RE/CRAFT showcases sustainable design from innovative creators at ICFF 2025
The RE/CRAFT exhibition was a featured highlight of the 2025 International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), held during the NYC x Design Festival at the Javits Center from May 18 to 20. Over three days, tens of thousands of visitors gathered to explore the latest advancements in sustainable design, craftsmanship, and innovation. RE/CRAFT presented new research and creative work that emphasized environmentally conscious design strategies and material experimentation, offering a powerful glimpse into the future of responsible design.
The exhibition showcased a wide range of projects, from sustainable ceramics and 3D printed vases to natural fabrics, hybrid-material lighting, and experimental architectural models. These works demonstrated how designers are redefining sustainability, transforming everyday objects and structures into reflections of environmental awareness. Each piece blended functionality with purpose, using form, material, and concept to spark meaningful dialogue around design’s role in ecological stewardship.
Created specifically for RE/CRAFT, new works by Tina (Hua Hsuan) Tsung, Qihang Zhang, Zifei Ding, Ruiting Xu, Xixiao Zhang, Yiting Chen, Dingdong Tang, Haisheng Xu, Zehui Li, and Bo Zhang embodied this vision. For these designers and architects, the exhibition served as a platform to explore how sustainability, design, and social responsibility can intersect. Their projects not only showcased individual creativity but also emphasized design’s broader potential to address environmental challenges and contribute to a more sustainable future.
Ruiting Xu is an award-winning designer working across architecture, interior design, and sustainable product design. Her work is defined by a commitment to environmental stewardship and material consciousness. Known for integrating form, function, and ecological integrity, Xu’s practice explores how design can serve as both utility and commentary on natural cycles.
Her project Unearth examines material transformation through a trio of sculptural vases. Each vessel, unified in form but distinct in opening, embodies the contrasts between refined surfaces and raw textures. The work symbolizes erosion and regeneration, encouraging a contemplative relationship between users and the evolving materials around them.
Minxuan Zhao is the founder of Lesley Studio and a designer who embraces challenges through persistence and deep emotional investment in her work. She describes herself as an ordinary person with extraordinary determination, taking pride in handling complex projects single-handedly while maintaining meticulous attention to detail.
Her contribution to RE/CRAFT reflects her design philosophy through emotionally resonant products that merge imagination with sustainability. By bringing long-cherished concepts to life, Zhao’s product line presents a cohesive aesthetic that is as thoughtful as it is functional, echoing her belief in meaningful, enduring design.
Xixiao Zhang is an architect and interior designer who focuses on urban sustainability and human-centered design. Her work often bridges innovation and ecology, delivering practical solutions for better living environments in urban contexts. Zhang’s approach is characterized by adaptability, interaction, and environmentally responsive systems.
Her project Kinetic Catalyst is an architectural table lamp model designed to dynamically respond to user behavior and environmental changes. Fusing energy efficiency with a sculptural form, the lamp operates as a microcosm of Zhang’s larger design ethos, interactivity, sustainability, and aesthetic clarity in harmony.
Yiting Chen is a highly acclaimed graphic designer and visual artist known for infusing nature and environmental themes into her work. Over the years, she has received numerous international accolades for her creative approach to visual communication and product packaging that educates and inspires.
For RE/CRAFT, she presented Summer, a recyclable ceramic packaging series rooted in themes of nature. Featuring organic visuals and eco-conscious materials, the packaging encourages users to reflect on sustainability while engaging with everyday products, turning the act of unboxing into a lesson in environmental mindfulness.
Tina (Hua Hsuan) Tsung is an award-winning designer celebrated for her integration of modern technology with heritage storytelling. Her digital and physical product designs serve both commercial and cultural clients, including major companies such as Bank of the West and Samsung Research America. Tsung is known for designs that bridge sustainability with innovation.
At RE/CRAFT, Tsung exhibited hybrid digital-physical products that incorporate sustainable strategies and cultural narratives. Her featured designs reflect how heritage can coexist with contemporary aesthetics, reinforcing the value of design as a tool for cultural preservation and ecological responsibility.
Qihang (Mike) Zhang is a globally recognized designer whose work spans music technology, AI, and data-driven SaaS platforms. Winner of over 40 international honors, including the iF Design Award, Zhang collaborates with major clients like Universal, Warner, Sony Music, and TikTok, blending technical insight with artistic fluency.
His smart lamp Radiant Embrace reflects his synthesis of heritage and innovation. Constructed with recyclable P-PETG and stainless steel, the voice- and app-controlled lamp features traditional Taiwanese Shippou and begonia patterns. With design inspiration rooted in mid-century architecture, the piece exemplifies how modern products can honor culture while promoting sustainability.
Haisheng Xu is a Los Angeles–based architectural designer and co-founder of LYT-X Studio. His design practice spans a wide range of project types, with an emphasis on merging parametric tools and digital fabrication with sustainable design strategies. Xu is recognized for his artistic sensibility and future-forward thinking.
His project DiveAscent transforms a historic structure into a museum with dynamic, curvilinear interior spaces. The design celebrates both heritage and innovation, using a green roof with panoramic views and flowing forms to integrate environmental goals with cultural preservation and architectural storytelling.
Zifei Ding is a visual designer acclaimed for her use of geometric and symbolic language to communicate environmental values. Her work often employs minimalist forms and sharp color contrasts to amplify the societal impact of design in both public and commercial realms.
For RE/CRAFT, Ding created a series of visual symbol designs and developed the exhibition’s new logo. Her work enhanced the clarity and visual impact of the sustainable material black clay exhibits, strengthening the exhibition’s public-facing narrative and fostering a deeper understanding of material and ecological connection.
Dingdong Tang, founder of LYT-X Studio, is an award-winning architectural designer recognized with IDA, AIA Design, and Architizer A+ Awards. His forward-thinking work—driven by sustainability, emerging technologies, and AI—has been widely exhibited and internationally published, reflecting a bold vision for the future of the built environment.
His contribution to DiveAscent reimagines the building’s historic roof as a civic landmark that fosters inclusion and sustainability. The design uses contemporary language to activate public space and cultivate cultural vibrancy, enhancing the building’s role in community engagement and ecological responsibility.
Zehui Li is a Los Angeles-based architectural designer with a focus on place-making and historical reinterpretation through emerging technology. His projects bridge the old and new, crafting experiences that revitalize existing narratives while embedding sustainability at their core.
Within the DiveAscent project, Li designed sunken plaza modules that combine natural light, vegetation, and gathering spaces. These geometrically diverse forms create a layered spatial experience that emphasizes community, ecology, and artistic exploration, offering a new typology of sustainable urban public space.
Bo Zhang is a designer, artist, and curator based in New York City, where he works to bridge sustainability, design, and community. With a practice grounded in material experimentation and public engagement, Zhang uses design as a medium for societal reflection and environmental storytelling.
As curator of the RE/CRAFT exhibition, Zhang also presented Ripples, a collection that plays with perception and spatial reflection. This visual series creates a surreal sense of motion and fluidity, challenging viewers to reconsider their interaction with space and reinforcing the transformative potential of sustainable design.
All images courtesy of Bo Zhang, shared with permission
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