Snøhetta used the Norse myth of creation as a starting point for the design of this fashion and lifestyle store in Oslo, which uses sculpted wood and blackened metal to suggest areas of fire and ice. Oslo-based Snøhetta collaborated with in-house team YME Studios on the design for the YME Universe concept store. It is described by the brand as "a curated universe of fas...
Seating areas are submerged into a pale wooden floor at this split-level office in London refitted by Paul Crofts Studio (+ slideshow). Paul Crofts Studio carried out the refurbishment of a 1980s office block in Clerkenwell, London, for advertising agency Fold 7. The London-based studio reconfigured the space, adding a stage-like platform between the basement and upp...
Industrial pipework runs over the ceiling of this juice-bar by London office Jump Studios, which features a ceramic herringbone floor and a marble counter. Jump Studios was behind the design of the space called The Juice Well, a cold-pressed juice bar in Soho, London. The cafe is set behind a shop front featuring a panel of patterned green glass on the ground floor of a...
Exposed brick walls, rugged wooden ceiling beams and chunky wooden staircases with zigzagging undersides feature inside this office block in London, recently renovated by Amin Taha Architects (+ slideshow).Local studio Amin Taha Architects was appointed to refurbish the mid-19th century red brick building by the landlord, pension fund CPT Ltd. The architects peeled back...
Bubble tea drinkers perch on tiers of cork seating around brightly coloured tables at this London cafe by architects Gundry & Ducker (+ slideshow). Gundry & Ducker designed the space for a teashop called Biju Bubble Tea Rooms, in London's Soho district. The cafe serves a style of milky tea that originated in 1980s Taiwan – often infused with fruit and poured over a l...
Interieur 2014: Belgian creative agency Dift has enlisted furniture brands including Artifort and Ikea to turn the rooms of a school set for demolition into temporary hotel suites during Biennale Interieur 2014 (+ slideshow). Dift's Eyes/Nights Only project for the Kortrijk design event is located in one of the oldest parts of the city's Broelschool, which was formerly ...
Japanese firm Torafu Architects used contrasting floor finishes to define the three distinct spaces of Snow Picnic, an experimental ice-cream shop in Tokyo (+ slideshow). Snow Picnic takes a scientific approach to ice-cream making, using liquid nitrogen to freeze each ice cream to order, so Torafu Architects designed a three-tiered set for the brand's consumable chemica...
Plants are interspersed amongst the raw industrial spaces of this lifestyle store in Osaka by Japanese firm Suppose Design Office, which combines shopping, dining and gardening (+ slideshow). Suppose Design Office converted an old fashion boutique to create the new flagship store for Biotop, a lifestyle brand that sells clothing and operates a nursery for urban gardenin...
Creative consultants Rapt Studio wanted to include a range of working environments at the offices for Eventbrite, after the company secured a permanent base on the sixth and seventh floors of 155 5th Street. Rapt Studio began the design process by surveying the company's employees to find out about their needs, and asking them to collect ideas using social network Pin...
These tiny pebble-shaped seaside cabins by Korean studio Yoon Space Design are designed to be easily transported from beach to beach (+ slideshow). Yoon Space Design has installed eight of the white ovoid pods on a sandy beach in Yangyang-gun, a county in the Gangwon-do province of South Korea. Each of the tiny portable seaside retreats has a floor area of two square me...
The 500-square-metre flagship showroom at 8 Via Borgogna opened yesterday to reveal the minimal design by David Chipperfield, whose role at Driade was announced last November. Spread across three staggered floors, the all-white space provides a neutral backdrop for the brand's decorative and colourful products, by designers including Philippe Starck, Ross Lovegrove an...
Inside Festival 2014: architect Mariana Simas explains how Studio MK27 transformed a former São Paulo cinema into a bookshop that won the Retail category at this year's Inside Festival (+ movie). Studio MK27's Cultura Bookstore occupies a 2,500-square-metre multi-level space in a shopping centre in São Paulo. "We had a very special space to occupy, the former cinema,...
London designer Lee Broom used his latest marble homeware and lighting pieces to furnish this subterranean Soho restaurant, which pays tribute to the area's insalubrious history (+ slideshow). For the interior of the Old Tom & English restaurant and cocktail bar, which opens today in central London, Lee Broom aimed to recreate the atmosphere of attending a "raucous" din...
A three-lane running track weaves around this office for a football app company, by architects TKEZ, leading to goals for penalty shootouts during work breaks (+ slideshow).The team at Munich-based TKEZ designed the 1,400-square-metre office for Onefootball inside a former factory building in Berlin's Prenzlauerberg area. "Our studio was approached by the Berlin-based...
The vast open-plan interior of this São Paulo bookshop by Studio MK27 was designed to encourage shoppers to stay and read the books they've purchased or to simply hang out with friends (+ movie). The Livraria Cultura, which translates as Culture Bookshop, occupies a 2,500-metre multi-level space in the Iguatemi São Paulo shopping centre and was designed by Studio MK27 f...
Powerhouse Company has remodelled the lower floors of a 1980s office block in Rotterdam to create a marble-lined foyer and dining space designed to emulate a hotel lobby (+ slideshow). Powerhouse Company added a restaurant and bar overlooking the Nieuwe Maas river and a spiralling wood and marble staircase to the space to create a hotel-like style intended to "attract f...
Spanish designer Jaime Hayón has revamped a room inside the SAS Royal Hotel in Copenhagen originally designed by Modernist architect Arne Jacobsen, using furniture pieces from Danish brand Republic of Fritz Hansen. Jaime Hayón modelled the layout of Room 506 on the original Arne Jacobsen interior in Room 606, which has been preserved on the floor above in the building...
Warsaw studio MFRMGR has subdivided this office space in Poland to create individual workspaces for employees within wooden cabins designed to look like a "mini-town" (+ slideshow). MFRMGR Frejda & Gratkowski Architekci collaborated with Pamela Krzyszczak on the project for the Warsaw-based IT company Decerto. The studio filled the 400-square-metre commercial office ...
Genesin Studio has designed a pale wood and antique marble interior behind a dusky-green Victorian shopfront for skincare brand Aesop's new Adelaide store (+ slideshow). Genesin Studio created the interior for Aesop on Rundle Street – a popular shopping area within the studio's hometown of Adelaide, South Australia. The studio maintained the original moulding and woo...
Japanese clothing brand Cabane de Zucca commissioned Jo Nagasaka of Schemata Architects to redesign their retail space within luxury Tokyo department store Shibura Parco, to accommodate the addition of a new range. Zucca Dayz is a new offshoot of Cabane de Zucca designed by Rikaki Nagashima, which aims to target a younger market and the brand's next generation of clie...
London architect Farshid Moussavi has overhauled three storeys of an existing Georgian building in the city's West End to create the first physical retail space for Victoria Beckham's eponymous fashion label (+ slideshow). Designed by Farshid Moussavi Architects, the shop occupies a space inside number 36 Dover Street, just up the road from Comme des Garcons' Dover Stre...
Parisian trio FREAKS freearchitects has overhauled the busy parlour's two floors to rearrange a jewellery shop and studios for tattoo and piercing artists. The TribalAct parlour has been reordered to accommodate a busy roster of visiting international tattoo artists and to make the space more efficient, with a reception on the ground floor and dedicated space for the ...
Books are arranged by colour rather than by title on the upper shelves of this bookshop in Rio de Janeiro designed by São Paulo firm Studio Arthur Casas (+ slideshow). Studio Arthur Casas designed the flagship store for Brazilian retailer Saraiva as a large double-height space, flanked by a mezzanine of bookshelves. The client chose to fill these shelves with books arra...
Sky Factory Luminous SkyCeilings™, virtual skylights, faithfully reproduce the subtle visual stimuli of real sky. These award-winning skylights use Sky Factory’s Open Skies Image Technology™ to dramatically transform interiors into more expansive, natural feeling spaces. As unique biophilic design elements, SkyCeilings enliven the innate human connection to natur...
The designer’s description The offices of Google have a worldwide reputation of their joyful and scenery-like appearance. The main concept of the interior design is essentially the same in every country; a visual representation of a typical keyword. In some cases abstract concepts, rather than a specific topic, are represented, such as multi-cultural diversity or just...
SOESTHETIC GROUP have designed the Ukrainian offices for Playtech, a online gaming software company. The designer’s description The office is located in the new business centre Gulliver. A major feature is the panoramic view along the entire perimeter of the building.To incorporate this we were trying to make the interior with maximum light, transparent and cosy at th...
From the designers In this project we tried to build our “cabin”, a shelter to make us feel comfortable to develop our work as architects. With this aim we tried to arrange a typical ground floor of the XVIII century’s center of Ferrol. A narrow and elongated plot (5×16 m.), with few sunlight hours. Therefore, we created an “upside down keel board”, a white long st...
Zaha Hadid has designed a building shaped like a field of sand dunes to house the headquarters of Middle Eastern environmental company Bee'ah. The 7,000-square-metre building will be constructed in Sharjah, in the north of the United Arab Emirates, and will house the administrative and public activities of the company, which specialises in waste management. Entirely ...
Books are displayed on thin suspended beams that double as garment rails at this minimal Tokyo concept store by Japanese studio Nendo (+ slideshow). Nendo's store interior for Japanese fashion brand Beige had to incorporate areas for a library and a gallery, as well as the clothing display. "We considered a zoning approach with specific areas for the shop's different...
Viennese studio PPAG Architects won a competition to extend and renovate the listed building that houses popular restaurant Steirereck, in Stadtpark. The building had undergone extensive renovation in 2004, but required further works to meet the needs of the growing business. A segmented mirrored extension was added to one side of the existing building and the exis...
Kerstin Thompson Architects used a limited palette of materials in the project for skincare brand Aesop to create an interior they said achieves "beauty through restraint". A combination of perforated and smooth lengths of spotted gum wood – a timber indigenous to Australia – are used across all vertical and horizontal planes. The dark-grained wood creates a contrast be...
Located 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, the Icehotel is built from over 30,000 tonnes of "snice" – a mixture of snow and ice taken from the nearby Tornu River. A further 1,000 tonnes of ice is used to create furniture and fittings inside, where spaces include a bar, a reception, luxury suites, a main hall and a church. A new feature designed specifically...
Tokyo office Ryo Matsui Architects designed the Bridal Salon to provide a wedding consultation area for Hotel Nikko Kumamoto, a wedding venue in Kumamoto Prefecture, a region on Japan's south-west coast. The ivory-coloured walls lend a church-like appearance to the space, which has a reception desk at one end and a series of consultation booths to either side of the a...
Spending every day at a desk increases exposure to a range of health issues, from heart disease to cancer, diabetes and obesity say researchers from Sweden, Australia and the UK. The End of Sitting is conceived as a space where sitting is just one of the options available. Dutch studio RAAAF (Rietveld Architecture Art Affordances) and artist Barbara Visser first start...
Open-source furniture designs and 3D-printed signage are found throughout the Small House Big Door boutique hotel in Seoul, by local studio Design Methods (+ slideshow).Tucked away down a tight alley, Small House Big Door is one of 150 designated Seoul Design Spots around the city, which form a trail for residents and visitors attending this week's Seoul Design Week to e...
Inside Festival 2014: Yuki Fukumoto of Japanese architects FHAMS discusses the unusual rooms at Tama Hotel in Phnom Penh, which won the Hotel category at this year's Inside Festival.FHAMS' Tama Hotel hotel occupies the top floor of the 22-story Phnom Penh Tower in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Guests can choose from a variety of different room sizes, the smallest of which are c...
