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nicolas winding refn & hideo kojima craft retro-futuristic digital world at prada aoyama, tokyo

satellites exhibition bridges cinematic and gaming worlds

Satellites, on view at Prada Aoyama in Tokyo, brings together the elective affinities of two of contemporary culture’s most distinctive storytellers — Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn and Japanese game designer Hideo Kojima. The project transforms the fifth floor of Herzog & de Meuron’s iconic glass structure into an immersive transmission chamber, where cinema, gaming, and design come together to hint at a future common territory made possible by technologies.

The duo has been exchanging ideas for over a decade, and the exhibition turns that ongoing conversation into a physical installation realized as a domestic environment somewhere between a film set and a dream sequence. The first room of the stylized and sparse mid-century apartment is decorated with a bed, lamp, and a rotary phone that seem lifted from a bygone era. Around the space, six television monitors — each retrofitted to resemble small retro-futuristic spacecrafts — float like artifacts, while projecting inside them video portraits of Refn and Kojima speaking to one another in loop about the universal concept of human exchange. The surreal interrelation between these two entities, while surrounded by the familiar, creates a tangible yet distant space that transports visitors into an alternate dimension. Supported by Fodazione Prada, Satellites will remain on view until August 25th, 2025.

all images by Yasuhiro Takagi

nicolas winding refn & hideo kojima imagine a collective future

Each TV is partially dismantled, exposing wires, circuits, and internal components to form an architectural echo of the exhibition itself, which lays bare the machinery of dialogue. Nicolas Winding Refn and Hideo Kojima’s conversation in English and Japanese is broad and unscripted, touching on memory, friendship, authorship, identity, the afterlife, and the strange overlap of real and virtual worlds. The tone is also informal, feeling like two people working things out in real time, even if they’re separated by medium, language, or physical presence. Their exchange reflects a shared belief that the boundaries between film and gaming are steadily dissolving, and, in the future, may merge into a shared digital dimension.

The second room of Satellites takes this idea further, with a dressing area filled with cassette tapes that allows visitors to listen to AI-translated fragments of the original conversation. Each tape reveals a slightly different version of the dialogue, refracted across languages and interpretations, inviting the audience to reconstruct the exchange in their own way — a nod to Kojima’s nonlinear storytelling style and Refn’s interest in hypnotic worldbuilding and recursive internal spaces. The layering of translations and formats hints at a potential version of a shared digital environment both artists see emerging, which can open up new ways of experiencing ever-evolving narratives collectively.

Satellites brings together the elective affinities of filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn and game designer Hideo Kojima

imagined as a mid-century apartment decorated with a bed, lamp, and a rotary phone

an immersive transmission chamber, where cinema, gaming, and design come together

suspended inside them in a bilingual exchange, run videos of Refn and Kojima speaking to one another in loop

each TV is partially dismantled, exposing wires, circuits, and internal components

on view at Prada Aoyama in Tokyo

project info:

name: Satellites

artists: Nicolas Winding Refn | @nwrefn, Hideo Kojima | @hideo_kojima

location: Prada Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan

organized by: Prada | @prada

supported by: Fondazione Prada | @fondazioneprada

dates: 18th April—25th August, 2025

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warm teak finishes enclose garton group architecture’s tropical indo avellanas villas in costa rica

indo avellanas’ six surf villas embrace tropical wellness

Indo Avellanas is a luxury residential enclave by Garton Group Architecture, located in Avellanas, with a collection of one- and two-bedroom villas just steps from the Pacific Ocean. The objective of the project is to create an intimate community that fulfills the lifestyle, travel, and wellness aspirations of the clientele spending more time in this special region of Costa Rica.⁠

The six surf villas are made up of two different designs — a two-bedroom unit and a one-bedroom unit. Both designs are centered around an open-plan living space opening seamlessly to a private terrace and plunge pool embracing the mature hardwoods and tropical gardens of the site.

all images courtesy of Garton Group Architecture

garton group architecture utilizes local materials

The team at Garton Group Architecture has taken care to ensure that none of the existing mature trees throughout the site have been touched in the placement of the villas. Made of local materials, the Indo Avellanas villas use a lightweight steel frame system and locally sourced teak ensuring the development treads lightly on its lush site.

the villas are built from light weight steel framing and use locally sourced teak and stone finishes

deep teak clad overhangs provide protection from the rain and the tropical sun

shaded terraces and pools

open plan living kitchen dining space of the one-bedroom unit

the double-height living space frames views of the surrounding forest and tropical gardens

a loft style sleeping area

project info:

name: Indo Avellanas
architect: Garton Group Architecture | @gartongrouparchitecture

location: Avellanas, Costa Rica

design director: Tom Garton

architectural team: Dennis Cordero, Monica Serrano, Tom Garton

electromechanical design: Christian Arias Urpí

contractor: Parco Constructora

client: Indo Avellanas

photographer: Andres Garcia Lachner

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

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alicja kozłowska stitches rebellion into the streets with embroidered graffiti series

Alicja Kozłowska explores intersection of craft & street culture

Polish textile artist Alicja Kozłowska redefines the boundaries between craft and street art in Banksy Who?, a public art series that brings embroidery to the urban landscape. Comprising seven large-scale embroidered graffiti works, along with crocheted balaclavas and hand-stitched spray cans, the project fuses traditional textile techniques with the raw, expressive language of graffiti. Set against the backdrop of city walls and industrial settings, Banksy Who? challenges preconceived notions of both mediums—provoking viewers to see embroidery not as delicate decoration, but as a bold, contemporary form of protest and expression.

ARTISTS SKULL – embroidered graffiti by Alicja Kozłowska | all images courtesy of Alicja Kozłowska

Banksy Who? reimagines graffiti through embroidered textures

Alicja Kozłowska draws from the visual intensity and immediacy of street art, but trades aerosol paint for thread, beads, and fabric. By introducing the tactile richness of textiles to the urban canvas, the Polish textile artist and designer adds depth and dimension that spray paint alone cannot achieve. Embroidery becomes a tool for storytelling and resistance—each stitch a deliberate mark, echoing the energy of graffiti tags and murals while offering a new, layered materiality. Beads shimmer like fresh paint, quilted textures emulate worn city surfaces, and stitched motifs stand defiantly where murals might once have been.

BANKSY WHO? textile piece on a trash can 

reclaiming public space through a raw textile language

The project is not only a visual intervention but also a conceptual one. Banksy Who? seeks to upend the hierarchy that often separates ‘high’ art from street culture, or traditional craft from contemporary commentary. By integrating centuries-old techniques into the ephemeral, rebellious realm of graffiti, Kozłowska breathes new life into textile art—proving it can be raw, political, and urgent. The accompanying photoshoot, capturing each piece embedded within real city environments, further emphasizes the work’s mission: to reclaim public space with thread as its medium and message.

With Banksy Who?, Kozłowska speaks to a new generation—inviting them to see embroidery not as an artifact of the past, but as an evolving, boundary-pushing practice deeply connected to urban life. In doing so, she not only reshapes the narrative around textile arts but also stitches her own place into the fabric of contemporary visual culture.

BANKSY WHO?
PAINTSUCKS 2 textile piece

ARTISTS SKULL on an electricity junction box 

the project reclaims public space with thread as its medium and message

BANANA embroidered graffiti piece in an elevator

BANKSY WHO? on a wall 

textile piece on a wall 

SOFT VANDALISM

SOFT VANDALISM

SOFT VANDALISM

project info:

name: Banksy Who?
designer: Alicja Kozlowska | @alice.kozlow

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: myrto katsikopoulou | designboom

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IAAC master programmes take part in barcelona’s role as world capital of architecture 2026

BARCELONA BECOMES WORLD CAPITAL OF ARCHITECTURE 2026

With Barcelona named World Capital of Architecture for 2026, the city soon transforms into a living laboratory of design, hosting a ten-month programme of public installations, exhibitions, debates, and collaborative projects that explores how architecture shapes and responds to contemporary urban life. Anchored within this dynamic is the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), whose academic programmes have long prepared students to operate precisely in these experimental, city-scale contexts.

For over two decades, the school has been embedded in the city’s fabric as a site for testing architecture’s future, intersecting with technology, ecology, and culture. Its campus extends beyond the classroom, into urban spaces, fabrication labs, and forest sites, offering students a chance to explore design as something both applied and speculative, built and debated.

IAAC invites future architects to join its master’s programmes in Barcelona | all images courtesy of IAAC

IAAC BRIDGES EDUCATION & RESEARCH THROUGH REAL-WORLD Projects

IAAC is structured into five key research labs that operate at the edge of architecture and allied disciplines. These labs bring together designers, engineers, scientists, technologists, and makers in collaborative projects that respond to today’s most urgent challenges, ranging from climate adaptation to advanced construction. In partnership with institutions like MIT, CITA, Sci-Arc, and the Barcelona City Council, the institute explores how architecture can evolve through shared knowledge and cross-sector innovation. Learning happens by doing — students engage with real-world conditions and hands-on experimentation, from dense urban sites to remote forest environments.

master students work across disciplines to rethink the future of the built environment

MASTER PROGRAMMES OPEN PATHWAYS TO BARCELONA’S DESIGN FUTURE

As Barcelona prepares to host a city-wide conversation around the future of architecture, IAAC students will be working from within that dialogue, contributing to civic collaborations, independent experiments, and site-specific prototypes. The school’s master programmes span a wide range of disciplines, from advanced urbanism, ecological construction, and computational design, to emergent futures, robotics, and artificial intelligence. These diverse pathways share a commitment to reshaping the built environment through technological literacy and hands-on research that address the challenges of our time and the complexity of real environments.

design education unfolds through a long process of making and testing

To support access to these programmes, IAAC offers a limited number of competitive scholarships in the form of partial tuition waivers. Awarded based on merit and financial need, these range from 30–50% and are available to applicants who apply within the admissions deadlines. The next intake begins in October 2025. Final applications, including scholarship requests, are due by August 9th.

Become part of IAAC’s master programmes and engage directly with Barcelona’s World Capital of Architecture 2026 initiatives.

the city’s public spaces become active learning sites

students prototype speculative futures within Barcelona’s evolving urban fabric

proposals developed at IAAC contribute to Barcelona’s 2026 architecture agenda

project info:

institution: Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) | @iaacbcn
master programmes: Master in Advanced Architecture, Master in Design for Emergent Futures, Master in Advanced Urban Planning & Data Analytics, Master in Advanced Ecological Buildings & Biocities, Master in Robotics and Advanced Construction, Master in AI for Architecture & the Built Environment, Master in Advanced Computation for Architecture & Design

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wes anderson draws on venetian palazzos and painted illusions for the phoenician scheme

The Phoenician Scheme by wes anderson hits theaters

Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme unveils an opulent fever dream of mid-century European power, industry, and family dysfunction. After its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival 2025, in competition for the Palme d’Or, Focus Features opens the film in select US theaters on May 30th, 2025, with a wide release following on June 6th.

Beyond Benicio del Toro’s magnetic turn as Anatole ‘Zsa-zsa’ Korda, a 1950s tycoon who survives his sixth plane crash, the movie is a love letter to craftsmanship, practical effects, and the immersive possibilities of set design. Shot almost entirely at Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam, Germany, Wes Anderson’s tenth feature film transforms its soundstage locations into a total cinematic spectacle. ‘It was going to be a movie made on a soundstage,’ he explains. ‘I knew the stages.’ This is Anderson’s most extensive use of studio environments yet, and his collaboration with production designer Adam Stockhausen delivers a visual world inspired by illusory marble walls and columns, found in Venetian palazzos and Berlin villas.

images courtesy of Focus Features 

Adam Stockhausen’s set design draws from venetian palazzos

Production designer Adam Stockhausen, Anderson’s longtime collaborator on Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs, The French Dispatch, Asteroid City, and the short film The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, returns to the filmmaker’s signature world of symmetry, theatricality, and obsessive detail. For this film, The Phoenician Scheme, the American production designer orchestrated an ever-shifting mosaic of spaces to house Zsa-zsa’s sprawling ambitions and inner contradictions. ‘There were several key references,’ recalls Stockhausen. ‘Probably the most important were inspired by Calouste Gulbenkian’s Paris house and a palazzo in Venice. There are actually a couple of locations, of course, but mostly just as a basis for builds.’ For the grand entrance gallery, the team visited castles and villas around Berlin. ‘Many had trompe l’oeil marble walls and columns of remarkable craftsmanship,’ adds producer Jeremy Dawson. ‘So we decided to replicate that, not as a fake version of the process, but in the same real hand-painted way it had been done originally, back then.’

The interior of Zsa-zsa’s grand residence sets the tone with its marble walls, burnished brass, and priceless art, curating the life of a collector-king. Anderson and art curator Jasper Sharp secured loans from institutions including the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Nahmad and Pietzsch collections. Renoirs and Magrittes sit alongside 14th-century wood carvings, brought in under strict white-glove supervision. ‘Several people that I approached hung up the phone laughing,’ recalls art curator Jasper Sharp. ‘But a combination of curiosity and the sense of adventure won out.’ One standout piece, a Renoir once owned by actress Greta Garbo, now sits above Liesl’s bed—‘the perfect foil to the madness going on around it.’

Benicio del Toro and Mia Threapleton as Anatole ‘Zsa-zsa’ Korda and Sister Liesl

custom props by cartier, dunhill, and prada

The production’s approach extended far beyond wall treatments. The infrastructure model of Korda’s land-and-sea scheme was designed by Simon Weisse, who previously built the miniatures of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. This time, the model had to be strong enough for Benedict Cumberbatch to scale and fragile enough to be blown apart. ‘We practiced in the parking lot,’ remembers producer Jeremy Dawson. ‘Simon and his model-making team spent the entire shoot building the thing and we blew it up on nearly the last day.’ 

Design details sneak into every frame. Erica Dorn and Lucile Gauvain led the graphics team behind the hieroglyphics in the Egyptian Revival ballroom, while Milena Canonero’s costumes carried Anderson’s signature stylization from hat to shoelace. ‘Working with Wes on the costume design, one has to enter into a special frame of mind,’ observes Canonero. ‘It’s a very sophisticated concept that has to fit together with the art direction and photography and performances like a hyperreal jigsaw puzzle.’ Del Toro agrees. ‘Wes’s writing, a little bit of me, and Milena’s wardrobe,’ he comments. The practical effects team (Nefzer Special Effects) grounded the visuals in physical texture, using a puppet was used for the dragonfly on the window, cotton balls for clouds, and rear projection skies. ‘Adam’s production is just crazy,’ remarks del Toro. Even Liesl’s Cartier-crafted gift, her Dunhill corncob pipe, and her Prada rucksack were custom-made, drawing on Zsa-zsa’s obsession with bespoke legacy. ‘What would Zsa-zsa get for Liesl? He would have Cartier do it, so we asked, and they did it for us,’ says Anderson.

Adam Stockhausen delivers a visual world inspired by illusion marble walls

haus 5 renamed in tribute to the filmmaker’s visual legacy

Studio Babelsberg, already legendary for hosting Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, fully embraced the production. After The Phoenician Scheme’s filming, the Haus 5 building, which hosts costume and production design offices, was officially renamed The Wes Anderson Building. ‘Walking around the spaces for the first time, I don’t think I will ever, ever forget that feeling,’ admits Mia Threapleton. ‘I don’t know how [Adam] did what he did. I don’t know how his brain does what it does.’

Through physical design, The Phoenician Scheme is a maximalist opera of control and collapse, where every detail reveals something about Zsa-zsa’s inner workings. As Anderson puts it: ‘Our film is about a man who is like a mountain.’ 

the interior of Zsa-zsa’s grand residence sets the tone

Michael Cera as Bjørn Lund

Milena Canonero’s costumes carried Anderson’s signature stylization from

The Phoenician Scheme is a maximalist opera of control and collapse

Wes Anderson unveils an opulent fever dream of mid-century European power, industry, and family dysfunction

project info:

name: The Phoenician Scheme | @thephoenicianscheme

director: Wes Anderson

producer: Jeremy Dawson

production designer: Adam Stockhausen

costume designer: Milena Canonero

graphic design: Erica Dorn, Lucile Gauvain

miniature & model effects: Simon Weisse

visual effects: Nefzer Special Effects

studio: Studio Babelsberg, Potsdam, Germany

release: select theaters from May 30, 2025, wide release June 6, 2025

distributor: Focus Features | @focusfeatures

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first house on the moon set to land soon

Tiny red house on the moon to land in june 2025

The dubbed first-ever house on the moon, named The Moonhouse, expects to land on June 5th, 2025, at 9:24pm CET time. It’s a tiny red house designed as a traditional Swedish cottage, and the project of the artist Mikael Genberg. It launched around January 2025, attached to the lunar rover TENACIOUS. After roaming around the space for over four months aboard the Japanese lunar lander RESILIENCE, the artwork is about to do a soft landing in Mare Frigoris, or the Sea of Cold. It’s not the first time that the team sent a tiny red house to the moon.

Back in 2023, the Japanese exploration company ispace conducted a similar mission with the same sculptural artwork by the Swedish artist. It didn’t touch down successfully. This time around, the artist, who has worked with a team of engineers for the project, hopes that it lands safely on the Moon. Once the lander touches down, the rover is to be deployed so it can scout the moon’s surface for an ideal site to leave the tiny red house. Antoine Bocquier, rover pilot and senior space system engineer at ispace, says that the maneuvering is remotely controlled from Earth. ‘I will operate the rover to identify a location that is both stable and symbolically meaningful,’ he says.

The Moonhouse and TENACIOUS | images courtesy of the European Astronaut Center (Cologne) of the European Space Agency (ESA), unless stated otherwise

The moonhouse by mikael genberg is decades in the making

The Moonhouse may claim the dubbed first-ever tiny red house on the moon only when it has landed and been positioned safely on the surface on June 5th, 2025. The artist Mikael Genberg has always had the dream of having his artwork be on the moon. It started in 1999 when he imagined planting a simple red house on its surface. Two and a half decades later, it is set to come true, backed by a team of engineers who help him realize the dream. The red cottage is an homage to the traditional homes in Sweden. For the artist, building a miniature version of it that might land on the moon means reminding himself, and the viewers, of one’s roots, the origins.

There’s more of a poetic undertone to it. It’s not about politics or pure science (although there needs to be engineering involved to make it happen). The wait has now begun on the fate of the tiny red house setting up a temporary home on the moon. Mikael Genberg’s house has also traveled around the world. It has been up in trees, underwater, and on top of the Globe arena. It has also visited the Great Wall of China and the International Space Station. It even flew 400 kilometers above Earth as a companion to Sweden’s first astronaut, Christer Fuglesang. Its next stop, then, is the moon, hoping to touch down safely this time after its 2023 attempt.

the dubbed first-ever house on the moon, named The Moonhouse, expects to land on June 5th, 2025

it’s a tiny red house designed as a traditional Swedish cottage | from here, all images courtesy of The Moonhouse

the miniature has roamed around the space for over four months aboard the Japanese lunar lander RESILIENCE

back in 2023, ispace conducted a similar mission with the same sculptural artwork

once the lander touches down, the rover is to be deployed so it can scout the moon’s surface for an ideal site

project info:

name: The Moonhouse | @the_moonhouse

artist: Mikael Genberg 

company: ispace | @ispace_inc

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