Eight Latinx designers at NYCxDESIGN 2026. Above: Brazilian design thrived at The Espasso Apartment by Office of Tangible Space and ESPASSO – Photo by Ben De Haan.
Design. New York has always been a city of arrivals, and few creative communities have shaped its design culture more quietly — or more boldly — than its Latinx designers. During NYCxDESIGN, eight standout projects made the case for a scene that is expansive, plural, and very much alive.
- RELATED STORIES: Read more about NYCxDESIGN 2026 on Archipanic.
Roberto Lugo’s Alfarero del Barrio – Courtesy of the artist and R&Company, photo by Timothy Schenck.
Until 6 December, Roberto Lugo‘s Alfarero del Barrio installation thrives in Madison Square Park. The Puerto Rican ceramist, activist, and educator is known for work that holds history and joy in the same hand. Two monumental sculptures anchor the show: a 15-foot fire hydrant and a 20-foot urn bearing portraits of Puerto Rican luminaries — Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bad Bunny, Roberto Clemente, and Lugo’s own parents among them. Domino tables and tyre planters filled with native plants complete what Holly Leicht of Madison Square Park Conservancy calls a show that “uplifts a multiplicity of voices and traditions.”
Courtesy of Roberto Lugo and R&Company, photo by Timothy Schenck.
Actor Julio Torres brought a more personal register to NYCxDESIGN, collaborating with US furniture brand Sabai on the All Other Passports collection. Inspired by the act of arriving in New York, the series spans a screen printed with a motif from JFK Terminal 4, a daybed evoking the bridges to Manhattan, pillows, a side table, and a lamp. “My first settlement was very essential — like a guest couch to crash on,” Torres said, framing the project as “passing of the torch” to newcomers finding their footing in the city.
All Other Passports collection – Photo by James Emmerman courtesy of Julio Torres x Sabai.
At the Tadao Ando-designed 144 Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn, the Office of Tangible Space studio presented the Espasso Apartment — a cabinet of Brazilian design wonder set within one of the borough’s more striking interiors. Developed with ESPASSO, the US-based platform dedicated to Brazil’s 20th-century design heritage and its living practitioners, the showcase was a quiet argument for the depth and continuity of that tradition.
The Espasso Apartment by Office of Tangible Space and ESPASSO – Photo by Ben De Haan.
Maharam’s Manhattan showroom hosted Objetos de Hojalata para el Hogar, a body of experimental household objects produced by Cranbrook Academy of Art students under the direction of Leon Ransmeier and visiting artist Fabien Cappello. Drawing on a workshop held in Guadalajara, Mexico, the collection revisits the traditional hojalata technique — tin rolled and embossed by local artisans into ornamental domestic forms — and reinterprets it through contemporary design thinking. Sculptural watering cans sit alongside playful everyday pieces, each one a small negotiation between craft memory and present-day function.
Objetos de Hojalata para el Hogar – Courtesy of Maharam.
The Latinx designers represented at the Wanted Design platform at the ICFF fair brought their own distinct propositions. Sebastián Alarcón’s studio ASET, based in Quito, Ecuador, showed the modular Standard Shelf — a flexible, pared-back system that typifies the studio’s commitment to small-batch production, traditional craftsmanship, and the repurposing of industrial waste. Bold and utilitarian, the work balances sculptural clarity with practical rigour.
Standard Shelf by ASET – Photo by ASET.
From the Brazilian Amazon, Flavia Pereira’s Anduba project takes a different approach to collaboration, working with indigenous artists to produce sustainable wall coverings whose patterns grow from lived experience — culture, land, and inherited tradition. The model is as considered as the objects: artists retain full copyright, participate in every design decision, and receive royalties of up to three times the industry standard.
Sacred Messenger Installation – Photo by Anduba.
Mexico City studio ¡pling! presented the Cotidiano collection, which finds richness in the overlooked. Corrugated roofing and industrial vinyl tarps meet tropical hardwoods and handblown glass — a pairing that is more knowing than it first appears, and all the more elegant for it.
Cotidiano cabinet by ¡pling! – Photo by the studio.
One of the more thought-provoking perspectives came from Hazel Villena. The Peruvian-born, Brooklyn-based designer showed her Bean Lamp at Wanted Design — a quietly luminous, somewhat alien object that resists easy categorisation — while also raising a question that many Latinx designers will recognise.
Bean Lamp by Hazel Villena – Courtesy of the designer.
“There’s an increasing expectation that work by Latin designers should look visibly Latin, that it should obviously reference where we’re from in its colours, motifs, or materials. Designers whose practice doesn’t translate identity that literally can get read as not-Latin-enough, or get pulled into conversations that center origin over object.” It is, perhaps, the most clarifying note [read more] on which to close a week that showed just how wide that identity can reach.
The Espasso Apartment by Office of Tangible Space and ESPASSO – Photo by Ben De Haan.
