Wonder Book by IFDM is a publication – print & digital – published four times a year, a retrospective of interior design and architecture projects from around the world. In this new spring issue, we chronicle spaces and buildings from Norway, China, Sweden, Spain, Italy, France, the U.S. (and the list goes on) for 192 pages, chronicling the evolution of creative thinking and taste through images, text and interviews. With a focus on the relationship between art and decoration, supported by three important voices.
Spaces in harmony
by Paolo Bleve – Publisher & Editorial Director
The collection of wonders for 2025 is completed by three interviews that are more like live lectures, a series of projects that are magically diverse, a sequence of “Great Beauties” that we don’t always get to present like this, all together, all so different, but all so exciting. The “emotional power of places” is the common thread that links the interviews with three completely different designers, who here in the Book find themselves at the same table, one that harmoniously combines the natural and the artificial: India Mahdavi, Andrea Auletta, and Chad Oppenheim.
The challenge to memory is one of the recurring themes of this Wonder Book Winter: memory to be preserved, brought to the surface and enhanced, making ancient spaces contemporary and, in some cases, even futuristic and visionary. The absolute culmination of this challenge is reached by Villa Junot in Montmartre and Palazzo Petrvs in Orvieto, which represent two exciting round trips through time, but also Casa Sa Farola in Menorca, Casa Fiori Chiari Versilia, the Rosewood hotel, and Schloss Schauenstein – albeit with very different interpretations, but that is the beauty of design grammar – are ambassadors of the coexistence of old and new. Two breathtaking architectural designs (both playing on intersecting circles and round shapes) are undoubtedly the Hungarian one (but the designers’ hands have traveled around the world) of the Sauska Tokaj winery in the Tokaj-Hegyalja region, which UNESCO has listed as a World Heritage Site, and that of the Shebara Resort on the Red Sea, where each bungalow looks like a spaceship faithfully following the direction indicated by the central building.
Sustainability that respects the surroundings is represented by The Ritz-Carlton Masai Mara Safari Camp in Kenya, where, in the heart of the natural habitat, shapes and, above all, materials blend in with the context and respect its origins, as well as impressing with their architecture. A new interior design approach for a special church that focuses on social issues and attracts even those who do not profess a religion, examples of architecture and interiors where industrial style solves the design question, examples of high-level hospitality, and the naval sector, which never ceases to find new concepts. A final journey for this year with the promise of new and always interesting Wonders in 2026!
Designing metamorphosis
by Alessandra Bergamini – Deputy Editor of .Wonder Book
“The purpose of design is to elevate the experience of being alive, to create spaces that connect us to nature and to ourselves. Form follows feeling. Structure follows life.” This is how Chad Oppenheim, founder of Miami-based Oppenheim Architecture, introduces and partly summarizes his architectural philosophy and design approach in the interview published in this Winter Wonder Book, which concludes the 2025 collection. Moving beyond the twentieth-century mantra “Form follows function,” design thinking evolves to integrate emotional states and behaviors, creating and transforming places and spaces that not only meet functional requirements but, more importantly, ignite real and lasting experiences of beauty, well-being, creativity, and connection.
The “Form follows feeling” approach is a way to interpret context, in the layering of its natural, geographical, historical, and social elements, and simultaneously to transform it into a different reality, both human-centric and nature-centric. Is the emotional power of a place, whether new or regenerated, also derived from the metamorphosis that design can generate within a specific context? Many diverse examples of transformation are selected in this Wonder Book to seek an answer to this question: from The Social Hub in Florence and Rome to the Waldorf Astoria in New York, from the Azimut headquarters to the Rosewood Amsterdam, from the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain to hotel Schloss Schaeustein, and also projects for The Fairmont Golden Prague, the Heisenhut hotel, Villa Junot, and Casa Sa Farola. By way of mimesis, one might add that “Feeling follows metamorphosis,” in a virtuous cycle where transformation reinterprets a place’s potential, adds value, and amplifies emotions.
And if design is metamorphosis towards a better future, fundamental elements of the transformation process are attention to natural elements and the integration of greenery, as unanimously affirmed by the three protagonists featured on the White Box page. “Integrating greenery thoughtfully allows architecture to nurture both the built environment and the communities that inhabit it,” says Lukas Rungger of Noa. “The integration of natural systems within the built environment is not merely an aesthetic exercise but a critical framework for generating spaces that are contextually resonant and culturally grounded,” adds Pooja Shah-Mulani of LW Design. “Introducing the plant world into our daily environments is no longer an option but a necessity: as we no longer live in nature, we must bring nature to us,” concludes Antonio Girardi of PNAT. Feeling also follows greenery.
