Everbloom turns organic waste such as discarded down, wool, and cashmere into usable garment fibers braided by AI. The startup describes the textile as softer than merino, more indulgent than cashmere, and stronger than silk. The production process starts with throwaways that already exist and collects these protein-based materials from textile waste and agriculture. Instead of binning them, the team treats them as raw input, sorted by type and cleaned by the in-house developed AI system named Braid. It is designed to separate protein waste based on its source, condition, and composition, and it collects data from these inputs to study how they react during processing.

The model analyzes how proteins behave under changes in temperature, moisture, and molecular weight, and from this data, it predicts the properties of the final fiber before production starts, including how it will respond to tension, dye, and wear. Based on these predictions, Braid AI suggests adjustments, and they’re translated into settings for the melt-spinning machines. The model also allows different waste streams to be combined into one system, so instead of treating each input as a problem, it treats them as variables to scale production. This link between software and hardware reduces trial-and-error testing. What once took months in a lab can now be done in weeks, and this AI model shortens development time and lowers the cost of producing usable garment fibers.

all images courtesy of Everbloom

Making the usable garment fibers for the fashion industry

Now back to the material: after cleaning the discarded organic waste, the proteins are extracted, but they’re not ready to be transformed yet into AI-churned usable garment fibers. They must be changed at a molecular level. Using protein engineering and molecular biology, Everbloom adjusts the structure of the proteins to control how the material behaves later in production. The processed protein is then turned into pellets, which are easy to store, move, and measure. They also allow the material to fit into existing manufacturing systems as well as help stabilize quality and make the process repeatable. The pellets are designed to work with standard melt-spinning machines, the ones already used across the textile industry to produce synthetic fibers. 

In this case, the startup’s pellets can replace polyester in this system. When heated and stretched, the pellets form long filaments, and this allows manufacturers to adopt the AI-churned usable garment fibers without rebuilding their factories. Once the filaments are created, the next step is yarn production, taking place in Italy. The yarn is produced according to clear targets, including stretch, resistance, and hand feel, and each parameter is defined before production begins. The yarn can then be knitted or woven into fabric, and at this stage, the material is ready for use in garments. Most fibers used today are made from fossil fuels and don’t break down after use. At the same time, large amounts of protein waste are discarded each year. Everbloom positions its system as a way to connect these two issues by replacing synthetic input and reviving discarded waste into regenerated biological material at scale.

Everbloom turns organic waste into usable garment fibers braided by AI

the startup describes the textile as softer than merino, more indulgent than cashmere, and stronger than silk

the yarn is produced according to clear targets, including stretch, resistance, and hand feel

the yarn can then be knitted or woven into fabric

detailed view of the woven fabric

view of the resulting material

project info:

startup: Everbloom 

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Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) experiment with using living bacteria that grow, weave, and dye their own fabrics in every color of the rainbow. The team’s idea is to replace chemical-based textile production with a natural process that uses microbes instead of oil, plastic, or artificial dyes. In doing so, they have shown how living bacteria can create bacterial cellulose, a material that can be used as fabric, and how the same bacteria can also color it without the use of synthetic dyes. The base material used in the method then is bacterial cellulose, which is a fibrous network made by bacteria during fermentation.  

It is produced when certain microbes grow in a nutrient-rich liquid and spin out long cellulose fibers. This material can also be harvested, cleaned, and dried to make a flexible sheet that can work like fabric. The researchers use a bacterium called Komagataeibacter xylinus, also known for producing cellulose. To add color, they use another group of bacteria that naturally make pigments that belong to two pigment families: violaceins and carotenoids. The former create colors from green to purple, while the latter create colors from red to yellow.

image courtesy of 祝 鹤槐, via Pexels

Textiles from bacterial cellulose come out in rainbow colors

At the beginning of the study, the researchers at KAIST tried to grow the two types of living bacteria for their fabrics that can grow and dye themselves together in the same container, but the process failed. The color-producing bacteria and the cellulose-producing bacteria interfered with each other’s growth. Sometimes, the cellulose layer did not form properly. Other times, the bacteria made very little color. To solve this, they changed the process into two different systems. For the cool colors such as blue, purple, and green, they used a delayed co-culture method, which means letting the cellulose-producing bacteria grow and form their network. Then, they added the color-producing living bacteria later, after the cellulose had already started forming for the fabrics that can dye themselves. 

This timing allowed both types of bacteria to grow without stopping each other’s activity. For the warm colors such as red, orange, and yellow, they used a sequential culture method. In this case, the cellulose was grown first, removed from the liquid, and cleaned. After that, it was placed into a separate container that held the pigment-producing bacteria (the cellulose absorbed the natural color from these microbes). Using these two methods, the team created fabrics of bacterial cellulose with dyes in purple, navy, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red from the living bacteria. These sheets can be used as a form of fabric. The process allows the rainbow colors to be built into the material itself, without the need for separate dyeing or chemical treatment.

image courtesy of Eva Bronzini, via Pexels

The process can reduce waste and water pollution

After producing the fabrics with dyes from living bacteria, the researchers tested how stable the colors were. They washed, bleached, and heated the materials as well as exposed them to acid and alkaline conditions, and they found out that most of the colors stayed the same after these tests. The fabrics made with violacein pigments were especially durable, even more resistant to washing than some synthetic dyes. Each piece of fabric with dye is created in a lab container, with the living bacteria growing in liquid culture, forming cellulose as they feed on nutrients. 

The cellulose can be harvested in sheets and then air-dried (the entire process uses living organisms instead of industrial machinery or chemical dye baths). The project, then, shows how materials can be produced using biology instead of petrochemicals. The process removes the need for harmful chemicals and can reduce waste and water pollution. However, it is still in the research stage, and the production speed is slower than in normal textile factories, and the cost is higher. The researchers estimate that it will take at least five years before this kind of material can be produced on a large scale, but they are hopeful that the design is a new process that could make textile production safer and less damaging to the environment.

image courtesy of the researchers at KAIST

image courtesy of Bernd Dittrich, via Unsplash

image courtesy of Moonstarious Project, via Unsplash

project info:

name: One-pot production of colored bacterial cellulose

institution: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) | @official_kaist

researchers: Hengrui Zhou, Pingxin Lin, Ki Jun Jeong, Sang Yup Lee

study: here

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Conrad Shawcross creates The Nervous System (Umbilical) (2025), a large mechanical and rope-machine artwork that weaves umbilical-like cords with motorized arms. On view for the first time at Here East in London between September 11th and November 2nd, 2025, the rope-making sculptural machine is part of the British artist’s long-running project called Rope Makers, which explores how machines can make rope through complex patterns of movement. The device was originally commissioned by the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania, and the artist brings it over to London for a while before it is set to be permanently installed in Australia. The rope-making machine is both a sculpture and a functioning device, standing 10 meters high and 12 meters wide. 

It is made from metal, timber, and mechanical parts, all assembled in the artist’s studio in Hackney, London. The design has 40 interlocking rotating arms that move around a central point, and each arm carries a spool with fibers, twisted and woven together to form a long rope. The machine works based on how traditional rope is made, but on a much larger and more complex scale. In a normal rope-making process, several threads are spun together while they are pulled tight, creating tension that keeps the rope strong and consistent. In the artist’s machine, this process is multiplied and expanded, with 40 arms rotating in different orbits, each moving at a slightly different speed and direction. As they turn, they twist and combine the threads into a single rope that grows from the center.

all images courtesy of Conrad Shawcross | photos by Richard Ivey, unless stated otherwise

Two other mechanical artworks on view at here east in london

The arms of The Nervous System (Umbilical) by artist Conrad Shawcross are connected by a network of gears, motors, and joints, programmed to move in specific cycles. These cycles never fully repeat, meaning that every moment of the weaving process and the rope-making machine is never the same. The rope produced is continuous and long, but no two parts of it are made in exactly the same way, and it results in an umbilical-like cord. Industrial fibers make up the woven cord, and as the rope passes through the middle of the structure, it collects the effects of every motion made by the machine’s arms. Over time, small changes in the way the arms move, caused by mechanical shifts, timing differences, or small errors, become visible in the texture and pattern of the rope.

The movement of the arms and spools is modeled after the way planets orbit the sun. Each arm represents a planetary orbit, and the rope at the center represents the path of the sun as it travels through the galaxy. The spools move around one another in complex, overlapping loops, similar to how celestial bodies move through space. This gives the machine a system-like structure, similar to a solar system, but made of gears and spools instead of planets. The exhibition also connects Umbilical to earlier artworks that deal with machinery and the passage of time. The other rope machines on display at Here East in London include Yarn (2001) and Ode to the Difference Engine (2007), both of which were built from oak and with mechanical systems. They remain on-site alongside Umbilical, weaving cords and ropes using motorized and mechanical arms for the viewers.

view of Ode to the Difference Engine (2007)

Umbilical to head to Museum of Old and New Art

The series of rope-making machines began more than ten years ago when Conrad Shawcross discussed the idea with David Walsh, the founder of MONA. The artist developed the concept through mechanical studies and built several smaller rope-making machines before this one. Earlier works in the Rope Makers series include Yarn (2001) and Ode to the Difference Engine (2007), making Umbilical a continuation of the artistic study but using more advanced engineering. When the exhibition closes in London, the mechanical sculpture is to be taken apart and shipped to MONA in Hobart, Tasmania, where it will be permanently installed in its own atrium by 2027. 

Once it begins running there, it is expected to operate continuously, stopping only once a year to change its spools. The rope then will slowly pile up beneath the machine, creating a growing archive of time. Every section of the rope can be linked to a specific period during the machine’s operation. The design of The Nervous System (Umbilical) was created with help from engineers and fabricators at Structure Workshop and Brier Solutions, and lighting was provided by TM Lighting. The sculptures are on view at Here East in London until November 2nd, 2025.

even the Ode to the Difference Engine (2007) weaves cords using mechanical wooden arms

the machine works based on how traditional rope is made

view of Ode to the Difference Engine (2007) at Here East in London

view of Yarn (2001)

Yarn (2001) is made with oak and mechanical systems

view of The Nervous System (Umbilical) (2025)

each arm carries a spool with fibers, twisted and woven together to form a long rope | image by The Wick

portrait of Conrad Shawcross with The Nervous System (Umbilical) (2025) at Here East in London

the mechanical sculpture remains on-site until November 2nd, 2025

project info:

artworks: The Nervous System (Umbilical), Yarn, Ode to the Difference Engine

artist: Conrad Shawcross | @conradshawcross

on view: Here East | @hereeast

dates: September 11th to November 2nd, 2025

location: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, 14 E Bay Ln, London E15 2GW, UK

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Cheng Tsung FENG’s Meeting Dome is a large-scale spherical installation in Fugang, Taoyuan, that reinterprets the weaving technique of the traditional Taiwanese bamboo chair. The project continues the artist’s exploration of artisanal practices, translating everyday craft into spatial form.

The installation expands the chair’s woven seat into a monumental structure. Thin bamboo strips are layered in parallel and extended across a hexagonal metal framework, producing a continuous lattice surface. The composition recalls the Chinese character for ‘person’ (人), emphasizing both structural balance and human connection.

all images by FIXER Photographic Studio

Feng’s Open Bamboo Sphere encourages gathering and reflection

The open geometry keeps the sphere permeable from all sides, encouraging visitors to move through, gather, and interact. As light filters through the bamboo layers, shifting patterns of shadow animate the ground and create shaded areas beneath the dome. Inside, bamboo stools are arranged in varied groupings and heights around a central planting of local Taoyuan vegetation. This spatial layout invites pause and interaction, recalling the informal ways neighbors once gathered on bamboo chairs in village streets, under trees, and in alleyways.

By magnifying a familiar household object, artist Cheng Tsung FENG’s Meeting Dome transforms a utilitarian craft into an architectural experience. The interplay of bamboo and metal merges tactile materiality with structural clarity, while the installation as a whole reflects on memory, community, and the role of everyday objects in shaping shared space.

Meeting Dome by Cheng Tsung FENG rises as a bamboo-woven sphere in Fugang

the installation reinterprets the weaving of traditional Taiwanese bamboo chairs

bamboo stools are placed in varied groupings and heights

thin bamboo strips extend across a hexagonal metal framework

parallel bamboo layers form a continuous lattice surface

the dome remains permeable, inviting visitors from all sides

craft and architecture merge in the magnified bamboo weave

a central planting of Taoyuan vegetation anchors the space

everyday craft is translated into monumental spatial form

geometry and material emphasize balance and connection

light filters through bamboo, casting shifting shadows on the ground

the project bridges memory, material, and communal interaction

seating arrangements encourage rest and interaction

a humble chair becomes an architectural experience of light and space

project info:

name: Meeting Dome

artist: Cheng Tsung FENG | @chengtsungfeng

location: Fugang, Taoyuan, Taiwan

materials: bamboo, wood, lacquered iron, LED lighting

project design: Chan-Wei HSU
design team: Sheng WANG, Hung Lin LIU, Ying Chun WENG, Che Wei CHANG, Wei Che HUANG, Hsing Chien CHIEN, Jui Yi CHIEN
structural analysis: Chien Chuan Engineering Consulting Co.
construction: Weige Interior
painting: Crown Paint Waterproof Engineering
lighting design: Oude Light
lighting engineer: Beamtec Lighting

organizer: Taoyuan City Government, Taiwan Railways Administration
adviser: Taoyuan City Council
executive units: Vision Management Consultants Inc., Fengshe Cai Co., Ltd., Hegu Creative Integration Marketing Co., Ltd.
curator: Hui-Lan CHANG

photographer: FIXER Photographic Studio | @fixer_photographic_studio

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The Seoul Museum of Art presents ‘Ernesto Neto: Ba Ka Ba, a Dance of the Eternal Polarities,’ a new site-specific installation by the Brazilian artist that transforms the Korean museum’s Seosomun Main Branch lobby into a sensory environment. Commissioned as part of the 2025 SeMA Public Space Project, the woven artwork expands Ernesto Neto‘s longstanding interest in the relationships between body, space, and collective experience.

Ernesto Neto portrait | images courtesy SeMA, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

sema suspends colossal crocheted artworks

Ernesto Neto’s installation at the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) is composed of expansive crochet structures woven from industrial cotton fabrics in shades of brown and pink. These colors, chosen to evoke tree trunks and night alongside flowers and day, establish a dialogue between natural rhythms and architectural structure. Suspended and filled with dried guava leaves and locally sourced tea leaves, the artist‘s forms invite a multi-sensory encounter that engages smell both texture together.

By occupying the museum’s lobby and adjacent open spaces, the work introduces an organic intervention into the building’s otherwise linear architecture. The flowing crochet forms generate a cyclical sense of space, suggesting continuity and transformation rather than fixed boundaries. Visitors move through and around the installation, encountering shifting relations between center and periphery, interior and exterior.

Ernesto Neto presents ‘Ba Ka Ba, a Dance of the Eternal Polarities’ at the Seoul Museum of Art

the installation’s onomatopoeic title

The title ‘Ba Ka Ba’ functions as an onomatopoeic expression, its mirrored syllables referencing cycles and flows. This rhythm extends into the work’s conceptual framework: polarities such as body and space, sensation and thought, or self and other are not held apart but brought into dialogue. For Neto, these intersections remain central to his practice, recalling his ties to the Brazilian Neo-Concrete movement of the late 1950s and 1960s, which emphasized participation, sensation, and subjective experience.

These ideas are reimagined within Seoul’s contemporary urban context. The installation offers an open environment where visitors become part of the work itself and embody a condition of exchange and interrelation. The sensory components extend beyond the visual to affirm art’s role in daily life.

the installation fills the Seosomun Main Branch lobby with crochet structures

the work is filled with dried guava leaves and locally sourced tea leaves

brown and pink industrial cotton fabrics evoke tree trunks night flowers and day

the crocheted forms bring an organic intervention to the museum’s linear architecture

project info:

name: Ernesto Neto: Ba Ka Ba, a Dance of the Eternal Polarities (Ba Ka Ba, uma dança das eternas polaridades)

artist: Ernesto Neto | @ernestonetoarte

museum: Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA)

location: 61, Deoksugung-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, Korea

photography: © SeMA

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Fabulism creates Chaude Couture by weaving rice straw into a wearable, water-repellent raincoat and micro-shelter.

The Berlin-based design practice, founded by Giulia Pozzi and Mirko Andolina, moves away from using plastic to produce the rainwear and instead uses natural materials. Their goal is to create clothing that is both protective and made of organic materials. They’ve worked with skilled artisans to weave Chaude Couture entirely from rice straw. 

They’ve also shaped the garment to give protection, so it resembles a dome and covers the upper body of the wearer. The top part is shaped long and round to fit the wearer’s head without letting them feel the weight of the clothing. Because of its natural material, the raincoat is lightweight, can be worn as a fashion statement, and can act as a wearable umbrella that shelters the wearer from the rain (hence, the term micro-shelter). 

all images courtesy of Fabulism | photos by David Carson

inspired by shape and function of old-style raincoats

For the Fabulism designers, their fashion piece focuses on how climate affects everyday life. They believe that adapting to new weather conditions requires changes in buildings and cities as well as in fashion and clothing. Clothing, they add, is part of the cultural landscape, as it shows how people live with their environment. The project is inspired by the shape and function of old-style raincoats but turns them into wearable structures. The designers say it is like wearing part of the landscape since the garment creates a connection between people, nature, and design. Another source of inspiration for the design practice is the Olympic Games in Paris. During the time, many people were seen wearing plastic ponchos due to the heavy rain. 

Given the reputation of plastic for the environment’s health, the designers look for alternative solutions to produce rainwear without using this material. They then studied cultures in tropical regions where people are used to rainy seasons and discovered that in these places, clothing is designed to work with water, not against it. They noted East Asia, where people have made raincoats from natural plant fibers for hundreds of years. These materials include rice straw and other water-repellent fibers, and when it rains, the water flows down the outer surface of the coat and not inside. The result of their efforts, then, reflects their research, as Chaude Couture uses rice straw to protect the wearer from the rain while making it fashion-forward. The rainwear project was presented at the Biennale d’Architecture et de Paysage d’Île-de-France (BAP!) in 2025, which ran between May 7th and July 13th.

Fabulism creates Chaude Couture by weaving rice straw into a water-repellent raincoat and micro-shelter

rear view of the rainwear

the garment resembles a dome and covers the upper body of the wearer

there’s also an evident fan shape to repel the water

side view of the garment

the rainwear appeared at Biennale d’Architecture et de Paysage d’Île-de-France

the top part is shaped long and round to fit the wearer’s head

the designers worked with skilled artisans for the project

design iterations of the rainwear

project info:

name: Chaude Couture

practice: Fabulism | @fabulismoffice

founders: Giulia Pozzi and Mirko Andolina

presented at: Biennale d’Architecture et de Paysage d’Île-de-France (BAP!) 2025

dates: May 7th and July 13th, 2025

photography: David Carson

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Installed in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, What We Leave Behind is a temporary bamboo structure developed by Cave Urban for the 2025 Sydney Festival. Created in response to the festival’s theme, Birth, Destiny and What We Leave Behind, the woven installation explores spatial storytelling through material assembly, public interaction, and site-specific design.

The structure is constructed from 500 locally sourced bamboo poles, hand-split into over 2,500 individual strands. These were woven over a ten-day period to form a curved, tunnel-like shell extending 40 metres in length and rising to over seven metres in height. The installation was developed in collaboration with the public, who contributed handwritten messages directly onto 8-metre-long bamboo strips. These inscriptions, totalling 25,000, were integrated into the structure, becoming both surface and narrative elements. Designed to allow full pedestrian passage, the tunnel widens and rises in height as one moves through it. The curvature is calculated to disrupt a direct line of sight, encouraging users to experience the structure as a sequence of changing spatial conditions. The tunnel’s entrance was positioned to frame a view toward the Sydney Opera House, while its arching form echoes that of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, establishing visual and material dialogue with the surrounding context.

all images by Juan Pablo Pinto unless stated otherwise

Community members join Cave Urban in the making of the pavilion

Material selection played a central role in the project’s design logic. Bamboo was chosen for its availability, tensile strength, flexibility, and ease of manual processing. Its curved form enabled the construction of a lightweight yet stable structural shell approximately 5 cm thick. The golden tone of the bamboo visually connects with the adjacent sandstone facade of the MCA, while its woven construction contrasts with the geometric rigidity of the museum’s architecture.

The installation process involved collaboration between Cave Urban’s team and skilled practitioners, as well as untrained participants. The complexity of the structure required a responsive construction method in which community members contributed directly to the making. The site operated as a collective fabrication space, where material preparation and weaving took place simultaneously. This public involvement formed an integral part of the spatial and conceptual outcome. What We Leave Behind functions as a spatial record of participatory engagement, constructed with impermanence in mind. Its formal language and assembly process reflect themes of interconnection, accumulation, and collective authorship within a contemporary urban context.

a 40-metre-long bamboo tunnel installed in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

constructed using over 2,500 hand-split bamboo strands woven over ten days

the installation forms a curved shell that rises more than seven metres in height

the entrance aligns with a framed view toward the Sydney Opera House

bamboo was selected for its tensile strength, flexibility, and availability

designed to allow full pedestrian passage through a widening and rising interior

a 5 cm thick woven shell achieves stability through natural curvature

the tunnel’s curvature disrupts direct sightlines, shaping a layered spatial experience | image by Victor Frankowski

the golden tone of bamboo mirrors the MCA’s sandstone facade

What We Leave Behind documents a shared act of temporary construction

the structure embodies themes of interconnection, impermanence, and spatial narrative

a temporary installation that connects material, memory, and community | image by Chloé Lindsay Daye

developed by Cave Urban for the 2025 Sydney Festival | image by Neil Bennett

each bamboo strip carried messages written by members of the public | image by Chloé Lindsay Daye

tublic participation played a central role in both material preparation and construction | image by Neil Bennett

the collaborative process included both experienced builders and first-time participants

25,000 handwritten public messages were integrated into the bamboo surface | image by Nergal U-Khan

project info:

name: What We Leave Behind
designer: Juan Pablo Pinto
designer: Cave Urban | @caveurban

area: 200 sqm
dimensions: 40m (L) x 7m (W) x 4.5m (H)

location: Museum of Contemporary Art Forecourt, Tallawoladah Lawn, Circular Quay, Sydney, Australia

client: Sydney Festival
lead designer: Juan Pablo Pinto
design team: Nici Long, Jed Long, Mercurio Alvarado, Maeve Corke Butters, Erin Zikos, May Baker, Hamish Shorrocks, Taya Solomon, Honey Long, Prue Stent
engineer: Event Engineering
steel tie-down: Eveleigh Works

harvesting volunteers: Alexia Dermatis, Alfredo Santos Ramírez, Alicia Mardones, Angela Ha, Ashleigh Williams, Atheer Albokhari, Audrey See, Bethany Chamberlain, Célia Lesigne, Dena Rubinstein, Emma Cao, Federico Riches, Isabella Massa, Juliet Nelson, Katie Hubbard, Kevin Zhen, Krishna Patil, Meiling Kwok, Mia Margolis, Nejala Janiola, Pete Deards, Sarah Ong, Sheen Parimoo, Suki Fong, Ting Ting Mabel Loon, Tiresi Kirby, Yuting Zhang

building volunteers: Alessia Francesca Picarel, Alexia Dermatis, Alicia Mardones, Annie Boman, Ashleigh Williams, Bethany Hooper, Billy Hyman, Bridget Annand, Camila Strang, Charu Kukreja, Chloé Lindsay Daye, Christopher Papaioannou, Dena Rubinstein, Emma Cao, Fatima Harun, Iris Xiao, Isabella Zhou, Jason Mumford, Jedda Ayling, Kate Riley, Katie Graham, Kelcie Bryant‐Duguid, Kevin Zhen, Kyo Kim, Laura Cimilo, Laura Fisher, Lilah Shapiro, Linda Agresti, Lisa Stevenson, Liz Mayberry, Lois Hyatt, Maisie Rose Nugent, Meiling Kwok, Mia Margolis, Mikayla Earnshaw, Nejala Janiola, Pete Deards, Rizal Mahoney, Robi Stanton, Sarah Ong, Seamus Fitzpatrick, Sheen Parimoo, Sirintra Sriwattanavanit, Tamara Bowman, Yuanqi Jia, Yuting Zhang, Zoe Hyatt, Zoe Pan

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Magnet Residence is a large-scale residential development in Tirana, Albania, designed by Studio Libeskind in collaboration with Kontakt LTD. Situated within a key urban area of the city, the project spans approximately 150,000 sqm and weaves a high-density, mixed-use neighborhood that integrates architecture with landscape and public space. The design addresses the evolving urban and cultural context of Tirana, proposing a model for contemporary living that prioritizes connectivity, ecological responsiveness, and spatial openness. Organized around a network of pedestrian routes, public piazzas, and landscaped gardens, the project aims to create an active urban fabric that supports both communal interaction and residential privacy.

Residential buildings are arranged in a rhythmic formation, responding to the site’s orientation and natural light conditions. Apartments are designed to maximize daylight access, cross-ventilation, and views, with balconies and setbacks incorporated to mediate transitions between interior and exterior space. Transparent materials and articulated facades contribute to the permeability of the blocks, allowing for both visual openness and privacy.

all images courtesy of Studio Libeskind & Kontakt LTD

Studio Libeskind collaborates with Kontakt LTD for Magnet

The landscape design plays a central role in structuring the development. A network of internal courtyards, green spaces, and circulation paths encourages walkability and public use. These areas are programmed with amenities such as bicycle lanes, rest zones, and children’s play areas, contributing to a multi-generational residential environment. The architectural concept is rooted in local references while employing a contemporary formal language. Material choices and the articulation of massing reflect the intention to connect with the site’s context without replicating traditional typologies. The production process involved close collaboration between local architects, engineers, and Studio Libeskind’s design team.

Magnet Residence reflects a broader shift in urban development in Albania, aligning architectural form with environmental and social considerations. The project proposes a new typology for dense urban living, where public and private spaces are interdependent, and where the built environment supports long-term adaptability and spatial quality.

apartments are oriented to maximize natural light and ventilation

a central pedestrian network links residences to public piazzas

public piazzas provide gathering points within the development

Studio Libeskind and Kontakt LTD collaborated to design the high-density development

buildings are arranged to form a rhythmic urban composition

balconies and setbacks mediate between indoor and outdoor spaces

courtyards are designed for communal use and visual openness

the landscape plan prioritizes walkability and daily interaction

each block contributes to an interconnected urban fabric

landscaped courtyards serve as shared green spaces between buildings

Magnet Residence spans 150,000 sqm in a key urban district of Tirana

material choices reflect a connection to local context

contemporary forms reinterpret regional architectural references

the project proposes a new typology for dense urban living in Albania

project info:

name: Magnet Residence

architect: Studio Libeskind | @daniellibeskind

client: Kontakt LTD

location: Tirana, Albania

area: 50,000 sqm

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Ernesto Neto has filled the Nef Nord of Paris‘s Grand Palais with a vast, handwoven installation of bark, earth, spice, and fiber. Nosso Barco Tambor Terra invites visitors into a soft and sensory architecture, suspended beneath the glass and iron canopy recently restored by Chatillon Architectes (see designboom’s coverage here). The structure is meant to be entered, touched, and heard. Inside, rhythm and movement unfold slowly through texture and breath.

The woven installation is shaped in looping crochet, cords, and braided skins that hang and seem to grow downward. While Neto’s forms appear intuitive and improvised, they hold their own internal order. The exhibition connects body to earth, rhythm to breath, and matter to movement.

Ernesto Neto fills the Grand Palais with a woven structure | image © GrandPalaisRmn 2025 / Photo Didier Plow

Rhythm as Structure within the grand palais

There are instruments hidden inside artist Ernesto Neto’s work at the Grand Palais. Some are barely visible, folded into the skins of the structure like bones. Others invite touch directly. On designated days, musicians coax out their voices in performances that feel less like concerts than ceremonies. Drums from across continents — Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America — respond to each other and to the visitors’ presence. The sound emerges from within the piece, resonating through it like a pulse through a body.

This immersive environment forms the center of Nosso Barco Tambor Terra, though the boundaries remain open. Around the structure, the Grand Palais hosts ongoing activations: open conversations, workshops, live music, and play. A Brazilian café serves as a gathering point. The surrounding programming extends Neto’s vision outward, into dialogue and shared attention.

visitors can interact with the organic materials | image © GrandPalaisRmn 2025 / Photo Didier Plow

a woven membrane for gathering

Ernesto Neto speaks in a language of materials that resist polish. Bark and raw fiber, hand-woven mesh, suspended spice bundles — everything points to manual labor, to knowledge passed down through the body. The space becomes a collective membrane, a place where traditions drift together, not diluted but echoed. His approach to scale is as much emotional as physical. 

The setting amplifies this intention. After several years of restoration led by Chatillon Architectes, the Grand Palais reopens with renewed clarity just in time for the 2024 Paris Olympics. The freshly restructured envelope now plays host to something profoundly unmechanical, unhurried. The juxtaposition feels deliberate. Neto’s project is one of slowness and attention, rooted in the body and the ground beneath it.

Presented in collaboration with Lisbon’s MAAT and as part of the France–Brazil Season 2025, this exhibition expands the idea of architecture beyond construction. Neto frames it as something we move through with care, something that listens back. It makes room for rest and for ceremony and leaves traces in the senses. And in the center of Paris, it becomes a vessel for learning and for dreaming.

drums inside the work are played during live shows | image © GrandPalaisRmn 2025 / Photo Didier Plow

the piece hosts workshops, concerts, and communal events | image © designboom

materials reflect ancestral craft and manual labor | image © GrandPalaisRmn 2025 / Photo Didier Plow

the restored Grand Palais offers a luminous setting | image © designboom

the project is part of the France–Brazil Season 2025 | image © designboom

the installation is co-produced by MAAT in Lisbon | image © designboom

project info:

name: Nosso Barco Tambor Terra

architect: Ernesto Neto | @ernestonetoart

location: Grand Palais, Paris, France

event: France–Brazil Season 2025

collaboration: MAAT

photography: © designboom, © GrandPalaisRmn 2025 / Photo Didier Plow

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In a quiet corner of London’s Chelsea Flower Show, Studio Weave’s Avanade Intelligent Garden pulses beneath the textures of bark and lush foliage. The project gathers and interprets signals from its plants, soil, and air to form an AI-driven ecosystem that listens as much as it grows. The English architects, in collaboration with landscape designer Tom Massey and natural materials expert Sebastian Cox, has created an architectural presence within the garden that reflects both ecological knowledge and digital intuition. The result is a place of learning, adjusting, and responding that’s alive with signals and wrapped in a facade of mushroom mycelium.

This year’s gold medal-winning entry comes from a carefully tuned partnership. Massey’s planting scheme, Cox’s material intelligence, and Studio Weave’s architectural framing find coherence through a shared interest in craft and care. Rather than standing apart, the building acts as a lightly held edge. It folds around the perimeter, creating an inner clearing that functions like a micro-courtyard — a calm interior within the lush density of the Intelligent Garden.

images © Daniel Herendi

a form informed by mushroom mycelium

Studio Weave‘s shed structure within the Intelligent Garden rises from materials that carry their own narratives. Ash timber, harvested from diseased trees in local forests, has been woven and curved to shape the outer skin. Between the slats, natural light lands on the softly undulating surface of mycelium panels. These fungal forms, grown in Sebastian Cox’s Kent workshop from agricultural byproducts, bring both tactile richness and a low-impact material footprint. Together they form a type of garden architecture that feels grown as much as it is built.

This intervention carries more function than its restrained form suggests. It provides shelter and workspace for its gardener-custodians — people tasked with tending the Tom Massey-designed garden and managing the technology embedded within it. Avanade’s AI platform gathers live data on soil health, humidity, and light exposure, offering caretakers a nuanced picture of how each tree and plant responds to its environment. The table inside serves both workshop and observation, reinforcing the idea that care and technology must coexist at a very human scale.

Studio Weave collaborates with Tom Massey and Sebastian Cox to create the Intelligent Garden

studio weave Designs for Disassembly

Tucked within the structure is a shaded, humid corner that leans into the mystery of the mycelium. Here, in conditions designed for growth rather than display, the garden shows its quieter work. Fungal fruiting bodies emerge in their own time, fed by a microclimate that speaks to forest understories. It is a moment of architectural pause, and a reminder that some processes can be invited but never controlled.

Though the Intelligent Garden is a temporary installation, the building’s afterlife has been carefully plotted. Prefabricated in four volumes, it was assembled quickly on-site and will move to Manchester’s Mayfield Park after the show. The building’s construction avoids permanence in favor of adaptability. Every joint, weave, and panel has been designed with disassembly in mind. The entire structure is biodegradable or recyclable, with nothing left as waste. It is, in essence, a compostable building.

locally-sourced Ash and mycelium emphasize sustainability and material storytelling

Beyond the structure, the Intelligent Garden makes a pointed case. Trees in urban areas are under threat from poor planting conditions, neglect, and environmental stress. Nearly half fail within ten years. The garden does not offer a single fix. Instead, it puts forward a layered system — where AI is a tool, not a substitute, for long-term stewardship. Through sensors and predictive models, the technology here helps direct limited resources where they’re most needed, supporting both survival and growth over time.

This is the second year Studio Weave and Tom Massey have collaborated at Chelsea. Their previous entry also received gold, but this year’s work pushes further into a cross-disciplinary space. Known for projects that engage civic and natural contexts with unusual sensitivity, Studio Weave brings architecture into conversation with planting and performance. The firm’s ability to work fluidly between disciplines is evident in how the structure holds the garden without overwhelming it.

the garden integrates AI technology to support the long-term care and survival of urban trees

sensors and AI track soil health and environmental data for optimal growing conditions

an interior courtyard is designated for workshops and quiet observation

the building was prefabricated in modular volumes and designed for reuse after the show

a ‘mushroom parlour’ demonstrates ideal conditions for fungal growth

project info:

name: Avanade Intelligent Garden and Building

architect: Studio Weave | @studioweave

event: Chelsea Flower Show 2025

location: London, United Kingdom

landscape design: Tom Massey | @tommasseyuk

materials: Sebastian Cox | @sebastiancoxltd

digital systems: Avanade Inc. | @avanadeinc

photography: © Daniel Herendi | @neverordinaryview

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