From significant business changes to noteworthy product launches, there’s always something new happening in the world of design. In this biweekly roundup, AD PRO has everything you need to know.

Pillow talk: Design on a Dime partners with Schumacher for anniversary event

Design on a Dime (DOAD) is gearing up for its 20th anniversary (April 23 through 26) at New York’s Metropolitan Pavilion. In addition to its shoppable, designer-curated vignettes, which support Housing Works’ efforts to end AIDS and homelessness, the organization has partnered with textile house Schumacher to create arrange of pillows imagined by nearly 50 designers. Donated to DOAD for purchase, the collection features pieces by AD100 talents Shawn Henderson, Corey Damen Jenkins and Associates, Josh Greene Design, Julie Hillman Design, LK Studio, Markham Roberts Inc., Redd Kaihoi, and Robert Stilin, as well as AD PRO Directory firms Alegra O. Eifler Design, Augusta Hoffman Studio, Christina Nielsen Design, David Frazier, Glenn Gissler Design, Pappas Miron, Petrie Interior Designs, Studio DB, and Studio Dorion in styles spanning classic stripes to jubilant florals.

A look into the weird and wonderful at Iceland’s annual DesignMarch festival

Earlier this month, Reykjavik’s annual DesignMarch festival looked to the future by, as its theme went, returning to the source. First, the DesignTalks symposium, held in the glittering Harpa building and programmed by DesignMarch director Helga Ólafsdóttir. There, architect Arnhildur Pálmadóttir previewed her representation of Iceland at this year’s Venice Biennale, offering research into the use of hot lava as a building material.

Exhibitions nearby offered ideas on how to use what’s already built: The Cultural Heritage Agency of Iceland and Sp(r)int Studio transformed an 1872 prison building into an exhibition of the adaptive reuse of the Viking-era Stöng farmhouse, which was destroyed by a volcano in 1104. The famed art museum Ásmundarsalur hosted Bryndís Bolladóttir’s innovative felted wool speakers, tubular lights, and acoustic wall panels; downstairs, local startup Dypi transformed 16-million-year-old algae into a new kind of paint. Adaptive reuse, after all, can apply to both prisons and fossils.

John Hogan transformed 18th-century lacemaker lamps into revelatory tabletop fixtures comprising a quartet of hot sculpted glass spheres on elegant walnut screws—a highlight of the Hae/Hi: Designing Friendship collaborative project between Icelandic and Seattle-based design studios. Two other sets of designers went back to the tradition of the exquisite corpse: 1+1+1, a collab between Icelandic, Swedish, and Finnish designers, made a kind of drinking game, wherein porcelain glasses were divided into three parts, then mixed and matched; Reykjavik’s own Whisperwear collective made a meal of the process, sketching forms for stacked glassware and hand-shaped dishes for custom-designed meals at hotspot restaurant Hosiló.

In the end, DesignMarch convincingly demonstrated that the source of design’s future is in the traditions and imaginations of every member of society, all of us, at once. Said best, perhaps at the Reykjavik Art Museum Hafnarhús’s opening party, attendees wore t-shirts emblazoned with the proclamation “Greenland is not for sale!” in the presence of Iceland’s president, Halla Tómasdóttir. —Jesse Dorris

The Frick Collection welcomes visitors after $220M renovation

This week, the Frick Collection reopens its esteemed oeuvre to the public after closing for a renovation in March 2020. Led by AD100 firm Selldorf Architects, the project restored the museum’s historic first-floor galleries and created a new suite of spaces on the second floor of the Frick family home, welcoming the public to experience the upstairs for the first time. The 70th Street Garden was also restored, and a 218-seat auditorium was added for accelerated programming from the Frick, both educational and musical. The collections return as decadent as ever—works span the 14th through 19th centuries, featuring pieces from the Italian Renaissance, notable works by Old Masters, and a near-surplus of decorative arts. The rooms are deep shades of emerald and pink, and the esteemed portraiture, porcelain masterpieces, ornamental sconces and chandeliers bring this early 20th-century architectural masterpiece to life. Porcelain plants and flowers by Ukrainian sculptor Vladimir Kanevsky further ornament the historical rooms. And for patrons of the Frick pre-renovation, there’s nothing to fear—the renovations are considered, subtle, and reverent, so the collection maintains its usual strength and allure. Only now, you can climb the grand staircase. —Julia Harrison

AD PRO Hears…

…Speaking of Selldorf…The AD100 Hall of Famer has been named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2025 for her timely renovations of institutions like the Frick Collection and London’s National Gallery, among other strokes of excellence.

Una Casa Privada presents Justina Blakeney’s first solo exhibition

Color, pattern, and nature fuse harmoniously in Justina Blakeney’s boho designs. In the artist and Jungalow founder’s inaugural solo exhibition, this trifecta emerges once more. On view through May 30, “California Poppy” displays Blakeney’s paintings iwithin the liveably luxe interiors of Una Casa Privada, designer Una Malan’s garden-surrounded villa that doubles as a showroom. Presented by Art Wolf Gallery, Blakeney’s recent body of work, which touches upon the harrowing Eaton Fire, plays with shimmering water, rolling hills, voluptuous silhouettes, and of course the show’s namesake bloom, which becomes a transformative symbol of optimism, replenishment, and strength on Blakeney’s canvases.

Colony presents a new roster of emerging talents

Colony founder Jean Lin has long championed the careers of budding talents, reinforced in the co-op, design studio, and strategy firm’s annual eight-month-long Designers’ Residency. The third edition, spearheaded by Lin and art director Madeleine Parsons, illuminates works from residents Another World, Blake C. Joshua, and MTM Studio in a show kicking off at the Colony gallery in Tribeca on April 17 (on view through April 30). For their inaugural From Elsewhere capsule collection, Youtian Duan and Yingxi Ji of Another World introduce fantastical elements, while Joshua meditates on the African diaspora with his seven-piece Harlem Cottage collection. Likewise, Recent Relics, the trilogy of objects—a mirror, a desk, and a lamp—from Maxwell Taylor-Milner of MTM Studio, explores the rural desert landscape.

Alpine vibes beckon at Rose Ink Workshop’s Crest Club

Liubasha Rose, founder of Miami- and New York–based AD PRO Directory studio Rose Ink Workshop, first made her mark on Telluride’s Madeline Hotel & Residences—part of the Auberge Resorts Collection—in 2021. With Crest Club, the property’s recently unveiled private members’ lounge, she builds upon the European ski resort-inspired interiors she originally crafted for the 83-room, 71-residence site. The well-concealed setting is at once refined and indulgent: patterned floor coverings take cues from vintage ski sweaters, antique-glass mirrors and richly-veined marble bar tops exude swank, and custom trims, moldings, and motifs add a storied appeal. When it’s time for a cocktail, head to the scalloped-tile-clad bar at the Falcon Room. Enveloped in light wood paneling, the space emits a warm glow courtesy of amber glass chandeliers.

AD PRO Hears…

….fashion label Noah has long occupied a distinctive corner in Nolita, and when cofounder Estelle Bailey-Babenzien got the opportunity to take over the storefront next door, she jumped on the opportunity to design it herself. Now open, 199 Mulberry is reminiscent of an antique ship—clad in cedar-scented panels and filled with vintage watches and jewelry curated by Alan Bedwell of Foundwell from centuries past, the brand’s Americana-inspired menswear becomes part of a larger narrative.

Miller House’s inaugural fabric collection pays homage to California’s landscape

She’s already made a splash with her artistic wallpapers—now Jennifer Miller is stocking Miller House, her product design arm, with complementary fabrics. The Los Angeles–based AD PRO Directory member’s dreamy watercolors are the basis for The California Garden collection, a quartet of hand-painted designs printed on 100% textural linen that celebrate the state’s lush, native flora in hues like mushroom, sage, lavender, and wheat. Along with cascading succulents and delicate olive branches, the wall coverings don undulating vines that nod to California’s abundance of vineyards, as do prints of jaunty pittosporum sprigs pulled straight from Miller’s own garden.

AD PRO Hears…

…Maxime d’Angeac, Orient Express’s go-to architect for opulent train and sailboat interiors, has designed his debut line of furniture. Unveiled at Art Paris last week, the 10-piece collection, titled Contrepoint, feeds from Art Deco and Bauhaus influences with dapper forms rendered in mirror-polished steel.

The Palisades Design Network aims to rebuild LA

Shortly after the January fires that ravaged Los Angeles, Grant Kirkpatrick and Lisa Copeland, founding partner and CFO, respectively, of local AD PRO Directory firm KAA Design, established the Palisades Design Network. The consortium comprises more than 50 architects, landscape architects, designers, and contractors—including fellow Directory firms Christine Markatos Design, Evens Architects, Guerin Glass Architects, Hoffman & Ospina Landscape Architecture, McClean Design, Ohara Davies-Gaetano, Sarah Walker Design Studio, SUBU Design Architecture, and Woods + Dangaran. Their commitment to restoring the decimated Pacific Palisades and Altadena residential communities leans on resilient design. As a crucial first step, the network is pairing overwhelmed homeowners with skilled professionals who offer easy-to-understand guidance for navigating insurance and permitting obstacles.

AD PRO Hears…

…AD PRO Directory firm Bond, led by Daniel Rauchwerger and Noam Dvir, is officially bicoastal. In addition to their New York studio, the former journalists and Harvard Graduate School of Design alums have opened a Los Angeles outpost following the completion of golden state projects like Le Pere’s West Hollywood flagship.