Magazine

The warmth between people. The value of empty space. The pleasure of thinking slowly. We chase these things every weekend, wandering somewhere new, choosing the long way around just for the experience of it. None of this is far from "the beauty of poverty" — the idea architect Seung H-Sang has championed for over 50 years through his work, lectures, and writing. We call on him now. In 2026, why are we so hungry for his voice?

Turning lights on and off, lowering the blinds, setting the temperature. These are things your hand touches dozens of times a day, yet the better a space is built, the less you tend to remember the object itself — because it's nearly buried into the wall. That's exactly the switch the German brand JUNG has been making for over a hundred years. And interestingly, the technology behind that switch, controlling the space as a whole, follows the same path: toward staying unnoticed.

Clay is the oldest finishing material there is. From the moment people first started building walls, they mixed clay and spread it across the surface. TORO brings that ancient material back into today's spaces. Mix clay, natural minerals, and herbs with water and spread it on a wall, and two things follow at once: a visible surface, and an invisible current of air. TORO's work, in the end, is folding both of those into a single layer.

Find out too late that design and construction have drifted apart, and the cost of fixing it snowballs. The most expensive cost in construction isn't materials or labor — it's finding out late. Drones changed the timing.

Not as expansive as flooring or walls, not as eye-catching as lighting at first glance. But handles, sink bowls, switches, and door locks are what your fingers touch every single day, starting from the day you move in. The materials that matter the most — and get chosen last.

Acoustic absorption, window systems, insulation, waterproofing — four performance factors that barely show at first, but end up defining the quality of a space as the years go by.