That led me to look at some more contemporary designs, and I thought I would share five favourites.

Ciclope Mirror

The Ciclope Mirror by Claesson Koivisto Rune, shown in the featured image above, has a lovely nautical feel. Its name nods to the Cyclops of Homer’s Odyssey, while the circular mirror and simple frame give it an almost porthole-like quality.

Entree Mirror

Entree Mirror from Bensen artfully combines practicality and elegance. I particularly like the way the shelf is incorporated into the design rather than simply added beneath it.

Circ Mirror

Circ by Estiluz has an integrated light that gives the mirror the appearance of a planetary eclipse. It is a very simple idea, but beautifully executed.

Croma Mirror

Croma from Systemtronic has a quiet confidence I admire, standing to attention and ready to be of service. Its restrained form makes it feel almost architectural.

Menteur Mirror

And finally, Menteur by Philippe Starck for Glas Italia caught my eye. It keeps the reflection clear in the centre while cleverly distorting the image around the perimeter.

Ïto refers to his design philosophy as ‘simplexity’ – making complex design feel simple – and it suits this car rather perfectly.

Simplexity on four wheels

There is a definite connection with the original R17, but everything feels cleaner, sharper and a little more cinematic. It’s sleek and substantial. Definitely getting movie vibes! The yellow lights especially give it an almost Blade Runner feel.

It was a team effort with Renault’s design team, and that shows. Nothing feels as though it has been added simply because it can be; there is a lovely restraint to the whole thing.

Inside the Renault R17: more lounge than car

The R17 interior takes a softer turn. The intention was to create something more lounge-like than your standard car, which I really like. It makes a lovely contrast with the crisp exterior and gives the whole thing a more relaxed, almost domestic feel.

A happy shark

One detail I particularly like is Ïto’s reaction to the original Renault 17. When he first looked at the car he saw something shark-like in its shape, and that idea stayed with him during the design process.

A happy shark, mind you.

Proportion was important too. The team had to accommodate the extra size and weight of the electric car while keeping the balance right and, crucially, without losing the personality of the original.

That is perhaps where this works best. It doesn’t look as though somebody has simply taken an old car and made it futuristic. It still feels like an R17.

These design collaborations are partly about exploring new possibilities for future cars, but I mostly love the amount of consideration that goes into something like this. It manages to be thoughtful without losing its sense of fun.

Form, function, fun.

Originally found at Designboom. Images by Lionel Koretzky and Renault, shared from the original article.

What a challenging project this must have been. A sprawling 16th-century residence in historic Bruges has been carefully restored and modernised by Simon de Burbure Architects. The house had not undergone a major renovation since around 1880, so there was an extraordinary amount of history to work with, and to protect.

What I love is that the finished house does not try to hide its age. Original architectural details sit comfortably alongside much cleaner contemporary additions, so you are always aware of both the history of the building and the fact that this is now very much a modern home.

Craftsmanship at the heart of the restoration

Much of the success of this home comes down to craftsmanship and attention to detail. Historic elements were painstakingly restored while new spaces were introduced with a very different, more contemporary character.

There is plenty of luxury here, but it feels rooted in the materials themselves rather than simply added for effect. Rich timber, stone, decorative plasterwork and stained glass meet smooth marble and restrained modern forms. Somehow neither side seems to compete with the other.

Curves, marble and stillness

Curves abound, every material invites you to linger and caress. The marble baths are pretty amazing, and the stillness and calm of the pool makes you wonder whether you would actually want to disturb the water’s perfect glistening surface.

These rooms feel unmistakably modern, yet they do not seem disconnected from the rest of the house. The arches, stone and subdued colours give the newer spaces a sense of permanence, almost as though they have gradually grown out of the older building.

A home rather than a museum

I would love to see how a family would live in it, and how it would soften with the human touch. At the moment, gazing at one beautiful room after another, the whole place has an almost timeless quality.

Perhaps that is what makes the restoration so successful. The history has clearly been treated with enormous respect, but the house has not been frozen in the past. The new architecture has been allowed to have its own voice too, making this feel like another chapter in the life of the building rather than an attempt to return it to a particular moment in time.

Originally found at D Pages.

This installation by Italian artist Edoardo Tresoldi is called Simbiosi. Created for Arte Sella in 2019, it immediately made me think of those simple cages packed full of rocks. Tresoldi is known for creating architecture in wire mesh, structures that can look almost like drawings of buildings floating in the landscape. With Simbiosi, though, he introduced local stone into the work, bringing something solid and heavy into his usually transparent architecture.

A ruin that was never there

The idea becomes even more interesting when you realise that this isn’t the remains of an old building at all. Simbiosi was designed as a ruin from the beginning.

Normally a ruin starts as something complete and slowly loses its walls, roof and detail to time. Tresoldi almost reverses that process. His five-metre-high structure is open to the sky and gives us just enough architecture to imagine what might once have stood there, even though there never was an original building.

It’s a beautiful idea. The metal framework hints at what was, or perhaps what might have been. There are echoes and shadows of classical forms, but the walls don’t really shut anything out. You can gaze straight through them to the trees beyond, so nature provides its own towers, columns and changing backdrop.

Solid and almost weightless

That contrast is probably what I like most about it. The stone feels permanent, ancient and incredibly heavy, while the wire mesh around it seems barely there. One part looks as though it could have survived for centuries, while the other seems as if it might disappear when the light changes.

Tresoldi describes the work as a “character within the landscape, embodying the idea of dying architecture in the collective imagination”. That seems just right. It feels architectural, but not quite like a building; ancient, but newly made; substantial and strangely fragile at the same time.

Architecture shaped by nature

It also belongs particularly well at Arte Sella, a sculpture park where art and the natural landscape are intended to change together. The hill on which Simbiosi stands was itself shaped by the storm that transformed the park, and Tresoldi sees the slow growth of nature around the installation as another architecture that will continue to develop over time.

That makes the idea of a ruin even more interesting. Rather than putting a finished object into the landscape and expecting it to stay exactly as it is, the work allows time, weather and growth to become part of it.

Why it stayed with me

I love that something as simple as metal and stone can look so grand and so fragile all at once. There is nothing precious about either material, but put together like this they become something almost dreamlike.

Perhaps I love it because it makes me notice the same things my dad did too: structure, materials and the ingenuity of holding something together. A gabion wall is still a gabion wall, but sometimes it can become a ruin, a sculpture, or just a small reminder of someone.

I first came across Simbiosi on Yellowtrace. You can also see more of the project on Edoardo Tresoldi’s website and learn more about the setting at Arte Sella.

These Chesterfields originally caught my eye back in 2016. I liked the sofas, but it was just as much the photography that stopped me. Rich colours, deep shadows and layers of texture turn a very traditional piece of furniture into something altogether more theatrical.

Same sofa, very different character

Part of the Chesterfield’s appeal is that its shape is so strong. Deep buttoning, rolled arms and that distinctive low silhouette mean you can be surprisingly adventurous with everything else without losing the identity of the piece.

Traditional brown leather gives you the familiar club-room Chesterfield, but change the material and the personality shifts almost immediately. Velvet makes it softer and more indulgent, a strong colour makes it a statement piece, while patterned fabric can push the whole thing somewhere much more playful.

Why velvet works so well

There is something particularly good about a Chesterfield in velvet. The nap of the fabric catches the light differently as it moves across the buttons and curves, exaggerating all the details that make the sofa interesting in the first place.

Leather tends to make those details feel crisp and architectural. Velvet does almost the opposite. The shadows become deeper, the highlights softer and the whole sofa feels more generous. Add a deep plum, petrol blue, bottle green or another strong colour and something that could easily have looked rather formal suddenly becomes the most flamboyant thing in the room.

The room is doing some of the work too

What I still like about these images is that the Chesterfields haven’t been photographed apologetically against a plain white wall. The interiors lean into the drama. Dark tones, pattern, artwork and carefully controlled light all help the sofas feel richer and more sculptural.

It is a useful reminder that a piece of furniture doesn’t exist in isolation. The same Chesterfield can feel stately, eccentric, cosy or surprisingly modern depending on what surrounds it. In a richly decorated room it joins the layers; in a cleaner contemporary space that buttoned silhouette can become almost an object in its own right.

A design classic that takes a bit of messing with

Perhaps that is why the Chesterfield has lasted so well. There are enough fixed ingredients to make it instantly recognisable, but not so many that designers can’t have some fun with it. Material, colour, scale, feet, studs and styling can all change while the essential character survives.

We took a much deeper look at those defining features, along with the rather murky story of where the sofa actually came from, in The Chesterfield Sofa: A Design Classic. It also includes our original Pickle illustration from the Design Classics series.

Furniture classics have cropped up quite a few times in our work over the years. Over on Design Debate, Take a Seat looks back at our illustrated collection of classic chairs, while our later Design Classics collection brought the Chesterfield together with everything from the Anglepoise lamp to the Mini and the Olivetti Valentine typewriter.

There aren’t many sofas that can survive that much reinvention and still be recognised from across a room. Not bad for a design whose exact beginnings remain something of a mystery.