While Brooklyn brownstones conjure up memories of their turn-of-the-century roots, they also remain the modern-day face of New York’s coolest boroughs. With brownstone living, however, comes responsibility—many of these classic beauties are in need of renovation and restoration. Here are 10 standout, renovated brownstones that retain their original charm with added contemporary cool.

Speaking of Nathalie du Pasquier, the Memphis group was well-represented by a special retrospective furniture exhibition at Fondazione Stelline; elsewhere, du Pasquier was the subject of an installation by Disegno magazine.

The Urban Stories exhibition at Palazzo Litta included work by Daniel Libeskind, Alvin Huang, and Venini, in addition to Italian-Danish duo GamFratesi's pieces for Gubi.

Terrazzo Project by Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard and Philippe-Albert Lefebvre arranged the pair's innovative TP panels into a house of cards formation. The panels are made of resin cement and stone aggregates cast onto corrugated aluminium sheets, which make them 50% lighter than traditional slabs (as well as stain proof, UV stable and suitable for both indoor and outdoor use).

Danish silversmith Georg Jensen unveiled two new contemporary collections at Rossana Orlandi during the 2014 MIlan design week as a follow-up to its collaborations with the likes of Ilse Crawford and Alfredo Häberli.

The brand presented products both new and old in a series of room-like vignettes.

Dutch design studio Droog adapted pieces from objects in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum to create a studio space in central Milan with wallpaper designed by Irma Boom.

Strong lines on the floor and the walls reinforce the notion of old and new.

An eight-foot-high sliding glass door leads to the backyard's ipe deck, ideal for informal gatherings. The bench cushions are custom from Studio Collins Weir and the tables and chairs are from Design Within Reach.

Ryan Anderson of RAD Furniture designed the stools as well as the table and benches on the pool deck.

For now, one-year-old Awa is small enough to sleep in the hammock that hangs from the ceiling.

James's bedroom furniture was custom designed by Hatch Workshop.

Iskos-Berlin’s Birth of Marilyn is a lampshade meant to evoke a skirt lifted by the wind. The duo behind the brand strives to develop products using rationalized production processes to generate a minimal waste of materials and other resources. The lampshades are made from two layers of mostly recycled PET felt.

In the living room, spare Scandinavian design takes center stage. Hans Wegner’s Wishbone chairs surround an Essay dining table by Cecilie Manz for Fritz Hansen; a mostly wood palette is enhanced by slate-gray brick around the fireplace. The paper lanterns throughout the home are a mixture of classics by Isamu Noguchi alongside those picked up in Japan and France.

Built-ins reduce the need for furniture.

At the client’s request the kitchen contains neither upper cabinets (Shino can’t reach them) nor an oven (they only used the old one once—to reheat a pizza). A modular Roche Bobois Mah Jong sofa adds a decorative flourish to the living area while maintaining as low a profile as the traditional Japanese furniture.

The girls’ room features wood furniture designed by Bornstein.

Yang Yeo and his girlfriend Ching Ian relax on the back stoop of their renovated and radically updated Singapore shophouse—an archetypal building type in this busy port city. “Shophouses brought back memories of our childhood,” says Yeo.

Designer Stephen Burks at the Dwell-hosted "Man Made" exhibition in Milan during the 2014 FuoriSalone. (Join us in Los Angeles in June for the continuation of the exhibition, and Burks's keynote speech for Dwell on Design!)

"Maps to Help you Navigate Milan Design Week" by Craighton Berman.

The beanbag chairs and outdoor sofa and chairs are from West Elm and the Case Study Museum Bench is from Modernica.

Two San Francisco art and travel addicts overhauled a loft—and customized a pair of shipping containers—to accommodate their collection and reflect their passions.

Alfredo Brillembourg, Urban-Think Tank American-born architect Alfredo Brillembourg, who founded Urban-Think Tank in Venezuela, invigorated the crowd at the end of the first day with a sweeping vision for a new urbanism in the developing world. Summarizing the state of city planning in Africa at the outset ("Informality is the new normality"), he proceeded to lambaste earlier generations of architects for their complicity in perpetuating segregation and inequality, before calling for a more ethical and free-thinking practice built from the bottom-up.

Sou Fujimoto, Sou Fujimoto Architects Internationally recognized Tokyo architect Sou Fujimoto presented on the ideal balance of indoor and outdoor, private and public, in the home. "Good architecture," he noted, "lets people choose between gradations [of nature] for infinite functions." Here, he shares his mind-bending 2013 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, made of delicate steel bars.

Erik Kessels, KesselsKramer Through the Dutch creative agency he helped found, Erik Kessels has made a name for himself zig-zagging around norms and expectations in advertising. He once rebranded a budget Amsterdam inn as "the worst hotel in the world" to distinguish it from other prim hospitality ads, a risky campaign that led to the business's international expansion. Kessels told Design Indaba he plumbs misdirection and pretzel logic to make his most memorable work.

Sofia Design Week 2013 featured a professional forum with prominent international speakers, as well as a one-day 'Balkan Talks' agenda. This year's speakers included names like Konstantin Grcic, Matali Crasset, Michael Marriott, Mark Chalmers, Erik Kessels, Ji Lee, Marti Guixe, Stefan Sagmeister, Genevieve Gauckler, David Carlson, Peter Bilak, and Tomek Rygalik. Between June 12 to 30 there was also an extensive line up of events throughout the city in the form of exhibitions, workshops, screenings, parties, book openings, and interactive events for children. Photo courtesy of Sofia Design Week.

Karystios also designed the branding for the space. The logo uses mathematical symbols to create a face.

Martino Gamper staged a residency at Milan's La Rinascente department store, in collaboration with Serpentine Gallery in London, in which he "repaired" items brought to him by the public.

The Scale of Things—an exhibition encapsulating Swedish design by Jens Fager, Folkform, Färg & Blanche, Jonas Wagell, Lukas Dahlén & Matti Klenell—dealt with the concept of size: "to scale down, scale up, scale in relation between objects and between images and reality." Shown here is Lukas Dahlén's Weave cupboard.

010-020 returned this year to Ventura Lambrate to present work by up-and-coming designers like Studio WM, Lex Pott, Earnest Studio, and Mae Engelgeer.

HAY's pop-up with Wrong for HAY, by British designer Sebastian Wrong, was the toast of the town. They installed a mini-market for cash-and-carry purposes (props to the Nathalie du Pasquier tote bags) and showed a few upcoming pieces, including modular shelving and a series of household goods by Shane Schneck.

LW73A by New Moon. Hand-knotted in Nepal, the vegetable-dyed wool rug translates traditional Navajo flat-weave designs into a plush form.

At the Offect booth, visitors experienced the Swedish brand's acoustic panels and modern furniture built for office environments.