Tracey Ingram

The workplace has been redesigned many times over, but Other Degree’s Benine Dekker and Florijn Vriend believe the right question has never been asked: how are people actually hardwired?

Necessity is often framed as a constraint – something to overcome. Al Borde, on the other hand, treats it as the spark that ignites each design. Ecuadorian architecture studio Al Borde has been operating somewhat under the radar since its founding in 2007, despite picking up a string of accolades – such as the Schelling Architecture Prize in 2012 and the Bancastato Swiss Architecture Award in 2023–2024 – and exhibiting at events like the Venice Biennale (in 2016 and 2025).

Enjoy 2 free articles a month. For unlimited access, get a membership now. High-end hospitality spaces are returning to architecture’s oldest instinct for new reasons. Rather than rising into the sky as symbols of status, they’re retreating into the earth, suggesting that the new luxury is more about absence than appearance.