You Can't Take These Home, But They Make Life Better All the Same | QDaily Annual Design Awards

We hope you can feel it.

This is QDaily's second design roundup of 2016. We've picked the most inventive work of the past year across several important design fields — architecture, installation, interiors, and more. You can sense it: everything is moving toward greater diversity and integration.

To read more, click the yellow underlined links for our original in-depth coverage.

Most Talked-About Architecture: West 57th Street Residential Tower, Manhattan, New York

"New York's Most Anticipated Residential Building of the Year Isn't Just for the Wealthy"

Early in the year, Dezeen — the world's most influential online architecture magazine — named the twelve most anticipated new buildings of 2016. Among them was the West 57th Street residential tower in Manhattan, the first North American project by the in-demand Danish firm BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group).

The New York-based developer Durst Fetner Residential commissioned BIG for the project. The building holds 600 apartments, mostly for rent, with 20 percent set aside for low-income residents.

The design fuses the traditional Danish courtyard house with Manhattan's high-rise form. Its sweeping open diagonal cut stands out sharply among the rectangular towers around it.

Restaurant Design: Mak Mak, Hong Kong

"Don't Miss This Restaurant Hidden Inside a Thai Grocery Store in Hong Kong"

The Hong Kong studio NC Design & Architecture gave Mak Mak Thai restaurant a hidden entrance that delights and surprises: from outside, it looks exactly as its big neon sign declares — a "Thai Grocery" store. When a guest presses the metal doorbell on the counter, one of the display shelves swings open like a door and ushers them inside. The design draws on the forms of traditional Thai timber villas and the "shophouse" — a building type that is just what its name suggests, a structure that combines a shop and a home. It is usually low-rise, with the shop on the ground floor, living quarters above, and an arcade out front.

Café Design: "Thank You Life Coffee," Hangzhou

"Find a Sunny Day to Take In the Light and Shadow Under This Wooden Structure in Hangzhou"

This newly opened café in Hangzhou, set within West Lake Tiandi, was designed by the Japanese firm Kooo Architects. What stands out most is the double-layer square-tube structure of the glazed roof: the team threaded warm natural-timber beams into the grid and arranged them in a woven pattern, making for a ceiling that is a pleasure to look at. The space below is bright and generous — perfect for guests who love to bathe in sunlight or natural daylight. Deeper inside, under a grey-black ceiling, the mood turns calmer and more private, clearly suited to those after a quieter corner.

Healthcare Design: Parc d'Atencions, Barcelona

"This Design Stops Children Fearing the Cold, Clinical Hospital"

This is the pediatric day oncology and hematology unit of Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona. The studio Toormix named the space "Parc d'Atencions" (Care Park) — a phrase that in Catalan also calls to mind a joyful playground. Given the setting, the palette leans toward soft, light tones that bring comfort and hope. The designers made generous use of warm timber and other natural materials, bright but gentle lighting, and furnishings that feel lively and charming without being intrusive.

Education Design: Atsugi Nozomi (AN) Kindergarten, Kanagawa

"Japan's Go-To Kindergarten Designers Have Built a Little House Perfect for Hide-and-Seek"

Hibino Sekkei has built a reputation as Japan's go-to kindergarten architect. The firm built the original Atsugi Nozomi kindergarten in Atsugi, Kanagawa, 42 years ago, and was called back to redesign it — both to meet the needs of a new generation of children and to withstand the region's frequent earthquakes. Rather than demolish the existing building, the team set out to make it feel more contemporary while keeping the memory of the old one alive. Rooms pair white with natural timber, deepened by black at the edges for crisp definition. The second floor has an especially high ceiling; two rows of slender pendant lights hang from it, symmetrical along the central axis, lending the space an airy lightness.

Office Design: Airbnb's New Tokyo Headquarters

"Airbnb's New Home in Japan Is a Fresh, Natural Japanese-Style Workspace"

In the summer of 2016, Airbnb moved into a new Tokyo home: a 500-square-meter space in Shinjuku, the busiest commercial district in Tokyo and arguably in all of Japan. The office was co-designed with the local firm Suppose Design Office.

At a moment when aesthetics are converging worldwide, the space does two things at once. It carries Airbnb's signature ethos of encouraging staff to talk and mingle, and of mirroring the wider world in miniature, while also achieving a distinctly Japanese sensibility through a series of traditional cultural touches — extensive timber detailing and, along the window side, a raised platform laid with tatami mats. There, employees can kick off their shoes, relax, and take in the natural scenery outside.

Hotel Design: Michelberger, Berlin

"This Berlin Hotel Invites You to Choose from More Than 100 Completely Different Rooms"

A group of young partners runs this hotel. They had no wish to copy the boutique formula; they wanted something creative and rebellious instead. Converted from a large factory, each floor has high ceilings, brick walls, and big windows — conditions that practically invite a loft conversion. The team resisted. They split the rooms into six types — Comfortable, Attic, Luxurious, Hideout, Band, and Large — and worked with individual designers to remake each one. The hotel has been voted one of Berlin's ten most design-forward and fashionable hotels by top10berlin.de, and all 119 rooms are said to be one of a kind.

Hostel Design: BUNKA Hostel, Tokyo

"Traveling Japan on a Budget? Try This Wooden-Box Hostel"

Pass BUNKA Hostel on the street and you could easily mistake it for an izakaya. The hostel occupies seven floors: the ground floor is an izakaya and lobby serving Japanese food, hot pot, and sake, and floors two through seven are all guest rooms. The beds are wooden boxes — each one distinctive, usually stacked in two tiers, assembled from four square modules into a long rectangular unit. Two modules form the sleeping space, with a small opening for the doorway. Two or three clusters can sit side by side to make a mixed-occupancy dormitory. Wooden panels of varying shades and grain are separated by grey curtains, giving the whole thing a strong Japanese character.

Mixed-Use Space Design: Wer-haus Concept Store, Barcelona

"Another One of Those Places Where You Can Shop, See an Exhibition, and Have a Coffee All at Once"

Multi-format concept stores keep multiplying. Barcelona's Wer-haus is a hybrid space that blends restaurant, café, bar, clothing boutique, gallery, and bookshop — all under one roof. The team behind it includes the Barcelona architecture studio LaBoqueria, interior designer Marta Peinado, and furniture maker Cristian Herrera. The design is refined without feeling forced: the bright, clean space deploys furniture with clear lines, and greenery is the main decorative element, leaving the whole place full of life.

Residential Architecture: Triangular-Roof House, Japan

"This House in Japan Looks as Though It Has Nothing But a Triangular Roof"

This three-story home by the Japanese firm Suppose Design Office gives up floor area in favor of light and openness. The pitched roof that would normally crown the building has instead been pulled to the outside, becoming an "overcoat." The house within stays a clean rectangular volume, but its footprint narrows with each floor, leaving triangular voids between the inner structure and the outer "overcoat" — a zone that is neither fully inside nor outside.

Residential Interior Design: 85-Square-Meter Loft Town

"An 85-Square-Meter Scandinavian Loft — Another Object Lesson in Good Taste"

Indrė Sunklodienė, an architect at the Interjero Architektė studio in Vilnius, Lithuania, finished an 85-square-meter project this year called Loft Town: a home for a young couple who wanted something comfortable and modern. Inspired by Scandinavian interiors, the loft type adds visual depth while giving the designer room to be creative. Pure white walls set the neutral mood, then black, grey, and timber details layer in quietly — sheer white floor-length curtains paired with heavy dark-grey linen drapes; a light-grey sofa; natural-wood flooring and a coffee table; a black-and-white rug; and black light fixtures. The effect is calm and relaxed, free of the noise that comes from too many colors jumping about.

Renovation Design: Sanyuanqiao Pre-Owned Apartment, Beijing

"A Pre-Owned Apartment Transformed Into a Minimalist New Home — This Beijing Renovation Is Worth a Look"

The brand consultancy Door Inside completed a renovation this year of a roughly 150-square-meter pre-owned apartment near Sanyuanqiao in Beijing, reworking the original three-bedroom, two-bathroom layout into two bedrooms and two bathrooms — a big gain for the owner's ease of living and privacy. To improve the light, the designers chose white lacquer panels and finishes throughout, paired with carefully judged lighting to brighten a kitchen and dining area that have no windows of their own. Working around immovable load-bearing walls and plumbing in the original kitchen, the team built in storage cabinets and recessed shelving, carved a shoe cabinet and storeroom out of part of the old kitchen footprint, and tucked a laundry room into an awkward offset corner between the living room and dining room — neatly solving the problem of a building with no balcony.

Museum Design: Takao 599 Museum, Tokyo

"Looking for Somewhere New in Tokyo? Here's a Quiet Natural History Museum"

This natural history museum sits in Hachiōji, an hour from central Tokyo, on the slopes of Mt. Takao — a scenic mountain rich in plant and animal life, a kind of miniature Mount Fuji. The museum has exciting exhibitions, a manicured lawn, bold benches, a terrace, and a café. Its website is just as striking in its design. Admission is free year-round.

Retail Design: CENTRA, Irish Food Convenience Retailer

"This Fresh-Food Convenience Store Is Efficient and Approachable"

CENTRA is an Irish food convenience retailer that hired the customer experience design agency Household to create its new store design. The palette reads as "Scandinavian deli" — cleaner, more orderly, and more modern. Bright yellow pendant lights, deep blue tiled walls, black-and-white checkerboard floor tiles, and natural timber furniture and shelving all speak the same language: "warmth" and "freshness."

Bookshop Design: Libreria, London

"If You're in London, You Should Experience This Slightly Magical Bookshop"

This new bookshop on Hanbury Street in East London is called Libreria. Designed by the Spanish firm Selgascano, it takes its inspiration from Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges's classic story The Library of Babel (《巴别图书馆》). The space is long and narrow, with several tall bright-yellow wooden shelves running floor to ceiling and from the entrance deep into the shop, forming what feel like two walls built entirely from books. The surfaces of these "walls" rise and fall like waves, with reading nooks set into them. Between the shelves stand yellow tables of the same material, with mismatched chairs. A mirrored ceiling reflects and duplicates everything below.

Installation Design: Panerai "Slice of Time"

"At This Tokyo Exhibition, the Designer Wants You to Cut Off a Piece of 'Time' and Take It Home"

Japan's most celebrated design firm, nendo, created an installation called "Slice of Time" for the Italian luxury watchmaker Panerai, shown at the Spiral gallery in Aoyama, Tokyo. Its centerpiece is a 16-meter transparent tubular "shell" whose cross-section echoes Panerai's design DNA: single-stroke numeral hour markers and a square case outline that together mimic a watch dial. The 16-meter piece can be cut on site: for each visitor, one millimeter stands for one year of age. The designer cuts off a length matching the visitor's age, then polishes, finishes, and assembles it in about five minutes — so they can take this slice of time home.

Cover image from Visual China