Archinect - News

Four Pritzker Prize-winning architects have recently designed watches

2024-03-28T11:00:00-04:00

There are countless examples of architects expanding beyond buildings and architecture to engage with product design. This month alone, for example, our news coverage has included a swirling whisky bottle designed by a Zaha Hadid Architects director, a lighting product range by Snøhetta, and a series of biophilic design products by ecoLogicStudio.

In particular, the fashion industry has played host to several intriguing collaborations with big architectural names. Late last year, Frank Gehry collaborated with Louis Vuitton on a handbag for Art Basel Miami Beach one year after Louis Vuitton’s Peter Marino collaboration while, in 2022, Amale Andraos debuted a jewelry collection for Judith Ripka. To further explore this relationship between architecture, product, and fashion, we have rounded up four recent examples of notable architects engaging in the design of watches.

Tambour Moon Tourbillon Poinçon de Genève Sapphire. Image credit: Louis Vuitton

Frank Gehry for Louis Vuitton: Tambou...

Iconic American interior designer, businesswoman, and fashion icon Iris Apfel dies at 102

2024-03-06T11:18:00-05:00

Iris Apfel, an iconoclast interior designer who drew praise for her style and fashion collection, passed away last week at the age of 102. The New York Times is reporting on her influence in the design world this week following her death on March 1st.

Through the work of her label Old World Weavers, the Queens native became a commercial success designing the White House's interiors and remained an influence in that realm for many subsequent generations. Apfel picked up her famous eye from her father, who designed and installed mirrors during New York City’s first skyscraper boom. Throughout her lucky turn at celebrity, she remained a vocal advocate for quality. She also taught a textile design course at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011.

“There’s very little creativity left. Everybody copies everybody else,” she said to AnOther magazine in 2018. “I don’t know whether everybody wants the same or the designers give it to them – I have no idea, I’ve been out of it for too long ...

AMO design for the Prada 2024 FW Men's Show stages nature against an invasive interior environment

2024-01-21T08:00:00-05:00

AMO’s latest collaboration with the fashion industry went on display recently as part of the 2024 FW Prada Men's Show, held on January 14th at the Fondazione Prada for Milan Fashion Week.

For the presentation, AMO and partner in charge Rem Koolhaas created a scenographic imitation of an outmoded office environment set against an outer landscape that appears to audience members from beneath a transparent platform stage as though an “analogue projection among the many digital images that saturate one’s life today.”

This theatrical blending of nature and its opposite keys to the brand’s stated desire to produce clothes that reflect the spaces and seasons surrounding them. It, of course, also pays homage to design trends apparent in the latest examples of corporate architecture.

“In the space of the Deposito an improbable encounter takes place: chaos and order, reality and fiction, predictability and spontaneity – seemingly opposite elements – engage in a game of collaboration, a syne...

Frank Gehry designs Louis Vuitton handbag collection for Art Basel Miami Beach

2023-12-12T12:53:00-05:00

The 21st edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, which took place last week, featured a special capsule collection from Frank Gehry for Louis Vuitton. The latest in a string of creative product collaborations that have to date included a special fragrance bottle design and the 2014 'Iconoclasts' series contribution offers a “reinterpretation” of the brand’s iconic Capucines bag designed to encapsulate four themes: 'Architecture and Form,' 'Material Exploration,' 'Animals,' and the 'Twisted Box.'

Image courtesy Louis Vuitton.

“It is hard to adjust the existing Capucines shape, which is very strong. We had been working on that design graphically in 2D, and the images that we had made were compelling. I was skeptical that the architectural shape would be strong enough, though,” Gehry explained in Vogue. “The final bag not only got the sculptural feeling that I was looking for, but it also has the graphic quality that we liked.”

Image © Mario Kroes

The fluid fish motif Gehry has revisited tim...

University of Buffalo architecture students displayed 3D printed "Archi-texture" in special Hong Kong Design Centre exhibition

2023-11-08T15:50:00-05:00

Students from the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Urban Planning had the opportunity to display a folded paper apparel concept as part of a special exhibition called The Full Gamut organized by the Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC).

The project stemmed from a graduate architecture media seminar led by Gregory Serweta, Maia Peck, and Lukas Fetzko where students developed "wearable assemblies of folded paper and 3D-printed resin" to produce shirt and skirt combination "structures" called “sh/kirts.” The work was displayed in the Centre’s satellite Design Spectrum space over the summer.

Students blended architecture and fashion by working with 3D modeling software and a CNC milling machine to complete a process that helps them understand the relationship between two-dimensional planes and three-dimensional modeling, according to the professors.

Image still from “sh/kirts” video courtesy of Architecture and Planning | University of Buffalo.

“Paper is a material with infini...

Japanese designer showcases Flatiron Building-shaped speaker

2023-04-14T12:12:00-04:00

Japanese fashion designer Takahiro Miyashita, through his eponymous label TAKAHIROMIYASHITATheSoloist., has unveiled a Hi-Fi speaker in the form of New York City’s Flatiron Building.

The piece stands 43 inches tall and depicts the iconic structure like a sculpture in the process of being carved from a block of cement. The speaker’s material is a high-performance grade polycarbonate composite resin. It features seven speaker units, with an output of 2,000W and a wide frequency range of 20Hz to 25KHz.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by HYPEBEAST (@hypebeast)

The speaker is available for pre-order now, set to be available in early September. It is going for a price of approximately $6,768. More details can be found on the company’s website.

New Balance honors Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City concept in latest sneaker collab

2023-04-12T13:26:00-04:00

A new collaboration between New Balance and fashion designer Ronnie Fieg is paying homage Frank Lloyd Wright’s utopian concept for the ‘Broadacre City’ that first appeared in his seminal title The Disappearing City in 1932.

The KITH founder worked with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to design a pair of New Balance 998s (aka the “silhouette”) on the occasion of the sneaker’s 35th anniversary.

Ronnie Fieg x Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation x New Balance 998 “Broadacre City” capsule. Image courtesy Ronnie Fieg via Instagram

The suede designs come in two colorways, both meant to represent the agrarian landscape and buildings seen in the concept’s physical models that were displayed in the entryway of the Hacienda de la Chandler at Taliesin West after 1935.

Ronnie Fieg x Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation x New Balance 998 “Broadacre City” capsule. Image courtesy Ronnie Fieg via Instagram

“Broadacre City isn’t a city at all but a reimagining of how we could organize ourselves outside of dense...

Tadao Ando’s tribute to Karl Lagerfeld will take over the Met’s Costume Institute this spring

2023-03-23T17:16:00-04:00

The three-decade professional relationship between Karl Lagerfeld and Pritzker winner Tadao Ando will be continued in a new exhibition designed by the architect for the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Opening to coincide with the Lagerfeld-themed Met Gala during the first week of May, Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty promises to be a treatise on Lagerfeld’s work organized around the duality between straight lines and the “Serpentine line” first theorized in William Hogarth’s 1753 essay The Analysis of Beauty.

The essay was supposedly an inspiration for the late fashion designer throughout his decorated career, the arch and milestones of which are covered in the introductory segment to the exhibition. This introduction will be followed by two galleries that hone in on themes derived from each type of line and are divided into nine ‘sublines’ included as examples of contradictory impulses throughout his friend’s long oeuvre.

Related on Archinect:...

Vivienne Westwood, doyenne of punk rock British fashion, passes away aged 81

2022-12-30T12:01:00-05:00

Celebrated fashion designer Vivienne Westwood passed away peacefully at her home in South London, The Guardian reported late Thursday.

The 81-year-old Dame was behind some of Britain’s more salient countercultural movements, becoming synonymous with the late-70s punk rock scene in London and later playing an outsize role in the early-career development of her muse, Naomi Campbell.

Known as much for her outspoken activism on issues such as nuclear proliferation, civil rights, the environment, and other social justice issues as she was for her clothing line and collaboration with Malcolm McLaren, Westwood’s influence in the broader world of design is hard to overstate.

Zaha Hadid was among the torrent of prominent figures within the UK to have worked with Westwood on collaborations for shoes, flagship boutiques, clothing lines, and even home designs on her way to becoming the “U...

Architect Amale Andraos debuts first-ever jewelry collection for Judith Ripka

2022-12-19T19:00:00-05:00

“The challenge was adjusting to the scale,” Andraos said. “When I first started sketching, the pieces were much bigger. I remember the reaction — the team was very excited about the ideas but I wasn’t computing the budget,” adding that the process of design is “always the same across scales, but this experience was very different because the scale of jewelry and the way it relates to the body is so precise.”

Andraos, who stepped down as Dean of Columbia's GSAPP last May, told WWD that her inspiration to make jewelry for the first time came from her hometown of Beirut’s Art Deco tradition. Other architects like Elena Manferdini and Rossana Hu have contributed designs for the Judith Ripka brand. Pieces from Andraos’ new Ayah Collection retail for between $550 and $1,995. The WORKac co-founder will now rejoin the faculty in Morningside Heights in September after a yearlong sabbatical.

Related Feature Interview on Archinect: Deans List: Amale Andraos of Columbia University's GSAPP

“If you look at Amale’s body of work, she is known for asymmetry. Most people prefer symmetry in jewelry so it was an interesting challenge for us to wrap our heads around Amale’s aesthetic and make it work in jewelry,” CEO and GSAPP alumnus Robert D’Loren of Xcel Brands, Ripka’s parent company, added. “There are several finishes on the metal work, from shiny to matte which creates this remarkable sense of balance...

Peter Marino debuts signature handbag for Louis Vuitton

2022-10-20T11:25:00-04:00

Peter Marino is one of six artists included in the latest update of Louis Vuitton’s signature Artycapucines handbag collection. The incorrigible leatherdaddy and designer of several of the brand’s flagship locations says his all-black contribution was inspired by a medieval strongbox he discovered while visiting a 14th century Venetian palace.

He joins Takashi Murakami, Yayoi Kusama, Sol LeWitt, and other artists to have been featured in the now 9-year-old collection. Bags go for €8,000 but are still rugged enough for everyday wear, despite the dual sculptural qualities he also preferred.

“It was a fun challenge,” Marino recently told WWD. “I design furniture for Vuitton; I design carpets and doorknobs, so it’s very much in the vein of what I do for them. This is not a wussie handbag,”

AMO reveals unique retail spaces for Jacquemus' Paris and London expansions

2022-10-05T12:57:00-04:00

A splashy collaboration between AMO (the research arm of OMA) and the French fashion house Jacquemus is making the scene in Paris and London this season thanks to the dynamic duo of OMA partner Ellen van Loon and Giulio Margheri.

Located inside the iconic Parisian department store Galeries Lafayette Haussmann and the equally posh London’s Selfridges and Harvey Nichols outfitters, the stores first premiered in July and were inspired by a deep dive into the brand’s origins, according to the design team.

Photograph by Benoit Florençon, Courtesy of AMO

“We wanted to capture the atmosphere of Provence through the materiality of the spaces,” van Loon says. “[That] led us to approach the design in a different way altogether. Instead of working with form and deciding on the materials afterwards, we chose the materials at the outset and let them guide the shape of each space.”

Photograph by Benoit Florençon, Courtesy of AMO

Photograph by Benoit F...

Issey Miyake, the feted 'architect' of high fashion, has passed away in Tokyo aged 84

2022-08-09T21:10:00-04:00

A remarkable intellectual titan of contemporary fashion and high culture has passed away as multiple outlets are reporting the death of iconic Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake on Friday, August 5th after a battle with cancer.

A pioneer of the pleat and use of technologically-driven design, Miyake became a symbol of radical interventions in fashion. He was championed by photographer Irving Penn, Artforum, and many other art world mainstays who formed his early client base, which would later famously include Apple founder Steve Jobs.

In an industry ruled by form, proportion, and silhouette, Miyake used a complex understanding of architectural concepts to design garments that were sculptural in structure and unrepeatable in their unique ability to convey movement and the fluid body. Noted as the first Asian designer to "storm Paris runways in the '70s," his work continues to transcend contemporary fashion. His research-based Pleats Please and later Homme Plissé Issey Miyake lin...

The Salk Institute opens its doors for Louis Vuitton fashion show

2022-05-16T14:28:00-04:00

The Salk Institute recently opened its iconic campus to Louis Vuitton for a private fashion show presenting the brand’s Cruise 2023 collection. This event was the first of its kind to be held at this location.

As noted by the Institute, the use of space, natural light, materials, and bold lines throughout the Louis Kahn-designed structure was a fitting setting for the French fashion label’s showcase. Its travertine courtyard was converted into a temporary runway, framed by the two mirrored concrete buildings. At the center of the courtyard, the Institute’s “River of Life” water feature cut through the runway. Guests were able to enjoy both the show and views of the sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

Video via Louis Vuitton on YouTube.

“Salk has a global reputation as ‘a cathedral to science, an homage to art,” said Salk President Rusty Gage. “The Institute’s founder, Jonas Salk, understood that art and science come from the same creative source. It was his intention that his Institute...

Nike’s intriguing experiments in architectural ideas, projects, and jobs

2022-04-21T11:42:00-04:00

What do the Centre Pompidou and the Bauhaus have in common? Beyond their seismic impact on the architectural discourse of the 20th and 21st centuries, both in fact served as inspiration for versions of Nike Air Max sneakers.

In 2019, the global sports retailer debuted the Air Max 270 React, whose bold colors paid homage to the influential Bauhaus movement. One year previous, a special Air Max edition with colored tubes along the seams and fabric lines was released as a tribute to the Centre Pompidou. The tribute was not without reason, given that the original Air Max 1 was itself inspired by the designer’s visit to the Pompidou, most notably the shoe’s signature Air bubble element.

Related on Archinect: Would you wear these Bauhaus-inspired Nike shoes?

The Bauhaus and Pompidou versions of the Air Max are part of Nike’s long-standing use of architectural principles and elements to showcase and evolve its brand. Several Nike-commissioned projects have been featured on Archinect in the...

Architects and designers are helping cities fight back against AI surveillance

2022-03-08T10:31:00-05:00

Cities are being overwhelmed by a top-down, algorithmically-enabled attempt to make them legible, quantifiable and replicable. Can a project of nonsense-making disrupt the seemingly inexorable march of "progress"?

Anti-digital mapping and other seriously stylish interventions have taken cues from protest groups like the Umbrella Movement. Many now see them as key areas in which architects can play a role alongside other designers and urbanists to halt the encroachment of certain proptech entities with software that can learn “the concept of gentrification itself."

Knott eventually tied anti-gentrification pushback against high tech real estate to the long-standing tradition of intervention into urban planning endeavors, saying that, in the end, it is up to communities of people who can utilize the notion in an all-out effort to prevent the wholesale creation of what he called the “algorithmic city.”

“Design alone won’t save neighbourhoods from the gentrifying tendencies of urbanism tech...

Kim Kardashian taps Tadao Ando and Kengo Kuma for post-divorce vacation homes

2022-02-11T12:30:00-05:00

At present, Pritzker Prize–winning architect Tadao Ando is building Kim’s Palm Springs home, which she describes as “concrete, gray-toned, and really zen,” while Kengo Kuma, who designed the National Stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as well as LVMH’s Japan headquarters, is creating a glass-and-wood lake house for her in an undisclosed location, where Kim travels every Fourth of July.

The Palm Springs home and new Kuma design will offer some competition to the pricey portfolio her ex-husband has been building with his recent $57.3 million acquisition of an Ando-designed Malibu home that was custom-built for investment manager Richard Sachs in 2013.

Tadao Ando Interview with Archinect: 20 Minutes with a Master

Kardashian, who visited Ando's Chichu Art Museum in her past life with the Donda rapper, recently acquired ownership of the couple’s minimalist Hidden Hills home in the fall as part of the stipulation for their now-finalized divorce The Vogue cover girl credited the design process and collaboration with Axel Vervoodt with instigating a “love affair with architecture, specifically Japanese” as she spoke with the magazine’s Jen Wang about her SKIMS side hustle and new redefining role as the face of Balenciaga.

The Proust Questionnaire: Kengo Kuma

Virgil Abloh, visionary in design and fashion, passes away at 41 following cancer battle

2021-11-28T15:43:00-05:00

The acclaimed designer Virgil Abloh has passed away at the age of 41 after a two-year battle with cancer. The American designer and entrepreneur was originally trained as an architect, but his impact on the design world was felt throughout fashion, interior design, music, and product design.

While a student of the Master in Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Abloh developed an interest in fashion having been partly inspired by a Rem Koolhaas building under construction at the campus. Following collaborations with Kanye West, Abloh founded the high-end streetwear brand Off-White in 2013. In 2018, he become the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear ready-wear line, while one year later, he was appointed to the board of directors of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

Related on Archinect: AMO-designed new flagship for Virgil Ab...

Oscar Niemeyer’s Communist Party Headquarters showcases a trippy Stella McCartney ready-to-wear show for Paris Fashion Week

2021-10-07T19:52:00-04:00

Under the Brutalist concrete dome of the Espace Niemeyer, the headquarters of the French Communist Party, which it turns out also bears a marked resemblance to a Martian bio-dome, the voice of the American mycologist Paul Stamets boomed out, reciting a paean to the powers of fungi to open the show.

Located in the Colonel Fabien in Paris’ 19th arrondissement, the sinewy building has been a favorite among fashion week art directors since the party’s finances dictating renting out the building after its opening in 1980. Fashion mainstays like Thom Browne, Yeezy, Prada, and others have all graced its auditorium whose 11-meter-high dome dutifully provides a cool, futuristic-looking backdrop for catwalkers underneath.

Video courtesy Stella McCartney on YouTube.

During his lifetime, Niemeyer ran in circles that included many prominent clothing designers like Piere Cardin and was a well-known admirer and collaborator with the fashion world as evidenced by his 2012 sneaker collection from Converse. Some pieces in the Stella McCartney show were made of a mushroom-based vegan leather called Mylo. Vogue has a full review of the collection here.

BIG reveals designs for a new Farfetch hillside corporate headquarters in Porto

2021-09-28T14:06:00-04:00

A futuristic new headquarters for one of Portugal’s hottest companies will form the basis of an innovative hillside “smart valley” in the country’s Porto region according to renderings unveiled today by BIG.

Image courtesy BIG

Fashion retailer Farfetch will serve as the anchor in the Danish studio’s expansive new FUSE VALLEY development overlooking the Leça River in the town of Matosinhos.

Image courtesy BIG

From end to end, the nearly two-million-square-foot development creates an elongated and art-filled commercial village ideal for corporate and community use alike.

Image courtesy BIG

Twelve tailor-made individual buildings connect through a winding program of landscaped terraces that feature plazas, parks, and public courtyards along a central axis road. Each building represents a different aspect of Farfetch’s core business and will incorporate design elements like open attic mezzanines and biophilic interventions to create an immersive natural working environment for all of the...

Saint Laurent taps Doug Aitken to help present its SS22 line in Venice

2021-07-19T14:43:00-04:00

A temporary installation by Doug Aitken is gracing the runway in Venice thanks to a new commission from fashion giant Saint Laurent.

The artist’s latest work titled Green Lens is a glowing, 10-pronged kaleidoscopic pavilion made from mirrored aluminum panels that sits on a defunct 54-acre military installation hosted on an island called La Certosa.

Image courtesy Saint Laurent.

Aitken uses an admixture of locally-sourced plants, artificially-generated mist, and colorful lighting to create an immersive activated sculpture he says is inspired by the set designs from his favorite Andrei Tarkovsky films. The installation’s focus on ecology and litoral setting elevates a long-held sense of the natural world that the 53-year-old artist has made a focus of throughout his three-decade career.

Image courtesy Saint Laurent.

“It’s something that the viewer can be a part of, the landscape around it can be part of,” Aitken told ARTnews.

Seasonal presentations in the industry had been upended in ...

AMO-designed new flagship for Virgil Abloh's Off-White has opened in Paris

2021-07-06T20:57:00-04:00

A new collaboration between OMA/AMO and design icon Virgil Abloh has opened in Paris this past weekend, giving the 9-year-old Off-White brand a flagship location in the couture capital’s 1st arrondissement.

The store is the second project from AMO and the famed designer after opening a Miami location at the end of last summer. The two had previously paired on a retrospective exhibition of Abloh’s work held at the MCA Chicago in 2019.

Off-White founder and creative director Abloh told Hypebeast he views the new flagship as “an incubator for new talent, a cultural connector within the community, and an experimental laboratory of creativity and innovation.”

The three-floor retrofitted 19th-century space features a ground floor with a dedicated wing for Nike products, gallery space, and two contrasting retail areas meant to “amplify the voices of the community” and evoke bygone Parisian flea markets respectively.

The remaining two f...

AMO undertakes set design and video art direction for Bulgari's summer 2021 fine jewelry show

2021-06-28T13:14:00-04:00

AMO, the research branch of OMA, has revealed its designs for Italian luxury brand, Bulgari’s, Summer 2021 fine jewelry show.

Photo: Agostino Osio/Courtesy of AMO

The firm carried out the show’s set design and video art direction. It is being presented at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a major landmark in Milan and Italy’s oldest active shopping gallery. The project is led by OMA Partner Ellen van Loon and Giulio Margheri.

Photo: Agostino Osio/Courtesy of AMO

Striking uses of light and color create a dramatic atmosphere that compliments the grandiose, classical nature of the iconic building.

As stated in the project’s press release, “In manipulating scale and time, the show creates a mutually reinforcing encounter between the splendors of fine jewelry and architecture.”

Photo: Agostino Osio/Courtesy of AMO

“We conceptualized the production as an interplay of the lyrical and the mechanical,” says Ellen van Loon. “We wanted to create scenes that resonate with the design of fine je...

Featuring a rippling glass facade by SANAA, the fully restored La Samaritaine department store opens in Paris after 16 years

2021-06-24T15:16:00-04:00

The overhauled La Samaritaine department store is now open in Paris after an $894 million restoration that has kept the building closed since 2005.

The new Samaritaine features a rippling glass veiled facade, covered patios, repaired skylights, and an updated 1907 roof that gives the shopping center's restored interior an opulent feel.

Japanese firm SANAA worked to restore the Art Nouveau and Art Deco buildings for LVHM with help from Canadian studio Yabu Pushelberg. The new Samaritaine Pont-Neuf building will now serve as a luxury shopping destination in a 19th-century retail space itself reconstructed a century ago by architect Frantz Jourdain.

The newly restored buildings had once been host to an unprofitable venture and will now feature contrasting retail spaces, with three floors aimed delibera...

Brooklyn-based Almost Studio designs 1,500 sf boutique for fashion designer Sandy Liang

2021-01-14T12:24:00-05:00

Brooklyn-based architectural firm Almost Studio has designed the 1,500-square-foot flagship boutique for the popular emerging fashion designer Sandy Liang. It is due to open in December of this year.

The space sits on the ground level of a five-story brick building built in 1900 and was previously occupied by a laundromat. Almost Studio patched and sealed the original concrete floor, replaced the ceiling for new HVAC, and framed the glass storefront with stainless steel, introducing a fresh feel to the long linear retail space.

Almost Studio co-founder Anthony Gagliardi explained, in a statement, the team's primary design challenge was to "generate a spatial logic that allowed the store to feel cohesive, while also inserting an enfilade of individualized areas within the irregular and narrow space."

Upon entry, visitors are greeted by the boutique's shopping area, which stretches roughly 60-feet in length. Next comes the point of sale, then dressing rooms and bathrooms, and finally ...

MVRDV-designed lingerie store in Paris uses transparent glass floor for a more "revealing" design approach

2020-11-02T13:33:00-05:00

MVRDV has completed a new flagship store in Paris for French lingerie brand Etam, renovating a 19th-century Haussmann building by removing its internal barriers and adding a glass floor to allow light to fill the interior.

The project sits at a corner site on Boulevard Haussmann, in one of the prime shopping locations in Paris near the Opera Garnier. MVRDV cut back the exterior of the building to highlight its classical appearance whilst allowing natural light to enter the store at both ends.

This "stripped down" approach moves to the interior, where the design reveals the original stone structure through the removal of interior walls and part of the mezzanine floor above. At ground level, a glass floor stretches as one of the project's defining features. It allows light to enter the basement level and connects visitors at the ground level to the level below and vice versa.

The floor is treated with a special film that makes it transparent when viewed at an angle, but clouded when v...

Kengo Kuma steps into shoe design with ASICS

2019-12-02T16:01:00-05:00

Architects dabbling in fashion design is nothing new. From Zaha Hadid to Santiago Calatrava and Virgil Abloh, shoe brands often turn to architects for inspiration. In the latest example, Japanese footwear brand ASICS has teamed with Kengo Kuma to design a new running shoe that's said to marry "ASICS’ most cutting edge technology with ancient techniques and Kengo’s beautifully engineered aesthetic to create what he calls his 'smallest building yet,'" according to Isabelle Hore-Thorburn of HIGHESTNOBIETY.

Kuma's spin on the shoe showcases the "yatara ami" (bamboo knitting) technique that creates two interlocking layers that aid in the foot's natural movement. The design keeps up with the sleek, slip-on attributes shoe brands such as Nike and Adidas have incorporated into their recent lineups while offering a subtle and clean profile in contrast to some of t...

Louis Vuitton's London flagship reopens as a Peter Marino-designed spectacle

2019-10-24T15:51:00-04:00

Reopening after a 14-month makeover, the renovated store is a multi-storey expo fitted with the work of [...] artists, which – unlike those collections, and art you'd find in a concept store – is intended to be viewed, rather than purchased.

Photo: Stephane Muratet, courtesy Louis Vuitton

Elle's Sara McAlpine on the rise of 'The Spectacle Store' among luxury retailers and how Louis Vuitton's newly reopened London flagship fits right in.

"The face of retail changes so fast," Peter Marino, whose New York-based firm was in charge of the lengthy makeover, tells Elle, adding, "It’s very much a necessity for [brands] to have these big special statements in key landmark locations."

Photo: Stephane Muratet, courtesy Louis Vuitton

The Louis Vuitton London Maison on New Bond Street reopened today after undergoing 14 months of renovation to "reveal a complete reimagining of the space, featuring a sweeping double helix shaped staircase crafted in cerused oak and worked as a sculpture with an offset centre."

Photo: Stephane Muratet, courtesy Louis Vuitton

There are 43 artworks throughout the store — from 25 artists including site-specific commissions from Sarah Crowner, Jim Lambie, Josh Sperling, Farhad Moshiri, and Matt Gagnon — as ...

What if Zaha Hadid had designed a pair of YEEZYs?

2019-09-23T15:00:00-04:00

What we have here is a seamless, one-piece, alabaster molded slip-on, punctured by organic-shaped holes and replete with the sort of bulges, curves, and shapes that, for the design inclined, should conjure not only connections to modern automotive design, but thoughts of the late Zaha Hadid’s oeuvre as well. It’s perhaps reductive to say, as we have, that this is a Hadid version of a Croc, but it’s also accurate and curious.

Surface magazine commends West for his study and reference to design and architecture, reporting on his personal acquaintance with Hadid and his positive remarks on the work of Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron. It is only natural, the publication reports, that West's fashion would show his architectural influences. The new Yeezy Foam Runners will drop in 2020.

COS pays homage to the Bauhaus with their remastered capsule collection

2019-09-13T19:30:00-04:00

Architects are known for their distinct fashion sense. From the clean, minimalistic look to the striking and avant-garde, fashion's relationship with architecture is close and personal.

Popular clothing brand COS is paying tribute to its Bauhaus-inspired design principles with a unique capsule collection for those who wish to embody the iconic design school's aesthetic.

Image © COS

COS designer Christophe Copin shares with Wallpaper, "We really wanted to work around form and function this time." Copin continues, "You need a coat to protect you from the cold, but maybe you don't need all its additional detail [...] We were focusing on the art of closure."

Image © COS

While some might view fashion trends unimportant and trivial, for those who appreciate the design history of popular fashion trends, COS' new collection could be a good fit, however. The attention to the Bauhaus school's geometric forms and monochromatic color palette make this collection simple and a basic in design and ...

Archinect - News

Four Pritzker Prize-winning architects have recently designed watches

Iconic American interior designer, businesswoman, and fashion icon Iris Apfel dies at 102

AMO design for the Prada 2024 FW Men's Show stages nature against an invasive interior environment

Frank Gehry designs Louis Vuitton handbag collection for Art Basel Miami Beach

University of Buffalo architecture students displayed 3D printed "Archi-texture" in special Hong Kong Design Centre exhibition

Japanese designer showcases Flatiron Building-shaped speaker

New Balance honors Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City concept in latest sneaker collab

Tadao Ando’s tribute to Karl Lagerfeld will take over the Met’s Costume Institute this spring

Vivienne Westwood, doyenne of punk rock British fashion, passes away aged 81

Architect Amale Andraos debuts first-ever jewelry collection for Judith Ripka

Peter Marino debuts signature handbag for Louis Vuitton

AMO reveals unique retail spaces for Jacquemus' Paris and London expansions

Issey Miyake, the feted 'architect' of high fashion, has passed away in Tokyo aged 84

The Salk Institute opens its doors for Louis Vuitton fashion show

Nike’s intriguing experiments in architectural ideas, projects, and jobs

Architects and designers are helping cities fight back against AI surveillance

Kim Kardashian taps Tadao Ando and Kengo Kuma for post-divorce vacation homes

Virgil Abloh, visionary in design and fashion, passes away at 41 following cancer battle

Oscar Niemeyer’s Communist Party Headquarters showcases a trippy Stella McCartney ready-to-wear show for Paris Fashion Week

BIG reveals designs for a new Farfetch​ hillside corporate headquarters in Porto

Saint Laurent taps Doug Aitken to help present its SS22 line in Venice

AMO-designed new flagship for Virgil Abloh's Off-White has opened in Paris

AMO undertakes set design and video art direction for Bulgari's summer 2021 fine jewelry show

Featuring a rippling glass facade by SANAA, the fully restored La Samaritaine department store opens in Paris after 16 years

Brooklyn-based Almost Studio designs 1,500 sf boutique for fashion designer Sandy Liang

MVRDV-designed lingerie store in Paris uses transparent glass floor for a more "revealing" design approach

Kengo Kuma steps into shoe design with ASICS

Louis Vuitton's London flagship reopens as a Peter Marino-designed spectacle

What if Zaha Hadid had designed a pair of YEEZYs?

COS pays homage to the Bauhaus with their remastered capsule collection

BIG reveals designs for a new Farfetch hillside corporate headquarters in Porto