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Cocooned in Calm: An Apartment in São Paulo by André Braz.

Bringing an old home into the present, for better or worse, means undoing a bit of the past. Or, if you’re architect André Braz, a lot of it. As he tells it, his latest project, a soup-to-nuts renovation of a 1970s, 134-square-metre apartment in São Paulo’s Jardim Paulista neighbourhood, was thanks to a stroke of serendipity. “The client contacted the studio as soon as she bought the apartment, so we were able to conduct layout studies during the purchase negotiations,” he shares, noting that th
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Straight Out of a Storybook: A 1900s Home in Amsterdam by Barde vanVoltt.

There’s a house in Haarlem—the one in Amsterdam with two As, not the one in New York with one—that looks like it could belong in a Disney movie. It’s got perfectly pointed angles, shiny-as-wax windows and a storybook facade, and though it was built in the 1900s, its historic charm has somehow only grown over the decades, though not merely by chance. As designers Bart van Seggelen and Valérie Boerma of Amsterdam-based interior design studio Barde vanVoltt would tell you, it took a tiny bit of eff
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Sunlit Sanctuary: A Ranch-style Home in Santa Barbara by Corinne Mathern.

Corinne Mathern remembers feeling a psychic gravitational pull the first time she visited the Los Olivos, California property that would become her next canvas. “When I drove the hour up to the valley to visit the place and meet the clients, it was a breath of fresh air,” says the Santa Barbara-based interior designer, whose admission, evidently, doesn’t only allude to the abundant countryside oxygen.

The home, a 1980s ranch-style estate with a rambling ranch-style layout, was nestled deep insi
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Empty Nest Dream: An Apartment in Kirribilli by Amandine Simonetti Architecture and Interiors and Tsai Design.

Anyone who has mastered the art of empty nesting will tell you that there’s nothing empty about it. Take a vacation tomorrow? Done. Take a stand against cooking? Of course. Or, in the case of one Sydney-based couple, move back into the Kirribilli home they bought as newlyweds—check. The home in question, an apartment purchased decades prior, ticked many boxes in this season of life: it was a short walk from the city via the Harbour Bridge, and with no backyard, it was a low-maintenance dream—or
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Lighter than Light: A Country Villa by Grain Designoffice.

If there’s one thing that defines—and unites—spaces by Grain Designoffice, it’s an enduring sense of weightlessness. Walls the colour of sunlight. Furniture in amorphous shapes. Rooms that flow into each other like slow, meandering rivers. No different is the Belgian design studio’s latest project, a country villa in Antwerp, which goes check, check, check on all the aforementioned criteria.

A couple of years ago, however, this description wouldn’t have been quite so accurate. “The interior was
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Le Marais: A Luminous Apartment in Paris by Studio Haddou-DuFourcq.

‘Le marais’, in French, literally translates to ‘swamp’, but there’s nothing remotely swamp-like about Le Marais, an apartment in Paris recently redesigned by Studio Haddou-DuFourcq. Mind you, the same can’t be said about its state a few years ago. “Everything was dark,” recalls Kim Haddou, one half of the Paris-based interior design practice. “It looked like a dilapidated dollhouse.”

There was one small pink room, one small green room, one small brown room, and a small blue kitchen. Nothing, i
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Let There Be Light: Domingo in Barcelona by Aramé Studio.

In the Catelonian capital of Barcelona, sunshine follows you everywhere. Indoors and outdoors. Through summer and winter. From daybreak to dusk. Sometimes, even beyond. But as architects Andrea Arriola Fiol and Adrián Mellado Muñoz of Aramé Studio can confirm, that’s not always the case.

Their latest project, a residence in Barcelona’s Eixample district, used to be in the unlikely list of exceptions. “Gloomy, that’s what it was,” says Andrea of the property, which was as starved of light as of
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The White Cashew: A Rooftop Restaurant in Hyderabad by NaaV Studio.

In the leafy neighbourhood of Sainikpuri, in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, is a restaurant that stays true to its name. Shaped like an inverted cashew and steeped in soft, buttery hues, The White Cashew looks no different than it sounds. Inevitable, really, when the inspiration, as Varsha Reddy, one half of Hyderabad-based architecture firm NaaV Studio, puts it, was “slightly nuts.” Her admission isn’t without reason. The 418-square-metre rooftop joint, which specialises in fusion India
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Turning Back Time: Bar Nouveau in Paris by Atelier Alma.

On Paris’s Rue des Haudriettes is a bar with a floor intact from the 1970s. Or so a first look would have you believe. In reality, the floor wasn’t laid then, but it was made then. “One of the most remarkable features of this project is the restoration of the original opus incertum flooring,” says Aleksandr Kravtsov, associate architect at Atelier Alma, who, together with fellow architect Lana Kurova, helped bring back the seventies with authentic ceramic tiles sourced from a retailer specialisi
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Historic yet of the Moment: Haussmannian Apartment in Paris by Hauvette & Madani.

A renovation usually ends better than it begins, although Samantha Hauvette and Luca Madani of Paris-based architecture and interior design studio Hauvette & Madani would probably beg to differ. Their latest project—an apartment near Avenue Montaigne—isn’t just a renovation; it’s a renovation of a renovation that turns back the clock on its predecessor to restore and reveal what came before it: a place of true Haussmanian heritage.

By the time Samantha and Lucas came on board, that heritage was
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Historic yet of the Moment: Haussmannian Apartment in Paris by Hauvette & Madani.

A renovation usually ends better than it begins, although Samantha Hauvette and Luca Madani of Paris-based architecture and interior design studio Hauvette & Madani would probably beg to differ. Their latest project—an apartment near Avenue Montaigne—isn’t just a renovation; it’s a renovation of a renovation that turns back the clock on its predecessor to restore and reveal what came before it: a place of true Haussmanian heritage.

By the time Samantha and Lucas came on board, that heritage was
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Bedazzled: A Jewel-toned Home in Cork by Kiosk Architects and Kingston Lafferty Designs.

When the pandemic hit and people went into hibernation, Irish interior designer Roisin Lafferty did the opposite. She was enlisted by a young family—a couple with a little boy—to redesign their home in Cork, Ireland, over the lockdown. The family lived overseas and were planning at some point to move back to Ireland. But they first needed a place to call home. “We initially got to know them over Zoom,” recalls Roisin, principal at Kingston Lafferty Designs, who took up the project in collaborati
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Art Deco Gem: Mumbai Apartment by Atelier Varun Goyal.

The thing about designing a home with a sea view, of all places in a concrete megacity like Mumbai, is that the view trumps all else. No one stops to admire the decor or compliment the art or ooh and aah at that century-old lamp, rumoured to have been owned by a long-ago maharaja but in reality scavenged from Chor Bazaar (one of India’s largest flea markets). Architect Varun Goyal had none of those problems (nor, for that matter, did he scavenge a lamp from Chor Bazaar).

“He had a unique vision
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Tiny Haven: A 22-Square-Metre Apartment in Athens by Point Supreme.

Conventional wisdom holds that a home for three people should fit all three. But when one French couple and their close Italian friend, all three Paris-based, visited Athens and fell in love with the city, they decided they’d do anything to keep coming back. Even if it meant investing in a pied-à-terre much too small. So when they chanced upon a 22-square-metre room in a building in the city centre, they quickly made an offer. The catch? The space could only sleep two at a time.
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Walls Be Gone: A Rietveld-inspired Apartment in London by Studiomama.

Nina Thulstrup and Jack Mama, the husband-and-wife duo behind London-based design practice Studiomama, will be the first to tell you that downsizing doesn’t mean downgrading, at least not when it comes to residential design. So naturally, when they took on the task of transforming a dingy 55-square-metre lower ground-floor apartment in North London a few years ago, they were enthusiastic about uncovering its potential.

The apartment had many problems: the light was limited, the layout skewed, a
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Back to the 50s: La Relève in Marseille by Junod Marc Architects and Honoré.

In the Marseille district of Endoume, almost everyone knows La Relève, as did once their parents and their grandparents before them. Located on Rue d’Endoume, just around the corner from the Vieux-Port and Notre-Dame de la Garde, the bar-slash-B&B has been a much-loved local landmark since its inception as a bar de quartier in 1944. Owned by a local family, it was a regular watering hole for bus drivers, soldiers and the odd passerby. They’d pop in for an early morning coffee or jostle at the bar come sundown for an ale and an aperitif or two. The inn was handed down from generation to generation, in the last case from grandmother to granddaughter, until it was ultimately decided, in 2013, that there was no choice but to hand it over to someone else.
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Window to the Water: Venice Apartment by Eligo Studio.

No more than a few yards from the Church of San Marcuola, on the third floor of a sixteenth-century building in Sestriere di Cannaregio, is Venice. All of Venice. Not just the parts you read about, or the ones you ultimately, unwittingly experience as a tourist. Not the parts in guides and travel books, or in carefully edited vignettes on Instagram. These are the parts that are slower, calmer, wearier, and seldom seen by those who don’t stop long enough to notice. It’s these parts, these rare pa
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Water, Wine, Wood & Industry: The Rebello in Porto by Metro Urbe and Quiet Studios.

In the old days, Porto‘s Duoro River would glisten with rabelos filled to the brim with barrels of port wine. Over the years, the small wooden boats—unique to Porto—were eclipsed by faster, more efficient means of transport. But their significance never faded. Even today, they are common sights along the river, treating holidayers to a quick sail or two, and lining up in colourful rows along the waterfront. Their history is honoured in other ways too, by namesakes in the way of restaurants, cafe
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Lawson Flats Perth Members Club by Finespun Architecture and Ohlo Studio.

Lawson Flats has had many lives. Originally constructed as an apartment block in the Art Deco style in 1937, it once shared the skyline with some of the tallest buildings in Perth. Then came the 1980s, when the lower three floors were refurbished to make way for the Karrakatta Club, a women’s club that boasted a membership including Australia’s first elected female Parliamentarian. In 2022, the trifecta of floors was reborn yet again, this time as a swish members-only club for discerning, like-m
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Palazzo Luce: A Dazzling Hotel-cum-Gallery in Lecce by Anna Maria Enselmi.

Two Renaissance-style portals, emblazoned with the numbers 2 and 4, are the first indications that Palazzo Luce isn’t just another hotel. The internal courtyards confirm this suspicion, with excavated columns from a long-ago Roman theatre standing sentinel to the side, like stately guards awaiting their summons. The once-upon-a-time palace, situated in the Puglian town of Lecce, was constructed in the thirteenth century for the Counts of Lecce, but today it’s a rather different kind of majestic.
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Umberto121: A 14th-century Holiday Home in Tuscany by Montsant Moreno.

In the Tuscan hinterland, atop a knoll near Crete Senesi, lies the historic village of Montisi, one of five municipalities in Val d’Orcia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The village’s history is writ large across the dwellings that inhabit it, as evidenced by one particular home dating back to the 1300s. Exhibiting hallmarks of each century it’s survived, Umberto121 is a mediaeval curiosity that summons you into a world where time stands still.

When the present owners, a Barcelona-based couple w
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Artful Abode in New Delhi by Mathew & Ghosh Architects and Rajiv Saini + Associates.

In one residential enclave in southeast Delhi is a home that has contracted and expanded several times over the years, mirroring the size and evolution of the family that inhabits it. When it was constructed in 1977, it was designed for a multigenerational household. But by 2016, much had changed: children had flown the nest and grandchildren had been welcomed, and the once-joint-family dynamic had naturally evolved into separate generational units. It seemed like the next natural step, then, wa
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Czech Mate: An Apartment in Warsaw by Colombe.

In Pilsen, Czech Republic, are four apartments, open to the public, that hold a mirror to celebrated late architect Adolf Loos’s storied modernist style. A fifth hides in Warsaw. But unlike the original four, this one isn’t open to the public, nor is it a work of Loos. Designed by modernist architect Stanisław Rotberg in 1936, the 60-square-metre space, located in the southern part of Warsaw’s Powiśle district, acquired its Loos-esque sheen fairly recently, thanks to a revitalisation by Marta Ch
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Volcanic Volumes: Gota in Madrid by Plantea Estudio.

Madrid’s Justicia barrio is a glittering tapestry of swish boutiques, neoclassical buildings, nightclubs, bistros, and tapas bars, of which most are remarkably modern in design. Plantea Estudio’s latest project is the exception. Designed like a dark and monolithic cave, the wine and small plates bar is situated on the ground floor of a neoclassical building—but it might as well have erupted out of a volcano.

The restaurant doesn’t give too much away, at least not at first. The main door opens i
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