BANK is proud to announce that Duyi Han has been selected as one of only four global emerging creators for Apple 's "Designers of Tomorrow" initiative. The awarded work is on view at the 2025 edition of Design Miami Paris. Meanwhile, we are also having his solo presentation at 2025 Art Basel Paris, booth 1.M10.
Our gratitude to South China Morning Post and Archtectural Digest for their features exploring this recognition.
-South China Morning Post-
Meet Duyi Han, the Shanghai-born designer selected for Apple’s Designers of Tomorrow initiative
One of four designers selected by Apple for Design Miami.Paris this week, Han is a trained architect whose work is hi-tech while playing with age-old traditions.
STORY / Josh Sims
Paris this week, Han is a trained architect whose work is hi-tech while playing with age-old traditions
Duyi Han is rarely overwhelmed by digital technology – because he’s native to it. “Though you can still scroll too much,” he laughs. “The [digital world] has allowed me [to] research, edit, experiment and render my ideas about visual culture. Without it I would have to [spend] a lot of time in libraries. And I already don’t feel like I have enough time.”
Aptly enough for an artist and designer who is often immersed in screens, 31-year-old Han is one of just four recently selected by Apple’s Designers of Tomorrow initiative, which spotlights emerging designers who makes technology a central part of their process. (The use of an iPad is required.) He has been offered the opportunity to present his work at this week’s Design Miami.Paris, an offshoot of the international design fair in the French capital. “Of course, that’s pretty exciting,” he says, “though I kind of expected that they’d select me.”
If Apple is the archetype of the contemporary tech brand, Shanghai-born Han is perhaps the archetype of the contemporary, category-bending designer, slipping easily between objects and installations, tactile high craft and AI-empowered virtual imaginings.
“I don’t really think about the question of whether I’m more a designer or an artist,” says Han. He actually trained in architecture at Cornell University, before later taking up a position with the prestigious Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron. “What I do is, for me, like architecture, just not what most people think of as being architecture. It’s more about how I can bring my visual culture research into the work. Sometimes that’s as a physical object, and at other times it’s more of an artwork. Most of the process is research.”
The results run the gamut from intricately coordinated, characteristically pastel-hued, immersive scenes akin to set design, to orchestrations of various objects. This includes murals, furniture, graphics, foam sculptures, wallpaper and hand-embroidered textiles. “And I often hate all the sewing,” says Han, though he does it all himself. “On the one hand, I enjoy the sense of precision I get from using a sewing machine, and on the other hand sewing on silk is all very labour intensive. You have to be so careful. You can’t skip any step. But at least it makes you value craft in a digital world.”
One work comprised completely making over an Airbnb flat in Jiangnan to produce a hospital ward-like live-in art experience – an Artbnb. Another blends symbols of Qing dynasty luxury with 3D protein molecule models. His work is hard and soft, both hi-tech and playing with age-old traditions.
What connects such a diverse output? That’s something Han calls “neuroaesthetic prescriptions” – neuroaesthetics being the study of how visual arts, music and dance affect the human brain and cognition. He’s an avid taker of photos on his phone, and is fascinated by what emotions and impressions that visual content evokes in the viewers. “Different visual cues have different meanings and values. They carry the spirit of the times [in which they were created], but also have a relevance to current times,” he says.
He sees using different sources from across the history of visual culture “like ingredients in pharmaceutical”. “That why I think of them as prescriptions. Each ingredient relates to a different visual culture and a different emotion, and I’m trying to create a kind of chemical compound for each specific project.”
If that sounds like one of those vaguely bewildering texts hung on gallery walls in an attempt to explain the artwork next to it, Han’s work, too, is typically best experienced rather than dissected. In one work, he makes use of traditional forms that echo the kind of religious objects typically found in Chinese temples – because, he argues, they evoke in some onlookers “a certain kind of awe, an authority, even a fear”. But then Han embodies them with messaging about contemporary mental health issues, to form a “nuanced psychological experience”.
The new work displayed at Design Miami.Paris, Noetrigram v0.9, is a dual-surface mirror, with details drawn from anatomical diagrams, occult manuscripts and modern wellness messaging, put through AI to generate emotive texts that have then been embroidered onto a luminous white satin. “I think it’s thoughtful design that combines all these references into something beautiful,” Han says of his work.
Wellness is something of a recurrent theme for Han. As Han suggests, what the world feels now is, broadly, confusion and unease about what’s going to come next.
“There’s the idea that AI will take over, that all the tech now brings a sense of uncertainty,” says Han. “It’s as though our intelligence is being compromised. There’s a lot of noise [if you are] digitally connected. It’s why I design for a sense of clarity, for a detox, a space for some self-reflection.”
It’s clear that Han also designs for his own entertainment. It’s fast becoming a signature for Han to wear an outfit designed to coordinate with the work on display at exhibition openings. He becomes an extension of his work.
“Clothing is part of the whole experience for me when it relates visually to the work,” says Han, who dabbles in fashion design as well. “To present myself in a unique way is a fun exercise. Although I do tend to leave it until the night before an exhibition opening to make the outfit.” Like he says, there’s just not enough time.
*Originally released on Oct 20, 2025
-Archtectural Digest-
These 5 Designers at Design Miami. Paris Are Proof of a Brighter Future Ahead
In one of the first exhibits of its kind, Apple tapped three emerging designers and one duo to create works that merge craft and technology
By Billy De Luca
Spiritually, Paris is a far cry from Silicon Valley. So you’d be forgiven if it's not the first destination that comes to mind regarding technological artistic advances. Accordingly, L’Hôtel de Maisons, an 18th-century manse and former residence of Karl Lagerfeld, may seem like an unlikely place for Cupertino, California-based Apple to launch an exhibit spotlighting emerging designers. But at the third edition of Design Miami.Paris, it’s clear that technology is becoming an important—if not essential—tool for artists who are pushing the boundaries of creativity.
As for the location? "Paris has a long history of design," says AD100 designer Rodman Primack, who curated Designers of Tomorrow, a showcase by Apple and Design Miami that will take place in the Beaux-Arts gem from October 21 through 26. "It was the capital of design for much of the 20th century, and it's once again emerging as an important capital for collectable design and art alike.
Along with Primack, Design Miami CEO Jen Roberts and Apple Design Studio's Molly Anderson and Alan Dye helped decide the exhibition's lineup: Marco Campardo, Marie et Alexandre, Atelier Duyi Han, and Jolie Ngo.
"Outside of creating beautiful objects, the featured designers share a curiosity for experimentation with materials and processes, blurring the line between digital design tools, traditional craftsmanship, and inventive production methods," Anderson, Apple's VP of Industrial Design, tells AD. "The pieces achieve a distinct balance; feeling technical, modern, yet tactile and timeless.
'I've been wanting to do a mirror because it's a device for looking at oneself," says Shanghai-based Duyi Han. He further philosophizes that his dual surface looking glass, named "Noetigram v0.9, involves not just the physical self, but also the psychological self. The satin embroidered design, inspired by anatomical diagrams and acupuncture maps, also features psychology-based phrases that Han sourced from AI. "It's immediately new-fashioned and arrives at a very new place," notes Primack of the work.
*Originally released on Oct 20, 2025
