Inside Julie Hillman Design’s Refreshed Madison Avenue Office

2024 Best of Year Winner for Firm’s Own Office

Rather than relocate from the Madison Avenue address it has inhabited for 12 years, Julie Hillman Design opted for renovation and reconfiguration to accommodate growth. Prioritizing enhanced functionality, light, and flow, the 2,500-square-foot space was opened up by razing the wall separating an accounting office and the sample room, creating a front-to-back railroad effect. At rear is the design studio, daylit by windows on three sides, with additional illumination coming from a giant Isamu Noguchi lantern; it’s installed above timber work tables and Jean Prouvé chairs. The sample room, now at center, doubles as conference and breakout space. Reception was reinvented as a sitting room with Verner Panton chairs, a cowhide rug, and a vintage sofa. For her own office, Hillman installed a 1950’s glass-and-brass Georges Addor desk she’d long coveted, along with Swedish monk chairs. Equally as curated as the furnishings is pervasive art—French, Italian, American—in various mediums. It’s no accident the New York atelier resembles the firm’s tony residential projects.

PROJECT TEAM: JULIE HILLMAN.

Check Into This Refreshed Mid-century Motel In Long Beach

Mid-century motel makeovers are certainly having a moment. Next-up on our radar is the 1962 City Center Motel, stretching over an entire block in Long Beach, California. Omgivning, with Richard Kassab at the helm, was a natural choice for the job. The DTLA-based firm specializes in urban adaptive reuse while including new construction and all types of mixed-use interiors in its portfolio. Catalyst came when the property’s new owner, developer Paloma Communities and operator, Sonder took over the site, 26,000 square feet of interiors on two floors in typical motel fashion. “It was vacant, but not dilapidated,” Kassab starts, citing Omgivning’s scope encompassing architecture and public space. The 50-room key count, however, remained constant, and new furnishings throughout came via the Sonder team.

In Swedish, the word omgivning means environment or ambience. In other words, the way a space feels. Kassab’s interpretation starts where hospitality begins, at the entry court. He created a welcoming presence by transforming the dominant parking lot into a central, pedestrian-friendly oasis graced with new landscaping and hardscape revolving around a restored pool. “The courtyard was the main idea,” says Kassab. “How to make it experiential itself.” No doubt about success. Now it’s a space folks flock to rather than flee from.

Step Into This Pedestrian-Friendly Oasis By Omgivning

As for the building’s exterior, it presents a newly vibrant painted face. Formerly dull beige and brown, the façade proclaims a cheerful vibe via pink and yellow tones while historic signage glows green at night. Existing fins and CMU panels sport fresh whitewashed coats.

Inside, accessed via a route of paired driveways, the arrival experience is altered as well. Erstwhile reception is now the restaurant Olive & Rose, presided over by the chef brother and sister team, Philip and Lauren Pretty, also owners of a Michelin-starred restaurant nearby. Omgivning was responsible for core and shell work along with transforming the adjacent carport into a secluded patio. Meanwhile, the altered configuration situates the lobby, with its wood check-in desk and paneled backdrop, at the end of the second driveway. A gym and guest quarters complete the first floor. The upper level is all guest rooms, more or less identical at 290 square feet.

Who goes there? “Mostly young couples,” Kassab notes. The draw? “Its mid-century vibe and standout by being something else for Long Beach.”

Stay A Night At The City Center Motel By Transformed By Omgivning

Rockwell Group Reimagines W Hollywood With Theatricality

Hollywood, the land of dreamers. A magnet for filmmakers, musicians, creatives, moguls, and tourists. The recently renovated W Hollywood hotel at the district’s heart attracts them all while expressing one of the first iterations of Marriott’s evolving luxury brand. Collabo­rating with W since 1998, David Rockwell and team’s latest endeavor encompasses 18,000 square feet of public space and more than 300 guest rooms. Pervasive are residential influences and the rich layering of materiality, texture, and light.

Magic begins at W Hollywood’s triple-height lobby. Frankly sexy, the cinematic lounge features lush deep-green conversation-pit seating that’s sinuously referential to nearby topography and, overhead, an artful assembly of bronze-mirror oval panels and acrylic rods. Spectacular 35-foot-tall concrete “curtains,” seemingly as fluid as fabric, bracket the fireplace. Meanwhile, a wall of bifold glass panels connects the lobby and bar to the garden patio.

Guest rooms, an intimate respite from revelry and scenesters, boast bespoke wraparound seating, wallcovering akin to Venetian plaster, and custom lighting. Ever attentive to the theatrical quality of light, Rockwell surrounded windows with a blue-glass box to pick up reflections of the Hollywood Hills.

The Envelope Please: Rolex Designs 2025 Oscars Greenroom

It’s that time of year again. The 97th annual Academy Awards presentation airing March 2, 2025, has industry insiders and cinephiles abuzz with predictions and personal wishes. While we spectators have plenty of front-of-the-house viewing thanks to TV’s rivaling the sizes of movie screens, there’s a whole other world of behind-the-scenes activity, much of it centered in the famed greenroom, with design helmed since 2016 by equally famed Rolex. It’s where nominees mix, mingle, congratulate, and, well, wait to see who will take home the hefty 8 ½-pound golden statuette standing 13 ½ inches tall. Among them: Adrian Brody, Timothée Chalamet, and Cynthia Erivo, to name a few.

With eco-consciousness and a sense of adventure ingrained in Rolex’s ethos, this year’s theme embraces rewilding. Generally, the term means helping nature heal and giving space back to wildlife on land and at sea. At the Dolby Theatre in the heart of Hollywood, the Rolex design team drew inspiration specifically from the non-profit endeavors of Rewilding Chile, guarding marine life and promoting parks conservation throughout Patagonia, and Rewilding Argentina, protecting and developing eco-systems for rural inhabitants and animal species. Both are offspring of Tompkins Conservation, the legacy of Douglas and Kristine Tompkins, and supported by the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative.

The Oscars greenroom design evokes the call of the wild through an interior landscape composed of an airy tulle scrim and undulating wall lighting suggesting mountainous topography. An elegant wood framework brings in the natural material, while brass cutouts are reminders of the animals inhabiting the wild. Furnishings, most by Paola Lenti, reappear in their well-suited palette of greens and tawny beiges. According to Rolex, sustainability, albeit not necessarily seen, factored into choices of materials in relation to weight and density for shipping and storage.

Oscar himself, as a larger-than-life iteration, stands watch over the entry. Meanwhile, an enviable Rolex watch overlooks the mis en scene and times the ceremony from its pride-of-place frame.

Walk Through The 2025 Oscars Greenroom Awash In Gold

Glimpse Paul Pfeiffer’s First U.S. Retrospective

2024 Best of Year Winner for Exhibition

Sports, celebrity, and roaring crowds hold focus for Paul Pfeiffer, who works in video, photography, and sculpture. Tapped to conceive the artist’s first U.S. retrospective, “Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom” at the MOCA Geffen in Los Angeles, New York studio Büro Koray Duman divided the 22,000-square-foot museum space into a series of rooms, starting with a trio of small-scale galleries for early works and opening to a cavernous area articulated with plywood-enclosed structures reminiscent of Hollywood sound stages. The pièce de resistance is Vitruvian Figure, inspired by the 2000 Sydney Olympics stadium. Whereas its real-life counterpart accommodated 100,000 spectators, the 10-foot-high facsimile, made of cast resin, aluminum, and acrylic, “seats” 1 million and was designed to be viewed from above, via a platform accessed by a wood-frame ADA accessibility ramp that served as one of the work’s defining features.

PROJECT TEAM: KORAY DUMAN; CAITLIN DIPPO; HYUNJOO PARK; SOEUN PARK.

8 Top Design Trends From ASID’s 2025 Outlook

No doubt, 2025 has heralded in an era of rapid change. Given that design entwines with every aspect of our lives, that means the design landscape is shifting too. Celebrating its 50th anniversary, the American Society of Interior Designers recently presented its annual Trends Outlook. As ASID’s president and CEO Khoi Vo remarks: “The report underscores the transformative power of design in addressing society’s shifting priorities.” The result, unveiled partnership with Sherwin-Williams and the Dallas Market Center, follows a year of research. Two more ASID Outlook reports, The Economic Outlook and the State of Interior Design, are slated to drop later in the year. For now, have a look at takeaways from the current version.  

ASID’s 2025 Trend Report Reflects A Changing Design Landscape

Shifting Demographics

Generational shifts are pronounced, touching upon every category of the interior design profession. Folks are living longer and working longer. The number of centenarians is increasing, which can put stress on healthcare and the economy. In broad characteristic strokes, Gen X is seeking more transparency (particularly in the workplace); millennials feel financial pressure as they enter middle age; Gen Z is acknowledging mental health challenges while facing economic hurdles. The younger Alpha and Beta generations bring an increasing embrace of technology.

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Economic Indications

Economists do predict growth for 2025, yet it will be slow and steady with the number put at 2.5 percent for the GDP with the wealthiest population expected to benefit the most. These projections, thus, highlight the population’s disparity and wealth goes hand in hand with geographic distribution with coastal areas drawing those with deeper pockets. But a rise in discretionary income leads to more travel and leisure activities providing designers opportunities to create highly sought experiential venues where art, culture, and commerce converge like this Adobe installation designed by Gensler.

Housing is Challenging

No doubt, home ownership is tough. High interest rates, home prices, plus costs of building materials and labor are factors. Older folks own the greater number of homes; similarly, boomers own the most second homes, with Florida having the highest concentration. Given the challenges, rising paradigms are cohabitation and multi-generational housing. More families renovate rather than build anew, such as an updated 1930s home in Westchester, New York. These are among the considerations presenting an array of opportunities for designers, ever the problem solvers.

Residential Meets Dopamine Design

What’s dopamine design? Design that brings joy. Bold colors, spirited shapes, vintage and artisanal pieces, and expressing a cultural narrative describe a playbook, not only for its aesthetic value but with potential impact on well-being and mental health.  It’s designers who create spaces to nourish mind, body, and soul such as this mountain chalet in Montana by O’Neill Rose Architects.

A Multigenerational Workplace 

Now, the working population encompasses a widening range of ages from those entering the workforce to employees opting to remain at their jobs longer. The designer’s chief challenge, therefore, is to support all. Designers are also still confronting the post-Covid balance between remote and in-person work. For those showing up full time, spaces have to make the commute worth it and provide an antidote to loneliness. For hybrid staff, time on site must be made seamless and easy. Flexibility and dual-purpose spaces are vital, such as the communal areas in the new Neiman Marcus headquarters in Dallas. Findings show Gen X favoring face-to-face involvement. Gen Z, questioning traditional scenarios, seeks less hierarchical and more transparent organizations with different leadership styles such as collaborative or rotating models. Adaptive re-use, including mall re-development and collaboration with local investors, are also workplace and therefore designer considerations.

Warp-Speed Technology

Designers are excited about the productivity that AI and generative AI offer—some are even creating spaces inspired by tech innovation, like this futuristic office in Shanghai by One House Design. AI is deemed a potent tool for marketing, ideation, story-telling, and even helping clientele businesses. Platforms provide ways to pose questions and better perceive clients’ questions, and designers find them particularly valuable when implemented early in the design process. As a result, clients feel the project moves along quicker and communication occurs on a deeper level. That said, clients still require personal connection and trust.

Alternative Views on Higher Education

The four-year college degree as career pathway is no longer set in stone. So-called new-collar jobs, like those rising in tech or construction fields, don’t necessarily require it. Increasingly, trade school enrollment or heading directly for employment are viable alternatives. As for institutions, research found them to be investing in renovation rather than re-build and focusing on amenities for students, such a Penn’s modernized boat house by EwingCole.

Designing For Inclusivity And Vast Societal Values

From a call to prioritize neurodiversity and wellness to increased focus on sustainability and toxin awareness, as well as strengthening DE&I initiatives, designers are working to create a brighter future. Take Eliza Redmann, an architect and artist who creates work that sheds light on her invisible disability while making spaces more approachable for those with sensory sensitivities. Given the shifting landscape, the designer’s role, according to ASID executives, “is more crucial than ever in creating purpose-driven, meaningful spaces with an expanded focus on inclusivity, sustainability and personal well-being.” All while incorporating technology, personal narratives, and frankly, joy.

Chill Out At The Icehotel In Sweden

Think you’ve had a cold winter? Try visiting the Icehotel—a frosty hotel hugging the Torne River in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, 124 miles above the Arctic Circle—for esoteric bragging rights. Icehotel is just that, a venue built of massive blocks of ice harvested from the Torne River when its water flow slows during winter months. The first iteration was conceived by Yngver Bergvist in 1989 and Icehotel has been celebrated ever since as a multi-hyphenated art gallery, events space, and lodging location. Come spring, the structure melts. But in the meantime, temperatures may drop to 23 degrees Fahrenheit, but the hospitality is extraordinarily warm.

This year, the international coterie of guests entered a structure built from 550 tons of ice by 76 people in six weeks. Interiors include a ceremony hall, meeting rooms, a cinema, a trio of restaurants, specialty bar, swimming pools, and an array of accommodations including 12 art suites. As if Icehotel as a whole weren’t already sui generis, these new features add a different kind of uniqueness. Each room exhibits an ice sculpture by artists who, under the guidance of creative director Luca Roncoroni, all hail from all points of the globe: Ukraine, South Korea, Spain, France, South Africa, Bulgaria, Canada, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. Imagine, for example, guest quarters defined by zig-zag walls or sleeping in the company of a rhinoceros, soaring birds or a grandmother figure knitting. Sleep, by the way, comes when snuggled warmly in a thermal sleeping bag covered by reindeer skins.

Explore Design Details In The Icehotel 

Interested in more experiences? Icehotel offers a slew of them. Try snowmobiling, the sauna ritual, dog sledding, or a tour of the Northern Lights to heighten the immersion exercise. As for dining, restaurants introduce a whole new culinary repertoire with several of the courses served on ice.

Still more options exist to make this a year-round property. During spring, when the winter’s hotel has melted back into the river, part of it remains so visitors can get a taste of the ice and snow. Icehotel 365 is a permanent structure with an ice hall, ice bar, and experience room enabling a deep dive into the hotel’s storied history.

Those with cold feet craving a room or suite with temperatures above the freezing mark can check into any one of 44 traditional hotel rooms, each furnished with traditional materials and a calming white, gray, ecru palette, an apartment-like “Arctic Cabin” that is Scandinavian inspired with whitewashed wood paneling and birch details, or even some outdoor tents. Whatever the choice, this inimitable site gives new meaning to the phrase: four seasons.

Discover Icehotel Theme Rooms

Not A Fan Of The Cold? Check Out These Alternative Options

Creativity Abounds In This Three-Story HQ For Neiman Marcus

2024 Best of Year Winner for Large Creative Office

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus’s 80,000-square-foot, three-story headquarters in Dallas by Gensler was strategically conceived as a remote-hybrid model allowing employees to work wherever they want—when they want. Autonomy and choice rule. Staffers can sit at workstations, in collaboration rooms, or in lounges designed to reflect a particular flagship store: Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, or New York. Anchoring the HQ is a triple-height atrium, replete with 300 suspended butterflies (a nod to the brand identity) and mobile furniture that can be rearranged or removed for conversion into a grand events space. Tech innovations abound: Telecom, video, and virtual whiteboards enable a 70/30 ratio of collaboration-oriented areas to individual workspaces and support staffers as they connect remotely with colleagues across corporate locations, distri­bution centers, and retail sites.

PROJECT TEAM: PAUL MANNO; KELLY MOORE; NICHOLE BABIAK; AMANDA KENDALL; LOREN BROUILLETTE; KEVIN TURNER; KELCIE HOLCOMB; MARIA RAMIREZ; KHOI HOANG; MELISSA WALLIS; ELLIOTT BEACH; JENI MARTIN-SANTOYO; HANNAH MONROE.