Category: Home & Kitchen

US studio ICRAVE has revealed images of the public spaces inside the world’s largest spherical structure in Las Vegas.

Chosen through an international competition, ICRAVE was tasked with designing the interiors of the public spaces within the MSG Sphere Las Vegas by Sphere Entertainment – the giant venue’s operator.

The scope included the building’s entry bridges, lobby and guest welcome areas, the main concourse, food and beverage outlets, as well as private artist dressing rooms, and VIP clubs and suites.

The 20,000-person venue, designed by architecture firm Populous, was unveiled over the summer.

While the building’s exterior is covered with 580,000 square feet (53,900 square metres) of programmable LED panels, the inside glows with bands of coloured indirect lighting.

“The spectacle that is Sphere on the outside sets the stage and bar for how magical the designed experience ICRAVE was tasked with must be on the inside,” said the studio, which has offices in New York City and Miami and is led by Lionel Ohayon.

Upon entering the venue, visitors are ushered through a series of repeated illuminated archways before arriving in a vast eight-storey atrium.

Here, the building’s curved form is continued through a series of sweeping balconies and bridges, which intersect at different points across multiple levels to create “a sense of continuous motion”.

Thresholds and doorways are also shaped as either circles or ovals, while beside the escalators, a 160-foot-tall (49-metre) scrim wall hanging acts as a huge lenticular light installation.

Reflective black terrazzo flooring creates a sci-fi feel within the public spaces, which is further enhanced by the coloured lighting.

“The lighting sets the tone and ‘performs’ as part of the Sphere experience from entry, to Atrium activation, to showtime, and as you transition out of Sphere and back to the bustle of Vegas,” ICRAVE said.

The studio also designed the various food and beverage spaces within the venue, each carrying a distinct character.

Tucked into areas where the ceiling height is lower, these bars and food vendor spots include fluted panels, dark counters, and more indirect lighting.

Throughout the building, mathematical graphics added to surfaces are derived from the equations used in the Sphere’s construction.

In the dressing rooms, artists can enjoy lounge areas and massage chairs, as well as makeup stations, private bathrooms and showers.

Meanwhile, the VIP viewing suites feature a mix of absorptive and reflective materials intended not to distract from the performances.

“In an effort to create a transformative entertainment space that takes artists and fans out of the mundane and into the future, ICRAVE sought to bring life to every inch of Sphere, not just the stage,” said the studio.

“With a sophisticated mix of lighting, soundscape, visuals, ambiance and tactile elements, audiences and the artists will have a captivating experience like nowhere else in the world.”

The Sphere began its programming in October with a concert by U2, featuring visuals by designer Es Devlin, artist John Gerrard and more on an enormous wrap-around screen.

A similar venue was also planned for London, but the government put the project on hold earlier this year to give the Secretary of State more time to review the proposal.

The photography is by ICRAVE unless stated otherwise.

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Project credits:

Owner and developer: Sphere Entertainment
Architect: Populous
Interior designer: ICRAVE
Lighting designer: Journey
Audio engineer: ARUP
Audio tech / manufacturer: Holoplot

English practice Delve Architects has used joyful colours and natural, tactile materials to outfit a newly established kindergarten by the River Thames in east London that can be accessed via boat.

The Nest daycare centre is part of a wider housing development in the Royal Wharf area, occupying a commercial unit at the base of a 19-storey housing block.

As a result, the primary challenge was to bring the towering newbuild space down to child scale and make it feel more homely while forging a greater connection to the riverfront.

“We wanted to create a calm, nurturing but playful space that reflected the values of the nursery,” Delve Architects co-founder Alex Raher told Dezeen.

“Their ethos is for children to have a positive learning experience through a healthy relationship with the environment around them and a connection to the outdoors.”

To boost the internal floor are, the studio installed a new mezzanine with a bespoke, powder-coated metal staircase that rises through a double-height space defined by a series of arched timber fins.

These maple-veneered arches – each around 4.5 metres tall – were conceived by Delve Architects to subdivide the space, creating zones without physical barriers.

“We wanted to connect the spaces visually and physically between the mezzanine and lower level, and to soften the hardened edges of the space,” said Raher.

The arches are formed from a series of fins that merge into benches and individual seating as they approach the ground.

“The grand scale of the arches for a small child could feel overwhelming, so we brought this down into child-height seating, benches and joinery to play with the scale and make it more familiar to them,” said Raher.

“The material flows seamlessly between the two levels and creates a natural material palette that the children could recognise and read through different heights and spaces.”

The arches also span over the main staircase, where Raher says they suggest a canopy of trees.

“We wanted it to be a centrepiece that was exciting, functional and exploratory, almost like a meandering joinery up to a treehouse-style level on the mezzanine, through a network of arches and branches on the way,” the architect explained.

“One of the first concepts we explored was the treehouse idea, developing ideas around the nursery name The Nest and how we could bring a playful part of nature into the design.”

Given its inner-city location, the nursery is fortunate to have a large garden overlooking the riverfront, which is connected to the nursery via a double set of six bi-folding doors.

The external fencing was designed by Delve Architects “to merge with the rhythm of the existing tower’s balconies” and powder-coated in a matching colour.

“We wanted to celebrate the connection to the outside space, the riverfront location and the child-height views from the mezzanine to the water, as it was unique to the space and to the nursery setting,” said Raher.

“Children can arrive and parents can commute using the river boat directly outside the nursery. The new pier designed by Nex Architecture is a beautiful backdrop to the site.”

To cope with the demands of a nursery setting, materials and finishes are resilient as well as being natural and tactile. Among them is recycled and recyclable Marmoleum flooring, maple-veneered joinery and low VOC paint.

A colour palette of soft muted shades helps to create a homely atmosphere inside The Nest.

“This palette works better than bolder primary colours, as these create too much visual noise for younger children,” Raher said.

A panel of dark teal blue creates a datum line around the walls, designed to be “resilient to little fingers” while making the tall spaces feel more relatable to children.

“We always try to design from a child’s perspective, putting ourselves at that level, quite literally in some cases,” Raher said.

The soft blue of the flooring gels with the tones of the pale maple veneer and the matt pink that wraps around the ceiling and upper walls, covering almost the entire mezzanine.

“It both draws your eye upwards but also manages to change the scale of the space,” said Raher. “In some areas there is a five-metre ceiling height, so we wanted to break this up visually.”

“The services for heating, cooling and ventilation were also left exposed, giving a little insight for children to explore and imagine what they could be – a network of intriguing forms and geometry running through the nursery.”

Other kindergartens that hope to forge a greater connection to nature include this English nursery by Feilden Clegg Bradley, which makes use of natural materials to reflect the surrounding woodland, and a timber kindergarten extension in Austria by Bernardo Bader Architekten.

The photography is by Fred Howarth.

Milanese restaurant group Sant Ambroeus has opened a coffee bar in Aspen, Colorado, where Giampiero Tagliaferri Studio has filled the space with vintage Italian furniture.

The Sant Ambroeus Coffee Bar Aspen draws references from the Alpine design found across the popular ski town, as well as the heritage of the brand, which was founded in Milan in 1939.

Milan-born, LA-based designer Giampiero Tagliaferri aimed to combine the two, creating a cosy and intimate space that nods to the glamour of midcentury Italian design.

“As a Milanese myself, and a Sant Ambroeus regular, I felt an immediate connection to this project,” he said. “I hope the space will become a staple for Aspen locals and visitors; a refuge where one can go in the morning for an espresso and croissant, or stop by for a quick lunch or a delicious hot chocolate after a day on the slopes.”

The designer selected a variety of vintage pieces by famous Italian designers to populate the coffee bar.

Le Bambole sofas by Mario Bellini are upholstered in dark green velvet, while 1950s curved plywood chairs by Carlo Ratti accompany the small cafe tables.

A series of 1970s wall sconces add to the nostalgic atmosphere in the space, which is exaggerated further by Mongolian lamb faux fur panels affixed to the walls between sections of mirror and walnut.

Richly veined Verde Alpi marble also clads portions of the interior and forms the snaking bar countertop that’s fronted with grooved concrete.

Built-in bench seating with yellow corduroy covers runs along one side of the cafe, following the dark flagstones that span the length of the narrow room.

Additional seating is positioned in the window overlooking E Hyman Avenue, a block away from the Shigeru Ban-designed Aspen Art Museum.

The Aspen location joins several Sant Ambroeus outposts in New York City, including a spot in the expanded Sotheby’s auction house, as well as those in the Hamptons and Palm Beach.

The photography is by Billal Baruk Taright.

French interior design Studio FB and the co-founder of fashion brand Frame, Erik Torstensson, have designed a California-informed store for the brand in London.

The store’s concept draws from the brand’s Californian origins as well as European influences, which is reflected in the lighting, furniture and materials.

“The Californian universe with these modernist architectures with a free plan, skylights and the opening of spaces to the outside was our inspiration basis,” Studio FB told Dezeen.

“We imagined this new concept design layout as open as possible, which can be compared to a gallery.”

To create a greater connection with the street, the studio redesigned the facade by adding a curved, full-height glazed wall, which was set behind the original piers.

“We designed a long-curved glass like a contemporary insert which contrasts radically with the classic London pillars preserved,” said the studio.

Within the store, the studio aimed to mimic the atmosphere of an art gallery with a polished concrete floor serving as a base for a central pillar constructed from stained birch wood veneer.

The store’s rails were custom-designed with a distinctive hand-moulded abstract-shaped end-piece serving as the highlight

With in the fitting room, the ceiling, walls and doors were upholstered in fabric by textile company Kvadrat.

“The rounded central wooden element was designed as a sculptural object, which gives a residential feeling from the 50s,” the studio explained.

“The backspace invites the cabins and lounge area becomes more intimate all-in fabric and brings sophistication to the space. Pieces of furniture and artwork sublimate the atmosphere,” the studio continued.

“The general atmosphere is similar to an art gallery with raw materials such as concrete on the floor and white walls.”

FB Architects and Torstensson worked together to acquire artwork and collectable design pieces to reinforce the gallery atmosphere.

“It was a thorough process to ensure the most unique response possible to Frame,” said the studio.

“Erik had a precise vision of his brand, so we exchanged a lot together on many artistic fields to build the brand’s architectural DNA.”

A sculpture by Serbian visual artist Bojan Šarčević crafted from wood and limestone sits in the display window. Also in the store are two original 1950s Gio Ponti stools, crafted from wood and textiles.

The store was decorated with wall-mounted fixtures designed by French lighting designer Jean Perzel, as well as geometric fixtures created by French architect Pierre Chareau, to create a soft and gentle lighting ambience.

Torstensson used AI as a sketching tool to design custom objects for the space, such as large brutalist stone tables and chrome custom-made sculptures that were then realised by architecture studios including Bucktron Studio Sweden.

“I’ve been learning and expanding my skills with AI for the last year, it creates a superpower when it comes to speed, as it allowed me to generate the visual concept at a greater pace and scale,” said Torstensson.

“This creates exciting results and provides a new outlook on design. I simply use it to visualise my initial ideas in greater detail in order to bring my ideas to life.”

Other retail interiors recently featured on Dezeen include a stationery store interior made from white-oiled wood by Architecture for London and a store interior for Ms MIN in Shanghai, China, by Neri&Hu.

The photography is by Ollie Tomlinson.

Rammed earth walls and an organic colour scheme help this South African family lodge designed by architecture practice Studio Asaï to blend into its natural surroundings.

Tembo Tembo sits close to the Sabie River on the western edge of Kruger National Park – a sprawling game reserve that’s home to a wide array of flora and fauna, including what’s known as the “big five”: lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants and buffalo.

This setting was a large point of inspiration for Paris-based Studio Asaï, which decided to construct the home from rammed earth, emulating the materiality of towering termite nests that can be seen across the reserve.

“More locally, [rammed earth] is only used for singular walls in the house, thought of as a decorative object,” explained the studio. “For Tembo Tembo, we decided to use it as the main material for the entire house.”

To ensure the stability of the home, Studio Asaï worked alongside local architect Nicholas Plewman to develop a structural skeleton that could support the roof and walls.

Locally sourced rammed earth was then applied to the structure, mixed with a sealant to make the material less porous and crumbly.

The house was also built atop an 80-centimetre-high concrete platform to keep away lizards and other critters while minimising flooding from the heavy downpours that frequently occur in the region from September onwards.

The property’s flat steel roof is meant to give the home a lower, more discrete profile.

Inhabitants access the home through a moody entryway lined with dark wood panels. A papery, three-tier pendant light hangs from the centre of the space directly above a white marble table.

The home’s rammed earth walls were left exposed in the adjacent living area, which is anchored by a modular green sofa that nods to the foliage of the South African bush.

To the side of this space is a contemporary kitchen complete with dark wood cabinetry and a blocky breakfast island crafted from black Zimbabwean granite.

In the corner of the room is a travertine marble dining table surrounded by chairs with woven seats. This is positioned directly next to an expansive glazed panel that, when slid back, lets inhabitants step onto a shaded terrace.

Creamy plaster walls appear in the home’s library, complementing the rustic beige fabric that was set into the room’s coffered ceiling.

Studio Asaï revived the “bush” green of the sofa but this time in the form of a glossy work desk.

Designed to feel akin to a “modern safari camp”, the principal bedroom features a large bed that can be enclosed with gauzy curtains on all sides.

There’s a cosier feel in the guest bedroom where Studio Asaï has once again left the rammed earth walls bare and installed a black metal fireplace for use in the cooler months.

There’s also a striking bathroom that’s almost entirely lined in a flecked Namibian stone.

Tembo Tembo has made the shortlist of the home interior category at this year’s Dezeen Awards.

It will compete against other projects such as Prior Barraclough’s Union Street House, which is entirely lined in Australian hardwood, and Keiji Ashizawa Design’s Hiroo Residence, which is decked out in muted tones to amplify the space’s sense of light.

The photography is by Adrien Dirand.

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Project credits:

Interior design and architecture: Studio Asaï
Architecture: Nick Plewman Architects
Landscape design: Green Inc

Cultural centre Het Nieuwe Instituut is rethinking the archetypal museum shop with a pop-up at Dutch Design Week, designed to encourage more ethical, resource-conscious consumption.

Instead of offering a straightforward exchange of wares for money, New Store 1.0 gives patrons the opportunity to trade their urine for a piece of Piss Soap and encourages them to place their phones on specially designed fixtures to provide lighting for the venue once the sun goes down.

Taking over Residency for the People – a hybrid restaurant and artist residency in Eindhoven – the pop-up also serves up two different versions of the same seabass dish, one made using wild locally caught fish and the other using fish that was industrially farmed and imported.

The pop-up is the first of two trial runs for the New Store, aimed at helping Rotterdam’s Nieuwe Instituut work out how to design its own museum shop to prioritise positive social and environmental impact over mere financial gain.

In collaboration with the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) and research consultancy The Seeking State, the second trial will take place at next year’s Milan design week, with the aim to open the first dedicated shop in the museum’s Rotterdam location in 2025.

“It all started out with the idea that we don’t have a museum shop per se,” Nieuwe Instituut’s programme manager Nadia Troeman told Dezeen. “A museum shop, as we know, has books and trinkets and gadgets. And it’s not really doing well for the planet or the environment.”

“So we were like, how can we make the act of consuming better? How can we consume differently to help not just ourselves but the environment as well?”

For the Dutch Design Week (DDW) pop-up, Nieuwe Instituut found the three featured projects by Dutch designers Arthur Guilleminot, Brogen Berwick and Arnout Meijer via an open call.

The aim was to help the designers trial their ideas for how the exchange of goods could be less extractive and transactional in a real-world scenario.

“The project is part of a broader institutional agenda of ours to become more of a testing ground,” explained the museum’s director Aric Chen. “It’s part of rethinking the role of cultural institutions as being places that can do more than host debates, discussions and presentations.”

“So our aim is to take some of these projects that try to think about how we can do less damage, take them out of the graduation shows, take them out of the museum galleries, take them out of the biennales and put them into the real world, with real consumers, audiences and real people to see what we can learn from it,” he continued.

Guilleminot used the opportunity to expand his ongoing Piss Soap project, with a poster in the venue’s toilet inviting visitors to donate their pee by relieving themselves into designated cups and discreetly placing them on a newly added shelf outside the bathroom window.

This can then be exchanged for a piece of soap, made using urine donated by previous participants and other waste materials from human activities such as used cooking oil.

The soap takes three months to cure and is entirely odourless, helping to break up dirt and grease thanks to the urine’s high ammonia content.

The aim of the project is to find a new application for an underutilised waste material and engage people in a kind of circular urine economy.

“The idea was to revive the ancient tradition of using pee to make soap, which was done for many centuries, including in ancient Rome,” said Guilleminot.

“Could I make a modern product using this ingredient and, in the meantime, also change our feelings of disgust about our golden organic liquid?”

Those having dinner at the New Store can choose between two iterations of the same fish dish.

The first uses wild seabass that was caught locally by fishers Jan and Barbara Geertsema-Rodenburg in Lauwersoog while the other was farmed in Turkey and imported by seafood market G&B Yerseke.

Devised by Berwick, who is a design researcher and “occasional fisherwoman”, the project challenges diners to ask themselves whether they are willing to pay the higher price associated with locally caught fish in exchange for its environmental benefits.

“With the fish, they get a receipt of transparency,” Troeman added. “And one is obviously longer than the other.”

Diners were also asked to provide their own illumination as the sun goes down, in a bid to make them aware of our overconsumption of energy and the adverse effects our light pollution has on the natural rhythms of other animals.

For this purpose, Meijer designed two wall-mounted fixtures inside the New Store that have no internal light source and are simply composed of discarded glass shards topped with wooden shelves made from old beams.

If they require more light, guests have to place their phone on this ledge with the flashlight on, funnelling light onto the glass shard through a narrow slit in the wood.

This reflects and refracts light around the space while revealing various crescent moon shapes engraved into the glass in a nod to the circadian rhythm.

“It’s really about our dependence on the constant supply of energy,” Troeman said. “Can we embrace the dark and hence be more environmentally friendly? It has benefits for everyone and everything.”

Exploring more circular forms of exchange was also on the agenda at last year’s Dutch Design Week, when designer Fides Lapidaire encouraged visitors to trade their own poo for “shit sandwiches” topped with vegetables that were fertilised with human waste.

The photography is by Jeph Francissen unless otherwise stated.

Dutch Design Week 2023 is taking over Eindhoven from 21 to 29 October. See Dezeen Events Guide for information about the many other exhibitions, installations and talks taking place throughout the week.

This South Bronx cafe that serves a chocolate-focused menu is designed by Brooklyn-based Studio Tre to reflect the brand’s Caribbean roots.

Bright colours, palm fronds, references to Spanish architecture and wallpaper made of advertisements feature in the second cafe location of the chocolate manufacturer Chocobar Cortés.

Chocobar Cortés is a fourth-generation family company that has been growing cacao and manufacturing chocolate since 1929, first in the Dominican Republic and then in Puerto Rico.

In 2013, they opened their first cafe-restaurant in Viejo San Juan (Old San Juan) – Puerto Rico’s historic capital – where every dish or drink incorporates chocolate in some way.

The second location in The Bronx brings the concept to New York City and is modelled on the “colmadito” general stores found in Viejo San Juan as a nod to its origins.

“The design embraces the warmth of the Caribbean and recognisable textures, colours and patterns of the Viejo San Juan neighbourhood of the first location,” said Studio Tre.

The 1,600-square-foot (150-square-metre) space on Alexander Avenue features a variety of elements borrowed from the colmaditos, including chequerboard cement-tile flooring.

A trio of arches that form niches for the back bar and an opening to the bathrooms echo Spanish colonial architecture.

These arches were painted in the brand’s signature yellow hue, matching the front of the cafe counter and together adding warmth and vibrancy to the space.

“Retired chocolate bar moulds repurposed as design feature above the cafe counter,” said the Studio Tre team, who travelled to San Juan at the project’s onset to learn about the company and its values.

Ogee wood panelling and bronze hardware on the bar were chosen as an homage to the large doors found across the old city.

On the cafe walls, pale green-grey plaster was applied above wood wainscoting, and a mix of historic photos and a rotation of works by local and Caribbean artists are displayed.

The bathrooms are lined with a collage of brightly coloured cartoons and old advertisments, while radio jingles play over the speakers.

The cafe also hosts a series of events and cultural programming for the neighborhood’s queer community, creating a “spirit of acceptance and celebration”.

“Imbuing this Caribbean spirit into the design, with also the vibrant and artistic spirit of the neighborhood in The Bronx, the interiors of the restaurant establish Chocobar Cortés as the joyful celebration of culture, chocolate, and community that it is,” said Studio Tre.

Chocolate shops and cafes are popular across the globe, and their interiors vary dramatically based on their context.

Others around the world include one that occupies a century-old house in Kyoto and another in São Paulo where the production processes are put on show.

The photography is by Grant Legan.

A hotel overlooking a Japanese castle and a neurodiversity-friendly office building are among the winners of Shaw Contract’s 2023 Design Awards, revealed in this video produced for the brand by Dezeen.

Global flooring company Shaw Contract recognised five winners in the 18th edition of its Design Awards, which celebrate impactful living, working, learning and healing interior spaces around the world.

In total, five Best of Globe winners were chosen by a panel of design professionals from 39 regional winners, which had been narrowed down from over 650 project submissions from 40 countries.

The winners include architecture studio Tatsuro Sasaki, which won an award for its OMO5 Kumamoto by Hoshino Resorts hotel built on Mount Chausu in Kumamoto City, Japan.

The hotel is located in the city centre overlooking Kumamoto Castle and is nestled in amongst the landscape to blend in with its surroundings.

Four workplace designs were also recognised, including Boston Consulting Group’s headquarters in Toronto designed by HOK.

The office features ample open spaces to flood it with natural light and is equipped with circadian lighting to follow people’s natural rhythms and improve productivity.

Another winner was the 345 North Morgan office design by Eckenhoff Saunders, which is located adjacent to Chicago’s metro tracks. The design of the office was informed by classic railway stations and draws from the neighbourhood’s rich industrial history.

Other winners include Swot Design Group’s Naelofar Office in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, which was designed to foster relationships and collaboration in the workplace.

It features meeting rooms with operable glass panels that can be rearranged to open up spaces for functions such as training sessions or events.

Rezen Studio’s Newmont office in Subiaco, Australia also received an award, which Shaw Contract described as an example of “the rapidly evolving office typology which responds to the changes in which businesses are operating”.

“We believe that design has the power to shape the world around us and create a better future for both people and the planet,” said Shaw Contract.

“That’s why the Shaw Contract Design Awards programme is so important to us. It allows celebration of the designers who share our commitment to creating a positive impact in all interior spaces.”

Each winner was awarded a £2,000 USD charitable donation in the name of their studio to an organisation of their choice. They also received a trophy designed by Singapore-based artist Kelly Limerick using recyclable Shaw Contract’s recycled yarn.

Find out more about all of the winners on the Shaw Contract Design Awards website.

Partnership content

This video was produced by Dezeen for Shaw Contract as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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