Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2025 i AZURE

IN PEDRO ALMODÓVAR’S THE ROOM NEXT DOOR, an Edward Hopper painting makes an appearance midway through the film. Although the protagonists, Julianne Moore’s Ingrid and Tilda Swinton’s Martha, move through a world of vibrant artworks and furnishings (Martha’s home has a green kitchen with an orange countertop!), this is the one burst of colour they remark upon. “We can lie in the sun like in the Hopper and catch the evening breeze,” says Martha. With those words, she puts the realist work in dialogue with both the idyllic setting they’ve retreated to — the stunning woods, cheerful birdsong and Joycean snow that captivate the women in a tale ostensibly about dying that turns out to be a celebration of being alive — and the film itself, whose every scene is…

NATURAL STONE TUB Kallista’s newest bathtub stands out with rich materiality in bold colours. First exhibited at this year’s KBIS in a special Rosso Levanto marble (shown here) — known for its deep burgundy and dramatic white veining — the Natural Stone Tub is both approachable and elevated, with rounded square angles that soften its clean lines. At launch, the bathtub will be available in White Carrara and Nero Marquina marbles. STOUR Inspired by its signature Newton bath, U.K.-based Drummonds recently unveiled two new designs: the Stour (shown) and the Dee. Named after the flowing forms of two local rivers, the duo features the same ball feet and curvy silhouette as their predecessor but with updated proportions. The deeper and wider Stour offers an enveloping soak, while the more compact…

SITUATED ALONG THE BANKS of the Lerma River, whose waters have been supporting the fertile farmlands in the Huatzindeo Valley for centuries, the historic city of Salvatierra has a rich agricultural heritage. In recent decades, however, a waning interest in farming as a lifestyle coupled with urban sprawl — and an influx of criminality, violence and vandalism — has taken its toll on the Mexican municipality. One regenerative project is attempting to change that. The revitalization of Batanes Ecological Park, led by local firm 3 M E Arquitectura (a family workshop helmed by brothers Enrico Eugenio Hernández Cervantes and Augusto Valentino Hernández Cervantes, who work closely with their heritage-restorer mother, Eugenia Cervantes, and builder father, Maclovio Hernández Martinez), reclaims neglected “residual spaces” for the community with the support of the…

“It’s heroic. It’s like Le Corbusier’s Firminy on steroids. They blew it up, they sliced it open, and it’s the most amazing thing. It would be my dream project.”—GREGORY HENRIQUEZ “A NEW ARCHITECTURAL TYPOLOGY that fuses ancient worship of nature with contemporary urban cultural life.” OPEN Architecture’s description of its Sun Tower, an oceanfront cultural facility in the Yantai Yeda Development Zone, might sound like hyperbole — but the building more than lives up to it. This heroic structure is both an awesome monument to behold and a vantage point to take in dazzling natural phenomena. Appearing as a skewed, 50-metre-tall cone sliced in half, Sun Tower is composed of two cast-in-place white concrete shells connected by ramps that host digital exhibitions. Its geometry captures the movement of the sun:…

“It’s incredible; it’s right by the highway, it’s a modest budget, and it’s a bunch of shipping containers. And it’s great housing.”—GREGORY HENRIQUEZ THE SPRAWLING ROADS and freeways of Los Angeles come with a tangle of ramps and exchanges — and a glut of awkward (and often polluted) leftover sites that are difficult to develop. A case in point: the liminal triangular plot just off the busy intersection of the 105 and 110 interstates. It’s an unlikely setting for a verdant and welcoming affordable housing complex, yet Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects and developer Holos Communities have pulled off exactly that. Organized as a procession of 16 interconnected volumes that share an intimate inner courtyard, Isla Intersections Supportive Housing introduces 53 new permanent supportive units (as well as a property manager’s suite)…

“A purple basketball court inside a real, wild, growing natural habitat? It is incredible that it all works.”—RASMUS ASTRUP CAN FLOOD PROTECTION be beautiful? For the past quarter century, Beijing-based Turenscape has championed the “sponge city” concept, introducing large-scale yet contextually sensitive landscape interventions into cities from Bangkok to Chongqing in order to protect them from rising waters amidst an increasingly volatile climate. In so doing, it’s also creating awe-inducing civic green spaces — and the recently completed Huaiyang Fuxi Cultural Park in Zhoukou pushes the envelope even further. Spanning 43 hectares on the shores of Dragon Lake, a previously neglected site, the welcoming public park harnesses the landscape’s natural topography to alleviate flood risk. In fact, the water management infrastructure has been envisioned as a surprising aesthetic highlight: A…

“I love the Village House. When can I move in, please?”—BAHAR GHAEMI A SPRAWLING RANCH along the Sorocaba River in São Paulo’s countryside, Village House plays in perfect harmony with its surroundings. Essentially open to the elements, it dissolves the barrier between indoors and outdoors through an intuitive layout fashioned after a medieval village. The low-slung volume, designed by Studio MK27, is composed of eight separate boxes clad in locally sourced rugged stone and distributed under a single unifying canopy. They are further linked by “alleys and piazzas” that form both connecting passageways and moments for domestic life. The sheltering overhead concrete slab has a lovely wood grain imprint, which was achieved using a special studio-developed technique that lends the material a surprisingly rustic character — one complemented by the…

FOR CLOTHING BRAND Deepmoss, headquartered in the seaside metropolis of Xiamen, local firm Xiamen Fenggu Fashion drew on the raw power of the ocean and the rocky shore to build an office and showroom that bridges the human and natural worlds. In the showroom, massive, jagged blocks of stone are assembled into furniture, while clean-lined and curvaceous partition walls are clad in sand-toned tiles. The workspace presents another aesthetic altogether, with translucent movable panels and sober, aged-pinewood storage and furnishings — a shabby-chic suit to contrast the display area’s edgy couture. Yet it all coalesces into a uniquely sophisticated interior environment. The space resides on the fifth floor of a busy business plaza. The building’s monolithic columns, finished in gleaming white and sculpted with subtle curves, are integrated as spatial…

THE BREATHTAKING Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, in Maine, holds profound significance for the Wabanaki people, a community that includes the Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot Nations. Any architectural intervention in this setting, which was recently returned to Indigenous stewardship, needs to recognize the importance of the place, and of the people who have taken care of it for over 11,000 years. Tekαkαpimək Contact Station — a 735-square-metre off-grid building by Saunders Architecture on a nine-hectare site — does exactly that. Developed through a uniquely collaborative process with the Wabanaki Nations, the cantilevered building stretches its arms out to the four cardinal directions and harmonizes with the landscape. Its name, which means “as far as one can see” in Penobscot, reflects its purpose of welcoming visitors to the Penobscot…

OUR ANNUAL RECAP OF SALONE TRENDS, SHOWROOM OPENINGS & OFFBEAT SURPRISES BRITISH STAGE DESIGNER ES DEVLIN has long been a go-to collaborator for artists like Beyoncé and U2 — and during a Milan Design Week when theat-ricality was one of the industry’s main fascinations (more on that on page 106), her Library of Light installation proved to be just as big a draw as a stadium tour. Commissioned by Salone del Mobile, the set-up introduced a circular 18-metre-wide bookshelf into the Cortile d’Onore courtyard, which links three major cultural institutions: the Pinacoteca di Brera, the Braidense National Library, and the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. As the glowing shelves rotated, carousel-like, around an 1811 bronze of Napoleon Bonaparte, they showcased some 3,200 books from Milan publishing house Feltrinelli. Select texts…

FRENCH DESIGNER ERWAN BOUROULLEC IS WORRIED that a world hooked on screen time has lost its sense of real-world touch — and thinks it might just be up to the lighting industry to fix that. “I made this as a way to show people how to engage again,” he said while standing in front of Maap, his new Flos fixture that resembles a crumpled sheet of paper. In the architecture industry, early project sketches drawn on sheets of foolscap (or, yes, even napkins) often gain mythical status. Bouroullec’s design, which hangs on a wall like a work of art, nods to this tradition but also subverts it, encouraging anyone to scrunch it into a new shape of their own. (Magnetic pucks clamp onto a backing frame to secure each composition…

IN MOST URBAN CENTRES, green public space is at a premium. But from Central Park to the Jardin de Luxembourg, these vital, democratic amenities are the social connectors of cities the world over. In Buenos Aires, Parque Tres de Febrero in the Palermo barrio is one such place. The approximately 400-hectare park, the city’s largest, is home to the Rosedal de Palermo, a picturesque rose garden, and the Hipódromo Argentino de Palermo, one of the country’s most prominent horse racing venues. Despite their proximity, these two landmarks were cut off from each other by the neglected parking garage plunked between them (which had become a hotbed for drug use and other illicit activity). Seeking to change this, Buenos Aires invited developers to pitch ideas for transforming the decaying structure —…

TO DESCRIBE DANIEL ARSHAM as multi-talented seems almost inadequate. Co-founder of experiential, convention-busting design practice Snarkitecture, the New York–based creative is also a renowned visual artist, sculptor, scenographer, filmmaker and fashion, jewellery and shoe designer. Pervasive throughout his diverse body of work is his signature ability to fuse reality with an imagined time and place, and to conjure dreamlike worlds that defy categorization. Utilizing an array of geological materials — crystal, sand, selenite, volcanic ash, various stones — Arsham’s “future relics” are tactile, visually impactful and original. With his Landshapes collection, the designer brings his enigmatic approach to the bathroom in his second collaboration with Kohler, following his limited-edition 3D-printed Rock.01 vessel sink, which mimicked the look of stacked stones. A masterful marriage of artistry and craft, the Landshapes collection…

Like most design-focused global brands, Fisher & Paykel had its sights set on Toronto’s Design District. “We had a showroom pencilled in on Castlefield,” says Fisher & Paykel chief operating officer for Canada Crt Prasnikar, describing the process of building Canada’s first Experience Centre. Yet “something didn’t feel right,” Prasnikar recalls. His first call was to architect Omar Gandhi. He agreed. “It just felt kind of banal, like any other showroom,” says Gandhi. The search for a signature space both complicated and clarified the process. Prasnikar, Gandhi and the Fisher & Paykel team focused their efforts on creating a marquee experience — one that exemplifies the brand’s ethos and heritage. They found it in Liberty Village. Tucked into a mid-block lane, Fisher & Paykel’s new Toronto Experience Centre re-imagines the…

RECENTLY, A CURIOUS OBJECT has been observed hovering over the terraced tea fields of Xia Yabai Village in the coastal province of Zhejiang, China. Surrounded by mountains, the picturesque village was established eight centuries ago, and though the place is steeped in history, it has lately become a haven for outdoor adventurers, with rivers, forests and farms that offer exceptional hiking, camping and agritourism experiences. A floating symbol of this contemporary condition, the large doughnut-shaped Sky Ring, designed by line+ studio, is part meteorological forecasting tool, part landmark — and a dynamic merging of technology, art and community. The 30-metre-wide halo is made from a robust yet lightweight multi-layered laminated composite. It’s filled with helium and tied to a concrete and rebar foundation by a tethering system comprising 16 synthetic-fibre…

“Beautiful furniture — look at those chairs! I would love to hang out there.”—BAHAR GHAEMI IN A SHANGHAI ALLEYWAY, tucked away from the bustle of city life, a textured black door gives way to a tranquil sanctuary. Here, the Bamboo Pavilion unfolds as a carefully choreographed series of vignettes that facilitate the flow of energy and foster the connection between its inhabitants and the local ecosystem. The design of this venue for various cultural and artistic activities, courtesy of Vermilion Zhou Design Group, embodies the elegance and purity of the bamboo plant itself — an enduring source of inspiration and identity in Chinese culture. Naturally, bamboo was the obvious material around which to craft the interior palette (with the added benefit of being a sustainable choice). Wood-framed sliding doors inlaid…

HOUSEHOLDS COME IN myriad compositions, from single-parent families to multi-generational cohabitation and-flat-sharing arrangements. Yet the design of housing too often fails to recognize these diverse and ever-shifting realities. The result, as STAR strategies+ ​ architecture says, is “standardized apartments that function as rigid ‘containers’ shaped by rules and budget constraints rather than the real needs of their inhabitants.” The firm’s START Ivry is an exuberant anomaly: This is housing that adapts to residents’ lifestyles with panache START Ivry consists of five buildings ranging from 12 to 18 floors with a mix of affordable and market-rate apartments — sometimes on the same floor. The suites are designed to change: They can be expanded; their kitchens can be relocated; bedrooms no longer in use can be transformed into rental studios; and more.…

“They’re creating a sustainable village and showing it in different kinds of moments. It’s focusing on the right things — and beautifully. The elevations are really elegant and convey the ideas clearly.”—AMELLE SCHULTZ ENVISIONED FOR THE EMPORDÀ WETLANDS of Catalonia, Spain, this winning student project puts forward a self-sustaining eco-village built on care and community. Tempo-, as the proposal is called, speaks to the movements of human and more-than-human life through built spaces and across seasonal rhythms. The micro-neighbourhood features 20 housing units, various markets and floating farms, as well as a town hall, a school, a multi-faith building and a biogas facility. The homes, in a diversity of typologies, face each other — only three metres apart — to create vibrant pockets of semi-public space between them and encourage…

Our guides to the newest furniture, finishes, building materials and more Gio Referencing Gio Ponti’s Murano chandelier and paying homage to Venetian craftsmanship, the Gio lamp by Luca Nichetto for &Tradition translates the beauty of layered glasswork into spun aluminum and steel. The tiered conical shades cast both an ambient up-light and a focused down-light, and are available in two colour combinations: Signal Green, Deep Blue & Ecru White (shown) and Vermilion Red, Dark Burgundy & Ecru White. Carnival Riffing on the fabric patchwork Harlequin motif, the Carnival collection by U.K.-based Curiousa combines porcelain, wood and hand-blown glass shapes to form illuminated art pieces full of warmth and playful character. Composed of three drop chandeliers — Lazzo, Vecchio (shown, left to right) and Bravado — the series is an evolution…

AS MORE COUTURE BRANDS compete for their corner of the Milan Design Week spotlight, much has been said about the fair evolving into a second version of the city’s fashion week. But this year presented another possibility: Maybe it is actually evolving into the Edinburgh Fringe. Many of Milan’s buzziest destinations involved some sort of theatrical component, ranging from unexpected moments of creative bravura to full-blown performances put on by actors and musicians. Chef and artist Laila Gohar held a slumber party to launch Marimekko sheets, revealing during a cake-cutting ceremony that part of the sleepover’s giant bed was, in fact, pastry. At the Triennale, sneaker brand Vans tapped Björk to D.J. alongside a sci-fi setup by Willo Perron that captured some of the stage presence of his design for…

+ MICHAEL ANASTASSIADES brings swan-like lighting to the Danese Foundation “I REALLY BELIEVE in this idea of synchronicity — that things somehow come together and there’s a reason behind them,” says Michael Anastassiades. He’s referring to the resemblance between his Cygnet fixtures and Bruno Munari’s Scultura Pieghevole (“folded sculpture”) from 1958. During Fuorisalone, you could see both displayed at the Jacqueline Vodoz and Bruno Danese Foundation, where a number of Munari’s archival pieces, including bamboo objects, served as a prelude to the main act beyond: a room filled with luminous swans. The Cygnet fixtures, while serendipitously simpatico with Munari’s experiments, were actually inspired by the kites that Anastassiades made by hand as a child. These latter-day compositions — which also borrow from Constantin Brâncusi’s sculptures, Isamu Noguchi’s lanterns and Alexander…

MAKE IT UNEXPECTED. That was the brief presented to Belgian architect and TOIETMOI studio founder Thomas Evenepoel for a bathroom redesign in a heritage Luxembourg home. “We wanted to have an element that you wouldn’t expect to stumble upon — a real surprise in a house that’s over 100 years old,” the client explains. To help realize this unconventional request, Evenepoel tapped a long-time collaborator: Antwerp-based interiors company Fermetti and its design label Atelier Belge. Strongly inspired by 1970s futurism — the organic, dreamlike forms of Verner Panton’s Visiona installations and Luigi Colani’s high-gloss interiors — their all-pink bathroom acts as a retrofuturistic intervention in a century-old home. The scheme is divided by a unique material mix that evokes a modern take on the ’70s: A graphic mosaic tile treatment…

1. MYO Designed by Matteo Thun and Antonio Rodriguez, the Myo faucet from Fantini stands out for its harmonious proportions and fluid lines. The fixture’s spout and handle extend horizontally from the sturdy body, a subtle curve at the intersection softening the planes. Available in Chrome, Matte Black and four PVD finishes (Matte Gun Metal, Matte British Gold, Deep Black and Matte Copper), the collection includes wall-mount washbasin mixers and spouts, bathtub mixers and shower systems. 2. AUTHENTICA COLLECTION Taking inspiration from elements of 1930s Streamline Moderne industrial design, the Authentica collection from Riobel (a House of Rohl brand) brings timeless elegance to the bathroom. Combining cylindrical shapes and horizontal lines through the ringed base, sleek linear handles and aerodynamically arched faucet, the collection is both practical and sophisticated. It’s…

“I want to live in this house. It’s miraculous!”—GREGORY HENRIQUEZ IN THE DRAMATIC valley landscape of Reserva Peñitas, just a three-hour drive from Mexico City, a circular form emerges as if a UFO dropped out of the sky — albeit a sand-dusted one. It is, in fact, a spectacular home for two families designed by architect Fernanda Canales. Alongside the main house, the complex features an ancillary studio space and a rectangular volume with a patio, additional bedrooms, storage and services. All three structures are made of concrete tinted with the local soil using a hand-held cement mixer, allowing the home to settle into its site. The material, which does not require painting or cladding, was selected not only for its raw beauty but also its ability to survive a…

BAMBOO FORESTS, terraced rice paddies and misty mountains encircle Houyuan Village in Northern Fujian. In this magical setting, Atelier Global Limited has transformed an abandoned school where generations of townsfolk were educated into a vital community hub. As the only public building in the village, the site is a fulcrum of memories and emotions. To respect the past while bridging to the future, the team aimed to preserve as much of the old building as it could. In this farming society, honouring local heritage means celebrating the village rice culture — and Commune STORE also embraces programming to protect the terraced ecosystem and the tradition of rice farming by investing in local culture and exploring rice cultivation techniques. In adapting the site, Atelier Global made sure not to excessively disturb…

“A lot of interior designers and architects would be interested in this. It’s also great for the environment, and the execution is stunning.”—SIMONE VINGERHOETS-ZIESMANN A ROBUST SHADING SYSTEM meets the delicate beauty of nature — delightful effects ensue. Portland-based ZGF Architects was looking for a way to mitigate heat in the 700-person event space of Amazon’s new headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, which boasts 27.5-metre-by-11-metre floor-to-ceiling windows. It required a state-of-the-art solution to block the south-facing facade while still allowing light in. To this end, the architects worked with Levolux to create the strikingly beautiful Butterfly Kinetic Shading System with a perforated pattern inspired by butterfly wings. Rotating automatically to follow the sun’s path, the custom kinetic shading system mitigates glare, optimizes natural light and reduces energy consumption. At one-and-a-half metres…

INJECTABLES CLINIC POUTx administers treatments designed to pump up and smooth out the physical appearance of its clientele — which means that its downtown Toronto space had to look drop-dead gorgeous. To that end, the team at interior design firm Studio Author embraced a supersaturated, lipstickinspired palette and set out to paint the town pink and red — albeit with a base coat of industrial edge. The result is an environment that makes a breathtaking first impression yet doesn’t feel too far removed from reality. Indeed, many of the 75-square-metre space’s finishes adhere to typical clinic design conventions. Walls and floors are coated in micro cement, while the 5.75-metre-long reception desk is fabricated in stainless steel. Together, these raw, utilitarian elements ground the project in a welcome sense of discipline…

HOW DO YOU DESIGN a tightly knit climate-conscious community from scratch? This ambitious plan addresses the housing shortage affecting an Eastern Ontario township — and demonstrates that development can be symbiotic with nature by combining off-grid housing with regenerative land-use planning. Modelled on ant colonies and informed by studies showing that social unity thrives in groups of 150 people or fewer, CABN and B+H Biomimicry’s concept also foregrounds the importance of interconnectedness. The site’s adjacency to a dense forest and wetland presented an opportunity to take a progressive approach: The scheme preserves more than 41 hectares of forest, integrates peatland restoration and improves flood control, storm dissipation and carbon storage. While using the “living story” approach to assess the site’s natural tendencies, limitations and capacities, CABN and B+H also embraced…

DECOMMISSIONED IN 2017, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ E.T. Joshua Airport remains an unmistakable presence on the landscape. From above, the 1,400-metre-long water-front runway appears to cut into the tiny green island like a sharp surgical scar. The temptation would be to remove every trace. Yet while the Arnos Vale Resilient City Masterplan imagines a radically different future, it artfully avoids erasure. Instead, it translates the linear signature into the spine — and central park — of a graceful urban setting. That setting is the reimagined leftover husk of a monofunctional site spanning just over 60 hectares. In adapting it into a bustling mixed-use milieu, a consortium of firms including Stoss Landscape Urbanism, SOM and Charles Waldheim Architecture integrate a variety of residential, commercial, institutional and recreational buildings with ample…

ALTHOUGH IT’S EASY to perceive agriculture and industry as dichotomous, the two have always been deeply intertwined. Today, the global food system itself is a product of systematized mass production and complex supply chains. What if the connections ran even deeper? This is the question at the heart of Eduard Matarredona Gómez’s provocative yet sensitive proposal for mixed-use land reclamation in Catalonia. Drawing on a careful study of El Prat de Llobregat — a bustling manufacturing hub just outside Barcelona proper that was once known as the “vegetable garden of Barcelona” — the project introduces a spatially efficient yet impressively scalable system of food production and agricultural research to the community’s existing industrial fabric. Using a modular system of CLT structures, Matarredona Gómez reimagines rooftops and left-over sites as new…