The recent completion of the Artemis II mission was meant to remind us that space can still be a shared frontier. Artemis represents a step toward sustained lunar exploration and, eventually, Mars. Yet that hopeful image sits alongside a harder reality: space is becoming a contested strategic domain and the gap between rhetoric and security practice is expanding like the universe.
The current state of arms control in space paints a picture of regulations that are thin, incomplete and increasingly outpaced by events. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty still bans weapons of mass destruction in orbit and on celestial bodies but it does not prohibit all military activity in space, nor does it provide a detailed rulebook for counter-space competition. Today’s UN process is therefore trying to manage the problem rather than solve it outright. In 2025, the General Assembly established a new open-ended working group for 2025-2028 to issue recommendations on preventing an arms race in outer space. That’s diplomacy but not disarmament.
The more immediate question is whether there are real prospects of open conflict in orbit. The answer is yes, in the sense that militaries are now planning for it as a live contingency. US Space Command planners are preparing for the first major war in space and Western officials increasingly speak of space as a war-fighting domain. Yet the more unsettling problem is that conflict is not a clear exchange of blows; instead, it is emerging as a pattern of coercion, rehearsal and ambiguity. That makes escalation harder to detect and therefore easier to misinterpret.
A lot that we can see in orbit looks a great deal like preparation for conflict. China, Russia, the US and India have all conducted anti-satellite weaponry tests, leaving behind debris that risks collisions with hardware. More recently, there have been reports of Chinese satellites practising co-ordinated “orbital dogfights”, as well as a Russian spacecraft that shadowed a US reconnaissance satellite for nearly two years.
Alongside this are persistent concerns about jamming, lasers, cyberattacks and close-proximity operations. European responses reflect this shift: France is developing patrol satellites to monitor adversaries; the United Kingdom is investing in sensors to detect laser threats; Germany is building a large encrypted military constellation; and the EU is expanding capabilities to improve resilience against GPS interference.
Recent reporting related to Iran is particularly sobering because it illustrates how space-based capabilities are being integrated directly into terrestrial warfare. In April, Iran reportedly acquired a Chinese spy satellite and used it to monitor US military sites in the Middle East. At the same time, Russia has been providing Tehran with targeting information on US warships and aircraft. Taken together, these developments point to a future in which orbital assets do not merely underpin deterrence; they actively enhance strike capabilities on the ground.
None of this is unfolding in a spacious or forgiving environment. Earth’s orbit is increasingly crowded and fragile, with more than 14,000 satellites and an estimated 120 million pieces of debris in low-Earth orbits. Even debris as small as one centimetre can be lethal, as the extreme speeds of hypervelocity impacts give such fragments enough force to disable a satellite or trigger catastrophic fragmentation.
This congestion has prompted warnings that parts of the atmosphere could become unusable without improved co-operation and data-sharing. Governments and commercial actors are acutely aware of how the security problem and the congestion problem are becoming one and the same. Starlink has announced a 2026 reconfiguration to lower its satellites and reduce collision risks.
And yet the most likely response from space powers will be familiar: to harden their positions. This will mean more patrol satellites, more resilient constellations, expanded electronic warfare capabilities and a greater emphasis on redundancy over vulnerability. Artemis II might have revived hopes of a co-operative future but the strategic environment surrounding it is moving in a harsher direction; toward a space order defined by enduring competition.
Gorana Grgić is Monocle’s security correspondent. To hear about what’s next for the space economy, tune in to Monocle Radio’s ‘The Bulletin with UBS’. And for more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
No matter who you are or where you live, you share a daily habit with the majority of the world. This morning, you, your neighbour, your children’s teacher and your tailor got dressed. For many, the routine is banal: combining various items that amount to a socially presentable outfit. But for some, the practice is an act of self expression and an opportunity to play with texture, colour and silhouette.
The difference between being well-dressed and well, dressed, often hinges on the garments’ fit, but it can also be distinguished by sartorial choices that reflect your personality. A relaxed mood might warrant fabrics that drape, while an alert attitude could draw one to dark colours and angled tailoring. In short, the key to dressing well is to maintain flexibility and to know that the rules are made to be broken.
Monocle asked three particularly fashionable people for their styling advice. The overwhelming consensus is to avoid pre-ripped jeans at all costs, to ignore trends and logos, and remember that life is long, so invest in clothes that will stick around. Here are their tips for creating a quality wardrobe.
Atsushi Hasegawa
The head of creative at luxury hotel The Newt in Somerset, Atsushi Hasegawa can be spotted wandering around its verdant grounds in a straw boater, longline linen shirt or even a kimono-inspired work jacket that he designed for UK gardening brand Niwaki. Hasegawa was born in Japan and became fascinated with fashion in the late 1980s, when he worked at Vivienne Westwood’s Tokyo shop. A passion for fly fishing brought him to Paris, where he worked at Maison de la Mouche, a shop that caters to the outdoors hobby. After about 10 years in the city, where he also worked in textile design, Hasegawa crossed the Channel to become the head of creative concept at footwear brand Clarks. Today he oversees The Newt’s visual identity, marketing activities and cultural partnerships.
Hasegawa’s tips for dressing well
Know thyself
“Clothes protect you so I’m serious about what I wear. As I get older, I know that what matters is what suits your body, your height, your posture. I’m quite obsessed with understanding what kind of hats suit me.”
Keep pieces around
“I collect clothes and never throw anything away. I still have clothes that I bought when I was 18 because I don’t want to be a part of throwaway culture.”
Dress the way you feel
“When life gets stressful, I become almost punk and more expressive. When I’m more relaxed, it’s reflected in my laidback clothing.”
Improvise
“I’m a DJ and only mix with seven-inch vinyls with the aim of seamlessly connecting everything without planning. I like to do the same with getting dressed, almost in a half-stressed state and with only 20 minutes to get ready. I start with one item and then co-ordinate from there.”
Maria Lemos
Maria Lemos certainly knows how to dress the part. The Greek-born entrepreneur has been running Mouki Mou, one of the most elegant retail addresses on London’s Chiltern Street, for more than a decade. Her knowledge of craft, textiles and the best makers to watch is practically endless. A sharp point of view and an appreciation for quality inform everything that Lemos does. Whether she is dressing herself, selecting new labels to stock in her boutiques or choosing a location for her next project, she’s not one to follow trends or veer away from her own aesthetic.
Lemos’ advice for a considered wardrobe
Build a wardrobe over time
“I was recently wearing a wool Lemaire dress that I picked up at the end of the season because no one else had bought it, yet I kept getting compliments on it. These clothes are ageless by nature; you can wear items from years ago and everything fits together. You’re building a wardrobe over time – but that does require a level of confidence.”
Invest in quality pieces
“I keep pieces that are more than 30 years old and it’s all about quality. They might have cost a fortune at the time but they remain in amazing condition and I still wear them.”
Build confidence in your choices
“Something happens when you hit your mid-fifties – you really know where you’re going. Until then, you’re always trying different things out. It’s about knowing yourself and bouncing things off the people around you. That’s why I like being around young, creative people.”
Luxury should feel curated and personal
“For many in the past, [luxury] was about buying into [established] brands, which have become oversaturated… Buying clothes should be the same; it should feel personal.”
Hirofumi Kurino
Japan’s sartorial big hitters have long intrigued the fashion world – and Hirofumi Kurino is right up there as one of the most influential figures in menswear. A co-founder of Japanese fashion retailer United Arrows (UA), where he is now a senior adviser, Kurino’s signature blend of high and low – a tailored jacket and New Balance trainers – is easy to admire and hard to imitate. Relentlessly snapped by street photographers, Kurino knows how to appreciate craftsmanship, whether in an Italian shirt, Japanese wool trousers or a good tweed, but he will happily try something new. Comfortable in his own skin, unfailingly courteous and curious about the world, Kurino, who is also a consultant for Japanese manufacturing organisation J-Quality, is the embodiment of great style.
How Kurino creates his outfits
Go with the flow
“There’s no formula. Sometimes I choose my clothes the night before, sometimes I decide in the morning. It depends if I have a certain image in my mind.”
Find your true colours
“Colour is key for me when I’m choosing what to wear; it’s more important than the fit. Royal blue is my favourite.”
If it isn’t working, change it
“If I head out in the morning and something doesn’t feel right – maybe the socks are wrong – I’ll turn back.”
Follow you own rules
“I don’t like rules for dressing and age is irrelevant but I do avoid logos and big luxury brands, and I don’t like pre-ripped jeans. If my jeans tear naturally, that’s different.”
Find your staples and stick to them
“I still wear a lot of jackets and suits. I’m a big fan of Caruso suits; I love the way they’re relaxed but elegant. I’m interested in mass production and love the socks from my nearby supermarket. I also go to a local barber. I’ve had my hair the same way for 30 years – if I go somewhere fancy my hair will look the way the stylist wants and not like me.”
For more on creating your own style, read:
– Adopt your own look: The case for dressing in a personal uniform
The fact that all emergency services in Venice travel on water is something that still fills me with child-like enthusiasm. Ambulances, firefighters and carabinieri speed around on motorboats emblazoned with insignia. These vessels are my first memory of the city. When visiting as a child, having made the journey from my hometown of Turin, I was in awe of the novelty – to me, they looked like irresistible Playmobil toys. Little did I know that, more than 20 years later, I would be back in the city to report on their activities and the logistical challenges they face for a Monocle story that involved zooming across the lagoon on a police boat (not handcuffed in the back, fortunately).
Every story that has taken me back to Venice over the years shares that same sense of wonder – from observing the glass-blowers in Murano reinventing a millennia-old craft to hopping across the vintage bagni on the Lido, which appear straight out of a mid-century postcard. Perhaps because of the city’s pull on visitors worldwide, Italians often have a disenchanted view on it: we like to show that we are keenly aware of the city’s issues and are attuned to its reality.
And yet, no matter how level-headed I have tried to be, I have always fallen for it. Something shifts the moment you walk out of Marco Polo airport, down to the taxis and vaporetto piers, and smell the salty air of the lagoon: how can you not be excited about a city built on water?
Still, what makes Venice so inviting is that despite the much-discussed spectre of overtourism, it remains a functioning city where you can still catch glimpses of the everyday. Almost a decade ago, when working on the Venice installment of The Monocle Travel Guide Series, the team and I based ourselves in the city for a few weeks, during a freezing January before Carnival started. It was then that I really came to understand Venetian rhythms as I waited for the frenzy of the day to give way to the quiet of the evening, when a different kind of life re-emerged in the bacari.
I was in charge of the guide’s retail chapter, and hunting for independent workshops took me to the residential sestieri – since then, I tend to spend most of my time here in Cannaregio, Castello or Dorsoduro. Speaking to the districts’ artisans and designers gave me a clear picture of their struggles but I also witnessed an enduring sense of pride and determination. Nevermind us visitors who idealise: Venetians are the people who are most enamoured by this splendid city.
Many of the hotels, restaurants, bars, cafés and shops that I discovered on my explorations then form the backbone of our online Venice guide – proof that businesses with soul can survive here. I have accrued the rest over the years during visits to the Art and Architecture Biennale, when having a sharp dinner-booking game can open new doors.
Arguably, it’s the job of any good travel guide to help readers steer clear of over-hyped locales, and that role is even more important when it comes to Venice. So our list of recommendations invites you to veer off into quiet, narrow calli and discover what still makes this such a seductive city. Because despite its traditions and past riches, Venice has become an edgy centre of contemporary art and design – somewhere young generations still find inspiration and purpose.
Read next: The Monocle City Guide to Venice, featuring the best hotels, restaurants and retail spots
Seattle Waterfront Park by Field Operations
Monocle Design Awards 2026: Best in urbanism, USA
The tidal waters of Puget Sound churn a blend of Pacific Ocean and glacier-fed rivers. The result is an estuary that teems with life, from Chinook salmon to Orca whales. But for decades, Seattle – the urban core of the Puget Sound region – was cut off from this briny admixture by the Alaskan Way Viaduct elevated highway, which blocked downtown from the water’s edge.
It took a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in 2001 to inflict a fatal blow to the concrete behemoth and another two decades of political wrangling to determine the waterfront’s fate. Today the dust has settled – the elevated highway has come down and an eight-hectare park has arisen in its place, designed by New York-based Field Operations. Monocle meets the firm’s founding partner and CEO, James Corner, atop the site’s signature feature: the Overlook Walk, a collaboration with LMN Architects. The award-winning landscape architect meanders inconspicuously amidst the tourists and locals taking in the panorama. People crowd the Salish Steps, a cascading set of stairs with a view of the downtown skyline. “It was always our intention to splice nature with the city – a merger of Seattle urbanism with Puget Sound naturalism,” he says.
The result is a testament to the power of design in shaping a city’s fortune. The park is an instant classic that has reinvigorated an ailing West Coast downtown and a proving ground for ecological recovery in an urban industrial setting. As pedestrians wander down boardwalks, Corner muses on the project’s early days. At preliminary meetings, citizens spoke up in favour of keeping the highway or against building a park. “There was a lot of resistance because of a lack of confidence that Seattle knows how to manage public spaces,” he says. A seasoned professional, Corner was unfazed. In 2012 the Field Operations team rolled out a series of renderings that slowly won over sceptics with a vision of piers, play areas, tree-lined cycling paths and places to access the water.
The plan proved to be the ace in the hole for local officials, as they built public support for a new tax and sought philanthropic donations to fund the $806m (€687m) undertaking that spanned seven mayors. “They just had an amazing sales pitch,” says Angela Brady, director of the city’s Office of the Waterfront, Civic Projects & Sound Transit, who moved her team from a municipal tower to the water’s edge to work more seamlessly with Field Operations. “We’ve built exactly the vision that they put together,” she says, though Corner notes a few omissions, such as a proposed mist cloud in lieu of the jellyfish-themed playground, a floating pool barge and a rooftop space atop the ferry terminal, which were axed for budgetary or other considerations.
The park covers 26 city blocks along 2.4km of prime waterfront. Ferries, water taxis and tour boats dock on the piers, while terminals for cargo vessels and cruise ships bookend the park. With the natural deepwater harbour of Elliott Bay, Seattle is very much a working waterfront, a feature Field Operations did not want to hide. That attitude comes across in the material choices, such as the exposed aggregate used for the promenade that forms the central pedestrian artery. “Let’s not create overly stylised, fussy or effete pavement,” says Corner. “Let’s do something that reflects tough, gritty Seattle – its working, pragmatic character.”
And yet, ecological considerations inadvertently created a distinctive look underfoot. The project’s high price tag includes massive underwater engineering work to rebuild the crumbling Elliott Bay seawall that shores up landfill (significant portions of downtown Seattle is built upon filled tidal flats). Field Operations designed the panels with ribbed walls and shelves to mimic natural habitat. The end result is a bustling ecosystem of algae, barnacles, mussels and kelp that attract migrating salmon. Key to the success is a diagonal pattern of purplish glass panes embedded in the promenade, set at the right orientation to maximise sunlight capture.
Clever angles benefit humans as well as fish. Field Operations positioned street furniture – from wooden benches hewn from massive timber beams, a nod to the port’s history, to new porch swings – to face the view of Elliott Bay rather than align with the north-south orientation of the adjacent roadway. “When the viaduct was here, the city was cut off from this massive asset,” says Corner. “They knew the bay was there but they didn’t pay any attention to it as a thing of incredible scenic beauty.”
fieldoperations.net
Tatamel Bike by Icoma
Monocle Design Awards 2026: Smartest mobility solution, Japan
A decade ago, industrial designer Takamitsu Ikoma had an idea for a scooter that wouldn’t require parking space. He had been thinking about it ever since moving from his hometown in central Japan to attend design school in Tokyo, which forced him to leave behind his motorcycle. In the densely populated capital, the monthly fee for a parking spot would have exceeded his budget. The scooter he dreamed up was a compact, electric-powered two-wheeler that could be collapsed, like origami, to the size of a suitcase and kept near the front door of a small apartment or under a desk at the office. Without an engine, it wouldn’t reek of petrol fumes or leak chain grease.
Ikoma’s Tokyo-based startup, Icoma, finally brought this idea to production in 2024 with its foldable electric Tatamel Bike (tatameru means “foldable”). When Monocle visits Icoma’s workshop, set in a cluster of industrial buildings in Matsudo city, northeast of Tokyo, an employee dressed in coveralls is assembling half-a-dozen scooters. Each one is handbuilt from a chassis and folding mechanism that are produced at a factory in Ota ward and combined with off-the-shelf and 3D printer-made parts. Outside, Ikoma demonstrates how the Tatamel Bike’s handlebars, seat and back wheel tuck inside of and under the body. In a matter of seconds, the scooter becomes a compact box that stands on its own or can be rolled around. “It’s very difficult to build a shape-changing vehicle that doesn’t cut corners on safety. Making it function properly and transform reliably is a huge challenge,” he says.
The Tatamel Bike is no hot-rod – it has a top speed of 45km/h and can travel up to 30km when fully charged. But that’s not as limiting as it might sound. “In the city, most people travel an average distance of 10km to 20km at a time,” says Ikoma. When Monocle takes a test ride, the scooter is stable and responsive, thanks to its electric drivetrain, rigid frame and robust suspension. And it’s not just a scooter: the battery can be used as a portable power source, capable of charging devices or used as backup power during outages.
Ikoma had no prior experience building scooters before the Tatamel Bike. He knew of the history of modern foldable motorcycles, going back to the Welbike, a British military invention that was parachuted to the battlefront during the Second World War. Still, designing his own road-ready scooter from scratch seemed ambitious. So he started with something familiar: a toy. His first job out of design school was with Japanese toy maker Takara Tomy, where he worked on Transformer robots that shape-shift into vehicles, weapons and animals. After stints developing AI-equipped robots and home appliances, he founded Icoma in 2021.
Building a miniature version of the scooter helped him refine the mechanics. He carried it everywhere, using it to explain his idea to engineers, designers and potential backers. Feedback – some of it through social media – fed into later versions. By the time he began constructing full-scale prototypes, the project was already attracting attention from scooter enthusiasts and media, and had won design awards in Japan and overseas. Today, with only seven employees, Icoma is racing to keep up with demand. In the past two years, it has sold about 100 Tatamel Bikes at ¥498,000 (€2,700) apiece. Buyers these days must wait six months to a year for delivery. Scaling up production remains a challenge, but the venture is turning a small profit.
Ikoma is considering upgrades to the foldable scooter. He is also exploring a range of new ideas, including AI-equipped, motorised, self-driving suitcases and smaller, lighter scooters with built-in robotics. Toyota recently hired him to collaborate on a Segway-like electric, self-balancing two-wheeled transporter. In the future, Ikoma envisions that more vehicles will behave like robots. The transforming feature of his scooter, he says, is only the beginning.
icoma.co.jp
Further reading:
All 25 winners of the 2026 Monocle Design Awards
Four high-quality bike makers you should know
There are few better ways to take the measure of a city than to watch it wake. Stand in the right place at the right hour and you can read its whole social composition in a single sweep – the street vendors heaving their carts into position, the motorbike commuters threading the arteries before they clog and cleaners stepping out of glass towers as the white-collar set step in with iced coffees at the ready. A city’s morning metabolism is perhaps its most honest portrait.
For those who prefer to start the day with exercise, there are few more apt sites in the Thai capital than Lumphini Park. Arrive early, before the mercury rises, and you’ll find a piece of urban theatre: there is the tai chi cohort moving in slow, deliberate ranks beneath the rain trees. There is the makeshift outdoor gym, nestled under shade, where elderly men work through their reps on old steel that looks as though it has been lifted from a 1970s YMCA. Nearby, a runner in the newest District Vision shades and Hokas glides past, Airpods in, Suunto watch synced. A monitor lizard hauls itself out of the water, takes a quick measure of the morning, and then slowly slides back in.
The cast keeps arriving. An aerobic dance class assembles, a leader in a visor calling out steps over a tinny speaker. Retirees try for their daily steps. By now, vendors are open for business. Skewers hit charcoal, jok (rice porridge) bubbles in pots and traditional Thai coffee is brewed thick enough to hold a spoon upright. The first commuters take breakfast standing before they disappear down the steps of the BTS at Sala Daeng, next to the Dusit Thani hotel.
All of it sits inside a frame that is unmistakably Bangkok in this decade: the embassy compounds along Wireless Road and the towers of Sathorn and Silom catching first light. It’s a skyline that seems to have added another building since you last looked. Bangkok is a city on fast-forward – metro lines opening, new mixed-use complexes rising over old shophouses and foreign capital flooding in. The park is the holdout: a green parenthesis inside a city otherwise rebuilding itself at speed.
Colin Nagy is a Los Angeles-based journalist and Monocle contributor.
Further reading:
Monocle’s complete city guide to Bangkok
The new morning economy: CEOs aren’t the only ones benefitting from crack-of-dawn starts
Hydro Circal 100R
Monocle Design Awards 2026: Best material development, Norway
On a sunny morning in the southern Dutch city of Drunen, a front loader moves slowly across one of the storage depots at Hydro’s aluminium plant, scooping up heaps of scrap aluminium. The scrap is then moved to the adjacent building, where the air is warm with an unmistakable industrial scent. It is here that the metal begins its transformation. Crushed window frames, street-light poles and greenhouse parts are melted down in a 1,000-degree furnace, then purified and extruded into long, silvery profiles. But the molten material isn’t only used to make new building envelopes or car parts – it’s also finding its way into our homes as covetable design items.
This is the unlikely link that Norwegian aluminium producer Hydro has forged through its R100 project, a programme that turns post-consumer material into refined furniture and lighting pieces made entirely within a 100-kilometre radius. When the project – a collaboration between Hydro and five leading designers – was first presented at Milan’s Salone del Mobile last year, it caused quite a stir. Its reputation was only enhanced by its most recent showcase at Eindhoven’s Dutch Design Week, where it presented works made near Drunen.
The initiative is as much an experiment in the circular economy – to see how a global manufacturer can both recycle and produce on a local scale – as it is an endeavour to elevate the status of aluminium as a design material. It has also been a breath of fresh air for its production teams, according to plant manager Ben Mul, who has spent decades working with aluminium. “I was amazed when I saw the products,” he says. “We’ve always been a traditional industrial site, but suddenly our work was being shown at leading design fairs. Even my son, who is studying design, is proud.”
For Hydro, recycling isn’t new – but keeping the entire process, from scrap collection to production of final items, within a 100-kilometres radius was. With the project being based in Drunen, the Dutch geography helped – most of the country fits within the limits set by the producer. Hydro’s business-development manager for the Benelux region, Yon van den Oever, explains that the main challenge wasn’t quality but logistics. “We had to find new partners for bending and anodising within that small radius,” he says. “Some had never worked at this scale before. The engineers had little time to test, but the quality that we achieved matched virgin aluminium.”
Hydro is convinced that aluminium has the potential for becoming a key material in the circular economy of the future. “It can be recycled endlessly without the loss of quality,” says Van den Oever. The company’s most advanced recycled aluminium, the Hydro Circal 100R, produces just 0.4 kilos of CO2-equivalent emissions per kilo compared with the global average of 14.8 kilos. As industries seek to diminish their carbon footprint, Hydro has seen a massive uptick in demand for its recycled aluminium. “The demand outstrips how much we can produce,” Mul tells Monocle. “We have the capacity, but the bottleneck is finding enough scrap.”
In Eindhoven, the results of Hydro’s project gleam under the soft lights of Kazerne, a local design hub. At the R100 exhibition presented at Dutch Design Week, curated by Hydro’s Lars Beller Fjetland, five designers unveil objects made entirely from Hydro’s groundbreaking material. Monocle meets two of them – Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis and German industrial designer Stefan Diez, who have each interpreted the Hydro Circal 100R through a different lens.
Marcelis’s Light Wings lamps are tall, gently curved extrusions that glow in shades of anodised bronze and rose. “The form follows the material,” she says. “Aluminium is light, it bends and you can give it so many finishes. People think of metal as cold, but anodising makes it alive.” The lamp’s structure is deceptively simple – the LED strip and dimmer are integrated into the extrusion so that, at the end of its life, the whole piece can be disassembled and recycled with minimal effort. Diez, meanwhile, has designed a family of cylindrical rubbish bins. Made from the same aluminium profiles, the pieces are both utilitarian and symbolic. “Why a trash can? Because we’re using scrap material,” he says. “It’s a metaphor: waste becomes a beginning. Circularity is complex and requires effort, but projects like this show that it’s possible if you start thinking differently.”
But why is Hydro doing this? The company could simply continue as one of the world’s biggest suppliers of industrial aluminium. For Hydro, the R100 programme is part of a broader strategy to future-proof its business. By 2030, the company aims to more than double its use of post-consumer waste, from 450,000 tonnes in 2024 to up to 1.2 million tonnes. For Marcelis, who usually works with glass and resin, aluminium offered a new challenge. “It’s opaque, so I had to think differently about how light interacts with it,” she says. “Colour became the way to bring warmth.” The project has also changed her professional expectations. “It’s given me the confidence to ask brands for more recycled material,” she adds. Diez, who also works as the head of industrial design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, has long advocated for repairable and recyclable design. He sees the collaboration with Hydro as part of a larger shift. “We designers still work in a linear way,” he says. “We need to create so that materials stay within their alloy families (a key to recycling). Don’t glue everything together – think about how to take it apart. It’s a major paradigm change.” Both creatives agree that working with Hydro gave them a rare level of technical insight. Marcelis describes the experience as “like being a kid in a candy shop”. Diez calls it “a laboratory where designers and engineers meet on equal terms”.
For Hydro, the impact of this project has been cultural as much as environmental. Workers in Drunen and the other plants followed the progress closely. “They were proud to see their aluminium become a desirable design,” says Van den Oever. And while these products were, first and foremost, experiments, they are already feeding back into the company’s mainstream operations. Van den Oever says the search for local finishing partners revealed new suppliers who now work with the company on other projects. The factory team, he adds, has learned to be “less conservative” about what aluminium can do. Fjetland believes this is where design and heavy industry overlap most productively. “Designers push us to the limits,” he says. “For example, we discovered new technical possibilities through [Marcelis]’s lamp, which will benefit Hydro long-term. At the same time, designers can learn what it means to manufacture at scale. There’s no contradiction between sustainability and mass production.”
The R100 project suggests a model for how the materials sector can evolve towards tighter supply chains, closer partnerships and a focus on designing for reuse. For Hydro, the goal is not to become a furniture brand but to show what circular production can look like when designers and engineers collaborate. As Mul puts it, “We are used to making lamp posts for roads. Now we also make beautiful lamps for people’s homes.” In a world where industries are rethinking how and where they operate, Hydro offers an example of what progress looks like as yesterday’s scrap turns into tomorrow’s design.
hydro.com
Claro Arena by Idom
Monocle Design Awards 2026: Best civic renovation, Chile
A good work of architecture should enhance the landscape that it’s in – and that’s exactly what the Claro Arena does, framing a striking view: the distant peaks of the Andes. Located in Santiago’s northeastern foothills, it has been the home of football team Club Deportivo Universidad Católica since the 1980s and has hosted concerts for the likes of Andrea Bocelli and Oasis. But the ground’s former 12,000-seat capacity needed expanding and modernising. “We maintained 95 per cent of the sightlines,” says Borja Gómez Martín, a lead architect at Spanish architecture firm Idom, which was tasked with transforming the brutalist and beloved sporting landmark. “By approaching the project like a tailor, we elevated and extended the ground, rather than tearing it down, expanding capacity to 20,000 spectators.”
The stadium originally sat low in the terrain but Idom introduced a lighter frame that hovers above the concrete base. A new upper level incorporates dressing rooms, press centres, technical areas, premium hospitality spaces and viewing galleries. Central to this is the 360-degree perimeter boulevard, a concourse that operates as the ground’s circulation system. It connects all areas of the site and choreographs the movement of visitors while offering them panoramic views of Santiago and the landscape through its slatted wooden façade.
Gómez Martín and fellow lead architect, César Azcárate Gómez, resisted the generic steel and glass used in most modern stadiums. Instead, Idom opted for laminated Chilean radiata pine slats that tilt and extend to offer shade, open to allow ventilation and can be narrowed where sound needs to be kept in, amplifying the atmosphere created by spectators.
For architects, modern football stadiums are a difficult proposition: how do you create a lively atmosphere in residential neighbourhoods that are averse to too much noise; make matchgoers feel welcome while striking fear into the opposition; and adapt the space for dual use, while maintaining a place that devoted fans have adored for generations? “We approached it sensitively,” says Gómez Martín. “We collaborated with local firms and we sought to understand how locals in the Los Condes neighbourhood interact with the stadium.” The renovation shifts the space from a single-purpose venue into a multipurpose one with better hospitality, commercial and event infrastructure. It ensures that the Claro Arena generates revenue beyond match days, embedding itself into the city’s economic fabric and corporate offering year-round. It’s a project that understands that a stadium is not just a container for sport but also a piece of civic architecture. Oh, and in this case, something that frames a famous view too.
Care to learn about the other beautiful buildings and architectural design that won a Monocle Design Award this year? Here are eight spaces that caught our eye this year – from a trade school to a revived waterfront.
The mood in Dubai’s hotel lobbies has shifted. For much of the past three years, there has been little room to breathe. Occupancies were high, rates were higher and the city’s hospitality machine – one of the key engines of the emirate’s non-oil economy – appeared unstoppable. Then came weeks of regional conflict.
Now, some of Dubai’s most famous hotels are using the downturn to shut their doors, including the sail-shaped Burj Al Arab, which will close for 18 months for a major restoration. Its owner, the Jumeirah group, has brought forward plans that had long been in the works. (In February, authorities confirmed that debris from an intercepted drone caused a minor fire on the Burj Al Arab’s outer façade.) According to industry reports, nearly 2,000 hotel rooms across the city are set for refurbishments. Others are quietly accelerating renovation cycles, pausing operations over the summer and betting on a rebound by the fourth quarter.
The question is whether this is strategic opportunism or a sign of deeper anxiety. “It has been a slowdown, to say the least, in terms of travel patterns coming into the city,” the chief executive of Dubai’s Corporation for Tourism and Commerce, Issam Kazim, told Monocle Radio. Still, he insists that Dubai is already in recovery mode, not waiting for a “reset moment” but “aligning constantly with partners” and tracking demand in real time. “We’re always looking at it in a pragmatic but optimistic way.”
That optimism is a familiar Dubai reflex. During the 2008 financial crisis, the coronavirus pandemic and every regional shock since, the emirate has sold resilience as strategy. The playbook is well rehearsed: slash rates, stimulate staycations, pivot to regional markets and keep building. Hotels have revived the pandemic-era tactic of filling rooms at almost any price. “The old adage: bums in beds,” says Zacky Sajjad of property consultancy Cavendish Maxwell, which is headquartered in Dubai. “Let’s not worry too much about the revenue per room at the moment. Let’s just focus on the occupancy.”
That explains why some portfolios are still posting occupancy rates in the 80 and 90 per cent range, albeit at sharply discounted room rates. A full hotel at half price might keep the breakfast buffet running and the minibar stocked but it’s not the same as profitability. Dubai has a lot of beds to fill, with more than 155,000 hotel rooms and another 11,000 under construction. Roughly 180,000 rooms are expected by the end of the decade, according to Cavendish Maxwell. That target was made on assumptions of endless demand.
Will those assumptions still hold? Thomas Meier, the CEO of Jumeirah, frames the current slowdown as an opportunity. “We have fast-tracked all the projects we had for this year,” he told Monocle Radio from Jumeirah Marsa Al Arab. Rather than renovating 150 rooms a year over three years, some hotels are now tackling 300 in one go. “If we can accomplish that now, next summer… you already have the new rooms.” There is logic in that. Summer is traditionally soft in Dubai. Why not use the lull, exacerbated by geopolitical tensions, to refurbish ageing stock and emerge fresher for winter?
But there is another reading. Closing to renovate can also stem losses. Landmark hotels might have government or quasi-government backing and can weather months of downtime. Smaller, independent operators and restaurants might not be so lucky. Sajjad acknowledges that some F&B outlets simply “may not survive”. Then there is the question of labour. Hospitality in Dubai runs on vast workforces. Renovation periods might mean unpaid leave or reduced shifts. The impact is not immediately visible in the polished marble lobbies – but it’s real.
For international visitors, perception matters as much as reality. While life in Dubai might have remained largely functional, global headlines have been harsher. “What we’ve seen on the ground is very different to what is reported in certain places around the world,” says Sajjad. But tourism can be emotional. If travellers associate the Gulf with instability, discounts alone might not be enough. Kazim argues that Dubai is already segmenting its messaging market by market and targeting “resilient” audiences first. Real-time data, AI tools and search sentiment help the tourism authority gauge who is ready to return and who remains cautious. It’s sophisticated but marketing can only do so much.
Ultimately, Dubai’s tourism machine has always bounced back because it offers certainty: reliable sunshine, service and spectacle. This current wave of closures and refurbishments might prove a clever tactical move – using crisis to upgrade the product. If peace holds and winter bookings return, hoteliers will look prescient. But if instability lingers or if consumer sentiment shifts more permanently, the emirate might discover that resilience has limits. Dubai has spent decades selling itself as the city that never stops. For the first time in a long while, some of its hotels have decided that stopping (albeit briefly) might be the only way to keep going.
Inzamam Rashid is Monocle’s Gulf correspondent. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
US president Donald Trump doesn’t usually do well under fire. That’s why when a gunman entered the Hilton hotel in Washington this weekend, during the annual White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner, Trump was joined by a magician on stage rather than a comedian. Ducking behind a table during the secret service’s presidential disappearing act was one Oz Pearlman – aka Oz the Mentalist, a 43-year-old, third-place finisher on America’s Got Talent and good guesser of pin numbers. His booking for the evening was rather telling.
The century-old event has been televised since the early 1990s, with a comic traditionally hosting a cadre of DC journalists, White House staffers and the commander in chief for an evening of raillery. Every president since Calvin Coolidge in 1924 has attended the WHCA dinner at least once in their term. That was until Donald Trump, who avoided the evening during his first term. So, why did he go this year? Because he has spent years successfully curtailing press freedom – and he still can’t take a joke.
Pearlman was the perfect guest for a president who prefers his room read, not roasted. A mentalist’s act is built on making his subject feel seen, understood and flattered. For a White House that has spent two years dismantling the independence of the press corps, a mind reader who tells you what you want to hear was a white flag of a booking by the WHCA – practically hiring the court jester.
The WHCA did not capitulate in a vacuum, it has been curtailed by an administration that resents an outspoken press pack. In February 2025 press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the White House, not the WHCA, would decide which reporters gained access to the president – whether in the Oval Office or on Air Force One. For more than a century, that function had belonged to the WHCA, an independent nonprofit established under Woodrow Wilson. The Associated Press famously learned what non-compliance cost. After refusing to adopt Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, its journalists were barred from press-pool events. The Wall Street Journal was later restricted after publishing stories about Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The message to the remaining press corps was plain: play along or lose your seat. On Saturday night, the WHCA played along. The night, as we knew it, was already over.
No matter your opinion on magicians – or mentalists, as Oz may prefer to be called – Pearlman is a surprisingly apt metaphor for the times. He described his act to Washington Monthly as being built on “partial truths”, concluding that “in essence, all we’re doing [us magicians] is cheating.” The WHCA, a press-freedom organisation, at its flagship annual gala, chose to platform a performer who openly describes deception as his trade. Trump would have loved Pearlman’s show: naff, a little pandering and entirely devoid of face-to-face mockery.
And now, Trump has been spoiled again with exactly the kind of company he prefers, swapping the court-approved jester for King Charles III, who touched down in Washington on Monday. All pomp, no politics. A king, like a mentalist, does not ask awkward questions – he reads a room and works a crowd.
The president has eagerly insisted that the dinner will be rescheduled. Trump has already stressed the need for a safe space to host such functions and dignitaries. Few would bet against it ending up somewhere he can glance at the guest list. A White House ballroom, perhaps? Whoever hosts, expect the same trick that the Trump administration has been performing for two years: making the free press disappear.
