Natural wood trim—as opposed to laminate—is gaining steam in luxury car interiors. Various veneers are stores in a carefully monitored humidor before they're applied to models for armrests or dashboard and door details.

Here are some of the seat patterns for the various parts. Unlike a lounge chair or sofa found in your living room, this chair is made from many separate components, each positioned to optimize the piece.

The seatmaker sculpts a form out out of the foam. The more dense foam offers rigid support while the less dense sections conform more to a driver's body.

Seating is a large component of car interiors and evaluated on comfort, looks, and functionality. Very specific compositions of foam exist underneath the surface. The different densities create the support and comfort that's needed to make quick trips around town and long road trips equally enjoyable. Here's an example of the different foams in a seat.

After the foam configutation is set, the seat is upholstered and assembled.

The color, texture, and grain of a piece of leather is taken into account for upholstering an interior. Each car GM produces needs to be consistent and uniform in look and customization options. For example, if a buyer sees a caramel leather in a showroom car and wants it in their own, it needs to look the same. The studio makes sure that tanneries will be able to provide the right shade for a piece of leather and will be able to reproduce that on a large scale.

From the Central Pavilion: The architect Juan Herreros materialize the theme of the Biennale through large scale technical documents of constructive details, facade cross-sections, and abstracted models of unmentioned projects, in order to illustrate his idea of Common Ground in current architectural practice, in which technique acts as an amalgam of diverse disciplines and where the architect is no longer a conductor but a member of a multi-polar, interdisciplinary team, also enriched by those who occupy and share the building.

The Styling dome on the campus of General Motors’ Technical Center is 188 feet wide and 65 feet tall. At just three-eighths of an inch thick, the structure’s aluminum skin is proportionately thinner than an eggshell.

Saarinen designed the interior spaces with flexibility in mind. By avoiding the use of many interior columns, he allowed GM to easily adapt and change the buildings' layout to accommodate changing needs. In the Research building's lobby, a dramatic staircase—one of Saarinen's specialties—provides the architectural focal point.

"Earl convinced them that the architecture itself should reflect the importance of style and advanced engineering at GM," Skarsgard says. "Kettering argued that he wanted 'solid, functional buildings that don’t detract from what we do inside them...we don’t need fancy.' Earl responded 'Ket, I don’t want fancy, I want significant....we are going to be the guys who shape the future. I think these buildings should give out that feeling to the press and the customers and to our employees. Don’t put ‘em in a bank, Ket!'"

When the Technical Center was built in the 1950s, it symbolized the core ethos of General Motors. "The initial idea to build a new technical center focused on advanced and innovative product development for General Motors began with Alfred Sloan & Charles Kettering," says Susan Skarsgard, manager of GM Design Archive and Special Collections. "Sloan was the long-time president, chairman, and CEO of GM from the 1920s through the 1950s—decades when concepts such as the annual model change, brand architecture, and automotive design (styling) transformed the automotive industry in America and throughout the world. Charles Kettering, the celebrated American inventor, engineer, businessman, and the holder of 186 patents, headed up research for GM from 1920 to 1947."

The campus features low-slung buildings oriented around a lake. Steel, aluminum, glass curtain walls, and colored glazed brick end walls make up the campus's material language. "Sloan approached Kettering in 1944 with the idea to build a new product development campus, but initially they did not have any preconceived ideas about the architectural design of the campus," Skarsgard explains. "However, the influential chief of GM Styling, Harley Earl, engaged a reticent Sloan and Kettering to consider this project as an opportunity to do something significant with the architectural design of the project."

For example, a designer specifies a certain stitch pattern. A sewer then creates the same pattern by hand giving feedback on reproducability. If it's too complex, he or she will offer feedback to the designer; the designer then takes another stab at the stitch's look. The back and forth happens until the detail is refined and meets the aesthetic standards and manufacturing capabilities at GM.

The automotive design process at General Motors involves countelss talented people from ideation to production. After designers come up with ideas for interior and exterior styling—think: the shape of seats, the contouring of a console, the overall look and feel of a cabin—craftspeople create life-sized prototypes at the Interiors and Exteriors Studio. They evaluate the design to see if it's something that can be produced on a large scale given the tools and machinery that's readily available. Even the most minute stitch.

The Alizé Sunlounger from Fermob is an outdoor essential that has been met with a technical fabric for durability and comfort. The tear-proof fabric is soft and responsive to the touch, so a cushion or towel does not need to be used with the chaise. The frame of the chaise lounge features artful curves, giving the Alizé a silhouette that sets it apart from traditional loungers. Crafted in an elegant white, the Alizé is undeniably sophisticated.

Glass-and-enamel vase attributed to designer Adolf Hegenbarth in 1925 for the State Technical School for Glass in Steinschönau, Czechoslovakia.

A view of the connecting vestibule for which the house is named. The exterior is clad entirely in tiles made from recycled rubber and plastic—technically a roofing material—giving the eaveless home a tightly wrapped skin. “Although we used a traditional gabled form, we wanted to clean it up quite a bit,” says Bruns.

Technically, this small building is not a tree house, since it’s braced at the ground by supports, but Grey didn’t want to compromise the tree, which “doesn’t have a very long lifespan,” the designer says. “So, I didn’t want to jeopardize however long that tree had with any excess baggage.”

Technical equipment below is hidden below this furniture unit.

The floating bookshelf is composed from wood found on the property. Garlick purchased the Technics turntable and receiver from a used audio store.

Technically considered wall lighting, this box-shaped fixture provides uplight and downlight simultaneously, illuminating the ceiling and lending a beautiful ambiance to this peaceful bedroom.

The technical rooms and storage are located behind the kitchen. Large windows and a natural material palette create a seamless feel between the indoors and out.

+Farm is based in upstate New York, where land can be cheap but new housing prohibitively expensive: when a resident breaks ground on a waterfront site, their taxes can dramatically increase. What if new housing didn't need to technically break ground? "Our thought," says +Farm Director William Haskas, was "let's discuss ideas for a new type of dwelling....one that could potential help the people that actually live in the area."

The main bathroom, with a prominently placed soaking tub, is a restorative haven within the home. "My favorite part [of the home] is the bathtub, which has a clerestory window of the downtown skyline, and another window that looks out to see the Hollywood sign in the distance," shares Melanie. The luminous space features ceramic floor tile from Ceramic Technics in Ecco Mineral Stone 2.0, Wilsonart quartz counters in Rio Upano, and a white LED sconce by StudioM. The white oak vanity was custom designed by OPEN For Humans.

Although the Beira Railway Station is still technically in use, the Keeping It Modern grant will enable the city to find expanded uses for the postwar structure.

The concrete modules were prefabricated off-site and fitted with insulation, electrical sockets and switches, technical rails, and all mechanical connectors before they were transported to the site for final assembly.

“For me, sustainability is a social aspect of the neighborhood. It was a huge investment of time, but together we helped each other through all the technical innovations. None of us could have done this on our own,

In the family room, Lucien gets an early start on his music career with his father’s help. The space, technically the third floor of the structure, overlooks the central living area below.

The view from Bruce's cabin is a sight for sore eyes. One of the outermost inhabited islands on the American eastern seaboard, Criehaven (technically Ragged Island) is located 20 miles off the Maine coast and one mile south of Matinicus Island.

Through its materiality, the kitchen expresses its technical dimension

The Atelier 1 radio from 1957 still used a bit of wood but was moving toward a more technical aesthetic. Rams also designed a record player as part of the series.

The built-in dining table and space-dividing open-back shelving were custom-designed to create an airy and porous feel. "All technical installations and the external coupling points are assembled in the wall between the bathroom and the additional bedroom," says Stinessen. "[It's] prepared for 'plug and play' installation of the shelters."

The inspiration behind this design was the industry of manufacturing in China. It is a traditional table archetype broken down to its fundamental parts much like that of a technical drawing used by engineers and designers.

The transition between interior and exterior spaces features exposed concrete elements, black metal detailing, and an industrial aesthetic softened by timber accents. The HVAC duct is intentionally exposed as part of the design language, demonstrating the architect's approach to integrating technical elements.

"One of the most important features of Freebooter is its use of light, itself famous in the Netherlands and used as the inspiration for some of the world’s most beloved paintings by the Dutch masters," Garziano explains. "I am deeply fascinated by it and I aimed to explore the topic within the envelope of the facade with a very technical yet emotional approach."

While technically a little later than midcentury, and certainly not a traditional home, this renovation of a 1980s RV by a Portland couple took advantage of the potential beyond the dingy wood laminate cabinets and the dirty beige carpet that was consuming the floor. Owner Liz Kamarul envisioned how she could transform it, imagining white cupboards, interesting wallpaper for the ceiling, and texture introduced by textiles.