Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty founded Studio KO in 2000, after graduating from the architecture program at École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Since then, they’ve opened offices there, in London, and in Marrakech, where they designed the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech. That building, with its sumptuous facade that ripples like silk, showed the firm’s forward-thinking use of terracotta brick.

This year’s Venice Biennale has the theme of “The Laboratory of the Future.” Studio KO embraced this idea in its design for the Uzbekistan Pavilion, developing a series of student and artisan workshops investigating the bricks used to build the Qalas, a 4 BCE—7 CE Zoroastrian fortress in the Central Asian country’s northern reaches. The result, “Unbuild Together: Archaism vs. Modernity,” is a mysterious and resonant maze spotlighting ancient and forward-thinking materials. Fournier and Marty recently called Surface to discuss those workshops, brick’s infinite possibility, and the need for emotion.

How did you first become connected to Uzbekistan?

OM: We had architecture projects in Tashkent [including the Centre for Contemporary Arts], and had a good relationship with their Art and Culture Development Foundation. They proposed that we be involved in the Biennale. We’re foreign designers, so we wanted to wait until we knew the country well enough. There was a special request from the foundation to be as inclusive as possible of Uzbek people, so from the very first day there was an idea to collaborate with 20 students [from Tashkent’s Ajou University].

What did the class consist of?

KF: We visited the ruins of Qalas in a desert that used to be cotton fields, and what remains of it really looks like mazes. I’d also asked students to think about scenography for the pavilion, and without any other brief, most of them had designed kinds of mazes.

OM: We didn’t want the pavilion to be speculative, but immersive and emotional, which in architecture is sometimes a bad word. For the workshop’s second part, we went to Bukhara and met with [Uzbek ceramics master craftsman] Abdulvahid Bukhoriy. Without him, the art of ceramics there would be gone. He explained how he works with oxides, cobalt, and iron. We asked him: What if you wanted to fuck it up, push the limits? He was very supportive and invented some new flaws. He and the students played all night, the ceramics went into the oven, and the day after we discovered what happened. We wanted to test things.

How did you decide on the form to build with the brick?

OM: Karl put together some words, and I sketched three lines and two corridors to answer the question: What would you design if you wanted to create, in two minutes of walking, real emotions of opacity and being lost and found?

KF: We used reclaimed Venetian bricks from the site, the same used to build the pavilion centuries ago. You don’t know if what you’re getting into is new or belongs to the past.

OM: It’s a welcome confusion. The shape doesn’t refer to any classical shape—just straight lines. But it’s kind of badly done, on purpose, almost unfinished. The brick is clearly saying they’re old and dirty, but there’s confusion about what is what. And it’s pretty dark.

KF: The light is only focused on the glazed bricks that Abdulvahid made with the students. Those are from Uzbekistan. But by chance, the shape of the two kinds of bricks are almost the same. So they connected really well together. It’s an invitation to sit at the table of history: the Venetian bricks and the Uzbekistan bricks we glazed and mixed together.

And the wall projection?

KF: It’s a film by El Mehdi Azzam. We asked him to follow the workshop and visit Abdulvahid, and make a restitution of that poetically. He had his own vision.

OM: What’s surprising is the range of scales. He did close-ups that changed the glazing into sea landscapes, but also did some wide moments in the desert.

KF: We’d like the students to understand architecture isn’t only about calculating how to build a house, but how to see with art, culture, and history. The workshop was our way of illustrating a laboratory for the next generation. It’s about culture and crossing disciplines.

You’ve worked so much with brick; what did this experience teach you about it?

OM: Brick has a special richness: out of a single module in three dimensions, you have an infinity of possibilities. The future should be going back to the basics and discovering that infinity. Brick expresses and bears the trace of the terroir of its soil, which gives color and variation you can see when it’s cut. It’s very meaningful and emotional.

Qalas was a fortress—a machine of violence but also of safety. Did you want to investigate the tension between those two qualities?

OM: It’s hard to be reassured because the period is upsetting. We didn’t want to invent theories of how to control the future, rather express solutions of feeling safe in an immersive way. We’re not trying to prove anything. We’re trying to share a feeling and intuition—just an impression, not an explanation—that, maybe, we could be safe again.

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Stockholm’s beloved interiors brand Svenskt Tenn celebrates its 100th birthday this year with that timeless holiday idea: an Italian vacation. Or, rather, it brings Italy to Sweden, enlisting none other than fashion heir (and designer in her own right) Margherita Maccapani Missoni to plan a perfect party in the form of a summer picnic.

Svenskt Tenn has a long history of collaborations. Founded by Estrid Ericson, a 30-year-old art teacher, the company became a permanent new home for the legendary Austrian architect Josef Frank after he was forced to flee his home due to rising antisemitism. Ericson also set up a Strandvägsgalleriet, or large gallery space, in the store to showcase the work of up-and-coming designers.

This year, Missoni pays tribute to Ericson’s spirit, and her own homeland, by collaborating with Svenskt Tenn’s team on a range of table settings, including picture-postcard trays, sunny plates, and petaled candle holders. Missoni curated work from Italian artisans to join the party, and even extended a love letter to Frank himself in the form of heart-shaped cushions tucked into some of the thousands of textiles he and Ericson designed over the years. “Greetings from Margherita” is available at Svenskt Tenn’s Stockholm store through Aug. 27, and online.

Even as it’s changed over the years, the Hudson Valley remains a bounty of resources, both natural and cultural. Chleo, a new wine bar and restaurant in Kingston, the heart of the valley, harvests the best of both. Its menu stars local produce—recent highlights include a grilled potato salad with ramps and roe, and a sherry maple pie—complimented by New York brews, ciders, and a host of wines from further afield.

Its interiors, by New York’s own Islyn Studio, pick from the best of the area’s ample fields of designers, including lighting by RBW manufactured in their new factory nearby. A hearth gives guests a place to gather around as it glows within an open kitchen limewashed a pale gray, while wood detailing throughout comes courtesy of local spalted maple. The rest is a tribute to tending your own garden, a new destination in Kingston whose furniture, ceramics, millworkers, florals, art, and even linens are almost entirely made in the neighborhood.

New & Notable is a cultural catchall that highlights interesting new products and projects from our brilliantly creative members of The List. With new releases, events, and goings-on, the below moments indicate the power they have to move the needle in so realms like architecture, design, fashion, and art.

Art of Tea: The L.A. tea purveyor ushered in the spring with two new bespoke blends. The brand collaborated with wellness expert Jessie Lowe to create Manifest, a zingy herbal tea blend with organic sage, lavender, spearmint, and peppermint. Just in time for the springtime cherry blossom harvest, the brand also revived a fan-favorite green tea blend: Sencha Cherry Blossom.

Puiforcat: The French silversmith debuted a special dinner service credited to the late Donald Judd. Together with Judd Foundation artistic director Flavin Judd, the company transformed Donald’s 34-year-old sketches and technical drawings into the cylindrical vessels that make up the eight-piece collection.

Uovo: It’s been a banner year for the art storage company, which expanded to include white glove garment storage by acquiring of Garde Robe. It recently shared news of the acquisition of wine storage and advisory firm Domaine.

Last month, Los Angeles officials gathered at a bus stop in Westlake to debut a bus shelter pilot for underserved areas. Designed by L.A. Department of Transportation and Kounkuey Design Initiative, La Sombrita is a perforated metal structure that attaches to existing bus stops to provide a sliver of shade from the California sun. At night, it becomes a solar-powered light. Its goal was to provide a small-scale fix to concerns residents often cite with the city’s 6,000 bus stops, especially along streets too narrow for full shelters: a lack of adequate shade and light, which leads to dangerous and unsafe conditions.

But according to Twitter users and a slate of critics, the 26-inch-wide shade seemed to epitomize government largesse, endless bureaucratic red tape, and clueless progressive wokeness.

Blu Dot is a Minneapolis-based designer and maker of modern home furnishings. The brand began with three college friends who loved modern furniture, but couldn’t afford what they liked and didn’t like what they could afford. The trio began designing and making the furniture they wanted and it so happened that their accessible modern designs spoke to other people facing the same issues with furnishings.

Surface Says: Blu Dot’s high-quality, accessible furniture is rooted in the sculptural and architectural know-how of its founders. That’s why the brand’s products are at once beautifully designed, practical, and versatile.

A noxious brew of surplus hand sanitizer has become an explosive problem.

The unhinged Parm Espresso Martini went from TikTok to Starbucks staple.

The search continues for the artist behind this strange A Wrinkle in Time cover.

An outlandish new baseball uniform embodies the best of Japanese fashion.