How Patrick Jouin Embraces Simplicity In His Artful Designs

In fact, a folding oak chair created for Fontevraud’s refectory-style banquet hall—“It can be hung flat on the wall,” Jouin notes, “very practical and monklike”—has been revived as part of the new Patrick Jouin Edition, a small, eclectic furniture collection that includes another chair, a table, a folding stool, and flippable stoneware plates. It’s his first foray into producing pieces under his own name. We spoke with him about the collection and other recent projects. 

Patrick Jouin Goes Back To The Basics With His Furniture Collection

Interior Design: For nearly 30 years, Patrick Jouin iD has designed furniture for brands such as Pedrali and Porada, as well as custom pieces for various Jouin Manku projects. Why launch your own collection now?

Patrick Jouin: It’s a different exercise designing furniture for a specific brand that has its own DNA and story, or for a restaurant or hotel, where you have the constraints of a particular context and brand, too. Here, I would say, I’m in a free world—I can do whatever I want. Maybe it’s getting older, but I want that freedom more and more.

ID: What was your general approach to creating the collection?

PJ: Often, I start from a material. The Olo chair was about leather, which can be soft and flexible but also hard like wood. When you look at it, the leather on the steel frame looks rigid, but when you sit in it, there’s a hidden rubber element that allows it to fit the shape of the body. The structure is very simple, closely linked to the first one I ever designed: the steel Facto chair for Fermob.

ID: The Drop table looks like a color-field painting. How did that evolve?

PJ: I’m not really a painter, but I enjoy working with watercolor and oil on wood—not with a brush, but by pouring on pigment like Jackson Pollock, except flat and without big gestures. I asked an enamelist if she could use the same technique on a steel table—something she’d never done before—but it works beautifully. Four layers of enamel paint are poured on and baked separately, one after another. There’s a dining table, a coffee table, and a side table—each one’s unique, like a painting, with a bit of Frank Stella in there too, maybe, because I love his work.

ID: Tell us about the Flip stoneware plates, which seem to use the same decorative technique as the tables.

PJ: Yes, but with glaze rather than enamel. The plates are something quite personal, from when I was a kid in the French countryside. My mother was a very busy nurse who needed to be super efficient, so for the evening meal, we’d always have a bowl of soup. Once that was finished, you’d turn over the bowl and use the back of it for dessert. I love that commonsense approach to things, so I played with it. Each of the Flip plates can be used two ways, like a game, and they also make a set with the tables—something I don’t think has been done before but is funny and delightful.

ID: The Mate folding leather stool looks both chic and practical, like a Birkin bag.

PJ: In fact, we originally created it as a foldup tableside perch for handbags in a Ducasse restaurant. We took the folding idea and made a stool that doesn’t take up space in your home. It can be hidden anywhere but when you need a seat, it opens up in just one gesture, like magic. It’s made of leather over aeronautical plywood—super thin, but very stiff and stable, so a big person can sit on it safely.

ID: Jouin Manku has just completed the second phase of renovating the very grand hotel La Mamounia in Marrakesh. What’s new there?

PJ: This time, we worked on the common areas—mainly the lobby, including a huge chandelier that welcomes guests as they arrive. Part of the inspiration for it was Berber necklaces, which are typically a simple string with lots of elements added symmetrically and perhaps something large and heavy at the bottom. So we used silver beads and Fatima hands to create one chandelier, then surrounded it with a second layer of crystals and LEDs to evoke the sparkle and glamour of Champagne. It’s very simple—a beautiful catenary shape formed naturally by gravity.

Explore The Range Of Furnishings In Patrick Jouin’s New Collection

Patrick Jouin Channels Savoir-Faire Into Furnishings

How A 19th-Century Princeton Building Looks To The Future

By the time senior administrators at Princeton University decided to renovate Prospect House, an 1852 Italianate mansion used for meetings and events, it was dark, dated, and dysfunctional. The recessed front door was cloaked in shadows and inaccessible to anyone in a wheelchair. Inside, paint colors were gloomy, furniture was tired. Kitchen facilities struggled to keep up with catering demands, and the audiovisual equipment might consist of an antiquated projector and screen. It was time to “press the restart button,” recalls university architect Ron McCoy, who oversees changes to the campus.

The university had general guidance for the project from a master plan it adopted in 2017 that calls for the entire 700-acre New Jersey campus to be converted to geo-exchange technology for heating and cooling. As existing buildings are being renovated and new ones built, the plan also calls for them to be welcoming and foster a sense of belonging for a student population that has grown increasingly diverse.

Princeton University’s Prospect House Undergoes A Shining Revamp

To tackle Prospect House, McCoy and the reno­vation committee selected Irina Verona and Jennifer Carpenter of New York firm Verona Carpenter Architects, which focuses on inclusive design, striving to ensure spaces accommodate the broadest range of bodies and minds, with particular attention to sensory and physical disabilities. Verona and Carpenter were completing another project on campus, so their team was already steeped in the school’s priorities for its built environment. Also helping to tip the scale in their favor is that Verona is a Princeton undergrad alum, providing her with an intimate feel for the campus, which features an eclectic assortment of buildings, Prospect House, a National Historic Landmark, among the older structures.

Built by Philadelphia architect John Notman as a single-family home, the brownstone building was donated to the school in 1878 and for decades served as the official residence of university presidents, among them Woodrow Wilson. Pietro Belluschi and Warren Platner were hired to loosen it up when it became a faculty club in 1968, adding a glass-walled restaurant at the rear and bringing a bachelor-pad vibe to the interiors, complete with shag rugs. Robert Venturi turned back the clock and restored formality to Prospect House when he got involved in 1988. Verona Carpenter sought to capture aspects of this long and varied heritage—“a layering,” Verona calls it—in an overhaul of the 28,270-square-foot, three-story structure that involved restoring the exterior, opening up interior walls while preserving architectural features, installing state-of-the-art MEP and technology systems, and generally enlivening what had “felt frozen” in time, Carpenter notes.

How Verona Carpenter Breathes New Life Into This Princeton Building

For a sense of the changes the firm has wrought, consider the entry, where Verona and Carpenter moved the port cochere and front steps outward so they could tuck gently sloping brick ramps on either side. “Everyone goes in the same way now,” Carpenter adds. “That’s really important.” The front door itself was also pushed outward, with glass replacing solid wood, bringing transparency to the facade; now there are views all the way through the building to the greenery at the back. 

The interior that visitors encounter upon entering still feels historic—the rotunda has retained its stained-glass dome, two-story chandelier, and black-and-white marble floor, all centuries old and restored by Verona Carpenter. But wall colors are fresh: Verona and Carpenter discovered a robin’s-egg blue on the walls of a third-floor storage space and mimicked it for the rotunda, while other colors came from the dome’s stained glass, such as the celadon green in the Magnolia Common Room, where the backs of a pair of streamlined sofas are upholstered in an exuberant floral velvet. But there are deeper tones, too, like aubergine in the Dogwood Room. Inclusive design, according to Verona Carpenter, includes a range of hues so that people can find a space that works for them. Furnishings throughout, too, offer choice: Chairs are high- or low-backed or without backs at all; rockers suit those who are wired to keep moving, even while sitting. Verona and Carpenter also sought out pieces by women and people of color; the pendant fixture in the Cedar Room, for example, is from 54kibo, a company founded by Ghanaian-born Nana Quagraine.

Prospect Hall Embraces The Diversity of Today & Tomorrow

And if the house was once decorated with framed portraits of former university presidents, it’s now filled with varied contemporary art. Verona and Carpenter identified places where pieces could go, and the Princeton University Art Museum called for submissions from students, staff, faculty, and alumni, then selected paintings, sculptures, and photography. Even room names were changed to eliminate any whiff of exclusivity. The Presidential Dining Room, for one, became the Rose Room. “Renaming was part of the objective of making the building more inclusive,” Verona explains.

Diversity in seating options—wide, narrow, lounge—also characterizes Prospect Hall’s faculty restaurant, the 1968 addition dubbed the Garden Room, so called because it’s wrapped in glass visually merging it with the landscape; Verona Carpenter’s choice of carpet tile in a swirl of verdant greens further blurs the line between inside and out. Its famous crabcakes are still on the menu. But after Verona and Carpenter added acoustical insulation to the coffered ceiling, to aid the hard of hearing or those distracted by competing sounds, diners can now hear what their companions are saying.

Honoring Princeton’s Legacy Through Design

Pastel Hues + Diverse Art Revive Princeton University’s Prospect Hall

VERONA CARPENTER ARCHITECTS: IRIS KIM; CHARUL PUNIA; BIRANI NYANAT; EMILY EVANS. FIELD OPERATIONS: LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT. CLINE BETTRIDGE BERNSTEIN LIGHTING DESIGN: LIGHTING DESIGN. KEAST AND HOOD: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. POLISE CONSULTING ENGINEERS: MEP. VAN NOTE HARVEY + PENNONI: CIVIL ENGINEER. WSP: FACADE CONSULTANT. MASSIMINO BUILDING CORP: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

ANDREU WORLD: CHAIRS (ROSE ROOM, GARDEN ROOM), BENCHES (ENTRY, MAGNOLIA ROOM, GARDEN ROOM), CORNER SOFA (ROTUNDA). MASAYACO.: ROCKING CHAIRS (TERRACE). THE BRIGHT GROUP: SOFAS, CHAIR (MAGNOLIA ROOM). TIMOROUS BEASTIES: FLORAL SOFA FABRIC. STEELCASE: COFFEE TABLE. AUDO COPENHAGEN: SIDE TABLE. CROSBY STREET STUDIO: CUSTOM RUG (MAGNOLIA ROOM), CUSTOM CARPET TILE (GARDEN ROOM). 54KIBO: PENDANT FIXTURE (CEDAR ROOM). PRISMA­TIQUE DESIGNS: TABLES (CEDAR, GARDEN, ROSE ROOMS). KNOLL: TABLE (ROTUNDA). ABC STONE: FLOORING (HALL). VISUAL COMFORT & CO.: CHANDE­LIERS (ROSE ROOM). THROUGHOUT SHERWIN-WILLIAMS COMPANY: PAINT.

Seeing Orange: 8 Must-Have Product Designs

These recent Interior Design Best of Year Award-winning products enliven any space with their artful designs and striking details, making them truly award-worthy.

Check Out These 2024 Best of Year Award Product Winners

Resonance by Astek

Awaken by Shaw Contract

L7 by Avery Thatcher of Thatcher

Colonna by Deborah Moss of Moss & Lam

Sola Felt Printing by 3form Elements

Pantaya by Patricia Urquiola and Pablo Pardo for Haworth

Origata by Nao Tamura for Porro, through West Out East

Interaction by Sunbrella

8 Green-Hued Accents To Brighten Any Interior

Explore these 2024 Interior Design Best of Year Award-winning products that effortlessly blend envy-inducing style with a pop of color and a serene, calming touch.

Discover These 2024 Best of Year Award Product Winners

Vibe by Sancal

Squash by Faye Toogood for Poltrona Frau

Fortune by Jumbo for Heller

Supermoon by Giampiero Tagliaferri for Minotti

Yinka Illori Collection for Momentum Textiles & Wallcovering

Roller by Francesco Rota for Desalto

Amelie by Sara Moroni for Zafferano America

Hangout by Jaime and Isaac Salm for MIO Culture

This Czech Chapel’s Craftsmanship Reflects Its Community’s Faith

Amid the rolling fields of southern Moravia in the Czech Republic stands a circular medieval-looking structure. It’s Our Lady of Sorrows Chapel, but it was actually completed just last year by RCNKSK, a Prague architecture studio that prioritizes the use of sustainable materials and strong connection to heritage. Cofounders Filip Kosek and Jan Říčný, along with help early on from Říčný’s father, Atelier Tišnovka cofounder Michal Říčný, built the church over a decade through a combination of techniques ancient and modern, its concept reflecting the story of the Virgin Mary.

The exterior is a mix of traditional larch and ash, while its 90-foot apex is a futuristic steel spire. The contrast continues for the 1,600-square-foot interior, characterized by rammed earth and locally quarried gneiss at ground level, with sunlight radiating through CNC-cut apertures above, around a series of ascending timber beams that symbolize the Seven Sorrows of Mary. “The suffering she endured is woven into the very fabric of the space,” Říčný says. “It’s an expression of craftsmanship and the Nesvačilka community’s faith.”

Representing the strength of that faith and the unyielding quality of humanity are the 16-foot-high entry doors in patinated copper and blackened oak, the steel and ash pews, the tabernacle formed from a historic piece of sandstone, and the building’s stone plinth—all materials that should stand the test of time, even age beautifully from it. The same can be said of the apple trees flanking the stone pathway, which echo the nearby orchards.

Inside A Playful Coworking Space In Germany

We all know by now that the world of work has undergone a seismic shift. However, there is still much debate about how future workplaces will look and how they’ll accommodate the evolving habits and needs of new generations of users. Architects and designers are currently in a significant phase of experimentation, striving to determine the next iteration of the “office”—if it can even still be called that—and how these spaces might entice workers away from their homes.

In Laatzen, an industrial area on the outskirts of Hanover, Germany, Ippolito Fleitz Group has taken the experimental approach to an extreme in an effort to redefine this spatial category. The firm’s interiors for Brainhouse247, a coworking brand, have transformed a five-level 1970’s building—formerly a nondescript administrative center for Siemens—into 215,000 square feet of lively, playful environments that provide facilities, flexibility, and fun as compelling incentives for members to show up. “Why are people coming back to the office?” asks Peter Ippolito, an Interior Design Hall of Fame member along with comanaging partner, Gunther Fleitz. “The simple answer is because they want to, not because they have to.”

Ippolito Fleitz Group Builds A Creative Coworking Wonderland

Available to both individuals and corporate employees, Brainhouse247 membership offers round-the-clock access to a diverse range of meeting rooms, lounge and relaxation zones, communal breakout spaces, and food and beverage areas—all designed with an unconventional approach. The concept goes well beyond the beer taps and phone booths of 2010’s coworking startups, one that’s much more refined than the foosball tables and slides of the same decade’s tech-campus wonderland.

Along with more traditional open desk setups, there are specialized facilities for podcasting, photography, 3-D printing, and more, plus a mix of unorthodox places for quiet contemplation or letting off steam, depending on one’s mood.  “We have a room where you don’t see anything because it’s all foggy, offering a moment of quiet,” Ippolito reports. “We even have a room where you can go in and just scream.”

How This Coworking Space Invites Play

In essence, Brainhouse247 is conceived as a landscape of discovery. Each level (four aboveground and one below) features a distinct visual identity but is intentionally left unnamed to encourage users to assign their own monikers, aiding memory and orientation—or so the hope goes. While the top three floors all include a central “marketplace” as a nexus where members can grab coffee, socialize, and relax, each floor has a unique layout and scenario created for it.

On level two, for instance, the “playground” is where collaborative work can take place around circular picnic tables or in pink-upholstered diner-style booths, while on the floor above, presentations can be viewed from brightly hued, stadium-style bleachers mounted on wheels for flexibility. “Everything is agile and mobile,” Fleitz explains. For focused tasks, there are custom cylindrical oak pods, which he refers to as “bird’s nests,” raised a couple of feet off the ground and accessed via short orange ladders. Another option for private calls or concentrated work is a series of color-saturated nooks, created by opening up former exhaust shafts and outfitting them with comfortable sofas and intimate pendant lighting.

Bold Colors + Comfortable Seating Enhance Productivity

Members wishing to stay active while they work can utilize dedicated “walk ’n’ talk” areas or organize powwows with colleagues that incorporate sessions on monkey bars, gymnastic rings, and other exercise equipment. “What we’ve learned from completing a lot of projects in the corporate world is that you can’t ever be innovative enough,” Ippolito observes. “Let’s put it this way, the most unconventional formats we offer are typically used the most.”

The raw bones of the original concrete structure and service ductwork, along with existing features like drywall and tiling, have been left exposed in many instances, creating an intentionally unfinished appearance that alludes to the constant flux of work habits. Colorful heating/cooling ceiling panels were installed in several work areas to improve the building’s energy efficiency, while also helping with acoustics. Bold color is applied fervently throughout, imbuing joy and lightheartedness. From forests of vertical textile ribbons suspended above pillowy lounge chairs and soft ottomans to an area dedicated to playing board games in niches between arched spruce partitions, there’s a palpable emphasis on buoyancy and pleasure around every corner.

To further enliven the interiors, street art–style graphics featuring a cast of deftly sketched characters festoon many walls, enhancing the patchwork effect created by the many layered elements. “We love collage because it allows the user to develop their own story,” Ippolito notes. “They see what they want to see, and they connect it with their own memories.” The facility will eventually include restaurants, a fitness center, and maker workshops, among other ame­nities on the ground floor, offering members everything they might need under one roof, if they choose. Choice is a fundamental principle of the project, emphasizing IFG’s contention that the future of work ultimately revolves around freedom—however that may manifest aesthetically.

Swing Through Brainhouse247’s Transformation By Ippolito Fleitz Group

IPPOLITO FLEITZ GROUP: LENA GRZIB; NADINE BATZ; ERKIN SAGIR; MANU DANKHED; KERRY PLIENINGER; NEELE KELINGARN; KATJA HEINEMANN; ARSEN ALIVERDIIEV; JUAN MANUEL DE AYARRA DEL OLMO; TIM LESSMANN; TIMO FLOTT; ROGER GASPERLIN; CHRISTIAN KIRSCHENMANN; JOHANNES HANEBUTH. AG LICHT: LIGHTING CONSULTANT. SUPER 8 STUDIO: GRAPHICS CONSULTANT. LINDNER: CUSTOM FURNITURE, INSTALLATIONS.

OBJECT CARPET: CARPET (TRANSITION SPACE, PRIVATE DESKS). PEDRALI: SOFA, ARMCHAIRS (PRIVATE DESKS). KÖNIG + NEURATH: DESKS. ARPER: ACOUSTIC DESK PANELS. NAIN TRADING: RUG. WÄSTBERG: DESK LAMPS (PRIVATE DESKS), LARGE PENDANT FIXTURE (PLAYGROUND). MARAZZI: PORCE­LAIN FLOOR TILE (PRIVATE DESKS, URBAN SQUARE). VITRA: MESH TASK CHAIRS (PRIVATE DESKS, CONFERENCE ROOM). BLÅ STATION: OTTOMANS (BLEACHERS, URBAN SQUARE). FATBOY: LOUNGE CHAIRS (URBAN SQUARE). NEMO LIGHTING: VERTICAL PENDANT FIXTURES. BRUNNER: STEEL CHAIRS (URBAN SQUARE), TABLE (CON­FERENCE ROOM). FLURSTÜCK: CARPET (PLAYGROUND). EQUIPE CERÁMICAS: WALL TILES. MUUTO: SOFA (NOOK). &TRADITION: PENDANT FIXTURE.

Landscape Forms Introduces A Sleek Outdoor Silhouette

2024 Best of Year Winner for Outdoor Furniture Collection

Michigan manufacturer Landscape Forms’s foray into cushioned outdoor seating landed with a bang, winning best Outdoor Furniture Collection. A sinuously bent rod seamlessly traces the perimeter of Monterey—forming the back, arms, and legs of the club chair, sofa, or sectional. Welded and powder-coated metal rods provide slat-effect bracing, cradling seat and back cushions covered in Summit Furniture’s Tradewind weather- and abrasion-resistant performance fabric. It’s all finished with French seams, concealed zippers, and a sartorial dart on each corner for a snug fit.

UFO or Winery? This Contemporary Structure Stuns In Hungary

How do you create an attention-grabbing modern building that integrates seamlessly with its timeless rural setting as though it has always belonged there? This conundrum faced Bord Architectural Studio and Tihany Design when they collaborated on Sauska Tokaj, a new hilltop winery and restaurant complex near Rátka, in Hungary’s UNESCO World Heritage-listed Tokaj-Hegyalja wine region. The resulting structure—a pair of limestone-clad saucers—is both strange and familiar, like a UFO that’s just touched down or is emerging, chrysalislike, from the earth. It’s almost as if the Hungarian countryside itself is giving birth to the next wave in contemporary architecture.

“Normally, you couldn’t build anything here because it’s a protected area,” says Péter Bordás, principal of Bord Architectural Studio. “But somehow this particular hill isn’t part of it.” Searching for a building typology that minimized site impact yet realized the client’s vision of a brand-enhancing, destination-worthy landmark, the architect rejected working in the vernacular as “fake.” Instead, he turned to the sphere as a structural form that requires minimal contact with the ground or can even seem to float above it. He cut off the sphere’s top and bottom caps and placed them on the ridge. Slightly overlapping, the steel-framed, limestone-clad bowls, each 118 feet in diameter, are gently tilted to follow the slope of the hillside, from which they survey the landscape like a pair of benevolent eyes.

Behind the Design of Sauska Tokaj, a Hilltop Winery

The architecturally iconoclastic, two-level winery breaks regional precedent in other ways, too. “We had to accommodate hospitality functions—a restaurant and bar—which have never really existed in this area,” Bordás continues. Nor has the kind of large-scale industrial production the facility supports. “You don’t see any ‘factories’ here because, traditionally, the region’s winemakers dig small cellars and put the aging barrels there.” Following that artisanal model, the architect has buried all the viticulture works and equipment either directly beneath the bowls or in the hillside behind them. Only the fermentation areas, with tall stainless-steel tanks encircling rows of oak wine casks, are visible through the glazed gap between the building’s spherical undersides and the ground.

The twin bowls house the restaurant, bar, and dining terraces. Together with the reception area and a tasting room—about a quarter of the 63,000-square-foot winery—they were outfitted by Tihany Design. The client, familiar with the firm’s work in Hungary and elsewhere, approached now-retired founder and Interior Design Hall of Fame member Adam D. Tihany, who initiated the project and remained involved throughout, working closely with new owner and principal Alessia Genova. She’s the first to admit that the intersecting cup shapes of the two major volumes with their sloping walls presented a challenge. “We needed to be respectful of Peter’s unique architectural vision,” she says, “creating an interior that complements the exterior while also providing a warm restaurant ambience.”

How Biophilic Elements Inform Sauska Tokaj

One issue was that the entry and reception area are located at the rear, so arriving patrons don’t see the structure’s sculptural form, which is mostly hidden by the crest of the hill. It’s not until they pass through a skylit tunnel and reach the restaurant itself that they get to experience the building’s complex curves, though the sweeping arc of the forecourt canopy hints at things to come. So does the custom oak reception desk, a massive biomorphic form that not only echoes the architecture but also recalls, as Genova notes, “the hills of Tokaj as well as the wood barrels and other organic elements that go into winemaking.” Behind the desk, a glass-enclosed, sunken garden brings in natural light and offers a view into the tasting room beyond, one of the few orthogonal spaces in the hospitality area. At the end of the restaurant tunnel, immediately before the maître d’ station, a curving staircase leads down to the fermentation areas, the only section of the winemaking facilities that is accessible to the public.

The dining area spills across both bowls, each boasting a large hemispherical terrace for eating, lounging, and taking in the vineyard-dotted panorama. Near the entrance, the wine bar exemplifies Genova’s response to the spaces’ curvilinear geometrics. A marble-topped horseshoe faced in oak, the stool-lined counter curls beneath an illuminated tubular ceiling fixture with an integrated stainless-steel wineglass rack. This striking element not only anchors the bar but also acts as a node from which deep track-lighting grooves radiate like a sunburst—a dynamic feature that, the designer observes, “creates the same dramatic effect you get on the outside of the building on the inside, while putting a focus on the glasses and the bar, attracting people to it.”

An open kitchen—similar to the bar in form, materials, and space-orchestrating function—dominates the second dining area. Walnut fluting encases the steel structural columns, introducing a note that harmonizes classical refinement with rustic warmth. The same wood, which Genova describes as “soft to the touch, velvety,” is used throughout for millwork and furniture. The plaster-finished walls share an equivalent silky tactility and are rendered in the palest green, a delicate hue echoed in the napkins and other details. By contrast, the custom bronze-and-alabaster sconces punctuating the rooms are anything but reticent. Resembling tiny flying saucers, the captivating fixtures could almost be the offspring of the mother ship that shelters them.

This Winery by Tihany Design Looks Straight Out of a Sci-Fi Dream

Sauska Tokaj Glows After Dark

BORD ARCHITECTURAL STUDIO: CSILLA KRACKER; ROBERT GYÖRGY BENKE; FRUZSINA DAMÁSDI; RÓBERT GULYÁS; ÁGOTA MELINDA KERESZTESI-ANGI; ANDRÁS KÉKI; BALÁZS MÓSER; GYÖRGYI PÜSPÖKI; TAMÁS TOLVAJ; KATA ZIH. TIHANY DESIGN: ADAM D. TIHANY; MARCO BARONE. CRISTINA MENOTTI: GRAPHICS/BRANDING CONSULTANT. JVL STUDIO: LIGHTING CONSULTANT. HYDRASTAT: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. BORD HVAC ENGINEERING: MEP. ARTDOT: MILLWORK.

ERTL BÚTOR: CUSTOM DESK (RECEPTION). ARTISAN: STOOLS (RESTAURANT, BAR), CHAIRS (RESTAURANT). PORADA: CUSTOM TABLES (RESTAURANT). VERY WOOD: HIGH TABLE (RESTAURANT), CHAIRS (TASTING ROOM). UNOPIÙ: CHAIRS, TABLES (TERRACES). VERASCHIN: CIRCULAR SOFAS. CASAMANCE: SEATING UPHOLSTERY. TUUCI: UMBRELLAS. ATELIER VIERKANT: PLANTERS. APPARATUS: SCONCES (TASTING ROOM). THROUGHOUT FOGLIZZO 1921; MOORE & GILES: LEATHER UPHOLSTERY. GC: PAINT.

5 Health-Centric Facilities Around The Globe

Wellness-seekers at health-centric facilities ranging from a Canadian animal hospital to a Chinese sports center can step into the future with optimism.

Stay In Motion At These Stellar Health Facilities

BBA Bnei Brak Active Sports & Leisure Center by Studio Shira Lavi BD

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Just three main materials—concrete, oak, and Dekton solid surfacing—comprise the palette of a 43,000-square-foot public swim center in Israel featuring an Olympic-size pool and a smaller one for lessons. The effect is spare, almost monastic, yet also sybaritic. In reception, wooden stools of various sizes recall the stone seats found in ancient baths, and a steel-framed clerestory and angled slot windows, all fitted with frosted glass, flood the natatorium with light while ensuring users’ privacy.

King Animal Hospital by Kelly Wearstler

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The Los Angeles–based design star’s foray into the healthcare sector brings her signature heady, multilayered luxury—most often applied to hospitality and residential projects—to an unusual site: a 60,000-square-foot hospital in King City, Canada, for small animals and equines. Waiting rooms are a symphony of European oak paneling, Venetian plaster walls, brass light fixtures, and custom terrazzo flooring, while the hydrotherapy pool is tiled in the prettiest of pinks, bringing warmth to critical care.

Moogie Pilates by Thoughtbarn

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A 1960’s post office in Austin, Texas, was transformed into a hub for a quartet of local businesses, including a Pilates studio that broadcasts its emphasis on fun and inclusivity through a spin on ’80’s nostalgia. Lengths of off-the-shelf crown molding—installed vertically and painted red-orange—clad the meandering, curve-cornered wall that separates the reformer studio from the back-of-house zone housing a cobalt-tiled restroom, storage, staff room and private massage rooms, and the blush-plastered reception area.

Hexi Sports Field by UAD

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On Shaoxing University’s urban campus in China, a monumental concrete structure skillfully stacks functions: A 400-meter running track and a soccer pitch commandeer the rooftop, while the partially enclosed area below, sheltered by the brutalist embrace of coffered vaults, houses climbing walls, martial arts spaces, and courts for basketball, tennis, badminton, and volleyball. On either end of the sprawling edifice, ramps and stairs with white-painted perforated-aluminum balustrades connect the levels.

EMS Training Facility by Merge Architects

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A warehouse converted into a 20,000-square-foot training center for Massachusetts paramedics and other emergency-services personnel takes its bold graphic identity from a source familiar to students: the safety-orange striping and blue lettering of Boston’s EMS ambulance fleet. Divisible classrooms, a gym, and a cafeteria line the perimeter, while the 250-foot-long double-loaded central corridor, cleverly illuminated by solar tubes that shine through the metal-mesh ceiling, is peppered with semiprivate huddle nooks boasting built-in “window” seats.

Estee Clinic by Balcon Studio

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Aesthetic medicine (think restrained “tweakments”) is practiced in this chic 3,300-square-foot clinic in Moscow where earthy colors such as muted green—the brand hue—and elemental materials like dynamically striated marble emphasize the values associated with natural beauty. A seamless application of microcement on both the floors and walls creates a unified, smooth-as-skin canvas, the ideal foundation for curvaceous all-custom furniture.

Bio-Based Materials Inform The Design Of This Wavelike Pavilion

A riverfront horticultural complex located in the south German city of Wangen im Allgäu, in the Alpine foothills, centers on a strikingly curvaceous pavilion. Hybrid Flax Pavilion, the 4,090-square-foot structure, which serves as an exhibition hall for the region’s local garden show, or landesgartenschau, was a collaborative effort between two University of Stuttgart institutes and the school’s Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture (aka IntCDC), which leverages cross-disciplinary research to innovate digitally driven building and fabrication methods—in this case, the pavilion’s roof.

To create the wavelike element, the team piloted a hybrid system that utilizes bio-based materials and cutting-edge technologies, resulting in a unique take on regenerative design. Supported by the facade’s steel structure, thin plates of cross-laminated timber are reinforced with filament derived from flax, a fiber historically processed by the region’s textile industry. (In fact, the town’s old flax-spinning mill was renovated as part of the complex.) The gray-brown filament was wound via robotic arms around screws bolted into the edges of the CNC-milled plates, which are just 4.7 inches thick—much thinner than typical CLT beams hewn from old-growth timber, and thus enabling use of younger trees and locally available reserves.

How Two University Of Stuttgart Institutes Created Hybrid Flax Pavilion

Leveraging the properties of both materials yielded a lightweight structure with enhanced performance. The flax-fiber weave primarily bears tension loads and shear forces, while the wood panels manage compression forces directed to the steel columns. Together, they provide the strength and stiffness necessary to bear the area’s heavy snow loads. The hybrid system, says architect and IntCDC senior researcher Monika Göbel, “creates a flat, stable building envelope, even though the roof looks dynamic and round.”

The circular glass facade beckons visitors into the column-free space from all directions and promotes an indoor/outdoor connection, while the curved roofline, intentionally echoing the rhythm of the nearby Argen River, creates interior zones of varying heights. In the center of the donut-shaped pavilion is a climate garden, which invites cross-ventilation and evaporative cooling in warmer months when the doors are open. The floor slab, made from recycled concrete and carbon-reduced cement, is part of a geothermal system programmed to maintain a comfortable indoor air temperature year-round.

Walk Through This Wavelike Pavilion In Germany

PROJECT SOURCES THROUGHOUT HA-CO CARBON: FIBER FABRICATION. STERK ABBUNDZENTRUM: WOOD ROOF. FOWATEC: GLASS FACADE. BIEDENKAPP STAHLBAU: STEEL. HARALD KLEIN ERDBEWEGUNGEN: FOUNDATION, HEATING. ATELIER BRÜCKNER: CUSTOM FURNITURE. BELZNER HOLMES LIGHT-DESIGN; BIB CONCEPT; COLLINS+KNIEPS VERMESSUNGSINGENIEURE; MORÄNE; SPEKTRUM BAUPHYSIK & BAUÖKOLOGIE; WEBER BONEBERG MEROTH BERATENDE INGENIEURE; LOHRER.HOCHREIN: ENGINEERS. ARGE-LEISTUNGSBEREICH WÄRMEVERSORGUNGS-UND MITTELSPANNANLAGEN FRANZ MILLER OHG; STAUBER + STEIB: CONSTRUCTION.