For Wallpaper*s 2024 Subsequent Technology difficulty, we’ve rounded-up a hotlist of rising design expertise from all over the world, shining a light-weight on the newcomers paving the current and forging the longer term. Be part of us on our journey to satisfy ten designers from Adelaide, Tokyo, London, Lagos, Guatemala Metropolis, Mexico Metropolis, Loch Lomond, New York and Paris. Welcome to our ascending stars of 2025.
Rising designer Olorunfemi Adewuyi, Lagos
Adewuyi studied structure at Covenant College in Nigeria and is an affiliate at Lagos-based design and structure apply Studio Contra. In 2023, he based OMI Collective with a mission to rescue declining crafts and combine them into modern life, honouring conventional abilities and vernacular expressions that may in any other case be subsumed in favour of a globalised design language. Adewuyi believes design has a social and democratic impetus.
(Picture credit score: Stephen Tayo)
Wallpaper*: How do you describe what you do?
Olorunfemi Adewuyi: Just lately I’ve come to consider what we do as caring with reminiscence – not simply preserving reminiscences, however contextualising them so we will maintain on to native tradition in a globalised world. We do that by humanising design, making tactile furnishings and objects that materialise reminiscence so you possibly can actually contact traditions within the objects you utilize in day by day life.
W*: What motivates your work?
OA: I wish to do social work, however I recognise this isn’t going to maintain a dwelling, so I additionally design furnishings and work as a sustainability professional. Social design is crucial to the context of the place I dwell. For instance, one of many challenges we’ve in Lagos is our water provide. Everybody needs to be an area authorities officer and construct their very own water provide, so you discover water tanks on each roof. It’s an eyesore, but additionally a possibility. I ask myself how we would use water tanks to convey inexperienced life to our city habitat.
(Picture credit score: Stephen Tayo)
W*: What has been a profession spotlight?
OA: Displaying on the Stockholm Furnishings Honest within the Greenhouse part for rising designers in 2025.
W*: Who can be a dream consumer?
OA: The lady on the road roasting plantain. The financial system of Lagos is essentially casual. I wish to put design within the arms of the lady on the road so she is empowered to enhance her life with out ready for the federal government to assist.
W*: What do you consider is the facility of design?
OA: Good design can have an financial energy that individuals don’t see instantly. Many individuals really feel design is just for the elite. I consider the business facets of design can gas social design, too. My objective as a designer is to convey social tasks at scale to fruition, ones with the potential for the real life enchancment of many individuals. Good design is about discovering the candy spot the place this relationship is symbiotic.
Olorunfemi Adewuyi, photographed by Stephen Tayo, on the rooftop of his workplace in Onikan, Lagos
@olorunfemi.adewuyi
Supply: Wallpaper
