Stepping outside the studio

Earlier this winter, part of our team spent several days in Berlin attending talks, exhibitions, and meetings focused on architecture, interiors, and the evolving future of sustainable design. Open Berlin is not a trip report in the usual sense. It is more a set of reflections on what happens when practice pauses long enough to look outward.

Studios need that from time to time. Not just inspiration, but interruption.

What we were looking for

The goal was not to collect trends or return with a list of fashionable references. What interested us more was how other practices are thinking: how they frame material responsibility, how they integrate research into design, how they speak about atmosphere without losing technical depth.

Berlin remains useful in this way. It offers not one dominant position, but a layered conversation. Experimental work sits alongside restraint. Big urban questions sit next to carefully crafted domestic detail. That variety makes it valuable.

What stayed with us

The strongest ideas were not always the loudest ones. We kept returning to projects that felt rigorous, quiet, and exact — spaces where design intelligence was visible not through novelty, but through control. Those are often the references that stay with you longer because they continue unfolding after the first impression.

Bringing the outside back in

Open Berlin matters because outside input can sharpen internal standards. It reminds us that design culture is broader than our immediate context and that staying engaged with it is part of the work. Not to imitate, but to refin