For AN Interior, 2025 was a busy year: We marked the 10th anniversary of the publication in the spring, celebrated at Salvatori’s New York showroom; designed The Library at Shelter by Afternoon Light; hosted a showroom crawl in West Hollywood in June; reported on the ground from Milan Design Week and 3 Days of Design Copenhagen; hosted another showroom crawl in New York’s Flatiron district in October; and released two print magazines. And ICYMI, AN Interior also started distribution nationwide at shelves in Barnes & Noble this year.
Throughout it all we saw design and architecture that informed and inspired, filling the pages of our print magazines and gracing the screens of our mobile phones and computers. The following are stand-out projects that reflect design trends of the year (hello earth-hued hospitality, communal bathing, and third spaces), popular reads from the audience, and designs from firms both big and small, established and emerging. These are AN Interior‘s favorite projects covered in 2025.
Starting from a blank slate, Studio MBM and Yakka Studio reinvigorate the nightclub experience in Brooklyn
To transform a raw concrete basement beneath Brooklyn’s trendy William Vale Hotel into a new nightclub, designers Maurizio Bianchi Mattioli and Angus McIntosh asked themselves a pivotal question: How do we make a space sexy? Drawing design inspirations from far and wide—from the burl wood interior detailing of a vintage Mercedes-Benz car to mishmash postmodern buildings by Austrian architect Hans Hollein to the plastic quality of designer Gaetano Pesce’s playful resin chairs—they found their answer. Unveiled, which celebrated its public opening in late January, brings together high design and a superior sonic experience. And wrapped in curved burl plywood paneling, dramatic lighting, and reflective surfaces, its interior is certainly sultry.
In London, Leopold Banchini Architects uplifts arts and crafts for wine bar Goodbye Horses
Japanese folk art, William Morris, and the wider English arts and crafts movement inform Goodbye Horses, a new wine bar in London’s De Beauvoir Town. The bar’s interior, outfitted by Leopold Banchini Architects, prioritizes natural materials, abundant lighting, local craftsmanship, artist collaboration, and swaths of colorful doodles. Drawing from these movements and local heritage, the bar takes a stance against our era’s never-ending focus on screens and stimulation. Instead, Goodbye Horses bids farewell to the overwhelming and hello to a sense of being present and convivial.
nARCHITECTS uses CLT and a unique floorplan for a sustainable house for its cofounders
Cross-laminated timber continues to gain traction in the United States and a home in Duchess County, New York, picked up on the trend. The residence, aptly named CLT House, was built by nARCHITECTS for the firm’s own cofounders, Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang. The duo prioritize the rawness of the material with an inventive floorplan that truly embodies the saying, “form follows function.”
Up-and-coming architects and designers team up to develop Parcel, a new-concept mini-resort and creative residency based along Lake Michigan
It has become increasingly difficult for up-and-coming architects and designers to get their first big break. Rather than go it alone and propagate the outdated image of the single self-efficient genius, many are joining forces to realize their first projects. Multidisciplinary designers Lindsay Giambattista Cox and Chris Cox—as well as several other vested creative partners—joined forces with architect Matt Moffitt, principal of Studio Bardo, to establish Parcel. Situated in Michigan’s burgeoning Leelanau Peninsula region, the reimagined 7-acre retreat is very much the sum of its parts, the result of pooled creative insights and resources.
Richard Stampton Architects thoughtfully reworks a historic fisherman’s shack in Australia’s coastal Victoria, honoring the structure’s integrity
Architects often strive for a sensitive response to context, yet few achieve it with true conviction. In his Phillip Island house and guesthouse, Australian architect Richard Stampton—now based in Los Angeles—demonstrates a deeply site-responsive approach, engaging with the property’s original building fabric and the region’s ever-changing climate to craft a meaningful base for visits to his homeland.
T+E+A+M and stock-a-studio convert an administrative office at Dartmouth into an experimental venue for spatial sound dubbed The Warehouse
A new facility at New Hampshire’s Dartmouth College is designed to allow students to “play” architecture like instruments. The Warehouse is an experimental venue for spatial sound that serves a new Master of Fine Arts program in sonic practice. Ash Fure, the program director, helped establish the new facility, tapping architecture firm T+E+A+M (cofounded by Fure’s brother, Adam Fure) and stock-a-studio to convert what was formerly an administrative office into a playground for sound and light.
In Paris, Sala Hars works its magic to create Zoī Vendôme, a preventative medicine experience
Zoī Vendôme is no ordinary medical facility. The Paris-based center joins the wave of new preventative medicine companies that offer holistic, full-body examinations for members. The goal? Life extension. But Zoī is even more unique: Its 20,000-square-foot wellness center, discreetly located behind a Haussmannian facade near Place Vendôme, is a site for both electrocardiograms and a room that re-creates a snowstorm.
Spaced Agency designs a warm, reconfigurable community space that helps support Chinatown’s small businesses
A research project about the architecture of dim sum restaurants eventually evolved into a space that uplifts small businesses in New York’s Chinatown. T. K. Justin Ng, founder of emerging firm Spaced Agency, was researching the ways dim sum restaurants evolved to create spaces of belonging when he came across the nonprofit Welcome to Chinatown. The architect and artist created a series of NFTs, depicting dim sum ladies pushing different carts of food, to help the organization raise funds to conduct a survey about the neighborhood’s small businesses. The survey manifested in the Small Business Innovation Hub, a community space that’s robust in its programming yet flexible and light in its design.
Ste Marie crafts three sumptuous and detailed restaurant interiors in Edmonton, Canada
Like the Italian menu it serves, a night at Canadian chef Daniel Costa’s Olia Ristorante is meant to be savored. However, located within a vast space at the base of a new residential building in Edmonton, Alberta, the eatery required a deft interior vision to create the intimacy and long-stay welcome Costa was craving. After a successful cold call to Vancouver- and Toronto-based interiors firm Ste Marie, the restaurant’s warm, inviting, and well-proportioned design now beckons diners to linger over tagliatelle, saltimbocca, and perfectly paired wine selections.
Cordero Pardee revamps a Ridgewood corner shop into Mr. Nancy’s, a low-carbon dive bar
A time capsule was recently uncovered in Ridgewood, Queens. Abandoned for nearly two decades below the elevated Seneca Avenue station for the M train, the remains of a linear bar and lounge presented a canvas of old-school flourishes ripe for refreshment. The derelict cavern required a polish from bicoastal architecture studio Cordero Pardee (COPA). “Every space in this building smelled like an ashtray. Everything had this layer of nicotine tar on it,” COPA principal Galen Pardee remembered. “As soon as we saw that, it made for a very easy next step.” The space has now been reborn as Mr. Nancy’s, a sleek neighborhood dive bar.