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Courtesy of PAU

PAU or Practice for Architecture and Urbanism, a multi-disciplinary design and planning firm founded by Vishaan Chakrabarti, created a revitalization plan for Sunnyside Yard in western Queens, New York. Envisioning a more equitable and sustainable future, the 180-acre human-centered carbon-neutral master plan reflects the community’s needs.

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© E-Jay

• architects: LEW JOESON
• Location: Chongqing, China
• Project Year: 2019
• Photographs: E-Jay
• Photographs: Chong Wang
• Area: 330.0 m2

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1st Prize Multi Comfort Student Contest 2019: Poland. Image Courtesy of Saint Gobain

The Multi Comfort Student Contest is an international competition based on the principles of Saint-Gobain's Multi Comfort Program. It was organized for the first time in 2004 by Saint-Gobain Isover in Serbia and became an international event in 2005. Today, it attracts more than 2,200 students in 35 countries.

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© Cities for Play. Where do the children play?

'Cities for Play' is a project whose main objective is to inspire architects and urban planners to create stimulating, respectful, and accessible cities for children.

Natalia Krysiak, its creator, is an Australian architect and urban planner who believes that children's needs should be placed at the center of urban design to ensure that it is capable of producing resilient and sustainable communities. In 2017, she produced 'Cities for Play,' studying examples of cities that are concerned with providing prepared environments capable of promoting the health and well-being – physical and emotional – of children through a focus on games and "active mobility” in public spaces.

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© Charles Emerson

• architects: Studio Morison
• Location: Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve, Lode Ln, Wicken, Ely CB7 5XP, United Kingdom
• Project Year: 2020
• Photographs: Charles Emerson

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© Ossip van Duivenbode

• architects: M& DB Architecten
• Location: 2961 Kinderdijk, The Netherlands
• Project Year: 2019
• Photographs: Ossip van Duivenbode
• Photographs: Max Hart Nibbrig
• Area: 1180.0 m2

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© Derek Swalwell

• architects: Park + Associates Pte Ltd
• Location: Singapore
• Project Year: 2019
• Photographs: Derek Swalwell
• Area: 7040.0 ft2

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© Koichi Torimura

• architects: Erika Nakagawa Office
• Location: Shizuoka, Japan
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Koichi Torimura
• Area: 174.0 m2

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© Depth of Field Company Limited

• architects: IDIN Architects
• Location: Chiang Rai, Mueang Chiang Rai District, Chiang Rai, Thailand
• Project Year: 2018
• Photographs: Depth of Field Company Limited
• Photographs:
• Area: 1330.0 m2

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© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

• architects: Driss Kettani
• architects: Mohamed Amine Siana
• architects: Saad El Kabbaj
• Location: Taroudant, Morocco
• Project Year: 2010
• Photographs: Fernando Guerra | FG+SG
• Area: 20511.0 m2

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© Fangfang Tian

• architects: RSAA
• Location: Dapeng Fortress/ Jiaochangwei Area Dapeng New District, Shenzhen, China
• Project Year: 2019
• Photographs: Fangfang Tian
• Photographs: Shangqi Art
• Photographs: Courtesy of RSAA/Büro Ziyu Zhuang
• Area: 61.0 m2

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© Niveditaa Gupta, Samya Ghatak, Abin Chaudhuri

• architects: Abin Design Studio
• Location: Dombivli, Maharashtra, India
• Project Year: 2019
• Photographs: Niveditaa Gupta, Samya Ghatak, Abin Chaudhuri
• Area: 20000.0 ft2

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© Ketsiree Wongwan

• architects: IDIN Architects
• Location: Phra Nakhon, Bangkok, Thailand
• Project Year: 2018
• Photographs: Ketsiree Wongwan
• Area: 725.0 m2

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Just two hours from the Czech capital Prague lies Pec pod Sněžkou – one of the country’s most popular ski resorts set in a picturesque mountainous location. And yet, until relatively recently, a supermarket built in the 1980s cut right through its heart, its long, low-slung form acting as a barrier to the countryside beyond, and its dated architecture and unkempt grounds proving somewhat of an eyesore for locals and visitors alike.

Enter Prague-based architects OV Architekti (OV-A), and seven years of design and development later, it’s a very different picture. Named after Olympic medalist Vavřinec Hradilek, the Aparthotel Svatý Vavřinec now stands proudly in its place. Four individual ‘houses,’ built over a retail space and garages set into the hillside, break up the view offering access to the rural landscape and glimpses of the distant horizon.

In between them, and covering the retail units below, a manicured meadow with meandering pathways creates a welcoming space with an intimate yet neighborly vibe. The parterre is stone-clad and the meadow is an intensive Optigrün green roof with retaining ribs on slanted planes. The roofs of each building are covered by an extensive green roof with sedum matting.

There is an outdoor grill with seating, a children’s playground, and the space in front of the apartments doubles as terraces for individual suites. A new harmony between nature and the built environment has been reached.

Each of the four houses is sized and oriented differently, creating an exciting spatial relationship between them, reinforced by the ascending terrain. The seemingly erratic window placement on the façades was conceived to give each of the four buildings its own distinct character.

Stilts built into the landscape offer support for the reinforced concrete core construction, topped with brick, insulated with mineral wool, and clad with red cedar – drawing on the local vernacular in a style frequently seen in early 20th century multi-story buildings around the Pec pod Sněžkou area.

Entry to the 114,000 square-foot Aparthotel is through the reception lobby at street level. The winter entrance leads to the ski-room in which each apartment owner has his or her own ski box.

The shared spaces include a restaurant, a games room for adults with a 3D golf simulator, a teenage games room, a children’s games room, a lobby with a fireplace, and a restaurant specializing in grilled meat.

A sauna provides warmth and relief to aching muscles after a day on the slopes.

There is even a winery complete with floor-to-ceiling chiller in which residents and guests can have their own personal wine boxes.

The commercial spaces include a supermarket, a pharmacy in the style of ‘shop in shop’ connected to the supermarket, a sports goods store, and a ski and bike service shop.

Inside, 90 serviced apartments, ranging from one-bedroom to four, are mostly owned by Czechs as second homes and rented out to holiday-makers when not in use – a full hotel-style service and shared outdoor swimming pool benefit both.

Four interior schemes, characterized by different material and color palettes, offer both choice for owners and predictability for renters. A golden star on the door indicates a ‘glamourous’ style characterized by dark oak and gold embroidery and ornaments, which create a sense of warmth amongst the snow-capped surroundings.

The Scandinavian option, signified by a ‘V’, features light tones of whitened spruce in combination with white ornaments on dark blue textiles – and of course the obligatory reindeer head, surprisingly located in the bathroom.

A small blue cross on a light colored background references local folk embroidery and the Krkonoše (Giant Mountains) apartments. The veneer is pine plywood and the interior is complemented by the traditional Giant Mountain chair.

And for Modernists, an elegant 1950s and 60s inspired interior is denoted by a triangle. OV-A used natural materials, such as stone and pine throughout to evoke the surrounding mountainous landscape and to connect guests with nature even while indoors.

What: Apart-hotel Svatý Vavřinec
Where: Apart-hotel Svatý Vavřinec, Pec pod Sněžkou, Czech Republic 355, 542 21
How much: From $290 for two people for two nights
Highlights: Only 100 meters from the ski-lift to Černá hora and a favorite winter retreat for the Czech Republic’s great and good, including actresses Markéta Hrubešová & Aňa Geislerová.
Design draw: The cultural highlights of Prague are only two hours away, but locally, you can be inspired by the natural landscape surrounding the Aparthotel and of course the architecture and design by OV-A.
Book it: Apart-hotel Svatý Vavřinec

Photography by Boys Play Nice.

Go virtually on vacation with more design destinations right here.

The family-owned Swedish furniture studio Montana, led by Joakim Lassen, loves color. You’ll see it in how their showroom – unlike most in Stockholm, Sweden – is not an amalgamation of shades of greys, creams, and whites, but rather a deep blue with a basement of pinks and pastels. They’re a fun brand that’s flexible in their thinking and their designs as well as their systems, which is why they’ve decided to scale down their distinct Montana system to create the Montana Mini.

The modular shelving system retains most of the qualities of Montana’s classic system: it’s still produced with the same high-quality Montana MDF material that makes Montana shelves feel solid and sturdy, and it’s still made at the company’s factory in Fyn, Denmark.

But because it’s smaller, the team thinks of the Mini more as a modular brick that can link onto other Minis than a standalone cube. Therefore, the new Mini comes embedded with little silver circles that function as discrete magnets so that the cubes can stay in place if you’re putting them on the ground, and they can hold each other up in perfect alignment if they’re on the wall. No more of the headaches you might have had, thinking: is this cube higher or lower than the one we just mounted?

The Montana Mini comes in ten water-based colors: New White, Vanilla, Mist, Nordic, Camomille, Mushroom, Monarch, Antracite, Amber, and Rhubarb, created in collaboration with color expert Margrethe Odgaard, who remarked in her book Shades of Light that, “A color only truly works when it is compatible with the local light conditions.”

The colors of Montana Mini, like the ones on Odgaard’s book, seem carefully chosen to come into their own and are versatile enough such that the greens and blues have warm tones, and the yellows and pinks are cooler: it’s a trick Odgaard came up with so that each color will blend into the tone for the room you’re creating, making it feel local to you.

© Ema Peter

• architects: Pfeiffer
• Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
• Project Year: 2016
• Photographs: Ema Peter
• Area: 95000.0 ft2

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Los Angeles-based Ahlem Eyewear enlisted the help of Shapeless Studio Architecture & Interiors to design their new retail space in New York City. The modern eyewear brand, which specializes in design-focused frames handmade in Paris, has moved into the flexible 500-square-foot space situated on Elizabeth Street in SoHo – a space that can easily morph into a showroom, gallery, or event space. Taking inspiration from the brand’s unique eyewear, particularly their craftsmanship, geometric forms, and use of sustainable materials, the designers created a space that welcomes visitors with a floating curved wall, custom millwork, and sculptural walnut doors inspired by the work of Isamu Noguchi.

The curved wall creates unobtrusive visual markers of the various zones in the shop, for product displays, consultations, an optician’s station, and an ever-evolving inspiration wall.

Close attention was paid to materials selected – solid walnut, aluminum, and several types of plaster – elevating the details to result in a dynamic yet grounded space.

All of the furniture was custom made to fit the shop with inspiration from Pierre Jeanneret, as well as the previously mentioned Noguchi. Paired with sculptural wooden stools, the tables rest upon aluminum legs that, in order to make, were hand drawn, scanned, and digitally traced to become playful forms.

The hand-carved walnut doors came about after Ahlem’s founder, Ahlem Manai-Platt, sketched the design on an airplane napkin.

Photos by Hagan Hinshaw.

© Mark Kovalsky

• architects: Gerstner Architects
• Location: Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
• Project Year: 2020
• Photographs: Mark Kovalsky
• Area: 350.0 m2

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Stockholm has two annual design weeks – one aligned with Formex in August and one that coincides with the Stockholm Furniture and Light Fair in February. The latter, despite being decidedly chillier, has become the most important week on the Scandinavian design calendar and increasingly rivals the main fair for launches and installations. Here is a round-up of our favorite finds…

Sven-Harrys Konstmuseum played host to Imaginations x12, a retrospective of designer Alexander Lervik’s work that explored the relationship between art and design. His Vanitati Carpet visualizes flight traffic on a typical Monday morning, while a paper airplane making machine recreates the scene in midair above.

Upstairs, a second one-room exhibition explored the relationship between designers and their own individual style. A bit like the Surrealist paper-folding game exquisite corpse, each designer created a chair, and then passed it on to the next designer, who had to retain 20–40% of its style in their design before passing it on again. The circle of resulting chairs was accompanied by a soundscape of the ensuing conversation about what the participating designers learned about themselves, the design process, and their tendencies towards diversity or conformity.

Swedish digital-first furniture brand Hem launched its third collaboration with British design magazine Modern Design Review – the Powder Vase by Jenny Nordberg. The vase is seen above perched upon Hem’s pink ‘Puffy Brick’ counter, designed by London-based Soft Baroque and made using Jesmonite and an innovative molding technique for their newly restyled Stockholm Studio.

The Finnish Institute in Stockholm presented ‘Wild at Heart – A Collection of Modern Finnish Design and Art’ curated by designer Tero Kuitunen, who said of the exhibition, “I want to highlight how multifaceted Finnish design is. I think we are currently living in a design Renaissance, where people move more freely between different creative territories.” The ‘Social Impact’ stage (above) offered a closer look at how design influences society. The woven baskets are by Mifuko and were born out of its founder’s wish to employ and empower women in rural Kenya.

A second stage entitled ‘Wild Humour’ included Teemu Salonen’s anthropomorphic design-sculpture hybrids, described by Kuitunen as “gaudy, glamorous and cultivated” and celebratory of the joy of making.

A much more subdued space was the Sculptor’s Residence by Copenhagen-based architecture and design studio Norm Architects working in collaboration with DUX and MENU. The space was described by the trio as “a uniquely curated apartment space with displays of objects and furniture pieces to set the scene of a home and artist atelier.”

With its understated color palette, natural light, tactile surfaces and remnants of a creative life well lived, the overall effect was to make you consider giving notice on your own apartment and moving in immediately.

Stockholm-based Note Design Studio used typography and set design to bring a new perspective to a selection of items from the 150-year-old Swedish auction house Bukowskis in an exhibition called Adjectives.

“Note uses the language of design to inject a new discourse into that used normally to describe art,” they said. “The challenge of this unique exhibition is to show the spaces of the Bukowskis auction house, and everything within them, in the form of adjectives.”

A visit to Stockholm wouldn’t be complete without at least popping into interior design store, Svensk Tenn, founded in 1924 by art teacher and pewter artist Estrid Ericson. This time, the reward was the Famna sofa by design and architecture studio TAF. Its founders, Gabriella Gustafson and Mattias Ståhlbom, were inspired by the spaces in which contemporary design meets the classic eclecticism of Ericson and one of her earliest and most enduring furniture designers, Austrian architect Josef Frank.

The name Famna (’embrace’) refers to its generous depth and low seat height, which invites you to rest in its embracing form – very tempting after two days exploring a design festival! It was shown in orange velvet or ‘Textile Brazil’ which features one of the biggest continuous patterns of all of Frank’s textile prints, and was designed in 1943-1945 in homage to the diversity and color of the Brazilian rainforest.

Last, but by no means least, was FORGO Essentials, an innovative new sustainable care product. Its developers, a team at design studio and incubator Form Us With Love realized that most of what we ship all over the world in bathroom products is water – so they’ve taken it out. They offer a starter kit with an empty reusable glass bottle and three paper sachets and you just buy more paper sachets when you run out. Simply mix their contents with water and you’re good to go. The project funded on Kickstarter in less than 24 hours, proving its worth almost instantly.

Full of character and elegance, the Lifescape Collection by Minotti promotes an outdoor lifestyle that’s full of comfort, quality, and aesthetics. Designed with a purpose, each piece of the collection complements the others while also standing out with their own details, refined design, finish, and texture.

Along with complementing other pieces within their respective series, Minotti’s outdoor furniture pieces also co-mingle effortlessly when mixed and matched. A good example is the Florida seating system, designed by Rodolfo Dordoni, that features soft geometric lines, modularity, and tons of comfort.

Marcio Kogan / studio mk27 designed the Quadrado modular seating system back in 2018, with new pieces – a double daybed, an armchair, and a dining table – added in 2019. Generously sized seating with modules that can be fitted together, floating teak bases, backrests, and soft cushions make this series as welcoming as can be and the perfect spot for socializing.

The Rivera series, also designed by Rodolfo Dordoni, leans retro yet refined. Lots of attention to detail and natural materials are the hallmarks of its pieces, with open-air woven details that are eye-catching beyond compare. The Rivera includes seating, coffee tables, and various other accessories.

The right choice for smaller spaces, the Tape “Cord” outdoor series is compact with perfect proportions. This extensive group of seating and accessories is ideal for creating relaxing outdoor areas in both residential and commercial settings. Each piece shares the Tape detail – a bronze color metal strip securing its feet to its body.