Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2025 i AZURE

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PEOPLE, PROJECTS AND PRODUCTS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT NOW IT USED TO BE THAT THE BUSINESS CROWD spent its days in shiny office towers while bohemian creatives toiled away in industrial warehouses. But many financial companies are still struggling to woo employees back downtown, and fashion editorials are now glamorizing corporate culture. At the intersection of all this is 161 Water Street, an office tower in Manhattan’s Financial District that was purchased by real estate firm 99c in 2022 after spending much of the pandemic empty. Since then, it has been rechristened the Water Street Associates (WSA) building and courted new, artistically minded tenants like V Magazine and clothing brand Bode. Adding to its reputation as a cultural hub, it has been playing host to no shortage of after-hours…

LAST OCTOBER, Svend Jacob Pedersen, co-founder of Copenhagen design firm Spacon, sat around a bar table with friends Silas Adler (formerly of fashion brand Soulland) and Kristian Nyholm (who runs talent management agency e45) discussing the shortcomings of design fairs. Before long, the trio was dreaming up what would become Other Circle, a cross-disciplinary platform merging design, art, music, food and fashion. “We’ve heard frustration from brands who rented an expensive space and then didn’t get the attendance they were looking for,” explains Pedersen. “Out of that grew this idea of including creatives from other industries, but built through the lens of what is relevant to a design audience.” The resulting exhibition, hosted in a photography studio just outside the city centre, was the talk of the town during Copenhagen…

…And we can rebuild them. When it comes to imagining the possibilities for cities, from cultural hubs to urban landscapes, there is little outside the purview of activists, planners, architects and designers. In this issue of Azure, we look at how museums are changing along with the cities they are in — and in response to a backlash against progressive mores (page 56). In London, V&A East Storehouse repurposes a media centre into an open archive that grants visitors up-close-and-personal access to the thousands of artifacts and books that constitute the collection. In this way, the institution is radically democratizing an experience that for so long has felt exclusive. The Fenix in Rotterdam, dedicated to the theme of migration, also builds on an existing structure (a glorious 19th-century warehouse); here,…

THIS SPRING’S LIQUIDATION AND CLOSURE of 355-year-old Canadian retailer Hudson’s Bay was the latest sign that, perhaps, North American department stores have gone out of style. On the other hand, The Bay in its final years was far from operating at the top of its game, and there is a growing wave of nostalgia for the glory days of its peers. Case in point: The creative team behind Gossip Girl and The O.C. is currently planning a TV show set in former Manhattan institution Barneys New York. The challenge, for the businesses that remain, is recapturing that bygone magic. To really restore your faith in the future of large-scale urban retail, head to the NYC location of Printemps, the 5,110-square-metre fashion wonderland designed by French architect Laura Gonzalez that opened…

IN RECENT YEARS, NeoCon — the design industry’s main contract furniture fair, held each spring at the historic Merchandise Mart building — has been joined by a second, concurrent Chicago fair, Design Days. While the latter had its biggest showing yet in the city’s Fulton Market district this June thanks to companies like Teknion and MillerKnoll, most of the year’s standout products still launched back at the Mart, where brands like Andreu World and Turf invested heavily in even bigger and better showrooms. Then again, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to see the Windy City’s friendly design rivalry driving new ambition (not to mention sustainable ingenuity) — CEOs have always said that healthy competition breeds innovation. 1. GREENER PATHS Eco-conscious products and materials that aim to make workspaces — and…

A RAMBUNCTIOUS GREEN HOME bursting with ideas, Fluevog House is what you get when the scion of a cult-favourite Canadian shoe brand (think: electric-hued baroque platform heels with witchy buckles) commissions a Vancouver architecture firm that embraces the full rainbow. For MA+HG Architects, whose past projects include the citrusy facade renovation of a multi-unit building and the pretty-in-pink redevelopment of a single-family house into a multi-gen residence, the simpatico sensibility permeated the collaboration. “We don’t prescribe a design to somebody; we set up a process that enables everybody to participate and a way to create a vision together,” says MA+HG principal Harley Grusko, describing what he characterizes as a “crazy democratic” methodology. Adrienne Rademaker, MA+HG associate, concurs: “Everything just kind of flowed.” But first: the site. Adrian Fluevog (whose dad,…

IT’S A BEACON ON THE HILLSIDE. Just outside the Bosnian town of Gradačac, the House for Five Women is immediately distinguished by the vividly textured patchwork of bold colours that adorns its second-storey facade. This tapestry by Iranian artist Shirana Shahbazi — inspired by local textile traditions and evoking the rusted patchwork tin roofs found across the countryside — takes on a different sense of depth and texture from every vantage point. Framed by a pair of heavy concrete volumes and a glazed ground-floor frontage, it asserts a striking impression, conveying a presence at once intimate and institutional. House for Five Women, which was facilitated by a partnership with global NGO Engineers Without Borders and non-profits Naš Izvor and Vive Žene in collaboration with the local municipal government, provides both…

Episodes in Public Architecture BY ANDREW FRONTINI “To see and be seen, to animate and contribute to the ebullience of public life — these are the human impulses that shape great cities,” writes architect Andrew Frontini in his first monograph of his work, completed both at Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners and, later, as the design director of Perkins&Will’s Ontario offices. “The need to affirm and celebrate our collective interdependence drives us to create and inhabit public spaces.” These core principles guided the design of all 11 projects showcased in this volume — from the Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre at the University of Toronto Mississauga, whose instant success highlighted the dearth of accessible public spaces on campus, to the Albion Library in Toronto’s Rexdale neighbourhood, whose design process forced…

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A Step Above OYO Architects transforms a century-old farmhouse in rural Belgium into a modern multi-level wonder FROM AFAR, the isolated brick farmhouse in the countryside of Pepingen (about 30 kilometres from Brussels, Belgium) appears almost as it would have when it was built over 100 years ago. But as one gets nearer, a few contemporary interventions begin to reveal themselves: the cleaned-up (and, in some cases, replaced) brick, new fenestration and, most notably, when moving around back, a triangular void in the roof that creates a light-filled internal courtyard and transitional space between indoors and outdoors. Designed by Ghent- and Barcelona-based OYO Architects, the transformation of the centuryold structure required a complete reimagining of the interior of the 312-square-metre space while preserving as much of the exterior as was…

Agra Forma by Tom Fereday AN EXPERIMENTAL COLLABORATION between global rug brand Armadillo and industrial designer Tom Fereday, the Agra Forma capsule collection is an honest celebration of craftsmanship. Blending textile-making with fine woodworking, the seven sculptural furniture pieces employ a shared minimalist language that emphasizes the “raw beauty of sustainable materials” — the abrash-dyed wool of the Agra rug with dramatically grained red oak. Fereday was interested in investigating the potential for Armadillo’s durable natural wool rugs to stand in for conventional foam and upholstery, and as a warm counterpoint to the ruggedness of wood. Articulating a “quiet architecture,” his pieces (which include a chair, armchair, two stools, two ottomans and a desk) invite a tactile experience, creating a sensory dialogue between the hardness of the wood and the…

Seattle’s Central Waterfront. Manhattan’s High Line. Brooklyn’s Domino Park. The public places crafted by Field Operations, of which these are but a few, prove that climate resilience is at the heart of culturally rich landscapes. Lisa Switkin, a partner at Field Operations who has helped to shape projects like these for over 25 years, is a keynote speaker at Human/Nature 2025. The firm’s portfolio is a master class in how to make and remake our cities — and their neglected industrial sites — better for people and the planet. The architectural firm WORKac also combines community and resilience in all of its wonders, from its first Edible Schoolyards to the public libraries the New York firm has created across the U.S., including the recently completed North Boulder Library. Both partners,…

COOL, CLEAN AIR IS A LIFELINE. In June, Toronto Public Health blamed the summer’s first big heat wave for 42 hospitalizations, reinforcing the need for a new city pilot program that provides free air conditioners to low-income seniors. Meanwhile, those lucky enough to already enjoy AC at home and work turned their attention to on-the-go respite. Neck fans emerged as a new seasonal commuting status symbol; sporty highend offerings with “HyperVortex technology” can run a steep $300. The rising prevalence of wildfire smoke — which led to additional warnings to avoid the outdoors for portions of this summer — promises to eventually make filtration devices another necessary luxury. While Dyson recently discontinued its $1,000 Zone, an air purifying face mask attached to a pair of headphones, Jake Dyson told Wired…