Italian food is unlike any other, and when it’s shared with others, it is savored even more. The cuisine is so special that UNESCO designated it as an intangible cultural heritage, recognizing not only the cuisine but also the conviviality of the country’s cherished rituals, from family meals to age-old traditions still practiced today.

Füm, a new contemporary Italian restaurant in Atlanta, named after the Italo-Gaelic word for smoke, celebrates this same spirit. Designed by Arcturis | Square Feet Studio, Grassfed Culture Hospitality, and HAND Studio, a bustling piazza served as inspiration for the eatery. “There’s an expansive open space and the activity happens around it,” says Rachel Uhelski, interior designer and project manager at Square Feet Studio. “All of these different moments create a beautiful community.”

The layout is reminiscent of an open market, which encourages guests to circulate throughout the restaurant and gaze at the culinary delights on the menu. There’s a pasta maker’s room, wine station, and a chamber for dry-aged meat. One addition is not typically found in a town square—a DJ booth. All types of music are on rotation to keep the atmosphere in the 150-seat dining room lively. A wood-fired open hearth sits at the center of it all, paired with a show kitchen where executive chef Sebastián Vargas prepares signature dishes like cavatelli and trout.

Sculptural plaster forms a curved soffit overhead and wraps columns, creating softer lines in the space. A hand-finished limewash brings subtle texture to walls and complements the millwork. Blackened metal, forged by a local workshop, pays homage to craft. Coupled with brass accents, an interplay of light and dark elements offers just enough sheen.

A cocktail bar doubles as a glamorous statement piece. Its polished Ceppo Rosso marble top with embedded pebble fragments is reminiscent of Italy’s famous mosaics. The color palette takes its cues from farm-to-table tints. Paprika-toned ceiling insets are illuminated by cove lighting. The same rich red hue reappears across the wall behind the kitchen, and on banquette and bar stool upholstery. A coffee bar boasts shelving and tiles in a luxe pistachio green shade that enhances walnut wood furnishings.

At Füm, different facets meld as easily as the flavors do to highlight every detail and transform a simple meal into a memorable occasion. “The restaurant was designed to be engaging,” Uhelski notes. “And as you move through it, you experience each of the senses in one place.”

Photography by Andrew Thomas Lee.

Montreal is no stranger to Brutalist architecture. The iconic utopian housing complex that overlooks the St Lawrence River (Habitat 67 by Moshe Safdie for Expo 67) is just one of many, albeit the most famous. During the 6 years that I lived in the city, my time was marked by raw, unfinished concrete—from Concordia University’s Hall Building to Place Bonaventure Metro station, and many others. In fact, much of the architectural landscape of the city bears the weight of its brutalist forefathers. It’s in this context that Montreal-based culinary studio Menu Extra crafted a gastronomic experience rooted in brutalism, local flavours and immersive design.

“After our activation at Habitat 67, we felt compelled to highlight other, perhaps lesser-known gems of Montreal’s modernist built-heritage. There’s a grounding quality to brutalist architecture that creates a striking backdrop for an experience exploring fine dining as ritual. The raw materiality and monumental character of these spaces naturally lend themselves to a sense of contemplation,” shares Creative Director Samuel de La Courtemanche.

Designed as part of Montréal en Lumière, an annual winter festival set in the city’s downtown core, Menu Extra transformed Chapelle des Franciscains in Rosemont into a cinematic, chartreuse-tined stage for a multi-course tasting menu of Québec’s finest flavours. Created by a multidisciplinary team of sommeliers, chefs, designers and other creatives, the soiree was dubbed Efflorescence—a name that aptly combines art and brutalism, referencing both the chalky powder excess that appears when water evaporates from concrete and a state of flowering.

Designed by Menu Extra and Montréal-based design studio Martha, the graphic identity of Efflorescence is anchored in architecture, with an elongated typography and logotype that references the geometry of its setting.

Blooming from within the stark, but soaring, vaulted ceilings, a 40-foot-long, communal dining table draped in sultry green fabric—with a hollowed diamond motif that mirrors the ceiling—emerges as the central focal point. In its center, guests can discover a fluted-acrylic lightbox full of live plants, designed to mimic Canada’s boreal forest. Other design touches included aluminum chairs designed by LESORR to complement the raw surroundings, steel stands displaying the menu’s core ingredients (scallops from the Magdalen Islands, among other local delicacies) and a soundscape by local artist KROY paired with two futuristic speakers designed for the event by MYCOAUDIO. Designed by Creative Director Samuel de la Courtemanche with Creative Producer Amanda Prow, the immersive set design was meant to inspire interactions between guests and foster a sense of exploration and discovery.

“Our experiences are ephemeral in nature, which inspires guests to be truly present, knowing the moment cannot be repeated,” says Co-Founder and Sommelier Alexis Demers.

Illustration by Nicolas Lapierre.

With the chefs cooking on full display and a choreographed service—which included an aromatic hot towel and scented smoke to complement select dishes—Menu Extra channelled fine dining as ceremony. And like a call to prayer, the sound of a bell guided guests to their seats.

Rooted in seasonality, the menu—created by Francis Blais, Co-Founder and Executive Chef of Menu Extra with selected wines from Co-Founder and Sommelier Alexis Demers—featured Nova Scotian lobster, scallops from the Magdalen Islands, citrus grown by Vyckie Vaillancourt in Laval, and more.

Photography by Vanessa Cassar and Jeremy Dionne.

An international family of four, described simply as collectors, commissioned Bergman Design House to design their second home in London. They came with a brief that was precise in its ambitions: refined, personal, and enduring. They wanted a space that would function as a living archive – where every object carried weight and every material had been chosen with accumulation in mind.

That brief shaped everything visible in the apartment. The London studio co-founded by Marie Soliman and Albin Berglund, organized the 4000 sqft listed residence around the logic of the collection rather than the logic of decoration. While decoration fills a space, a collection builds over time, and the objects in this apartment were selected for their capacity to mean more in twenty years than they do today.

Materials played a similar part. Take travertine, for example, which improves with use. The stone’s open pores collect light differently as surfaces wear, and the material’s inherent variation becomes more legible over years of contact. It is one of a small category of materials that rewards the passage of time rather than resisting it, and Bergman Design House built an entire apartment around this principle.

For the furnishings, Marcin Rusak’s bar cabinet – his practice suspends botanical matter, flowers and plant material, within resin – is an object whose surface contains a kind of preserved time. The three-dimensional wall installation by Swiss studio Beyond works through geometry and depth, holding attention across repeated encounters in a way that purely visual objects do not. Custom joinery by James Wellesley and stonework by Marco Pacitti connect the apartment to London’s specialist craft networks.

Bespoke plasters and natural marquetry cover the walls – both chosen, in Soliman’s framing, for tactile beauty and the ability to age gracefully. Fromental’s hand-painted wall coverings introduce a layer that only a human hand could produce, with the variation that comes from that process built into the surface from the start.

View more information on Bergman Design House’s website.

Photography by Vigo Jansons.

In the heart of sunny Naples, Florida, a new flagship boutique is challenging the sterile norms of luxury retail. Designed by DS Studio—a Canadian, all-female powerhouse team of architects—the Henri Noël Jewelry Flagship is a precisely crafted study in emotionally intelligent design.

Led by principal Dina Sarhane, the design of the 2,350-square-foot space reimagines the boutique as both a retail showroom and a place of fabrication. Customers can browse finished pieces while glimpsing the process behind the jewelry. From penny round flooring to floral wallpaper, the firm leaned into maximalism, crafting an environment defined by tactile discovery.

The palette is intentionally eclectic: walnut millwork defines the main rooms, while multi-coloured tile flooring flows toward custom cabinetry of curved green marble and travertine. The entirely customized cabinetry is designed to resemble antique cabinets of curiosities, opening to reveal jewelry lit carefully by subtle lighting with sensors. Custom signage reinforces the brand’s presence, from the entrance canopy on the street to the bronze inlay within the floor. Outdoor perimeter patios wrap the boutique, providing flexible, shaded enclaves for events and private client dialogues.

While the public showroom occupies the storefront, the workroom is situated behind—connected through a series of “peekaboo” thresholds created by glass block windows and two-way mirrors. These allow customers voyeuristic glimpses of the craft in progress, as on-site jewelers are visible at work in the space the designers call “The Forge.”

The journey at Henri Noël culminates in the “Gem Den,” a private sanctuary designed for custom appointments. In this back-of-house space, vibrant colour and expressive patterns foster a more relaxed atmosphere of collaboration.

The boutique serves as a stage for the rich stories and provenance behind the craftspeople behind the unique pieces sold there, a group of international designers that founder and third-generation jeweler Vivian Warwick has curated with care. Warwick named the brand after her grandfather, Henry, to honour his 1980s legacy as a Naples jewelry store owner. At the Henri Noël flagship, the result is a retail destination where architecture acts as a bridge between a family’s tradition and a client’s future—sealed within heirlooms designed with generations in mind.

Photos by Riley Snelling and Venjhamin Reyes.

The ground floor of a semi-detached Toronto townhouse is rarely generous with light. In the Mathersfield Project, designer Sam Sacks inherited a floor plate further complicated by a structural wall dividing the living and dining areas from a sunken kitchen and family room at the rear – two zones occupying the same house but operating independently of each other. Rather than restructuring the floor plate, Sacks moved the existing opening into alignment with the living and dining rooms, then enlarged it. A set of custom steel and glass bifolding doors now spans the threshold – present when the house needs to function as two rooms. Sam Sacks renovates a 4,600-square-foot Rosedale townhouse in Toronto, transforming a dated, contractor-grade interior into an architecturally considered home.

The decision to work with the existing architecture rather than against it governs the renovation’s broader logic. The home’s original construction was generic contractor work – drywall bulkheads, boxy proportions, and surfaces that carried no particular intention. Sacks corrected this through addition rather than demolition. High traditional baseboards and custom plaster crown molding in the living and dining rooms give the principal rooms presence. A low-profile beamed ceiling in the kitchen and family room pulls the spaces coherently together, while Versailles-pattern oak floors on the ground level ground the whole composition.

The powder room on the main floor is where Sacks took her biggest risk. A pedestal sink in hammered brass sits against deep Venetian plaster walls – a pairing that works because both materials share a deliberate surface texture, one cast, one applied by hand. On the second floor, the primary ensuite moves through white Volakas marble, Venetian plaster, and zellige tile, materials that sit in tension between the coolness of the stone and the irregular surfaces of the ceramic. The third-floor ensuite finishes in lime green marble.

Throughout, the staircase connecting these floors was rebuilt from scratch. Boxy pickets gave way to a continuous white oak handrail and powder-coated metal posts – a detail that was emphasized since the stair is visible from multiple levels and its original design undermined the architectural ambitions of every room around it.

View more information on Sam Sacks’ website.

Photography by Lauren Miller.

As populations continue to age globally, architecture is increasingly confronted with a difficult question: how can homes support physical accessibility without reducing later life to a purely clinical condition? Too often, housing designed for aging prioritizes utility at the expense of atmosphere, identity, and emotional comfort. The result is a built environment that functions efficiently yet rarely feels aspirational. With Home for Life in Heifort, Belgian practice FELT proposes another possibility entirely––one where aging is treated not as decline to be managed, but as a stage of life deserving of beauty, autonomy, and architectural richness.

Designed for a retired couple wishing to age in place, the 170-square-meter residence quietly embeds accessibility into an environment defined less by accommodation than by spatial generosity. From the street, the single-story house appears almost archetypal: a compact white volume capped by a copper-toned roof and punctuated by a circular window that lends the façade a near childlike familiarity. The restrained exterior, however, conceals an unexpectedly layered interior landscape where light, timber, rhythm, and procession become active participants in daily life.

FELT founders Jasper Stevens and Karel Verstraeten resisted approaching ageing as a fixed condition requiring static solutions. Instead, the project anticipates change over time. “You cannot fully predict future ageing or possible challenges related to mobility,” the studio explains, “so that flexibility has to be embedded in the architecture itself.”

That philosophy manifests in subtle yet critical decisions throughout the house: generous circulation widths, sliding doors, level thresholds, adaptable kitchen components, and accessible sanitary spaces all work quietly in the background to sustain independence for as long as possible.

Importantly, none of these interventions announce themselves through overtly medicalized aesthetics. Instead, the house feels warm, tactile, and deeply domestic. Exposed CLT timber frames establish a visible rhythm across the interior, creating a sequence of alternating “served” and “service” spaces––a classical organizational principle reinterpreted for contemporary life. Larger open rooms unfold into more compact support spaces, creating a legible plan that can evolve alongside the occupants’ future needs.

“Alternating larger open rooms with servant spaces creates a plan that remains flexible over time,” the architects note. “It also allows the thresholds between spaces to become more open or more closed in the future, depending on changing needs.”

The timber itself plays an equally important psychological role. While accessibility standards often lead to sterile environments, FELT instead leans into material softness and familiarity. “You do not want an environment that feels like a device or an aid,” the studio says, “but a home that conveys calm, familiarity, and ease.” Throughout the interior, pale wood surfaces absorb and diffuse daylight, producing spaces that feel simultaneously intimate and expansive. White-painted sections heighten the contrast between structure and openness, balancing warmth with luminosity.

Perhaps the project’s most distinctive architectural gesture arrives overhead. Rising above the roofline are three sculptural chimney-like volumes clad in weathering copper. While they formally animate the otherwise modest silhouette, they also serve crucial environmental and experiential functions. Housing technical and servant spaces, the vertical elements draw daylight deep into the narrow plan from multiple orientations. Rather than acting as isolated skylights, these shafts become luminous spatial volumes in themselves.

The changing quality of light throughout the day becomes a subtle mechanism for perceiving time within the home. “The house feels different throughout the day,” FELT explains. “The passage of the day becomes almost tangible within the house.” In a project centered on ageing, this sensitivity to temporality feels especially poignant. Architecture here does not attempt to resist time, instead framing it gently and perceptibly through the atmosphere.

That emotional attentiveness extends to intergenerational living as well. Tucked within the roof volume sits a compact sleeping loft designed for visiting grandchildren. Accessible now via a pale blue spiral stair, the space introduces continuity and joy into a home otherwise organized around long-term care considerations. If the stair eventually becomes impractical, the loft can transition into storage without compromising the functionality of the main floor. The gesture reflects FELT’s broader refusal to reduce ageing to limitation alone.

What ultimately distinguishes Home for Life is its rejection of the assumption that accessibility necessitates neutrality. “We hope projects like this show that the opposite is possible,” the architects explain. “A house designed around aging can still have a clear identity, its own spatial qualities, and a distinct architectural voice.”

To see this and other works by the architecture and design studio, visit felt.works.

Photography by Stijn Bollaert.

To savor a fresh baguette from a bakery in Paris is truly a feast for the senses, and often a highlight for foodies on holiday abroad. Few offerings stateside compare, though, with grab-and-go bakeries that all too often imitate the look of a standard French café, with little variation.

The Bread Club in Dallas offers a different experience, with a contemporary take on traditional fare and favorite spots in the City of Light. Designed by INK+ ORO Creatives and inspired by the ritual of bringing loaves home from a Parisian market, it looks sophisticated without the contrived elements that would overwhelm the 1,120-square-foot eatery.

“The biggest challenge was reminding ourselves that we couldn’t turn the space into a French boulangerie,” says Tiffany Woodson, founder and CEO of the studio. “We kept coming back to strong architectural basics, trusting that restraint would do more to enhance the concept and showcase the product more than any decorative flourish could.”

The curved plaster ceiling adds a sense of volume, yet doesn’t seem heavy. It also serves as a marker that defines where customers line up, and highlights a main point of interaction, the counter. Delicate light boxes illuminate fresh goods, while shelving is accessible to both front-of-house staff and bakers that work in the rear. A coordinating vertical display stores the signature baguettes, and matching cases hold cold beverages and provisions.

The overall palette is neutral, but has just enough warmth, which forms a backdrop that will still align with the rest of the interior even as items on the menu or other facets change. Blue lettering on signage offers a hint of color. Luxe touches evoke the same softness as bread. Tiles with a subtle crackle finish complement the custom millwork. Walls with the same treatment used overhead provide a buttery texture throughout.

The Bread Club blends the essence of Paris and its home base to reimagine what a bakery can be, no matter the location. “There’s a subtle nod to Texas wheat woven into the design’s sensibility, but it’s never literal,” Woodson notes. “It gives the space a timeless, unpretentious quality that feels welcoming to everyone.”

To see this and other works by the design firm, visit inkandoro.com.

Photography by Aaron Dougherty.

When it comes to run-of-the-mill chain hotels—especially those close to major transit hubs like Vienna’s Westbahnhof (Western train station)—ground-floor amenities tend to be rudimentary and standardized, offering exactly the same thing regardless of location. Lobbies, adjoining restaurants, and bars are rarely anything special; a far cry from what boutique destinations tend to offer these days. That all changes with Paris-based Atelier OLK’s comprehensive renovation of the Ibis Wien Mariahilf.

Why shouldn’t these oft-underutilized, drab, yet sizable spaces—often situated in central, densely populated, and desirable locations—serve a greater purpose and look good doing so? That’s exactly what the practice set out to do.

Transforming the hotel’s nearly 10,000-square-foot street level into the newly opened Günter Restaurant, Bar & More, Atelier OLK opted for two complementary strategies. On the one hand, it sought to honor the rich design history of the city—the late 19th- and early 20th-century prowess of wildly influential talents like Josef Hoffmann, Otto Wagner, and Adolf Loos. On the other, it championed efficiency, a level of functionality aligned with today’s need for flexibility, comfort, and in-person social interaction. The new offering is indeed a third, even fourth, place for both hotel guests passing through and neighborhood residents alike, those in need of such refuge. A few years back, no one would have thought the nearby Ibis could be it.

In true Viennese fashion, there’s a duality of influences: the restraint that comes from the North (Germany) and the exuberance that comes from the South (Italy and other Mediterranean countries). The firm’s comprehensive intervention is both rigorous and geometric, yet also sensual and layered. Sparingly textured noble materials play well with red velvets, leopard prints, and chrome accents.

Atelier OLK began by removing the drop ceilings that had rendered the space cavernous and chose to expose mechanical equipment like ducting in order to create greater depth and imbue the space with monumentality. It then redistributed walls and, guided by the pillars of the parking garage above, delineated a series of alcoves: intimate yet connected seating arrangements. There are also areas dedicated to karaoke nights, conferences, and talks. The monumental counter, at the space’s core, is used to serve breakfast among other meals.

Throughout, patterns borrowed from the Secession era intermix with decidedly contemporary flourishes. Graphical floor inlays are delimited by indicated pathways, their marble patterns reminiscent of traditional Viennese interiors. Tiles—black, white, and otherwise—play well together, producing visual effects that are structured yet expressive. The introduced furnishings are far less austere; far more impish and eclectic.

The space is grounded yet airy, sensible and sensorial. It’s optimistic, certainly as an example of how other such properties in Austria, Europe, and the wider world could be transformed.

To learn more about the firm or explore more, visit atelierolk.com and guenter-wien.com, respectively.

Photography courtesy of Günter Restaurant, Bar & More.

The Rockefeller Apartments occupy a singular position in American architectural history as one of the earliest International Style residential buildings in New York, originally designed in 1936 by Wallace Harrison and J. André Fouilheux and commissioned by the Rockefeller family to house tenants displaced by the construction of Rockefeller Center. This project demanded an interior language capable of conversing with the building’s modernist pedigree without slipping into nostalgia or period mimicry, a balance Nicholas Potts Studio and Studio Armando Aguirre achieved through extensive archival research and a willingness to let the architecture itself dictate the terms of intervention.

The 2,800-square-foot residence combines two former units into a single, grandly scaled apartment, restoring a sense of spatial clarity that decades of subdivision had eroded. The plan reorganizes around a pill-shaped entrance gallery, recalling the curvilinear logic embedded in the building’s signature radiused projecting bays.

These bays, which give the Rockefeller Apartments their distinctive street presence, now anchor generously proportioned formal living and dining rooms, reestablishing a pre-war rhythm of procession and gathering. Two bedrooms, three baths, and a flexible office and guest area complete the program, with planning decisions guided not only by original drawings but also by reference to William Lescaze’s model unit and Nelson Rockefeller’s own 1930s interiors.

Heavy figured Khaya mahogany runs through the apartment as a continuous horizontal datum, becoming banquette seating in one room, cabinetry in another, and a lighted art plinth elsewhere. The repetition gives the rooms a quiet rhythm, pulling disparate spaces into a single composition. Mirror-polished Portoro marble introduces moments of reflective depth and visual surprise, its dramatic gold veining against deep black lending accents that feel simultaneously luxurious and architectural. Cork-lined gallery walls reference the original foyer hatching while introducing acoustic warmth and a tactile counterpoint to the apartment’s harder surfaces.

Throughout, bespoke interventions sit alongside vintage and vintage-inspired furnishings drawn from Bauhaus, International Style, and Art Deco traditions, allowing the apartment to feel historically informed without becoming overly referential.

Bathrooms continue this dialogue between restoration and reinterpretation. Original fixtures were preserved where possible, including a rare historic toilet sourced in New York City, then paired with handcrafted Heath Ceramics tile and bespoke fittings that quietly bridge past and present.

Elsewhere, custom ebonized oak screens, a dining banquette, an office daybed and desk, and a lighted living room shelf fabricated specifically for the architecture reinforce the project’s commitment to continuity between furniture and shell.

The owner’s collection, which includes works by Robert Mangold, Candida Höfer, Ellsworth Kelly, Louise Lawler, Ed Ruscha, and Thomas Demand, shaped color and material decisions throughout the project, creating subtle dialogues between art and architecture. The collaboration between Nicholas Potts Studio and Studio Armando Aguirre ultimately demonstrates the value of treating architectural shell and interior contents as a single design problem, producing a residence in which container and contents speak the same coherent language.

To learn more about the creatives involved, visit npsarch.com and armandoaguirre.com.

Photography by Adrian Gaut, styling by Colin King.

Our homes are changing fast all the while being asked to accommodate more and more functions. The same space used during the day as an office or playroom can moonlight as a lounge or sleeping chamber. When tasked with the transformation of a classic Milan apartment—traditionally fragmented into many smaller rooms—local architecture practice Atelierzero took a bold approach.

The maverick, locally based firm removed most non-load-bearing walls and methodically introduced a series of almost furniture-like inserts that divide the now main unit and adjoining studio home, but also allow for smooth, near-seamless transitions when needed. There are no doors, at least in the conventional sense.

Distinct yet complementary color blocking renders the pared-back, geometrically architectonic volumes as standalone elements, brought together almost like a miniaturized city skyline: buildings of various proportions placed side by side.

Inspired by the colonnaded porticos found throughout the northern Italian metropolis—and the commercial streets below—the main corridor, clad in a warm orange, serves as the apartment’s primary axis. Its almost Carlo Scarpa-like terrazzo floor is an emphatic “if-you-know-you-know” nod to context. On one side, rectilinear cutaways lead into the apartment’s main entertainment space. On the other, cabinet-embedded hatches open up to a powder room, utility space, en suite bedroom, and the semi-separate studio.

Holding pride of place in the “main hearth” great room of the apartment, the taupe-toned kitchen module appears to float on its own. It also strategically shields the more intimate study and dining area toward its rear.

Furnishings sourced from decidedly Milanese but globally recognized design brands B&B Italia, CC-Tapis, Oluce, and Flos intermix with iconic re-editions from equally emblematic producers Artek, Marset, and Thonet.

This shrewd, sparingly introduced curation ties everything together and softens what would otherwise be a starkly crystalline interior. The visual and visceral composition is intriguing. The adjacent studio reflects the same cohesive strategy, ensuring both spaces present as a unified, if physically detached, whole.

To see more work by the bold firm, visit atelierzero.it.

Photography by Specchi Studio.

Tony Piloseno’s journey from employee to entrepreneur was hardly typical. When he was in college, the Ohio native worked as an associate at a Sherwin-Williams store. He shared videos of himself mixing paint on TikTok, and by the sixth post he went viral. Viewers loved it, but the company was less than enthused, and he was eventually fired.

Even though Piloseno received offers to join other firms, he decided to strike out on his own, and founded Tonester Paints in 2021. Starting from the ground up was stressful, especially in the first few years after launch. “I was barely able to support myself with the small number of paint orders we had each week,” he says.

Photo: David Lawrence

Piloseno remained dedicated, and was convinced that he could turn his passion into a purpose-driven business. From the beginning though he wasn’t solely focused on sales. He showed customers how to complete their own dream interiors, from the selection of the ideal shade to tackling a DIY project.

The sumptuous colors Piloseno is known for not only cover walls, they also tell a story. Hues are evocative of places or personas. Midwest Cowboy, for example, is a black-caramel that calls to mind an upscale ranch setting. Brooklyn Vogue is on the other end of the spectrum, a deep blue-gray that references the famous borough.

Based in Florida, Tonester Paints is now a global brand, yet Piloseno still produces all of the social media content. He is active on Instagram and YouTube, and checks out new creators from the interior design world for inspiration. He captures plenty of ideas, in no particular sequence, with the help of his mobile device. “It is all extremely unorganized, but I use the iPhone Notes app every time.

Today, Tony Piloseno joins us for Friday Five!

1. Timepieces

Collecting watches has been a personal hobby of mine ever since entering the world of business and design. The craftsmanship and intention behind each piece in the market has always been fascinating to me. As someone who loves to meet new people, I have come to learn that most people you may meet have a strong personal story of how they acquired the watch they are wearing due to their own style and taste. This makes it a great way to begin a conversation and find shared interests.

2. Streetwear Culture

As a brand owner, I love the cult following that some streetwear brands have. Unlike most fashion categories, followers of a specific streetwear brand have the strongest sense of community. I love the excitement of drops that sell-out, the resale market research and demand, it’s all very intense and high energy.

3. Hip-Hop/Rap Music

Growing up in Cleveland, Hip-Hop and Rap had a big impact in our community believe it or not. The story telling and sense of motivation by specific artists in these genres have always been in my ears through every point in my childhood and early career.

4. NYC

Truly one of the most inspiring places to visit. Every time I visit, I leave with a newly charged battery full of passion, creativity and inspiration. New friends are always made on each trip!

5. Social Media

This may seem very Gen Z of me––but I truly enjoy scrolling and being active on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Youtube. I love seeing emerging creators in the world of interior design and people being their most creative selves. I still make all the social content for Tonester and social media is the easiest place to stay inspired and make new friends in your niche.

Works by Tony Piloseno’s Tonester Paints:

Milan Design Week
During Milan Design Week 2025, Mercoeur Edition, Tonester Paints, and Franck Genser, came together for Inspired Nuances, an immersive installation. A multisensory experience for visitors, it was a showcase of materiality, color, and form.

Photo: James Harris

M2L House
Tonester Paints and M2L joined forces to transform a historic Art Deco home in Miami Beach into a showcase of color, craftsmanship, and contemporary design. Tonester Paints developed a custom palette specifically designed to complement a furniture collection by Tacchini.

Photo: Courtesy D1 Milano

D1 Milano Watches
In collaboration with Italian watchmaker D1 Milano, Tonester introduced a limited edition series of four timepieces drawn from its Milan Design Week 2025 palette, each embodying a different moment and mood of the city.

Photo: Gabriel Volpik

Alcova Miami 2025
Franck Genser and Tonester Paints brought a serene yet powerful environment to life at Alcova Miami 2025, where material, light, and emotion converged. The installation included sculptural volumes and atmospheric hues that shifted like light across the sky.

Photo: Clemens Kois

Zappa Nest
Part of the Hollywood Hills compound built by guitarist Frank Zappa in the 1970s, the Zappa Nest was originally designed as a creative retreat for visiting musicians. Custom and signature Tonester hues were chosen for their emotional resonance, depth, and ability to shift with natural light. They anchor each room with a distinct atmosphere, creating continuity throughout the home.

In a design industry still gripped by the allure of absence—white walls, pale woods, and the careful choreography of restraint—this small bungalow in Silver Lake offers a gentle but deliberate counterpoint. Here, creativity doesn’t recede into the background. It accumulates, collides, and settles into a deeply personal manifesto and eclectic sanctuary shaped by instinct.

Perched along one of Silver Lake’s storied stair streets, the 1,000-square-foot, 1940 bungalow sits in quiet dialogue with its surroundings—an East Los Angeles neighborhood long synonymous with artistic production and architectural experimentation. Within walking distance of landmarks like the Neutra VDL House and Silvertop, the home occupies a cultural terrain where modernism once proposed a new way of living. But rather than mimic that lineage, New Operations Workshop—led by founder Gabriel Yuri—leans into a different kind of inheritance: one rooted in accumulation, memory, and material contrast.

The renovation, completed over the course of a year, was less about transformation than calibration. The challenge, Yuri explains, was to modernize the home while preserving its modest 1940s charm. The original structure remains largely intact: a single-level, two-bedroom layout anchored by a front porch that stretches the length of the house. But inside, the project unfolds as a layered interior landscape, where objects carry the narrative weight more so than architecture.

At first glance, the space appears to align with the contemporary preference for neutrality. Walls are painted white, floors finished in white oak. But this is not minimalism in the strict sense—it’s a staging ground designed to amplify the presence of things. And things, here, are abundant.

A reupholstered vintage Marenco sofa in burnt orange velvet anchors the living room, its saturated tone pushing firmly against the quietude of the envelope. Chrome surfaces—fixtures, planters, and furniture—thread through the home, catching light and connecting disparate rooms with a reflective continuity. Black leather, plywood, matte black hardware––each material registers as a distinct voice rather than part of a unified palette.

This approach draws heavily from 1970s Italian design, a period when interiors embraced contradiction—softness against steel, gloss against texture, rigor against play. But Yuri’s references don’t settle into nostalgia. Instead, they intermingle with a broader cast: lighting by Eileen Gray and Charlotte Perriand, a Isamu Noguchi lamp, a Poul Kjærholm PK22 lounge chair. These canonical pieces coexist with artworks by friends and emerging voices, dissolving the hierarchy between collectible design and personal artifact.

If the living spaces operate as a kind of curated salon, the kitchen and bathroom take on a more nuanced role where preservation and intervention meet. In the kitchen, all-white cabinetry nods to the home’s original condition, resisting the current appetite for contrast-heavy millwork. Hardware, however, shifts the tone: blackened wood and matte black fixtures introduce a subtle tension.

The bathroom tells a more explicit story of recovery. Following what Yuri describes as an “atrocious” 1990s renovation, the space was stripped back to its most meaningful surviving element: a glass block wall. Rather than replace it, the design builds around it pairing white tile, chrome fixtures, and plywood with an unexpected detail: a latex sink skirt that introduces a note of humor, even irreverence.

That gesture—playful, slightly offbeat—feels emblematic of the project as a whole. Where many interiors strive for cohesion, this one embraces friction. Where minimalism often edits life down to its essentials, this bungalow allows for excess—not in quantity, but in expression.

Still, the home never tips into chaos. Its success lies in a careful balancing act: between relaxation and refinement, between historical sensitivity and contemporary instinct. As Yuri describes it, the goal was to create a space where “the home’s history and surroundings could breathe while still reflecting a love of design.”

In that sense, the project reframes the conversation around what a “creative” interior can be. Not a blank canvas waiting to be filled, nor a fully resolved composition, but something more dynamic—a living archive of influences, relationships, and moments in time.

To see more work by the studio, visit newoperationsworkshop.com.

Photography courtesy of Graham Dunn, Clarke Tolton, and Gabriel Yuri.