Downtown Design 2024: Beauty, Sustainability, and Biophilia | Claire Dominics Buro

Memorable Highlights

Walking through Downtown Design, many expositions caught the eye for their originality and imagination. These weren’t always about refinement or restraint — sometimes it was the scale, playfulness, or unexpected use of materials that made you pause.

There were glowing columns made of translucent cubes, walls of textured discs and woven patterns, a carved door punctured with light like constellations, and sculptural seating that felt more like land art than furniture. Elsewhere, textiles cascaded like waterfalls, shifting in color and catching light in their folds.

These works reminded me that design is not only about function or tradition, but also about creating moments of curiosity. Even when it’s not immediately clear if a piece belongs in a home, a hotel, or a gallery, it can still expand how we think about materials and form. That sense of discovery is what makes a fair like this so rewarding.

Sustainability at the Heart

One of the strongest undercurrents at Downtown Design 2024 is how sustainability has moved beyond being a “trend” and become a design language of its own. It’s no longer just about choosing recycled or natural materials — it’s about embedding responsibility, storytelling, and even vulnerability into objects and spaces.

A memorable piece for me was “To Err is Human” by Nimrat Narang from New Delhi. Crafted from industrial waste materials like wood, coal, cement, and stone powder, it became a meditation on human complexity and imperfection. Each fragment served as a metaphor for the struggles and resilience that shape our daily lives. It reminded me that sustainability is not just about saving resources, but about creating works that carry forward layers of meaning and memory.

Elsewhere, designers experimented with glass, ceramics, stone, and textiles in ways that gave waste and offcuts a second life. What could have been discarded became sculptural wall panels, lighting elements, or tactile surfaces. These works invite us to touch, to wonder, and to rethink what we consider valuable.

At its best, sustainable design is not a compromise — it’s a source of innovation. Here, it showed up as beauty drawn from limitation, proof that creative responsibility can also be a catalyst for new forms and new aesthetics.

Biophilic Design

Biophilic design also had a strong presence this year, with many exhibitors drawing inspiration directly from nature. Sculptural furniture echoed organic curves, lighting installations mimicked branches, pods, and blossoms, and surface patterns were drawn from animals, plants, and the sea.

This movement is more than visual imitation — it is about creating a sense of connection to the natural world inside built spaces. A wall mosaic of birds and flowers, for example, doesn’t just decorate; it creates a reminder of a living landscape. A lamp shaped like hanging pods transforms a wall into a small fragment of forest. These pieces bring calm and grounding, bridging the distance between interior environments and the natural systems we rely on.

Spotlight: Oorjaa — Where Sustainability Meets Biophilia

Among all the discoveries at Downtown Design 2024, Oorjaa stood out for me. Their lighting pieces are sculptural, poetic, and deeply rooted in both sustainability and biophilic design.

Lotus-leaf floor lamps, pod-like wall lights, and delicate table lamps made from banana fiber, recycled paper pulp, quarry dust, and even invasive plants all carried the spirit of nature. Oorjaa’s work does not imitate natural forms; it grows out of them. The textures are organic, the materials are raw, and the light that filters through them feels alive.

What is remarkable is how they manage to weave sustainability into beauty. These are not “eco products” in the superficial sense; they are works of art that make sustainability part of their identity. For me, Oorjaa represents the future of design: one where ethics, craft, and inspiration come together seamlessly.

Discover more about them here: oorjaa.in.

Why Downtown Design Matters

Downtown Design continues to be more than an exhibition. It is a cultural moment, a place where ideas, aesthetics, and ethics converge. This year showed us that the conversation is moving beyond trends — design is becoming a practice of responsibility and long-term vision.

For me, the fair was a reminder of why I chose this profession: to shape spaces that are not only beautiful, but meaningful, responsible, and alive with stories. Walking through these halls, I don’t just see new materials or forms — I gather inspiration that later filters into our projects, whether it’s through the textures of natural fibers, the poetry of recycled glass, or the gentle presence of biophilic design.

Sustainability and biophilia are not “add-ons” in our work at Claire Dominics Buro — they are part of how we think and create. I often find myself bringing natural light, tactile materials, or plant-inspired forms into interiors not because they are fashionable, but because they change how people feel in a space. They connect us back to something essential.

Events like Downtown Design fuel that process. They remind me that design has the power to be both grounded and imaginative, rooted in ethics yet open to wonder. And that balance — between responsibility and inspiration — is what I carry forward into every project.

A Personal Note from Claire

As an architect, designer, and passionate explorer of art and culture, I am constantly inspired by the beauty and depth of Arabic design. Every journey adds new layers to my creative vision, and I am eager to continue sharing these discoveries with you.

Follow along on my travels and artistic explorations — I share real-time insights, inspirations, and stories from the heart of heritage architecture and contemporary design on Instagram.

Let’s keep this conversation alive. Join me on Instagram @clairedominics for more behind-the-scenes moments and design inspiration.

Looking for something more personal?
Read about our experience at Art Connects Women 2025 — a global exhibition that touched on legacy, emotion, and the power of visual storytelling.

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