Maria Karolidou: Design Your Mind

A Different Perspective on Children’s Design An invitation to broaden our perspective on what a children’s space can be. When we think about children’s spaces, certain familiar codes come to mind almost immediately: illustrations, characters, fairy tales, colours and shapes we have learned to associate with childhood. But childhood can also be about curiosity, imagination, discovery, and the freedom to develop a perspective of one’s own. Bringing some of Sisy’s designs into children’s and teenagers’ rooms revealed precisely that possibility: creating stimulating, positive environments without always relying on the codes traditionally used to define these spaces. None of these designs were created specifically for children or teenagers. Placing them in different contexts was not about turning them into children’s designs, but about opening up another possibility: looking beyond the associations we so often take for granted.  

 

 

In the ancient Sassi of Matera, a UNESCO World Heritage Site inhabited since the Paleolithic, Vetera Matera has opened as a five-star albergo diffuso affiliated with Relais & Châteaux. The result of nearly eight years of meticulous restoration, it turns a portion of the city's extraordinary cave architecture into a place of rare intensity — where every design decision grows from a deep respect for the rock, the landscape, and the memory of those who once lived there. Opened in 2025 in the Sasso Barisano district after nearly eight years of scrupulous restoration, Vetera Matera is a five-star albergo diffuso affiliated with Relais & Châteaux, set within the Sassi di Matera — a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993, and a stage for human life since the Paleolithic. To stay at Vetera Matera is to sleep inside history itself. Within walls that human hands shaped over centuries, in the quiet embrace of stone that has sheltered life since the dawn of humankind. Here, luxury is no...

Inspired by nature, history, and the poetry of texture, these wallcoverings transform rooms into living canvases. Gentle botanicals unfurl like whispered memories, geometric forms create a rhythm of balance and order, and painterly motifs evoke landscapes suspended between dream and reality. There is a quiet luxury in their presence. They do not demand attention; they reward it. As the light shifts throughout the day, colors deepen, soften, and reveal hidden nuances, giving the space a sense of movement and life. Every wall becomes a story, every room a sanctuary where beauty is not merely seen but felt. To live with Fischbacher 1819 wallpapers is to embrace interiors that breathe with character and soul—spaces that inspire reflection, creativity, and comfort. They remind us that true design is not about decoration alone, but about creating an environment that resonates with who we are and gently elevates the experience of home. Εμπνευσμένες από τη φύση, την ιστορία και την ποιητική δι...

Plants absorb carbon dioxide, produce oxygen, sustain ecosystems, keep soils fertile and form the foundation of every food chain. For this reason, learning to respect them, to listen to them and to understand their needs, rhythms and strategies of adaptation can help us imagine a relationship with nature that safeguards the future of every form of life on Earth. Without plants, animal life—including our own—simply could not exist. A message that has also resonated in the world of art. In recent years, artists such as Brian d’Souza, Tosca Terán and Miha Godec have explored ways of transforming the physiological processes of plants into sensory experiences capable of bringing us closer to the complexity of the natural world. How? Sensors attached to leaves and petals detect the imperceptible bioelectrical variations generated by plants in response to environmental stimuli. This data is then processed by dedicated software and translated into sound, making audible an activity that would o...