A clear trend is emerging among the world's top architects and interior designers: renovating and restoring existing buildings rather than constructing new ones. Nine new projects by AD 100 architects and designers reveal a sophisticated approach that balances deep respect for historical architecture with bold contemporary interventions.
The movement toward renovation, restoration, and adaptive reuse has become a defining theme in architecture and design, regardless of location or scale. This approach can lead to either remarkable success or costly failure, potentially overwhelming homeowners or delivering profound satisfaction. Current trends suggest that 2026 will continue this trajectory, as demonstrated by recent projects from AD 100 creatives completed over the past twelve months.
A distinct trend has crystallized among the industry's finest practitioners: they show genuine respect for existing structures while demonstrating courage to introduce contemporary elements. The best designers in the field carefully study how a house or apartment might have originally appeared and often invest considerable effort in reconstructing the original state. Simultaneously, they recognize that no one wants to live in a museum, ensuring that contemporary art and current design find their place regardless of the age of the surrounding architecture.
Atelier ST transformed an old horse stable on a historic estate in Saxony's Kohren region, south of Leipzig. Architects Silvia Schellenberg-Thaut and Sebastian Thaut spent considerable time deciding what to do with the old manor house where Silvia's grandmother once lived. They ultimately decided to create a small hotel with 17 rooms, four common areas, and a sauna. The former horse stable, completed this autumn, will host conferences, workshops, and yoga sessions. During renovation, the architects carefully preserved the stable's authenticity: they re-roofed the building, clad the facade with wood, and installed new wooden flooring on the upper level. However, they retained the old beams and roughly plastered the brick walls only when necessary, using materials like hemp lime and clay plaster. Their philosophy embodies "less is more" but authentic.
Antoine Simonin of Asaï, working with architects from Gasser Siggen, expanded a small chapel in the village of Zinal in Val d'Anniviers, Valais canton, into a guest house. With two floors totaling just 430 square feet, this tiny structure represents a true gem. Bold colors including bright green, turquoise, and light blue, along with checkered wool fabrics for upholstery, curtains, dividers, and cushions, give this interior distinctive character. Simonin and the Gasser Siggen architects didn't forget the building's origins: cross connections on kitchen cabinets, niches where saints' figures once stood, and a sacral-feeling bathroom all deliberately reference the old village chapel of Zinal.
Festen, the interior studio founded by Charlotte de Tonnac and Hugo Sauzay, completed their first U.S. project in a 19th-century Manhattan townhouse that had been recently modernized. To give the six-story building timeless Francophile charm, they commissioned a Belgian iron foundry to create charming railings decorated with tiny petals for the staircase connecting all floors. French artisans crafted the bronze coffee table in the living room, while they engaged a lacquer artist from Kyoto for the master bedroom's headboard. The refined, understated Festen style appears throughout the house, designed to remain current for decades. "The prerequisite is using the best materials that develop beautiful patina over time," says Hugo Sauzay, noting their use of travertine, oak, bronze, brass, and lime plaster for longevity.
Berlin-based Gonzalez Haase AAS renovated offices in a neo-baroque building on Munich's Promenadenplatz, opposite Hotel Bayerischer Hof. Judith Haase and Pierre Jorge Gonzalez removed 1980s additions from the ground floor, restoring the original 20-foot ceiling height. They left the ceiling exposed, perhaps as homage to Berlin's rough style, while creating bright, light-filled spaces below. Intersecting tracks of lights at mid-height provide warm and cool illumination both upward and downward. Many glass walls of offices and meeting rooms are mirrored, allowing generous daylight to flood the space, creating perfect conditions for modern office work.
Interior designer Andre Mellone and architect Jean-Gabriel Neukomm renovated a West Village townhouse for art collectors specializing in Arte Povera and Minimal Art, including works by Robert Motherwell and Lynda Benglis. The 19th-century building presented numerous challenges: landmark protection status, typical darkness of area townhouses, and the clients' desire to let their art collection play starring roles. "Everyone finds these townhouses super romantic," says Mellone, "but they're also a major design challenge." They converted the basement into a proper floor and added an invisible penthouse to the top floor. A gracefully curved staircase connects all floors, while the main feature is the large rear living room on the ground floor, which Neukomm extended over two stories with an extra-large, extra-tall garden window and a gallery level housing a smaller second living room.
Hannes Peer, an AD 100 regular from Milan, transformed his studio in a former printing house in the Porta Romana district into a constantly evolving design wonderland. While maintaining the fifty-year-old exterior, he gutted the interior, pouring an aubergine-colored resin floor and creating a private space where he can experiment with his design archetypes and codes. The space serves as both showroom and laboratory where art continuously inspires new ideas.
Annabelle Selldorf's renovation and expansion of New York's beloved Frick Collection required exceptional sensitivity. The private museum, housing steel magnate Henry Clay Frick's collection, had remained virtually unchanged for eighty years, with temporary exhibitions relegated to the basement. When renovation news broke, many New Yorkers felt anxious about changes to their cherished institution. Selldorf respectfully redesigned the original 1914 private residence, creating a new wing with generous exhibition spaces and organizing the complex foyer without her architecture ever pushing into the foreground. The result preserved New Yorkers' love for their Frick Collection.
Stephanie Thatenhorst renovated a 970-square-foot Munich apartment, preserving the old parquet floor while replacing damaged sections with color-accented ceramic tiles of identical size, creating surprising visual effects. She merely repainted the wooden door portals while applying her signature style throughout: patterns, textures, fabric wallpapers, brass details, and bold material combinations. Her fearless color compositions and selected international design pieces from Dimore Milano, Draga & Aurel, and India Mahdavi transformed the space while maintaining its unmistakable pre-war character.
Patrick Batek's renovation of a 1,830-square-foot Charlottenburg apartment in Berlin demonstrates how to preserve historic character while achieving contemporary freshness. He preserved traditional architectural elements including passages, corridors, glass walls, and built-in cabinets, maintaining original proportions while transforming everything into a cohesive new unit. He refinished old doors and preserved original parquet and plank floors, simply staining them dark. Batek then furnished the space with design classics and his own furniture designs, combining colors like light blue and caramel while working with mirrored walls and new room-within-room architectures featuring rounded doors, creating a harmonious ensemble despite contrasts and temporal jumps.
These projects collectively demonstrate that the future of residential design lies not in wholesale demolition and reconstruction, but in thoughtful dialogue between past and present. The most successful renovations honor architectural heritage while boldly introducing contemporary elements, creating spaces that feel both rooted in history and thoroughly modern.
