Bookshelves became hallmark backdrops during the pandemic when students and academics were cast off into the virtual realm for lectures. Receding into the flat space of digital grids, these libraries often served more as wallpaper for the person gesticulating in front. But what if a bookcase was the essential parti of a home, rather than a surface or addition? This is the idea that Archiwave Architects—led by Dimitris Ntoupas and Anna Konstantopoulou—embodied in The Green Box, a 115-square-meter renovation project in Chalandri, Greece, that transforms a former office into a modern home for a young couple.

Inspired by the client’s profession as an educator, the residence’s design centers on a custom-designed bookcase—the titular “Green Box”—which becomes the spatial and conceptual core of the home. Beyond acting as a library, the volume incorporates storage closets while subtly defining the boundary between private and shared zones. The shelves are the focal point of the bright, open-concept living area, while the zone behind includes the three bedrooms. Inside the primary bedroom, natural light streams in from the living area through a strategic opening above the bookcase.

Complementing the rigid, rhythmic lines of the bookcase is a curved white wall at the entrance. Lit subtly from a recessed opening along the ceiling, this key design element welcomes visitors and guides them to the private zone, softening the transition from the open living space. The kitchen adjacent to the living area is built from oak to balance the earthy greens of the library. A perforated screen housing kitchen tools, set into the millwork, nods to the bookcase’s orderly grid, while a marble island provides the necessary contrast to separate domestic activities without sacrificing the home’s airy feel.

The bookcase itself reads as sculptural line work that wraps the entire wall and corner, with openings that expand and contract between horizontals and verticals to accommodate an ever-evolving collection of objects and homewares. Playful pops of color—the same cool green as the bookcase—bring personality to door trims and furniture, tying it all back to The Green Box. Archiwave Architects have reframed the library not just as an object or backdrop, but as a vessel for everyday living.

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

Photography by Piyi Wong.

Our modern world holds many contradictions at once. Many facets of our day-to-day lives would have been almost unimaginable even fifty years ago, shaped as they are by technological development, societal shifts, and a growing awareness of climate consequence. And yet, as much as we continue to innovate within a field, there are still techniques that remain tried and true, century after century.

Following the great humanist tradition of using the whole animal, Beyond Leather was born from an exploration between premium leather company Elmo Leather and Madrid-based creative studio TetuánCrea. Crafted in partnership with Soulem, an organization dedicated to supporting women in vulnerable situations through skill-building, craftsmanship, and community, the collaboration was presented as part of the Viveros project during Madrid Design Festival 2026.

Leather is a controversial yet incredibly hardy material. Some of the oldest surviving leather objects reveal just how long humans have understood its resilience, using tanning and preservation techniques that predate much of what we now consider modern making. In a world of bonded leather, synthetic substitutes, and products—even within the luxury sphere—that can begin to fall apart after only a few years, the enduring quality of the real deal remains difficult to match. Color, texture, grain, and irregularities within the hide become collaborators in the process, forging a deeper relationship between creator, material, and creation.

Usually associated with upholstery, luxury bags, and car interiors, leather is used here as lighting. Glowing from within, the specific intricacies of each offcut create a unique look, each lamp slightly different from the next. Through composition studies, mock-ups, and prototypes, TetuánCrea designers Estrella Poza Ruiz and Ilaria Franceschini explored how cuts, tensions, overlays, and color combinations could transform remnants into objects with sculptural presence and functional purpose. Taking what could have been discarded and transforming it into a useful and beautiful object is a testament to materiality and process. Respect for the living and the dead is infused within the luminaire, a warmth that lends the simple geometries special significance.

Elmo Leather has long been committed to sustainable business practices, with documentation to back it up. Measurable and scalable goals are our truest path to sustainable design, and Beyond Leather points toward this kind of systemic change. Rather than treating waste as an aesthetic shortcut, the project elevates an existing resource, asking how design can create new narratives around materials that already carry value. “The true value lies in the process rather than the final objects. It is a shared effort in which every participant contributes to something greater,” shares Marta Pascual, Project Lead through U-Ak Social Design Project.

Aptly named, Beyond Leather investigates not only the systems that produce leather, but also the people who produce leather products. Each lamp reflects a network of collaboration built on craft, learning, and the creation of new opportunities. In this way, the cycle of design changes: from linear consumption to reuse, from isolated authorship to shared making, from material excess to material respect. An exciting opportunity to reclaim material while creating employment opportunities, this collaboration is yet another example of how true circular design can benefit everyone involved.

To learn more about Beyond Leather, visit elmoleather.com. To learn more about Soulem, visit soulem.org.

Photography courtesy of Elmo Leather.

In a world demanding design be more streamlined, relentlessly optimized, and endlessly useful, IKEA PS 2026 meets the moment with an alluring proposal to consumers: What if functional objects could also flirt? What if home furnishings could do their jobs beautifully while nudging us towards delight? And what if the things with which we live every day could remind us to sit, store, fold, light, or gather with joy?

Those musings are the crux of IKEA’s latest PS collection, the tenth edition of the brand’s most experimental design platform. First launched in 1995 at the Milan Furniture Fair alongside the formalization of Democratic Design, IKEA PS has long served as a kind of creative postscript to the main range. It is the place where IKEA designers are invited to push further, test ideas more freely, and explore what Scandinavian design might become when simplicity is treated a provocation—where the minutia of daily living is more magical.

For 2026, that provocation takes the form of “playful functionality,” a phrase that sounds almost paradoxical until you experience the collection’s emotional logic. Functionality, as Anna Granath, Range Identity Manager at IKEA of Sweden, explains, is essential to IKEA’s way of working. It is rational, useful, and one of the reasons people keep products in their homes over time. Playfulness, by contrast, is emotional. Some might see it as frivolous, even unnecessary. But for IKEA PS 2026, the two are inseparable.

Through the lens of twelve designers, the collection explores what happens when those two forces meet—when an object earns its keep through utility but earns affection through surprise and delight. It is also, quietly, a love letter to designers. The contributors—Mikael Axelsson, Henrik Preutz, Lukas Bazle, Ellen Hallström, Ola Wihlborg, Matilda Lindstam Nilsson, Michelle Armas, Lex Pott, Friso Wiersma, Marta Krupińska, David Wahl, and Maria Vinka, led creatively by Maria O’Brian—were given an open brief to interpret Scandinavian design in their own way and make it anything but boring.

The result is a 44-piece collection spanning furniture, lighting, textiles, storage, and decorative objects. Chairs, benches, dining and storage pieces, hand-blown glass vases, and graphic textiles are all rooted in Scandinavian simplicity but energized by small acts of mischief. Some pieces invite immediate interaction, like a rocking bench that sets the body in motion the moment someone sits down, or a height-adjustable stool that wears its lever mechanism openly rather than hiding its cleverness away. Others reveal their function more slowly: a solid wood dining table that folds completely flat, a lounge chair that transforms into a guest bed, a sofa built on pocket springs that doubles as a proper bed, or a chair that can hang on the wall like a cubistic artwork when not in use.

These are not gimmicks nor graphic elements dressed up as design. They are functional objects with a wink coyly built in. IKEA PS 2026 seems to understand that good design goes beyond solving problems, giving users permission to live with a greater sense of whimsy and ease.

“I think we, maybe more than ever, need more fun and joy in our lives,” says Granath. “As we are in a time of quite a lot of uncertainty and stress, I think the relief of joy is something that resonates with people.” In that context, play is not an escape from seriousness, but a counterweight to it. It becomes a way to soften the home, to make everyday life feel less automatic, and to reconnect with the tactile world at a time when so much of our attention has been absorbed by screens.

Consumers will find grounding in the materiality, too. IKEA PS 2026 works with hand-blown glass, steel, cotton, rice paper, solid birch, solid pine, plywood, birch veneer, fiberboard, aluminum, and molded paper pulp. Longevity matters here, not only as a sustainability principle, but as an emotional one.

IKEA PS has always had an unusually close relationship with its customers. Over the past three decades, pieces from earlier PS editions have become sought-after icons, appearing at auction houses and secondhand markets long after their original release. That afterlife says something important about the collection’s place in design culture. IKEA PS may be accessible, but it has never been disposable.

Ultimately, IKEA PS 2026 feels like a love letter for several audiences. To customers, it offers objects that are useful enough to stay and joyful enough to be loved. To designers, it celebrates the value of experimentation at scale. And to the self, it extends a rare invitation: touch the lever, open the drawer, rock back and forth, sit the “wrong” way, and let the ordinary become strange again.

To shop the IKEA PS 2026, visit IKEA.com.

Photography provided by IKEA.

In each episode, Play With Matches, the podcast hosted by UpSpring CEO Tiffany Rafii, delivers major takeaways from designers and industry experts — on everything from how to center craftsmanship to how good design can positively impact health. It redefines what’s possible at the intersection of creativity and business. Here are a few lessons we’ve taken away from the first season:

Sustainability Isn’t Clear Cut

Avi Rojagopal, editor of Metropolis, describes how he and his team navigate, report on and assess the ever-changing world of sustainable design. With new products and materials introduced regularly that make compelling claims for being the greenest solution yet, it’s often difficult to ascertain what’s scientifically sound versus what’s green washing. And as a magazine focused on providing perspective and a critical eye on green architecture, the stakes are high.

One major conundrum: What to do about vinyl? “Over the last two or three years, we’ve had lots of different solutions come to the market around vinyl or PVC,” Rojapopal explains. “We have on the one hand a very vocal sustainability leadership that says we should completely do away with PVC in the built environment. On the other hand, we have manufacturers who are trying to develop what they think of as more responsible versions of PVC. And often when we promote one of those more responsible versions, even Metropolis sometimes is accused of clean washing. While I can hold true that we should extricate ourselves from harmful plastic in the built environment, the truth of the matter is millions of square feet of that material are continuing to be specified and specified by designers who are on the teams of the people who tell us we shouldn’t be specifying it. For those who are able to build a project that’s completely PVC free, you should do it. Get us more examples of that. Show us that it’s possible.”

Investing in Craft Is Worth It

Cuff Studio, the Los Angeles outfit founded by Kristi Bender and Wendy Schwartz, started out in interior design, but has been creating bespoke furniture and lighting for fellow interiors professionals since 2018. “We said, let’s create a collection, put it out into the world and see what happens,” explains the duo. And it began with the right instinct: To connect with local artisans, from ceramics craftspeople to glass artists who can elegant their products. “All of the manufacturing, our first gallery and showroom on our home turf and to be very high touch, like with the clientele, with the artisans, learning, listening, asking questions. It was hugely important in being successful.”

They aim for everything they do to be personal, available and authentic, constantly querying what’s missing in the industry to provide real solutions. “So when we’re talking to now our client, who’s an interior designer, we understand where they’re coming from. We understand the pressures and the stress that they can sometimes be under. I think that has really informed how we do business, how we communicate, how we take care of each of our clients.” At the end, clients have pieces that look very different and feel special compared to mass-produced retail pieces. They endure because they are made with care — and because they have embedded meaning. “You can see the hand, the love, the thoughtfulness.”

Design Impacts Health — And Can Be Life-Saving

Architecture isn’t neutral — it effects real outcomes, especially when it comes to health. Amie Shao, Principal and Senior Director at Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS), leads listeners on her journey through maternal health, through her personal and professional experiences both. When she was pregnant with twins, Shao had complications that led to hospitalization and premature birth. She spent the first weeks of her babies lives reaching out to them through the holes in the plastic incubator that held them. “Then years later in Malawi, I was assessing a health facility when I heard this sobbing and I watched a mother collapse to the floor,” she recounts. “Her baby had just died from the same condition that mine had survived, and the hospital didn’t have the equipment to treat this really preventable death. The reason they didn’t have that equipment was because they didn’t have a designated space or the right space for newborn care.”

Shao’s work in maternal newborn health is driven by her need to do something about the hospital spaces — often cold and unwelcoming — that many expectant mothers try to avoid altogether in Malawi. MASS’s Maternity Waiting Village is the response: It gets them to the hospital in the lead up to childbirth, and provides them and their companions with a dignified space to await labour. In a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates, being at the hospital when the time comes is one of the most important factors in surviving and thriving. The MWV features small residential groupings clustered around courtyards, and filled with education, gathering and cooking spaces. After it opened, MASS conducted a survey with 600 women on their experiences there, in terms of privacy, sanitation, safety and comfort, and found that the new improved design scored much higher across every area than its predecessor.

Inclusion Needs to Be Intentional, From the Start

“It’s always been fascinating to know that you could create something that people have these unique experiences in, and how you do that could influence if it’s a good experience or a bad experience,” explains Adaeze Cadet, design principal at HOK. “It really starts from a good beginning to the project, and understanding that every building we build, no matter what type, it is affecting the community around it, and it’s affecting the ecosystem that we’re building for as well.”

Cadet emphasizes an engagement-led process that brings the focus on the plurality of perspectives at play. Who are we designing for — and what are their aspirations? “Some architects get very excited to just go and start proposing these ideas, but you really have to slow down and understand the problem and the challenges, and who’s it’s affecting. And from there build some creative solutions that really start to celebrate that community that we’re building for and in. It’s a lot of research at the beginning, a lot of just asking questions of the ownership, who are we designing for, who are those stakeholders, how are they going to be working. And then understanding the design challenges that they’re trying to solve for, and being open to proposing ones that maybe our clients haven’t even thought of.”

Be Yourself: The Personal Is Professional

If you have a truly unique style, especially one that favours eclecticism and vibrancy over the safe, neutral tones and shapes that seem ubiquitous in interior design, how do you get clients on board? This episode featuring Pallavi Dean of Dubai studio Roar has loads of inspiration. If you’ve encountered Roar’s colourful, layered spaces in person or on Instagram, you can see the personality shine through. The studio’s DNA, according to Dean, weaves together three strands: an unapologetic point of view, a research-driven process and a clear sense of entrepreneurship. “It’s three-legged stool: If one leg is missing you fall over,” says Dean. “We’re not run of the mill. Sometimes that point of view contradicts the trends at the time. But it keeps away the people don’t want to work with, and creates synergy with people I do want to work with.” And it’s not just cheeky, un-boring design: It’s rooted in Dean’s research-driven approach.

“I have a research driven approach, but how do I ensure every single project or every single client gets that when they sign up with us? We’ve developed something called UXD, User Experience Design. It’s a 25 step process that every single designer at Roar has to go through before they submit a project. Simple things like, is the space going to have a great story? Is the space going to make people smile? There are some more qualitative, experiential questions like that, but then they’ll be, has it hit the function?”

Clothing retailers feature decor that appeals to the senses, but this can often be excessive and ultimately detract from the apparel on offer. So when the Raw07 team was tapped to design Solmé, a new boutique, the clothes were the key inspiration and not simply an afterthought. “Rather than relying on overt luxury or strong visual statements, the collections are defined by subtle details and a sense of effortless sophistication,” says Dominik Pierzchlewicz, founder and architect at Raw07. “We wanted the interior to reflect these qualities.”

Located in Poznań, Poland, the compact 861-square-foot store is a flexible and minimalist framework, with a layout that encourages customers to stay and discover a must-have outfit. The main entrance doubles as a backdrop for the fashion coordinates. A second gateway defines the fitting room zone, and also conceals essential equipment and accessories.

Display structures are constructed from aluminum, which have an industrial look and can be easily reconfigured by staff when new merchandise arrives. Custom stainless steel furniture left untreated retains its true character, plus it is recyclable. Individual pieces are combined and arranged in a variety of ways to meet changing space requirements.

There is an interplay of hard and soft materials throughout the shop. Polished metal contrasts with unfinished plasterboard, while softness is introduced via ribbons, curtains, and fabric-wrapped rails. The simplification of finishes not only has a contemporary feel, it also ensures that waste will be reduced during any future renovations.

The color palette is understated, and is largely derived from the materials utilized in the boutique. Gypsum boards with a pink hue bring in a warm glow. Translucent acrylic panels in a green-blue tone reflect light and add an ethereal touch. A range of textural elements are paired with etched mirrors on the walls to create the dream-like atmosphere, a perfect balance of raw and refined that beckons touch.

With an emphasis on modularity and reusable components, this project challenges the traditional model that prioritizes trendy over timeless. “Solmé offers an alternative vision of retail design,” Pierzchlewicz notes. “It is an environment that remains open to change and reinterpretation, evolving alongside the lines it presents.”

To see this and other works by the studio, visit raw07.com.

Photography by Zasoby Studio.

Textiles are no longer a quiet substrate. They are infrastructure, technology, protection, climate strategy, logistics challenge, and cultural signal all at once. A fabric might need to breathe, stretch, resist flame, withstand abrasion, reduce dependence on fossil resources, comply with safety standards, move through a digital supply chain, and still arrive as something desirable enough to be specified, purchased, worn, installed, or lived with. Simply put, textiles now sit at the center of some of the most urgent questions facing design and industry: What can materials do? How can they be made more intelligently? How quickly can innovation move from concept to application?

Sewing Technology and Materials MMS UK /// Photo: Jean-Luc Valentin, courtesy of Messe Frankfurt

For Messe Frankfurt, the answer is in an ecosystem. Through Techtextil, Texprocess, and Heimtextil, the organization has built a connected series of platforms that map the textile industry from fiber to finished application, from advanced material research to manufacturing technologies, and from technical performance to market-facing distribution.

At Techtextil and Texprocess 2026, more than 36,000 visitors and 1,700 exhibitors from 112 countries gathered in Frankfurt. At a moment defined by geopolitical uncertainty, cost pressure, sustainability demands, and supply-chain disruption, the fairs functioned less like static exhibitions and more like working systems. Research institutions, technology providers, manufacturers, processors, brands, and application partners were placed in proximity, creating the conditions for ideas to move faster from possibility to practice.

Recytex GmbH & Co. KG /// Photo: Jean-Luc Valentin, courtesy of Messe Frankfurt

Olaf Schmidt, Vice President Textiles & Textile Technologies at Messe Frankfurt, notes that the role of trade fairs is evolving because companies need new expertise, new partners, and access to new ideas. Techtextil and Texprocess act as strategic partners for the industry by bringing together players who might not otherwise meet. That connective tissue is crucial. Innovation rarely happens in isolation. It emerges where disciplines collide: material science with apparel, AI with cutting systems, bio-based chemistry with agriculture, industrial safety with fashion, or recycling technology with consumer brands.

Coated Textiles Monteiro Ribas Revestimentos /// Photo: Jean-Luc Valentin, courtesy of Messe Frankfurt

At Techtextil, that convergence was visible through material innovation. The Nature Performance segment brought more than 110 exhibitors focused on natural and bio-based alternatives to synthetic fibers, underscoring a shift in how performance is now defined. Durability, breathability, heat resistance, and tear strength remain essential, but they are no longer enough. Increasingly, a high-performing textile must also answer questions of recyclability, biodegradability, CO₂ savings, and reduced fossil dependence. Compostable technical viscose fibers for agriculture and scalable bio-based polymers were presented as industrially relevant solutions.

Private Enterprise ‘Technical and Industrial Service’ /// Photo: Jean-Luc Valentin, courtesy of Messe Frankfurt

The industry has moved beyond sustainability as a brand-friendly afterthought. It is becoming a technical expectation. Materials are being asked to perform environmentally as well as mechanically, and Techtextil gives those developments a place to be seen, tested, compared, and connected with application partners across sectors. Mobility, construction, medicine, protection, agriculture, sports, and fashion all come into view as advanced textiles expand well beyond traditional apparel.

Outlast Technologies GmbH /// Photo: Thomas Fedra, courtesy of Messe Frankfurt

Performance apparel offered another clear signal. At Techtextil 2026, the Performance Apparel Textiles segment doubled compared with the previous edition, reflecting rising demand from security, defense, civil protection, outdoor, sports, fashion, military, and industrial safety markets. These are not areas where materials can rely on aesthetics alone. They require standards-compliant textiles that protect, adapt, endure, and support the body under specific conditions. The future of apparel, in this context, is not simply about dressing identity. It is about equipping people for increasingly complex environments.

Research, Development, Education, Consulting CITEVE – Centro Tecnológico Das Indústrias Têxtil e do Vestuário De Portugal /// Photo: Thomas Fedra, courtesy of Messe Frankfurt

While Techtextil demonstrates what materials can become, Texprocess shows how they can be made. This is where progress shifts from fiber and fabric to system architecture. At the 2026 edition, connected solutions took center stage alongside machinery, linking design, resource planning, manufacturing, cutting, sewing, sourcing, and logistics. AI appeared as an operational tool supporting product development, real-time decision-making, artificial image processing, automated cutting, smart interfaces, and more efficient workflows.

Bondtec Jowat SE /// Photo: Pietro Sutera, courtesy of Messe Frankfurt

Moving forward, competitiveness will depend less on isolated innovation and more on integrated systems. Manufacturers under pressure to move faster, waste less, and remain profitable need connected production models that can respond to demand in real time. That means linking product development, sourcing, planning, production, and logistics through digital workflows and usable data. It also means moving away from linear systems toward more flexible, resource-efficient models capable of adapting to volatile markets.

2026 Innovation Award /// Photo: Jean-Luc Valentin, courtesy of Messe Frankfurt

At a time when so much of the industry is being asked to accelerate, Messe Frankfurt offers something both fast and grounded, where innovation is stress-tested against real markets, real systems, and real production needs. Techtextil, Texprocess, and Heimtextil are instruments for making what is next possible.

To learn more about these and other activations by the company, visit messefrankfurt.com.

Photography courtesy of Messe Frankfurt.

Souvenirs are often dismissed as novelties, even clutter when they start to piles up: postcards, magnets, snow globes, the small ephemeral artifacts that compress a place into something portable. But at their best, souvenirs do something more profound. They preserve the feeling of a destination after the moments have faded. They hold atmosphere, exaggeration, fantasy, and longing in one condensed object. Cateto Club, an experimental hospitality space on Spain’s Costa del Sol, extends that logic into architecture itself. It is not a replica, nor a purely nostalgic revival. It is a spatial memento built from memory, pleasure, and the vernacular imagination of a coast that once understood leisure as an architectural language.

The project draws from an especially charged chapter of Spanish design history. In the 1960s, the Costa del Sol became a stage for tourism, escapism, and carefully manufactured freedom. Clubs, hotels, and roadside landmarks along the N-340 were designed to be seen, photographed, remembered, and mythologized. Their facades flirted with spectacle while their interiors offered refuge from a more restrictive social reality. Each establishment created small spaces of sensuality, color, music, and release. Cateto Club looks back to that world without flattening it into pastiche. And in doing so, designer Alejandro Cateto affords souvenir architecture equal cultural dignity as its peers.

Cateto Club openly acknowledges the influence of Mario Bellini, Verner Panton, pop futurism, and radical Italian design, but it places those references alongside local leisure architecture: the Aqua-Tec diving club in Fuengirola, the brutalist Three Towers of Torremolinos, the Ciudad Sindical de Vacaciones Tiempo Libre in Marbella, and the rough, whitewashed language of places like the Marbella Club and Hotel Miami. Here, high design and vernacular architecture find themselves in a robust design dialogue.

That act of equivalence gives the project its force. Architectural history often reserves seriousness for famed authors, collectible objects, and polished movements, while the architecture of tourism, nightlife, and local pleasure is relegated to the realm of kitsch or backdrop. Cateto Club rejects that distinction, asserting that the buildings people remember most vividly are not always academically sanctioned. They may be marked by a strange roadside entrance glimpsed from a car window, the peculiar door to a club, the textured wall of a patio, or the neon-lit threshold between everyday life and temporary abandon. These spaces shape collective memory precisely because they are excessive, specific, and emotionally legible.

The project’s organizing gesture is the cylinder, explored with near-obsessive focus. It appears as void in seating alcoves, as mass in the bar and stools, as threshold in doors and openings, as pattern across the ceramic floor, and as sculptural lighting in the Sentry Sculpture Light designed by Ewan Lamm for Ultramar Studio. The form feels both primitive and futuristic, soft and monumental, domestic and theatrical. It also allows the project to avoid superficial theming. Rather than applying retro references as decoration, Cateto Club turns geometry into a spatial language, one that can move between furniture, architecture, ornament, and atmosphere.

The circular entrance door is the clearest expression of that language. At three meters in diameter, it is impossible to ignore, knowingly theatrical, and almost cinematic in its frontal force. Its monumentality is not heavy or institutional. It is playful, almost flirtatious. It nods to the old nightclub facades of Montemar and Torremolinos, where architecture functioned like roadside theater, luring passing drivers with exaggerated forms. In today’s hospitality landscape, where so many interiors are optimized for algorithmic recognition yet somehow end up visually interchangeable, that kind of audacity feels newly radical.

To see this and other design by the studio, visit catetocateto.com.

Photography by Loveladrillo.

In The Colony, a tightly held enclave of the Hollywood Hills where mid-century houses survive in unusual numbers, a 1960 residence by Whitney R. Smith carries the quiet authority of a building that knew exactly what it wanted to be. Smith, a Case Study House architect and co-founder of Smith & Williams, belonged to the generation of Southern California modernists treated sawtooth ceilings and angular geometries as instruments for light, pulling it down into the volumes at measured intervals. The brief handed to Ome Dezin was less a renovation than a negotiation with that intelligence.

The studio recognized early that the architecture would lead, and that the real discipline lay in restraint. Renovations through the 1980s and 1990s had blurred the home’s original logic, and the work became one of subtraction as much as addition. This required refining proportions, recovering flow, and resisting the temptation to over-design a house. The custom spiral staircase, the ceiling heights, and the structural rhythm were preserved rather than reinterpreted.

A warm, grounded palette of rich woods, plaster, and tonal stone counterweights the sculptural drama of the architecture. The staircase, its curve resolving in a bold red underside, becomes the room’s highlight, a graphic gesture set against otherwise calm surfaces. An oversized pivot door opens into a double-height foyer where gallery proportions and the sawtooth ceiling deliver a deliberate flood of daylight.

Ome Dezin looked to Milan, and to Villa Necchi Campiglio in particular, Piero Portaluppi’s 1930s villa of lacquered surfaces, controlled luxury, and rooms that hold their composure under pressure. That sensibility surfaces in the color pairings and the low, structured furniture sourced from Dusty Deco, Made by Choice, NO GA, and Kallemo.

A shared bath in the second wing commits fully to a lemony yellow, its copper accents and glass brick reading as period-correct mid-century optimism rather than pastiche. The primary suite, set under original high ceilings with a loft-like openness, trades color for a minimalist composure, its bathroom framing a clean view of the hills above the vanity. Graphic works from Creative Art Partners punctuate the calm at intervals.

To learn more about the studio behind the design, visit omedezin.com.

Photography by Patrick Biller with styling by Lisa Rowe.

The physical manifestations of growth exist all around us. Plants sprout, live, and die, returning their nutrients to the soil – a perfect cycle of endless energy. Rivers cut through rock, forming new streams that offer less resistance as gravity pulls forever downward. Trees, our protectors of the air and soil, grow in distinct directions as well, beholden to the conditions and nutrients present. Crafted from branches collected from Tokyo’s street trees and local parks, Uneri by Sotanaka celebrates this unique growth.

Treating pieces like singular parts of a whole rather than separate elements, one can almost imagine shoots of green that could sprout out of the ends of the branches. The seats and backs are delicately rendered, a whimsical organicism permeating the whole collection. As it takes much longer to learn the rules as it takes to learn to break them, the attention to proportion and gesture is essential to understanding the magic behind Uneri, a pattern of life frozen in time.

Wabi-sabi combines two interrelated concepts: wabi and sabi. Although there are many translations, wabi may be translated as “subdued, austere beauty”, and sabi as “rustic patina”. As this tenet is essential to Japanese design culture, each element is intentionally placed, and was collected from material that might be discarded otherwise. A careful examination of process and product combine to offer a touching ode to our natural world.

Established in 2020 by designer Soichiro Tanaka, Sotanaka is based in Tokyo, working to deepen our connections with the products that surround us. Each project is an opportunity to understand these relationships even better, to help us interact with our environments more easily, and ultimately, each other.

To learn more about Uneri by Sotanaka, visit sotanaka.com.

Photography courtesy of Sotanaka.

Some homes begin with a site visit while others begin with a passing thought. But this project belongs solely to serendipity. Months before Fariz Mamedov of FM Interiors Design Bureau was formally approached to design this 150-square-meter apartment in central Almaty, Kazakhstan, he would often drive past the residential complex while it was still under construction––musing of one day working on its interiors. Soon after, clients reached out with an apartment in that very building.

Whether you call it coincidence, intuition, or something closer to good fortune, that story set the tone for a home shaped as much by feeling as by floor plan.

The apartment belongs to a family of five: a warm, creative household whose interests orbit music, theatre, art, travel, and one another. Mamedov describes them not only as people whose energy immediately moved him. Their conversations were open, their connection instantaneous, and their sensibilities uncannily aligned with his own. That emotional fluency became the project’s quiet engine.

Mamedov speaks of color almost musically. When he looks at people, he says, he instinctively associates them with shades. Images appear; colors begin to play and sound. For this couple, the note that emerged was a complex sage, or light olive: calm, elegant, restrained, but far from simple. It became the apartment’s emotional foundation moving through the home like a recurring melody.

Around that central tone, Mamedov layered a more expressive score: red appears as bold and energetic; blue brings depth and calm; and a sunny yellow elicits joy, play, and invention in the children’s spaces. In the primary bedroom, pastels meet burgundy in a quieter arrangement of tenderness, unity, and intimacy. Color is allowed to travel beyond the expected surfaces, appearing not only on walls, doors, baseboards, and wallpaper, but on ceilings as well. The result is restrained without being timid, colorful without becoming theatrical.

The palette also helps the apartment overcome one of its central architectural challenges. Because Almaty is in a seismically active region, the building came with a significant number of columns and beams, which Mamedov leveraged as a defining rhythm. Mirrored columns in the living area visually divide the open space into conceptual islands, while an accent-colored ceiling cornice frames the beams and unites the apartment as a coherent whole. What could have interrupted the home instead becomes part of its tempo.

The layout follows a similarly measured logic. Originally an open plan with structural columns and a narrow entry corridor, the apartment was reorganized into public and private zones. The kitchen, living, and dining areas form one generous family stage for cooking, reading, entertaining, watching films, or listening to music. Beyond double glass doors, the bedrooms retreat into a more intimate realm beyond a symbolic threshold.

Paris was an important reference, though not in any literal or overly styled way. The city offered a state of mind: soft light, refinement, intelligence, rhythm, and the ease with which new and old can coexist. To that Parisian sensibility, Mamedov added Italian warmth: sunshine, sensuality, softness, and a little more emotional volume. Yet the apartment never drifts away from its Kazakh.

French herringbone parquet, natural textiles, ceramic tile, rattan, raffia, wool, cotton, silk, wood, and metal create a home that feels layered and lived in. The furnishings and objects were gathered from many places, but the composition avoids the clutter of overdetermined eclecticism. Each piece seems to have arrived through conversation, travel, memory, or instinct.

A custom rug made in India from Mamedov’s sketches sits alongside pieces from Saba Italia, Gubi, Louis Poulsen, Thonet, Fritz Hansen, &Tradition, Potocco, HAY, and more, while local craftsmanship grounds the apartment through custom cabinetry, benches, vanities, and other bespoke elements.

This apartment feels less like a finished image than an ongoing state, its beauty found in the way the many elements make space for life to continue unfolding. It leaves room for new art, new routines, new conversations, new memories.

To see this and other works by Fariz Mamedov, visit farizmamedovinteriors.com.

Photography by Damir Otegen, with styling by Fariz Mamedov and Aigerim Mamyraliyeva.

Born and raised in Nicaragua, Lidia Valdivia remembers her childhood residence fondly. “It was colorful, textured, imperfect, and full of personality,” she says. “Nothing was overly designed, but everything felt intentional. I think a lot of my work today still comes back to that.”

After Valdivia migrated to the United States, she learned to refinish hardwood floors, which was her first job in construction. It wasn’t until she walked through a 1900s home though that she knew what she was meant to do.

This time capsule of a place needed a lot of TLC, but Valdivia was enamored with the original woodwork, which was still intact, and she even appreciated the peeling wallpaper. At that moment she saw the potential of what this particular dwelling could become. Ready to spearhead unforgettable transformations herself, in 2024 she founded her Minnesota-based firm, Moonstone Design + Build.

At first, Valdivia took on smaller renovations, and as word spread about her skills, clients gave her more opportunities to stretch in new ways creatively. That trust from collaborators gave her the confidence to keep building the business and refine her perspective over time.

Valdivia’s mobile phone serves as a mood board, with photos of materials, architecture, and restaurants that she discovers during her travels. Some of her best ideas, however, are often found in random moments. “A lot of inspiration doesn’t come directly from design,” she notes. “It comes from everyday life and paying attention to how spaces make people feel.”

Today, Lidia Valdivia joins us for Friday Five!

1. My Partner’s Art

My partner’s art has become one of the most meaningful parts of our home. As an interior designer, I’m always fascinated by people who have artistic practices outside their primary work because it changes how they see space, texture, color, and emotion. Living with an artist has been incredibly fun because our home is never static; we swap paintings depending on the mood of the month, and each piece completely shifts the atmosphere of a room.

2. Coffee Shops, Drums, and Cairo Nights

Spending three months in Egypt changed me completely. I loved how alive everything felt — people talking for hours at coffee shops late into the night, music and drums constantly in the background, families gathering everywhere, spontaneous dancing, the call to prayer echoing through the city. There was such a strong sense of community and presence in everyday life. People made time for each other. Nothing felt rushed. Traveling through eight cities and
experiencing that warmth and energy shifted the way I see life and connection.

3. Getting Lost in Tinos, Greece

I was in awe of how beautiful Tinos was — marble everywhere, tiny winding streets where you could easily lose track of time, and the most incredible sunsets. Traveling there with my son and sharing those quiet moments together is something I’ll always hold onto.

4. Projects That Shape You

There’s something incredibly special about an old home. The layers of wallpaper, worn staircases, faded carpets, imperfect details — every surface tells a story. I’m drawn to homes that feel lived in and evolving rather than untouched. Restoration is never just about making something beautiful again; it’s about preserving character while allowing a space to grow with you over time. The projects that stay with me most are always the ones that shape me in return.

5. My Childhood Home in Nicaragua

A lot of my design perspective comes from the home I grew up in in Nicaragua. It was colorful, layered, textured, and full of personality. My mom filled it with plants, carved wood, tile, collected objects, and pieces gathered over time. I think growing up in that environment shaped the way I see homes today. I’m naturally drawn to spaces that feel soulful, lived in, and deeply personal rather than overly polished. Even now, I find myself gravitating toward the same materials and feelings I grew up around — wood, plaster, tile, texture, color, natural light. I think, in many ways, I’m always trying to recreate the feeling my childhood home gave me.

Works by Moonstone Design + Build’s Lidia Valdivia:

Kitchen With Orange Hood
This project was for clients who loved color and really wanted the home to feel fun and personal. Orange became the starting point for the kitchen and inspired the custom hood, which ended up becoming the focal point of the space. We paired it with walnut cabinetry, dark handmade tile, terrazzo floors, and warmer finishes throughout to keep everything feeling grounded and lived in. I love projects like this where clients fully embrace bold choices because the end result feels so much more layered and reflective of who they are.

Home With Artwork
I’m always drawn to homes that feel collected over time rather than perfectly styled. This space mixes artwork from Guatemala, Nicaraguan paintings, thrift finds, plants, and pieces that each carry memory or meaning. I love when a home reflects the people living in it and feels deeply personal instead of overly curated. To me, home should feel like a refuge, layered, comforting, and full of things that tell your story.

Tudor Home Entry
This entry was part of a Tudor home restoration and easily became one of my favorite details in the entire project. We installed small-scale tile throughout the entry and spent months searching for a wallpaper that felt true to the original character of the home. When we finally found this print, everything clicked into place. I love projects like this where the goal is not to make a home feel new, but to bring it back to life in a way that still feels timeless.

Tile Fireplace
This project completely shifted the direction of Moonstone for me. The clients were fearless when it came to color and pushed me to be more playful and expressive with the space. The shaped tile on the fireplace became the heart of the room and instantly transformed the entire feeling of the home. I love projects like this where one bold design decision changes everything and gives the space so much personality and warmth.

Kitchen With Mix of Influences
This kitchen felt like the perfect mix of mid century, Moroccan, and Spanish influences. We used pink tile throughout the backsplash to bring warmth and softness into the space, paired with lighter wood tones and patterned flooring to keep it feeling playful and layered. I love projects that embrace color in a quieter way where the materials still feel timeless, but there is personality in every corner.

Project photography and headshot by Chelsie Lopez.

What comes to mind when we think of sustainability in action? Is it in manufacturing, proximity, materiality, or a combination of the three? In terms of holistic design, every part of the process must be considered with tact, understanding the nuances of the world we exist within. Almost synonymous with the term ‘office chair’, the Aeron Chair from Herman Miller has been a symbol of peak American office design, long regarded as a well-earned gift for a job well done.

A stately way to take the load off of desk worker’s long-suffering backs, each metric on the Aeron Chair can be customized to fit your exact specifications, creating less strain on the body and therefore on the mind as well. Coming in four standardized sizes, each piece is designed with the human body in mind, creating a more harmonious relationship with the tasks at hand.

In this newer iteration, not only are there new colors to choose from, but systemic upgrades as well. Since 2022, Herman Miller has achieved carbon savings of over 7,000 metric tons, equivalent to taking nearly 6,000 cars off the road for a year. With no compromise on durability or performance, the Herman Miller team also reduced the material in Aeron’s aluminum base by 1.85lbs/0.84 kg. At scale, this translates to enough aluminum saved annually to exceed the weight of 16 adult elephants. These equivalencies clearly demonstrate how small changes can meaningfully reduce impact. Even stronger, they can back these numbers up with third-party studies, an inspiring turn toward transparency in a time of increased obfuscation.

In keeping with the values that spur the type of innovation Herman Miller is known for, they invest heavily in the type of information gathering that is not only good for them internally, but good for all of us here on earth. The more we can understand distinct parts of the product cycle, the more we can make powerful and impactful decisions that will eventually shape our future. When a design is so ubiquitous, born of ergonomic ingenuity and meticulously designed, it begs the question: could improvements be made upon a system that inherently changes slowly? With the Aeron Chair, the answer has to be yes.

To learn more about Aeron from Herman Miller, visit hermanmiller.com.

Photography by Pippa Drummond, courtesy of Herman Miller.