20 Most Popular Interior Design Projects of 2025

Interior design in 2025 revealed a discipline in transition. The projects that drew the most attention on uni.xyz were not the ones with the biggest budgets or the most famous clients. They were the ones that understood something essential: that the quality of an interior is measured by how it makes people feel, not how it photographs.

This list spans cafes in Poland and South Korea, bakeries in Bratislava and Seoul, residential apartments in Malaysia and California, and conceptual proposals that rethink how interior space can serve society. We ranked them by reader engagement: visits, saves, and conversation from 260,000+ architects and designers.

Four conceptual proposals lead the list, followed by sixteen built projects grouped by typology.

Conceptual Projects

1. Living Together: A Multi-Generational Courtyard House in China

A courtyard house in China designed for three generations under one roof. The interior design negotiates between shared life and private retreat, using changes in floor level, material, and light to create boundaries without walls. It is a project about the architecture of family.

2. Spiritual Architecture for Collective Consciousness

An interior proposal that treats space as a medium for collective spiritual experience. The design uses light, material, and proportion to create rooms that alter consciousness. It is architecture as meditation, where the interior is not decorated but composed.

3. INDELIBLE WOUND: Subterranean Exploration of Human Impact

A subterranean interior that makes geological time visible. The design carves through layers of earth to create spaces where the human impact on landscape is felt physically. It is installation art, architecture, and environmental commentary compressed into one underground experience.

4. Adaptive Reuse Architecture for Social Equity: Vocational Training Hub

A proposal to convert abandoned buildings into vocational training hubs for homeless communities. The interior design is deliberately modest: durable materials, flexible layouts, and spaces that prioritize dignity over aesthetics. It is architecture that serves people society has stopped seeing.

Built Projects: Cafes and Restaurants

5. Helen Cafe by CUDO, Poznan

The most-read interior design project on uni.xyz in 2025. Helen Cafe is a multifunctional space in Poznan where nature and history inform every design decision. CUDO created an interior that feels both ancient and contemporary: stone, wood, and planting arranged with the precision of a Japanese garden and the warmth of a Polish grandmother's kitchen.

Studio: CUDO

6. KUDDO Coffee, Shenzhen

Industrial heritage meets specialty coffee in Shenzhen. KUDDO occupies a converted factory where the rawness of exposed structure is not disguised but elevated. Every coffee station, seating nook, and display surface is a conversation between the building's past and its present life.

7. Press Cafe by IDST

A warm, layered cafe interior where every material tells a story. IDST designed Press Cafe as a space that rewards slow attention: the longer you sit, the more you notice. Textured walls, considered lighting, and furniture that invites lingering rather than laptop-hunching.

Studio: IDST

8. Misshumasshu by Maja Bernvill

Cultural fusion as interior design strategy. Maja Bernvill created a restaurant where Scandinavian minimalism meets Japanese craft traditions. The result is an interior that feels like a new culture, born from the respectful collision of two aesthetic worlds.

Studio: Maja Bernvill

9. norrri cafe by atelier ah, Cheongju

A cafe designed around childhood memories. atelier ah created norrri as a warm, playful retreat in Cheongju where the interior invites you to remember what it felt like to discover a space for the first time. Curved walls, soft light, and materials that ask to be touched.

Studio: atelier ah

10. Pawridge Pet Cafe by Studio Cereal Number, South Korea

A cafe designed for two species. Studio Cereal Number created Pawridge as an interior where humans and pets coexist without either compromising the other's comfort. The spatial planning is genuinely innovative: circulation paths, sight lines, and material choices all account for occupants at two different heights.

Studio: Studio Cereal Number

11. Sukchulmok Bakery, Seoul

Adaptive reuse at its most layered. A bakery and cafe in Seoul's Yongsan-gu district where the architects preserved every trace of the building's previous lives. The interior is a palimpsest: old walls show through new surfaces, and the act of eating bread happens inside visible architectural history.

12. Chlieb Nas Bakery by Sadovsky & Architects, Bratislava

Traditional Slovak bread craft meets contemporary design in Bratislava. Sadovsky & Architects created an interior where the baking process is architecturally visible: flour dust, oven heat, and the rhythm of production become the spatial experience. You do not just buy bread here; you witness its birth.

Studio: Sadovsky & Architects

Built Projects: Retail and Workshop Interiors

13. True Black Coffee Bar by NaaV Studio

Monochrome taken to its logical extreme. NaaV Studio designed True Black as an interior where darkness is not absence but presence. Every surface absorbs light, and the coffee itself becomes the brightest element in the room. It is a design that trusts its concept completely.

Studio: NaaV Studio

14. Atelier Hosoo: Ring Workshop in Busan

A jewelry workshop in Busan where the interior is designed around the act of making. The space is intimate and precise: each workstation is its own world, and the materials of ring-making (metal, stone, flame) are reflected in the architectural finishes. The interior makes the craft visible and the craftsperson comfortable.

Built Projects: Residential and Large-Scale Interiors

15. Palm Springs House

Mid-century modernism meets coastal California. This Palm Springs interior fuses clean lines with natural textures, creating rooms that feel simultaneously disciplined and relaxed. The architecture is in the details: custom furniture, curated art, and a color palette drawn from the desert landscape outside.

16. Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, Bangkok

Thai heritage translated into convention-scale interiors. The Queen Sirikit Center's interior design achieves something rare: it makes a massive public building feel culturally specific. Motifs, materials, and spatial sequences drawn from Thai architectural tradition are scaled up without losing their intimacy.

17. SS2 Apartment by Wuuu Studio, Petaling Jaya

Japanese-inspired minimalism in a Malaysian apartment. Wuuu Studio stripped the interior to essentials: timber, white walls, and carefully framed light. The apartment feels twice its size because nothing competes for attention. It is a masterclass in residential restraint.

Studio: Wuuu Studio

18. Barbara Bar and Restaurant by 89 stopni, Warsaw

Warsaw's cocktail scene gained an interior worthy of its ambition. 89 stopni designed Barbara as a sequence of moods: from bright and social at the entrance to dark and intimate at the back. The spatial narrative mirrors the arc of an evening out.

Studio: 89 stopni

19. Hygge Cafe by Dhanie & Sal

The Danish concept of hygge made spatial. Dhanie & Sal designed a cafe where warmth is not a metaphor but a material reality: textured wood, soft lighting, and proportions that make every seat feel like the best seat. The interior proves that comfort is an architectural achievement, not a decorative afterthought.

Studio: Dhanie & Sal

20. ERDOS Land by waa, Ordos

A cashmere brand's factory store in Inner Mongolia, reimagined as a playful landscape. waa (we architech anonymous) designed ERDOS Land as an interior where retail becomes exploration: undulating surfaces, hidden alcoves, and product displays that feel like art installations. The store is as tactile as the material it sells.

Studio: waa

What Interior Design Told Us in 2025

The strongest pattern on this list is the dominance of food and drink spaces. Cafes, bakeries, restaurants, and bars account for the majority of the top 20. That is not a coincidence: these are the interiors where architecture meets daily life most intimately. A cafe visit is a 30-minute architecture experience that anyone can have, and the best designers in 2025 treated that half-hour with the seriousness it deserves.

This article features projects published on uni.xyz in 2025, ranked by reader engagement. Last updated: April 2026.