To address the needs of a visually impaired client, architects in Thiene, Italy, worked from the start to integrate a custom wayfinding system into the structure and layout of this home, including a creative set of tiles with varied textures to guide the owner from room to room.

The owner, who had lived in one place for 55 years until this point, was understandably concerned about learning to navigate a new environment, working with So & So Studio (images by Stefano Calgaro) to make the transition easier and more intuitive.

The first step was to create a central corridor to minimize any confusing maze effects that a more complicated layout might create. All entrances and exits are located along this spine, as are primary places like the kitchen and bedroom.

The architects worked with the client to map out her routines and paths, organizing their design around these regular activities. Potential hazards like thresholds were also avoided.

Perhaps the most stunning part, though, is the glyphic alphabet encoded in the floors — textured stones create patterns designed to be read and followed by the client, a built-in system for wayfinding. A guest might notice these standing out and think them a simple visual queue, when in fact they work for the sightless as well as the sighted.

It’s easy to pan high fashion for being expensive, impractical and out of touch with reality, and all the more so when a fashion item resembles an upcycled everyday item like a car’s floor mat.

Balenciaga, an upscale fashion house, is under fire from frugal bloggers and social media critics for a $2,200 skirt that someone could arguably emulate with a quick trip to Home Depot for floor mats and fasteners.

Indeed, a fashion-minded do-it-yourself type could find a lot more to work with in all of the various patterns available for these kinds of coverings. Perhaps the lesson here isn’t that they’re doing it wrong, but taking inspiration from an unlikely everyday source (and adding a bit much of a markup).

And the fashion house is no stranger to controversy. Earlier this year, they debuted a bright blue tote back, which internet denizens quickly began comparing to IKEA shopping bags. The company eventually responded in good humor, reminding people they could get the original version for under a dollar.

But as the saying goes: all press is good press, so whether or not this particular line takes off Balenciaga’s ongoing provocations are sure to generate periodic buzz for the business (for better or worse).

Using cheap and repetitive materials sounds like a recipe for kitsch, but this furniture-oriented facade clad in generic black chairs (at around $5.00 USD a piece) manages to pull off an elegant and refined look.

The clients, MY DVA (a furniture company), were looking for something additive, layered onto the existing bland building, but also reflecting their function (to showcase office and school furniture). The ideal solution would promote their wares while also entertaining visitors. It also had to be inexpensive.

Versed in product and urban design, Ondrej Chybik and Michal Kristof of studio CHYBIK+KRISTOF, took these concerns into account when designing the facade. Tapping into their respective backgrounds, they came up with cladding literally composed of product designs that also fits a neighborhood theme of repetition (filled with identical blocks of flats).

In total, the team used 900 Vicenza seats, a regular offering of the company, to form an undulating black box around the showroom, which functions well with the reduced light provided by these exterior shading elements.

Inside, the space was pared down to expose a raw concrete ceiling, from which suspended curtains hang to create little galleries — adjustable lights in these zones simulate different lighting conditions for furniture client spaces.

Staff offices are located along the edges, off to the sides and out of the way behind translucent partitions, leaving a large, open, blank-slate showroom for furniture buyers.

A truly magical carpet ride, this immersive project provides a shifting spectrum of colors and shapes that morph in response to user interactions, changing as visitors walk over the surface.

Thousands of patterns, pixels, cells and geometries are tied into an array of sensors, reacting to individuals and groups as they pass over the dynamic surface.

Commissioned by the 2016 Milton Keynes International Festival, Miguel Chevalier’s generative installation flows between a set of ever-changing landscapes with pieces that multiply, divide and merge.

The effects are triggered and amplified by users, whose perception of space changes and warps with the projections (vertigo sufferers beware).

The artwork is accompanied by a custom mobile sound installation by Ray Lee. If you missed this particular installation, no need to worry: Miguel plans to keep taking the shop on the road, unrolling the red (and green and blue and black and white) carpet for more audiences in other places.

Strands of gold fill the cracks of this apartment in Kyoto, replicating in architecture a longstanding tradition of repairing pottery in a way that tells a true history of its use and reconstruction. Mixed with resin, glittering gold dust sparkles against adjacent surfaces.

Kintsugi, which translates as “to repair with gold,” is a philosophy as much as an artistic approach. It reflects the idea that breakage and reassembly is part of the life of an object. In this case, the cracks that almost invariably form in concrete were repaired in the same fashion.

When Kintsugi was first employed centuries ago by a Japanese shogun, others were so enamored with the effects that, as the story goes, they began breaking their own pottery just to have an excuse to patch it back together with gold-laced lacquer.

In this case as with pottery artifacts, the effect is dazzling. Cracks stand out as something intentional, artistic and organic rather than shied away from as simply damaged. Spearheaded by architecture studio Tank, this may in turn also become more of a bigger trend, if only in Japan.

“The Japanese have traditionally repaired broken ceramics by gluing fragments together with lacquer and gilding the seams with gold powder to enjoy the beauty of imperfection,” said TANK. “Using traditional mortar, we emulated the art of Kintsugi in the living room by joining the cracks, thus transforming what was considered imperfect into a subject of beauty.”

Meanwhile, the winding gold cracks form part of a larger puzzle, elegantly juxtaposed against raw ceilings and reflected in a series of mirrored doors. The overall effect is minimalist, but with materials and textures adding life through creative details. Depending on the time of day and type of light, the gold blends in or stands out as lighter (or darker) against cementitious surrounding surfaces.