Leo Lei

New York

Founder at Leibal

Columnist at Design Milk

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Articles

The Colorful Evolution of Sabine Marcelis' Stedelijk Chair

6 days ago | design-milk.com | Leo Lei

What first appeared as a monolithic statement in raw metal now emerges in a curated palette of black brown, white, beige, and vermillion – transforming Sabine Marcelis’ original Stedelijk Chair design into a new conversation about color and form. This evolution speaks to what the Rotterdam-based designer once described as her interest in form and materiality, where the material itself becomes both canvas and structure.
Raffles Boston Hotel Weaves Botanical Narratives Throughout

1 week ago | design-milk.com | Leo Lei

A spiral staircase ascends through three stories of the Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel’s Sky Lobby, its copper-accented herringbone floors below mirroring the city’s historic cobbled streets. Framed by fluted columns, the staircase becomes more than mere vertical circulation, but rather a material manifesto of how Stonehill Taylor’s design for North America’s first Raffles property unveils Boston’s cultural heritage.
Tuscan Colors Transform Ontario Home by Studio Brocca

2 weeks ago | design-milk.com | Leo Lei

The green marble arrived before the foundation. This single fact reveals the priorities that would shape this Ontario home, designed by Studio Brocca, where Italian heritage and contemporary design sensibilities converge with thoughtful clarity. Standing on land once occupied by a 1940s property, the new residence serves as a prelude to the French chateau visible beyond, yet its soul speaks unmistakably of Tuscany.
Colorado House Crafts Harmony Between Structure and Nature

3 weeks ago | design-milk.com | Leo Lei

At 10,600 feet above sea level, where the air thins and the landscape commands reverence, stands Mountain House, an embodiment between human intervention and natural splendor. The Colorado mountain house was designed by Gabriel Yuri, founder of New Operations Workshop, for his parents as an addition to their vacation home.
Material Narratives Transform Mountain Home in Sun Valley, Idaho

1 month ago | design-milk.com | Leo Lei

In the heart of Sun Valley, Idaho, where snow-laden mountains frame expansive skies, Studio Mountain’s H.M.L. project reveals itself as an extension of the land, rather than a disruption of it. Light pours through oversized metal-clad windows, amplifying the grain on white oak floors while illuminating the Italian calacatta viola marble with its distinctive purple veining.
Michael Hsu Reimagines Austin Home for Contemporary Living

1 month ago | design-milk.com | Leo Lei

In the heart of Austin’s Travis Heights neighborhood, the afternoon sun streams through the vast north-facing glass addition of the Travis Heights Historic Home by architect Michael Hsu Office of Architecture. Light casts geometric shadows across limestone floors embedded with ancient fossils – 145-million-year-old remnants of giant clams that once inhabited this land, now preserved alongside 19th-century horseshoes and indigenous arrowheads.
Leibal - The Artemest Penthouse

1 month ago | leibal.com | Leo Lei

The Artemest Penthouse is a luxury apartment located in New York, New York, designed by MAWD | March and White Design within The Greenwich by Rafael Viñoly. Standing in the soaring triple-height lobby of The Greenwich, one is immediately struck by the interplay of monumentality and intimacy. The 26-foot ceilings create an undeniable sense of grandeur, yet the carefully curated fireplace offers a welcoming warmth rarely found in luxury towers.
Healing Architecture at The Spa at Inns of Aurora Resort & Spa

1 month ago | design-milk.com | Leo Lei

A stone bench radiates a gentle warmth – not from the sun, but from within. It is subtle details such as this at The Spa at the Inns of Aurora Resort & Spa that reveal thoughtful integration of comfort and materiality, which define this award-winning wellness space. The 15,000-square-foot facility, located in Aurora, New York, represents a significant evolution in American spa design, one that merges ancient Ayurvedic principles with contemporary architectural principles.
Westminster Residence Transforms Attic Into Dramatic Volumes

1 month ago | design-milk.com | Leo Lei

Westminster Residence reinvents the traditional gabled form that populates Toronto’s High Park neighborhood by transforming it into something both respectful of context and boldly contemporary. Designed by Batay-Csorba Architects, the architects made a conscious decision to celebrate rather than conceal the underside of the roof. The steeply pitched terracotta roof hovers above a dark brick volume, creating a presence both familiar and unsettling.
APOLLO and Molteni Transform Storage Into Spatial Experience

2 months ago | design-milk.com | Leo Lei

In a Tokyo high-rise, storage becomes architecture. The 2,000-square-foot Akasaka Morandi I apartment, a collaboration between APOLLO Architects & Associates and Molteni designer Nicola Gallizia, transforms what typically recedes into background – cabinetry and storage systems – into the defining structural element of the space. Storage modules are arguably the essence of the Molteni brand, and here they become something more profound – the “core” of the architectural experience itself.