PHILIA MAGAZINE

Huw Wellard is the architect behind Wellard Architects, a Melbourne-based architecture and design studio. Known for creating lasting impressions through built form, the studio delivers thoughtful outcomes with a sensitive, measured approach that responds to both people and place.

Working across urban, coastal, and rural environments throughout Australia, the practice engages in a process of refinement and shared dialogue to design highly resolved spaces that evolve with life and context.

Nelson de Araújo is a Portuguese designer and the founder of Nelson de Araújo Design, a conscious luxury furniture label rooted in a deep commitment to craftsmanship, material integrity, and timeless design. His work explores the balance between beauty, comfort, and functionality, resulting in refined pieces that are both expressive and enduring.

Designed and handcrafted in Portugal by skilled local artisans, Nelson’s creations emphasize thoughtful construction, high-quality materials, and quiet sophistication. Through a sensitive and deliberate approach, he seeks to create furniture that not only serves a function but also evokes atmosphere, longevity, and emotional connection.

Tosin Oshinowo is a Lagos-based Nigerian architect, designer, and curator, and the founder of Oshinowo Studio, established in 2013. Her practice is recognized for its socially responsive approach to architecture, design, and urbanism, with projects spanning civic, commercial, and residential sectors across Nigeria. Notable works include collaborations with the United Nations Development Programme to create a new community for a village displaced by Boko Haram, Maryland Mall in Lagos, and Adidas’ flagship store in West Africa.

Oshinowo’s work explores the intersection of culture, identity, and contemporary African design. Alongside her architectural practice, she is an active curator and researcher, having co-curated the 2019 Lagos Biennial and curated the 2023 Sharjah Architecture Triennial. A registered architect and member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, she has worked internationally with firms including Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture before establishing her independent studio.

Wallflower Architecture + Design is a Singapore-based boutique practice led by Robin Tan and Yong Mien Huei, known for its refined approach to high-end residential architecture rooted in tropical living. Established in 1999, the studio has built a strong reputation for crafting bespoke homes that respond sensitively to climate, site, and the lived rhythms of their clients.

Robin Tan, a graduate of the National University of Singapore, brings over two decades of experience and has received multiple Singapore Institute of Architects awards, alongside international recognition including wins at the Trends International Design Awards and the World Architecture Festival. Yong Mien Huei, also a graduate of the National University of Singapore and a registered architect, is known for her thoughtful design sensibility and has contributed to award-winning projects such as Touching Eden House, which received both SIA and World Architecture Festival honors. She has also served as a juror at the World Architecture Festival 2025.

Together, they lead Wallflower with a shared commitment to context-driven, sustainable design, continuously exploring new expressions of contemporary tropical architecture.

Chaeyoung Lee is a Seoul-based furniture and object designer. After studying Woodworking & Furniture Design and the Aesthetics of Art, she developed a craft-driven design practice rooted in narrative and intention.

Her work explores the translation of abstract thoughts into tangible, visual, and tactile experiences. Through furniture and objects, she gives form to everyday moments and examines the attitudes and emotions embedded within them.

Her practice continues to evolve as a way of engaging with life and the world—bridging the everyday and the artistic through making.

Nicholas Bijan Pourfard is a Southern California–based furniture designer and luthier known for his sculptural and materially driven approach to design. After crafting more than 400 bespoke guitars under the label Prisma Guitars, he transitioned from luthiery to furniture design, bringing with him a deep sensitivity to balance, structure, and handcraft.

His design philosophy centers on the exploration of materials, movement, and form, transforming these relationships into pieces that are both visually expressive and functional. Drawing from traditional techniques and contemporary sensibilities, Pourfard creates furniture that reflects a strong respect for materiality while challenging conventional typologies.

With a keen attention to detail and a commitment to craftsmanship, his work seeks to elevate everyday objects through thoughtful construction and quiet sculptural presence.

RA! Arquitectura is an architecture studio founded in 2017 in Mexico City by Cristóbal Ramírez de Aguilar, Pedro Ramírez de Aguilar, and Santiago Sierra. The practice focuses on planning and building spaces rooted in human experience, where architecture emerges from memory, the body, and lived conditions rather than from predetermined form.

RA!’s work is developed through careful readings of context, habit, emotion, and environment. Each project is conceived as a narrative that unfolds through sequences of space, prioritizing atmosphere, use, and emotional resonance alongside technical precision. Rather than pursuing a fixed formal language, the studio approaches each commission through inquiry, experimentation, and iteration, allowing projects to respond specifically to their place and users.

The studio’s work has received national and international recognition, including the CAM-SAM Grand Prize, Architectural MasterPrize, Félix Candela Award, A+ Architizer Awards, LOOP Design Awards, and the Simon Architecture Prize awarded by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation. RA!’s projects have been widely published in international media such as Domus, Divisare, Dezeen, Designboom, ArchDaily, and Arquine, reflecting an active presence across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

matali crasset is an internationally renowned French designer whose practice spans architecture, furniture, set design, urban planning, and public spaces. A graduate of ENSCI–Les Ateliers, she has long defended design as an artistic, anthropological, and social practice rooted in everyday life and human experience.

For over three decades, crasset has pursued a singular path guided by a human, social, and ecological approach to design, exploring how creative processes can contribute to communities and contemporary life.

Her work has been exhibited internationally and forms part of major museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She is also deeply engaged in teaching and transmission, having lectured worldwide and taught at institutions including the Geneva School of Art and Design (HEAD) and ENS Paris-Saclay.

Erased Studio is a multidisciplinary architectural practice founded by architects Elliott Housiaux and Paul-Emile De Smedt. Trained in architecture in Brussels, the studio operates across architecture, interior design, scenography, and spatial design, approaching every project through a structured and analytical architectural lens.

Rooted in research, context, and material experimentation, their work is defined by minimal, visually precise compositions shaped by light, atmosphere, and narrative clarity. Positioned at the intersection of architecture and scenography, Erased Studio explores how form, space, and sensory experience construct immersive environments.

Christian Friedl is an Austrian designer and furniture maker based in Styria whose practice centers on sculptural furniture that balances craftsmanship, materiality, and artistic expression. Working primarily with natural materials, he creates collectible pieces distinguished by their refined forms, tactile qualities, and enduring character.

Guided by a deep respect for craftsmanship and sustainability, Friedl develops each work through a meticulous process of making and refinement. The result is a collection of singular objects that transcend functionality, embodying both material honesty and timeless design.

Emma Collet and Thomas Diettert are French architects and the founders of Diettert Collet, established in 2021 following their graduation from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Val de Seine. Their practice is shaped by an international background, having developed experience in both France and Japan through collaborations with studios such as LVMH, Studio KO, Franklin Azzi, and M. Chiba Tokyo.

Since founding Ono Studio, Collet and Diettert have worked across a range of residential and commercial projects, encompassing renovation and new construction. Their approach is rooted in a careful dialogue between architecture and interior design, with a strong emphasis on materiality, detail, and spatial coherence.

Characterised by a refined aesthetic and a deep attention to craftsmanship, their work reflects a considered balance between functionality and atmosphere, resulting in spaces that are both precise and quietly expressive.

Heakyoung Jang is a South Korean designer and the founder of FICT STUDIO, an independent design practice established in 2016. Inspired by the phrase “From Craft to Industry,” the studio explores the flow and intersections between craft and industry, examining how traditional knowledge and contemporary production can coexist and inform one another.

Drawing on her background in industrial design, Jang investigates the cultural, emotional, and material dimensions of craft, viewing it as more than a set of techniques or processes. Through material experimentation and process-based research, her work reinterprets traditional values within a contemporary context, creating objects that explore the relationship between materiality, technology, memory, and time. Conceived as both a studio and an experimental platform, FICT STUDIO demonstrates how craft and design can generate new forms of meaning and relevance within contemporary culture.

Andreas Anwander is an Austrian designer and craftsman based in Brazil. Shaped by experiences across Europe, the United States, and South America, his work reflects a dialogue between European precision and Brazilian material richness.

Working primarily with certified Brazilian woods, stone, and brass, Anwander creates furniture distinguished by refined details, clean lines, and exceptional craftsmanship. Each piece is developed with a deep respect for materiality, balancing contemporary forms with traditional making techniques.

Known for his meticulous approach and distinctive design language, Anwander’s work explores the intersection of innovation and craft, resulting in timeless pieces defined by authenticity, precision, and lasting quality.

Ome Dezin is a Los Angeles–based design-build studio founded in 2020 by longtime friends and creative collaborators Joelle Kutner and Jesse Rudolph. Rooted in the thoughtful restoration of character-driven homes, the studio draws inspiration from travel, architecture, and cultural history, with a strong focus on craftsmanship, materiality, and livable design.

Influenced by Los Angeles’s layered architectural heritage — from Mid-Century and Art Deco to Spanish, Craftsman, and Tudor homes — Ome Dezin approaches each project with a careful balance of historical sensitivity and contemporary comfort. Through the use of natural, enduring materials and close collaborations with artists and makers, the studio creates refined spaces that honor the stories embedded within each home.