What’s Happening: Ikea’s innovation lab was laser-focused on seeing how the furniture giant could pilot forward-thinking, sometimes zany solutions for domestic life. After a decade of pushing the industry to do and think better, the project has come to a close.

The Download: What’s your course of action when Ikea, one of the world’s most influential furniture companies, tasks you with ideating solutions to the most pressing issues of our time? If you’re like Space10 co-founders Kaave Pour and Simon Caspersen, you hunker down in a small storefront on the Copenhagen docks. You speculate how lab-grown meat and insect protein can replace traditional meatballs and spark a media “shitshow.” You develop an AR app that previews how Ikea furniture might look in one’s home and get praised by Tim Cook on Good Morning America. You figure out how to slip a functional sofa into an envelope. And as of this week, you quit while you’re ahead and wait for the world to catch up.

Space10 announced its permanent closure yesterday. “[It] was never meant to last,” Pour says. “After a decade of working with Ikea, we’ve achieved what we set out to accomplish.” The agency was formed in 2014 following a collaboration between Ikea and Danish collective ArtRebels. But instead of pitching a follow-up, the group suggested that Ikea’s then-CEO Torbjörn Lööf could use his company’s robust platform to explore how to create a better future for the world at large. That didn’t just mean figuring out how to create furniture that lasts—it involved looking decades down the line, operating externally from Ikea’s brand, and exploring how the company could maintain its relevance as tastes and technologies shift. The idea was radical, but Lööf was open-minded. Space10’s physical lab soon opened and the enterprise started thinking based on values and vision, not finances.

What resulted was a slate of forward-thinking projects both diverse and expansive, which challenged the industry to improve life at home and ease its impact outside. Space10 was crucial in Ikea’s strategy to reformulate its giant big-box stores into smaller footprints for urbanizing cities—and showing, with two full-blown raves during Milan Design Week, how they can come alive at night. The Ideal City, a 2021 book about how collective actions can create a “better everyday life” in cities, became an exhibition at the Barbican before touring worldwide. In that respect, perhaps Space10 over-delivered on its objectives. “We were basically set up to not really interfere with current business,” Caspersen says. “Sometimes we’ve failed at that and influenced today’s business.”

In Their Own Words: “Space10 has challenged our mindset of thinking outside the box. They have been our eyes around the corner looking into the future, facilitating new partnerships and business ventures, helping us investigate how we can create a better everyday life for many people,” Jon Abrahamsson Ring, the CEO of Inter Ikea Group, said in a statement. “Perhaps most significantly, the partnership between Inter Ikea and Space10 has motivated our internal innovation culture and inspired us in how we approach innovation.”

Surface Says: As in that initial meeting with Lööf, Space10 proved there’s power in simply asking the right questions.

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Celebrate the opening of Herschel’s new SoHo flagship at 543 Broadway with Surface and The Armory Show. Join us on Wednesday, September 6, at 7PM for a conversation between Herschel’s VP of Creative Jon Warren, Surface editor Jenna Adrian-Diaz, and a special panelist to be announced. Beer, snacks, and good times to follow.

Ash Studio returns to its 2018 sensation, The Siren Hotel, with a new jewel for the property’s crown. Housed in the iconic 1926 Wurlitzer Building, Ash—Bar is a cinematic ode to Detroit’s automotive legacy. Xavier Donnelly, the firm’s newly anointed creative director, masterfully blends mint-green hues reminiscent of factory machinery with chrome accents and wood veneers that evoke vintage car dashboards. The interior is further enriched by hand-painted murals inspired by Detroit’s WPA artworks, adding a layer of industrial nostalgia.

Channeling the spirit of a quintessential European cafe seen through an Americana lens, the Continental menu crafted by chef Lauren Sandler features old-world favorites like steak frites, milanese, and trout à la meunière. Nick Arone’s beverage program, meanwhile, is highlighted by freezer-batched martinis and fresh ingredients sourced from heritage producers. Don’t miss the decadent Breakfast du Weekend menu on Saturdays and Sundays—the perfect recovery after a night of Arone’s tempting concoctions.

Bang & Olufsen’s classic speakers are veritable studies in minimalism that often blend into their surroundings, but the Danish brand’s latest launch demands to be seen—and heard—at full volume. That’s because it partnered with Ferrari to reimagine a quartet of its greatest hits in the Italian automotive mainstay’s Rosso Corsa shade. The bold red unites the reinvented Beosound 2 home speaker, Beoplay H95 headphones, Beoplay EX earphones, and portable Beosound Explore while imbuing the standard aluminum finish with a rich luster.

“You could go out and design a completely new speaker, but that would of course take years,” says Christopher Østergaard Poulsen, Bang & Olufsen’s SVP of business development and brand partnering, who hints at even more cross-pollination with Ferrari to come. “We’re lucky to be in a position where our designs are so good that people want to work with us.”

When: Until Oct. 29

Where: Red Lion Inn, The Berkshires

What: The Red Lion Inn, an American historical icon celebrating its 250th anniversary, is hosting an exhibition featuring the art and literary works of British illustrator Ralph Steadman and writer Hunter S. Thompson. Curated by M. A. Cash and co-presented by the Norman Rockwell Museum and Theory Wellness, the show offers an in-depth look into the world of Steadman and Thompson, pioneers of “gonzo journalism,” whose fearless social commentary and political satire in publications like Rolling Stone sparked a countercultural revolution. The exhibition will include their fax exchanges over 15 years, providing a unique insight into their enduring friendship and creative collaboration.

It seems like an actual lifetime ago that Kim Kardashian set the Twitterverse alight in schadenfreude with her Kimono controversy. One public apology and four years later, she and Skims CEO Jans Grede have put the furor behind them and built the brand to a $4 billion valuation by giving zoomers and young millennials a top drawer full of wardrobe solutions for any occasion or neckline.

“Kim Kardashian is the Michael Jordan of the influencer generation,” Grede said on a podcast. “Going back a couple of decades, about 20 percent of American teens wanted to be a professional athlete. Today, 20 percent of American teenagers want to be a creator. So to me, it’s pretty obvious that [Kardashian] has created and set and been a huge part in shaping that culture.” Of course, there’s more to Skims than aspiration and image: these days the biggest criticism of the brand is more like a lament—that sizes and colors sell out in a snap.

Leave it to Silvia Venturini Fendi to surprise and delight with a men’s backpack every bit as refined as the fashion house’s legendary handbags. Unlike other designer packs, some of which scarcely fit more than an iPhone 14 Pro Max, the Chiodo Shadow features a 13-inch padded laptop pocket, glinting Palladium hardware, and monogram that cleverly masks an ergonomic hinge that better allows the backpack to move with its wearer as they travel. $2,850

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Experience 27 is a cutting-edge boutique and online shop curating exclusive fashion collections by independent designers such as Rochas Paris, Altuzarra, Thebe Magugu, Plan C, Roksanda, and Bibi van der Velden. Embracing fashion as an art form, their designers create enduring collections with meticulous attention to detail and quality materials.

Surface Says: Inspired by Gertrude Stein’s Paris apartment and salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus, and just steps away from some of Madrid’s top museums, parks, and botanical gardens, Experience 27 carries an enviable assortment of wares from the top independent designers across fashion, furniture, and fine jewelry.

David Kennerley’s new book chronicles the fliers that captured ‘90s queer history.

Yinka Ilori brings his colorful touch to a new Courvoisier-inspired bar in Cognac.

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A Harvard professor identifies newly discovered metallic spheres as interstellar.