Shebara Resort, A Floating Net-Zero Oasis, Wows In Saudi Arabia

You can’t say Saudi Arabia doesn’t put its money where its mouth is. Announced in 2017 with an estimated budget of $23.6 billion, the gobsmacking Red Sea Project—a tourism megadevelopment that, by 2030, aims to create 50 resorts across 22 islands and six inland sites on the kingdom’s west coast—has already seen four properties open. One of the most recent, the Shebara Resort, sits 15 miles offshore on Sheybarah Island, an irregular sliver of rolling sand dunes, desert flora, turtle nesting grounds, and pristine coral reefs. If Killa Design’s master plan and architecture for the 73-key luxury enclave evoke a string of pearls threading the shoreline, that’s purely intentional. Housed in mirror-finished stainless-steel ellipsoids, Shebara’s guest villas form a dazzling silver-bead necklace that winds over water and land as if gently dropped there by the sea.

“Dropped there” is the apposite phrase: The shiny orbs were entirely prefabricated and outfitted in the United Arab Emirates, then shipped to the site and lowered onto concrete foundations with steel pile caps embedded in the seabed and the beachfront. This strategy not only ensured that each structure is as carefully built and meticulously detailed as a superyacht but also minimized construction impact on the island’s delicate ecosystem. In fact, powered by a massive solar array and supported by a reverse-osmosis desalination plant, wastewater reclamation system, and all-electric land and marine transportation, the whole eco-resort operates at net-zero levels of energy, water, and waste.

How Shebara Resort Redefines Luxury On The Red Sea

Reached by boat or seaplane, Shebara defers to the natural environment in other ways, too. Despite the buildings’ futuristic, look-at-me aesthetic—they could be a fleet of intergalactic spacecraft on a friendly visit—their mirrored skins reflect the sea and sky, sand and scrub, making them appear to dematerialize into the landscape. The overwater villas’ cantilevered support system gives the impression they’re floating weightlessly above the surface, with no disturbance to the marine habitat.

If Killa successfully resolved the problem of integrating such distinctive architecture into an unspoiled setting, it fell to a couple of other firms to formulate equally arresting interiors that nonetheless blended seamlessly with the striking exteriors. Studio Paolo Ferrari—already engaged on another Red Sea Project property, Desert Rock in the Hejaz Mountains—won the competition to outfit the villas. “I knew the guest rooms had to be forward-looking, unconventional, even experimental, but I didn’t want them to be overly expressive,” founder and principal designer Paolo Ferrari begins. “We aimed to embed a timeless, lyrical quality in the work, too.” It turned out that solving the first challenge—linking the outer shell to the space inside—also helped achieve the balance Ferrari envisioned. “The need for connection made it important to bring polished steel into the interior,” he says. “That led us to look at the material in a fresh light, as something very pure, architectural, and lovely to experiment with.”

Sleek Technology Meets Human Craftsmanship 

The shiny metal appears throughout, handled almost as if it were liquid—poured into sculptural forms that include side tables, floor lamps, vanity mirrors, and headboards with integrated nightstands that curl around each bed. All are custom, like the rest of the furnishings. Most spectacular is the wall-mounted bar: a gleaming silver cabinet resembling a giant chrysalis that, at the touch of a button, opens gently like a blossom to reveal an interior lined in rich crimson leather. “There’s something intentionally perplexing about it because, as a guest, you have no idea what it is,” Ferrari notes. “But it also has a joyful quality of surprise and discovery.”

Like the resort’s space-age architecture, the centerpiece cabinet is intriguingly mysterious rather than disconcertingly alien—sleek technology imbued with natural warmth and human craftsmanship. Ferrari’s cocoonlike interiors extend this aesthetic, replicating the seamless surfaces, smooth curves, and precision engineering of the outer shells, but rendered in a restrained materials palette that connects to nature. Joining the fluid steel forms are travertine floors, carved-oak vanities, ebony built-ins, leather paneling with dark-bronze inlay, wool rugs, and plaster ceilings. “It’s about using materials in new and unexpected ways,” Ferrari concludes, “but ensuring that it’s still very honest, simple, and pure, despite how complex it is as a project.”

Amenities Abound In This Visionary Resort 

Rockwell Group was hired to outfit the five restaurants and bars, along with the arrival pavilion, spa, gym, and other public spaces, some 39,000 square feet in all. “Working with domed spaces was technically challenging,” Rockwell partner and project lead Brad Zuger acknowledges. “The exterior is enigmatic, unified, and stunning. Our interiors are softer, more story-driven, and widely varied according to the space’s program.”

A couple of the restaurants illustrate what Zuger means. Lunara, a beachfront brasserie, brings the colors and textures of the island’s gorgeously austere landscape indoors. The ceiling, an undulating sea of suspended oak rods, is as mesmerizing as a tide-swayed kelp forest. Its biomorphic pattern is echoed in the bespoke oak-parquet flooring, while sage green and similarly organic hues enrich the custom furnishings.

Ariamare, which serves Mediterranean-style cuisine, draws inspiration from the sea. Here, plaster ribbing spans the curved ceiling, suggesting the delicate tracery of fish bones, while a glittering chandelier evokes their iridescent scales. It floats above the crudo bar—a semicircle of chiseled natural stone with the heft of an Attic monolith. This echo of the ancient past in a contemporary setting helps give guests the experience Zuger hopes for: “They should feel as though they’ve stepped into another world.”

Walk Through The Shebara Resort

ROCKWELL GROUP: HARAM KIM; LAUREN TUDOR; GRACIE ZHANG. STUART MCGUIRE; JOHN GAITAN; LUCAS STANOIS; CRAWFORD NOBLE; JOANNE WENDERSKA; RAJESHTA JULATUM; DIPRA SHETTY; SARAH YAO: STUDIO PAOLO FERRARI. KILLA DESIGN: ARCHITECT OF RECORD. DEPA GROUP: CUSTOM FURNITURE WORKSHOP; GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

FROM FRONT MCH INTERNATIONAL: CUSTOM RUG (GUEST ROOM). GRANKRAFT INDUSTRIES: CUSTOM BAR CABINET. LASVIT: CUSTOM BEDSIDE LIGHT, CUSTOM FLOOR LAMP (GUEST ROOM), CUSTOM CHANDELIER (ARIAMARE). SANIHARTO: CUSTOM ARMCHAIR (GUEST ROOM), CUSTOM TABLE, CUSTOM CHAISE LOUNGES (ROYAL VILLA). GESSI: FITTINGS (HAMMAM). ROCHE BOBOIS: CHAISE LOUNGES (GYM).

6 Global Showrooms Embracing The Shades Of Spring

From Toronto to Shanghai, shops and showrooms worldwide embrace the season with a fresh palette of soft greens, deep blues, and sophisticated grays.

Embark On A Shopping Adventure In These Global Showrooms

Holt Renfrew by Studio Paolo Ferrari

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The revamped 20,000-square-foot third floor sees the illustrious flagship’s menswear department in Toronto, previously located in another building, joining women’s wear, unisex, and multi-brand activation areas in a carefully programmed layout of product vignettes that juxtaposes color, texture, and pattern with several commissioned art installations. Key elements include a cobalt-blue footwear corner, outfitted with a sumptuous banquette; fitting rooms enclosed by curving Douglas fir latticework; and artist Liz Pead’s wall-spanning Fuzzy Gold, a sculptural surface made of upcycled garments that backdrops the accessories section. A new central skylight enhances the open plan, bringing a touch of the natural world to the shopping experience.

Printemps by Laura Gonzalez

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After a 36-year hiatus, the fabled Paris department store returns to the U.S. with a 55,000-square-foot, two-level outpost at One Wall Street, spanning the landmarked New York art deco building and its 1960’s steel-and-glass extension. The French architect honors the venerable retailer’s heritage—glistening mosaics, stained glass, intricate patterns—while modernizing classic materials or inventing new ones. Traditional oak floors are inlaid with stone, art nouveau tiles are a vintage design reimagined, and “marble” tabletops are made of compressed recycled plastic. The result is a whimsical environment of interconnected rooms, each with a distinct identity yet flowing seamlessly into the next.

Maison m-i-d 1985 by Curiosity

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The Japanese fashion brand’s first boutique—a 2,750-square-foot concept space on the fourth floor of Hankyu Umeda Department Store in Osaka—is a luminous chartreuse aquarium in which the mostly black or white garments float like monochromatic sea creatures. Yellow glass–brick partitions and display modules divide the volume, while the same color glass floor tile is echoed by a metal-slat ceiling grid, through which light is diffused, bathing the shop in a citrus-tinted glow. Comfortable seating allows customers to relax and absorb the unique atmosphere, which skillfully imbues serenity with a touch of the surreal.

Avvenn by Sò Studio

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The renovated 2,100-square-foot, two-level street-front store in Shanghai reflects the same blend of elegant restraint and couture-level detail that defines the women’s wear brand it now sells. A subtle conversation between space, objects, and materials, the interior envelope encompasses recycled brick, raw cast concrete—both textured with natural air bubbles—and pink and gray marble. The last forms some of the sparse yet monumental furnishings, including a serpentine bench and a blocklike cash wrap on the ground floor, while a sage-green wood-veneered display desk and chairs sit under the graceful spiral of a plaster ceiling sculpture on the floor above.

Aquant by MuseLab

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Dubbed “Sorbet” for its refreshing mint-green walls and berry-toned accents, the 28,000-square-foot showroom in Mumbai proves that bathroom fittings and fixtures can be displayed with the same flair as fashion. A network of circular enclosures defines the space, each framing a curated vignette of products presented as art pieces. The dark gray Kota stone floor, laid in jagged crazy paving, contrasts with the softness of display platforms and the curvilinear shapes of custom circular light fixtures and biomorphic soffits overhead, while sections of fluted detailing and mosaic tiling on walls and other surfaces introduce a note of crisp geometry.

W Mission by Behet Bondzio Lin Architekten

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The fashion-textile manufacturer, which also produces the WM clothing brand, gets a new 10-story, 102,000-square-foot sculptural building in Seoul with a curtainlike, undulating brick facade that emulates the fluidity of fabric. Inside, the first three floors comprise a public zone with street frontage, incorporating a café, stores, showroom, lecture hall, workshops, and exhibition areas, centered around a full-height atrium. The floors above house corporate offices. All levels have access to garden space open to the sky—a reflection of the company’s determination that their headquarters embody values of sacredness, sanctuary, and community.

Inside Centennial College’s New, Zero-Carbon Addition

2024 Best of Year Winner for Larger Higher Education

A mass-timber, zero-carbon structure, the 133,000-square-foot, six-story addition to Centennial College’s School of Engineering Technology and Applied Science in Scarborough, Canada, comprises of flexible classrooms, collaborative spaces, administrative offices, a café, and a courtyard that’s also an outdoor classroom. A-Building, by Dialog and Smoke Architecture, integrates Indigenous principles and cultural markers with a contemporary aesthetic, an ethos reflected in such elements as the Wisdom Hall, a central atrium with bleacher seating enriched by artwork on wooden ceiling baffles evoking traditional Ojibwa canoe paddles; the Indigenous Commons, a domed, circular space for gathering and ceremony, embodying the principles of Anishinabe roundhouse design; and an exterior cladding of aluminum “fish scales” that suggests animal skin and gives the sense that the building itself is alive.

PROJECT TEAM: CHEN COHEN; CRAIG APPLEGATH; JUAN CARLOS PORTUESE; JASON D’ALTROY; FARAH AL AMIN; CAMILLE GANUELAS; KELLY DEMINGS; MEL FAIFMAN; MAYA JARRAH (DIALOG); ELADIA SMOKE; LARISSA ROQUE; CHELSEA JACOBS; JULIE BÉDARD (SMOKE ARCHITECTURE).

Designing for Good: Elevating Community Service Architecture

From an established food depository and a paradigm-changing healthcare facility in the U.S. to a Saudi Arabian rehabilitation center, these projects by top firms support the public good.

Building Community From The U.S. to Saudi Arabia

Nationwide Children’s Hospital Data Center + Conference + Medical Simulation Facility by Gensler

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At Nationwide’s downtown campus, currently undergoing a $12 billion expansion, the pioneering 87,000-square-foot, four-story building in Columbus, Ohio, brings together a data center with enterprise-level computing power, a multipurpose conference facility, and state-of-the-art medical simulation laboratories under one roof. A first-of-its-kind hybrid prototype, it reimagines the traditionally insular data center as a vibrant, community-focused hub for AI-driven healthcare research, education, and innovation. The lower floors host dynamic learning spaces, including a 300-seat meeting room and flexible simulation areas, while the upper levels balance high-security data operations with visual porosity through a custom fritted-glass facade. Encircled by a public plaza and gardens, the building merges technology, training, and accessibility, setting a new standard for healthcare infrastructure.

Almoosa Rehabilitation Hospital by HDR

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Comprising two interconnected structures—a three-story rehab center dedicated to various therapeutic programs and a 15-story tower housing inpatient rooms and specialized-care units—the 610,000-square-foot facility aims to break away from the institutional feel of traditional hospitals providing long-term rehabilitation, mental-health, neurology, and sports-medicine services. Inspired by the region of Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia’s landscape, screens adapt parametrically to shade the building, evoking the movement of desert sands. Access to nature is key to healing, so inpatient floors include personalized gardens and green spaces, ensuring this connection for everyone, irrespective of mobility. A varied palette of wood, stone, and glass—plus a two-story slide for staff—help to create an environment that bridges the gap between hospital and hospitality.

The Blake School Early Learning Center by HGA

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Conceived to inspire a sense of wonder and joy in its 165 students, prekindergarteners through first-graders, this 35,000-square-foot facility in Hopkins, Minnesota, reflects the Reggio Emilia pedagogical approach, fostering children’s curiosity and creativity through active engagement with their environment. The building itself is a teaching tool, with each of its three levels representing field, forest, or treetops. Biophilic strategies—including mass-timber construction, an organic-based palette, and carefully integrated daylight—help build connections to the natural world, while every classroom has direct outside access, reinforcing indoor-outdoor learning. As Minnesota’s first all-electric, fossil fuel–free school, Blake integrates sustainable practices such as on-site stormwater management, shaping responsible global citizens through climate-conscious design.

Greater Chicago Food Depository by Partners by Design

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A 38,000-square-foot expansion allows for increasing food-processing capabilities and moving from direct food donations to prepared meal production. The Chicago facility can now provide more than 30,000 meals per day for vulnerable populations, including older adults, people with disabilities, and those on medically tailored diets. The expansion also includes improved parking for trucks and staff, a hydroponic garden, and a redesigned lobby that fosters a sense of pride and reinforces the mission of the organization, founded in 1979. A focal point in the reception area is a statement fixture by K2 Lighting, inspired by the new GCFD logo, symbolizing growth and inclusivity, while environmental branding by Spark Chicago celebrates donors and the broader community.

Sunnyvale City Hall by SmithGroup

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Seamlessly integrating workspaces with the natural environment, the 120,000-square-foot, four-story civic building in Sunnyvale, California, features calm, luminous interiors warmed by the extensive use of wood and brightened by abundant windows, skylights, and terraces. A mass-timber curtain wall of interlocking laminated Douglas fir replaces conventional aluminum mullions while also serving as an interior finish. Rising through all levels, the central stair is both a powerful sculptural element evoking the organic form of a tree and a catalyst for movement and interaction, promoting health and inviting exploration. Achieving this biomorphic aesthetic while meeting stringent seismic standards required innovative engineering and technological ingenuity, including laminating timber into a double-curving top rail and threading wire through the structural steel plate for the handrail light.

How Patrick Jouin Embraces Simplicity In His Artful Designs

In fact, a folding oak chair created for Fontevraud’s refectory-style banquet hall—“It can be hung flat on the wall,” Jouin notes, “very practical and monklike”—has been revived as part of the new Patrick Jouin Edition, a small, eclectic furniture collection that includes another chair, a table, a folding stool, and flippable stoneware plates. It’s his first foray into producing pieces under his own name. We spoke with him about the collection and other recent projects. 

Patrick Jouin Goes Back To The Basics With His Furniture Collection

Interior Design: For nearly 30 years, Patrick Jouin iD has designed furniture for brands such as Pedrali and Porada, as well as custom pieces for various Jouin Manku projects. Why launch your own collection now?

Patrick Jouin: It’s a different exercise designing furniture for a specific brand that has its own DNA and story, or for a restaurant or hotel, where you have the constraints of a particular context and brand, too. Here, I would say, I’m in a free world—I can do whatever I want. Maybe it’s getting older, but I want that freedom more and more.

ID: What was your general approach to creating the collection?

PJ: Often, I start from a material. The Olo chair was about leather, which can be soft and flexible but also hard like wood. When you look at it, the leather on the steel frame looks rigid, but when you sit in it, there’s a hidden rubber element that allows it to fit the shape of the body. The structure is very simple, closely linked to the first one I ever designed: the steel Facto chair for Fermob.

ID: The Drop table looks like a color-field painting. How did that evolve?

PJ: I’m not really a painter, but I enjoy working with watercolor and oil on wood—not with a brush, but by pouring on pigment like Jackson Pollock, except flat and without big gestures. I asked an enamelist if she could use the same technique on a steel table—something she’d never done before—but it works beautifully. Four layers of enamel paint are poured on and baked separately, one after another. There’s a dining table, a coffee table, and a side table—each one’s unique, like a painting, with a bit of Frank Stella in there too, maybe, because I love his work.

ID: Tell us about the Flip stoneware plates, which seem to use the same decorative technique as the tables.

PJ: Yes, but with glaze rather than enamel. The plates are something quite personal, from when I was a kid in the French countryside. My mother was a very busy nurse who needed to be super efficient, so for the evening meal, we’d always have a bowl of soup. Once that was finished, you’d turn over the bowl and use the back of it for dessert. I love that commonsense approach to things, so I played with it. Each of the Flip plates can be used two ways, like a game, and they also make a set with the tables—something I don’t think has been done before but is funny and delightful.

ID: The Mate folding leather stool looks both chic and practical, like a Birkin bag.

PJ: In fact, we originally created it as a foldup tableside perch for handbags in a Ducasse restaurant. We took the folding idea and made a stool that doesn’t take up space in your home. It can be hidden anywhere but when you need a seat, it opens up in just one gesture, like magic. It’s made of leather over aeronautical plywood—super thin, but very stiff and stable, so a big person can sit on it safely.

ID: Jouin Manku has just completed the second phase of renovating the very grand hotel La Mamounia in Marrakesh. What’s new there?

PJ: This time, we worked on the common areas—mainly the lobby, including a huge chandelier that welcomes guests as they arrive. Part of the inspiration for it was Berber necklaces, which are typically a simple string with lots of elements added symmetrically and perhaps something large and heavy at the bottom. So we used silver beads and Fatima hands to create one chandelier, then surrounded it with a second layer of crystals and LEDs to evoke the sparkle and glamour of Champagne. It’s very simple—a beautiful catenary shape formed naturally by gravity.

Explore The Range Of Furnishings In Patrick Jouin’s New Collection

Patrick Jouin Channels Savoir-Faire Into Furnishings

Explore Google’s Energizing New York HQ

2024 Best of Year Winner for Large Tech Office

The 1.3 million-square-foot North American headquarters by Cookfox Architects and Gensler for the tech giant’s Global Business Organization comprises a three-story, 1930’s brick building in St. John’s Terminal, New York,—a former railroad terminus—topped with nine new overbuild levels. Pairing sensory-rich physical spaces with on-demand programming, the new and historic portions work together to create an energized workplace for 3,000 employees and their visitors, featuring flexible work areas, biophilia, and hospitality-infused common spaces. Google’s research shows that innovation thrives in small, tight-knit teams working towards common goals, thus workspaces follow a shared neighborhood seating model providing each group with an assigned area as its home base. These zones aren’t uniform but include a variety of desks, meeting rooms, phone booths, and communal tables to support different types of work, helping foster greater levels of social connection and team cohesion.

Inside Meta’s Dynamic EMEA Headquarters

2024 Best of Year Winner for Office Transformation

This multiyear redevelopment project by Studios Architecture has seen some 670,000 square feet of rigid office space in a former bank headquarters completely transformed into a flexible, dynamic, and accessible headquarters for tech company Meta’s EMEA operations. The Dublin facility is anchored by a soaring atrium that connects its two constituent buildings. Balconies on the five upper floors provide visual and physical openness to the volume, which is surrounded by ground-floor social and dining spaces that enliven the plaza. That vibrancy is further enhanced by bridges linking the structures at different heights as well as a dramatic canary-yellow open staircase serving all levels.

PROJECT TEAM: ERIK SUEBERKROP; DAVID BABB; EMILY AYERS; JANET SHUY; JOSE CAYRAMPOMA; ANTOINETTE ESCOBAR; CARA ELLIS; DANIEL SÁNCHEZ; RUI QI.

Experience The Future With This All-Electric Mixed-Use Development

2024 Best of Year Winner for Affordable Housing

Replacing a corner-lot gas station in Santa Monica, California, the four-story, 42,000-square-foot mixed-use project Pacific Landing Affordable Housing was developed by a local nonprofit to provide 37 residences for people with disabilities and families in need. Crafted by Patrick Tighe Architecture, the structure’s mass is broken down into several smaller volumes separated by voids, each incorporating green space. All units are accessed via a central landscaped courtyard, which serves as a shared respite for residents as well as a play area for children. A café joins social-services offices and other amenities on the ground floor, while common spaces are distributed throughout the building, which is topped with a roof terrace offering distant mountain and ocean vistas. By utilizing both passive and active sustainable strategies, the all-electric development has earned LEED Platinum certification and achieves Net Zero energy performance—and not a gas pump in sight.

PROJECT TEAM: PATRICK TIGHE; KERVIN LAU.

Kengo Kuma Unveils An Eco-Conscious Island Retreat

2024 Best of Year Winner For Country Getaway

Interior Design Hall of Fame member and architect Kengo Kuma has crafted St. Regis Red Sea Resort, an eco-conscious island retreat comprising 47 beach and 43 overwater villas, five dining venues, and extensive wellness facilities. To minimize the use of concrete, the structures employ prefabricated timber construction with roofs clad in natural cedar shingles and walls finished with clay plaster. The organic curves of the buildings blend seamlessly with the Ummahat Island, Saudi Arabia, landscape or appear to spiral gracefully from the sea. All villas incorporate private sundecks and pools, while designer Kristina Zanic’s characterful interiors feature a desert-inspired palette accented with coral and teal hues. Details include turtle shell–patterned floor tile, coral-shaped handles, hand-embellished art, and accessories crafted from natural materials.

PROJECT TEAM: KENGO KUMA; NICOLA MANIERO; DERIN KINACIGIL; JUAN FRANCO; HANNAH APPELGREN; TANIA UTOMO; LUDOVICA CIRILLO; ARIS KAFANTARIS; PAOLO DANESI; TRAN HUY VU NGUYEN; CARMEN KONG; SATOSHI ADACHI; RITA TOPA; PAVEL SIPKIN; AIGERIM SZYZDYKOVA; JANET CHOY (KENGO KUMA & ASSOCIATES); KRISTINA ZANIC; SEJAL PATEL (KRISTINA ZANIC CONSULTANTS).

How Brutalism Shapes This Chic Australian Home

2024 Best of Year Winner for Medium Country House

Set on a grassy knoll with distant views over Bass Strait, this 8,100-square-foot, two-level beach house in Sorrento, Australia, uses board-formed concrete with a virtuosic ease that the masters of European and Brazilian brutalism might envy. Partially embedded in the hillock, the podium base contains guest accommodations, recreational spaces, and a cast-concrete staircase that spirals upward like a pleated ribbon to the main living quarters above. Upstairs, architect Travis Walton broadens the material palette: stained-oak paneling in some rooms; a blackened-steel media wall in the living area; and patinated-brass cabinetry, a black marble backsplash, and a dark-green stone island in the kitchen. Designer Simone Haag has furnished the light-filled interiors with a treasure trove of contemporary production and craft pieces, including Patricia Urquiola chairs surrounding a marble-topped dining table designed by the homeowner.