Lou Fayo Flower Paintings

London-based Lou Fayo doesn’t just paint flowers, he orchestrates them into something beyond the ordinary, beyond the expected. These aren’t delicate arrangements fading quietly into the background; they demand attention, commanding the space with a presence that is ethereal yet unapologetically bold.

This debut series of oil paintings, hyperreal yet dreamlike, feels as though nature itself has been sculpted into permanence. Peonies and tulips, exploding in meticulous detail, hover between life and artifice, their velvety petals and thick buds teetering on the edge of something almost too perfect to be real. Fayo’s brushwork is obsessive, his compositions arresting, a study in...

Bread as Sculpture — Keit Kreuzberg Turns Baking into an Artform

In Berlin’s ever-evolving Kreuzberg district, where creativity pulses through every street corner, Keit Kreuzberg emerges as a standout, a bakery that doubles as a design statement. Located at Graefestraße 7, this minimalist, meditative space isn’t just about bread—it’s about presence, process, and purity.

Designed by Studio Michael Burman, the interior strips away excess and invites reflection. At its core lies a historic millstone, sliced into three undulating forms, repurposed as a sculptural counter. It’s a poetic gesture: the tool that once ground grain now anchors a space where that same grain is transformed into daily ritual.

The material palette is restrained yet...

Pine Island Cottage – Georgian Bay, Ontario

There are homes that declare themselves with architectural bravado, and then there are those that do something far more difficult: they disappear into their setting with humility and precision. Pine Island Cottage, designed by Bureau Tempo in collaboration with Thom Fougere Studio, is the latter. Located on a secluded island in Georgian Bay, Ontario, this 3,500-square-foot retreat is less a structure and more a gesture, a quiet response to the wild, glacially-carved landscape that surrounds it.

Rather than level the terrain or fight the slope, the architects embraced it. You enter the house through a slim, oak-lined hallway that gradually descends,...

Father & Bun — Beirut’s Boldest New Diner is a Cinematic Ode to American Decadence

Beirut, a city long known for its layered elegance and electric contrasts, just got a little louder—visually and culturally. Tucked inside a mid-century building in the thick of Gemmayzeh, Father & Bun is not your average burger joint. It’s a curated collision of New York nostalgia, Wes Anderson symmetry, and raw Beirut energy. And it works, brilliantly.

Designed by Atelier130 with creative direction by Mo Al Ghossein, Father & Bun is a lesson in mood setting. Think backlit timber, polished steel, and custom furnishings that oscillate between plush mustard booths and stools wrapped in worn leather and military green. Even the...

Westfriedhof Station by Ingo Maurer – A colorful cave of light

1 Ingo Maurer – Lighting concept for Westfriedhof Station, 2001, installation view, Munich, Germany, photo: Public Delivery

Think of a subway station and what comes to mind is a dark and busy place, likely dirty and filled with old metal and concrete. Fortunately, there are exceptions to this. One of them is the colorful 1 and bright Westfriedhof Subway station in Munich, Germany, that departs from the common conception of subway stations 2 and instead bathes the visitor with colorful beauty.

What sets Westfriedhof apart is its lighting concept, developed by renowned designer Ingo Maurer 3. Red, blue and yellow lights shine...

Award Plaques for CMU’s STUDIO for Creative Inquiry

We recently created a set of sculptural award plaques for a new fund at The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University. The Moore Family Fund for underwriting creativity, knowledge, experimentation, research and yumminess will fund antidisciplinary undergraduate research (learn more here). Dan Moore (a senior technical artist at NVIDIA) commissioned us to design a unique set of perpetual award plaques that will hold the names of recipients over the next 75 years.

Typical award plaques are simple rectangular slabs with a grid of metal nameplates, each engraved year after year. We wanted to break away from...

Macao’s largest mural – Drawing Architecture Studio’s casino maze

1 Drawing Architecture Studio – Learning from Macao, 2021, wall film, ink, 12.5 x 26.2 m, installation view, Handover Gifts Museum of Macao

What does it mean to learn from a city like Macao, rich in history, culture, and architectural 1 spectacle? Learning from Macao invites viewers to reflect on the dynamic relationship between art and urban life.

The mega-mural 2 is displayed on the outdoor wall of the Handover Gifts Museum of Macao. It was commissioned by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao SAR for Art Macao: Macao International Art Biennale 2021. It’s a visual love letter to the city’s...

The Kyiv Crematorium: Censorship & the fight for recognition

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1 Abraham Miletsky, Ada Ryabachuk, Volodymyr Melnychenko – Kyiv Crematorium, 1975, installation view, Kyiv, Ukraine, photo 2: Надія Кукла 3

The Kyiv Crematorium is a striking neo-modernist concrete structure nestled on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. It marks a turning point in how Ukrainian society addresses death. Built when cremation was a contentious subject due to historical trauma, the design aimed to create a therapeutic environment, free from associations with destruction.

Cremation was a thorny subject in Ukraine when the idea of building a crematorium in Kyiv was brought forward. That is partly because of the Second World War genocide...

The Mask of Sorrow by Ernst Neizvestny: Remembering the Gulag

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1 Ernst Neizvestny – Mask of Sorrow, 1996, concrete, 15 meters high, installation view, Magadan, Russia, photo 2: Polina Boytsova 3

What does it mean to confront the shadows of history, especially when those shadows loom as large as the Mask of Sorrow? Looming over the remote 1 city of Magadan in northeastern Russia, the monument serves as a jarring reminder of the countless lives shattered by Soviet oppression.

The sculpture was built in Magadan, around 320 kilometers from the Dneprovsky labor camp 23, the best-preserved site in the Kolyma Gulag network where prisoners were processed and sent to forced labor camps.

The...

Fog Bridge in San Francisco by Fujiko Nakaya – A misty marvel

1 Fujiko Nakaya – Fog Bridge #72494, 2013, 800 high-pressure nozzles, 150 ft (46 m), installation view, Exploratorium, San Francisco, USA, photo 2 by zingbot 3

In the lively city of San Francisco, along the beautiful waterfront, stands a unique installation that blends science and art like nothing else seen before. This artwork is called the Fog Bridge, a creation by artist Fujiko Nakaya 1, permanently installed at the Exploratorium’s waterfront location.

Picture stepping onto a bridge 2 covered in mist, where it feels like reality and illusion are mixing. That’s what the Fog Bridge is all about. Nakaya created it in...