A wide-brim hat, forest-green pants and a short-sleeved khaki shirt with an arm patch featuring a bison and a sequoia tree. This ensemble is instantly recognisable around the US as the uniform of a National Park Service (NPS) ranger. High summer is their busy season – last year the national park system saw a record 331.9 million visits. Why tinker with something that unites Americans of all political stripes? Nevertheless, in keeping with its record so far, the current administration is looking to upset the apple cart.

In the name of cost savings, bean counters at the Department of the Interior are wondering whether states can oversee hundreds of lesser-known sites. Can Kentucky sweep the porch at Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park and California sound the foghorns at Golden Gate National Recreation Area? The Trump administration signalled that the NPS will retain crown jewels such as Mount Rainier, Glacier and Zion – essentially, those with “National Park” in the name. The optics of a closed visitor centre overlooking the Grand Canyon or a shuttered ranger station in the shadows of mountainous Grand Teton were ruled an unthinkable embarrassment.

While superficially not a boneheaded idea, there are two problems with this proposal. The first is a corrosion of national identity at a time of deep political division. Red-state Americans should feel as entitled to traipse down Boston’s Freedom Trail as blue-state Americans are to imagine the shots that started the Civil War at Fort Sumter in south Carolina. If their respective states managed these historic sites, some of their heft as vignettes in the country’s story would be lost.

The park service was hailed by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns as “America’s best idea,” long acting as a soft-power arm of the US government, internally and abroad. Visitors from around the world flock to natural wonders, including Yosemite and Yellowstone, while the service has sent staff on multiyear international missions to advise on park planning over its century-long history. 

The second issue, and more disconcerting aspect, is the uncomfortable heritage that will fade without imprimatur of the government. Last summer I visited the Minidoka National Historic Site in southern Idaho, a barren, windswept desert where thousands of Japanese citizens and US citizens of Japanese descent were incarcerated during the Second World War. My tour was led by the great-granddaughter of those who were imprisoned, and she narrated the concentration camp’s history with aplomb – all while wearing NPS insignia. It was a powerful testament to a mature country; one willing to invest its resources in memorialising shameful chapters. As the ranger explained on the tour of threadbare barracks, Idaho’s then-governor was none too keen on hosting Japanese wartime prisoners – and, given the state’s political complexion today, it’s hard to imagine that Boise legislators would spend a dime on upkeep. 

Throughout the summer, the parsimonious tenants of the Department of the Interior are requiring the NPS to post signage asking for public feedback on anything that visitors feel portrays US history in a damaging light. It will lead to a long winter of whittling away nuance and complexity in the extraordinary and checkered heritage of my country. Come next summer, I fear, national parks will be a tarnished shrine to American greatness. 

Scruggs is Monocle’s Seattle correspondent. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

When Japanese pop duo Yoasobi landed in London for two sold-out shows at the OVO Arena Wembley, it marked a high point in a journey that has seen them become Japan’s most streamed musical act and its biggest international export. With more than 12 billion streams to their name and the honour of completing the largest-ever arena tour by a Japanese artist, their unique blend of melodic J-pop, rock’n’roll influences and literary storytelling is resonating far beyond their home country.

Monocle Radio spoke to the duo – composer Ayase and vocalist Ikura – about what inspires the music that has made Yoasobi so popular.

You are the first Japanese act to top the global Billboard charts. How do you feel about this success outside Japan?
Ayase: We’re extremely humbled and honoured, and very pleased with the reception. It’s something that I never expected when we started. We receive a lot of messages from fans through social media, which is wonderful. It’s nice to see their reactions when we play live as well, like we did at Wembley.

You mentioned that there’s a connection between Yoasobi and the Japanese literary scene. How central is that to your music?
A: All of our songs are based on stories. There are many different narrative mediums in Japan, such as novels, anime and manga, and they are all interconnected. Our style reflects that, which is slightly unusual, but my hope is that our listeners get to enjoy the art of Japanese storytelling as a whole.

So your music is not just pop songs but also a storytelling device?
A: We produce pop songs but always with a deeper context. Because our lyrics are based on stories, the music is much more three-dimensional. I see what we do as a new form of entertainment and we hope that our audience will get to enjoy Japanese culture through it.

What influences have shaped your compositions and songwriting?
Ikura: I grew up listening to Japanese musicians such as Arashi, Yui and Ikimono-gakari, who were all frontrunners at the time. Rock band Radwimps was a big influence too. My parents’ musical tastes had an effect on me – they introduced me to artists such as Yumi Matsutoya and Southern All Stars.

A: I have been greatly influenced by the J-pop scene, as well as folk songs. I listen to Yumi Matsutoya as well but musicians such as Maria Takeuchi and Toshinobu Kubota also come to mind. I also love Japanese R&B and hip-hop. 

You can listen to the full interview with Yoasobi on the latest episode of ‘The Monocle Weekly’ here.

At 3 Days of Design, there’s a tendency for brands to come together, showing work side-by-side and collaborating on projects on show at the event. Here are three of our favourite groupings and partnerships that show it pays to play nice with others.

1.
The Salon: Other Circle
Design is everywhere: just ask Silas Adler, creative director of new design salon Other Circle. Debuting alongside 3 Days of Design at The Lab, a vast industrial venue in the northwest of Copenhagen, the aim of the showcase is to explore how the realms of design, art, music, food and fashion often overlap. “The boundaries between creative disciplines are dissolving and the way that we engage with culture is shifting,” he says. “There’s a need for spaces that reflect this fluidity. Creatives are questioning the old models and pushing for something more connected, more alive.”

The breaking down of industry barriers is already commonplace in Milan, where luxury fashion houses take over the city’s design week. But Copenhagen has maintained a more siloed approach – at least for now. Adler’s background in the fashion industry (he co-founded streetwear brand Soulland in 2002) might explain this desire to do away with the rule book and shake up the Danish design scene.

The programme at Other Circle features more than 50 participants, including local food institutions Atelier September and Noma Projects, as well as Berlin-based Lotto Studio and Reidar Mester (pictured above, top), Stockholm-based Joy Objects (above left) and Italy’s Meritalia (above right). It’s an eclectic line-up that’s sure to delight. “That’s what my team and I want to focus on,” says Adler. “Joy and inspiration.” 
othercircle.com

Other Circle runs until 20 June, from 09.00 to 19.00, at The Lab, Vermundsgade 40B, Copenhagen.

---

2.
OEO Studio X Time & Style
At 3 Days of Design, Copenhagen-based OEO Studio, known for its refined interiors and considered product work, joined forces with Japanese furniture maker Time & Style, celebrated for its craftsmanship and fresh perspective on materiality. Their joint showcase brings Japanese and Danish aesthetics into quiet harmony. The Kouryu chair – a tactile piece featuring a sculptural wooden frame and a plush tatami seat – is case in point. Here, OEO Studio co-founder Thomas Lykke and Time & Style co-founder Yasushi Yoshida reflect on their collaboration and a shared pursuit of care in working with wood.

Tell us about the role that timber plays in your work.
Yasushi Yoshida: Japanese timber is available on the market but at Time & Style we buy directly from the forest. We have a personal relationship with the forestry people, so they contact us if wood is available. We then move the timber to our factory to dry for one or two years.

Thomas Lykke: It’s important to remember that the forest is not here for us – it’s the other way around. As a designer, it’s valuable to respect that a piece of wood is not just a piece of wood – it had a living spirit before. You have to respect that when you turn it into furniture.

What considerations shape the way that you select and use timber?
YY: It’s trendy to use oak from Hokkaido, where our factory is based. We source a lot of our timber from there and are competing with companies from across the globe who come to buy oak because it’s rich in tannins for wine and whisky. Then there’s tall-growing zelkova hardwood, the timber used for big pillars in temples some 1,200 years ago. For that reason, it is seen as conservative to use zelkova in modern Japanese homes. Until two or three years ago, we did not have dry zelkova wood but we sourced it from Honshū. It’s still rare.

The Kouryu chair that you co-created is made from Japanese zelkova. How does this honour the material and make people want in their homes?
TL: I only learned about zelkova hardwood through Time & Style and its use in sacred temples and shrines. It is seen as a more conservative wood in Japan and is rarely used for furniture. I was fascinated by the fact that I had never encountered it before. I love the grain, the colour and how you can treat it. Time & Style uses natural beeswax, white soap and iron water, which draws out the acidity and makes the zelkova incredibly soft.
timeandstyle.com; oeo.dk

See Time & Style and OEO Studio’s work during 3 Days of Design at Pakhus 11, Dampfaergevej 2.

---

3.
Café A-N-D Bar
Canadian lighting studio A-N-D has crossed the Atlantic and set up a temporary café and bar with furniture by French maker Boon Editions. As part of this group showcase, Irish glassware brand J Hill’s Standard is making its Copenhagen debut. “The fair has a reputation for being a smaller show that has long reach,” says Ava Kelly (pictured below right with Lukas Peet, co-founder of A-N-D), who helms J Hill’s Standard alongside her mother, Anike Tyrrell. “It’s also more digestible and community-based than some of the larger festivals, which have become behemoths.”

Titled Cafe A-N-D Bar, the hospitality-oriented setting allows for made-in-Ireland glassware to be admired in use, be it a nifty carafe-and-glass set by Amsterdam-based designer Aldo Bakker or tumblers by Irish architect Nigel Peake. “It’s an opportunity to highlight the functionality of our products and the joy of creating considered environments for our daily rituals,” adds Kelly. “Who wouldn’t want to sit on a Boon Editions sofa with our tumbler in hand, sipping a cheeky whisky under the gentle illumination of an A-N-D light?”
a-n-d.com; boon-editions.com; jhillsstandard.com

‘Cafe A-N-D Bar’ is open to the public until 20 June, from 10.00 to 19.00, at Studiestraede 34, Copenhagen.

In the summer of 2007, Monocle launched its inaugural Quality of Life Survey as we searched for the best cities in the world to call home. Though other city-ranking indexes existed, we felt that they came to some poor conclusions. Had their compilers, we wondered, ever looked up from their spreadsheets of metrics to ask a few simple questions: is this city, which sounds good on paper, a fun place to live? Is it accepting of outsiders? Can you go to a bar at 01.00? Is it easy and pleasant to get around by foot, tram or bicycle? We were suspicious that the authors of these reports, well-meaning statisticians, hadn’t visited all of the cities that they lauded. So we saw an opportunity to create a survey that homed in on true liveability – what it was really like to reside in a place. Yes, we would gather statistics but we would also ask our network of correspondents and editors to tell us what was really happening in their hometowns.

Not surprisingly, some cities have always flourished in our survey – often medium-sized metropilses that have invested wisely in infrastructure for generations, have nature on their side and sit in wealthy nations. So, this year, we wanted to put more cities in the spotlight – places that might struggle to get to the front of the pack if you take in every data point but are clear winners when you consider one key metric. I won’t spoil all of the fun here but for 2025 we have chosen 10 winners – yes, we have an overall champion but also nine more cities that deserve to be garlanded for their safe streets (without having your every move watched on CCTV), start-up culture and nightlife. Congratulations to all of the upstarts that made the podium this year.

While we’re on the topic of Quality of Life, are you coming to our annual conference on this very subject? It’s taking place in Barcelona from Thursday 4 to Saturday 6 September. There’s a welcome reception on the first day, followed by a day of talks and panels looking at how we can improve our cities, retail, hospitality and the world of work – and a fun dinner that night. Then, for the final day, after breakfast, we have organised trips to ateliers, galleries and more, all with special access. There’ll be no lanyards; you’ll be looked after by Monocle staff; and, by the end of the event, you will have met numerous people with ambitious ideas and great perspectives on the world. You can sign up at monocle.com/events or email my colleague – and head of events – Hannah Grundy at hg@monocle.com.

In 2023 we organised another one of our talk series, The Weekender, in Asheville, North Carolina. We had a great few days exploring the city as we met chefs, campaigners and ceramicists, and we had a pop-up shop at Citizen Vinyl. Being in this lush outpost in the Blue Ridge Mountains was a special experience. It’s why last September’s news that whole parts of the city had been washed away in the floods that followed Hurricane Helene really hit home at Monocle. For this issue, Alexis Self visited the city to see how it has responded and how the determination of people to rebuild has come to the fore, even as huge challenges remain. Perhaps that’s something else we should evaluate when creating our city survey: the ability of a community to come together, to find common purpose.

This being summer – in the northern hemisphere, at least – we have also ensured that this issue has plenty of moments of pure joy. We have dedicated our Expo to 21 things to make your summer pop (from the perfect sliders to the best outdoor cinema) and, in our culture pages, have compiled a sunny checklist of music, books and films to entertain you on your poolside lounger.

And there’s one final story, also in culture, that’s important to highlight: our report on kiosks. Magazines such as Monocle only thrive in cities that care about having an informed and entertained citizenry. It’s painful to watch as city halls hand the licences for their kiosks to people who just want to use them to sell soft drinks. The reason why kiosks fail is that they don’t have inspirational owners. If you don’t believe me, meet the people who keep their city’s kiosks thriving. We need these media stars.

Finally, thank you for reading Monocle – whether purchased from a newsstand or as a subscriber (well, you do get a discount on your conference ticket). As always, feel free to drop me an email – at@monocle.com – with ideas, feedback or just your Barcelona confirmation.

1.
Paris
Best all-rounder
Our city of the year. The French capital’s strengths are multitude.

“I can honestly say that there’s no city in the world in which I would rather live,” says Charles-Antoine Depardon, an architect and advisor on urban development to Paris’s city council, as he strolls through the Tuileries on his way to work at the Hôtel de Ville. “It is an extraordinary cocktail.”

Depardon might be biased but on a spring morning, as the French capital’s avenues resound to the click-clack of hard leather shoes on spruce concrete, it’s hard to argue with him. Last year’s Olympics provided Paris with the platform to showcase its chic 21st-century self. The city delivered a rousing performance that also served as a fitting coda to a decade of revival under mayor Anne Hidalgo, whose ambitious (and, sometimes, controversial) urbanism interventions have made it cleaner, greener and safer, while maintaining and protecting the things that give it its inimitable charm. Paris in the 21st century looks a lot like it did in the 20th century but that’s a large part of the appeal. And today it is also a more international, outward-looking city than it has ever been.

One of the most notable changes has been the huge expansion of the cycle-lane network, which led to bike usage doubling between 2023 and 2024, and the overhaul of the once-creaking Métro, the backbone of which is the speedy new Line 14. This takes passengers from Paris-Orly Airport in the south to the new Saint-Denis Pleyel station in the north in just 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, in its bid to become the greenest major city in Europe, Paris has embarked on a gargantuan effort to plant 170,000 trees by 2026. At the time of writing, more than 120,000 are in the ground, many of which will be used to cultivate new urban forests, such as the one inaugurated in June 2024 at the Place de Catalogne. “Paris is a far more pleasant place to live today,” says Lindsey Tramuta, a journalist who hosts a podcast called The New Paris and has called the 11th arrondissement home for 19 years. “It was always a beautiful city to walk in but that’s even more the case now.”

When Baron Haussmann reimagined Paris in the 19th century, he made its streets more spacious and airy, and therefore less susceptible to disease and crime. Today there remains a steadfast commitment to prioritising quality over quantity when it comes to designing the urban environment. The draw of the city’s cultural behemoths – such as the recently renovated Tadao Ando-designed Bourse de Commerce – remains world-beating, as does its retail prowess.

All of this, combined with the policies of the country’s most pro-business president in a long time, has helped Paris to draw and foster enough talent to snatch London’s double crown as Europe’s top venture-capital city and its leading technology hub. “Paris lends itself far more to an office-based culture than cities such as San Francisco or London,” says Jordane Giuly, the founder of fintech company Defacto. He points out that the French capital’s gentle density is conducive to cross-pollination between start-ups and preferable to the vast distances that one needs to traverse in its rivals.

That said, even with the recent business boom, property prices in Paris have fallen over the past two years. Though some areas remain pricey, the city has largely kept its soul, in large part due to housing policies that have helped to keep low-income residents and their businesses in the heart of the city. More than a quarter of Paris’s inhabitants live in social housing, while small businesses, such as neighbourhood butchers and the city’s famous independent bookshops, have benefited from measures protecting their existence. This idea of mixité sociale (socially and economically diverse districts) has also helped to inject new life and dynamism into a gastronomic scene that had begun to feel threatened by rivals – and now some waiters, like many of the new business owners, are even happy to speak English. C’est la vie!

Click here to enjoy the full Monocle city guide to Paris

---

2.
Madrid
Best for health
A favourable work/life balance and delicious food are a winning formula in the Spanish capital.

On a sunny Friday morning in late May, Madrileños of all ages roam the counters at Mercado de la Paz, browsing fresh fish caught that morning, glowing red tomatoes and cheese from all four corners of the country. This Salamanca institution is one of dozens of mercados in the Spanish capital – food markets found in almost every neighbourhood that hint at why Madrid’s citizens are such a healthy bunch. The city has the highest life expectancy (86.1 years) of any metropolis in Europe.

These figures are down to a unique combination of assets – meteorological, economic and social. Excellent weather and food, strong intergenerational bonds and a natural gregariousness mean that residents work to live rather than live to work. “Socialising is very Madrileño,” Manuel Martínez-Sellés, the president of the city’s Official College of Physicians, tells Monocle. “Keeping physically and intellectually active benefits both the quantity and the quality of life.”

Then there’s the city’s excellent healthcare. Spain is renowned for its public hospitals, which combine the best in training with an almost unparalleled (in Europe, at least) system of data-gathering. As a result of decades of centre-right dominance, the Madrid region now has the highest private health-insurance coverage in Spain about 37.5 per cent. “Good public-private collaboration often allows for more efficient and decisive medicine,” says Martínez-Sellés. “In Madrid we have the best hospitals in Spain, 11 medical schools (more than many European countries), the nation’s leading biomedical research centres, strong and responsive primary care, shorter waiting lists for surgery than in other regions, very active prevention and early diagnosis programmes, and exemplary out-of-hospital emergency services.”

But Madrileños know that health is about more than medicine. Their wellbeing is rooted in socialising and outdoor activity, and this includes, for many, a regular glass of wine and slice of jamón ibérico. Walk Madrid’s plentiful plazas on any night of the week and you will see children kicking a ball around while the adults enjoy el paseo, the traditional twilight stroll, or knock back a crisp glass of beer. A quarter of Spaniards smoke and alcohol remains a part of daily life but an acceptance of the importance of these things at a social level is part of what makes the people of this city such an outgoing – and therefore longer-living – bunch.

Spanish urban planning has helped communities to flourish and loneliness is less common than elsewhere. “Healthy ageing is about enabling people to continue doing what they value as they grow older,” says Vânia de la Fuente-Núñez, a doctor, anthropologist and expert in ageing. “It shifts the focus away from simply having or not having a disease and instead looks at how well a person functions and feels in their environment.” De la Fuente-Núñez serves on the board of Grandes Amigos, a Madrid-based non-profit that promotes intergenerational relationships and addresses social isolation among older people. The organisation runs a volunteer network that promotes interaction between people of all ages and support for the elderly.

Of course, all of this jollity is more than helped by the weather. With as many as 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, Madrileños are often to be found exercising, jogging or cycling around the city’s 60 sq km of green space, swimming in one of its 25 public pools or playing tennis or padel at one of the 698 public courts. For less sporty residents, simply wandering the city’s streets on a sun-soaked evening is a life-enhancing, and possibly extending, experience.

---

3.
Athens
Best for nightlife
The Greek capital is never boring and one of Europe’s few truly 24-hour cities.

More than 15 years since a debilitating debt crisis, the Greek capital has become the discerning night owl’s stamping ground. The country’s economy grew by 2.3 per cent in 2024, which, while not exactly stratospheric, is enough to elicit envious glances from its Western and Northern European counterparts. Athenians now speak of those dark days of high inflation and unemployment as being in the past and, in hindsight at least, it seems that this ancient city was able to turn adversity into opportunity, kick-starting a cultural renaissance that has transformed abandoned spaces and post-industrial areas into some of Europe’s most exciting nightlife spots.

At 02.00 on a Friday night, people fill Menaichmou Street in the buzzy Neos Kosmos neighbourhood, glasses in hand. Their laughter and chatter compete with a wall of sound emanating from the street’s many establishments, including natural wine bar Epta Martyres and spritzeria Bar Amore. It’s the same story on Meandrou Street in Ilisia, where Junior Does Wine rubs shoulders with Quinn’s; and Vissis Street, once known only for its hardware shops, which is now home to cocktail hub Kennedy among other excellent bars. All typify the way that an infusion of young, creative people from across the globe has invigorated a once slightly sleepy and rundown city. “In the summer, everyone spills out onto the street,” says Eleni Georgiou, a young jewellery designer. “The atmosphere is lively yet laidback. It’s like the whole city becomes one big open-air gathering.”

A relaxed attitude towards licensing laws might be assumed as a given in this part of the world but Athens’ laissez-faire approach is born more of political than geographical circumstances. After the fall of Greece’s military junta in 1974, a country that had been denied individual freedoms was fierce about protecting its hard-won rights.Twenty years later, in 1994, a stern-faced minister for public order, Stelios Papathemelis, introduced a law mandating nightclubs to close at 02.00 to rein-in a perceived air of permissiveness. Contravention of the “Papathemelis Law”, as it came to be known, became a badge of honour in Athens and today clubs, especially in areas such as Exarchia, stay open as long as there are people inside having fun.

A post-pandemic boom in tourism has transformed Athens from a stop-off en route to the islands into a destination city. In 2024, 7.9 million people visited the Greek capital, a 12 per cent increase on the year before. Many of these came to see the Acropolis but others were here to experience a place that is being explicitly marketed as a 24-hour city. The Athens Metro – which is being significantly expanded with the construction of the new Line 4 – runs from 05.00 until 02.00 on weekends. Anyone looking to travel between 02.00 and 05.00 will find that taxis are both cheap and plentiful.

Though an influx of affluent foreigners has led to a rise in prices, especially in the property market, Athens remains affordable compared to other European cities – a glass of wine costs, on average, less than €6. Starting a meal at 22.00 is not unusual for Greeks, especially during the hot summer months, and when you eat late, you drink, dance and go to bed late too. It’s not just the hardcore ravers who leave the clubs at 07.00 in July. Those coming out blinking into the dawn light might take a trip to Metaxourgeio for a restorative spanakopita (spinach pie) or gyro, while, for the more adventurous, there’s always the short metro ride to the beach.

Whereas many other cities, especially in Europe, have been on a trajectory of diminishing nightlife returns over the past 10 years, Athens is dancing to a different tune. As Nena Dimitriou, writer of the weekly “Café-Bar” nightlife column in the Athenian daily Kathimerini puts it, “No one is ever bored in Athens.”

Click here to enjoy the full Monocle city guide to Athens

---

4.
Barcelona
Best for urban greening
The Catalan capital is proactive about enacting radical policies and its approach to the environment is achieving solid results.

After three years of drought, the return of rain to Barcelona this spring was more than just a meteorological relief: it marked a moment of renewal for a city that’s doing more than most to stay in step with nature. The Spanish phrase “En abril, aguas mil” (“In April, a thousand rains”) was uttered with smiles, as residents joked about living in London or Paris. And when the sun came back out, Barcelona looked greener than ever, in more ways than one.

Faced with issues such as increasingly regular water shortages, pollution and population density, the city adopted a strategy to green its streets and public spaces. The flagship Superilles (Superblocks) initiative – first proposed by environmental researcher Salvador Rueda and trialled by city hall in 1993 – has rethought car-dominated intersections in favour of people-first places lined with trees, shaded areas and space for community life to blossom.

On a recent morning, the intersection of Girona and Consell de Cent streets, now a bustling square, was busy with people chatting on benches, tourists sipping coffee on the terrace of Bar Betlem and older folks pausing for respite from the sun under a plane tree. In Barcelona, life happens on the street. If you offer residents space to socialise, they’ll use it. The shift away from cars brought less visible but real benefits, including a 22 per cent reduction in co2 emissions, preventing hundreds of deaths each year. Small businesses on newly pedestrianised streets also had an increase in footfall as people chose to walk these greener, cooler, calmer routes. Bird life has benefited too. There are now more than 80 species nesting across city parks.

Alongside the broader Pla Natura scheme for planting is the new Parc de les Glòries, a 4.3-hectare green space with broad promenades and more than 9,000 sq m of vegetation. The redevelopment brought swaths of land into community use, planted more than 1,000 trees and stitched together a new green corridor in the heart of the city. But the strength of Barcelona’s approach is in smaller, more targeted solutions. Participatory digital tools for citizen feedback, such as Decidim, have helped residents to have a bigger voice in shaping their city. “Barcelona also shows how micro-greening solutions, such as pocket parks and green roofs, can offer access to nature even in compact areas,” says Amalia Calderón Argelich, a post-doctoral researcher at the Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability. “Inclusive design practices – such as improved lighting, accessibility and safe park layouts – are adaptable models for dense cities.”

Liveability is the aspiration but, as in many great cities, there is a tension between plans and outcomes. In the Poblenou neighbourhood, where the 22@ project transformed an industrial zone into a gleaming district of green avenues and modern infrastructure, property prices have soared by almost €3,000 per square metre in just 10 years. With this shift has come accusations of gentrification with the loss of the neighbourhood’s former identity and the displacement of its residents. “Though greening plans are ambitious, gaps persist,” says Calderón Argelich. Gentrification and “touristification” remain hot topics as every new park can trigger a rise in house prices. Without some protective policies and civic oversight, says Calderón Argelich, well-meaning projects risk undermining the equity that they aim to promote. “Resilience depends on protecting these frameworks from political volatility.”

---

5.
Vienna
Best for housing
The Austrian capital’s architecture and social housing stock are the envy of the world.

In October 1930, Vienna’s socialist mayor, Karl Seitz, gave a speech at the opening of a new housing block, the Karl-Marx-Hof. “When we are no longer here, these stones will speak for us,” he said. Today the building that he was inaugurating is probably the best known of Vienna’s Gemeindebauten, social housing that has become emblematic of the city’s high quality of life. Nearly a century on, some 6,000 Gemeindebau flats are still built every year, in a continent where many cities have given up on the principle of social housing. The new ones are less monumental than their forebears but the tradition of naming them after eminent public figures remains. Karl-Seitz-Hof opened in 1931.

Housing authorities have also stuck to the principle of distributing council flats across all districts to prevent economic segregation. Another key plank of urban cohesion is the comparatively generous income cap for applicants: €59,320 a year for a single person and €88,400 for a couple at the time of writing. The upshot is that more than half of Vienna’s two million residents live in some form of subsidised housing, whether in Gemeindebauten or state-supported co-operatives. One of the better-known examples of the latter is the sprawling Alterlaa complex (pictured) in the city’s south, home to about 10,000 people and an architectural pilgrimage site for many visitors to the Austrian capital.

Freelance journalist Susanne Jäger has lived in her 43 sq m council flat in the heart of old Vienna since 2014. She also spent part of her childhood in municipal housing. “The Gemeindebau programme has always been part of my life,” she tells Monocle in her Fischerstiege apartment, which is across the road from Vienna’s old city hall. On the ground floor is an office of the Social Democrats – the party of Seitz and the current mayor, Michael Ludwig – alongside a bookshop and an after-school care centre for residents. Jäger hadn’t planned to stay long but the low rent – about €370 a month without utilities a decade ago, now €420 – persuaded her otherwise. “I was never offered a better deal,” she says. She is also struck by the city’s efforts to support tenants who are in difficulty. In her hallway, a poster from city hall reassures residents that they won’t be left in the lurch if they fall behind on payments. “Vienna is the only landlord that tries to keep you in rather than kick you out,” says Jäger.

Of course, social housing is only one strand of Vienna’s mixed housing stock. Roughly a third of the population lives in privately rented flats, with one in five of those in buildings constructed before 1945 – the so-called Altbauten (“old builds”). Most are solidly built, with thick walls, high ceilings, grand tiled entrances and fabulous façades (especially the Jugendstil buildings from the 1890s and 1900s). Balconies or terraces are rarer but there’s often a large courtyard, or Hof, and sometimes a private back garden. The Altbauten are highly sought after, with prices per square metre ranging from about €6,200 in the eighth district to €19,000 in the first. Rents, however, are far more manageable, hovering between €14 and €20 per square metre for both old and new.

Vienna is still very much a city of renters and their rights are staunchly defended, especially in older properties. Homeownership is fairly modest compared to other European capitals, accounting for less than 20 per cent of the population – though that might soon change. Though construction has slowed somewhat, attractive new developments are springing up citywide: in the Nordbahnviertel, near the Danube, on the site of an old railway station, and in Aspern Seestadt on the northeastern fringe. The latter is one of Europe’s largest urban development schemes. In a city where housing is treated as a right rather than an asset, these particular Neuebauten attract less local ire than they might elsewhere.

Click here to enjoy Monocle’s full city guide to Vienna

---

6.
Zürich
Best for mobility
The city that spawned its own transport model isn’t resting on its haunches.

In 2024, Verkehrsbetriebe Zürich (VBZ), the body that owns and operates Zürich’s transport network, recorded approximately 304 million annual passengers across its buses and trams – a 2.1 per cent increase on the previous year. For Switzerland’s largest city, which has spawned a set of much-imitated but never bettered mobility policies known collectively as the Zürich Model, it was further proof that superiority need not induce complacency. The most appealing cities reflect the best things about their nations (as most of this line-up can attest) but perhaps nowhere is that more in evidence than on Zürich’s transport network, which exudes a Swiss air of efficiency. “Where else do passengers greet you when they’re getting on and off?” asks Sinan Yigitler, a bus driver who moved to Zürich from Germany with his family. Could it be that a calm, clean and cheap transport experience makes passengers more cheerful?

An enduring symbol of Zürich is its tram network. Pale blue and white, these sleek road trains glide through leafy boulevards and along lakefront promenades, the doleful clang of their bells and the soft whoosh as they pass providing the city’s muted soundtrack. Since 2002, Zürich’s buses have run for 24 hours on weekends, ferrying home the stragglers from bars and clubs as the city settles into silence.The Zürich model grew out of a realisation on the part of the city’s government in the 1960s and 1970s that it had to offer public transport of a high-enough standard to tempt commuters out of their cars and so avoid gridlock on its streets (nearly 280,000 people commute into Zürich every day a number not far off the city’s population of 360,000).Today, 327 intersections are equipped with sensors that detect approaching vehicles and adjust signals to prioritise the transit of trams and buses over cars.

But the city’s ambitions go well beyond trams and buses. The Zürich Model places great value on modal split, meaning that all facets of the network must be constantly improved to ensure the vitality of the whole. Under the government’s 2030 bike plan, the number of cycle lanes and cyclist-first traffic lights are due to be expanded, while its 2040 mobility strategy focuses on connecting the fast-growing northern and western suburbs to the rest of the city. Projects such as the Tramtangente Nord, a planned orbital tram line that binds outer districts without passing through the city centre, aims to improve capacity where it’s needed most.

“We need to redistribute street space to give more room to pedestrians and cyclists,” says Simone Brander, the head of Zürich’s civil engineering and mobility department. This ethos is deeply felt by the people who operate the system too. “It’s an important part of my life and the people here are like my second family,” says Astro Ajvazi, a VBZ instructor who trains the next generation of tram operators.

Click here to enjoy Monocle’s full city guide to Zürich

---

7.
Mexico City
Best for conviviality
Mexico City is attracting those seeking quality over quantity.

For many people in Mexico City, the weekend officially kicks off at about 14.00 on a Friday. In the leafy neighbourhoods of Condesa and Roma, streetside cafés and restaurants fill with residents and visitors alike, seated at tables spilling onto the pavements. Food has always been an important part of Mexican culture and people here have access to a good bite no matter their budget, whether it’s tacos from a street vendor or silver service. A long lunch is more than just eating: it’s an opportunity to savour time with friends and family, embracing the tradition of sobremesa – an unhurried meal in which diners linger around the table for hours.

Mexico City’s laid-back attitude, which extends far beyond the dining table and into everyday life, is luring many from afar. The city’s population grew by 600,000 between 2019 and 2023 – much of that influx from the US and Canada, countries to where Mexicans have traditionally emigrated. It’s proof that the city’s way of life is catching on. “The people here value quality of life above many things,” says Adolfo López-Serrano, a resident and founder of communications company Base Agency.

Despite being one of the biggest and most hectic cities in Latin America, many neighbourhoods here, such as Condesa and Coyoacán, offer a small-town feel, with inhabitants waking to the sound of birdsong. “The urban fabric is very nice and there’s also great architecture,” says Rodrigo Rivero Borrell, founder of property developer Reurbano. He notes that neighbourhoods around the Paseo de la Reforma were developed consciously, with wide avenues.

“The city is designed for movement, with walkable streets and good public transportation in the central areas,” says López-Serrano. There are almost 400km of bike lanes, which is remarkable for Latin America, and the Metro, with 12 lines covering more than 226km, is the second largest on the continent. The city also has one of the best-connected airports in the region, with direct flights to more than 100 destinations, including London, Los Angeles, Madrid, New York, São Paulo and Tokyo.

Outsiders tend to find Mexico’s capital very inviting. “Being a Latin society, it’s a welcoming place,” says Rivero Borrell. “People want to engage.” It’s also ideal for those seeking to build a business. López-Serrano describes it as “a city where chaos and order happen at the same time, creating the perfect playground for creatives and entrepreneurs”. He adds that in Mexico City, “You can be scrappy and resourceful, and push boundaries. Yet the standards for design, culture and innovation are remarkably high.”

Certain neighbourhoods are astonishingly green. In an effort to improve air quality and mitigate the effects of climate change, more than 44.2 million trees, shrubs and ground covers have been planted throughout the city since 2019, according to Mexico City’s environment ministry. “The central areas are well serviced in terms of parks and public spaces to maintain a healthy lifestyle,” says Rivero Borrell. Being outdoors is woven into city life and you’ll always find people walking their dogs, exercising or dancing salsa in one of the 244 parks or plazas here. There are few better ways to foster a sense of community.

---

8.
Lisbon
Best for safe streets
Crime rates continue to fall in this sunny metropolis by the sea.

Speak to one of the hundreds of thousands of Brazilians who call Lisbon home – the largest immigrant community in Portugal – and safety will almost certainly emerge as one of the reasons for their move. In this respect, Lisbon has become the gold standard for many. Europeans and Americans who have recently flocked to the city also cite security as an important factor in staying. “I can walk down any street at any time without having to look behind my back,” says George Dellinger, who moved here from New York in 2022. “I don’t feel vulnerable. There’s a sense that people look out for each other.”

Lisbon has evolved over the past decade from a somewhat sleepy town into a dynamic European capital and it has impressively done so without compromising on the safety of its residents. Crime in the capital is consistently low compared to other European cities; Portugal’s latest annual homeland security report indicates that in 2024 there was the steepest drop in the crime rate (excluding the anomalous pandemic years) in more than 10 years: a fall of 7.6 per cent in Lisbon’s metropolitan area. It also points to a 1.8 per cent decrease in violent crime, with even bigger drops in the city proper.

That said, statistics don’t always tell the full story. Safety is also a collective sentiment and, recently, a few widely publicised violent incidents have rattled some sectors of society and inflamed political rhetoric. Lisbon’s mayor, Carlos Moedas, has acknowledged the public’s unease and called on the government for increased policing in the city.

But, as ever in Lisbon, a lot of emphasis has been placed on community policing, a preventive and participative approach that has garnered attention from across the globe. In contrast to the stock response of cities faced with security issues – more CCTV or increasingly heavy-handed policing – Lisbon invests in more integrated forms of safety that put trust and a human presence at their centre. Police officers are assigned to neighbourhoods for the long term, fostering familiarity with citizens and partnerships with neighbourhood associations and social services. The constant dialogue between these groups means that the police are better equipped to address problems as they arise and deal sensitively with issues around drug use or homelessness through dialogue.

Like any city shaped by tourism, Lisbon has pockets where petty theft is common, especially in the historic downtown areas. But when it comes to the kind of ambient, everyday safety that allows one to move through public space without thinking too much about it, Lisbon continues to offer a rare kind of freedom. An intuitive way to grasp this is by noticing how schoolchildren make their way through the city. They’re often unaccompanied, navigating public transport and streets with an ease that recalls a different era. For parents it’s a powerful indicator. “The number of times I’ve left my purse on the pram while running after my boy in the park… I would never think of doing that in London,” says Perrine Velge, who moved from the UK capital to Lisbon in 2020.

Another indicator can be seen when going out at night. Like other Mediterranean cities, Lisbon has a late-night culture that is dominated not by heavy-drinking young people but a relaxed mix of ages. Eating out, strolling home or sharing a glass of chilled white port in a neighbourhood bar remain part of everyday life, unmarred by disorder. Feeling physically safe in some Western cities is no longer taken for granted, if indeed it ever was. Lisbon is a rare outlier.

Click here to enjoy Monocle’s full city guide to Lisbon

---

9.
Tokyo
Best for cleanliness
Tokyo’s spruce streets and responsible citizens set the benchmark.

For a city of 10 million people – and that’s just the 23 central wards – Tokyo is bafflingly clean. (The population balloons to 44 million if you take in the greater Tokyo area.) To understand why, look at how the Japanese capital operates in the morning. Rubbish vans trundle along residential streets, with binmen jogging alongside their vehicle as they grab bags of meticulously separated household refuse. Meanwhile, an army of kanrinin, the caretakers who look after Tokyo’s apartment blocks, mop entrances and put out rubbish. Shopkeepers and café owners spruce up the area in front of their establishments, picking up any stray litter and cigarette ends (banning street smoking has improved that situation no end).

Volunteers are also out in force. In fashionable Omotesando, a band of hairstylists from some of the dozens of salons in the neighbourhood are in green bibs, picking up litter before opening time. Over by Shibuya station, another group of volunteer helpers – schoolchildren and pensioners – are tackling the detritus on one of the world’s busiest pedestrian crossings.

The lack of street bins is no surprise to anyone who lives here (most disappeared after the deadly sarin gas attack in 1995) and people expect to have to look after their own litter. The sticking point has come with the arrival of unprecedented numbers of tourists who are not necessarily on the same page garbage-wise. It’s not that visitors are looking to dump rubbish but they’re often unsure what to do with their plastic cups and bottles. Overflowing bins are never a good look so refuse-flattening smart bins are being introduced to busier streets and tourist sites.

Public toilets have had a major upgrade in Shibuya with the Tokyo Toilet project, in which 16 creators (including architectural A-listers such as Tadao Ando and streetwear legend Nigo) designed public conveniences that not only look good but come equipped with Toto Washlets and are kept spotlessly clean by a team of people who wear natty boilersuits (as seen in Wim Wenders’ film Perfect Days). Architect Kengo Kuma designed one comprising five wooden huts in Shoto Park. He called it a “public toilet village that is open, breezy and easy to pass through”. The project’s organisers consider clean, well-lit, fully accessible public toilets essential to any city and even “a symbol of Japan’s world-renowned hospitality culture”.

As in every city, there’s graffiti in Tokyo (though not in the same quantities as elsewhere). Clean & Art, a group led by artist Ken Sobajima, is on a mission to eradicate the blight. Passers-by applaud Sobajima and his team as they paint over unwanted scrawls and restore walls. “I used to think that nobody cared,” he says. “But once I talked to people, I discovered that everyone was bothered by it.”

As with most aspects of daily life in Japan, there are deeper philosophical reasons for this preoccupation with spotlessness. Shinto, Japan’s native religion, demarcates clean and unclean spaces, a division that affects everything from the sumo ring to the home. Children absorb this distinction between clean “inside” and unclean “outside” early.

All of this isn’t to say that there’s no rubbish in Tokyo but, overall, it’s much tidier than other cities of a comparable size. Tokyo spends a fortune on keeping things presentable. The Clean Authority of Tokyo’s waste management budget for the central wards is ¥105bn (€640m) this year, of which ¥83bn (€507m) is dedicated to cleaning. But the secret to the city’s sparkle is that it’s not simply the work of city employees: it’s a collective job.

Click here to enjoy Monocle’s full city guide to Tokyo

---

10.
Tallinn
Best for start-ups
Estonia’s capital continues to attract entrepreneurs seeking Nordic-style living without the high price tag.

The Estonian capital is well known for its leafy streets, medieval architecture and raucous nightlife – but it’s increasingly gaining a reputation for its close-knit entrepreneurial network and world-leading digital infrastructure.This is aided by the fact that nearly everyone speaks English, rents are affordable and it’s a mere 10-minute drive from downtown to Tallinn airport, which has direct flights to 60 international destinations. Throw into the mix Europe’s highest number of unicorns per capita, a dense network of venture-capital firms and a steady pipeline of technology talent, and Monocle’s 2025 Best for Start-Ups award feels like a shoo-in.

“Estonia is particularly good for digital infrastructure,” says Martin Sahlen, who moved from New York to Tallinn to launch fintech business Alvin.ai. “It’s a very entrepreneurial country and there is less red tape.” He set up his company in the district of Telliskivi, the epicentre of Tallinn’s vibrant start-up scene, where co-working spaces such as Lift99 sit alongside excellent and affordable restaurants and bars, such as Pudel and Juniperium, and a growing number of museums and cultural venues, including Fotografiska.

Another draw for entrepreneurs is Estonia’s e-residency programme, through which non-nationals can open and manage an EU-based business entirely online, no Estonian address or presence required. Almost everything, from company registration to tax filings, is handled digitally, which means that the actual starting-up process can take just minutes. Taxes, meanwhile, are only applied when profits are distributed – a boon for early- stage reinvestment.

Yet Tallinn’s real draw is its people. “We are really like a community,” says Irina Tokareva, a hub administrator at Lift99, who moved to the city from Düsseldorf. “All foreigners are friends from the first minute.” According to Tokareva, approachability defines the culture here. “You don’t need to book a call through two assistants,” she says. “You can just write to them and say, ‘Hey, I’m building this and I’d love to show it to you,’ and they’ll answer.”

This openness extends to the top of government. Like his predecessors, Estonia’s prime minister, Kristen Michal, has hosted round tables with start-up founders to better understand their needs. Public support is structured too: Startup Estonia, a government-backed initiative based in Ülemiste (another business zone that’s home to dozens of start-ups), plays a central role in connecting newcomers to networks, resources and funding. “If you look at the people who are building new start-ups, they often have backgrounds in multibillion-euro businesses such as Skype, Wise, Pipedrive and Bolt,” says Mirjam Kert of Startup Estonia. “Since 2010, more than €4.5bn has been invested in Estonian start-ups, 92 per cent of it from foreign investors.”

“I chose Estonia because it’s in the same time zone as Kyiv and it was really cheap compared to, say, Berlin or London or New York,” Ukrainian founder Alexander Storozhuk, who relocated his media-technology firm PRnews.io here, tells Monocle in his office at Porto Franco, looking out at the dozens of boats bobbing in Tallinn’s sunny harbour. Safety and quality of life were decisive factors too. “My eight-year-old daughter walks home alone from school and I’m always confident of her safety,” says Storozhuk. Between the agile public services, a highly international founder base and the Nordic-style liveability (minus the price tag), Tallinn punches well above its weight. For founders looking for speed, support and a city where big ideas travel fast, Estonia’s capital is a smart place to start.

---

There’s perhaps no urban issue that vexes and divides us as much as housing. Everyone who lives in a city should be able to find a safe and comfortable abode but even when we treat that aspiration as the bare minimum, we quickly move on to perilous ground once we start debating the issue’s myriad other conundrums.

Ours is a time of great prosperity in which billions of people have flocked to the centres of commerce and industry. This has exacerbated housing shortages but also inspired ingenious solutions to problems such as overcrowding, transportation and poor design. Monocle spends a great deal of time speaking to those who aim to create better housing in different places across the globe through vision and imagination rather than bluster. Here are our two cents – or perhaps we should say 10.

---

---

---

---

---

---

Illustrations: Jonny Glover

1.
News & Coffee
London

Launched in Barcelona in 2019, News & Coffee now brings first-rate print media and coffee to 10 locations across Europe. Each kiosk has settled into its neighbourhood and so it is with the company’s second London location, this time in King’s Cross.

News & Coffee can be found in Granary Squre inside a Paperhouse – one of four kiosks designed by the London-based Heatherwick Studio in 2002. Over time these booths had lost their original purpose and the arrival of News & Coffee returned the Paperhouse to its intended function. “The conversation we had was, ‘How do we feel about bringing paper back into the Paperhouse?’” says Gautier Robial, one of News & Coffee’s three founders.

Granary Square provides a moment of calm in the bustling capital. In the warmer months it comes alive with children running in and out of fountains, live music and open-air cinema programmes. For Robial, this lively environment is the secret to the kiosk’s success. “People are rediscovering the joy of stopping by and having a chat while they wait for their coffee,” he says. “The newsstand is at the crossroads of so many layers of society; some that we don’t always notice. I always say that we have the same role as a public bench.”

---

2.
Aedicola Lambrate
Milan

A ritual close to the heart of many Milanese is a trip to the neighbourhood edicola (newsstand) to catch up on events. So when a group of friends living in the city’s Lambrate district saw a “for sale” sign attached to their local news kiosk two years ago, concerns about losing their source of print media quickly turned into a discussion about buying the space. “The location, set on a corner with a large pavement, was a gathering place for the community,” says Michele Lupi, a former editor in chief at the Italian editions of GQ and Rolling Stone, who now works for Italian fashion group Tod’s. “Newsagents had been there in one form or another since the early 1900s. It would have been a pity to lose it.”

Within a year, Lupi and a trio of partners – Paolo Iabichino, Martina Pomponio and Alioscia Bisceglia (frontman of Italian band Casino Royale) – refurbished the stand, complete with bright-yellow signage. It now stocks national and foreign publications as well as books. Talks with writers and live radio events are hosted on-site to engage residents. “We’ve had a great response,” says Lupi. “When we opened, neighbours came by with prosecco and plates of pasta to celebrate.”

---

3.
Quiosque das Amoreiras
Lisbon

Few shops in Lisbon enjoy better foot traffic than the small yellow newsstand just below the popular Amoreiras complex, which is home to residences, offices and a shopping centre. Passers-by are drawn it by the kiosk’s vast selection of national and international print media. “I have magazines that you won’t find anywhere else in Lisbon,” says Xavier Sepúlveda, who has owned the newsstand since 2019.

His inventory includes prominent English-language fashion, design, lifestyle and political magazines, as well as niche titles on music, film and wine. “We also carry quite a few French-language magazines such as Le Monde Hors-Séries and L’objet d’art,” says Sepúlveda, noting the proximity of the stand to the French lycée. Among the top sellers are decor magazines such as House & Garden, as well as the Portuguese Observador Lifestyle. The kiosk caters to the tastes of local patrons but Sepúlveda also stocks publications pertaining to his personal passions, and as the owner of a motorcycle shop it’s little surprise that he has a fine selection of titles about the two-wheeled beasts.

---

4.
Quiosco KGB007
Madrid

“I might be the smallest but I’m the strongest,” says Rafa Martín Piña from behind the counter of his quiosco redondo, one of eight ornately roofed, round-shaped newsstands in central Madrid. The 58-year-old has worked here since he was 14, observing the streetscape transform. “Only the pharmacy and the café opposite remain,” he says. “We’ve outlived the cinemas, the banks, every beard and bigote (moustache) style.” When the legendary literary Café Comercial (which sits opposite) was revived in 2017, the new owners financed an overdue restoration of the kiosk.

“I’m known as a spot for cinephiles and music lovers,” says Piña, pointing to more than 3,000 DVDs and a few hundred vinyl albums stacked alongside printed press. The name of his kiosk, KGB007, which he insists is entirely arbitrary but playfully cinematic, sums up the essence of his offering: information that sparks the imagination. His quiosco also serves as an informal help desk. When Spain suffered a near-nationwide power cut in April, dozens of people, their phones suddenly inoperative, flocked to him for guidance. “When it comes to printed media, we often say that we’re the resistance but this extends to the survival of neighbourhood meeting points too.”

---

5.
Banca Cinza
Rio de Janeiro

Banca Cinza is a recent addition to Rio de Janeiro’s eclectic mix of newsstands. Founded in 2024 by Jonas Aisengart, it sits in front of popular bar Chanchada, which Aisengart also runs. Cinza is in the bohemian Botafogo neighbourhood and has expanded the offerings of kiosks in the city by adding independent zines and art projects to the usual fare of traditional newspapers and magazines. Also on sale is ice-cream from Brazilian brand Sorvetiño as well as a neat selection of vinyl records. “My background is in art – I studied painting,” says Aisengart. He works alongside graphic artist Peu Lima to select the more artistic publications for the kiosk. “This is a way for me to reconnect with the art world within the commercial space of a newsstand,” he says.

The name Cinza (meaning grey) references the colour of Rio’s traditional newsstands but also works as an acronym for Cultura independente, notícias, zines e arte (Independent culture, news, zines and art). Among the bestsellers are illustrated titles by André Dahmer, who creates comic strips for Brazilian daily Folha de São Paulo and for Piaui (Brazil’s answer to the NewYorker). And if choosing the right reading material becomes thirsty work, you only have to cross the road to find a cold beer.

---

“That was a coffee shop and on the other side of that wall was a yoga studio,” says Joe Balcken. The co-owner of Wrong Way River Lodge & Cabins is showing Monocle around the River Arts District (RAD) in Asheville, North Carolina, as we survey the damage caused by Hurricane Helene. It’s the first of several times over the next three days that our powers of imagination will be called upon to reconstruct a group of buildings from a pile of rubble. Balcken owns a set of 16 A-frame cabins that stand on stilts about a kilometre downriver from here. Or perhaps we should say upriver. “The French Broad is one of the 13 few rivers that flows south to north,” says Balcken, with a soft Appalachian lilt. “We call it the wrong-way river, which is where we get our name.”

From this corner of western North Carolina the Appalachian Mountains begin their gentle descent towards northeastern Alabama. It’s a land of thickly forested hills that turn smoky blue in the twilight, which has long drawn people from all over the US for whom a life lived among nature is an ideal worth pursuing. Beside a more established Appalachian community that prides itself on rural self-sufficiency, these new residents have created a kind of redoubt against the ravages of modernity. This is a place where people can live outdoors, be creative and still have access to excellent food, culture and healthcare. But on 27 September 2024, a much less welcome newcomer barrelled into town.

“At around 22.00 I started getting phone alerts from the NOAA [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] and it was alarming,” says Balcken. “They were saying that this would be a historic event, like nothing else we had ever seen. Every colour indicator was in the red for severity and impact.”

Down in the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Helene was gathering steam. And as it sped toward the Florida coast, whipping up winds of 220km/h, within 24 hours meteorologists upgraded its severity from a category-1 storm to a category-4 hurricane. Due to record-hot sea temperatures, Helene was able to hold an extraordinary amount of atmospheric moisture, which it unleashed as torrential rain in places at its peripheries, such as Asheville.

At the Grand Bohemian Hotel in the city’s Biltmore Village neighbourhood, general manager Matthew Lehman and his staff were holed up in the reception area. “We just watched the water rise and rise and rise,” he says. “By 10.30 it was two feet deep and we were leaving to go upstairs.” Some areas saw 700mm of rainfall in 24 hours, well above the 420mm threshold that constitutes a once-in-a-thousand-years flood. Both the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, which converge in Asheville, burst their banks, toppling buildings, uprooting trees and carrying cars and other detritus miles downstream. The city lost running water and power, and telecommunications were knocked out in much of western North Carolina, leading to an information blackout. Whole communities were destroyed. An announcement from Black Mountain police chief Steve Parker reported: “Neighbourhoods are gone from flooding or mudslides. They’re having to leave bodies behind, houses are on fire.” A few days later, the then-governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, said that “the devastation brought by Hurricane Helene is beyond belief… Communities were wiped off the map.” The state’s final death toll was 107, more than a third of which were in Buncombe County, the county that contains Asheville.

Monocle visits the city in mid-April, when spring is rearing its leafy head. Though evidence of flooding isn’t difficult to find, downtown Asheville went largely unscathed and Main Street’s bars and restaurants are abuzz. Over the past 20 years or so, the city’s hospitality and tourism-related businesses have come to represent an ever-greater proportion of its economy. According to Explore Asheville, a tourism marketing agency (with which Monocle has collaborated in the past), visitors spent $3bn (€2.6bn) in Buncombe County in 2023, contributing 20 per cent of its total GDP. For these businesses, Helene couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Western North Carolina contains some of the most abundant deciduous forests in the US and come October the hills around Asheville burst into a riot of fiery yellows, oranges and reds. “Most restaurants here, because of how dead January, February and March are, use these [autumn] months to kind of bank up, put cash aside to get through the winter,” says Meherwan Irani, chef-proprietor of Chai Pani, an Indian restaurant group that has helped to put Asheville on the culinary map. Visitor numbers were down 74 per cent in October 2024 compared to the previous year and 57 per cent in November. Six months after the hurricane, Asheville had an unemployment rate of 6 per cent (13,000 people) – the highest in North Carolina, according to the state’s Department of Commerce. “At last count, 21 independent restaurants had either closed or not yet reopened,” says Irani.

And yet, along with the river mud, Helene stirred up that particularly Appalachian spirit of can-do and compassion. Stories of strangers helping strangers are countless, as are those of the hospitality industry directing its resources towards those in need. “For two days after Helene hit, there was no communication – no internet, no cell phone,” says Irani. “So, a group of us was drawn almost magnetically downtown.” Irani was due to open Botiwalla, a small sister restaurant to Chai Pani, the day after the hurricane made landfall. Its downtown building was one of very few places not to lose power. “We looked at everything in the walk-in and our first instinct was… Well, I’m sure there’s a lot of hungry people around Asheville,” says Irani. “The co-owner of another restaurant comes in carrying a big tub of lamb and says, ‘What can you do with this?’”

Soon chefs and other hospitality staff were working in the Botiwalla kitchen in what Irani describes as “a kind of triage but with lamb”. When World Central Kitchen, a charity that helps distribute food to people in disaster areas, arrived on the scene days later, they used Botiwalla as a hub from which they flew a helicopter that would land and take off 10 times a day, bringing hot meals to people cut off by the flooding. A more traditional triage was established at Double Crown, a West Asheville bar owned by Chris Bower, who also runs the Eda Rhyne Distillery in Biltmore Village. “The bartenders created an emergency medical centre inside and outside of the bar,” says Bower, who, at two-metres-tall and with shoulder-length hair and a long beard, looks like a bluegrass banjo player. “The fire department was sending people there to get emergency care and prescriptions.” And just outside Marshall (a small riverside town about 30km from Asheville that was hit hard by Helene), Kevin Ward and Jeramy Stauffer, who together run the prefabricated home company Nanostead, decided that their hillside location would be a suitable stage for the relief effort. “We showed up a couple of days after the storm with our grill and some hot dogs,” says Ward, who is also heavily bearded. “Within a couple of days we had a kitchen set-up serving 1,500 meals a day.” The Marshall Relief Alliance, as Ward and Stauffer’s group came to be known, hosted dinners and musical evenings throughout the cold Appalachian winter and became a hub both for people seeking help and those looking to assist others.

Autumn 2024 wasn’t only an inopportune time for Helene to hit from an economic perspective. The hurricane arrived towards the end of a particularly venomous US presidential election campaign and the disaster became a focal point for the forces feeding nationwide polarisation. On 2 October the then-president, Joe Biden, flew in a helicopter over the flood-hit areas. On 21 October the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, visited the town of Swannanoa, which was badly affected by Helene and is home to a poorer, more rural population than Asheville. Trump sought to amplify grievances related to the perceived ineffectiveness of the federal government and particularly the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which deals with natural disasters and their aftermath.

Rumours circulated online that Fema was intentionally withholding aid or diverting resources towards illegal immigrants at the Mexican border, and even that the Biden government had engineered the storm in order to seize the region’s lithium deposits. After Fema had to pause relief work in certain areas due to threats from local militia, Chuck Edwards, a Republican congressman who represents many of the worst-hit areas, penned an open letter intended to dispel the rumours. It included the line, “Hurricane Helene was NOT geoengineered by the government to seize and access lithium deposits in Chimney Rock… Nobody can control the weather.” Weeks later, Edwards stood behind Trump in Swannanoa as he repeated the falsehood that Fema was spending money meant for Helene on illegal immigrants.

Swannanoa town is still a site of devastation in April: roofs caved in, cars overturned and riverbanks strewn with debris. We meet Regae Eager and her husband, John Barnes, outside their home. They are replacing two rosebushes uprooted by the floods that were planted in memory of Eager’s mother and Barnes’s son. “We’re the only ones on this side that made it,” says Eager, her voice hoarse as she gestures towards what remains of her neighbours’ homes. Most of the people we have spoken to have been either positive or ambivalent about Fema’s response to the disaster but Eager heaps scorn on the agency. “We had no rescue, no warning,” she says. “The dam broke at the same time the reservoir stopped doing its job, so it was coming from up there and down there.” She points up the side of the valley and down towards the river.

Whether or not Fema is responsible for the fact that some areas were cut off with no water or power for months and have still to receive much in the way of financial assistance, the situation hasn’t improved since Trump re-entered the White House. Indeed, many feel that it has got worse, with the new president’s threats to disband the agency hindering both its ability to continue working and the faith that people have in soliciting its help. Comments made by Trump and others have likely discouraged many from seeking federal assistance, which, experts say, could undermine the whole region’s recovery. Months after the storm, just 15 per cent of eligible North Carolina households had applied. The newly appointed Democratic governor of North Carolina, Josh Stein, announced on 23 May that the Trump administration had denied the state’s request for Fema to honour a Biden-era commitment to fund all debris removal.

The total cost of the damage in North Carolina is estimated at $60bn (€53bn), which is nearly double the state’s annual budget. But despite the work that still needs to be done, the overwhelming impression is that of a community brought together by the disaster, rather than torn apart. Appalachia is often characterised as an insular place, wary of outsiders, but everyone Monocle meets strongly hopes that visitors will start filling the region’s forests, rivers and bars again as soon as possible. “I have come across so many people who have intentionally visited this city to support us after the storm and that’s been really cool,” says Bower. “You know, so much of the messaging we get is so jaded and cynical but people care about people.”

A large part of downtown Asheville’s charm comes from its mix of independent businesses. Indeed, it seems unlikely that there would have been the same amount of cross-community support if huge corporations dominated the local commercial inventory. “Asheville has always been anti-national chains,” says Irani. “There isn’t a McDonald’s, there isn’t a Subway, there isn’t even a Starbucks…The first chain restaurant that came to downtown, in my memory, was a Baskin-Robbins. And you should have heard the hullaballoo around that.” Locals fear that the price of rebuilding quickly will be a compromise on some of the values that make Asheville so distinctive. “The biggest threat is gentrification by disaster,” says Ward. “There’s a culture of capitalising on situations like this, where people will come in and buy up the land.” But Irani is bullish on the city’s long-term prospects and believes that the reception spring tourists received bodes 1 well for the summer months. “Tourists coming into town now are being welcomed with open arms and treated as heroes,” he says, smiling.

Down at the RAD, the area of Asheville worst hit by Hurricane Helene, the mood too is one of dogged defiance. The skaters, who see themselves as four-wheeled pioneers of the neighbourhood’s reinvention from warehouse district into creative community in the late 1990s, are still here, coolly gliding back and forth across the concrete. And inside a large inflatable tent, the sound of serrated metal on wood cuts through the eerie calm. Mark Joseph Oliver runs Foundation Woodworks, an art gallery and community workshop that once occupied one of the large warehouse buildings devastated by Helene. “We had 18ft of water [in the studio],” he says. “I had about $40,000 (€35,189) worth of personal projects lost.” But as he surveys an assemblage of new machinery, some donated and some bought with grants, he smiles. “We’re still here doing it and we’ll be here for a while, because we love this place and we don’t know any other way.”

A few metres from where we’re standing, workers are beginning to rewire and paint a large building called the Marquee, which served as a covered market for local makers and artists. By the end of summer, it should be filled once again with the laughter and chatter of buyers and vendors. We notice some wooden sculptures on a table by Oliver’s workstation. “Those are some works that we rescued from the flood,” he says. They look remarkably intact, with perhaps a richer, more characterful patina for their time spent weathering the storm.

When I was living in Naples for a short while, I had a friend, Antonio, who would let out a scornful “pah” every time I asked him to name the best example of a particular thing in the city: the best pizza, the best coffee, the best art gallery. He would retort that “you Anglo-Saxons” are obsessed with ranking things and that reflects how we see the world: in purely competitive, hierarchical terms. The implicit corollary was that Italians focused a little more on living in the moment and had a richer, more spiritual culture as a result.

I’m not so sure that Antonio’s Law, as this theory might be called, is particularly watertight – plenty of things can quite objectively be judged better than others – but I have thought about it every time that I’ve begun the process of putting together Monocle’s annual Quality of Life Survey. The 18th iteration features in our July/August 2025 issue, out today. And so, at the risk of incurring yet another “pah”, how does one rank a thing so multifaceted and protean as a city? 

The index began as an antidote to the bloodless, data-driven liveability indexes then proliferating (this is the late 2000s we’re talking about). Tyler and Andrew’s contention was that cities weren’t a collection of statistics but living, breathing things. As such, they should be judged not just on GDP per capita and ambulance-waiting times but on aesthetic merit and whether or not you can have a good night out during the week.

Of course, these qualitative and quantitative measures produced a lot of data that had to be parsed and then melded into a sort of coefficient. This endeavour rewarded a particular kind of city, usually one with a population of around two million, blessed by nature and socioeconomics and, most often, Mitteleuropean. Places such as Geneva and Munich are lovely, liveable cities but this year we wanted to do something a little different. Rather than create a top-20 ranking of the world’s best overall metropolises, we have decided to award 10 cities across just as many categories, including one all-rounder. We considered healthcare, green spaces, security, transport, cleanliness, conviviality, nightlife, economic dynamism and housing – but spotlighting these criteria has allowed one or two lesser-exalted locales to sing. I hope that you enjoy reading it. If you have any questions about our method (or, as you might see it, our madness) then please do get in touch.

For our full line-up, including the city that offers the most favourable work/life balance, the locals that are never dull and the most convivial capital, click here.  

Japan’s longstanding relationship with the World Expo dates back to the country’s debut at the Paris Expo in 1867, when the previously isolated nation unveiled its culture and aesthetics to new audiences. About a century later in 1970, Osaka hosted the first expo in Asia, amid Japan’s economic boom. That event has been etched into the nation’s modern folklore, with memories of Japanese artist Taro Okamoto’s avant-garde sculpture “Tower of the Sun” complementing works by the country’s avant-garde metabolist architects, not to mention the Thai elephants that were paraded along the motorway after arriving at Kobe port.

More than 64 million visitors attended the 1970 event, seeking a taste of international culture and a glimpse of the future. “There was even a moon rock,” said one Osaka taxi driver on the cusp of the 2025 edition’s opening day. “How can you possibly beat that?” The collective memory of that event remains strong and while Expo 2025 Osaka unfolds in a far different world, his sentiments echoed those of many locals looking on with a mix of caution and curiosity.

Running until mid-October, the event is coordinated by the Bureau International des Expositions, an organisation established in 1928 and comprising 184 member countries. The ambition? To foster international collaboration and address universal challenges. This year’s event is taking place against a tense global political and social backdrop – and it wasn’t entirely smooth sailing in the lead-up to the event at the Yumeshima (“Dream Island”) venue either. Concerns around the fair’s economic viability, soaring budget – almost doubling to ¥235bn (€1.43bn) – and sustainability were accompanied by rather tepid pre-opening ticket sales, threatening the target of 28.2 million visitors. Early reports of long waiting times and problems navigating the vast site added to the challenges.

Yet when Monocle arrives at the 156-hectare site by Osaka Bay, there’s optimism in the air. The newly opened train station is brimming with life, with the Expo’s quirky mascot Myaku-Myaku appearing on digital displays. Meanwhile, eager travellers compare notes from their guidebooks, and staff from the Japan Pavilion make their way towards the venue in kimono-inspired uniforms, complete with tabi socks and sandals. Once through the gates, visitors are greeted by Sou Fujimoto’s Grand Ring and pavilions from 158 countries and regions, along with international organisations and a swath of leading Japanese companies.

Everything from public amenities to bespoke uniforms and conceptual installations has been given consideration – many drawing inspiration from the central theme of “Designing Future Society for Our Lives”. It’s a call to action that has inspired much talk of unity and dialogue, while also giving rise to innovations that respond to global challenges. Here, we visit a clutch of the expo’s contributors to see how nations, organisations and individuals might work together to build a better world.

1.
Inner circle
The Grand Ring

Japanese architecture’s biggest names have shaped Expo 2025. Pritzker Prize-winners Toyo Ito, SANAA and Shigeru Ban, as well as Kengo Kuma, Nendo and Yuko Nagayama, have all worked on buildings for the event. The defining figure, though, is Sou Fujimoto. In addition to master-planning the site, the Hokkaido-born, Tokyo-based architect is responsible for The Grand Ring. At 2km in circumference and reaching 20 metres high, it is the world’s largest wooden architectural structure.

The Grand Ring encloses many of the country pavilions. In practical terms, it works harder than any other structure on the site. It brings a verticality to the windswept artificial island of Yumeshima and provides shelter from the blistering summer sun, while also functioning as a viewing deck, with the city in one direction and the sea in another. Built by three of Japan’s most powerful construction giants – Obayashi, Shimizu and Takenaka – its latticework design pays tribute to the ancient Kiyomizu Temple in nearby Kyoto, making it a showcase for Japan’s history of wooden architecture.

“This ring is a symbol of our times,” says Fujimoto. “At a moment when diversity around the world seems to be coming apart, it reflects our desire to hold it all together.” The ring’s fate has yet to be confirmed. Fujimoto says that he hopes that it will be preserved in its entirety. Many visitors would also like the ¥34.4bn (€207m) wonder to stay put. Sadly it won’t – and how much of it will be preserved and reused remains unclear. Even if it is entirely demolished, The Grand Ring will endure in the memory as the architectural emblem of Expo 2025.

2.
Wealth of nations
Country pavilions

In a field of national pavilions with each jostling for attention, the countries at Expo 2025 present a mixture of ambitious visions, collective solutions and expressions of soft power. Occupying prime position is the US Pavilion, designed by Louisiana-based Trahan Architects, but the Philippines holds its own next door with a lively mix of AI and traditional crafts. Nations are playing to their strengths: the Chinese pavilion unfurls like a bamboo scroll and the Italians have a Caravaggio, while the Japanese pavilion’s circular structure is made from recyclable pieces of timber. France, meanwhile, leans into its cultural might; its expansive, museum-quality space hosts Rodin sculptures alongside works from heritage fashion houses such as Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior.

These visions are counterbalanced by pavilions tackling broader challenges such as climate change. Visitors to the Netherlands Pavilion can learn how the country’s complex relationship with water (a third of the nation sits below sea level) is fuelling solutions relating to food security, renewable energy and future mobility.

Links to the natural world are also at the heart of Latvia and Lithuania’s Baltics Pavilion, where the installation “Nature’s Pharmacy” comprises some 300 plant specimens from the region’s meadows. It highlights their unique properties and health and wellbeing benefits, alongside crowd-sourced imagery celebrating an outdoors lifestyle.

Food culture is also on the menu, with the Australians preparing flat whites and lamingtons, and the Nordics serving traditional skagen (open-faced sandwiches) and semla buns. At the UK Pavilion, afternoon tea is on offer. The aim of all of this is to present friendly forms of nationalism, reminding visitors that many of the solutions to our most pressing issues might lie in our own – or our neighbours’ – backyards.

3.
Dress to impress
Uniforms and mascots

While it is architecture that is making the biggest national statements at the expo, fashion reinforces the message. The Japan Pavilion’s gender-neutral grey uniforms by 6 Yuya Nakata are inspired by kimonos and made from recycled materials. The Malaysians are looking stylish in national dress; for men that’s traditional baju melayu, comprising a five-button collarless shirt, loose trousers, a decorative sarong and a black songkok hat to top it off. Japanese designers are involved in multiple pavilions. Textile designer Akira Minagawa, who runs fashion brand Minä Perhonen, has given staff at the Dialogue Theatre (a signature pavilion commissioned by the expo organisers, celebrating the power of conversation) loose-fitting outfits and bandanas, with hair and beauty direction by Shiseido. For the Better Co-Being Pavilion (an open-air space with a cloud-like roof supported by metal uprights), Japanese outdoor brand Goldwin worked with designer Yuima Nakazato to create staff uniforms to withstand the sun, wind and rain. Such 7 qualities are particularly important in light of the rise of unpredictable weather patterns across the globe.

Japanese recruitment firm Pasona, which has a pavilion dedicated to nature, has gone all out with a striking uniform by nonagenarian designer Harumi Fujimoto. It blends futurism and tradition with Nishijin-sourced silk fabrics and yuzen dyeing methods, transforming the beauty of classic kimono and obi fabrics into modern uniforms.

Some countries have even been brave enough to introduce a traditional Japanese yur u kyara-style mascot. Look out for Belgium’s cheery BeluBelu (pictured, right) – a cell rendered in furry form – which you’ll see posing for selfies and winning friends. It’s a bold move in Japan, which has made the genre its own, but shows the power of delivering a complex message in a cuddly package.

4.
Infinite potential
Domestic and signature pavilions

Stationed outside the Grand Ring is a host of so-called domestic pavilions, which include private-sector players such as entertainment conglomerate Yoshimoto Kogyo and electronics giant Panasonic, both from Osaka and presenting playful installations for young and old. The Japan pavilion, overseen by design studio Nendo and all about sustainability, even features micro-organisms that decompose rubbish and turn it into biogas.

One of the most interesting is the pavilion of the Pasona Group, which commissioned a fossil-inspired building to house exhibitions that champion physical, mental and social health. The company has also announced that it will relocate the Dutch Pavilion to Kansai’s Awaji Island, where it will be a contributor to the region’s revitalisation after the event, showing the potential for Expo 2025 to shape design and discourse for generations to come.

The visionary work of key figures from the arts, academia and more takes shape in the cluster of eight signature pavilions, produced by leading Japanese experts in fields such as art and science. This includes Japanese media artist and academic Yoichi Ochiai’s popular Null2. Standing at the intersection of architecture and interactive technology, it is a pulsating mirrored creation where visitors engage with screens that throw up digitalised duplicates of them while they move through the space.

At the Kengo Kuma-designed Earth Mart, screenwriter Kundo Koyama (of Iron Chef fame) explores the future of food with the help of producers, chefs and food-technology companies. The pavilion is designed as an imaginary supermarket and tackles environmental challenges and hunger, shining a light on the potential of Japanese food and technology. A selection of 25 ingredients and innovations, from katsuobushi (dried bonito) to koji mould, showcases what the country’s rich gastronomic traditions continue to offer.

Big takeaways
Small changes

World Expos have a long history of showcasing innovation, from the steam locomotive to the Singer sewing machine and the wireless “telephone of the future” at Osaka in 1970 – all of which have had an outsized impact on life across the globe. This year’s event embraces this heritage with a cross-section of next-generation technologies: autonomous robots, flying cars, electricity-generating garments and a “heart” made from induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells.

Everyday Japanese fixtures have also been given a makeover. Japan Post invites people to dream big, with an AI-powered service that delivers personalised letters of encouragement from the future; Fuji Electric has partnered with Coca-Cola on a hydrogen-powered vending machine; and 7-Eleven’s expo-only “Future Store” is deploying initiatives ranging from energy-harvesting tiles to plant-based products and biodiesel-powered delivery trucks. Even Hello Kitty, a star of the Japan Pavilion, makes an appearance, alongside science-fiction franchise Gundam and children’s toy Tamagotchi, reinforcing the enduring power of the country’s pop-cultural icons.

Beyond the symbolism and spectacle, the expo’s outlook on sustainability is prominent. Some pavilions visibly weave the issue into the narrative of their presentations: the Saudi Arabia Pavilion by Foster & Partners, for instance, embraces a net-zero operation target and has been designed for reassembly at future events. While the post-event fate of many other pavilions and facilities remains unclear, the official Reuse Matching Project invites applications for the “legacy preservation” of everything from buildings to furniture, fixtures and trees. And with its acquisition of the Dutch Pavilion, Pasona has demonstrated that the corporate world can also play an important role.

So, while Osaka’s Expo 2025 opened at a time of uncertainty, it has also been a demonstration of the potential for incremental and drastic change. Only time will tell whether these innovations will leave their mark. With the world’s eyes focused elsewhere, it can be easy to downplay such an event – but there’s something heartening in seeing countries come together from far and wide to share the stage alongside some unlikely neighbours.

---

Q&A: Takako Yagi
Founded with the aim of providing solutions to society’s problems, Japanese recruitment company Pasona Group believes that personal wellbeing is today’s most significant challenge. TakakoYagi is its managing executive director, as well as the project lead for its pavilion, Pasona Natureverse. Here, she introduces its concept,“ThankYou, Life”.

Pasona Natureverse references Expo 1970. How did that earlier expo influence this pavilion?
Visitors enter through the “History of Life” zone, where they can reflect on life on Earth. The centrepiece is an installation called “Tree of Life Evolution”. The 10 layers in its trunk depict different stages of evolution, from single-celled organisms to the sun’s eventual expansion into a red giant. The branches extending out represent the future’s infinite possibilities. The design is a homage to the symbol of Expo 1970, the “Tower of the Sun”.

The pavilion uses anime characters Neo Astro Boy and Black Jack as guides. What’s the power of this distinctly Japanese genre?
Anime is an aspect of Japanese pop culture that really resonates. As a robot with a human spirit, Astro Boy represents harmony between humanity and technology. He has been reborn as the original character “Neo Astro Boy”, equipped with an “IPS stem-cell heart” by fictional surgeon Black Jack.

What do you hope visitors will take away?
The theme of both Expo 2025 and our pavilion expresses a desire for harmony between technology, humanity and nature. We hope visitors come away with a greater sense of gratitude and respect for life.

---

Q&A: Ries Straver and Pim Schachtschabel
Amsterdam-based design studio Tellart led the experience design for the pavilions of the Netherlands and the Philippines. Partner and executive producer Ries Straver and design director Pim Schachtschabel share their insights.

Water is a central theme of the Dutch Pavilion. How did you bring it to life?
Ries Straver: The Netherlands has a unique relationship with water. Being below sea level, the Dutch used to have to fight to keep it out. But through active management, water was allowed in and made an ally. Now we’re looking at related innovations that might hold the key to solving the world’s biggest challenges today: climate change, the preservation of biodiversity and food security.

The pavilion doesn’t shy away from global challenges. What would you like visitors to take from their experience?
RS: We hope that visitors will leave the pavilion with a sense of hope and agency. Unconventional thinking and joining forces as an international community can help us to find solutions.

For the Philippine Pavilion, how did you combine tradition and technology, handcrafts and interactive AI?
Pim Schachtschabel: One of our design philosophies is “form follows story”. How can technology, handcrafts and AI all be part of the same tale? In the Philippine Pavilion, handwoven textiles hang beside interactive AI installations. These juxtapositions celebrate the continuity of Filipino culture – how it adapts, evolves and stays rooted. It’s a conversation between past and future, nature and technology, human and digital.