The best interiors Domus selected for 2024 are once again very similar to a selection of renovations, and we can only be largely satisfied with it: reuse and circularity are increasingly fundamental to architecture, on a planet that is in danger of consuming itself, badly. But there are more hot topics in interior living, that a 2024 where ‘brain rot’ has been elected word of the year is putting before our very eyes. Through local and global scenarios where houses are getting smaller and smaller, and increasingly difficult to make one’s own exclusive habitat, we have explored interior architecture this year as a landscape of intuitions capable of transforming the spaces where we live, work and meet, making us aware that we are doing it in 2024, and not just because of some perceived inconveniences. Intuitions like sculptures entering inside houses to redefine layouts that are too rigid and sacrificed; like vertical topographies created by boiseries or free structures reorganizing spaces in new sequences; like radical and contemporary signs – metals, reflections, iridescences, transforming walls, brutalist concrete – opening dialogues with history. Setting out from Italy to explore different countries, Milan to Rio via Turin, Paris and Barcelona, we have selected stories of intuitive interiors that in the coming years can inspire our living at large, hoping that such “large” will once again prevail over a dangerous normalization of smallness.
The best interiors of 2024
A selection of interiors published along this year tells us stories of transforming spaces for living, working and sharing, between contemporary gestures in dialogue with historic spaces.
View Article details
- Giovanni Comoglio
- 03 December 2024
A contemporary rethinking of the ancient, inside a palace in Genoa,
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
Diagram. Courtesy llabb
Diagram. Courtesy llabb
Diagram. Courtesy llabb
Diagram. Courtesy llabb
Diagram. Courtesy llabb
Diagram. Courtesy llabb
Photo Anna Positano, Gaia Cambiaggi - Studio Campo. Courtesy llabb
As found. Courtesy llabb
Plan. Courtesy llabb
By transforming a grand hall that had already been divided several times, llabb's project brings the architecture of the ancient city into dialogue with an interior dedicated to light, books and conviviality. Read more
In Naples,
The project by Paola Sola on Via Toledo seeks identity and domestic warmth for an apartment with a complex layout, amidst games of pure shapes and color contrasts. Read more
and in Turin
Studio Bibbi’s intervention is a dialogue with the interiors of an early 20th century building, opening up spaces and valorizing an existing visual identity with cerulean and burgundy nuances. Read more
A totem evoking Sottsass to transform a Milan home
Surrounding a multifunctional totem emerging in the space, distinguishing living and kitchen through a mirrored surface bordering the entrance, a bar area toward the sofa and a wine cellar toward the table, the new configuration of an apartment on Via Nava, articulates between dynamism, color, interconnected and open spaces. Read more
A golden cube rewriting the codes of an interior in Veneto,
Photo Mikael Olsson
Photo Mikael Olsson
Photo Mikael Olsson
Photo Simone Bossi
Photo Simone Bossi
Photo Mikael Olsson
Photo Simone Bossi
Photo Simone Bossi
Photo Simone Bossi
An interlocking game reminiscent of the engineering of a Matryoshka doll, the reflections of Modern masters (from Jean Prouvé to Le Corbusier to Charlotte Perriand) on minimum housing and the material preciosity of the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies Van der Rohe: this is Golden Box, the interior renovation project of a small dwelling in Arzignano in the province of Vicenza, realised by young award-winning studio AMAA which, taking its inspiration from a challenging context, aimed to push the research on living experience beyond the limits of traditional conventions. Read more
and a hybrid wooden capsule giving life to an interior in Sicily.
For a flat overlooking the Strait of Messina from the inside of a 1970s building, Punto Zero has conceived a space that manages to be "open, continuous and fragmented" at the same time. The renovation conceived by the designers for this 175 sqm surface is a redefinition of its very lifestyle, centred on the characteristics of fluidity and transferability. Read more
A vertical landscape of boiseries for a modernist apartment in Barcelona,
Photo Luiz Diaz.
Photo Luiz Diaz.
Photo Luiz Diaz.
Photo Luiz Diaz.
Photo Luiz Diaz.
Photo Luiz Diaz.
Photo Luiz Diaz.
Photo Luiz Diaz.
Photo Luiz Diaz.
Photo Luiz Diaz.
Photo Luiz Diaz.
With the project for the Silvia & Diego house, studio MH.AP was confronted with an apartment in Barcelona that was already strongly characterized at the outset, by the numerous Nolla mosaics – a decorative milestone of modernism – in the floors and by the ceiling moldings: the decision was to enrich such discourse with a new narrative of space, generating a new continuity between the rooms of the house. Floors and ceilings intersect to form an enveloping interior space, where the architecture is defined by a palette of a few colors and recurring wooden elements. Continue reading
of arches and beams, for a corridor rethinking a home in Milan,
Renovated by untitled architecture, a house in Porta Venezia handed down between several generations of the same family has found a design asset in its layout constraints. Read more
of transparent walls, for an early 20th-century space, still in Milan
Around a double living room redesigned for music and conviviality, the project by 2b Architects preserves the traces of the original dwelling, harmonizing them with Modern and contemporary design. Continue reading
Living in Catalonia, inside a house “designed by a lightning”,
The renovation of a 55 m2 former barn with a gabled roof, located in a traditional Catalan farmhouse on the outskirts of the city, in the Sant Just district, has shaped a dynamic place distinguished by vibrant colours. Green, yellow, red and blue emerge in a pure white-painted space in which original elements such as Catalan ceiling vaults can be glimpsed. Continue reading
and working in Verona, amidst echoes of Carlo Scarpa and high-tech.
Spazio Diaz is a coworking space born from a renovation in the historic centre of Verona, a few steps from Porta Borsari. The intervention works on two registers: on the one hand, the "new", narrated by detailed solutions in materials and finishes, applied to surfaces and objects, existing and new; on the other hand, the harmony with the space of the historic building. Read more
From Art Deco to sustainable coffee shop, in a building on the outskirts of Paris
In Pantin, inner Parisian banlieue, the Mexican-Italian firm OAR/Office Abrami Rojas has created a boutique-laboratory for Anbassa, the high-quality coffee importer that has been working for years to promote the culture of this "ritual" beverage in all its phases, from the transport of the beans in jute sacks to tasting, through codified and traceable processes. Read more
From iridescent to ironic, in a Naples bar
Light and changing colours are the code of Stereo Mike, the bar curated by Carmine Abate introducing itself to the city through irreverence and artistic references. Read more
Brutalist furnishings springing from the foundations of a 16th-century palace, in Munich,
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Photo Kim Fohmann, Fabian Wagner, Louise Daussy.
Project drawing.
Project drawing.
Project drawing.
Project drawing.
Project drawing.
Project drawing.
To create a bar in a basement in the city centre, Buero Wagner excavated a new level of foundations, which became minimalist furniture in exposed concrete. Read more
and a brutalist apartment in Rio de Janeiro, between smooth surfaces and exposed concrete
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Photo Fran Parente.
Project drawing.
Project drawing.
A concise and simple language is what announces the Paissandu apartment from the entrance . In its recent work in Rio de Janeiro, Estudio Nama has in fact sought in the rough elements of the supporting structure, and in the dialectic between rough and smooth, a main theme for the space. Read more