12 remarkable people we have met this year

Gaetano Pesce died last April in New York, the city that had adopted him, just over a week before Milan Design Week, where he was expected to be an absolute star, the master of Italian design, the last great name of a golden generation. Domus had spoken to him a few days earlier in an interview that we will never forget. Naturally, the first thought in this collection goes to the late maestro, and you will find other exceptional encounters, some of them during the same Design Week - Oki Sato of Nendo, Ivy Ross of Google and Philippe Starck, in a frank conversation with just the right amount of black humour - but not only: we meet Tom Dixon in Greece, Martin Lotti of Nike in Basel, Jeanne Gang and Jean Nouvel in Paris. And the guest editors of the print edition are a veritable who's who: Norman Foster face to face with Neri Oxman and then an interview with Bjarke Ingels, on board Domus with 10 issues in 2025. Who knows who we might meet next year. In the meantime, enjoy.

We met Monsieur Design, and a number of clichés have just fallen to pieces: the enfant terrible, the end of an era, AI and trends to follow, to name a few. Starck is in the flow, a dynamic force that both participates in and shapes the spirit of his era. He stands as a venerable master who builds his chair only to flip it upside down before everyone’s eyes, perching on the windowsill in the corridor, talking from outside the door. Why? Because the sight of the coat hangers might hold something unexpectedly intriguing. Read more

“Human, optimistic, and bold” is how Google VP Ivy Ross defines the company’s hardware design. We talked with her about designing technology, the relevance of feelings, and AI’s forthcoming challenge. Read more

We met the founder of Japanese design firm Nendo, upon his 20th anniversary as a Milano Design Week star, to discuss how to make it through the contemporary design scene, and hopefully keep transforming words into objects.He follows a linear, almost meditative approach, often regarded in design discourse as a hallmark of minimalism. But when there’s practice beyond the tropes, that’s when we step in to challenge the most prominent figures in contemporary minimalist design about their practice in relation to the ever-evolving contemporary context. Read more

What if we stopped building new structures entirely and instead focused solely on upgrading and repurposing what we already have? While we may never fully reach this utopian scenario we should already recognize the urgent need to rethink how we design. More importantly, we should embrace practices that allow us to sustain life on this planet longer. We discussed these ideas with Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, who, after 15 years at OMA, returned to Milan to establish 2050+, an interdisciplinary agency committed to restoring and reusing the existing built environment – a philosophy rooted in a clear vision of what design can be. Read more

 If you look at the methodology of what Bill Bowerman was trying to do and what we are doing today, it's the same. He listened to athletes. He tried to make things better. He tinkered around. He innovated.From the world's most famous air cushion to concepts developed in AI with athletes and communities, Martin Lotti tells us about the exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum that opens Nike's archives to the public to tell the story of design generated by culture. Read more

“What we want to convey is rich in meaning; not only does form follow function, but it has another very important element, meaning, which can make people think at a political, socio-economical, religious, philosophical, behavioral, and personal level.” The great Italian designer, a few days before passing away, gave a preview to Domus of his projects for Milano Design Week, which will remain as a testament to an incredible career. Read more

First enfant terrible of Danish, then global architecture, Ingels is Domus' guest editor for 2025. From CopenHill, the power station transformed into a ski slope, an icon of a sustainable and playful Copenhagen, to Via 57 West, the pyramid-shaped skyscraper that reshapes the New York skyline, to the lunar colonies designed for Nasa, where architecture becomes an outpost of humanity in space. A path littered with prizes and awards that has made him one of the demiurges of our time, capable of shaping reality through the power of ideas. Read more

While the sculptural aesthetic may evolve, my approach to design remains largely the same.We visited Tom Dixon's 'mineral' villa in Mykonos, which transcends the Greek vernacular by looking to the contemporary, welding with the island's geology and adapting the canon of luxury to the tastes of design enthusiasts. Read more

Domus' guest editor for 2024, Norman Foster, spoke to the biodesign pioneer about the new interdisciplinary laboratory that integrates architecture, engineering and biology: 'In designing our new laboratory, we have tried to preserve the capacity for cross-pollination between different disciplines, creating a living space of interrelationships between researchers, robots and organisms, where architecture supports the generation of novelty. Read more

Martino Gamper tells Domus about his design as a dwelling act through the takeover of an 18th-century house. “I don’t like exhibiting in white cubes,” Gamper explains, sharing why he chose to take over this 18th-century home in Marylebone to create a fully inhabitable space. Here, the visitor is invited to acclimate and linger within the series of rooms—there’s a card-playing room, a study, a lounge, and a bedroom—as if embracing a temporary feeling of home. Read more

The future of Paris, a changing capital, starting from its architecture. We talked about it with our 2022 guest editor, a protagonist of this transformation through four decades, who designed an installation for Samsung in the heart of the Olympic area. Read more

“Think Globally, Act Locally.” This mantra encapsulates the philosophy of Jeanne Gang, founder of Studio Gang in 1997 in Chicago. Today, we explore the Paris campus of the University of Chicago John W. Boyer Center, one of four international hubs of this esteemed US institution. Read more