At the end of each month, DNN Editor in Chief Courtney Porter curates a list of five standout things — design projects, product launches, noteworthy events, trends and more that deserve your attention. Together they offer a snapshot of where the design industry stands, capturing emerging trends, influential movements and key developments. Think of it as your monthly briefing on what’s shaping the creative landscape. This edition for October 2025 covers the South Korean Biennale for Architecture and Urbanism, Qatar Airways and Swizz Beatz’s “The Creative 100” collectible design gallery aircraft, furnishings designed by architects, HBO’s new limited series The Chair Company and an action-packed High Point Market.
1. The 5th Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism: Radically More Human
The 5th Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, curated under the visionary direction of British designer Thomas Heatherwick, opened this fall in the heart of South Korea’s capital. Overlapping with the 2025 APEC Summit, the Biennale has drawn not just the global design elite but also world leaders, policymakers and urbanists, all converging to explore a future of cities that are, in Heatherwick’s words, “radically more human.”
Visiting Seoul feels like stepping two decades ahead in time. The city itself is a living exhibition: a place where traditional hanok courtyards exist in dialogue with futuristic glass towers, and where even temporary installations like Heatherwick’s “Radically More Human Wall” seem seamlessly woven into the urban fabric. The monumental structure — 295 feet wide and 53 feet high — sits between the historic Gyeongbokgung Palace and a lively outdoor public library, with the Seoul Museum of Folk Crafts and an emerging arts village of repurposed hanok homes nearby. Gardens border one side, high-rises loom on the other, capturing the tension and potential between heritage and hypermodernity that defines Seoul today.
The “Radically More Human Wall” forms the centerpiece of the Biennale’s “Walls of Public Life” exhibition, one of several major outdoor installations that together redefine the relationship between architecture, emotion and civic identity. Each section of the wall, composed of 1,428 steel tiles contributed by artists, architects, scientists and citizens from 38 countries, reflects the event’s core question: What if our cities were designed for how people feel, not just how they function? That question guides the Biennale’s broader theme, Radically More Human, a manifesto against the sterility and monotony of much contemporary architecture.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Heatherwick’s directorship is his democratization of participation. Alongside world-renowned firms contributing to large-scale urban concepts, he prioritized voices traditionally excluded from design discourse: students, craftspeople and everyday citizens.
Next to the Museum of Folk Crafts, tents invited the public to engage in emotionally driven design exercises, responding to prompts about how certain spaces make them feel and how those emotions might be translated into form. In another city, this might have been a small, family-friendly side attraction; in Seoul, it became a civic phenomenon. Lines wrapped around the tents, filled with people of all ages and backgrounds eager to leave their mark on the city’s architectural imagination. The results – drawings, models, textures, collages – were as varied as the participants themselves.
Together, these exhibits and interactive discussions turned Seoul into a laboratory, a metropolis in pursuit of emotional intelligence through design. Attending the biennale was an inspiring invitation to imagine not just smarter or taller cities, but kinder ones — places that reflect the emotional and cultural depth of the people who call them home. The event is open now through November.
2. Furnishings designed by architects
A couple of years ago, when Arteriors first launched their collaboration with architecture firm Workshop APD, at a time when design client budgets were increasingly being spent on their homes’ architecture, I wondered if we were about to see more furniture collaborations with architects in the commercial furnishings market. The answer was yes.
That’s not to suggest a causal relationship, but the idea of investing in the building process was becoming more common, even on projects with modest budgets.
Architects bring a practicality and often minimalism to furnishing designs, are often inspired by hospitality design and always complementary of the architecture, of course. Here are a few recent stand-out collaborations between architects and furnishings manufacturers, ranging from retail to trade-facing:
3. Qatar Airways and Swizz Beatz launch “The Creative 100” at Art Basel Paris
Qatar Airways and Grammy Award-winning artist and cultural visionary Swizz Beatz have unveiled The Creative 100, a global initiative celebrating the intersection of design, art and travel. Announced during Art Basel Paris, the project marks a first-of-its-kind partnership between a leading airline and a major creative entrepreneur, aiming to spotlight 100 global visionaries each year whose work transcends disciplines and borders.
At the launch, Qatar Airways revealed concept renderings of a Formula 1–inspired aircraft livery, the first design expression from the partnership, signaling a new era of collectible, design-led collaborations in aviation. The initiative will culminate in an annual gala, with the inaugural celebration set for Art Basel Doha in February 2026, where the full roster of the first “Creative 100” honorees will be unveiled.
Among the first announced creatives are Ferrari Chief Design Officer Flavio Manzoni, Dior Homme jewelry director and AMBUSH co-founder Yoon Ahn, and sculptor Kennedy Yanko, known for her fusion of salvaged metal and paint. They join innovators from music, fashion, sport and technology, including Black Coffee, Miles Chamley-Watson and Bang & Olufsen CEO Kristian Teär.
Through The Dean Collection, founded by Beatz and his wife, Alicia Keys, the partnership will produce collaborative design projects, limited-edition art objects and immersive in-flight experiences. A digital hub dedicated to The Creative 100 will feature artist films, interviews and curated city guides, transforming Qatar Airways’ network into a global gallery of creative culture.
Upcoming activations include Art Basel Miami in December and the Formula 1 Qatar Grand Prix in November.
4. The Chair Company on HBO
2023 gave us The Curse on HBO, starring Emma Stone as the host of an HGTV show about passive architecture. This month, HBO spotlights design and home furnishings in the zeitgeist once again with The Chair Company, from the brilliant, wacky mind of Tim Robinson.
The Chair Company follows William Ronald Trosper, a newly appointed project manager for a new mall in Canton, Ohio, who begins investigating an elaborate conspiracy into the titular Chair Company after one of their office chairs collapses under him, humiliating him in front of colleagues. The first three episodes are available to stream now on HBO and they are an absurd, wild ride. Highly recommend.
5. High Point Market Fall 2025: Customization, collaboration and craft define the season
This Fall’s High Point Market and surrounding industry launches made one thing clear: customization, flexibility, cultural storytelling and local manufacturing are driving the design conversation. From performance fabrics moving indoors to art-inspired furniture collections, here is a look at some of the ways brands are embracing a marketplace in flux:
Sunbrella, long known for outdoor performance fabrics, made a decisive move into interiors, introducing stocked drapery programs, custom window treatments and novelty yarn production in bouclé and chenille textures. The shift signals growing demand for high-performance materials that balance beauty with durability — or as one insider put it, “the soft side of performance.”
Designer Kim Salmela, latest collaborations with Norwalk Furniture and Crypton, channel global influences through a Scandinavian lens, backed by U.S. manufacturing that shortens lead times and ensures quality. “Eighty percent is familiar, 20 percent should inspire,” Salmela said, summarizing the market’s blend of comfort and experimentation.
Sustainability and domestic manufacturing continues to be both a practical and philosophical concern for designers and consumers. Sherrill Furniture’s new “Custom Cabinets by Design” program highlighted the push toward U.S.-made craftsmanship with flexible, made-to-order cabinetry designed for evolving client needs and further highlights the clients’ prioritization of architecture and hard materials.
Eichholtz showcased the growing intersection of art, culture and interiors. Its “En Toute Élégance” collection and renewed collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Met x Eichholtz: Into the Galleries” reflected how partnerships can deepen a brand’s narrative and turn design into an experience. Similarly, South + English opened a separate art space to showcase original works and “Art Tank” furniture, blurring the line between functional design and fine art.
Market observers noted the way client expectations are reshaping the business of design itself. Transparency, faster delivery and participation in the creative process are becoming nonnegotiable. Designers now have to balance their artistry with operational precision — something Yudi Kaufman explored in Design News Now’s “Design Business Blueprint: Client Expectations Are Evolving — Are You?”
Collectively, the season’s launches and exhibitions reveal an industry in motion: tactile and sustainable materials, locally made and globally inspired designs, and cross-disciplinary storytelling as the new luxury currency. High Point’s most talked-about collections captured the moment: lived-in elegance for a discerning, design-savvy client who values both authenticity and agility. Browse all of our must-see’s from Market here.
