THE DESIGN REVIEW
ISSUE 120
AUGUST 2026
The first five minutes decide everything.
Back issue — No. 120 — August 2026
Arrival
The first five minutes decide everything. An issue on thresholds, lobbies and the choreography of walking in — from hotels that check you in with bread to offices that open their ground floors to the street.
Inside this issue
- Five hotel lobbies rethinking the ritual of arrival
- The office lobby as the new town square
- Entrance sequences that lower the heart rate
21 Aug 2026Hospitality
A decommissioned grain silo becomes a vertical farm and food hall on Rotterdam's harbour edge
Local practice Atelier Waal keeps the concrete drum intact, threading dining rooms and growing towers through its 40-metre core.
19 Aug 2026Retail
A Copenhagen fragrance store treats scent like an exhibition — and sells more because of it
Studio Hverdag strips retail back to a sequence of scent chambers, proving that slowing customers down can speed up conversion.
17 Aug 2026Living
In Mexico City, a courtyard house breathes through a veil of perforated brick
Taller Norte's Casa Celosía uses a double skin of locally pressed brick to cool, shade and screen a family home on a tight urban lot.
14 Aug 2026Work
This Lisbon coworking space was assembled almost entirely from reclaimed theatre sets
11 Aug 2026Institutions
A hillside kindergarten in Nagano lets the landscape do the teaching
8 Aug 2026Hospitality
Five hotel lobbies rethinking what arrival should feel like
20 Aug 2026Behaviour
Why the office lobby is becoming the new town square
15 Aug 2026Technology
Lighting designers are dimming things down — and clients are finally letting them
12 Aug 2026Materials
The comeback of the curtain: why soft partitions are replacing walls
Design intelligence, daily.
More issues
View all issuesTHE DESIGN REVIEW
ISSUE 121
SEPTEMBER 2026
The Productive
Interior
Interiors are being asked to produce — food, energy, materials, even furniture.
No. 121 — September 2026
The Productive Interior
THE DESIGN REVIEW
ISSUE 119
JULY 2026
Screens Off
What does a room feel like when it stops competing with a phone? Spaces designed for attention, analogue rituals and the growing market for disconnection.
No. 119 — July 2026
Screens Off
THE DESIGN REVIEW
ISSUE 118
JUNE 2026
Courtyards, terraces, loggias and gardens as fully designed interiors without ceilings.
No. 118 — June 2026
Outdoor Rooms
THE DESIGN REVIEW
ISSUE 117
MAY 2026
Clinics, kindergartens, retirement living and everything between.
THE CARE
ECONOMY
No. 117 — May 2026
The Care Economy
THE DESIGN REVIEW
ISSUE 116
APRIL 2026
clay, cork,
culture
A materials issue on the comeback of the pre-industrial palette — earth, bark, fibre — and the very industrial supply chains now forming behind it.
No. 116 — April 2026