Sensory design in architecture considers all human experiences within a building, including sounds, textures, aromas, and flavors. Architects create environments fostering emotional connection, cognitive engagement, and well-being. Core principles prioritize immersive experiences, human comfort, emotional resonance, and cultural relevance of sensory stimuli. Here’s how architecture integrates the built and unbuilt environment to engage the senses.
Visual components are pivotal in architectural planning. Incorporating light, color, shape, and texture can evoke distinct feelings and enrich spatial awareness. Architects manipulate visual elements like light, shadow, and contrasting hues to navigate occupants through environments and establish focal points. Our perception of space, light, color, and texture relies on our visual senses.
The Gardens by the Bay Sound and Light Show is a mesmerizing multimedia event at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. The Supertrees, iconic vertical gardens, dazzle with synchronized lights and music, creating an immersive experience. These Supertrees also feature integrated solar panels, enhancing their futuristic design as they illuminate the night sky during the show.
Check out the aerial view of the rockery backyard garden that immerses you in a tactile experience, where lush greens contrast against a backdrop of textured rocky terrain.
2. Sound
Sound greatly influences our perception of space. Architects carefully consider acoustics to create environments suitable for different activities. Whether it’s using sound-absorbing materials in libraries or incorporating natural sounds outdoors, the goal is to enhance the auditory experience and establish harmony. Elements like water features, wind chimes, or musical instruments contribute to a soundscape that enriches the atmosphere.
Experience the mesmerizing Magic of Light through a VFX Projection Mapping Show on a building!
The presence of sound in a water fountain not only creates delight but also adds a sensory dimension, while visually enhancing the relaxing vibe it offers.
In high winds, the wind chime’s music harmonizes with the natural sounds of the wind, resulting in a captivating sensory experience. Whether placed in gardens or at entrances, these chimes emit sweet, melodic notes that enhance the ambiance.
3. Touch
The tactile aspect of architecture involves the physical interaction between people and their surroundings. Architects select materials based on their texture, temperature, and tactile qualities to create immersive environments. Whether it’s marble’s sleekness or wood’s warmth, each surface contributes to the overall tactile experience. Architectural design can also engage the sense of touch through textures, inviting individuals to interact with surfaces. Material selection can influence the temperature and atmosphere, offering comfort or stimulation. Well-designed elements like gloss finish tiles or travertine stone finish on walls pleasant tactile experiences, enhancing the overall impression of a space.
Indus is a tile-based, modular bioreactor wall system designed by architect Shneel Malik to address water pollution in India’s artisan and textile industry. Inspired by leaf architecture, the system utilizes algae in a symbiotic relationship to extract pollutants from wastewater through bioremediation. Locally fabricated using traditional methods and materials, Indus empowers rural artisan communities to regenerate water for reuse in their manufacturing processes. Compact and naturalistic, it offers a sustainable solution to water pollution, recognized internationally for its innovative design.
The rough, coarse walls evoke a sense of ruggedness and solidity, offering both tactile and visual stimulation. The variety of colors, patterns, and textures in the stones creates an intriguing environment, enriched further by the play of light and shadow on the uneven surface.
The Jacqueline tap by Gessi is a sensory masterpiece for your bathroom. Crafted from bamboo as part of the Gessi Spa Collection, it offers a blend of sustainability and elegance. Meticulously shaped using hot bending techniques, the bamboo roots provide a tactile and visually appealing experience. This tap not only adds style but also engages the senses with its attention to detail and eco-friendly design.
4. Smell
Smell, often underestimated in architecture, greatly influences a space’s atmosphere. Natural materials and greenery can bring in subtle scents, linking to nature and providing refreshment. Strategically placed essential oils or aromatic plants can establish a calming or invigorating environment. Architects can incorporate natural ventilation, fragrant plants, and scented materials to enhance the design’s sensory aspects. Whether it’s the aroma of baked goods in a bakery, the scent of wet earth after rain, or the woody fragrance of a forest, smells enrich the ambiance.
Elevate your indoor environment effortlessly with the compact Forest Scent Diffuser, infusing your space with the invigorating scent of the forest or the soothing aroma of the sea all day long. Inspired by the simplicity of a mailbox, this eco-friendly device utilizes tea bags or coffee scraps to emit your desired fragrance, promoting relaxation and focus wherever you place it in your home. Crafted from fabric and metal, its sleek design resembles a wireless speaker, discreetly enhancing your surroundings with the essence of nature while reducing stress and fatigue.
5. Taste
While taste isn’t commonly linked to architectural design, it can indirectly influence experiences, especially in restaurants and cafes. These spaces demonstrate how design can enhance culinary experiences by complementing the food with layout and aesthetics. Material choices also impact taste perception; for example, natural materials promote a more mindful connection with food. Architects in hospitality settings consider factors like dining area layout and food presentation to create a multisensory dining experience, where the smell of freshly brewed coffee further enhances the ambiance.
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee enhances the dining experience in cafes and restaurants, adding to the sensory delight of enjoying the space within the establishment.
6. Perception
Perception is pivotal, involving manipulation of space, height, color psychology, and light to shape interaction with surroundings. Architects use techniques like mirrors, patterns, and colors for optical illusions of space and depth. Strategic window placement and perforated screens regulate natural light, resulting in dynamic interplays of shadow, pattern, and light.
Singapore’s Jewel Changi Airport offers a unique sensory experience, with its expansive skylight flooding the interior with natural light and creating a tranquil atmosphere. The centerpiece is the mesmerizing indoor waterfall, the Rain Vortex, which cascades down several stories amidst lush greenery, evoking wonder and awe. The scent of foliage fills the air, enhancing the immersive experience, while a silent train glides through the indoor forest, providing a unique perspective for travelers within this bustling terminal. Jewel Changi Airport is not just a transportation hub; it’s a destination where visitors can escape into a world of light, water, and nature.
Square cutouts allow natural light to enter, casting shadows on the floor. The patterns shift with the sun’s orientation, creating a spacious and dynamic atmosphere within the all-white space.
Geometric patterns and shadows form an abstract design.
In architecture, sensory design seamlessly integrates all senses, engaging occupants holistically and nurturing their well-being while fostering a profound connection to the environment. By integrating sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste, architects create spaces that deeply resonate with occupants, fostering connection and enriching the overall human experience.
Indoor gardening and plants gained momentum around 2-3 years ago as people sought ways to cope with boredom and insanity while cooped up at home. Since then, it has become fashionable to raise greens inside homes, whether for food, aesthetics, or both. But as captivating as green living things may look during the day, their aesthetic value drops completely when you can no longer see them at night or in the dark. Of course, you could buy one of those hi-tech planters that have built-in lights, but that costs money not just for the product but also for the electricity it consumes. It would definitely be enchanting and magical if the plants could glow on their own, and that’s exactly the marvel that these glowing petunias are bringing to the table, literally.
There are some things that naturally glow in the dark, and, no, we’re not just talking fireflies and some iridescent rocks. Bioluminescent plants actually occur more often in nature, except they aren’t exactly the type of plants that you’d proudly display in a pot on your shelf or coffee table. But what if you could have that same magical ability on indoor plants and flowers? You’d probably be the talk of your friends and the town for as long as the plant is alive.
The Firefly Petunia is exactly that, a new and regulation-approved breed of the popular garden flower that, if you haven’t caught on yet, glows in the dark. This isn’t the first attempt to breed a bioluminescent houseplant, but it seems to be on track to being to most successful to date. Unlike previous experiments, this first mixed the genes of a glowing mushroom with a tobacco plant to great success. Of course, you wouldn’t want to grow that inside your home, so it’s a good thing that petunias are a close and, more importantly, compatible cousin.
What makes the Firefly Petunia even more special is that it requires no extra care or steps to make it glow since it’s all part of the plant’s growing process. Simply make sure that it gets enough sunlight during the day, which is something you should be doing anyway, and then watch it light up in the dark of night. The bioluminescence can even be an indicator of the plant’s health, because parts that are growing faster, like flower buds, also glow the brightest. When the plant starts to dim, it’s time to check its condition or prune dead parts.
This glow-in-the-dark flower is just the first step in the company’s grand plan, which includes making the petunias glow in more colors other than plain white. Research is also underway to extend the capabilities outside of this species, so it might only be a matter of time before we see all kinds of plants and flowers glowing in the dark, turning your home into a magical garden every night.
To round off our Social Housing Revival series, we’ve put together a list of 50 architecture studios around the world that have made a name for themselves through their work on social housing.
For the past month, the Social Housing Revival has explored how we are again in an era when the best architects want to be designing social housing.
Below, Dezeen has put together a selection of architecture studios around the world that are currently at the forefront of the social housing resurgence with the help of experts in the field.
Not all studios listed work on social housing in the most traditional sense, but do equivalent types of housing based on their local contexts.
There are many more studios that also could have been included. If you are aware of others that deserve recognition for their work on social housing, please mention them in the comments section below.
Buenos Aires studio Adamo-Faiden was founded in 2005 by Sebastian Adamo and Marcelo Faiden.
The studio is among the leading proponents of Argentina’s “fideicomiso” model, where architects deliver co-housing on behalf of a community without the involvement of a real-estate developer.
Led by Kyle Buchanan and Mellis Haward, London studio Archio specialises in housing and public buildings known for collaborating closely with local communities.
Her studio, founded in 1980, has completed several social-housing projects including the Cité Pierre Sémard (pictured), the largest wooden residential complex in France.
Founded in 2009 by Thibaut Barrault and Cyril Pressacco, Barrault Pressacco has used social-housing projects as an opportunity to experiment with low-carbon materials.
Rosario-based firm BBOA, or Balparda Brunel Oficina de Arquitectura, has a string of projects in its back catalogue that seek to break away from the monotony of much Argentinian housing.
Examples include a development of pink-bricked apartments delivered with government funding in the town of Granadero Baigorria (pictured).
Vienna is well known as one of the global capitals of social housing, and Berger+Parkkinen is among several architecture studios based in the city to take advantage.
Nigerian-born architect Victor Body-Lawson, whose eponymous studio delivers projects across the US as well as in Africa, specialises in low-cost housing.
“Over the years of practising, I have come to realise that the best tool for empowering people is through affordable housing,” he told Dezeen in a 2022 interview.
Established with seed funding from the foundation of US architect Cliff Curry and archaeologist Delight Stone, Community Design Agency is a Mumbai-based architecture practice focused on delivering projects for those in greatest need.
Comunal Taller de Arquitectura spent years developing a prototype for rural social housing that Mexico’s indigenous communities are able to build themselves using local available bamboo (pictured).
In 2018, its design was approved to receive federal subsidies Mexico’s National Housing Commission, enabling it to be rolled out across the state of Puebla.
Bay Area studio David Baker Architects is one of the most prominent designers of affordable housing on the American West Coast, and has distilled its philosophy into nine key principles.
Its projects include Tahanan (pictured), a modular block clad in weathering steel that provides supported housing to people who were previously homeless.
Under the influence of former partner Frits van Dongen, De Architekten Cie gained a strong reputation for housing in the 1990s and 2000s. Its more recent projects include a vast 1,363-home complex in Seoul for the Korea Land and Housing Corporation.
Chilean studio Elemental gained global recognition for its first project, Quinta Monroy, which completed in 2004 and delivered 93 low-cost houses for the people of Iquique.
Its founder, Alejandra Aravena, won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2016 and that year open-sourced many of the firm’s designs for what it calls “incremental” housing, where governments fund the construction of a basic residential structure that residents can complete as they are able.
G8A Architects was founded in Geneva in 2000 by Manuel Der Hagopian and Grégoire Du Pasquier, but has become an influential force in public housing in south-east Asia since opening an office in Hanoi in 2007.
It gained significant recognition in the region after its Punggol Waterway Terraces project (pictured), completed in 2015 for Singapore’s Housing and Development Board, set a new bar for social cohesion and low-energy living in mass housing.
Swiss architect Gus Wüstemann founded his studio in 1997, with offices in Zurich and Barcelona.
It is known for combining simple aesthetics with an ethically conscious approach, most notably at its brutalist Langgrütstrasse affordable-housing complex completed in 2020. Wüstemann also served as an advisor to Barcelona’s housing-focused former mayor Ada Colau.
Founded in 1969 by Richard Henriquez and now led by his son Gregory, mid-sized architecture studio Henriquez Partners maintains a strong focus on social justice.
It has delivered a string of social housing projects, including a landmark redevelopment of Vancouver’s Woodwards department store and a major new co-op housing development.
Not an architecture studio but a public housing authority that employs in-house architects, the Balearic Social Housing Institute (IBAVI) earns a place on this list thanks to its experiments in sustainable social housing.
Founded in Melbourne in 1999, Kennedy Nolan Architects was established to deliver small residential projects but has since diversified, becoming a leading name in affordable-housing design in Australia.
The studio was recommended for this list by Sam Naylor, co-editor of the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies’ recently published book, The State of Housing Design 2023.
The highly decorated Lacaton & Vassal Architectes is one of France’s best-known architecture studios, associated particularly with renovation projects.
Architecture collective Lacol has taken on a leading role in Barcelona’s new wave of social housing delivered since 2015, with a particular focus on co-housing.
Among several high-profile projects it has designed plenty of housing in the Netherlands and beyond, including key-worker housing for University of Cambridge staff (pictured) and a recently completed scheme in Taiwan.
London studio Mikhail Riches shot to architectural fame after Goldsmith Street, its development of 105 Passivhaus council homes in Norwich, was awarded the Stirling Prize in 2019.
In a recent interview with Dezeen, studio co-founder Annalie Riches said she set out in her career to dispel the idea that architects “can’t do housing”.
Sarajevo-born architect Nerma Linsberger founded her eponymous studio in Vienna in 2010 and it has since emerged from a crowded field as one of the city’s leading names in social-housing design, with a particular focus on sustainability.
Notable projects include the metallic B53 (pictured) and the award-winning M-Grund.
It is known for playing with conventional housing types in its designs, such as at the Bastion Community development of veterans’ homes (pictured), which adapted the single-family house vernacular of the area to foster greater social cohesion.
Recommended for inclusion on this list by the Danish Architecture Center (DAC), ONV Arkitekter has delivered nearly 1,300 affordable homes through its AlmenBolig + modular building system.
Developed in partnership with fellow Copenhagen studio JAJA Architects, the concept enables residents to customise their homes.
Paul Keogh Architects was founded in 1984. With Ireland seeking to increase its supply of social housing amid an acute housing-affordability crisis, the studio has been working on projects for councils across the country for two decades.
It recently completed Cornamona Court, a development of 61 homes for Dublin City Council and one of Ireland’s largest council-housing projects.
His London studio has delivered projects for multiple local authorities in the capital, including McGrath Road in Newham (pictured), which took the Neave Brown Award for Housing in 2021.
Johannesburg studio Savage + Dodd Architects has emerged as a leading designer of low-cost housing in South Africa over the past two decades, specialising particularly in the adaptive reuse of existing buildings.
Schored Projects is an architecture studio specialising in social housing with offices in Melbourne and Sydney. Its projects include seven secure, affordable homes for women in the form of townhouses (pictured).
Sergio Pascolo Architects is based in Venice, but the studio has done extensive work on social housing in the German town of Göttingen.
It has completed several housing complexes in the area, using its Total Housing prefabricated building concept that prioritises fostering multi-generational communities.
Recommended for inclusion on this list by Claire Bennie, director of housing design consultancy Municipal, Sergison Bates Architects has presences in both London and Zurich.
Founded in 1983 and led by Kirsti Sivén and Asko Takala, Siven & Takala describes itself as placing particular emphasis on designing durable buildings.
It has contributed a large number of projects to Finland’s housing landscape, including several schemes for older people.
Taller de Arquitectura X is the studio of Alberto Kalach. In 2014 it developed a concept for low-rise, high-density social housing that could work in Mexican cities.
The design was picked up by a social-housing provider and realised in the city of Hermosillo, with 179 low-energy, single-family houses occupying a site that would typically only fit 90 dwellings.
Trans_city is another Viennese studio with a strong track record of delivering social housing.
Founded by American architect Mark Gilbert and Austrian architect Christian Aulinger, its projects include Zwei+Plus, an estate of 140 intergenerational social homes completed in 2016 (pictured).
Singapore has among the highest proportions of publicly-owned housing of any country in the world, though unusually, most of it is developed for ownership.
Established in 1994, WOHA is currently one of the most significant contributors to the programme, with projects including SkyVille @ Dawson, a 960-home estate topped by a public roof park, and Kampung Admiralty, which provides affordable housing for older people.
Finally, the fourth Viennese studio on the list is WUP Architektur. Founded in 2014 as a successor to Office Helmut Wimmer, it is among the most prolific contributors to the city’s active social-housing scene.
Its projects include the recently completed Aspern H4, a colourful block of 74 apartments that all have large balconies and sliding walls to enable residents to change the floorplan of their homes.
This article is part of Dezeen’s Social Housing Revival series exploring the new wave of quality social housing being built around the world, and asking whether a return to social house-building at scale can help solve affordability issues and homelessness in our major cities.
Architecture studio Wallmakers has repurposed approximately 6,200 discarded toys to construct the walls of Toy Storey, a circular home in Kerala, India.
The aptly named residence by Wallmakers uses toys discarded in the area, which are unsuitable for recycling, as structural components and decoration within the external walls.
A cantilevered verandah wraps around the circular home
“The main concept of Toy Storey revolves around the idea of using discarded toys and effectively conveying a message through this,” studio founder Vinu Daniel told Dezeen.
“By repurposing around 6,200 discarded toys, the residence in Kerala becomes a living monument to nostalgia and childhood, while addressing environmental concerns,” he added.
Approximately 6,200 discarded toys are used in the home’s walls
Toy Storey is wrapped by perforated, curved walls composed of compressed stabilised earth blocks, Mangalore tiles and toys, designed to draw in light and enable cross ventilation through the home. A ferrocement roof sits on top.
Four evenly-spaced entrances puncture the facade, which is wrapped by a cantilevered verandah offering outdoor space overlooking the surrounding greenery.
Perforated walls draw light and ventilation through the interior
Inside, the home’s first floor is divided into public and private segments. The public half is defined by a large living room while the private half contains an open-plan kitchen and dining area flanked by bedrooms.
“One of the things that the client mentioned was they often host their neighbours and members of the community, which means there are often many people in the house,” Daniel said.
“Hence we decided to make the area the people frequented separate from that of the client’s family’s personal spaces,” he continued.
Japanese-style shoji screens are used as partitions throughout the interior to enable light into each space and connectivity between the private and public areas.
An open-plan kitchen and dining area are flanked by bedrooms
The site’s topography enabled the addition of a secluded basement level containing a library and bedroom, accessed from the upper floor by a central staircase.
An internal courtyard topped with a glass ceiling slices through the building providing additional daylight for the interior.
Japanese-style shoji screens are used as internal partitions
It features over 100 works that make use of textile, fibre and thread from over 50 artists from across the globe, spanning from the 1960s to the present day.
The exhibition explores how artists have used textiles to express their lived experience
The exhibition is designed to challenge the perception of textiles being solely domestic or craft practices and instead features textile works that relate a story of resistance and rebellion as well as pieces that present narratives of emancipation and joy.
Johnson explained that textiles offer a meaningful medium to express personal and political issues due to their tactile nature and intimate connection to daily life.
“Textiles are one of the most under-examined mediums in art history and in fact history itself,” Johnson said. “They are an intrinsic part of our everyday lives. When we’re born, we’re shrouded in a piece of fabric. Everyday we wrap ourselves in textiles,” she continued.
“They’re really this very intimate, tactile part of our lives and therefore perhaps the most intrinsic, meaningful way to express ourselves.”
Feminist artist Judy Chicago’s Birth Project depicts birth as a mystical and confrontational process
The exhibition is structured into six thematic sections. The first, called Subversive Stitch, presents works that challenge binary conceptions of gender and sexuality.
The section includes feminist artist Judy Chicago’s Birth Project, which vividly depicts the glory, pain and mysticism of giving birth, as well as a piece from South African artist Nicholas Hlobo, which, despite initially appearing as a painting, is made using ribbon and leather stitched into a canvas.
Another section of the exhibition is titled Bearing Witness, which brings together artists who employ textiles to confront and protest political injustices and systems of violent oppression.
Artist Teresa Margolles creates collective tapestries that trigger conversations on police brutality
Included in this section are tapestries by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles that commemorate the lives of individuals including Eric Garner and Jadeth Rosano López.
Garner was an African-American man killed in 2014 by NYPD police officer Daniel Pantaleo, who put Garner into a chokehold during arrest. López was a seventeen-year old-girl assassinated in Panama City.
Margolles used fabric that had been placed in contact with the victims’ deceased bodies and collaborated with embroiderers from their respective local communities to create the tapestries.
The Wound and Repair sections includes work from American artist and activist Harmony Hammond’s Bandaged Grid series, in which layered fabric is used to evoke imagery reminiscent of an injured body.
Tau Lewis’s fabric assemblages create new narratives of black histories
While violence and brutality are key themes examined in the exhibition, it also showcases how textiles can be used to create narratives of hope. The final, most expansive section of the exhibition is titled Ancestral Threads, which encompasses works created to inspire a sense of optimism and reconnect with ancestral practices.
“This section not only explores artists processing exploitative and violent colonial and imperialist histories, but also celebrates the artists who are re-summoning and relearning ancient knowledge systems to imagine a different kind of future,” Johnson explained.
Canadian multimedia artist Tau Lewis’s work titled The Coral Reef Preservation Society is a patchwork assemblage of recycled fabrics and seashells including fragments of textured denim.
The work pays homage to the enslaved women and children thrown overboard in the Middle Passage, the historical transportation route used during the Atlantic slave trade. These women and children have been reimagined as underwater sea creatures to transform the narrative into one of regeneration.
Vicuña revives the art of the quipu in her installation Quipu Austral
A large installation by Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña titled Quipu Austral is situated towards the end of the exhibition. The installation takes the form of billowing ribbons hanging from the ceiling.
Vicuña references quipu, a form of recording used by a number cultures in Andean South America. Quipu was a ancient writing system which used knotted textile cords to communicate information.
Other sections in the exhibition include Fabric of Everyday, which explores the daily uses of textiles, as well as Borderlands, which examines how textiles have been used to challenge ideas around belonging.
These sections feature works such as Shelia Hicks’ colourful woven bundles and Margarita Cabrera’s soft sculpture cacti crafted from reclaimed US border patrol uniforms.
Mexican-American artist Margarita Cabrera uses reclaimed border patrol uniforms in her work
“We hope that people might come out of this exhibition feeling invigorated and moved by the stories of resilience and rebellion embedded in the work but also hope and emancipation,” Johnson said.
“I hope that the show might inspire people to pick up a needle and thread themselves and use it to express their own lived experience.”
The show is a partnership between the Barbican and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and was co-curated by Barbican curators Johnson, Wells Fray-Smith and Diego Chocano, in collaboration with Amanda Pinatih from the Stedelijk.
Dezeen Showroom: Swiss brand V-Zug has released its CombiSteamer V6000 45L Grand oven – a combination oven and steamer with high-level functionality and a refined appearance.
The CombiSteamer V6000 45L Grand oven is a sophisticated piece of kitchen equipment designed to allow users to cook chef-level meals at home.
V-Zug’s CombiSteamer V6000 45L Grand oven is designed to look refined and elegant
The extra-wide steamer oven has a minimalist design with either a discreet aluminium handle or an AutoDoor that blends with the aesthetic of handleless kitchens.
The oven includes a vacuisine for sous-vide cooking and regeneration option for reheating, as well as automated cooking technology to assist in the preparation of various types of food.
It combines high-level oven and steamer functionality
The CombiSteamer V6000 45L Grand oven is available in pearl mirror glass, platinum mirror glass or black mirror glass finishes, and features an unobtrusive user interface with a CircleSlider engraved into the glass and a high-resolution touch display.
“Minimalist, elegant, timeless – design that stands the test of time,” said V-Zug. “The sleek lines and mirror glass front blend seamlessly into any kitchen thanks to different colour options.”
Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
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UK studio Fletcher Crane Architects has completed Kingston Villa in Richmond, London, offering a contemporary “evolution” of the area’s typical suburban architecture in pale brick and metal.
Tasked with turning a dilapidated bungalow on the edge of Richmond Park into a new family home, the Surrey-based studio drew on its neighbouring buildings to create a simple, gabled form.
The home is fronted by a metal canopy that shelters the entrance
“This new family villa bordering Richmond Park seeks to evolve the historic villa typology and inject character and quality into a typical suburban streetscape architecture,” explained Fletcher Crane Architects.
“The resultant detached home has been inspired by the varying historic features within the quality built environment; friezes, bays, entrance porticos and construction methodology – represented into an architecture of its day,” it continued.
Brickwork, tiled floors and wooden carpentry also feature on the interior
Facing the street, Kingston Villa is fronted by a metal canopy that shelters its entrance. This sits beneath a gable end that has been finished in pale textured brickwork.
The entrance route leads past two smaller lounge and study spaces into a living, dining and kitchen space, centred around a double-height seating area and fireplace overlooked by a metal and timber stair.
In these living and circulation areas, the internal finishes mirror those of the outside, with exposed brickwork, tiled floors and dark wooden carpentry bringing a “heavy, yet quiet” quality to the spaces.
A double-height seating area centres the living, dining and kitchen spaces
At the rear of the home, full-height windows look out towards the park, finished with alternating deep-set and projecting metal reveals that subtly animate the facade.
On the ground floor, sliding glass doors provide access to a sunken paved patio that steps up to the garden beyond.
“Bold white brickwork is contrasted by bronzed window frames, metalwork panels and arboreal planting,” explained the studio.
“The architecture is heavy, yet quiet with a focus on emphasising the fabulous location and aspect with panoramic views of the park,” it added.
Bedrooms are hosted on the home’s first and second floors
The home’s bedrooms are organised across its first and second floors, overlooking the front of the home through a metal-framed corner window and illuminated by a rooftop skylight.
In these areas, the heavily textured finish of the living space was swapped for simple white walls and wood floors, contrasted by bedrooms finished with red and green tiles.
The home sits on the edge of London’s Richmond Park
Fletcher Crane Architects was established in 2010 in Kingston upon Thames by Toby Fletcher and Ian Crane.
It’s almost too easy to get into the smart lighting scene, especially if you consider bulbs you can simply screw on, string lights you just need to hang, or panels you can stick to walls or other flat surfaces. That said, the theory might be simple, but the design and features of these smart lights can sometimes be complex and confusing, requiring owners to spend time, effort, and energy on setting up the “perfect” installation. Ever the masters of minimalism, IKEA is fighting against the flow with its newest smart light design, basically just a simple, nondescript square panel that does one thing but does it to beautiful perfection.
IKEA can probably be credited for popularizing two things: flat-packed furniture, and Scandinavian minimalism. Granted, some of its designs straddle the fine line separating design trends, and it has also become infamous for simple yet overpriced products. The new IKEA JETSTRÖM, however, seems to go back to the roots of the brand’s design language, championing elegant minimalism that can fit any interior motif over complex shapes and features.
Like the ceiling lamp of the same name, the new JETSTRÖM is a single-piece lighting panel, this time just a 30cm x 30cm (11.8in x 11.8in) square. It’s not a plain square though, as it has rounded corners and curved edges, softening some of the harshness that usually comes from straight edges and inorganic forms. There’s only one color available for the diffuser cover, and you can’t really go wrong with white in order to blend well with different wall colors and decors.
That’s pretty much it in terms of visual design and aesthetics. There are no connecting mechanisms to worry about, as each JETSTRÖM is intended to be a self-sufficient and sometimes isolated unit. You can place several of these squares side by side if you want to, but there’s no requirement or expectation to do so, unlike wall-mounted smart lights like those from Nanoleaf. In a way, it’s a “what you see is what you get” kind of experience, and it’s a simple yet powerful one.
It might look simple, but the JETSTRÖM isn’t lacking in smart lighting features, at least when it comes to the essentials. The default cold white light can be made warmer to set the mood, or set to different colors to match a theme. All of these can be set from the IKEA Home mobile app, whether on its own or in concert with other IKEA smart lights via the DIRIGERA hub. To keep things even simpler, you can use a dedicated remote, though that’s a separate purchase. And contrary to expectations, the IKEA JETSTRÖM actually only costs around $44, which is pretty affordable for a large smart LED panel, especially one that comes from IKEA.
A series of circular voids and “halo” skylights create spaces for trees to grow through this home in Semarang, Indonesia, which has been completed by local studio Tamara Wibowo Architects.
Named Halo House, the dwelling comprises two gabled, barn-like forms clad in charred wood flanking a central strip of internal and external spaces that sit beneath a flat concrete roof.
The residence comprises two gabled structures and a central strip
A series of circular cut-outs define this central roof. Above the external spaces, large voids open to the elements have been created, forming a canopy for the areas below.
Inside, above the living room and bedroom, only the edges of these circles have been left open to create halo-like skylights.
Circular voids and “halos” form canopies above the lower floors
“These circular voids – or as we call it “halos” – give a strong characteristic to the architecture and spatial experience in the house,” explained the studio.
“The halo allows light to penetrate in an interesting form into the house throughout the days and gives shape to the falling rainwater.”
A large dining area forms the heart of the home
At the front of the site, a large paved driveway leads onto a carport between a garage in the single-storey eastern wing and a fully glazed office space in the two-storey wing opposite.
The entrance into the home is tucked between this glazed office and a latticed wooden screen, which gives glimpses of the home’s central courtyard while shielding its more private spaces from view.
At the heart of the home is a large dining area, which is lined by full-height, pivoting glass doors to the north and south that open onto courtyards and a swimming pool, providing ventilation through the home and a visual layering of spaces.
“The house is arranged in a way that it creates multiple layers of indoors and outdoors so each room has access to air and light on two sides of the room,” said the studio.
“One will experience the swimming pool being in between indoor and outdoor space, as the haloed concrete canopy shelters half of it while the rest is completely open.”
Pivoting glass doors open up to an adjacent swimming pool
Alongside the central dining space is a more intimate living area and guest bedroom, while the main bedroom is afforded the most privacy at the end of the site, where it sits alongside the rear garden.
A staircase in the living area leads up to the second storey of Halo House’s western volume, where the children’s bedrooms sit shielded by an external cladding of narrow wooden slats.
This second storey opens out onto the central concrete roof, where the enclosed “halos” have been topped with small, circular areas of wild grass.
The children’s bedrooms are located on the upper floor
The eastern block houses the home’s service areas, including a wet kitchen and a separate bathroom that is directly accessible from the pool.
Artificial intelligence and a “gorpcore” aesthetic combine in Terra – a “compass” created by design studios Modem Works and Panter & Tourron to enable people to go on walks without their phone.
Terra is a pocket-sized gadget that guides its user along a route using haptic feedback and a subtle arrow interface like a compass needle.
The routes are bespoke and created by AI in response to the user’s prompts. “Two-hour Marais stroll with patisserie visit” and “Kyoto architecture tour, back by 4pm” are two examples from the Terra website.
Terra is a small gadget designed to direct walkers along their route
Modem Works and Panter & Tourron created Terra for people who want to go for walks and either not take their phone or at least not have to look at it. Panter & Tourron founder Stefano Panterotto described it as a “non-device” that “lets you wander without the distractions of your phone”.
“In a world overwhelmed by the constant distractions of our smartphones, the need for a mindful connection with our surroundings has never been more pressing,” he said.
Open-source and manufacturable by 3D printing, Terra eschews the norms of electronic products in some ways. Its physical form is small but rugged-looking, designed with reference to New Age objects and “gorpcore” – the trend of wearing outdoor recreation gear as a style statement.
The design of the device is based on the aesthetics of outdoor gear
“In our physical design, we aimed to adopt a radical approach within the tech world,” Panterotto told Dezeen. “Moving away from the classic sleek and polished aesthetic, we embraced the great outdoors and the broader gorpcore aesthetic, as well as the visual language of New Age culture.”
He gave the example of worry stones as a kind of stress-reducing and anti-anxiety object that served as a reference for Terra.
“This marks a departure from the familiar look and feel we’ve become accustomed to with companies like Apple,” said Panterotto. “Our goal was a design that is both functional and meditative, similar to a fidget device – a product you can hold and play with for relaxation.”
The screen shines out from beneath the surface of the shell
The screen is softened by appearing beneath the surface of Terra’s outer shell, and the interface itself is designed to be minimal and unobtrusive, with the arrow only appearing when requested and gentle vibrations indicating if the user is headed in the wrong direction.
The interface also features a series of animal and plant symbols, which are displayed to indicate that a person is on the right track.
“To a large extent, the digital interface was inspired by fictional devices like the one from Jumanji, where symbols and imagery materialise in a manner that blurs the lines between the magical and the technological,” said Modem Works co-founder Astin le Clercq.
Terra’s open-source software combines the application programming interfaces (APIs) of Google’s Places and AI chatbot ChatGPT to translate the user’s location, intentions and available time into a trail of GPS coordinates.
The user runs the software locally on their computer or phone to input text prompts and generate their route.
The design is open-source so there are opportunities for customisation
The software is available for free on the open-source platform GitHub, along with CAD files for the outer shell of the device so it can be 3D printed. There is also a list of eight electrical components the maker needs to acquire, including an LCD display module, GPS module, haptic controller and power button.
Astin said that he was inspired to make Terra an open-source project by the “DIY spirit” of the Whole Earth Catalog and the work of Italian designer Enzo Mari, who invented the concept of “autoprogettazione” or self-design in 1974.
“By making Terra open-source, we invite everyone to explore new ways to enhance their mood and physical wellbeing in the age of machine intelligence,” said Astin.
Terra is designed to facilitate phone-free walks
Modem Works and Panter & Tourron intend to collaborate with brands to put versions of Terra into production in the future but say the original designs will always remain free and open-source.
Both studios work at the intersection of design, technology and innovation. A previous project from Panter & Tourron saw the studio work with Space10 to create a lightweight, foldable couch with the help of AI.
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