Cycling shoes are tucked into all-black shelving in this boutique spinning studio in Montreal, Canada, designed by locally based Ivy Studio.
Ivy Studio chose the material palette for the indoor cycling facility to reflect the monochrome branding of ELMNT, a boutique gym providing spaces for yoga, spin, barre and high intensity interval training (HIIT).
Above image: Ivy Studio chose the palette to complement ELMNT's brand. Top image: the spinning room
Black runs heavily throughout the 1500-square-foot (139-square-metre) studio but is intended to provide a different atmosphere between the calming lobby area, with lockers and changing areas, and a spin room for "excitement and energy".
"Although both areas are united by the brand's all-black colour palette, they each suggest opposing ambiances," said Ivy Studio.
Existing concrete beams are teamed with stained-black wood
ELMNT's space, which occupies the ground floor of a residential building in the city's Griffintown neighbourhood, features exposed concrete columns and concrete floors in the lobby.
This is teamed with built-in furniture made from black stained oak and reflective laminate.
A curved black wall wraps around gender-neutral bathrooms
Among these is a black wooden bench leading from the entrance door along a glazed wall and then around an existing column. A black plant pot filled with greenery is tucked into a nook on the other side of the column.
Facing the bench is a curved black wall that wraps around the studio's gender-neutral changing rooms, including four showers covered in black tiles.
Cycling shoes are stored in black shelves
Before entering the studio, class attendees pick up their allotted spin-bike shoes – specially designed to click into the bike pedals – from black shelving. They can also store belongings in black lockers and fill up their water bottles from a cylindrical black fountain.
The spinning room is intended to provide a more electric atmosphere.
Red LEDs illuminate the spinning room
"A series of color-changing LED lights span across the ceiling from one end to the other," said Ivy Studio. "The walls are surfaced in acrylic mirrors that distort the reflections of their subjects."
Ivy Studio is led by architects Gabrielle Rousseau and Philip Staszeksi in Montreal.
Japanese architect Uoya Shigenori stripped back and reconfigured this 100-year-old townhouse in Kyoto to create moody and tranquil interiors for Maana Kamo guesthouse.
Located in the historic Higashiyama District, the hotel was designed by Shigenori for Maana Homes, the owner of a collection of luxury retreats hidden within some of the Japanese city's old streets.
The main living room inside Maana Kamo guesthouse
The goal of the renovation was to preserve and expose the dwelling's original structure while creating a minimalist retreat for quiet contemplation.
"Preserving and highlighting the house's imperfectly aged beauty is the backbone of our design philosophy," said Maana Homes.
"The beauty and soul of a traditional Japanese townhome is in its structural elements."
The kitchen has a central island covered with layers of Urushi
Prior to the renovation, Maana Kamo was in a poor condition with unsightly vinyl wall coverings, tile ceilings and broken floorboards.
These finishes were all removed, exposing the old house's rough, wooden structure and original walls that are made from clay.
A double vanity features in the new moody bathroom
These original details have been teamed with dark, moody furnishings and subdued lighting, alongside new timber walls and floors lined with traditional straw tatami mats.
Ornament is kept to a minimum throughout, while storage spaces for the hotel staff are disguised within the walls.
The lack of ornament is to ensure Maana Kamo guesthouse is "visually quiet" and free from distraction, providing occupants with space to slow down and reflect.
It also allows rooms to be easily adapted, for example, a guest room on the second floor can be quickly converted into a space for yoga and meditation.
The decoration is limited to a few handcrafted ornaments
One of the biggest changes Shigenori made to the dwelling was the repositioning of the kitchen from a narrow space at the rear of the dwelling to a larger area at the front.
This made space for a large kitchen island that is covered with layers of Urushi – a traditional Japanese lacquer made of tree sap that is water-resistant –and a wall of wooden cabinetry and shelves filled with local, handcrafted kitchenware.
The building's original structure clay walls are exposed throughout
Where the old kitchen once stood, Shigenori has inserted a double-vanity bathroom with a shower that overlooks a private garden at the rear of the dwelling.
The guesthouse is complete with an oversized Japanese-style bathtub that is accessed from the living room. It has a view out to the private garden and is intended to evoke the feeling of bathing in an onsen – a Japanese bathing facility positioned around a hot spring.
Its old and dark wooden structure has also been revealed throughout
Lekker Architects and Lanzavecchia + Wai have designed an IKEA-inspired manual filled with tips and tricks on how to hack the Swedish company's products to better serve people living with dementia.
Commissioned by Singapore-based organisation Lien Foundation, the 240-page Hack Care book contains over 50 DIY projects.
These alterations can be made to various IKEA furniture and homeware items to create a home that both comforts people with dementia and supports their caregivers.
Lekker Architects, Lanzavecchia + Wai and the Lien Foundation designed the Hack Care book
The book, which is made to look like an IKEA catalogue, also contains essays and stories about living with dementia – a degenerative brain disorder that affects more than fifty million people, mainly those in their 60s or older.
The catalogue comes as part of a kit that also includes four instruction booklets, a "make your own fidget bag" with a zipper, buttons, key ings and ribbon, sticky notes and tabs and a pencil.
As the creators explain, the book is designed to encourage caregivers to come up with their own hacks that would best suit their home and personal needs, aiming to "keep their loved ones with dementia engaged, empowered and enabled to age in place for as long as possible".
The catalogue also comes with instruction booklets and a DIY fidget bag
"Living with dementia is daunting and our everyday home environments do not always anticipate or meet the unique needs of people battling cognitive and physical frailty," said the Lien Foundation.
"Many academic papers on dementia-friendly environments offer guidelines or principles for caregivers and seniors themselves, but a gap remains between principle and practice," it continued.
"It was with an aim to bridge this gap that the Lien Foundation commissioned Lekker Architects and Lanzavecchia + Wai to weave creativity with practical design experience and improve the homes and lives of persons affected by dementia."
Lien Foundation and the two design studios chose to work with IKEA products for their accessibility and ease of use – the Hack Care book is not affiliated with IKEA.
The book includes a hack of the IKEA Poäng armchair
Hacks can be used to assist a range of activities from mealtimes to everyday routines.
For instance, the book offers tips on the use of colours and lights to influence behaviour – eating from blue-coloured plates is said to increase food intake, while drinking from a red cup encourages water consumption.
Hacks in the book include adapting the IKEA Poäng armchair by tilting it forward to provide more back support, adding a surface by the headrest for napping, securing additional armrests and adding another base structure to make it easier to stand up.
Hack Care gives readers ways to improve dementia sufferers' environments
The catalogue also recommends placing the upgraded Poäng chair inside a set of IKEA Algot planner shelves to offer a flexible care space and to also create a "cosy corner".
Styling the chair and shelves with a rug, a plant and other familiar, homely objects helps "humanise" the user's environment while also organising the items needed for their care.
The book also suggests ways of making items for fidgeting with
Hack Care also encourages "fidgeting" as a productive and therapeutic activity for people with dementia that can help occupy moments of boredom or soothe feelings of anxiety at various stages of cognitive decline.
Tactile surfaces for fiddling with are simple to create at home and can be customised in many different ways.
Common types of fidget designs include surfaces with paths that can be traced with a finger or items that can be moved such as beads on a string or zippers.
The 240-page Hack Care catalogue contains over 50 DIY tips
Other projects designed to help those with dementia include a virtual reality tool that recreates the effect of the visual impairments experienced by people with the syndrome, in order to help architects design better spaces.
Scottish architect David Burgher has developed a new virtual reality tool that mimics the visual impairments experienced by dementia sufferers to help architects design more suitable spaces.
By using the Virtual Reality Empathy Platform (VR-EP), developer David Burgher hopes architects will be able to better gauge appropriate lighting levels, room layouts and way-finding to improve design of care homes, hospitals and sheltered housing.
Design firm Home Studios used a medley of bespoke furniture and vintage finds to revamp this family apartment in New York's NoHo neighbourhood.
The 20 Bond apartment measures 2000 square feet (186 square metres) and is set within a building that dates back to 1925. Since the 1980s, it hasn't undergone any significant renovations.
Above: custom lights hang above the dining area. Top image: the apartment's living room
Brooklyn-based Home Studios was asked to carry out the much-needed overhaul of the dated apartment.
Its owners – a couple with young kids – had grown to be a fan of the studio's aesthetic after frequenting two New York restaurants it had designed, Elsa and Goat Town.
This is, to date, only the second residential project that the studio has worked on, but founder Oliver Haslegrave says the creative process was much like developing a restaurant.
A copper hood contrasts the kitchen's blue-grey cabinetry
"Like our hospitality projects, we envisioned an updated and modern space that defies the conformity of a typical residence," Haslegrave told Dezeen.
"20 Bond is a direct reflection of our practice in that the end product is both expressive and finely detailed, and marries contemporary and vintage influences."
Copper frames the apartment's curved internal windows
In the open-plan kitchen, a trio of ring-shaped pendant lamps made bespoke by Home Studios dangle above a walnut dining table. The nickel and brass spotlights that illuminate the central breakfast island were also crafted by the studio.
Opposite the island is a series of cupboards painted a blue-grey hue called Pigeon by Farrow & Ball, accompanied by a custom extractor hood that's clad in gleaming copper.
Copper goes on to border the apartment's rounded door frames and skirting boards. The metal also frames the guest bathroom's internal window, which bows outwards to form a curved wall.
Curved forms continue into the guest bathroom
Curves continue throughout the rest of the bathroom, where a mosaic of tan-coloured tiles sinuously winds around the shower, tub and a seating nook which is inbuilt with a storage box for towels.
Haslegrave says that these features are meant to act as a small homage to the shapely form of buildings created by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.
Tan-coloured tiles serve as a backdrop to the shower and bathtub
"The freeform curves found in [Aalto's] work represent both a fluid motif and an engaging playfulness that we aim to incorporate in all Home Studios projects," he explained.
"We included images of Aalto's Screen 100 and the Maison Louis Carré – the residential building in Bazoches-Sur-Guyonne, France designed by him and his wife, Elissa – in our initial project mood board."
The doorways and skirting in the apartment are also edged with copper
More bespoke and vintage pieces can be found in the master bedroom, for which Home Studios has made a walnut and travertine headboard.
A French floor lamp from the 1940s stands in the corner of the room, beside a boucle-upholstered armchair by LA brand Atelier de Troupe.
A bespoke headboard and vintage French lamp feature in the master bedroom
In the living room, two antique Danish chairs with woven leather seats have been contrastingly paired with a blocky side table by Sabine Marcelis, which is cast from candy-pink resin.
An oak and brass shelving unit made by Home Studios dominates a peripheral wall.
"The final product is a near-ideal extension of our process and values – a tailored place that offers its residents something special," Haslegrave concluded.
The nearby living area is dominated by a shelving unit made by the studio
Home Studios was established by Haslegrave in 2009. Previous projects by the studio include the revamp of Bibo Ergo Sum, an eclectic bar in West Hollywood which takes visual cues from the early 20th-century Viennese architecture, French film posters and the 1967 film The Graduate.
Architecture, interior design, furniture and lighting, styling: Home Studios Fabrication: Works Manufacturing, Shelton Studios, Zalla Studios, Anthony Hart, Anders Rydstedt Construction: Vertical Space
Design studio Older has created a series of objects including marble wall-hangings shaped to look like breasts with pierced nipples, and an inflatable chair named after a Blade Runner character.
Called Wide Eye, the collection includes a set of cutlery, carafes, wall-hung ornaments, chairs, a table, a sofa, lamps and a basket for bread.
Older said each piece shows "a playful devotion to contemporary design" with features that the creators hope will spark conversations.
Older studio and artist Alexander Vinther came together to design the Wide Eye collection
The objects, created in collaboration with Danish artist Alexander Vinther, were featured in an exhibition also titled Wide Eye in Milan, Italy, during Milano Design City.
Each piece in the collection was produced by local artisans in Milan.
"Basically, we've taken the design process back to the 1960s and 70s, to the idea of anti-mass-production," said the studio.
"We were inspired by this era when great design unfolded in dialogue with artisans, and objects and furniture were shaped and almost thought by the human hand. We wanted to bring that authenticity back to contemporary design."
The Zhora chair was informed by sci-fi film Blade Runner
For the Aisatsana cutlery, Older and Vinther took inspiration from sci-fi movie Blade Runner – in particular, the fictional flying cars called Spinners from the film.
The sterling silver dining utensils feature a modern, "almost feminine" shape with delicate forms and softly pointed ends.
Also informed by Blade Runner is the Zhora chair, which takes its name from one of the film's characters. The chair features a frame made from bent stainless steel, topped with an inflatable cover made from PVC that can be blown up to offer a more cushioned seat.
"The chair has an avant-garde expression, and – like the movie it references – pushes our expectations of what 'common' actually means: in this case, a chair," said the studio.
The Marble Carafes collection feature geometric forms and curved handles
Marble was also a favoured material for the Wide Eye collection, which the designers used to make a series of carafes and wall-hangings.
The sculptural vessels, which feature a beak-like spout, a cylindrical body and a curved handle, have been cut from blocks of white Carrara marble, Lebanese red marble and green onyx marble.
According to the designers, the veined surface of each type of stone used for the carafes has an almost human, flesh-like appearance.
The Perky objects take the form of breasts with pierced nipples
This flesh-like quality also complemented a series of white and green marble wall-hangings called Perky, which take the form of breasts with hooped nipple piercings.
"Perky points to the intimate rite of passage of a person's first sexual encounter, the idea of the first touch of a woman's breast," said the studio.
"Perky is the loss of innocence and the awakening of sexual consciousness, suggested by the piercing of the breast – a poetic reference with an iconic shape."
As Older and Vinther explain, the marble's green hue was chosen to recall beaches on the west coast of Denmark, which are dotted with green glass that has been made soft by the waves.
The Papi table features a looping red-iron frame with a Plexiglas top
Also included in the collection and exhibition is the Papi table, comprising a looping red-iron frame with a Plexiglas top, which takes its name from the popular Spanish term for 'endearment' and is informed by 1980's postmodernism.
The Wide Eye Wake Up sofa is made from khaki-coloured nylon and consists of three individual chairs held together as one, singular sofa by elastic bands. This system can be adapted to create separate chairs or varied combinations of the three.
The Baguette bread basket is made from white and grey marble and has a soft form inspired by sofas.
Marble ;amps take design cues from a 1950s building by Gunnar Aagaard Andersen
The Gunnol lamps are also crafted from white marble and have a triangular form that takes cues from a 1950s pyramid-shaped building by Danish artist and architect Gunnar Aagaard Andersen.
The design festival saw local events, talks, workshops and exhibitions held across the city, hosted in showrooms, museums, art galleries and venues set up specially for the occasion.
An online showroom was also set up through Fuorisalone.it to enable "virtual visits" to the design showrooms. The aim of the two-week-long event was to reinvigorate the Italian design system, which is now open again to the public.
Wide Eye Milan took place from 28 September to 10 October at Milano Design City. SeeDezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
