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When asked to name the one thing that most excites her in the current world of design, Julia de Bono speaks in terms of intelligences, plural. "Human intuition, machine learning, material behavior, cultural memory and, of course, the ultimate intelligence: nature," she says. "Design now happens in the dialogue of many forms of intelligence." As CEO of Designworks, BMW Group's global creative consultancy, Julia has led the design of visionary concept vehicles including the BMW Vision Next 100, Mille Miglia Concept, and 3.0 CSL Hommage. Formerly head of BMW's Concept Car Team and Global Design Strategy, she now drives cross-industry innovation—advancing AI-augmented creativity, circular product ecosyste

Traditionally, churches seated worshippers in pews. Today that has changed to chairs. Why the furniture switch? Because churches used to only be for worship, and they were reliably packed on Sundays. Today church attendance is down, and they've adapted by turning into flexible-use spaces. It's not easy to move pews out of the way or rearrange them for meetings. But individual stacking chairs make the task much easier, and can be stored in small spaces.So in 2009 British furniture designer Simon Pengelly was commissioned to design a chair for Chorus, a contract furniture manufacturer. The brief was to design a sturdy, comfortable, lightweight, stackable chair for use in churches. The chair also needed to be offered in a linked version, for customers that still desired pew-like configurations.

In Italy, not all ruins go back to the time of the Romans. Take this impressive seaside edifice in southern Sicily. Its original date of construction? 1909-1912.Called the Fornace Penna, it was built as a brickworks. The location was purposeful: A nearby port facilitated export, a clay

A traditional Turkish piece of furniture is the sedir, a low-slung bench or sofa. Turkish industrial designer Gokce Nafak expands upon this with her Osolo Long Seating Unit concept."The core of the design is based on the series' characteristic single-piece folded metal body, which functions both as the structural support and as the architectural pl

It takes an entire community of Amish to raise a barn. And even for a single, conventionally-framed stud wall, you need at least a few people to get the thing up. But this invention by Virginia-based contractor Mark Helmuth reduces that number to one.Helmuth's

Is there anything more annoying that an articulated lamp that won't hold its position? Over time the springs wear out, or the joints lose friction.Mael Sandoz, an Industrial Design student at ECAL, proposes a different solution: "Staccato is an articulated desk lamp with magnetic connectors. The connectors that make up the joints of this lamp operate through a system of notched wheels held in place by magnets, offering a wide range of motion."

We loved watching Simone Giertz prototype her Laundry Chair, a swivel-arm chair valet, a couple years ago. The piece went viral on Instagram. Giertz recently bet that there was enough demand to start a Kickstarter for it, and boy, was she right: Her Laundry Chair campaign has racked up $750,000 in the few days since it launched.

Remember those Hyundai parking robots?German robotics company Filics had a similar thought—but one that could disrupt logistics, rather than parking. Their Filics Unit is a pair of low-slung 'bots that can lift Euro pallets and ferry them around.While they can't take the place of forklifts, thanks to the secon

This Standing Mate ergonomic chair is as innovative as it is bizarre. Designed by Chinese furniture brand Newtral, it features a sort of tongue that lays on the floor. The idea is that you can stand on the tongue, and your body weight anchors the chair in place, allowing you to use it in novel ways:

Roman Gebhard has watched technology evolve across three continents and multiple design cultures—from LUNAR Design in San Francisco to frog in New York to Siemens Design in Munich, where he eventually co-founded FLUID Design in 2006. Through all these shifts, he's observed something encouraging about where design practice is heading. "With the wealth of new technologies and the continued evolution of others, I'm most excited that the focus is shifting," Roman says. "The question is becoming less about the tech itself and more about creating great, user-centered, engaging solutions that genuinely improve everyday life."As managing partner and co-founder of FLUID Design (formerly LUNAR Europ