As the holiday season starts up, AZURE is here to make your shopping easy with our 2024 gift guide featuring 21 ideas for what to get the architects, interior designs and other creatives in your life.
This year, we’ve sorted our selections into three geometric themes that speak to different types of design personalities — from rigid modernists to free-spirited post-modernists and the hyper-experimental contemporary design crowd. We’ve also made sure to source a range of different price points that will work for everything from office Secret Santa exchanges to big splurges on your significant other. No matter which gift you opt to go with, so long as you stick to our 2024 guide, it’s already shaping up to be a great holiday season. Scroll down to start checking off everyone on your list.
Oh, and another great 2024 idea when it comes to gifts for architects? A subscription to AZURE.
All prices are in CAD unless otherwise specified.
In-season fruit is a sight to behold. Unripe bananas, not so much — unless, perhaps, they are arranged in this striking pentagonal vessel. (It turns out “fem” is Danish for “five” — great design, and a vocab lesson!)
$135 at Guildhall Home
Thom Fougere’s pitched-roof abode promises to woo even the most discerning of speckled warblers.
$165 at Goodland
A monolithic spice mill by Mexican designer Fabien Cappello delivers a welcome twist on a familiar tool.
$210 at Hem
Two panes of ribbed glass encase modern masterpieces in a shapely reimagining of an artist’s easel.
$25 at Umbra
Roll up to checkout counters with an aluminum wallet that also blocks the RFID and NFC scanners used by electronic pickpockets. Choose from three colours: black, silver or the mossy green Titanium shown.
$375 at Rimowa
This pair of dark brown–stained hand-carved mahogany shelf props is ready to hold its own against any architecture library’s heftiest tomes (S,M,L,XL, we’re looking at you).
$320 for set of two at Gabriel Ross
Some people say that going into the office is important for collaboration. We say it’s important for the calming daily ritual of adjusting the blocks on this oak and aluminum desk ornament.
$45 at Zara Home
Hurtling from one time zone to the next on the design week circuit can be disorienting. Keep important meetings (not to mention negroni hour at Bar Basso) top of mind with a wristwatch in a bright Aperol hue.
$2,800 at Rado
A memorable statement platter brings a deeper sense of place to table settings. Naoto Fukasawa fine-tuned the proportions while the late artist Samiro Yunoki devised its graphic pattern.
From $65 at Studio Pazo
Listen to Charli XCX (or a podcast about the rise of Brat style) with the latest in noise-cancellation tech.
$700 at Dyson
Toast the landscape architect behind your favourite park while drinking alfresco with Castor’s bottle chiller.
US$145 at Coming Soon
Sure, you could fill this hand-blown stemware with Cab Franc — but what it really craves is bubbly piquette.
€85 at Gustaf Westman
Designed by exuberant Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, this embroidered pillow is a cozy accom-paniment to a long winter nap. (Expect visions of sugar plums to follow.)
$270 at Roche Bobois
When he first hit the scene, Tom Dixon was known for two things: his bass playing and his industrial style. But like any enduring star, the man knows how to reinvent himself. Here’s the latest from his glossy pop era.
$350 at Gabriel Ross; $360 at Ssense and The Modern Shop
Digital fabrication meets handcrafted production in Montreal studio Cyrc’s ruffled vessel. First 3D-printed as a simple cylinder, the design is then heated and moulded into its final silhouette.
$110 at Cyrc
Sweet tooths, rejoice: Not only is Anna Werner’s elegantly pinched leather purse modelled after a candy wrapper, but the interior includes a zippered pocket ready to hold your secret Hi-Chew stash.
$370 at Marimekko Vancouver (in gold)
Capture the swirling motion of the wind in recycled cast aluminum — the next best thing to Twisters in IMAX.
$65 at The Modern Shop
The Memphis revival rages on with this postmodern suitcase accessory made from recycled leather.
US $30 at MoMA Design Store
Sophie Lou Jacobsen’s rippled podium takes the prize
for best butter sculpture.
$95 at Simons
Channel Laila Gohar’s memorable design week feasts by elevating festive dinner parties with these scalloped placemats made from shahi, a striped Egyptian heritage fabric.
$105 for set of two at Ssense
Just as important as teaching dogs the art of tug-of-war is teaching them the merits of good design. Accomplish both feats with this coiled rope toy featuring a decidedly au courant colour palette.
$30 at Finnish Design Shop
Looking for even more 2024 suggestions for gifts to get the architects in your life? Check out our holiday gift guides from 2023, 2022 and 2021 for more roundups of design-savvy stocking stuffers.
Seasonal shopping made easy with brutalist bookends, pill-shaped wine bottle carriers, and other design-driven novelties.