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Glass brick was never decoration. It was always architecture.

First specified by modernists in the 1920s, refined by Pierre Chareau at Maison de Verre, and brought back into the architectural mainstream by Renzo Piano at Maison Hermès Tokyo, glass brick has always been a serious material misread as a decorative one.

Its properties are structural before they are visual.
Waterproof.
Load-bearing in many applications.
Translucent without being transparent.

Resistant to humidity, salt, and the corrosive environments that defeat most other partitioning materials. Which is why the most considered architects have always specified it where water and light have to coexist. Pool walls. Outdoor showers. Spa enclosures. Wet rooms exposed to weather.

What it gives back is rhythm. A glass brick wall is a built field of light, refracting the day across a surface that pretends to be solid. The partition is not transparent. It is something rarer. It is a wall that is also a luminaire.

Material Intelligence, on the materials that earn their place by doing more than one thing well.

#MaterialIntelligence #GlassBrick #ArchitecturalGlass #PoolDesign #OutdoorArchitecture #ContemporaryDesign #MaterialDiscourse #BuiltLight #SpaDesign #ElementoLiving
In outdoor design, color is never an aesthetic decision alone.

Pantone Color Institute's read on Milan Design Week 2026 surfaced five chromatic directions emerging across installations, interiors, and objects.

Vibrant Jewels. Deep, saturated reds and purples.
Beautiful Blues. Clarity and calm, inspired by nature.
Extreme Pinks. Playful and energizing.
Sunshine Yellows. Radiant warmth.
Terra Rossa. Earthen and grounding.

For exterior design, color dictates how a material weathers in sun, how a textile holds its hue against salt and humidity, how a space reads at noon versus dusk. The five directions Pantone names are more than chromatic preferences. They are early signals about which materials will define the next generation of outdoor architecture.

The Edit, reading the color conversation through an outdoor lens.

Via @pantone

#TheEdit #Pantone #MilanDesignWeek #ColorDirection #OutdoorDesign #MaterialIntelligence #ContemporaryDesign #ColorTrends #ElementoLiving

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