In 1938, Gio Ponti, a luminary of 20th-century Italian design, put pen to paper for his as-yet-unfinished Villa Marchesano in Bordighera on the Ligurian coast. Without walls, windows or doors, the drawing captured his intentions for the space: how it would be inhabited and how its residents might grow into it. Ponti believed that architecture should serve the lives of its occupants, creating environments that inspire and enrich daily living, and all of the life that he imagined the house would contain is scribbled on to this large sheet of tracing paper. 

The Belgian architect and designer Vincent Van Duysen has become synonymous with one word: serenity.

Standing desks have a long and illustrious history: polymath Leonardo da Vinci was rumoured to have used them in the 15th century, followed by the likes of Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf. Early proponents commissioned high desks directly from carpenters, or used the taller shelves of bookcases, until manually adjustable sit-stand desks were invented that used hand cranks, pins, screws, or gas cylinders that compress and expand. UniFor’s latest workstation, however, the Spring System designed by architect Antonio Citterio, uses springs to counteract the weight of the desk as it rises.

Meeting of minds | A new generation of designers offer contrasting visions of the present. 

Mario Carrieri published his Milano, Italia (1959) photo book, a cinematic portrayal of Milan from its barren suburbs to the dark glamour of the city centre, when he was only 27 years old.

The Power Station of Art (PSA) is the first – and currently only – state-owned contemporary art museum in mainland China.

The catalogue for UniArm, the new monitor arm from UniFor, opens with a few pages of closeup photography of the arm’s sleek, hinged form, followed by a double-page spread filled with an X-ray image of the product.

For UniFor, design has always been about more than just a product: each object the company creates represents a dialogue between the user and maker, and embodies its vision for how a space should make you feel.

Vincent Van Duysen is used to travel. The architect’s home and studio is in Antwerp, and he also lives in Melides, Portugal, where he designed his Casa M retreat, a concrete pavilion nestled among the cork trees and sand dunes. Architectural projects, meanwhile, have taken him from Thailand to the USA, China to Saudi Arabia. Travelling, he told the actor and his longtime friend Julianne Moore in 2014, is a constant source of inspiration. “[It] really fascinates me, and blending all the sources of inspiration makes me who I am,” he explained. “I’m a sponge; from the moment I wake up, I’m a very curious person.” But in addition to his homes in Antwerp and Melides, there is a place to which he has returned time and time again: Milan.