Highlights from 2018's AD100 list

Architectural Digest has released its annual list of the most important and influential men and women working in interior design and architecture, who are changing the world, one room, one building, and one garden at a time. Debuting this year are 19 names, one of which opens editor-in-chief Amy Astley’s personal selection of 10 highlights from the list. It’s Amanda Levete, the award-winning British female architect who’s had a banner year with incredible projects: “She completed a mixed-use building called the Central Embassy in Bangkok, but the project that we were most excited by was the subterranean expansion of the V&A Museum in London,” said Astley. Interior designer Monique Gibson also gets the distinction of both debuting on the list and making it into Astley’s highlights: “She is the celebrity whisperer of the interior design world,” she said. Danish “starchitect” Bjarke Ingels also features among the highlights: “The project that we were most excited about was the visitors center for the Lego company. He used graphic materials that echo the Lego, which is probably what he grew up playing with.” More Scandinavian aesthetic comes from Norwegian design firm Snøhetta, who unveiled a new room at the Tree Hotel, which hovers 33 feet in the air and features incredible views. Six more names have been included in the “Hall of Fame” section inaugurated last year, in which 10 tastemakers have been elevated to a special mention. They are Norman Foster, François Catroux, Robert Kime, Juan Pablo Molyneux, Rose Tarlow and Jean Nouvel. They join Mario Buatta, Thierry Despont, Mica Ertegun, Jacques Grange, Hugh Newell Jacobsen, Peter Marino, Richard Meier, Robert A.M. Stern, Axel Vervoordt and Bunny Williams in the most exclusive part of the list. Foster and Nouvel also make it into Astley’s highlights. The latter has designed the newly opened Louvre Abu Dhabi: “It appears to hover over the Arabian Sea, it’s an architectural masterpiece, it’s a real feat of engineering,” she said. Watch the video above to find out more about Amy Astley’s highlights.

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World’s top architects and designers revealed in 2018’s AD100 list