Core77 Design Awards 2026: Vineet Thuvara on Multidisciplinary Innovation

Vineet Thuvara's career traces a path through some of technology's most influential products. He began his design career as a co-founder of an industrial design agency in New Delhi before moving into lead roles in a variety of product organizations at Microsoft's Surface, Xbox, and Server divisions. From there he went on to directing product design and management in Amazon's Echo and Alexa device portfolio, and his current role is Chief Product Officer at Fluke Corporation, a global leader in test and measurement devices, software, and services.

At Fluke, Vineet leads the business units and drives growth, new...

Two Engineers Improve the UX of the Paint Tray

At the end of a painting job, we've all done this, which takes forever:

Engineers John Archard and Charles Cooper became frustrated with that task. They then invented the SmartTray, which has an odd protuberance on one side:

This allows you to mount the tray right onto the can, and go do something else while it drains.

Additionally, when you start the job, you can also set the can up to drain into the tray, and start rolling right away.

Archard and Cooper patented the design through...

Scale the Dramatic Verticality of Grundtvigs Kirke in David Altrath’s Dreamy Photos

The construction of Grundtvigs Kirke in Copenhagen took nearly two decades, beginning in fall of 1921 and finally reaching completion in 1940. Designed by Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint, it transforms the humble brick into a masterpiece of Expressionist architecture. Its pointed interior arches and vaulted ceiling, stepped crenellations, and hulking exterior nod to medieval Gothic and Romanesque styles while also exhibiting a profoundly modern sensibility.

David Altrath, a Hamburg-based photographer whose work emphasizes urban and architectural elements, captures Grundtvigs’ details in an atmospheric cumulative portrait. Bathed in mellow, golden light, the church’s pale yellow bricks appear to glow, complemented by minimal interior...

Gambosa lamp by Mathias Hahn for Marset

Dezeen Showroom: the typical components of a table lamp – shade, stem and base – are given a sculptural interpretation in this light by designer Mathias Hahn for Spanish brand Marset.

Made of steel and opal polycarbonate, the Gambosa table lamp renders the shade as a broad dome, the stem as a capsule-shaped element that appears to balance on a rounded end, and the base as a slim disc.

The bold, geometric composition comes together without immediately visible connections, making the whole piece look as if stacked in a delicate balance.

The cable design provides a finishing...

A Combination Kitchen Sink / Dishwasher

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=rBCNBy1xmjQ

China must be an interesting place to be an industrial designer.

In America and Europe, we've had a middle class for roughly 100 and 200 years, respectively. And we have a pretty fixed idea of what appliances should look like, and how they should work, because we've had them for all of our lives. But China's middle class is fairly new. This gives their designers leeway to experiment with new forms and typologies, because to Chinese consumers, virtually everything is "new." If you come up with a concept that might seem wacky to Westerners, the Chinese consumer will still...

TT Turns Font & Specimen

TT Turns is the symbiosis of geometric and humanist styles. The idea behind the TT Turns font family was to create a new, universal typeface that could be used with equal effectiveness in virtually any field. The main design feature is overhanging (turned behind a glyph's edge) terminals in rounded letters like 'a', 'c', 'e', 'g', 's' and other, which give the font a friendly and unformal mood. TT Turns includes 19 styles (9 uprights, 9 italics and 1 variable), covers most of Latin and Cyrillic languages and support more than 30 OpenType features. Font specimen develops the design features...

Wiercinski Studio designs bespoke, industrial-style furniture for renovation of historic villa

Local practice Wiercinski Studio has updated a 1930s villa in Poznań, Poland, creating a total of 45 bespoke, industrial-style fittings and furniture pieces to celebrate Polish craftsmanship.

Named P81 House, the 300-square-metre villa is located in the historic Grunwald district, an area known for its pre-war architecture. Its owners tasked Wiercinski Studio with updating the home to better suit family life.

Stripping away layers of old plaster to reveal the home's original walls established a "raw and honest" aesthetic that the studio carried throughout the project, using steel, oak and granite for a series of custom-made furniture and fittings.

Shigeru Ban to create wooden concert hall inside 19th-century armoury

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has unveiled the design for a timber concert hall in Altdorf, Switzerland, which will be located inside a listed historic building.

The concert hall in the Canton of Uri region was described as a "beacon of the arts". The curved structure will be built from timber inside the shell of a listed 19th-century armoury building and will seat around 200 to 250 people.

The project was commissioned by cultural platform Zauberklang.

"Conceived as a beacon of the arts in the Alps, the concert hall in the Zeughaus, Altdorf, will be an intimate space created for world-class artists and audience,"...

"Maybe the Pritzker delay says exactly what we need right now"

https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/1uFWKrcgi4qqSJ71TnNGbS?utm_source=generator

With the Pritzker Architecture Prize in potential jeopardy over its patron's links to Jeffrey Epstein, Edwin Heathcote reflects on the award's relevance in 2026.

The announcement of the 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize has been delayed, yet another casualty of the Epstein scandal. Having shown up in the files, the award's patron, Tom Pritzker, admitted an association with the dead paedophile, saying he displayed "terrible judgement". He has resigned as executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, which sponsors the prize.

Does the Pritzker prize itself show bad judgement too? The first winner, in 1979, Philip Johnson, was the profession's most prominent and prolific...

US-Israeli airstrike damages UNESCO-listed palace in Tehran

UNESCO has reported that World Heritage-listed Golestan Palace in Tehran has been damaged following a nearby airstrike in the Iranian capital.

According to a statement released by UNESCO earlier this week, the 400-year-old palace, which is now a museum, was damaged by a US-Israeli strike that hit the nearby Arg Square.

It also reiterated that cultural property, including the Golestan Palace, are protected under international law.

Following the damage, a complaint was filed to the UNESCO director-general by Iran's Ministry of Cultural Heritage Tourism and Handicrafts, which said that the explosion has caused structural and decorative damage to the palace.

UNESCO to "closely monitor...