designboom

IED MASTERS of arts EVOLVE PRACTICE THROUGH DESIGN X COMMONS Marking an evolution in how design intervenes within contemporary society, the Master of Arts programs at Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) treat the discipline as a mediator between communities and common goods.

Rough Brick and GRC Create a Layered Street Facade Kawamura Electric’s new headquarters in central Nagoya brings together workplace, culture, nature, and social interaction within a seven-story building. Designed by KIAS as a new base for the company, whose origins are in Seto, Aichi Prefecture, the project accommodates offices alongside an art gallery and a multipurpose hall for approximately 110 people.

2,977 LIGHTS RETURN TO THE NEW YORK SKY Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, 2,977 individual lights rose above New York Harbor to reconstruct the Twin Towers at full architectural scale. Unveiled on September 9, 2026, 2,977 Lights Over New York Harbor is a commemorative public artwork developed in dialogue with families of victims, survivors, and first responders.

Re:Concrete Gives Buried Infrastructure a Second Life Re:Concrete transforms precast drainage pipes, elements typically buried beneath the city, into an open civic room on Mumbai’s coast. Cut, rotated, and suspended at different heights, the reclaimed concrete cylinders become walls, thresholds, seating elements, and circular light wells. The competition-winning proposal explores whether concrete can enter a second architectural life without first being crushed back into aggregate.

a colorful world outside Mexico city Quetzalcóatl Park, located about an hour outside of Mexico City, is the sprawling, serpentine creation of Javier Senosiain Aguilar. Although started years ago in 2007, the park is still a work in progress. The water fixture, mosaiced and shaped like the head of a snake, spews water into a small reserve. A greenhouse is bathed in a shattered rainbow of light coming through a stained-glass roof.

APPLE PUTS TWO SCREENS INTO ONE FOLDING BODY Apple’s first foldable iPhone starts with a familiar idea: a phone that still works like an iPhone when it is closed. The difference arrives when the device opens. iPhone Duo pairs a 5.4-inch outer screen with a 7.6-inch inner display, turning something pocket-size into a much larger surface for reading, watching video, drawing, or keeping two apps open side by side.

FOUR TIMBER BLOCKS of SOCIAL HOUSING IN IBIZA Stefano Boeri Architetti has won the competition for Sa Casa, a new affordable housing complex in Ibiza built around a modular timber system. Developed for Spanish public housing agency Casa 47, the proposal divides roughly 190 apartments among four residential volumes, leaving the center of the site open as a planted communal space.

JPG Print Shop Reframes Fabrika’s Industrial Interior in Tbilisi Designed by Sandro Kvirikadze, JPG Print Shop transforms an existing Soviet industrial space at Tbilisi’s Fabrika into a contemporary environment for graphic design and urban culture. Plywood structures, stainless steel, and retro-futurist forms introduce a new architectural layer within the existing space, creating a dialogue between industrial memory and contemporary creative culture.

architects imagine temporary homes for writers in switzerland At the foot of Switzerland’s Jura Mountains, the Jan Michalski Foundation assembles an unusual small neighborhood for writers and translators arriving for residencies lasting from two weeks to three months. The creatives are given a place not only to work but to temporarily call home.

CHANGING EXPECTATIONS IN INTERIOR DESIGN Shifting daily routines, remote work, and changing social habits are reshaping how we experience interior architecture. Traditional boundaries across homes, hotels, hospitals, offices and schools are dissolving to support multifaceted lives.