Dear World, the year behind us was structurally complex. Crises accumulated rather than followed one another—geopolitical instability, environmental collapse, economic precarity, and cultural fragmentation acting at the same time. Uncertainty became the baseline, not the exception. Within this imbalance, a shift occurred. As systems showed their limits, designers, artists, galleries, and brands rejected overproduction and acceleration. They slowed down, questioned growth, and rethought processes. Value was recalibrated: less novelty, more meaning; less speed, more duration; less accumulation, more relevance.

“Design is no longer about adding objects to the world, but about deciding which worlds are still livable. Material choices are political choices.”

— Bruno Latour, sociologist

Materiality stopped being neutral. Materials became political, exposing labor, supply chains, and ecological impact. Sustainability moved from rhetoric to structure. Slowness, craft, and traceability became positions, not aesthetics. Design turned away from spectacle and toward responsibility. A new generation of design infrastructure embodied this shift. At the Rotterdam Design Biennale, founded by Liv Vaisberg and Sarah Schulten, events as a format began to position themselves as a ground for research and critical discussion, rather than as marketplaces. This trend, evident at the various Design Weeks in Berlin, seems to reposition design, no longer as a reaction to the world as it is, but as a critical inquiry into the systems that make up that world.

Through 2025, the year was read month by month through design. Each month, one designer, studio, or platform served as a lens to observe broader cultural, social, and political shifts. Rather than forming a ranking or trend forecast, this approach functioned as an exercise in attention: twelve practices, twelve positions, twelve interpretations of the present. The sequence opens with figures like Phil Procter, who expanded the conversation beyond museums alone to include galleries, concept stores, and hybrid cultural spaces. His work serves as a reminder that such spaces are dynamic, living civic infrastructures, where culture, commerce, and communities converge, rather than static spaces or simply backdrops for the retail environment. Such is his vision, where care, accessibility, and relevance, rather than spectacle, inform design, spaces that function as a platform for discourse rather than decree, that evolve with the times without becoming irrelevant.

 

"I’ve always found it interesting and important to the development of my work to be close to manufacturers. I’ve never worked so intensely with factories as during this last year."



— Phil Procter

This approach extends into his collaboration with Muuto Design, where institutional thinking meets everyday design. The Gaze Mirror, is manufactured solely from folded components of polished stainless steel. By skewing and contrasting two reflections, the mirror offers shifting perspectives on its surroundings, subtly questioning how space and self are perceived. 

What is occurring, then, is a movement from institutions as architectural entities towards culture as a living, storytelling space, and this is reflected too within the work of Studio Douze Degrés. “The studio investigates current issues by translating ideas into space, scenography, or objects that serve narrative purposes. Design and production are methods for storytelling, meaning the translation of ideas from intangible concepts that have little meaning or purpose other than being aesthetically pleasing, towards tangible ideas that have the potential for wide understanding or distribution.” The studio works with people or groups who have big ideas, whether social, creative, or experiential, and uses the skills and fresh ideas of these partners to create a cohesive narrative that is then produced through design.

This strategy is realized in the form of Flare. This piece was created under the influence of lighthouses and the simple flame that a candle produces. It is composed entirely of anodized aluminum and an optical lens. This structure projects and expands the flame that a candle produces. It redirects a soft and dim light to a strong and focused one. In the day time, the structure reflects and distorts its surroundings. This occurs as a result of its lenses. This structure absorbs parts of the surrounding environment. At night, the structure acts as a lighthouse.

Each and every project produced by Studio Douze Degres can be seen as a moment of exchange and learning, enriching the practice in a cultural, technical, and human way by the subject matter, the people, and the dialogue between craft and industry.

It is here, in the integration of function and meaning, that the work of Marquel Williams resonates. Indeed, in his work, the aura exists not in the context of the object’s uniqueness but in the context of meaning. To be emotionally rich or deep does not have to mean the abandonment of function, and presence is not about excess.

This same focus on presence and intention carries forward into the work of AMCA OVAL, where the object becomes a system in motion rather than a static form. Paris-based creative studio AMCA OVAL, founded by Alexis Martial and Adrien Caillaudaud, sits at the nexus of fashion and design, using modularity, circularity, and experimentation in a carefully honed, playful way.

One such example would be Aurora Modular Candlestick Trio. It was designed to be a solution to a bigger structure, and what you have here is a candlestick serving as a spatial game where you can use the pieces independently or combine them with other candlesticks and vases to make a series of structures. These have a unified aesthetic noted for its minimalism and some space-age elements, highlighting circularity through materials that can be recycled repeatedly and reused.

This modular logic finds an evolution in Totem Aurora 001A, an aluminum floor lamp designed as part of a set of five AURORA totems. The artwork takes the horizontal logic of the module’s structure and turns it into a vertical statement with movement in mind. The design by Martial Caillaudaud, exclusively published by AMCA OVAL, introduced the AURORA floor lamps to the design scene in 2024 at Espace Commines in the context of Paris Design Week.

In a more intimate but equally political register, Devon Turnbull reframed listening as an act of resistance. His approach to sound—deep, slow, intentional—stood against the violence of constant noise and algorithmic distraction. In his work, sound systems become spaces of care, where attention itself is a political choice.

This same ethic of reduction and focus—of designing against distraction—extends into the practice of D/Partment. Conceived as a functional system rather than a collection of isolated objects, the Berlin-based, international, multidisciplinary studio builds a quiet and coherent vocabulary for living through its “Vier-Punkt-Konzept”: Attention, Transmission, Order, Uniform. Working with a range of materials including steel, aluminum, concrete, and leather, D/Partment distills form down to functional, minimal parts. The design studio views its practice as a level of infrastructure supporting life. Objects are designed with the understanding of being supplementary objects that help manage space through creating small ceremonies that cut through distractions in both the visual and mental. While needs are common and standards are not, D/Partment offers a mutable norm in the form of objects that easily assimilate with surroundings without imposed style. 

"Simplicity, order, and structure form the foundation for focused presence. Through clear structures, our objects aim to reduce everyday disruption and, through rituals, instill positive habits in the user.”

— D/Partment

This philosophy can be seen in the design of the Metal Bag: The Metal Bag [001] is made of a 2 mm thick aluminum shell, with a brush finish, and features a shoulder pad made of a layer of foam wrapped in leather, and a magnetic closure and laser-engraved logo. It embodies the Transmission principle of the “Vier-Punkt-System”, a wearable interior that relocates metal from static object to mobile infrastructure, defined by use rather than static aesthetics, enduring wear without structural loss.

Similarly, the Steel Hanger [001], in 2 mm raw-finish stainless steel, reduces a familiar object to its most durable form. Laser-cut and screwed for reinforcement, it emphasizes strength, permanence, and clarity of use. Sold in packs of three, it reflects D/Partment's systemic approach-objects designed to work together as part of a larger considered environment.

Precisely at this point, where objects move from tools to carriers of meaning, the discourse expands with Movimento Gallery. Here, collectible design becomes a medium for storytelling. Matter itself is treated as a storyteller, able to hold cultural memory, geopolitical histories, and ecological awareness in one go. Design is no longer decoration but a cultural encounter where materials are the mediators between territories, traditions, and contemporary urgencies.

This perspective finds a more intimate, object-scale expression in practices such as Studio Formbart, where collectible design is rooted in restraint and material honesty. Founded in Stockholm in 2023, the studio works between design and handcraft, reducing objects to their essentials and allowing subtle imperfections to remain as visible traces of making. 

“Working between design and handcraft makes me more aware of material, production, and what is truly necessary." 

— Sarah Haukka, founder Studio Formbart

Items such as the T1 Wall Clock, which is made of tin with a quartz clock mechanism, integrate precision and touch in the creation of a silent, thoughtful element of time. The Favorite Vase, which is meant for one dear flower, invites viewing and proximity instead of excess. The existence of handmade versions of these pieces adds to their uniqueness, durability, and thoughtfulness, placing them within the world of collectibles.

Also sensitive to material and process and the nature of transformation is the work of Sofia Karnukaeva, an artist and architect who sits at the crossroads of observation and intuition and works out of Barcelona. Her touch-based vessel sculptures oscillate between the realm of the abstract and the actual. They summon up ideas of the bodily and zoomorphic that can connote shelter in the form of nests, beehives, and caves. These limited, sculptural objects feel grown rather than designed, shaped by internal logic and external conditions.

"2025 is not about final forms, but about ongoing processes."

— Sofia Karnukaeva

In the series Route, form is thought of not as a result but as an ongoing process. Continuing from her explorations of roots, riverbeds, and branching systems, the works suggest flow and becoming rather than fixity. In such contexts, collectible design becomes a record of movement and transformation, objects carrying time, gesture, and material intelligence within their form. 

Such an understanding of form as an outcome of negotiation rather than imposition is extended seamlessly into the work of Tom Ducarouge, where the realms of craft and industry are perceived not as having an opposite relationship but rather as having a collaborative one. It is between these two poles of precision and imperfection that his work operates.

Carrying on this dialogue, with a particular focus on treating material as a dynamic system and Design as a sensual investigation, the application of Obscure Objects is applicable within this group. Obscure Objects is a joint design studio established by Luisa Pöpsel and Moritz Pitrowski in the year 2023. It is the accumulation of the pair's shared interest in unusual thought and the enjoyment that can be derived from the unexpected.

The designers work within collectible design, products, and interior design. It is the objective of these designers to discover holistic experiences through material investigation, light observation, and form. The designed objects do not end as isolated objects alone. Rather, they are experienced within the framework of space. Atmosphere is on par with functionality. Light is material, surfaces are connection points, and form is a utility within the Obscure Objects designers’ works.

The studio’s hybrid identity is rooted in the complementary backgrounds of its founders. Moritz Pitrowski (1987), a Berlin-based product designer with a Master’s degree in Social Design from the Design Academy Eindhoven, brings a strong sensitivity to systems, behavior, and social context, informed by his earlier experience in interior design. Luisa Pöpsel (1992), a trained architect and designer based in Berlin, holds a Master’s degree in Architecture from the Technical University of Berlin and is an enrolled member of the Architektenkammer Berlin. Her practice bridges architectural rigor with a refined attention to interiors and objects.

To close this year, we end with CALIPER. Operating from Madrid and founded in 2020 by Quinner Baird, CALIPER is an industrial design and fabrication studio rooted in research, precision, and contemporary context. Its practice moves fluidly across industrial, spatial, and furniture design, often extending into art direction and graphic systems, without losing focus on making as a rigorous, technical act.

CALIPER’s work reflects many of the tensions that defined this year: between experimentation and discipline, concept and execution, vision and responsibility. Through deep material exploration and close collaboration with local and international fabricators, the studio produces objects that are not speculative gestures, but purpose-driven outcomes. Each project is calibrated; measured against use, context, and consequence.

So, dear world, if anything is to move forward from this year, let it be clarity rather than optimism. Design is not a cure, and it never was. It is a way of taking a stance; within systems of power, labor, resources, and inequality. Culture does not evolve through spectacular form or the production of ever more; it evolves through care, through responsibility and attention. Materials, processes, everyday rituals are never neutral. They whisper political choices, social hierarchies, economic priorities often unknowingly.

We come back tired, not passive. More aware of our limits and more aware of the consequences of what we make. That knowledge is fragile, incomplete and necessary and perhaps the only ground now left to stand on. The real question is no longer what we will produce next but what we're ready to change and what finally we are ready to let go of.

With love,
Simone

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Words: Simone Lorusso