexis Salas

Pastel is on view until Aug. 16 at Salon 94 Design, 3 E. 89th St. in New York City. The gallery is open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Collectible edition prints featuring the exhibition’s 24 hyper-realistic drawings will be sold on cjhendrystudio.com on Aug. 9 at 7 p.m. ET.

The sky fades into a pink sunset as Lido Pimienta, the Grammy-nominated Colombian Canadian singer-songwriter, belts over the sweeping accompaniment of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. The air feels lighter now that the rain has stopped just in time for the annual Concert in the Garden. At the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) in Burlington, Ontario, about an hour west of Toronto, the musical is expansive, the gardens lush, and just beyond the audience, Ken Kelleher’s newly installed Anchorball: A Curious Art Journey is on view.

Photography courtesy of Royal Botanical Gardens

Alongside its responsibilities in horticulture, conservation, and research, RBG has increasingly embraced its role as an institution that brings people together through art, music, and shared public experiences. As Zahra Noorani, RBG director of business development, explains, these streams don’t always need to overlap—even though in this case, they do. “Sometimes they intersect, and sometimes they simply coexist,” she says.

Photography courtesy of Royal Botanical Gardens

Officially established in 1941, the garden traces its origins to conservation efforts in the western end of Lake Ontario in the late 1920s. Today, the organization encompasses more than 2,400 acres of nature sanctuaries and cultivated gardens, making it Canada’s largest botanical garden.

Photography courtesy of Royal Botanical Gardens

Looking ahead, leadership has become increasingly intentional about broadening the audience that “sees RBG as a place for them” through outdoor art, wellness programming, seasonal festivals, and thoughtfully curated cultural experiences—like Anchorball. The exhibition marks the first Canadian presentation by American artist Ken Kelleher, who has designed a series of storied and personalized characters as monumental sculptures created especially for the garden setting.

Photography courtesy of Royal Botanical Gardens

Curated by RBG’s cultural program development lead, Jeremy Freiburger, Anchorball comprises 18 monumental sculptures—some stretching 12 feet high—distributed throughout the gardens alongside an integrated augmented reality experience. The exhibition unfolds as a walking journey, encouraging visitors to navigate the site differently as sculpture, landscape, and digital media overlap.

Photography courtesy of Royal Botanical Gardens

The gardens themselves informed many of Kelleher’s site-specific interventions. In the Sustainable Rose Garden, the sculptures emerge from carefully composed companion plantings, while elsewhere, brightly colored forms frame long vistas or appear unexpectedly between mature trees. The characters range from cartoonish, bunny-like creatures to serene women’s faces peeking through coiffures of flowers, as well as more minimalist individual blooms with curved, monolithic stems.

Photography courtesy of Royal Botanical Gardens

These characters were modeled digitally in 3D alongside the production of their fiberglass counterparts. The accompanying augmented reality layer introduces animated digital works that can only be activated on site, resulting in a dialogue between the physical landscape and virtual space. In this way, the exhibition encourages visitors to slow down, look more closely—and maybe even smell the roses.

Photography courtesy of Royal Botanical Gardens

For Noorani, the show has also become a test case for how the institution approaches ambitious cultural projects. “Anchorball has definitely stretched us, but in the best way,” she shares. “Bringing an exhibition like this to life meant learning how to work in new ways, building relationships with artists and creative partners, and finding ways for teams across the organization to bring their expertise together. Every project teaches us something, and this one has given us a lot of confidence in what we’re capable of taking on.”

For many public artworks, permanence is the exception rather than the rule. Jen Lewin’s The Ursas, however, has made the uncommon leap from the ephemeral landscape of Burning Man to a permanent installation along Brooklyn’s evolving Gowanus waterfront, where the monumental sculptures now anchor a newly accessible stretch of the canal.

‘The Ursas’ were installed at their new home along the Gowanus Canal on Aug. 1. Photography by Diane Bondareff/AP Content Services for Charney Companies and Tavros.

Installed at Nevins Landing on Aug. 1, the paired sculptures occupy a prominent position between the residential towers and the canal. The development, designed by Fogarty Finger with waterfront landscape architecture by Field Operations, is part of the larger Gowanus Wharf campus. The project adds a new public landmark to a neighborhood undergoing dramatic physical and cultural transformation, as former industrial sites are increasingly giving way to housing, parks, and civic spaces.

Photography by Diane Bondareff/AP Content Services for Charney Companies and Tavros

Inspired by the Ursa Major and Ursa Minor constellations, The Ursas explores ideas of navigation, orientation, and environmental stewardship. The larger of the two works, Ursa Major, rises 30 feet and is constructed from reclaimed ocean plastic originally sourced from Lewin’s 2022 installation The Last Ocean. Visitors can step inside the sculpture, where an infinity-mirrored chamber contains hand-drawn illustrations of species listed as extinct or presumed extinct on the IUCN Red List. Beside it, the 13-foot-tall Ursa Minor is clad in infinity mirrors and programmable LED lighting that creates an ever-shifting sense of depth and reflection.

Photography by Diane Bondareff/AP Content Services for Charney Companies and Tavros

“The Ursas grew out of my research into the melting Ross Ice Shelf while developing The Last Ocean,” Lewin says. “What began as scientific inquiry became a personal reckoning with the scale and speed of environmental change.”

Lewin describes Ursa Minor as “a beacon” seeking the North Star, while Ursa Major carries illustrations honoring recently extinct species. “Together, the works hold two realities at once: grief and responsibility, but also direction,” she explains. “They ask us not only to reflect, but to decide how we move forward.”

Photography by Diane Bondareff/AP Content Services for Charney Companies and Tavros

The installation also marks a notable moment for Gowanus, where public art is increasingly being positioned as part of broader neighborhood redevelopment rather than an afterthought. The Ursas become one of the first permanent artworks to define the identity of the four-building Gowanus Wharf campus. (The project—which will ultimately introduce more than 2,200 residential units along the waterfront—is being developed by Tavros Holdings in partnership with Charney Companies.)

Before arriving at their new home, the sculptures made a dramatic journey across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge before being hoisted over Brooklyn’s Union Street Bridge and lowered into place along the canal. What began as a temporary installation in the Nevada desert in 2023 is now part of the everyday fabric of the city.

Editorial Transparency: This article was developed with the assistance of AI tools, which may have been used for research, outlining, editing, or copy refinement. Reporting, fact-checking, and editorial decisions were made by the Design Milk editorial team.

Public art is meant to be observed, but Sharmistha Ray’s latest commission invites people to actually step into the composition. At Pittsburgh’s new Arts Landing civic space, the artist has transformed a pair of pickleball courts into a colorful geometric mural that doubles as a fully playable surface. Each match becomes part of the artwork itself.

Photography by Ross Ribblett; courtesy Pittsburgh Cultural Trust

Titled Geometry of Play, the installation marks Pittsburgh’s first artist-designed pickleball courts and joins seven other public art commissions at Arts Landing, a new gathering space developed by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. The boundaries of the court serve as the foundation for an abstract composition, which was inspired by the visual logic of historic game boards.

Drawing from board games such as the Indian game Pachisi (later adapted into Parcheesi in the United States), the mural layers interlocking circles, triangles, grids, and pathways into a kaleidoscopic composition. The design spans the full ROYGBIV color spectrum; the rainbow reference serves as a symbol of inclusion while encouraging shifting visual relationships as players move across the surface.

Guests play pickleball at the unveiling of ‘Geometry of Play.’ Photography by Chris Uhren; courtesy of Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.

Geometry of Play changes as the courts are used. The movement of players activates the design, reinforcing pickleball’s reputation as an accessible, social sport while transforming the courts into a shared civic space for recreation and gathering.

The commission continues Ray’s interdisciplinary practice, which spans painting, installation, and public art. Born in Kolkata and raised in Kuwait before moving to the United States, the artist frequently draws from South Asian visual traditions while exploring themes of identity, belonging, and cultural exchange through geometric abstraction.

Photography by Chris Uhren; courtesy of Pittsburgh Cultural Trust

Ray’s recent projects include a large-scale installation at Grand Central Terminal, a commission for Pittsburgh International Airport’s new terminal, and animated works created with an original score by Grammy Award-winning musician Arooj Aftab.

Designed by landscape architecture firm Field Operations, the $31 million Arts Landing development brings together public art, performance, recreation, and community programming in Pittsburgh’s Cultural District. Geometry of Play joins installations by artists including Vanessa German, Thaddeus Mosley, Shikeith, Mikael Owunna and Marques Redd, Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis, Darian Johnson, and John Peña, with the inaugural commissions remaining on view for at least one year.

Photography by Ross Ribblett; courtesy of Pittsburgh Cultural Trust

Arts Landing is free and open to the public daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Editorial Transparency: This article was developed with the assistance of AI tools, which may have been used for research, outlining, editing, or copy refinement. Reporting, fact-checking, and editorial decisions were made by the Design Milk editorial team.

Price Latimer grew up in Texas and lived just a few doors down from the Amarillo Museum of Art. With pieces by Georgia O’Keeffe, Larry Bell, and Louise Nevelson, the museum was a place that shaped her aesthetic sensibility. “Both of my grandmothers would frequently wheel me over in my pram before I could walk, and let me stare for what felt like hours at the permanent collection there,” she says.

Latimer received a bachelor’s degree from Rhode Island School of Design, where she immersed herself in the study of art. While in New York City, she worked for neo-conceptual artist Peter Halley and contributed to his magazine, Index, where she brought her own creative touch to the pages.

After moving to Los Angeles, she worked at local galleries before joining Italian furniture manufacturer Kartell, where she consulted with architects and interior designers to furnish spaces ranging from offices to large-scale hotels. She later co-founded Pizzanista!, a pizza restaurant, and served as its chief creative officer.

Ever the entrepreneur, Latimer co-founded Alkemis Paint in 2021 with Maya Crowne. The company’s all-natural interior paint is formulated with clear quartz paired with proprietary mixes of pigments and minerals.

When Latimer is not focused on day-to-day business, surrounded by color, she can probably be found on a flight headed to an exotic locale. “Exploring the far corners of the globe is one of my great passions, and I’ve been at it for as long as I can remember,” she says. “I relish finding those offbeat, weird hidden gems.”

Today, Price Latimer joins us for Friday Five!

Photography by Price Latimer

1. Leigh Bowery at The Tate Modern

Leigh Bowery lived fast, loud, and without apology, and he is hands down one of my all-time favorite creators. He truly blurs the lines between art and life. In a career that defied every attempt at categorization, Bowery twirled between performer, model, designer, musician, club promoter, and cultural provocateur, treating each identity not as a label but as a new frontier. Emerging from the electric chaos of 1980s London nightlife, he weaponized clothing and makeup as sculpture, turned his body into a constantly evolving canvas, and pushed the limits of aesthetics, sexuality, and gender. This incredibly comprehensive, immersive exhibition at the Tate Modern brought together his iconic “Looks” and his collaborations with Lucian Freud, Nick Knight, Michael Clark, and more, while pulling back the curtain on the creative underground through the eyes of the friends, freaks, and fellow visionaries.

Photography by Price Latimer

2. Palo Duro Canyon

I grew up in the Texas Panhandle, not far from Palo Duro Canyon, one of the most underrated natural wonders in the United States. It’s the second-largest canyon in the country behind the Grand Canyon, and hardly anyone knows about it! Roughly 25 to 40 miles long with an average width of 6 miles, it reaches up to 20 miles wide in places. Millennia of water erosion have shaped its geological formations, including caves and hoodoos (which inspired Alkemis Paint color number 53). The stunning color striations of oxidized red, maroon, grey, yellow, cream, and lavender are formed by layers of siltstone, shale, gypsum, evaporite, opal, caliche, and sandstone. Inhabited by humans for 10,000–15,000 years, it is deeply tied to the history of the Comanches, serving as a historic stronghold for the Quahadi band. Georgia O’Keeffe also painted the canyon between 1916 and 1918, when she was an art instructor at a nearby college, prior to her move to New Mexico.

Photography by Price Latimer

3. The Lightning Field by Walter de Maria

I was honored and fortunate to visit the incomparable land art work The Lightning Field by Walter de Maria (commissioned by Dia Art Foundation in 1977) in southern New Mexico a few years back with a handful of friends. It consists of 400 stainless steel poles with solid, pointed tips arranged in a rectangular 1-mile by 1-kilometer grid. De Maria scoured the Southwest for over five years before settling on this stunning site. Although photography of the artwork itself isn’t permitted, I’m sharing a photograph of the landscape. You’re dropped off at a remote homestead cabin in the high desert outside of Quemado, New Mexico. The vistas are colossal, and you can see for what feels like an eternity in every direction. Sitting down for sunset, we arranged ourselves in a semicircle looking out toward the horizon, watching the sun dip below the mountains. We collectively shared a meditative moment, and when we opened our eyes, there was literally a half-circle of rabbits in a mirrored formation, looking back at us. Unforgettable… as were the night skies!

Photography by Price Latimer

4. Scuba Diving

I’ve been scuba diving since I was in my early teens, and I am completely obsessed. It is one of the most unbelievable and surreal feelings to enter this completely magical alternate reality, a veritable underwater kingdom. It goes without saying that I’m a huge proponent of ocean conservation (one of the underlying tenets of Alkemis Paint’s mission to keep harmful petrochemical-based paint out of our oceans and waterways). Being able to temporarily experience the unique, kaleidoscopic sea creatures, coral, reefs, and underwater landscapes up close makes it all the more poignant and urgent that we must protect, defend, and preserve this fragile and irreplaceable ecosystem.

Photography by Price Latimer

5. Yoko Ono’s Cleaning Piece III

From Yoko Ono’s collected book called Acorn, which contains 100 brief thought experiments. I think this is pretty self-explanatory and is a beautiful mantra on how to live a more compassionate, kind and empathetic life. Yoko has been an intrepid force in art and music throughout her 60-plus-year career.

Works by Alkemis

Photography courtesy of RISD Museum

1. RISD Museum

Because it’s my alma mater, it’s such an honor to participate in anything related to Rhode Island School of Design. It holds the future of the best creative minds and is constantly pushing the envelope of innovative design, so we were thrilled to collaborate on the paint palette for the Liz Collins: Motherlode exhibition, celebrating the work of the queer feminist artist known for her bold abstract patterns, inventive use of materials, and radical experiments with fiber.

Photography by Joyce Billett

2. Design Miami

Our favorite art fair of all time, and a dream come true to be part of it these last three years. It was the very first palpable thing we manifested when we started this business together, so seeing it come true never stops feeling like a pinch-me moment. We worked closely with the team to develop custom and handpicked paint palettes to colorfully complement and harmonize the curatorial narrative.

Photography by Logan Jackson

3. Objects USA

This gradient was out of control (shout out to muralist Nick Kuszyk for executing this)! It took what was displayed to a whole new level, accentuating nearly 100 works by 55 artists, designers, and studios from across the US. The exhibition walls were painted with Alkemis Paint in a curated color palette developed in conjunction with R & Company, using meticulous gradient decorative painting techniques as a deliberate antidote to the customary white box, setting the atmosphere with vibrant visual innuendo to guide attendees through the curatorial chronology.

Photography by Joe Kramm

4. Joe Kramm’s Farmhouse

Joe is an incredibly talented photographer specializing in art, design, and interiors. We are proud to call him a friend and so grateful to be part of this spectacular 1902 waterfront Pennsylvania farmhouse; it features Alkemis Paint throughout.

Photography by Joe Kramm; courtesy of Roberto Lugo and R & Company

5. Roberto Lugo

Roberto is a Puerto Rican-American ceramicist, activist, and poet who reimagines classical porcelain and pottery. Hearing him speak about the social justice messages in his work brought us to tears. It’s been incredible to watch his success and to play even a very small part in his journey as the vibrant backdrop to some of his exhibitions.

Alex Proba and Salehe Bembury speak different design languages. The founder of StudioPROBA moves fluidly between murals, interiors, furniture, and public art to build exuberant compositions rooted in emotion and color. Bembury, meanwhile, has become one of contemporary footwear’s most recognizable designers, translating fingerprints, topography, and organic textures into highly coveted sneakers and products. Yet despite working in different disciplines, both have long shared an interest in how color and pattern shape the way people experience an object.

Salehe Bembury and Alex Proba with their new collection, Soft Imprints. Photography courtesy of Alex Proba and Salehe Bembury.

That common ground forms the basis of Soft Imprints, the duo’s second collaboration (Absorbed Language launched in 2021). The limited-edition collection of rugs and pillows combines Bembury’s signature fingerprint motif with Proba’s abstract forms and saturated palettes, creating tactile pieces that feel like functional furnishings as much as collectible works.

Photography courtesy of Alex Proba and Salehe Bembury.

Rather than treating pattern as decoration, the collection uses repetition, texture, and color to create movement across woven surfaces. Two rug designs and two pillow styles merge the designers’ visual vocabularies into what feels less like a mash-up than a natural evolution of individual ideas.

“I’ve always believed that objects should make you feel something,” Proba says. “With Soft Imprints, we wanted every piece to feel joyful, tactile, and full of life.”

Photography courtesy of Alex Proba and Salehe Bembury.

That emotional dimension has long been central to Proba’s practice, which spans painting, interiors, sculpture, and public installations. For Bembury, whose work frequently draws inspiration from nature and the human touch, the collaboration reflects a shared confidence in intuition over trends.

“I’ve always admired how fearless Alex is with color,” Bembury says. “We both trust our instincts, and that’s a much more interesting place to start than a trend forecast.”

Color is one of the collaboration’s strongest points of connection. Even though their careers have developed in different industries, both designers see color as something that fundamentally changes the relationship between people and objects.

Photography courtesy of Alex Proba and Salehe Bembury.

“Alex and I have always shared a similar way of looking at color,” Bembury explains. “Even though we work in different mediums, we both believe color can completely change how someone experiences an object.”

That mutual understanding also shaped the creative process itself. Soft Imprints embraces the distinctiveness of both practices, rather than trying to soften the individual aesthetics.

Photography courtesy of Alex Proba and Salehe Bembury.

“The best collaborations happen when both people have a clear point of view,” Bembury says. “Alex’s work is unmistakably hers, and that’s what makes building something together interesting.”

Proba echoes that sentiment, describing the collection as the product of a long creative dialogue rather than a one-off partnership.

“Design is a conversation,” she says. “This collection is the result of years of mutual respect, curiosity, and a shared desire to create objects that people want to live with.”

Photography courtesy of Alex Proba and Salehe Bembury.

Produced as a limited edition of just 80 rugs and 200 pillows, Soft Imprints will be available in limited quantities on probahome.com and salehebembury.com.

Editorial Transparency: This article was developed with the assistance of AI tools, which may have been used for research, outlining, editing, or copy refinement. Reporting, fact-checking, and editorial decisions were made by the Design Milk editorial team.

The phenomenon of light—in all its glory—is central to Jordan Soderberg Mills’ oeuvre. He has created numerous immersive works for temporary and permanent commissions around the world with a wonderful simplicity that belies the complex physics that make them possible. And his latest prismatic experimentation is now woven into the very architecture of a decommissioned 15th century church in Brussels. Framed in black ironwork, the Boondael Chapel’s 14 windows now refract light to create rainbow effects that shift throughout the day and the seasons.

Photography by Franziska Krieck.

Photography by Franziska Krieck.

Photography by Franziska Krieck.

The Canadian artist, who also works and lives in Europe, had earlier participated in a Design Museum Ghent exhibition inspired by Jan Van Eyck, who invented techniques that layered transparent glazes in a certain way to create distinct optical effects. “There was a very specific altar piece that’s in Ghent, with an inscription saying the Virgin Mary is the reflection of eternal light,” Soderberg Mills says. “I thought, How can I represent eternal light? How can I create something that uses this idea of multiple layers and glazes that the Renaissance painter used? So I made Eternal Light + a Spotless Mirror.”

Photography by Franziska Krieck.

That piece gave Soderberg Mills visibility in Belgium, but the exhibition’s opening coincided with COVID-19 lockdowns. It made him all the more eager to have his work seen and felt. Then came the open call for the former church and present-day arts venue in Brussels. It had a very specific requirement: The glass had to be colorless and completely transparent. This, too, presented a challenge. “Because my practice is such an exploration of color and perception and light,” he says, explaining his thought process, “how can I kind of cheat the system or be cheeky a little bit in order to produce glass that is colorless but that transmits color?”

Photography by Franziska Krieck.

In Gothic churches, light was treated as a divine element. “A church window is a really mystical thing,” he says. While researching the adaptive reuse of old churches in Belgium, Soderberg Mills came across chapels along the coast of the North Sea where bell towers doubled as lighthouses. It prompted him to reference Belgian architecture in an interesting way; he sought to create something “mythical or magical realist” while also honoring the now-secular use of the church building.

Photography by Franziska Krieck.

Whatever he envisioned, he needed to collaborate with Belgian fabricators—another criterion of the open call. Soderberg Mills found one that supplies beakers to local laboratories, and a company that makes iron work windows for train stations. The laboratory glass is especially important—it takes the shape of long borosilicate tubes, or canes, that are star-shaped in cross-section. Together, they form a ribbed surface. The canes are internally etched with billions of microscopic apertures that scatter light into spectral bands.

Photography by Franziska Krieck.

Photography by Franziska Krieck.

Another lab, this one in California, produced the film that is embedded inside the glass extrusions. “The film is used in spectrography,” Soderberg Mills explains, “anything that reflects light will have a chromatic signature and the composition of the rainbow will tell you what a star is made of.” Together with the etched glass canes, the film refracts daylight into “vibrant, shifting spectral color, turning the chapel into both a sanctuary and a living lens.”

Photography by Franziska Krieck.

By curving the light, the iron-framed windows produce different perspectives at different times of the day and the year. Soderberg Mills likens it to a sundial, which produces a completely unique experience depending on when you enter the church. “It’s about creating something that’s fixed that also gives this sense of motion and movement, which is really the motion of the planet through through space—this cosmological dance,” he says.

Diagram courtesy of Jordan Soderberg Mills.

Every architect has a particular process, and for Benjamin Aranda, a blend of basic and intricate aspects shape his projects. “At the studio, we relish the challenge of breaking complex systems down into simple automated logics and then using these strict recipes to push the limits of physical craftsmanship,” he says.

Aranda met Chris Lasch during their final semester as graduate students at Columbia University, and in 2003 the pair founded their firm, Aranda\Lasch. Located in New York City and Tucson, the studio is led by Aranda, Lasch, and Joaquín Bonifaz.

Not limited to architecture, the firm’s output includes a diverse range of creations from art to software. Each team member works deftly with both material and digital languages, and even in this Agentic Era, they still honor the past.

They also celebrate different cultures, and Aranda\Lasch’s two-decade collaboration with Terrol Dew Johnson was an impactful one. Johnson, who was a Tohono O’odham weaver, taught Aranda to view traditional native knowledge as a framework for solving contemporary problems, which he still does today.

Aranda’s daily trek from the office to home helps him switch from job to personal mode. He rides his bike from Jackson Heights, Queens to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is hardly an easy trip. ”No one, and I mean no one, obeys traffic lights,” he notes. “My commute is less of a transition and more of a harrowing, near-death experience. It works every time.”

Today, Ben Aranda joins us for Friday Five!

Photography courtesy of Aranda\Lasch.

1. Pigeons

We like pigeons because, like us, they inhabit cities and pair for life. They also happen to be the reason our studio exists. Our earliest defining project was funded by a film grant to study the dying sport of pigeon flying in New York City. It bootstrapped the office. By filming the birds and using code to model their flocking formations, we learned to look at the world through an algorithmic lens. That changed the way we approached architecture, open to the decentralized and non-human perspective, so we want to explicitly credit these pigeons for launching our trajectory. Even Darwin said, “Everyone is interested in pigeons.”

Photo courtesy of Aranda\Lasch

2. Tohono O’odham Basket

This is an unfinished basket by the late weaver Terrol Dew Johnson of the Tohono O’odham Nation. It holds a personal place in the studio because Terrol was a long-time collaborator, mentor, and dear friend. This piece is one of the simpler, more traditional versions of a Tohono O’odham basket featuring their distinctive squash blossom pattern. Working with Terrol taught us a profound lesson: to deeply respect traditional practices and to approach design as a way to honor, protect, and push cultural traditions. It’s an unfinished piece, but to us, it’s entirely complete.

Photography courtesy of Aranda\Lasch.

3. Eames Chair

No surprise here but we like chairs and arguably have too many in the studio. But the number isn’t interesting, the details are. Of all the variations of the Eames Aluminum lounge chair, we like the original swivel joint version with the “moon landing” base.

Photography courtesy of Aranda\Lasch

4. My Kids’ Art

I’m a gushy father to a 5 year old and an 8 year-old boy. Consequently, my office and my home are entirely papered with artifacts like this one. In architecture, I spend my life overthinking things so when they make these effortlessly, I am completely humbled.

Photography courtesy of Aranda\Lasch

5. Piranesi

This is a favorite book of mine detailing the drawings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Piranesi is a timeless reference for architects and we are certainly not alone in our obsession. There is something intoxicating in his etchings, not just the technical mastery, but also his ability to draw ephemeral things. Look at those clouds.

Works by Aranda\Lasch

Photography courtesy of Aranda\Lasch.

1. We:sic ‘em ki: (Everybody’s Home)

We:sic ‘em ki: (Everybody’s Home) is a family home on the Tohono O’odham Nation that draws on Indigenous knowledge of building and living in the desert. Following 20 years of collaboration between master basket weaver and activist Terrol Dew Johnson, this collective home for the Johnson family, their farming and basket weaving practices, is inspired by traditional O’odham homes that pair a wa:ato, or whole-tree mesquite shade structure, with a ki:, an earthen enclosure.

Photography courtesy of Aranda\Lasch.

2. Baskets

Terrol Dew Johnson (1971-2024) was a prolific Tohono O’odham artist, weaver, educator, and activist. For close to 20 years we made baskets with Terrol, collaborating on a range of projects. Our interest in craft and traditional wisdom comes from him. The Baskets project began in 2006 at Artists Space in New York and continues to this day. They have been shown at the MoMA, MOCA Tucson, Chicago Biennial, Sarasota Museum of Art, Volume Gallery, Heard Museum, and Institute of American Indian Arts, among others. Several works from the Baskets project are in the permanent collections of these institutions.

Photography by Gerry O’Leary.

3. DIOR

The design for DIOR Femme is inspired by the brand’s legendary couture: dynamic, ethereal, and crafted with precision. The boutique’s facade reflects the structure and flow of DIOR’s iconic pleated dress.

Photography courtesy of Aranda\Lasch.

4. Garden Apartment

Garden Apartment is designed to accommodate the needs of a growing family. The project centers on the home’s connection to their garden—a rare opportunity in the city.

Photography courtesy of Aranda\Lasch.

5. Another Circle

Another Circle is a new public space for Mill Race Park in Columbus, Indiana. Its 2,800 pieces of salvaged limestone are organized to create a large 3.5 acre field of activity. This rough circle contains a diffuse programming of spaces for outdoor recreation; a loose gathering of function inside a scattering of stone.

For more than 15 years, the Haas Brothers have built a body of work that isn’t easily categorized. Their surreal creatures, anthropomorphic furniture, and intricately beaded sculptures occupy a space somewhere between collectible design, contemporary art, and playful experimentation. This spring, that evolving practice takes center stage in Haas Brothers: Uncanny Valley, the duo’s largest museum exhibition to date, on view at New York City’s Museum of Arts and Design.

The exhibition traces the artistic partnership of twin brothers Nikolai and Simon Haas through 85 works created between 2014 and 2025, including several new pieces. Curated by Laura Mott of Cranbrook Art Museum in Detroit, Uncanny Valley includes sculpture, ceramics, painting, furniture, and process studies.

Photography by Jenna Bascom; courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, and Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen.

After founding their LA-based studio in 2010, the Haas Brothers have become known for biomorphic forms that feel simultaneously whimsical and rigorously constructed. The MAD exhibition reveals the systems beneath that playfulness through works like the Accretion ceramic series, inspired by coral growth, and intricately beaded botanical sculptures made with thousands of antique Venetian glass beads. Digital processes appear through algorithmically generated landscapes and self-generating sculptural forms, which expand the studio’s ongoing dialogue between craft and technology.

Photography by Jenna Bascom; courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, and Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen.

The exhibition’s title borrows from the psychological concept of the same name, which Simon Haas sees as a throughline in their work.

“The ‘uncanny valley’ generally refers to robotics, where empathy for a robot increases the more human you make it—up to a point. When the robot becomes too human, empathy switches to revulsion. The solution for this is to add cuteness,” Simon says. “Looking at our 15-year career from a
bird’s eye view, the ‘uncanny valley’ came into focus as a core theme.”

Photography by Jenna Bascom; courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, and Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen.

Rather than choosing between art and design, beauty and humor, or function and fantasy, the exhibition embraces those tensions, inviting visitors into a world where each category becomes a little harder to define.

Photography by Jenna Bascom; courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, and Boesky Gallery, New York and Aspen.

Haas Brothers: Uncanny Valley will be on view at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York through Aug. 16, 2026, before traveling to the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, and the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Editorial Transparency: This article was developed with the assistance of AI tools, which may have been used for research, outlining, editing, or copy refinement. Reporting, fact-checking, and editorial decisions were made by the Design Milk editorial team.

Historic gardens are often appreciated for what you can see: bright florals, rich greens, and winding pathways. At Portrait Milano, the luxury hotel housed within Milan’s former Archiepiscopal Seminary, Arcipelago Botanico by Italian artist Agostino Iacurci instead draws inspiration from what has disappeared. A vibrant new landscape blooms in the memory of the site’s historic gardens.

Photography courtesy of Lungarno Collection.

On view through Aug. 31, 2026, the site-specific installation transforms the hotel’s 16th-century central piazza into a dreamlike environment anchored by eight monumental sculptures. Iacurci reimagines the Seminary’s original gardens through oversized botanical forms that stand like contemporary totems among arcaded colonnades and a landscape conceived with botanist Vittorio Peretto.

Known for his graphic murals and sculptural installations, Iacurci’s handcrafted forms introduce fantastical flora rendered in saturated hues of fuchsia, magenta, orange, green, and purple. Each sculpture rises from a restrained geometric plinth, creating a visual rhythm that balances exuberant color with architectural order while echoing the ornamental traditions of historic Italian gardens.

Photography courtesy of Lungarno Collection.

Curated by Valentina Ciarallo, the installation functions as a playful archipelago of imagined vegetation. More than a traditional sculpture exhibition, it becomes an immersive conversation between history, landscape, and architecture.

Photography courtesy of Lungarno Collection.

What makes Arcipelago Botanico particularly compelling is its treatment of memory as a design material. Rather than preserving history through replication, Iacurci embraces interpretation, using simplified forms and bold color to evoke the atmosphere of a place rather than its exact appearance. The installation acknowledges the site’s past while resisting nostalgia, proposing instead that contemporary art can offer new ways of understanding historic environments.

It’s also part of a broader evolution in adaptive reuse. Increasingly, historic hotels, museums, and public buildings are becoming platforms for temporary installations that invite visitors to experience familiar architecture differently. Here, contemporary sculpture doesn’t merely occupy the courtyard—it activates it, transforming a place of passage into one of pause, discovery, and reflection.

Italian artist Agostino Iacurci with his site-specific installation, Arcipelago Botanico. Photography courtesy of Lungarno Collection.

Throughout the summer, Arcipelago Botanico anchors Portrait Milano’s annual “Portraits of an Italian Summer” program, which includes concerts, design collaborations, wellness events, and botanical-inspired experiences in an extension of the installation’s themes. While those events extend the experience, the installation stands on its own as a thoughtful intersection of public art, landscape design, and historic preservation.

Arcipelago Botanico is on view at Portrait Milano in Milan, Italy, through Aug. 31, 2026, with free public access via Corso Venezia 11 and Via Sant’Andrea 10.

Editorial Transparency: This article was developed with the assistance of AI tools, which may have been used for research, outlining, editing, or copy refinement. Reporting, fact-checking, and editorial decisions were made by the Design Milk editorial team.

During design festivals, installations and pop-ups are not an uncommon sight. Milan Design Week 2026 saw the rise of giant inflatable structures, luxury fashion houses hosted legacy design brands, exclusive collabs bridged industries, and more. Last month in Copenhagen, 3daysofdesign was no different.

In the Danish capital city, the streets were full of site-specific activities—from a larger-than-life Alvar Aalto vase to a hair salon-turned-gallery showcasing textile and ceramic collections. Tucked away in the Baum und Pferdgarten flagship store was an installation by Polish artist, designer, and founder of eponymous modern accessories brand, Zofia Chylak. The oversize lace work tapped into this large-format concept, while digging into a shared cultural history between Denmark and Poland through a specific materiality.

Created for the occasion, the lace installation acts as a delicate—yet dynamic—entryway into Baum und Pferdgarten’s interior. Drawing on traditional bobbin lace techniques reworked through a modern lens, the airy net-like fabric stands in stark contrast to the cherry red doorframe behind. Blending modern design sensibilities with a heritage craft, the sculptural doorframe feels distinctly chic, with a playful horse motif that speaks to the brand’s name (which translates literally to “Tree and Horse Garden”).

Rikke Baumgarten, Zofia Chylak, Helle Hestehave.

Still, the equine theme has deeper roots. Chylak found inspiration during visits to the Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen, which housed a plaster model of Polish royal Prince Józef Poniatowski riding a horse. The actual Danish-designed sculpture stands today in the Presidential Palace in Warsaw; it speaks to the long political and cultural history of the two countries. (The sculpture was recast and gifted to Poland by the Danish government in 1951 after the Warsaw Uprising.)

Photo by Piotr Maciaszek, courtesy MVPR.

Photo by Piotr Maciaszek, courtesy MVPR.

The installation also references a recent Chylak collection of hand-made jewelry, bags, and accessories inspired by traditional Polish craft, such as amber beading and Wilanów-style embroidery. Named Chylak Heritage, the project includes the Bobowa Lace Collection, inspired by the rich tradition of bobbin-lacemaking rooted in Bobowa, Poland.

A shawl with Wilanów-style embroidery by Chylak

Photography courtesy of MVPR; select images by Piotr Maciaszek.

Reimagining shipping containers as homes, studios, or pop-ups certainly isn’t new, but Milan-based architecture and design studio m2atelier took a more novel approach. The Crafted Capsule, an experiential installation housed with a shipping container is less about the limitations of its compact footprint and more about reducing contemporary living to its essentials without compromises.

Photography by Lorenzo Pennati

For Genova Design Week 2026, m2atelier worked in close collaboration with leading Italian specialists to create The Crafted Capsule. Focused on fabrication, lighting, textiles, and leather craftsmanship, each specialist helped rethink what a compact interior could become. The installation is an exercise in precision, demonstrating how thoughtful design and meticulous material selection can transform even the smallest space.

“The Crafted Capsule explores how contemporary living can be distilled to its essential elements without sacrificing emotion, comfort or beauty,” m2atelier founders Marco Bonelli and Marijana Radovic explained. “It is a project about intentionality—about creating meaningful experiences through design rather than through scale.”

Photography by Lorenzo Pennati

The Crafted Capsule comes together through a carefully orchestrated mix of materials and technical expertise. NIVA led the interior engineering and much of the fabrication, while Materica developed the installation’s textured, zinc-metallized wall panels. Luce5’s integrated lighting—including an illuminated mirror above the bed—visually expands the compact interior. Textiles from C&C Milano and rich blue leather by Foglizzo soften the industrial shell with warmth and texture.

Rather than presenting compact living as a compromise, The Crafted Capsule shows that careful attention to proportion, materiality, and craftsmanship can make even the most constrained spaces feel inviting.

Photography by Lorenzo Pennati

Editorial Transparency: This article was developed with the assistance of AI tools, which may have been used for research, outlining, editing, or copy refinement. Reporting, fact-checking, and editorial decisions were made by the Design Milk editorial team.