What’s Happening: An ambitious project is giving architects carte blanche to build experimental houses in the Spanish countryside, with no creative constraints besides being habitable.

The Download: Perched above the majestic Los Puerto de Beceite nature reserve in Southeast Spain is a floating concrete monolith that gracefully emerges from the wooded expanse. The boxy structure, designed by Chilean practice Pezo von Ellrichshausen Architects, is the first installment of Solo Houses, an ambitious decades-long project that aims to develop 12 innovative, fully functional homes designed by blue-chip architects across a 425-acre site. (Think of it as a futuristic version of the Case Study Houses.) Eva Albarrán and Christian Bourdais, the thrill-seeking French gallerists who initiated the project, liken Solo Houses to an inhabitable art collection. They carefully match specific plots of land to architects based on their design philosophy, give them few creative constraints, and simply see what happens.

So far, that has yielded two wildly different structures. The rectangular first house couldn’t look more different than the circular dwelling built by Belgian firm KGDVS that looks as if Norman Foster’s Apple Park went on vacation. Pushing architectural boundaries is the main goal, but Bourdais also wants to democratize access to distinctive architecture and create one-of-a-kind experiences for those lucky enough to pass by. Each house is rentable for three-night minimum stays. If that’s not your thing, the site also hosts an outdoor sculpture biennial called Solo Summer Group featuring artists represented by the Albarrán-Bourdais gallery like Claudia Comte and Alicja Kwade. Or check out Venta d’Aubert, a restored winery that opened there in 2022.

In Their Own Words: Realizing the full vision of Solo Houses takes patience. Buildings don’t appear overnight, but the roster of architects involved—Tatiana Bilbao, Sou Fujimoto, Johnston Marklee, Go Hasegawa—makes the project worth the wait. “In 40 years, this collection will have historical value because it brings together the best architects of our time under unique conditions,” Bourdais tells Fast Company

Surface Says: We’re staying tuned for the next iteration of Solo House, in which Smiljan Radic is building a hotel with cement lattices surrounding cylindrical glass rooms set in the landscape.

Have a news story our readers need to see? Write to our editors.

Reach the design world every morning. Find out more about advertising in the Design Dispatch.

For the nearly five decades that Marseille schoolteacher Lilette Ripert lived in a duplex at Le Corbusier’s storied Cité Radieuse, she often hosted creative salons. In that spirit, the apartment’s now-owners Jean-Marc Drut and Patrick Blauwart would invite top designers (Jasper Morrison, Pierre Cardin) to exhibit there every other year starting from 2008 to 2018, opening the unit up for public viewings in the summer. After a six-year hiatus and lengthy top-to-bottom restoration, the program now returns with an intervention by Marie & Alexandre that puts the French duo’s artisanal know-how on full display.

Inside, find custom pieces that nod to the UNESCO World Heritage Site’s modular béton brut facade, such as a series of stacked glass boxes developed with Glas Italia whose colored strips create a third shade when they overlap. Less on-the-nose are one-offs the duo completed during a residency at the Lycée Jean Monnet, including a rectangular table made of rippling industrial float glass and an armchair with a leather sling seat that nods to Charlotte Perriand. The show is up until tomorrow; it then travels to Paris’s Galerie Signé starting on Sept 5.

When: Until Aug. 31

Where: Hauser & Wirth, Monaco

What: At its Monte Carlo outpost, the blue-chip gallery charts the rise of the geometric artist’s earliest and most ambitious large-scale works. The show of “standing walls” follows an evolution in Bell’s practice that took place in the late 1960s, and saw him divert from cubic studies to works on an architectural scale.

The loyal Angeleno and repeat Louis Vuitton collaborator’s latest fragrance for the French maison sees him imagine a fictional Los Angeles through the lens of scent. Every perfume in the five-piece collection—from On the Beach to Pacific Chill—is named for a dreamlike interpretation of his hometown. $320.

ALMA Communications is an arts and culture firm in New York City, operating at the intersection of contemporary art, design, social change, partnerships and innovation. The team at ALMA approaches communications and partnerships with an emphasis on collaboration and humanism, treating each project with utmost care.

Surface Says: With the firm’s art-world expertise, it’s no wonder high-profile galleries and institutions like FLAG Art Foundation, Jack Shainman, Nicola Vassell, and Creative Capital choose ALMA.

After centuries of slow progress, AI helps scholars piece together Gilgamesh.

It’s true—the TikTok “trend” of underconsumption is as alive as ever.

A Burning Man first, declining ticket sales spells trouble for the festival.

Fungus, yeast, and bacteria might just perfume your next favorite fragrance.