IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN LEO GILLEN

designboom (DB): You grew up inside a nightclub in the west of Ireland. How did that lead you to the idea of a temporary nightclub?

John Leo Gillen (JLG): My family business was a nightclub in the west of Ireland. I was literally sleeping there as a baby while my parents worked, and I worked there all through my teens — collecting glasses, working the bar, eventually managing it. I spent my entire life fantasising about the nightclub I would design. Then I came of age just about exactly when the nightclub as we knew it started to disappear.

I started organising illegal raves, and I had this idea: imagine a nightclub that existed in each place just for a moment. The architecture of a nightclub — with the emotion of a rave. Designed and built, with all the physicality and specificity of a real nightclub, but with the emotional urgency of a rave. So Temporary Pleasure is a nightclub that exists in each place only for a moment, before disappearing and re-appearing somewhere else. A warehouse in Barcelona or Dublin, a car park in London, on a beach in Belgium.

A space known to disappear communicates urgency, heightens behaviour, and produces meaning rooted in impermanence. When architecture carries this message, people act differently: more present, more invested, more alive.

Everything that came after — architecture, show design, performance, even image — was all about presence. Tools for creating, restoring, elevating presence. This is not nostalgia. It is an act of definition: what is club culture when its traditional containers have disappeared, the medium has been forgotten, but its aesthetic and language are still being used?

DB: When you say ‘the crowd is the show,’ who are people actually performing for? The camera, each other, themselves?

JLG: A real rave isn’t about watching — it’s about being essential to the moment. The space should make people feel like this wouldn’t be happening without them — because it wouldn’t. That they are the energy. That they are the event. The club did not happen to them; it happened because of them.

What happens when everyone is fully protagonised? Exhibitionism, play, competition. Contagious dance energy. Everyone and no one on stage simultaneously. The whole space is the stage, and the crowd is the show.

DB: A lot of your work is about designing spaces that still leave room for spontaneity. How do you choreograph an experience without making people feel their behavior has already been scripted?

JLG: Architecture loaded with potential.

Platforms at different heights, balconies, mezzanines. Sound and light move, eyes follow. Nothing is fixed. Nothing lasts. Platforms shift, stairs loop, sightlines fracture. Architecture that leaves gaps — and rewards risk.

A single moving spotlight. It searches the room, looking for something, and lands on a lone dancer. It jumps to another on the opposite platform, then another, and the whole room’s gaze follows it — a body rolling, a foot stomping, arms jacking. No one knows when it will land on them. Surreal, elevated moments that feel almost cinematic, like you’ve just stepped into a music video or like: what the fuck is this? How is this happening? And then back to chaos.

The architecture creates the dare, but someone still has to take the risk. So it’s scripted but unscripted. You should never know where the energy is going to come from — or where it’s going to go next.

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A signature element of Dutch urban infrastructure, the red-and-white aluminum traffic barrier (schrikhek), serves as the primary design reference for ‘stop!’, a new collection of outdoor benches and stools by Studio Martins Mezulis and 13_0663_tsx. Typically deployed across the Netherlands to signal construction zones and redirect public traffic, these standardized aluminum structures have been reconfigured to serve a social rather than restrictive function in public spaces.

• recontextualizing utilitarian infrastructure into furniture

The ‘stop!’ collection by Studio Martins Mezulis and creative 13_0663_tsx reinterprets the visual language and material composition of traditional safety infrastructure into functional street furniture. Instead of diverting pedestrians and cyclists away, the modified forms invite users to pause, sit, and gather. By recontextualizing the familiar high-visibility aluminum panels into seating, the project explores how utilitarian safety elements can be adapted for community interaction. The collection makes its public debut during Dutch Design Week, with installations positioned at Strijp-S Ketelhuisplein and Design Perron in Eindhoven.

red-and-white striped aluminum elements reconfigured for social interaction

project info:

name: stop! outdoor bench collection
designers: Studio Martins Mezulis | @studiomartinsmezulis, 13_0663_tsx | @13_0663_tsx
location: Eindhoven, Netherlands

event: Dutch Design Week | @dutchdesignweek

materials: road safety barriers, steel

measurements: 450mm height; 1250mm lenght; 500mm width

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. See more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: Christina Vergopoulou | designboom

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There’s a tiny silver Porsche parked among a sunlit meadow in the English countryside. With its rounded rear fenders and tiny windshield, it’s quite similar to the 550 Spyder that Porsche raced in the 1950s. The proportions are familiar, but something is slightly off. This is the Porsche 550 J, a miniature, fully electric version of the historic race car, recreated by British manufacturer Hedley Studios at roughly 80 percent of its original size.

Developed in collaboration with Porsche to celebrate 75 years of the company’s motorsport history, the 550 J is an officially licensed, handcrafted vehicle limited to 250 examples. The ‘J’ stands for ‘Junior,’ although the little roadster is large enough to accommodate two people. Measuring just 2.9 meters (9.5 feet) in length and 1.2 meters (3.9 feet) wide, it retains the low profile and flowing aluminum-like contours of its predecessor.

a miniature tribute to porsche’s first purpose-built racing car

The original Porsche 550 Spyder holds a special place in the company’s history. Developed specifically for motorsport, the lightweight, mid-engined racer made its name competing against considerably more powerful cars. At the grueling 1954 Carrera Panamericana in Mexico, Porsche drivers Hans Herrmann and Jaroslav Juhan finished third and fourth overall after five days of racing. The two Spyders also won their class, which helped to establish the ‘Carrera’ name that Porsche continues to use today.

For the miniature recreation, the team at Hedley Studios was granted access to Porsche’s corporate archives, allowing the team to study the historic vehicle and reproduce its distinctive form. The round headlights and sculpted wheel arches are immediately recognizable, while the rear bodywork retains the original’s characteristic twin ventilation grilles. Inside, a cream-colored steering wheel sits ahead of a compact dashboard with circular gauges. The open cockpit is wonderfully spare, with just enough contemporary technology to accommodate the electric drivetrain.

an electric drivetrain modernizes the vintage roadster

Beneath its 1950s-inspired bodywork, the Porsche 550 J is powered by a 48-volt electric system, producing approximately 8 kW, or 11 horsepower, in its standard configuration. An optional RS Package doubles that output to 16 kW, or around 21 horsepower. The little racer can reach a top speed of approximately 80 km/h (50 mph), a surprisingly brisk pace for something with such compact proportions. The 550 J is intended as a collector’s vehicle, with public-road driving off limits.

Each example is built by hand at Hedley Studios in Bicester, England, with a selection of finishes drawing from Porsche’s racing history. Alongside the classic silver bodywork, customers can choose bright heritage-inspired colors and racing liveries, including the vivid blue example pictured with white competition numbers. A bespoke program offers further customization.

With just 250 units planned, the 550 J miniaturizes one of Porsche’s most iconic racing silhouettes, while retaining enough power to be driven and enjoyed.

a cream-colored steering wheel and circular instruments reference the cockpit design of the original

the blue racing edition features white competition numbers and traditional Porsche lettering

project info:

project: Porsche 550 J
designer/manufacturer: Hedley Studios | @hedley.studios
collaboration: Porsche | @porsche

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‘The mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is a placeless place,’ said Michel Foucault in a 1967 lecture, explaining that in a mirror you see yourself where you are not, ‘in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface.’ He then called it a heterotopia as well, since the mirror does exist in reality, where it ‘exerts a sort of counteraction’ on the position you occupy. No other object in a house behaves this way, since everything else in a room is looked at while a mirror hands the room back with its viewer inside it. That duality, between what the object looks like and what it does to whoever stands in front of it, has given the mirror an unusual position in design. Creatives have worked on both halves of it, the form and the surface, which is why the object keeps producing experiments in both how it looks and how we see. 

In Jean-Baptiste Fastrez’s case, the mirror is ‘one of the objects that offers the greatest freedom to explore ideas somewhere between design and sculpture.’ The French designer, who has spent more than a decade of his practice reworking this one object through different forms and materials, tells designboom that he likes the paradox ‘of an object that has such a strong physical presence, yet whose image is almost entirely made up of whatever surrounds it.’ Two of his recent designs for Paris-based design company Moustache push that paradox in two very different directions.

Jean-Baptiste Fastrez’s sculptural mirrors for Moustache

Both pieces Fastrez developed for Moustache begin from something that already exists. The Zodiac mirror borrows its form from the inflatable boat it is named after, so that what looks like an inflated tube is in fact high-gloss ceramic. Sphera, on the other hand, takes its cues from the hardware once used to hold mirrored walls together, reworking it into a set of oversized chrome spheres that clamp sheets of flat mirror to a wall.

‘With Zodiac, I was interested in the idea of the ready-made, or rather the fake ready-made,’ he says. ‘I wanted to create objects that looked as though they had been made by repurposing something else.’ The image was precise from the start, an inflatable boat whose inflated tube becomes a sort of floating frame, and the story he wanted was of a boat that had somehow ended up hanging on a wall and turned into a mirror. ‘I really enjoy these collisions between completely different types of objects,’ he says. ‘They can create narratives that are both strong and open-ended, with something almost mysterious about them.’

The idea for Sphera arrived in a particular room. ‘I remember very clearly that the idea came to me while visiting Carlo Mollino’s house in Turin,’ Fastrez says. ‘Some of the walls in his preserved apartment are covered with mirrors made up of several sections, held together by small chrome fittings. I found this fascinating, before realising that the system was actually nothing particularly unusual.’ The fitting was not a Mollino invention and was never rare, and he is precise about where it lived, ‘quite common throughout the twentieth century, in sophisticated architectural interiors as well as much more ordinary settings, like a bathroom or a student bedroom.’

What he saw in it was a frame with no shape of its own. ‘I started to see it as perhaps the most minimal frame imaginable, but also one of the most universal,’ he says. ‘It allows an enormous variety of formats, compositions and uses.’ His decision was then not to redesign the principle but to change its volume. ‘I wanted to take this principle almost exactly as it was, but give these little fixing elements a much stronger presence. I increased their size and transformed their geometry into something spherical, almost sculptural.’

Crystal Palace from the Sphera collection

THE GLASS AS STRUCTURE RATHER THAN AS SURFACE in ZODIAC & SPHERA

What makes a mirror worth more than a decade of a designer’s attention is how little it asks. ‘A mirror is an object whose function is reduced to its absolute minimum,’ Fastrez says. ‘As long as something has a reflective surface, it can essentially be considered a mirror.’ Hung on a wall it carries nobody’s weight and resists nothing, so it never faces the structural tests a chair or a table has to pass, and what remains is a single geometric demand, which is that it stay more or less flat.

He treats that as a paradox rather than a gift, one severe constraint in a single direction and almost total freedom in every other, and says constraints are what he finds stimulating in the first place. By his own account it is probably the object that leaves him the most room to work somewhere between design and sculpture, and the one most willing to carry a story.

Both of these pieces then do something that reverses what a mirror usually is, which is to use the glass as structure rather than as surface. Zodiac’s ceramic frame is half a ring, built from two moulded sections, and where the ceramic stops the reflection continues, so what the eye reads as two inflated tubes floating one above the other is a single tube and its image. ‘The reflection becomes an essential part of the object’s construction,’ Fastrez says, and in doing that work the mirror very nearly disappears. Sphera relies on the glass just as literally, since without the rigidity of a sheet of mirror the fixing system has nothing to hold and nothing to hold it. ‘With Sphera, the object is visually made of nothing but chrome and reflections,’ he says. ‘Its appearance depends entirely on its surroundings, which are reflected faithfully in the flat mirror and distorted across the chrome spheres.’

ORNAMENT AS FUNCTION IN ITS OWN RIGHT

‘I’m very interested in the idea of taking something as ordinary as a piece of hardware and reworking it until it becomes the strongest aesthetic feature of a project,’ Fastrez says. Both pieces end as arguments about ornament, and he makes the argument himself rather than leaving it to be inferred. ‘Ornament is something I actively pursue in my work as a designer, but I find it particularly interesting when it isn’t simply added to an object, but becomes part of its construction or the way it functions,’ he explains, and he describes that as possibly the most interesting form design can take, an object acquiring a sculptural character directly out of the logic that produced it. Sphera, by his account, began at the moment he realized that emphasising the small functional elements would generate ornament without costing the original system any of its functionalism.

The second half of the argument is about the word function itself. ‘I also think our definition of an object’s function is often far too restrictive,’ he notes. ‘An object never serves just one purpose. A mirror’s primary function might seem to be reflecting an image, but to me that’s a very incomplete definition. A mirror also serves to decorate an interior, to give it character, to place a space within a particular period, style or narrative.’ He then goes further than most designers would be willing to, and says that this ornamental function can be as important as the reflective one and is sometimes more so.

That produces a reversal of the sentence design students have been handed since Louis Sullivan wrote it in 1896, and of the century of suspicion toward ornament that followed. ‘If we accept ornament as a function in its own right,’ Fastrez says, ‘Zodiac and Sphera are, in their own way, functionalist objects whose form also follows their ornamental function.’ Zodiac arrives there through the relationship between a frame and its reflection, Sphera through the repetition of a fitting that spent fifty years being hidden, and in both cases the decoration is not sitting on the object but holding it up.

the Zodiac mirror in three sizes

project info: 

name: Zodiac and Sphera

designer: Jean-Baptiste Fastrez | @jeanbaptistefastrez

company: Moustache | @moustache_editions

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Japanese photography brand Kenko Tokina has released the Pieni III, a tiny digital camera that weighs just 18 grams and hangs around the neck like a pendant. Measuring 53 millimeters (2 inches) wide, the working camera is small enough to fit between two fingers, with a familiar silver top and circular lens that recall the proportions of an old film camera. It arrives in four colors, including pastel pink Strawberry and pale blue Soda, alongside Milk and Black.

The Pieni III also has a curious omission. There is no screen or viewfinder, and thus leaves photographers to point the lens toward a subject and press the shutter without seeing exactly what they’re capturing. The images remain a mystery until they’re transferred to another device. A subject might drift toward the edge of the frame, or an unexpected detail could make its way into the shot. Part of the fun is eventually discovering what the little camera has actually seen.

a miniature camera with a taste for imperfect photographs

Kenko keeps the controls simple, with just two buttons handling power, shutter release, and the switch between photography and video. A small indicator light on the back glows red for still images and blue for video. The camera also captures footage with sound, at a resolution of 720 × 480 pixels and 30 frames per second. Despite its miniature dimensions, the Pieni III functions as a standalone digital camera.

Its photographs have a peculiar character of their own. Inside is a tiny 1/10-inch CMOS sensor with just 0.32 megapixels of effective resolution. Still images are saved as 1440 × 960-pixel JPEGs through digital interpolation, so the files contain far less detail than their dimensions might suggest.

In Kenko’s sample photographs, flowers become fuzzy patches of vivid color while foliage softens into something approaching watercolor. The coarse edges and unpredictable exposure give the images the familiar appearance of early digital photography, with their imperfections coming directly from the camera’s hardware.

a magnetic back and USB-C connectivity

The camera’s small body holds another useful detail: a built-in magnet on its back. This allows the Pieni III to attach to compatible metal surfaces, including a refrigerator or a railing, for hands-free recording. A neck strap is included for carrying it around, making the miniature camera easy to keep within reach whenever something catches your eye.

Photographs and videos are stored on a removable microSDHC card, supporting capacities between 4GB and 32GB. The card is sold separately. For this third-generation model, Kenko has introduced USB-C connectivity, allowing files to be transferred directly to compatible smartphones with the included cable. The same connection handles charging, so the entire process remains fairly straightforward once the photographs are ready to be viewed.

the retro photographic character comes from its miniature sensor, which creates images with limited detail and coarse textures

a built-in magnet allows the Pieni III to attach to metal surfaces for hands-free video recording

project info:

name: Pieni III

company: Kenko Tokina | @kenkoglobal

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Before Oracle begins at Onassis Stegi in Athens, a camera captures the audience and projects its image onto a screen. Spectators appear as grainy black-and-white figures, their faces transformed into a strange, almost anonymous collective portrait. Those who have come to watch find themselves becoming the spectacle. It is an introduction to the work of Polish director Łukasz Twarkowski, in which live performance and cinema become inseparable. Twarkowski brings theater and cinema into a shared space, making the process of filming part of the performance. The stage divides horizontally into two visual fields: the live theatrical action unfolds below, while a screen above displays footage captured by cameras operating within the set in real time. The audience watches the actors perform while simultaneously observing how their movements are framed and transformed into cinematic images.

For the director, video is not just an addition to the performance. Theater and cinema happen at the same time, with cameras filming the actors live and projecting the footage onto a screen above the stage. The audience can watch the actors perform or follow the action through the camera, constantly switching between the two.

directing between the stage and the screen

For most of the three-hour-and-40-minute performance, the filming process remains visible to the audience. Camera operators move within the set, framing actors whose actions are simultaneously experienced in the theater and on screen. The projected images offer close-ups and carefully composed perspectives, while the stage reveals the bodies, movements, and technical decisions behind them. The audience is free to move between these viewpoints, but neither provides a complete account of the event. The screen can draw attention away from the physical stage, offering a familiar way of experiencing a narrative through selected frames. Yet looking away from the screen reveals another performance unfolding around the act of filming itself. Twarkowski makes this competition for the audience’s attention part of the experience, exposing how easily the mediated image can take precedence over the reality it represents.

a recurring approach to theatrical illusion

The set is made up of separate modules, each built around a corner with walls and a ceiling. The units can be joined in different combinations, either in pairs or around the center of the stage, creating a range of spatial arrangements. Depending on how they connect and rotate, they can form enclosed rooms, corridors, or a series of open frames that suggest a street or a cluster of buildings.

The lighting further changes how these spaces are perceived, shifting their atmosphere from one scene to the next. The production rearranges the same elements to create different environments and conditions for the action. The transformations remain visible, making the changing structure an active part of the performance.

the spectacle of watching

What makes Twarkowski’s approach relevant beyond the theater is its engagement with a culture increasingly organized around screens, live images, and mediated experiences. In ORACLE, the audience is first transformed into an image and then invited to watch performers undergo the same process. The camera becomes both a tool for revealing detail and an instrument that determines what can be seen.

The subject of the production, which moves between Alan Turing, the history of computing, and the emergence of artificial intelligence, adds another dimension to this inquiry. Its use of thermal and infrared imaging evokes technologies associated with surveillance and military applications, complicating the assumption that images provide neutral access to reality. What appears on screen is always shaped by a system of interpretation.

Twarkowski uses the resources of contemporary theater to examine how images are constructed and how audiences respond to them. His work suggests that spectacle lies in the systems that organize attention, mediate experience, and determine what becomes visible. 

red LED strips outline the modular set’s overhead frames and floor

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Visual artist Yvonne Mak’s installation Sandbag Castle addresses the environmental impact of conventional cement by showcasing low-carbon concrete alternatives. Positioned in the Dommel river beside Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum Café, the five-meter-wide by three-meter-high structure consists of hundreds of stacked, sandbag-shaped concrete forms resembling a castle.

sandbags and warning flags critique protective infrastructure

The installation by artist Yvonne Mak incorporates several key design elements to communicate its structural and environmental themes. Cast in concrete, the sandbag-shaped modules reference temporary flood barriers, highlighting the widespread reliance on concrete for protective infrastructure. Positioned atop the castle, red warning flags reference beach safety warnings. These flags feature a custom coat of arms incorporating symbols for water, bridges, flora, and hands, representing the intersection of nature, infrastructure, and human intervention.

• design integrates ten experimental concrete formulations

The physical composition of the work directly incorporates over ten distinct low-carbon concrete variants, including calcined clay, alternative binders, geopolymer concrete, recycled aggregates, and self-healing concrete formulations. Developed with main partner TBI alongside specialized material and technology contributors, Sandbag Castle demonstrates existing and emerging structural alternatives designed to reduce the CO₂ emissions of concrete construction.

a concrete installation designed to showcase low-carbon material alternatives

red warning flags positioned at the top of the concrete structure

material innovations designed to reduce CO₂ emissions in construction

project info:

name: Sandbag Castle
artist: Yvonne Mak | @studio_yvonne_mak

location: Eindhoven, Netherlands

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. See more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: Christina Vergopoulou | designboom

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French designer Vincent Darré has brought his theatrical imagination to Hôtel Le Magnifique, a hotel on Rue de la Gaîté in Paris’ 14th arrondissement. Located in a neighborhood historically associated with theaters, cabarets, and the artistic life of Montparnasse, the project transforms hospitality into an immersive experience shaped by fantasy, mythology, and the performing arts. The building itself carries an unusual history, having originally housed Les Mille Colonnes, a renowned theater dating back to the early 19th century. Its historic façade now introduces a series of interiors where decorative elements, unexpected colors, and references to Parisian cultural heritage unfold throughout the hotel.

The project was initiated in 2024 by hotelier Jacques Blanc, who envisioned a property that would depart from conventional hospitality design. Already the owner of Bellechasse, a Parisian hotel designed by Christian Lacroix, Blanc approached Darré after an introduction through mutual friends. Their collaboration developed around a shared ambition to create something deliberately unconventional, with the designer’s initial proposals eventually expanding the scope of the project to include a swimming pool. For Darré, who was born in the 14th arrondissement and has spent his life on the Left Bank, the hotel also became an opportunity to revisit the artistic landmarks and personal memories of his childhood.

HAND-PAINTED FRESCOES AND SCULPTURAL DETAILS ANIMATE INTERIORS

The theatrical narrative begins in the entrance hall, where Darré reinterprets architectural references from the surrounding neighborhood. The columns of the former theater have been redesigned in homage to those of La Coupole, the celebrated Montparnasse restaurant, and the former Saint-Germain-des-Prés drugstore, whose columns were once crowned with oversized sculptural hands. A large hand-painted fresco created by artisans extends across the walls, introducing colorful figures and swirling motifs inspired by art and the circus. White plaster birds emerge from the composition, adding a sculptural dimension to the illustrated surfaces.

Other details continue this dialogue between architecture and storytelling. The reception desk is decorated with antique keys collected over time, recalling the traditional front desks of historic hotels while introducing a playful reference to paradise and Saint Peter. Nearby, the staircase railings evoke musical scores, connecting the movement through the building to the district’s performing arts heritage. These interventions establish a visual language in which functional architectural elements become part of a larger decorative composition, drawing visitors into an imagined version of Paris shaped by Darré’s personal references.

LE PICABIA BAR AND A POOL CELEBRATE THE PERFORMING ARTS

At the heart of the hotel, Le Picabia, a bar named after the French painter Francis Picabia, draws inspiration from the atmosphere of historic Parisian theaters. Clad in wood and illuminated by rows of glowing bulbs, the space combines a curved counter with richly colored surfaces and decorative details that recall theatrical interiors. The bar is designed to operate in rhythm with the neighboring performance venues, displaying showtimes and ringing a bell at the beginning of performances and the end of intermissions. A grand piano introduces the possibility of spontaneous musical encounters, while the setting welcomes theatergoers, neighborhood residents, artists, and hotel guests.

Another unexpected feature is the hotel’s swimming pool, conceived as a mythological retreat within the building. Visible from the reception area, the pool is surrounded by columns and decorated with mosaics depicting classical figures, creating an atmosphere reminiscent of a Greek palace. The blue-tiled basin opens onto a patio, establishing a visual connection between water, architecture, and garden. Its decorative treatment continues Darré’s interest in transporting visitors into imaginary settings, with references to antiquity extending the hotel’s narrative beyond the history of Montparnasse.

FIVE THEMED FLOORS REVEAL DARRÉ’S ONE-OF-A-KIND GUEST ROOMS

The experience continues through five floors, each conceived around a different imaginary universe. A glass elevator decorated with mermaids, seahorses, and starfish connects spaces inspired by the Garden of Eden, classical mythology, the deep sea, Art Nouveau, the Milky Way, and legendary artists from Paris’ past. Rather than following a uniform decorative scheme, the hotel moves between different periods and visual references, allowing each level to introduce a new chapter. This sequence of environments reflects Darré’s approach to interior design as a form of storytelling, where architecture, ornament, and imagination are closely connected.

The guest rooms follow the same principle, with each conceived as an individual composition featuring original pieces imagined by the designer. Bespoke furniture, lighting, ceramics, carpets, and stretched wall textiles contribute to interiors that combine French decorative traditions with Darré’s distinctive visual vocabulary. The hotel’s name itself pays tribute to the artists of Montparnasse, whose initial, the letter M, inspired Le Magnifique, while also referencing the spirit of the French Nouvelle Vague. Through its layered interiors, the project reconnects the building with the creative history of the Left Bank, transforming a stay in Paris into a journey through the designer’s theatrical imagination.

expressive colors and elaborate ornamentation give the sleeping spaces an almost stage-like quality

the hotel’s swimming pool evokes the atmosphere of an ancient Greek palace

the facade of Hôtel Le Magnifique recalls the building’s history as a 19th-century Parisian theater

project info:

name: Hôtel Le Magnifique | @lemagnifiquehotel

designer: Vincent Darré | @vincent_darre

location: Paris, France

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Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija has designed two monumental stainless steel tables inspired by traditional Thai fishing boats for Dalad’s, a temporary restaurant presented by We Are Ona during Art Basel Paris 2026. Installed inside a secret location near Place de l’Étoile, the elongated structures function simultaneously as dining tables and working kitchens, with integrated seating and steam pots that allow food to be prepared and served directly in front of guests. Conceived in collaboration with chef Dalad Kambhu and We Are Ona founder Luca Pronzato, the installation places cooking and social interaction at the center of the architectural experience.

Running from October 18 to 25, 2026, the Paris pop-up marks the debut of Dalad’s, a new hospitality project developed by Kambhu and Pronzato around contemporary Thai cuisine and the act of sharing food. Accommodating up to 100 guests, the temporary restaurant replaces conventional dining arrangements with two long communal structures where chefs and visitors occupy the same space. The project also marks Kambhu’s third collaboration with We Are Ona, following previous culinary experiences developed alongside designers Harry Nuriev and Marc Leschelier.

STAINLESS STEEL BOATS REDEFINE COMMUNAL DINING

For Tiravanija, the boat-shaped design draws on Thailand’s longstanding relationship with its waterways and the informal food culture surrounding them. Speaking exclusively to designboom, the artist recalls running to the pier in Bangkok to buy boat noodle soup from vendors who prepared and sold their dishes directly from the water. These memories informed his decision to bring the kitchen and dining area together within a single structure, referencing an everyday tradition in which boats operate as places of exchange as much as means of transportation. ‘I think the form itself is both a vehicle and a platform,’ he explains.

The two modular structures reinterpret this relationship through stainless steel, transforming the recognizable silhouette of a fishing boat into a contemporary setting for collective dining. Their integrated cooking stations eliminate the usual separation between the kitchen and restaurant, allowing guests to watch the chefs at work from their seats. For Luca Pronzato, from We Are Ona, the design was also inspired by the practice of giving old fishing boats a second life as floating restaurants. ‘Rather than creating a traditional dining room with individual tables and a hidden kitchen, the boats become the structural backbone of the installation,’ he tells designboom. ‘The integrated steam pods bring the cooking directly into the long communal tables, dissolving the boundary between the kitchen and the dining room.’

KAMBHU EXPLORES THAI CUISINE BEYOND ITS GEOGRAPHICAL ROOTS

At the center of the culinary experience is Thai-American chef Dalad Kambhu, whose approach combines traditional Thai flavors and cooking techniques with seasonal, locally available ingredients. Raised in Bangkok, Kambhu developed her culinary identity across different cities before opening Kin Dee in Berlin in 2017, where her interpretation of Thai cuisine earned a Michelin star in 2019. For Dalad’s, she continues exploring the relationship between food, cultural memory, and place through a menu served directly from the installation. The pop-up offers a four-course lunch and an eight-course dinner, bringing guests together around the preparation and sharing of each dish.

The collaboration also reflects a longstanding friendship between Kambhu and Tiravanija, whose shared interest in cooking extends beyond the restaurant itself. The artist explains that their conversations have often explored what it means to prepare Thai food in places where its traditional ingredients are unavailable, raising questions about cultural identity and authenticity. ‘So it’s like finding authenticity, which is your own, which is yourself, in a foreign place,’ Tiravanija tells designboom. This perspective carries through the Paris experience, where references to Thai culture and the collaborators’ personal histories extend from the recipes to the tableware and spatial arrangement.

WE ARE ONA TURNS THE ACT OF DINING INTO A COLLECTIVE ARTWORK

Founded by Pronzato in 2019, We Are Ona has developed a series of temporary culinary experiences connecting gastronomy with art, architecture, and design, collaborating with figures including Carsten Höller, Cristina Celestino, and Sabine Marcelis. The installation for Dalad’s continues this approach while engaging directly with Tiravanija’s artistic practice, which has long challenged conventional exhibition formats through everyday activities such as cooking and eating. ‘For me, artworks are not simply objects to be observed; they are experiences to be lived,’ Pronzato explains to designboom. Within the Paris installation, the tables provide the physical framework, but the interactions between chefs and guests complete the work.

This relationship between participation and artistic experience is central to Tiravanija’s work, in which the boundaries between artist, audience, and artwork are deliberately blurred. At Dalad’s, the installation is activated through the preparation of food, the presence of diners, and the conversations that emerge around the communal tables. Rather than presenting the boats as sculptures to be admired from a distance, the project invites visitors to inhabit and use them, allowing the experience to change with every gathering. As Tiravanija puts it in his conversation with designboom, ‘a beautiful meal with friends and even strangers is a beautiful work of art.’

Rirkrit Tiravanija designs a boat-inspired installation for WE ARE ONA’s Dalad’s pop-up in Paris

the boat-shaped structures accommodate both diners and chefs within the same space

the installation draws inspiration from Thailand’s traditional floating food culture

project info:

name: Dalad’s – We Are Ona x Rirkrit Tiravanija

artist: Rirkrit Tiravanija
designer: Luca Pronzato

chef: Dalad Kambhu

concept: We Are Ona | @we.are.ona

location: Paris, France 

photographers: Robin Lefebvre and Laurent Giannesini

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For Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, music is closely tied to the way he thinks about space. A longtime admirer and personal friend of Ryuichi Sakamoto, he sees parallels between the composer’s approach to music and his own work in architecture. ‘He created a new image of what an Asian artist could be, crossing boundaries between East and West, tradition and modernity,’ Kengo Kuma tells us. His selections for this edition of designboom listens move between jazz, ambient music, classical compositions, and experimental sounds, with each track offering a different point of entry into his creative practice.

In our weekly series, we explore the music behind creative practice, asking people from different fields what they listen to when they need inspiration, get stuck on a project, or find themselves drawn back to a particular memory. For the architect, these questions lead back to the relationship between sound and space. Reflecting on Brian Eno’s 1/1, from Ambient 1: Music for Airports, he shares: ‘Brian Eno taught me that music can create an environment, rather than simply exist within it,’ an idea he hopes to bring into his own work. Cecil Taylor’s unconventional structures remind him that ‘sometimes we need to destroy existing rules in order to discover something new,’ while Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony echoes his interest in how simple elements come together to form a larger whole. Find out what Kengo Kuma listens to while working, reflecting, and finding inspiration, and tune in to the full playlist below.

a soundtrack for thinking about space

What song best captures your creative practice?
Kengo Kuma (KK): Ryuichi Sakamoto – andata (from async). Ryuichi Sakamoto was also a personal friend of mine. He created a new image of what an Asian artist could be, crossing boundaries between East and West, tradition and modernity. His approach to music has always been a great inspiration to my architecture.

What is the very first track you play to clear the air and get inspired when starting a new project?
KK: Mulatu Astatke – Yèkèrmo Sèw (Homeless Wanderer). I love the unique rhythm and the way different musical traditions come together. It encourages me to think beyond established forms and conventions.

Is there a song that instantly takes you back to a specific memory or place from your past?
KK: Yumi Arai – Hikōki-gumo. This song evokes the landscapes and atmosphere of Japan in my younger days. Music has the power to bring back memories of places that no longer exist.

What song is stuck in your head right now?
KK: Ryuichi Sakamoto – Bibo no Aozora. There is something both delicate and powerful about this melody. It stays with me, like a landscape that continues to exist in one’s memory.

What is your ultimate 2 AM studio track?
KK: Herbie Hancock – Chameleon. The repetitive rhythm creates an incredible energy. I like how a simple pattern can develop into something complex and unpredictable.

What song do you put on when you are stuck and need a breakthrough?
KK: Cecil Taylor – Steps (from Unit Structures). Cecil Taylor completely breaks away from conventional musical structures. His music reminds me that sometimes we need to destroy existing rules in order to discover something new.

What track is dominating your speakers this week, and is it influencing what you are
making right now?
KK: Abdullah Ibrahim – Bra Joe from Kilimanjaro (from African Piano). This music brings back memories of my travels in Africa. I was deeply impressed by the landscapes, the people, and the strong connection between everyday life and nature. His music reminds me of the unique rhythms and atmosphere I experienced there.

What song helps you slow down and focus on the tiny, quiet details?
KK: Brian Eno – 1/1 (from Ambient 1: Music for Airports). Brian Eno taught me that music can create an environment, rather than simply exist within it. This idea has deeply influenced the way I think about space. I want to achieve something similar through architecture, creating an atmosphere rather than just a physical object.

If people were to wear headphones while experiencing your latest work, what one
song should be playing?
KK: Ryuichi Sakamoto – 20220302 – sarabande (from 12). The simplicity and fragility of this piece are deeply moving. I hope my architecture can create a similar experience, where even the smallest elements become meaningful.

What is your favorite album cover art?
KK: Ryuichi Sakamoto – Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Original Soundtrack). The visual identity of this album is inseparable from the atmosphere of the film and its music. It shows how an image can carry an entire world of emotions and memories.

What track best describes your favorite project you have worked on so far?
KK: Beethoven – Symphony No. 7, II. Allegretto (NHK Symphony Orchestra). I am fascinated by the way simple, repetitive elements gradually form a powerful structure. This is very close to my approach to architecture, where small pieces come together to create a larger whole.

The post designboom listens: what does space sound like to kengo kuma? appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.