Four Hands Steps Into The Hospitality Spotlight

Founded in the 1990’s as a small furniture-importing business in Texas, Four Hands—the name reflecting the founders’ hands-on approach—has grown to become the behemoth manufacturer behind many high-end American furniture brands. Now its own in-house label steps further into the spotlight with the newly launched Four Hands Hospitality (FHH), a range of pieces rigorously tested for the high traffic and tough regulations of hotels, restaurants, and commercial spaces.

There are more than 1,000 styles, most in-stock (with real-time availability) and ready to ship direct from Austin. Highlights include Liam, a curvy olive-velvet sectional that riffs on sleek Italian design; the Bibianna dining table, its conical rubberwood base supporting a round top on a sphere of honed white marble; and Carrie, a neo-deco dining chair with a thin black-iron frame and chenille upholstery adorned in a Tibetan painting–inspired landscape motif. But it’s not just tables and chairs: FHH has a full lifestyle assortment, from art to bath and outdoor.

Embrace Soft Hues With These Striking Bath Finishes

Powder-coats inspired by summer landscapes? Color us intrigued. Watermark Designs, the Brooklyn, New York, manufacturer of bathroom fixtures, accessories, and hardware debuts fresh new finishes inspired by that evergreen wellspring of inspo: the natural world. Featured colors include Dark Cedar, a deep forest green; dusty light-purple Smoked Lilac; and creamy, pale-yellow Buttercup, all shown here on the Loft collection’s deck-mount, three-hole gooseneck bath set. Divine, but if these shades aren’t a fit for your project, Watermark Designs also offers hundreds of additional ones in a range of matte, metallic, and satin finishes. 

Mycelium Leather Invites Exploration At 3DaysofDesign

A presentation during Copenhagen’s 3DaysofDesign showcased the versatility of a patented mycelium-derived “leather” developed by biotech company MycoWorks—and celebrated the symbiosis between groundbreaking materials and Danish design traditions. Curated by architect and creative director Marie-Louise Høstbo, the exhibition featured objects made from mycelium—the rootlike filaments of fungus—engineered at the cellular level to grow interwoven. The process creates an exceptionally durable material, trademarked Reishi, that can be used in a variety of formats. An intricate room divider by Maria Bruun combines wood with punctured Reishi sheets; a bag by Cecilie Manz highlights the product’s tactility and texture; lamps by OEO Studio stack the material; a luminous sconce by Atelier Axo can be flat-packed and easily folded; and Frederik Gustav’s elegant suspension light is inspired by the shape of kites.

Sleek Furnishes Shine In This Lacquer Company Collab

Duncan Campbell and Charlotte Rey of London studio Campbell-Rey join a roster of notables (including John Derian and Rita Konig) collaborating with The Lacquer Company. Nodding to early 20th–century masters Jean Dunand and Eileen Gray, the art deco–inflected Jacques tray and Felix tables and console are two-toned, all featuring contrasting inset tops: Think sienna yellow paired with chocolate brown, bottle green with loden, and cabernet with cinnabar. (There’s also a lovely hand-painted tortoiseshell colorway.) Available through KRB NYC, interior designer Kate Rheinstein Brodsky’s New York home store, the 10-piece collection utilizes the traditional Vietnamese so’n mài lacquer technique. After a protective gluelike substance hardens and protects the wood, successive coats of lacquer (combining resin sap with pigments, fine-ground mountain alluvium soil, and cashew shell oil) are applied wet-sanded to achieve a flawlessly smooth and glossy finish.

Discover Sustainable Rugs Born From Nepali Craft

Dutch industrial designer Edith van Berkel, a Design Academy Eindhoven grad known for embracing craft and collaboration, teamed with Maharam to create three new rugs. Van Berkel fostered a textile practice for Jongeriuslab, where she’s a partner, bringing artisanal techniques to industrial production.

For this collection, she aimed to filter the weaving practices of Kathmandu, Nepal, through a contemporary lens, experimenting with renewable materials and undyed yarn to reduce environmental impact. Bower, for instance, is made from locally harvested wild nettle, grown naturally by monsoon season rains rather than via irrigation. The other patterns, Compose and Linger, combine wool from argali sheep with pops of silk and cotton. Color blocking in tones of mauve/umber or moss/ash gives Compose a jolt of contrast, while Linger utilizes an elemental dip-dye to create its two-tone gradient.

The Ultimate R&R: Explore Luxurious Bath Products

Turn any bathroom into a serene retreat with these chic products. Thoughtfully designed by top creatives, including Interior Design Hall of Famers, each object offers a means of elevating everyday rituals—including a stylish take on a usual eyesore, the radiator.

Create a Spalike Bathroom With These Products

Glenn Pushelberg and George Yabu for Salvatori

Product: Nagi.
Standout: Named after the Japanese word for “serenity,” the Interior Design Hall of Famers’ textured tile for Salvatori, offered in seven limestone and marble variations, has variegated ripples suggestive of movement and flow.

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Antonia Astori and Nicola de Ponti for Tubes

Product: Milano/totalcolour.
Standout Elevating the humble radiator to an objet d’art, Astori De Ponti Associati reimagines its painted-steel design for family-run Italian business Tubes in a monochrome colorway, available in 140+ RAL hues. 

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Yves Béhar for Laufen

Product: Volta.
Standout: The intrepid Hall of Famer used the world’s first CO₂-free electric kiln for Laufen to give his lithe, dual-level sink—in proprietary Saphirkeramik—a vortexlike interior that spirals water hypnotically to the drain. 

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Francesco Meda and Alberto Meda for Zucchetti Design

Product: Ellissea.
Standout: Precision-molded from AISI 316L stainless steel, the Milanese father-son duo’s rain-jet-effect showerhead for Zucchetti Design (available 3 or 10 inches across) has a subtly tapered shape based on rotating ellipsoids.

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Hideo Shimizu of Hideo

Product: Infinity-Bio.
Standout: The Tokyo-born, Milan-based designer Hideo Shimizu’s body-con soaking tub is generously proportioned for two, with ergonomically shaped back- and armrests and a silky-matte shell of sustainable, antimicrobial Cristalplant. 

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Cinzia Cumini and Vicente García for Cesar

Product: Ondula.
Standout: Expanding beyond the kitchen, the Italian brand Cesar tapped García Cumini to design its debut bath offering: a sleek vanity in matte-white Betacryl Flex solid surfacing whose undulations lend a chiaroscuro effect. 

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Shea McGee for Ann Sacks

Product: Ashton Meadows.
Standout: Grout lines are the focal point in Studio McGee’s fifth series for stone manufacturer Ann Sacks: Dry-pressed glazed-ceramic tiles finished with a petaled, contoured edge come in a quintet of mix-or-match colorways. 

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Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty for Vipp

Product: Vipp15.
Standout: For 3daysofdesign, Studio KO reinterpreted the iconic trash can (now 86 years old!) in a limited-edition copper-plated finish—a meaningful material for Vipp owner Jette Egelund, whose grandfather was a coppersmith. 

A Touch Of Whimsy Reigns In This San Diego Tech Office

San Diego is synonymous with sandy beaches, year-round great weather, and stellar Mexican food. But for the regional studio of the nationwide multidisciplinary firm SmithGroup, its beloved locale offers much more. When developing ideas for the downtown offices of a global tech company, the project team drew on the fabric of the city to create two dual concepts that celebrate its lesser-known assets. The first is based on the surrounding natural landscape; the second, on its grittier urban energy. “It’s really easy to make the cliché references,” says corporate, commercial, and civic studio leader Megan Skaalen, who helmed the project, “but there’s also the secret side of San Diego.”

The client loved both concepts equally and requested they be integrated across the workspace, a single 50,000-square-foot floor plate spanning two buildings and connected by an internal bridge. While the obvious approach might have been to assign one idea to each half of the space, SmithGroup took a bolder route. The more vibrant, zanier scheme—dubbed Feel the Pulse—was applied to the central communal zones that link both buildings. Meanwhile, the softer, more contemplative direction—At Home in Nature—was woven into meeting rooms and workspaces deeper within the plan. This strategy not only enhances wayfinding, Skaalen acknowledges, but also establishes a clear visual distinction between areas for connection and those for focus.

SmithGroup Crafts A Vibrant Office For A Global Tech Company

The dynamic energy of the urban-influenced scheme hits immediately upon entry. The main elevator core is wrapped in matte-black steel panels, while matching forced-perspective diagonals slice across the ceiling and floor, making the lobby appear “like it’s ripped,” explains senior interior designer Alex Leadon. An adjacent wall is entirely clad in a relief collage of abstract shapes, vivid colors, and outdoorsy motifs—all nods to San Diego. “The client really puts an emphasis on the local identity of its offices,” Leadon reports, so this arrival moment delivers a bold “SD” signature right from the start.

Throughout the space, arches appear again and again—turning a long corridor into an arcade, for instance, or spanning a deep, banquette-lined wall booth in the coffee-bar area—gestures that reference the Spanish Revival architecture found across the city, particularly the museums, pavilions, and historic structures populating nearby Balboa Park. The color palette in the common zones similarly borrows from the surrounding context of ocean, beach, desert, and mountains. Seafoam green, terra-cotta, and coral are applied strategically “to get the creative juices flowing,” Leadon suggests. Texture is also introduced via materials such as artworks that incorporate sand, natural-wool acoustic panels in the open work areas, and metal mesh layered over glowing light boxes in a pre-function space.

Colorful Palettes Get The Creative Juices Flowing

Skaalen lists comfort and hominess as the workplace qualities most desired by today’s employees. Those admirable attributes are conjured here through soft furnishings and soothing colors, certainly, but primarily through art. Wherever you look, a wide array of custom artworks created by SPMDesign bursts from surfaces, envelops thresholds, and even drips off canvases onto the walls. They are joined by a curated selection of pieces by local artists, enlivening communal areas and meeting rooms.

With the art and other decorative elements, the hat tips to San Diego continue—sometimes overt, sometimes subtle, and occasionally hidden. Around a conference room themed after the SS Monte Carlo—a Prohibition-era gambling vessel now a wreck visible at low tide on the beach at Coronado—five coins are discreetly tucked away for staff and visitors to discover. And for those who look closely enough, a discreet peephole in the lobby-wall relief offers a glimpse of a vintage postcard. “There’s a sense of play,” Skaalen observes, “but it doesn’t feel elementary.”

Feel The Pulse Of San Diego In This Workplace Design

The open office areas and smaller meeting rooms are quieter in tone, so that users can “focus where focus is due,” says Leadon. A variety of breakout spaces, private booths, and even reclining massage chairs are included to accommodate different ways of working and the requirements of neurodiverse individuals. “No matter what personality, learning style, or work employees need to do, there is a place for them to do that,” Leadon explains. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all.” The multitude of settings in which people can meet, converse, ideate, and relax together is critical—particularly today when, as Skaalen points out, many are motivated to come into the office to socialize: “Human connection is needed, even within a global technology company.”

The overall impression created by the interiors is of a much more mature version of the “fun house” tech offices that dominated the 2010’s. Welcoming, adaptable spaces with artful touches of whimsy—rather than glorified amusement arcades or playgrounds—signal a new era for an industry that has outgrown its awkward adolescence. “Tech companies have grown up, and their spaces have as well,” Skaalen concludes. By creating a condensed, abstracted snapshot of San Diego within these walls, SmithGroup has provided an identity tailored for those who, like them, are proud to live and work in the city.

Explore Design Details Like Hand-Painted Murals

SMITHGROUP: ROB MOYLAN; LESLEY SCOTT; GABRIEL CERVANTES; DAVE WANG; PATRICK MACBRIDE; SHAWN NGUYEN; HAL SPIERS; NEHAL DESAI; ANDREA REYNOLDS; MIKE KATAN; JOSE ALICEA; CHRISTINA MOSS. SPMDESIGN: ART CONSULTANT. CREATIVE METAL INDUSTRIES: METALWORK. WB POWELL: MILLWORK. SKYLINE CONSTRUCTION: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

FROM FRONT EHMCKE SHEET METAL: STEEL PANELING (LOBBY). LED LINEAR: STRIP LIGHTING. TERRA NOVA DESIGNS: BENCHES. AXIS: PEN­DANT FIXTURES (LOBBY, CONFERENCE ROOM). LIVDEN: WALL TILE (COFFEE BAR). ASTEK: MURAL. MARTIN BRATTRUD: BANQUETTE. FLOS: SCONCES. ALLERMUIR: SIDE CHAIRS (COFFEE BAR, BREAKOUT AREA). HEARTWORK: CREDENZAS (BREAKOUT AREA). STUDIO TK: BENCHES. UNIKA VAEV: PENDANT FIXTURES (PRE-FUNCTION AREA). MOOOI: COFFEE TABLE. WEST ELM WORK: SOFA. ARCADIA: GLASS DOORS. ENCORE SEATING: LOUNGE CHAIRS (PRE-FUNCTION AREA), CHAIRS (CONFERENCE ROOM). INFINITY: MASSAGE CHAIRS (CORRIDOR). STYLEX: PRIVACY SCREENS. STEELCASE: DESKS, TASK CHAIRS (OFFICE AREA).

Buon Appetito: Inside Milan’s Hottest Culinary Destinations

From a listening bar to a hotel bistro, Greek to Japanese, culinary destinations throughout Milan—all designed by local talent—provide literal and aesthetic nourishment.

Savor These Chic Eateries In Milan

Mogo by Giorgia Longoni Studio

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In the South African language Sotho, mogo means union, and this 3,700-square-foot Isola establishment, dubbed a hi-fi bar and restaurant, unites music, culinary, craft-cocktail, and design aficionados in a cinematic environment inspired by Japanese jazz kissa cafes. Milan native Giorgia Longoni has interwoven exposed concrete and ductwork with rose-toned oak millwork, aquamarine resin flooring, custom chairs—some patterned with Brochier upholstery fabric—lighting, and Alpi burl tables, and site-specific tapestries by Andrea Marco Corvino, resulting in a hushed, intimate environment that’s a medley of the softly industrial and warmly mid-century.

Vasiliki Kantina & Gastronomia by Joy Herro

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Under a ceiling hand-painted with an interpretation of the myth of Persephone and Demetra is a contemporary 430-square-foot space in Porta Romana that tells the story—and serves the food and wine—of Greece subtly, authentically, and with refinement. Joy Herro, who has both an interiors studio and an art/ design consultancy, tapped such Greek talents as Terps (aka Terpsichore Tερψιχόρη ερψιχόρη) for the ceiling, goddess-adorned linen curtain, and ceramic door handle, and Tino Seubert for the raffia-topped stools lining the Kavalas Greek marble counter, and arranged them amid crisp, Santorini-white plaster archways. 

Caruso Nuovo Bistrot by Dimorestudio

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Inside the venerable Grand Hotel in Centro Storico, this duomo to Milanese and Neapolitan cooking celebrated its 20th anniversary with an interior refresh by Britt Moran and Emiliano Salci of Dimorestudio. With their signature restrained maximalism, the designers have tastefully blended notes of Northern Italian aristocracy with bohemian glamour, evident in walls and benches upholstered in a Prelle jacquard, seven custom chandeliers of silk jersey the color of Brunello, Murano glass sconces, and, for the outdoor veranda, custom wallpaper and Mathieu Matégot–inspired furnishings, including Antica rattan chairs by Mario Bonacina and Renzo Mongiardino for Bonacina 1889.

Odachi by Studio Urquiola

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Among the myriad highlights of Interior Design Hall of Famer Patricia Urquiola’s conversion of a 1950’s former office building in Brera into the luxury, 116-room Casa Brera, a Marriott hotel, is this lobby-adjacent, 48-seat restaurant serving Japanese-inspired dishes. But her concept is far from cliché Asian: Custom opaline-glass pendant fixtures illuminate the sophisticated mustard colorway of Dedar’s Perfect Flower banquette upholstery, framed cast-stone architectural fragments by fellow Spanish architect Marià Castelló, and Urquiola’s own production pieces, including her abstracted-floral Rooms collection wallpaper for Jannelli&Volpi and her Oru chairs for Andreu World.

Sip Tea Among the Clouds In This Nature-Forward Pavilion

Perhaps nothing is more intrinsic to Chinese culture than the tea ceremony. The ancient ritual symbolizing hospitality, respect, and harmony is believed to have begun during the seventh century. Today, Beijing-based Plat Asia has infused that tradition with a contemporary twist at the Cloud Tea Room, an amenity within the Huzhou Nature Valley Resort, a 33-acre destination surrounded by bamboo forests, tea fields, and mountains; about an hour west of Shanghai, Huzhou is said to be the origin of tea culture.

Compact at 100 square feet, the pavilionlike structure has an ethereal profile. Glass wraps the perimeter, tatami mats top the self-leveling concrete flooring, and white-painted steel panels form the roof. The latter is supported by a series of steel poles that begin in the tearoom supporting the roof, then meander out to the fields suggesting pathways for visitors to follow.

Of the 170 total poles, 100 of them are capped by a spray mechanism that produces a fog phenomenon that’s activated during tea ceremonies. “The architecture gradually disappears as the fog rolls in,” Plat Asia cofounder Jung Donghyun says, “severing all visual connection between our project and the outside world, creating a realm where only people and tea exist”—taking visitors on a temporary voyage to a simpler, centuries-ago experience.

Experience A Mangrove Made Of Glass In The Philippines

For a swishy new resort in the Philippines, Nikolas Weinstein Studios has formed borosilicate tubes into a major, must-see installation—the largest of its kind.

Step Through The Looking Glass With Nikolas Weinstein Studios

• Dozens of engineers, designers, and installers led by Nikolas Weinstein
• 14 tons
• 16,385 custom borosilicate-glass tubes
• 4+ years of work
• 5,400 linear feet of cables

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For Mangrove, a glass-tube sculpture that spans the entire eight-story atrium of Solaire Resort North in Quezon City, Philippines, and can withstand seismic activity, American artist Nikolas Weinstein collaborated with Arup, which performed structural calculations and modeling using Dyna Oasys software.

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Weinstein considered different vantage points for viewing the sculpture—its twisting, tapered form and title inspired by the roots of local mangrove trees—including when riding the resort’s escalator from the first floor.

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At Nikolas Weinstein Studios in Long Island City, New York, the team used a custom-built kiln to fabricate thousands of internally fluted, borosilicate-glass tubes, before wiring them together into modules, each one a unique size and shape with different twists, widths, and curves, all digitally tracked and labeled.

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A custom tool locked injection molded–acrylic plugs that act like knuckles managing friction and controlling each tube’s orientation into their ends.

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After all components were shipped to Manila, an on-site crew of 40 installers worked for six months to assemble Mangrove using hoists and cherry pickers.

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Scaffolding reaching 65 feet tall was also erected to complete the artwork, which is larger than a Boeing 747 airliner.

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Interiors of Solaire Resort North are by Habitus Design Group, its founder Samantha Drummond bringing on Weinstein to create a centerpiece that would speak to the development’s “urban oasis” theme.

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The glass-tube modules were stitched together on-site with aircraft cables to curved stainless-steel spines that rise out of plinths integrating plants, seating, and water features.

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“I build sculptures that ‘talk’ to buildings,” says Weinstein, whose interest in organic forms was sparked by internships at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Mangrove was recently recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest glass-tube installation.