Interior Design Fall Homes 2020

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

a new point-of-view

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CONTENTS FALL 2020

VOLUME 91 NUMBER 10

ON THE COVER Open skylights move air through the central courtyard of Studiohuerta’s passively cooled, board-formed concrete house in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Photography: Roland Halbe.

FEATURES 90 THE POWER OF ART

by Michael Snyder

Alterstudio Architecture creates a dynamic family home for an influential collecting couple in Highland Park, Texas.

100 THEY MAKE A VILLAGE

by Edie Cohen

Francesc Rifé Studio reinvents a farm compound in Catalonia, Spain.

108 EARTH, SEA, AND SKY

by Rebecca Dalzell

Studiohuerta’s innovative residence in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, works in concert with the elements.

118 UPPING THE ANTE

by Edie Cohen

Deftly sutured into its vertiginous site, a Southern California abode by KAA Design and Pamela Smith Interiors interweaves indoors and out in serenely complex fashion.

128 SHELTERING IN STYLE

by Jackie Cooperman

Designer Daniele Daminelli renovates an urbane 1930s apartment for his housebound family in Treviglio, Italy.

136 HARMONIC CONVERGENCE

by Stephen Treffinger

Joanna Lavén and David Wahlgren are totally intune collaborating on a home for their family in the Stockholm archipelago.

ROGER DAVIES

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CONTENTS FALL 2020

VOLUME 91 NUMBER 10

open house 31 RED-HOT AND OH-SO COOL

by Jen Renzi 36 MATERIAL COMFORTS

by Peter Webster

departments 15 HEADLINERS 19 HAPPENINGS

edited by Annie Block 22 TRENDING

edited by Rebecca Thienes 27 AT HOME

by Jackie Cooperman Nina Yashar Shelters in Place 49 MARKETPLACE

edited by Rebecca Thienes 144 BOOKS

edited by Stanley Abercrombie 145 CONTACTS

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YEVHENII AVRAMENKO

147 INTERVENTION

by Edie Cohen

collection TOKYO BLUE patter n RENDEZVOUS TOKYO BLUE

Showrooms

London

Par is

Culemborg

Los Angeles

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Karla Lima

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Jen Renzi

Stephanie Denig

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

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Hanna Day-Tenerowicz

DEPUTY EDITOR

CREATIVE SERVICES

Edie Cohen

Marino Zullich

FEATURES DIRECTOR

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

Peter Webster

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Rebecca Thienes ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR IN CHIEF

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SENIOR PREPRESS AND IMAGING SPECIALIST

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e d i t o r ’ s welcome

bursting for homes!

Hello all, and welcome to the front lines! The belligerence is all COVID19-related of course, but nevertheless, in essence the battlefield metaphor is very true. Because the pandemic is keeping us quarantined at home, residential work is exploding, promising a rarely seen worldwide bounty of innovative projects for years to come, from a legion of established and emerging designers.

And just as powerful, there will be red-hot coverage of everything home for years to come...yum!

But I digress. We are already witnessing the first onslaught, comforting in its predictability. Renovations are multiplying as far as the eye can see (or Zoom can show)! This lucrative category of our biz will represent the lion’s share of projects in the near future, but there will also be new design solutions and new constructions dominating our reporting—and, frankly, I can’t wait! In fact, there’s no reason to hold your breath: Give yourself an early start by flipping through this issue. Outside Milan, a 1930s former managerial-housing building gets a makeover with attitude by designer Daniele Daminelli, who created a haven for his young family. An old indoor swimming pool makes a splash as a new conversation pit in a Stockholm house

by Joanna Lavén Designs. And Francesc Rifé re-imagines a Spanish farm compound as a weekend retreat, this time for guests.

Inside, it’s all brilliant stuff that will keep you effortlessly ahead of the curve, and maybe inspire a project or two in your own home!

Stay safe, safe healthy; it’s only going to get better... at some point. xoxo,

Follow me on Instagram

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PAPILLONDINING TABLE B E R M A N R O S E T T I . C O M

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h e adl i n e rs

Francesc Rifé Studio “They Make a Village,” page 100 principal: Francesc Rifé. firm site: Barcelona. current projects: Presidente Intercontinental Hotel in Monterrey, Mexico; Convent Carmen Hotel in Valencia, Spain; Luxury Rebel stores throughout China. honors: China’s Most Successful Design Award; Fuera de Serie Gourmet Award. role model: Architect John Pawson, because he was the first to develop warm minimalism, always with great respect for the history of spaces. in its place: Rifé is obsessed with order. in his closet: The designer’s daily uniform is a white shirt. francescrifestudio.com

D. SCHAEFER

“More has never meant better to me” FALL.20

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Alterstudio Architecture “The Power of Art,” page 90 partner: Kevin Alter. partner: Ernesto Cragnolino, FAIA. partner: Tim Whitehill. firm site: Austin, Texas. firm size: Eight architects and three designers. current projects: Jardin Residence, Houston; Castle Hills Condominiums and Manchaca mixed-use commercial development, both in Austin. honors: AIA Texas Society of Architects Design Award; AIA Institute Honor Award; AIA Small Project Award. role model: Chilean architect Smiljan Radić, for designing buildings that are completely unexpected but, once seen, appear as if they have always been there.

Pamela Smith Interiors “Upping the Ante,” page 118 owner, principal designer: Pamela Smith. firm site: San Diego. firm size: Five (plus two office dogs). current projects: Ground-up residences in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with Wallace Cunningham; and in Point Loma, California, with Safdie Rabines Architects; restoration of a 1939 oceanfront house in La Jolla, California. role model: Jean-Michel Frank, who worked with the most talented artisans of his time. laying tracks: Alter played bass in an ’80s punk band, which recently reunited to release its first record in 38 years. man of steel: Argentine-born Cragnolino was once a certified welder. brush in hand: Before becoming an architect, Whitehill was a painter. alterstudio.net

Studiohuerta “Earth, Sea, and Sky,” page 108 principal: Gabriel Huerta. firm sites: New York and Tijuana, Mexico. firm size: Five. current projects: A private residence in Tijuana. honors: Architizer A+ Awards. role model: Teacher/writer Esther da Costa Meyer, whose work has expanded the contexts and content of architectural discourse. creative outlet: Playing the piano. phys ed: Huerta enjoys hiking and camping. studiohuerta.com 16

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downtime: Smith relaxes by doing puzzles and touring the stately homes of England. upside: She met her husband, architect Wally Cunningham, as a photo stylist shooting his first residential project. psisd.com

KAA Design “Upping the Ante,” page 118 partner: Grant Kirkpatrick. partner: Duan Tran. firm site: Los Angeles. firm size: 32. current projects: A villa in Barbuda, West Indies; private estates in Koloa, Hawaii; and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. honors: AIA Merit and Honor Awards; LUXE Red Awards. role model: Steve Jobs, for his vision, his unrelenting and holistic design-first approach, and his polymath agenda. study hall: The partners are USC School of Architecture graduates. head of the class: Grant chairs the university’s board of directors. extracurricular: Duan sits on the board of L.A.’s A+D Museum. kaadesigngroup.com

Studio 2046 “Sheltering in Style,” page 128 founder: Daniele Daminelli. firm site: Treviglio, Italy. firm size: Two designers. current projects: Two private residences in Milan and one in Bergamo, Italy. role model: Architect, designer, and photographer Carlo Mollino, because he achieved elegance and refinement in both his work and life. inspiring partner: Daminelli regards wife Giulia as his true muse. snap judgements: The couple keenly admire contemporary photographers such as Steven Meisel, Giovanni Gastel, and Wolfgang Tillmans. studio2046.com

RIGHT: SILVIA RIVOLTELLA

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MADE YOU LOOK. Indoor and outdoor lighting, ceiling fans and accessories.

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aquatic therapy What began as a branding refresh has morphed into a comprehensive overhaul— plus an annual art installation. It was 2014 when K&CO and Pliskin Architecture were hired to reposition Manhattan Park, a rentalapartment complex built on Roosevelt Island in 1989.

Although their scope has grown to encompass major capital improvements, the budget was small initially.

K&CO’s Krista Ninivaggi saw a “diamond in the rough” in the site’s pool. She and Barak Pliskin donned their curator hats for what they call MP Pool Party, in which they commission a different artist to paint a pop-up deck mural each summer.

First was Eric Rieger, aka HOTTEA. For its sixth year, the concrete canvas went to multidisciplinary designer of the moment Alex Proba, who’s collaborated on previous projects with Rockwell Group and Studio Collective.

“It’s lighthearted and joyful,” she says of her bouyant “shape party” featuring her signature peach, rust, and lavender shades. They also appear in her new Little Proba wool-bamboo rugs, the proceeds—$2,000 so far— going to Save the Children and the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. studioproba.com

happen ings

edited by Annie Block

After sketching by hand, then mov­ ing to Illustrator, Studio Proba utilized some 50 gallons of donated Sherwin-Williams Company paint for its 8,000-square-foot deck mural at Roosevelt Island’s Manhattan Park Pool Club, an annual instal­ lation curated by K&CO and Pliskin Architecture.

MAX TOUHEY

interiordesign.net/studioproba20 for a video of the installation

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H A PPE N ings

European wallpapers…

Designed his family home in New Canaan, Connecticut. It's a stunning example of the International Style, one that’s never before been open to the public. That changes with “At The Noyes House: Blum & Poe, Mendes Wood DM and Object & Thing,” organized by the two galleries and the design fair, open Saturdays from September 15 to November 28. Among the 62 works by such artists as Sonia Gomes, Kazunori Hamana, and Antônio Obá is the glazed ceramic Amaxa by Lynda Benglis.

Over 5,000 square feet…

Of recylable nylon safety netting cloak the Carroll Slater Sifly Piazza at the High Museum in Atlanta. The mesh is stretched over a painted steel

Toile de Jouy…

Is among the patterns seen in such figurative works as In the Quiet Morning by Markus Åkesson, whose studio is in the woods of southern Sweden. He prints the nature motifs on silk or satin, veils his models in the textile, then renders them in oil on canvas. “I’m drawn to repetition and rhythm,” says the painter, whose aptly named “Strange Days” runs September 17 to October 31 at the Galerie Da-End, Paris.

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framework soaring as high as 26 feet to form Murmuration, a site-specific installation by SO-IL on view through November 29. The sixth in the High's outdoor series, the verdant construction evokes the shady tree canopies populating what’s nicknamed the “city in a forest,” under which visitors can nest and perch like birds.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: COURTESY OF MARIANE IBRAHIM; COURTESY OF SO-IL; COURTESY OF MARKUS ÅKESSON AND THE GALERIE DA-END; MICHAEL BIONDO; COURTESY OF LYNDA BENGLIS/LICENSED BY VAGA AT ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK/COURTESY OF THE ARTIST, BLUM & POE, LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK/TOKYO, AND PACE GALLERY

Midcentury architect Eliot Noyes…

Mix with traditional portraiture in the largescale paintings of 36-yearold Ghanaian Amoako Boafo. As seen in his oil on canvas Green Beret, Boafo applies the patterns via photo transfer, then uses his fingers to paint the bodies of his subjects, who are celebrated members of the African diaspora. A dozen new works compose “I Stand By Me,” the artist’s solo exhibition at Chicago’s Mariane Ibrahim gallery, September 10 to October 24.

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Curvaceous objects in dreamy environments let cooped-up minds roam free

tripping out!

What if a table wants to be a flower?

This is the provocative question that led Dutch designers Merle Flügge and Job Mouwen of Rotterdam’s Supertoys Supertoys to create Cosmic Flower, a bubblicious delight hand-cast of translucent, cantaloupe-color epoxy resin. The piece was part of “Imagined, for uncertain times,” a virtual exhibition organized by Bay Area maker SoftGeometry that featured 11 independent design studios from nine countries. The grouping celebrated how design can liberate us to envision far-off locales and innovative furnishings during a time when physical travel is curtailed. “Fantasy helped us gather from across continents, converse, and create collaboratively in lockdown,” curators Utharaa Zacharias and Palaash Chaudhary explain. Nicolás Cañelas of Spot Studio in Barcelona cleverly placed the objects within 3-D visualizations of dreamed lands, allowing the personified 24-legged table to perch by the sea.

Turn the page for more fantastical, transporting visions by global designers of all stripes. supertoyssupertoys.com

edited by Rebecca Thienes

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ART DIRECTION AND 3-D VISUALIZATION BY SPOT STUDIO FOR “IMAGINED, FOR UNCERTAIN TIMES”

tre n d ing

MAKE THE MOST OF HOME

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“My design is strange and contradictory, like the times we are in, but also curious and hopeful, like tomorrow”—Léa Mestres

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1. Benjamin Gillespie’s Mobius LED floor lamp in ebonized ash with woven diffuser by Ovuud. ovuud.com 2. Bari Ziperstein’s Giant Sm Robot, Giant Bowl

Bottom, Giant Diamond, Giant Wide Saucer, and Giant Tall Saucer, all stoneware vases in Klein blue by BZippy. bzippyandcompany.com 3. Andrea Ponti’s Neel hand-painted porcelain plates

by Ponti Design Studio. andreaponti.com 4. Bench 01 in cast aluminum by Léa Mestres through Galerie Scène Ouverte. galerie-sceneouvert.com 5. Mario Alessiani’s Bridge Large stainless-steel and glass vase in black by Xlboom. xlboom.com 6. Yonoh’s Lace sofa in polyethylene and stainless steel by Möwee. mowee.com

T R E N D ing

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1, 4: ART DIRECTION AND 3-D VISUALIZATIONS BY SPOT STUDIO FOR “IMAGINED, FOR UNCERTAIN TIMES”; 2: RENDERING BY CHARLOTTE TAYLOR AND VICTOR ROUSSEL FOR SIGHT UNSEEN “OFFSITE ONLINE”

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AT home

Left: The gallerist in her Milan apartment designed with the help of GianCarlo Montebello.

Nina Yashar shelters in place The Milanese gallerist gets to spend rare time in her own designfilled apartment thanks to the COVID-19 quarantine

REI MOON

Since Nina Yashar opened her Milan gallery Nilufar in 1979, she has been filling collectors’ homes with preeminent examples of 20th-century design.

Thanks to the COVID-19 lockdown, she is finally savoring her own domestic sphere. “Normally, my home is like a hotel. I spend very few hours here,” Yashar says by phone from one of her apartment’s four terraces, birds chirping amid her prized roses and irises. “Quarantine really changed my perception. I feel much more protected now, like I live in a cocoon.”

Born in Iran and raised in Italy, Yashar exudes a sophisticated but accessible glamour that she replicates in the 3,200-square foot, 1940s duplex she and her husband bought 30 years ago. Jeweler GianCarlo Montebello, who also designed Yashar’s Via della Spiga gallery and has produced pieces for artists like Lucio Fontana, Sonia Delaunay, and Alex Katz, helped the gallerist transform what she calls an “architecturally poor” space into an airy, art-filled redoubt.

Montebello says his goal was adding both “domestic functionality and very Italian and Mediterranean aesthetics.” He tinted the white walls with natural powders to create rose, blue, and gray hues, and covered them with frescos, graffiti, and engraving. “The colors are always alive, like a painting,” Yashar marvels. “GianCarlo is an incredible engineer of light.”

Her professional obligations somewhat curbed, Yashar is using her curatorial skills at home. Spending hours on her terrace, she’s added more furniture there, including a Mathieu Mategot 1956 metal trolley. In her bedroom, where she now eats breakfast every day, she’s replaced a striking but severe Verner Panton cone chair with a rare and commodious Gio Ponti armchair.

Some items remain sacrosanct: 1960s ceramic vases by Fausto Melotti; a pair of oversize consoles Ponti designed for Sorrento’s Hotel Parco dei Principi; the dozen red vinyl-upholstered chairs, designed in the 1950s by Carlo Mollino for the Lutrario Dance Hall in Turin, at her dining table. Once the pandemic ends, Yashar will fill those seats again with the friends she’s accustomed to entertaining. “It’s part of my vision—in my home and in my gallery—to live with collectible pieces and furniture,” she says. “I think design has to be used daily, and to be shared.” —Jackie Cooperman FALL.20

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3 1. Yashar, whose look is as quintessentially Milanese as her apartment’s, favors clothing and shoes by friend Miuccia Prada.

2. Known for her midcentury collecting, Yashar also delights in contemporary design, like this 2011 PlayTime table by Bethan Laura Wood.

3. A pair of Alvar Aalto 1952 brass, lacqueredmetal, and black-leather floor lamps.

4. Yashar’s sitting room showcases GianCarlo Montebello’s frescoed and handtinted ceilings and walls and a 1988 Danish carpet by Vibeke Klint. On the right, a Grazia Toderi photograph hangs above a customized Promemoria silk-upholstered sofa.

5. The Ninetta Bench, an update of the beloved 1950s vintage original in Yashar’s sitting room, is available at Nilufar.

6. A Hans-Agne Jakobsson 1960s brass lamp with a silk-fringe shade is another vintage favorite.

7. Poul Henningsen’s 1958 Artichoke ceiling fixture illuminates the kitchen.

8. Yashar’s portrait by her friend, the artist and designer Rebecca Moses, watches over jewelry designed by Montebello.

9. The bedroom is a mix of old and new: a bedspread from the Hotel Esencia in Tulum, Mexico; a late-19th-century Chinese carpet; a 2009 mixedmedia artwork by Florian Schmidt; and a 1950s Verner Panton cone chair.

10. Contemporary designer Martino Gamper’s low table “reinterprets” a 1960s piece by Gio Ponti.

11. A trio of 1960s sofas from a Berlin government office face a pair of 1940s Jacques Adnet leather armchairs in Yashar’s airy living room. The artwork is by Piero Pizzi Cannella.

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REI MOON

12. Contemporary art includes this untitled 2012 oil painting

by Kerstin Brätsch.

“It’s part of my vision—in my home and gallery—to live with collectible pieces and furniture”

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Rameau Pendant courtesy of Jonathan Browning Studios

firm: rina lovko studio site: kyiv, ukraine

red-hot and oh-so cool

ope n

house Painted MDF cabinetry animates the kitchen, designed for entertaining and communal cooking.

YEVHENII AVRAMENKO

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couple who work in the culinary field. The uber-functional new kitchen, set up for communal cooking and entertaining, centers on a generous island topped with what appears to be terra-cotta tile but is actually glazed porcelain. “The slightly irregular edges give the impression of a handmade product,” Lovko notes. Base cabinetry and a bar-height custom table, both painted MDF, offer colorful counterpoints to the architecture’s exposed concrete.

Establishing a galleryish vibe in the living area are minimalist furnishings arrayed like freestanding sculptures, plus abundant built-ins to contain clutter. “We organized several hidden areas to relieve the main space from cupboards and household items,” Lovko says. Strategic storage also defines the commodious dressing room that’s tucked between the main and guest bedrooms: In the middle of this space stands a

YEVHENII AVRAMENKO

Hired to redesign an apartment that featured an unconventional floor plan, its shape akin to a flipped-open hand fan, Ukranian architect Rina Lovko delivered an equally unconventional scheme. “The layout of the space, with its complex geometry, created certain difficulties; standard techniques did not work here,” Lovko admits. “But at the same time it excited us professionally”—and liberated her to go in a progressive direction. Most notably, she took advantage of the daylight flooding in through the curved window wall, and the clients’ yen for flowing lines, by reconfiguring the space into an open, airy, and artful milieu.

Located on the ninth floor of a circular tower in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district, the 2,200-square-foot apartment was originally divided into five enclosed rooms. Lovko combined three of them into a single kitchen/ dining/living space that better suited the lifestyle of the clients, a young

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ope n house Clockwise from left: A wool-linen rug by Yuriy Zimenko anchors a Gaetano Pesce Serie Up 2000 lounge and Shane Schneck’s Bowler table in the living area, where a beige-painted wall serves as a screen for projected imagery. The angular modules of the Filiph sofa can be maneuvered around the micro-cement floor. Barber & Osgerby’s Lane glazed porcelain tile tops the island.

The bar-height custom Mushroom table is fabricated of painted and varnished MDF; the gradient wall was executed in paint.

YEVHENII AVRAMENKO

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ope n house Clockwise from top: Iskos-Berlin’s felt Dancing pendant joins a custom table and bench plus Afteroom’s chairs in the dining area. Tim Rundle’s TR Bulb pendant fixture illuminates the main bedroom. Lovko originally designed the glass-enclosed Transparent Showcase wardrobe for another client; it’s now part of her studio’s made-to-order line. A wall of frosted glass separates the main bathroom, with walk-in wet zone, from the corridor.

see-through custom wardrobe, a sartorial showcase. Also glass—this time frosted—is the wall separating the sanctum from the apartment’s main circulation route, allowing light to penetrate all the way into the landlocked main bathroom on its opposite side.

Despite the rigorous architecture, strict forms, and the minimum of furnishings, says Lovko, “the space turned out to be quite cozy.” A repose in the soaking tub would indicate as much. —Jen Renzi FROM FRONT MUTINA: TILE (KITCHEN). B&B ITALIA: LOUNGE (LIVING AREA). VANDRA RUGS: RUG. HAY: SIDE TABLE (LIVING AREA), MIRROR (BATHROOM). ART NOVA: SOFA (LIVING AREA).

MENU: PENDANT FIXTURE, CHAIRS (DINING AREA); PENDANT FIXTURE (BEDROOM); SCONCE (BATHROOM). BRUMA: MIXER (BATHROOM). ISTONE: SINK. THROUGHOUT BENJAMIN MOORE & CO.: PAINT. SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC: OUTLETS. BASSA: CUSTOM FURNITURE FABRICATION,

YEVHENII AVRAMENKO

GLASSWORK. DAVIS CASA, SVETORIA: LOCAL DISTRIBUTORS.

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ope n house Wood, stone, concrete, and steel turn these houses and apartments into havens of warmth and light

KEVIN SCOTT

material comforts

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montalba architects site Venice, California

KEVIN SCOTT

recap Almost every interior space connects to the outdoors by way of expansive glass walls and sliding doors, concrete-block walls that extend from garden into living areas, and wood siding that clads under-eave soffits and indoor ceilings alike.

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ope n house

clarice semerene arquitetura site Brasília, Brazil

JOANA FRANÇA

recap The Brutalist modernism of Oscar Niemeyer’s iconic city is reflected in the apartment’s bold use of concrete—polished on the floors, cement plaster elsewhere—paired with either steel-and-glass or woodclad partitions, the former for openness and connection, the latter for warmth and privacy.

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JOANA FRANÇA

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READ MCKENDREE/JBSA

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kevin o’sullivan & associates site Sag Harbor, New York recap Cedar treated to shou sugi ban, the Japanese charring technique, and African-teak siding clad the crisp exterior volumes while white-oak flooring, walnut millwork, honed-marble countertops, and steel columns bring low-key luxe to the interiors.

READ MCKENDREE/JBSA

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plus ultra studio site Milan

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FEDERICO VILLA

recap Classic oak parquet in the living room contrasts with graphic Art Deco– inspired ceramic-tile floors in the entry, hallway, and kitchen, the latter entered by a pair of French doors with a rounded shape that evokes the 1920s.

vladimir radutny architects site Chicago recap Located in a classic Mies van der Rohe–designed lakeside tower, this apartment was entirely reconfigured, its new white paint-and-plaster shell warmed by blond oak cabinetry, partitions, and flooring, with occasional black linear elements to define the spaces.

MIKE SCHWARTZ

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ope n house

vitale design site Sydney, Australia

NICHOLAS WATT/PHOTOFOYER

recap The cool, restful interiors feature an understated but robust materials palette that includes honed-limestone floors, polished-plaster walls with oak-batten paneling, and a marble kitchen island. —Peter Webster

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Designed to Perfection From the ground up, Signature Kitchen Suite was built on precision and purpose. Whether it’s articulating handles, consistency in our stainless steel grain, Signature Fit™ installation, or engineering considerations that follow your countertop’s lines, our full collection of built-in appliances is designed to please the designer, builder and home chef alike.

Carrying over to our respect for food, each of our appliances are thoughtfully designed to prepare, preserve or clean in the best ways possible. That’s how we stay True to Food.™

SignatureKitchenSuite.com | @SKSappliances | 855-790-6655 Copyright ©2020 Signature Kitchen Suite, 111 Sylvan Ave., Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632. All rights reserved. “Signature Kitchen Suite” and the Signature Kitchen Suite logo are trademarks of Signature Kitchen Suite.

DEEP IMPACT

How Current Lifestyle Dictates Home Design

By Dianne M. Pogoda

H

ome design is evolving fast, heavily inf luenced by life stages and the modern lifestyle.

The National Kitchen & Bath Association conducted extensive research to determine what’s behind

certain design elements, with a deeper dive into how functional and emotional needs of homeowners impact design, and why kitchens and baths are headed in various directions. Here’s how the four macro themes revealed by NKBA’s “Living Impacts Design” study are influencing home design.

Scan the QR code to learn more about the Living Impacts Design Study, and to receive a special discount on the full report.

Image Credit: Kitchen design by Sarah Robertson, AKBD. Photo by Adam Kane Macchia Photography.

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Connected Living

Simplified Living

What it means: It’s not just about connected devices. It also means connection among people, and spaces that promote human interaction, with tech designed to serve that end.

Open-plan kitchens are inviting, cozy and warm — just right for engaging family and friends.

What it means: Let’s face it — most of us have too much stuff. No matter how much we purge, we still need plenty of storage to keep spaces clean and clutter-free. Forget the tchotchkes — especially for Millennials, who far value experiences over “things.”

Fast Facts:

Fast Facts:

+ 82% value inclusion and visibility with open kitchen layouts and sight lines to other parts of the living space. + 75% prioritize an inviting entertaining area. + 64% want multifunctional kitchens for different activities. + 57% emphasize great Wi-Fi and Internet connection to call up recipes, cooking inspiration and instruction. + 58% say materials like natural stone countertops and tile make a connection with the environment and nature, and provide a sense of well-being.

+ 35% express a desire to live with less, only with things they love. + 76% say homeowners want targeted storage for specific items, like pots and pans, odd-sized trays, utensils, spices, bathroom products and accessories — meaning there’s a place for everything. + 51% of Millennials crave well-organized spaces, minimal clutter and a sense of organization. + 48% opt for commercial finishes and fabrics as easy-clean, low-maintenance material choices.

Living In Place

Healthy Living

What it means: Making spaces safe, comfortable and accessible for anyone — regardless of age, physical challenges or life stage — is the cornerstone of Living In Place. Uncongested f loorplans, handles and faucets that are easy to operate and low-maintenance materials make life easier for everyone.

What it means: Make life healthier through a deeper connection with nature, maximizing outdoor views, balancing circadian rhythms with lighting, selecting

Fast Facts:

Fast Facts:

+ 67% of specifiers focus on the desire to remain in the family home as the top factor inf luencing Living in Place design. + 86% of respondents cite non-slip flooring or tile in the

+ 70% request more refrigerator space to accommodate fresh produce, meats and dairy. + 60% choose giant sinks to clean more produce; integrated areas to cut and prep, recycling and composting centers. + 53% say f lexible cool drawers can customize food storage as needed. + 43% point to UV filters/light to remove toxins from the air and minimize microbe growth. + 42% say shower body sprays, jets and shower panels add therapeutic benefits.

bathroom, tub and shower as a top design solution. + 84% say minimal or no grout lines keep the look sleek and maintenance low. + 73% specify zero-clearance shower entry or no doors, wider doorways, and attractive, non-institutionallooking grab bars. + 78% cite non-congested layouts that allow for meal prep and clean-up by multiple people at the same time.

Methodology: A total of 759 designers, manufacturers, kitchen and bath specialists, dealers, showroom professionals and remodelers completed surveys about what their homeowner clients are requesting; 77 percent of respondents were NKBA members.

natural materials like wood and stone, earthy tones, and quite significantly, healthy eating, storing and preparing fresh foods.

curreyandcompany.com Atlanta | Dallas | High Point | Las Vegas | New York

edited by Rebecca Thienes text by Georgina McWhirter

the collector Earthy, textural apparel is Brooklyn fashion

ANDRES ALTAMIRANO

designer Lauren Manoogian’s stock in trade: natural fibers, nubby knitwear, tonal nudes, easy drapes. That aesthetic echoes in her series of wood-fired clay housewares, made in a northern Peruvian community where ceramics are traditionally and exclusively made by women. The 12 one-off forms—hand-built bowls, cups, and pots—have been collected

by Manoogian over the years and are now released as an edit under the moniker Object.

On some, a dry white surface resembling flourdusted sourdough is achieved through the application of green banana pulp and copal resin, a sealant sometimes ceremonially burned as incense. The smoother pieces, meanwhile, are finished with a clay slurry and then handburnished. In light of COVID-19, 20 percent of the proceeds will be donated to Juguete Pendiente, a Lima-based NGO. laurenmanoogian.com FALL.20

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market P L A C E

CALESCENT SHELF

ZOETIC COFFEE TABLE

ASH MIRROR

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“I’m interested in creating things that impact people on a gut level”

An almost preternatural ability to spot talent is the Ralph Pucci International proprietor’s claim to fame.

New to his showroom’s roster is Stefan Bishop, whose rugged wood furniture and sculptures—photographed here with dancer Lulu Salvaterra— meditate on his childhood in remote rural Oregon. Bishop’s father worked for the U.S. Forest Service, where one of his duties involved felling trees with a chainsaw. That same tool is Bishop’s favorite, employed to carve jagged crevasses into laminated ash or poplar forms that are then charred and ink-stained jet black. A shelving unit with edges softened by the burning process and subsequent hand buffing is part of the miniseries

ASH SCULPTURE

gut instinct Calescent—meaning “increasing in heat”—so named when Pucci noted its affinity to stacked embers. “Hopefully it has a timeless quality,” the designer says. For the Zoetic series, the moniker a term describing something living or vital, “I wanted pieces to have a kind of aliveness,” he adds. Zoetic includes a coffee table as well as Ash, the sole sculpture, consisting of small wood pieces glued and bolted into a gnarled serpentine. The Ash mirror, meanwhile, is made up of 140 individual wood segments shaped by hand tools. ralphpucci.com

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Michaele Simmering and Johann Pauwen of Kalon Studios

Nani Marquina of Nanimarquina

Louise Sigvardt and Marcus Hannibal for Radnor

Merve Kahraman of Merve Kahraman Products & Interiors

product Rugosa standout Sugar pine planks, linen

product Telares standout Offered in Ebony, Fog,

product Pillar standout The Copenhagen-based

product Cassini standout Named for a Saturn

upholstery, and feather fill coalesce into sustainable, laid-back furnishings inspired by a Rhode Island beach house in the designers’ family for generations. kalonstudios.com

Indigo, Pine, and Carmine, the rustically irregular rug in Afghan wool (with curly fringing) is produced via an innovative combo of kilim and dhurrie techniques.

founders of newly formed Bunn Studio pair a Rojo Alicante marble tabletop with a bleached maple base that can be swapped for ebonized or natural finishes.

nanimarquina.com

radnor.co

space probe, a floor lamp by the Tom Dixon and Tord Boontje alum rings rattan around a white-glass sphere, levitating on a wiggly frame painted iridescent green. mervekahraman.com

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Morgane Roux-Lafargue of Atelier Avéus

Mili Suleman of Kufri

Adam Court of OKHA

Jonah Meyer of Sawkille Co.

product Scottie standout This powder-coated

product Tesuque standout The Dallas-based de-

product Repose standout Stretching out like a

product Rosehill standout Crafted in New York’s

languid, reclining body, a sinuously free-form sofa created for a private client’s coastal villa is now available in the U.S. exclusively through StudioTwentySeven. studiotwentyseven.com

Hudson Valley, the artist/designer’s ebonized American walnut credenza with mustard-yellow leather fronts and blackened-steel legs melds a modernist body with a traditional base. sawkille.com

steel chandelier is the studio’s take on sexily sinister versions found in Alfred Hitchcock films set in manorial houses—like his 1940 classic, Rebecca. atelieraveus.com

signer, whose line provides employment for women and aging weavers in her native India, debuts handwoven linen textiles in prints inspired by the New Mexico landscape. kufrilifefabrics.com

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market p l a c e

changing tack As one half of the duo behind Serena & Lily,

Serena Dugan is no stranger to a successful lifestyle brand. But in 2017, she stepped back from S&L to return to her roots as a painter, a journey that culminated in the opening of Serena Dugan Studio in Sausalito, California, earlier this year. The shapes and rhythms of Dugan’s art found their way into 13 handprinted Belgian linen fabrics and seven wall coverings, the latter in jute grass-cloth or clay-coated vellum. Capri derives from an Italian botanical sketch “kept in my inspiration file for many years,” she recalls. Midcentury architect Luis Barragán’s graphic work informs geometric Condesa, designed after a jaunt to Mexico City (RIP, travel…). Bahia is a tropical palm leaf repeat that eschews literalism, and vinelike Cassis, more classic by nature, is rendered in an unfussy hand. Keep an eye out for painted-leather sling chairs, ceramic stools, dye-painted silk pillows, and wool rugs to follow in November. serenadugan.com

CASSIS

SERENA DUGAN

CAPRI

CONDESA

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LAURIE FRANKEL

BAHIA

market p l a c e

KARA MANN

devil’s in the details “A chic slouchiness” is how fashion

stylist turned interior designer Kara Mann describes her debut collection for CB2. Think luxuriousness tempered with nonchalance. (“Never take yourself too seriously,” she says wryly. “No one is that fabulous.”)

Mann’s interiors, such as a pop-up for Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop and an apartment for Off-White’s Virgil Abloh, skew classic but not traditional, romantic but a little tough.

Her mammoth 74-piece collection with the retail giant utilizes materials such as rose resin, black slub silk, pitted platinum, oyster-hued leather, and honed limestone. The Slip duckcanvas bed is inspired by the dream bedroom of her 1980s girlhood.

Scrunch, a table lamp, channels maximalist ’80s pattern-on-pattern but in a subdued palette (color-clash Memphis is not for Mann). Also among the multitude of offerings are an architectural coffee table, a slipcovered sofa with a ruffled skirt, and a pleated pouf. cb2.com SCRUNCH

SLIP CB2 KARA MANN COLLECTION

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Trying to stay on the forefront of an ever-changing industry?

Join In to participate in leading research that’s shaping the future of the design industry.

Visit thinklab.design/join-in to get involved.

“We’re precisely modernist, but rooted in history” PURU DAS, BRIAN DEMURO

market P L A C E

EMIL

DRIFT

ANTWERP

They started off as furniture importers. But when Puru Das and Brian

NILA

DeMuro moved from New York to New Delhi in 2002 and opened a design studio, the couple landed the Dalai Lama as a client (he bought a custom chair, FYI). Now DeMuro Das (formerly Urbanist) launches Uncommon Threads, a furniture collection dedicated to Indian Modernist architecture. Highlights include the curving ash and eucalyptus marquetry of Nila, a folding screen that references Le Corbusier’s Capitol Complex in Chandigarh. Its embroidered terra-cotta and cobalt details come courtesy of French accessory designer Olivia Dar, formerly of Christian Lacroix. The contours of Drift sofa draw inspiration from desert dunes, with bronze legs cast in an undulating pattern reminiscent of petrified sand. The Serge bench and Antwerp armchair both feature fine bronze legs, too, as does Acantha, a side table with a vibrantly veined Blue Tiger’s Eye stone top. The hand-laid silver and gold pyrite of the Emil cocktail table, meanwhile, was inspired by Indian Brutalist architecture. demurodas.com

DAVID MITCHELL; PORTRAIT: CANDACE FEIT

finely tuned

ACANTHA

SERGE

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CHANGE THE PATTERN

TM

A world free of child labor.

GoodWeave works in close proximity to producer communities, brings visibility to hidden supply chains, respects the rights of workers, and restores childhoods.

Look for the GoodWeave label – the best assurance that the carpets and home textiles you purchase are made free of child labor.

GoodWeave.org

Design: Addison. www.addison.com Photo Credit: Studio M

The world’s largest material marketplace for architects and designers.

Hundreds of Brands Order by Midnight (ET) Samples by 10:30 AM One Box No Waste Always Free

materialbank.com

samuel-heath.com/us (212) 696 0050 Made in England

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Greener on the other side CASEY DUNN

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text: michael snyder photography: casey dunn

the power of art Alterstudio Architecture creates a dynamic family home for an influential collecting couple in Highland Park, Texas

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Contemporary art collectors Janelle and Alden Pinnell once thought about turning a former electrical plant in downtown Dallas into a home that would double as a gallery for their extensive holdings. Instead, they collaborated closely with a number of artists to transform the 1920s brick building into the Power Station, one of the city’s liveliest experimental art spaces, which opened to the public in 2011.

A few years later, the couple returned to the idea of making a home for themselves, their three children, and their still-expanding collection. “We needed to build something from scratch,” Alden says. Treating the project like a collaboration at the Power Station, the Pinnells gave their chosen artists—Alterstudio Architecture—the freedom to experiment, while remaining fully involved clients every step of the way.

“It was clear from the beginning that they wanted something out of their house that was well beyond shelter,” Alterstudio partner Ernesto Cragnolino says. “But the question of how to live with their art wasn’t yet settled.”

Located in Highland Park—an affluent district laid out in 1907 by urban planner Wilbur David Cook, who also designed Beverly Hills, California—the Pinnell house is surrounded by Palladian villas, neo-baroque châteaus, and Tudor-revival mansions, some as big as 40,000 square feet, that reflect the conservative tastes of Dallas’s wealthiest denizens. At 12,000 square feet, the residence is comparatively modest in scale, though far more ambitious in its program. Separated from the street by a low berm of gray rocks sprouting cactuses and wildflowers, the two-story house presents as a single horizontal volume of Indiana limestone carved with vertical striae that cast dramatic, shifting shadows in the mornings and evenings. Toward the center of the facade, subtle openings turn the solid surface into a slatted screen, allowing light to filter into the family quarters upstairs while preserving privacy.

Set atop an almost entirely transparent ground floor, the massive stone form projects 35 feet out over a cobblestone entry courtyard. At its center, a young cedar elm tree rises unencumbered through a rectangular cutout in the cantilevered section. Lined with acid-etched glass, the aperture is a delicate, Miesian surprise behind a veneer of Brutalist bulk.

Straight ahead, and down a short flight of steps, a singlestory, stand-alone structure contains Alden Pinnell’s office, the swimming-pool cabana, and sandwiched between them, an 1,100-square-foot gallery. Perhaps the most conventional space in the house, this simple white box with a concrete floor, 14-foot-high ceiling, and three oversize skylights is also the least traditional element for a residential program.

The Pinnells treat the gallery almost as an extension of the Power Station, opening it intermittently for events and exhibitions throughout the year. “They constantly move new works in and out of the space,” Alterstudio partner Tim Whitehill reports. “It’s ever evolving, constantly getting more refined.”

Previous spread: The boomerang shape of the limestone, steel, and glass house becomes apparent when viewed from the backyard.

Top: A low berm of rocks planted with native grasses, cactuses, and shrubs separates the residence from the street.

Bottom: A 40-foot-long wall of sliding glass doors opens the double-height living-dining room to the rear terrace and garden.

Opposite: Alden Pinnell’s office, located in the separate gallery building behind the entry courtyard, is outfitted with a custom built-in sofa by Silvia Zofio.

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Opposite top, from left: The cabana, part of the gallery building, is a versatile space that serves as a pool house, TV room, bar, and guest suite (there’s a Murphy bed behind the custom walnut cabinetry). Lined with acid-etched glass, an aperture cut through the cantilevered second floor allows natural light to flood the mainsuite bath and dressing rooms.

Opposite bottom, from left: Jorge Zalszupin’s sofa and chair join Piero Lissoni’s glass-top coffee table in front of the living area’s limestone-clad fireplace. Walnut slats screen Janelle Pinnell’s second-floor office from the living-dining room below, while a glass wall provides views of a small internal courtyard off the main shower.

Top: GramFratesi chairs and a David Abad pendant service a custom table and banquette in the kitchen, which has custom walnut cabinetry and limestone flooring. Bottom: Travel Agency, a 1983 canvas by Ed Ruscha, presides over the dining area, while outdoor meals are served at Richard Schultz’s tables and chairs.

On the other side of the courtyard, the art-filled residence blurs the line between home and museum, while always prioritizing comfort. The entry foyer, dominated by an enormous enamel-oncanvas work by Steven Parrino, leads directly to the formal living-dining room where a massive fireplace, clad in the same limestone as the facade, rises 23 feet through the two-story void overhead.

A 40-foot-long wall of sliding glass doors opens onto a terrace and the backyard, which landscape architect David Hocker has sculpted with monumental concrete risers like the steps of a Mayan pyramid, turning the whole garden into a work of environmental art.

Back in the living area, the witty form of the house becomes apparent for the first time. While the front facade reads as orthogonal, running parallel to the street, the view from the fireplace—out to the garden and down the axis of the splendid room—reveals that the long building bends boomerang-style in the middle to follow the property line of the chevron-shape site. A luxurious but functional kitchen with a statuary-marble island and custom built-ins acts as a hinge between the more public and formal front section and the more sequestered and casual rear wing. The pivot point is marked by curved glass walls that add a touch of roundness to the house’s strict geometry—part of what partner Kevin Alter calls the firm’s “private project” to avoid “the ruthless abstraction of high modernism” by working in a gentler idiom, “more like modern art, multifaceted,” less rigid.

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“It was clear from the beginning that they wanted something from their house that was well beyond shelter”

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A cedar elm and a large enamel-oncanvas work by Steven Parrino in the house foyer dominate the cobblestone entry courtyard, which serves both the main residence and the gallery, a few steps down to the right.

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Upstairs, in the family quarters, space seems to fracture as though refracted through a prism. The three children’s bedrooms occupy the rear wing, while the main suite surrounds the glass-walled aperture above the entry courtyard. Janelle’s bathroom enjoys a view of the cedar elm, abstracted through milkyblue glass. Her office—“the cockpit of the house,” according to Alter—overlooks the living area through a veil of walnut slats and also opens onto a plant-filled courtyard hidden behind the slatted street facade.

A smaller adjoining courtyard provides Alden’s glass-wall shower with an equally lush view, one that it shares with the hallway gallery running above the living area.

Such framing stratagems and shifting perspectives are found throughout the public and private zones—inside and out—which is hardly surprising given the genesis of the project.

More than just a shelter, the dynamic house has the power of an artwork all its own.

PROJECT TEAM MICHAEL WOODLAND, JENNA DEZINSKI: ALTERSTUDIO ARCHITECTURE. SILVIA ZOFIO: SZPROJECTS. HOCKER DESIGN GROUP: LANDSCAPE CONSULTANT. ESSENTIAL LIGHT DESIGN STUDIO: LIGHTING CONSULTANT. BROBUS TECHNOLOGIES, INC: AUDIOVISUAL CONSULTANT. WISS, JANNEY, ELSTNER ASSOCIATES, INC.: WATERPROOFING CONSULTANT. ELLINWOOD + MACHADO CONSULTING ENGINEERS: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. POSITIVE ENERGY: MEP. MONK CONSULTING ENGINEERS: CIVIL ENGINEER. STEVE HILD CUSTOM BUILDER: GENERAL CONTRACTOR. PRODUCT SOURCES FROM FRONT CASSINA: COFFEE TABLE, LOW SIDE TABLE (LIVING AREA). B&B ITALIA: LOUNGE CHAIRS. ROLL & HILL THROUGH THE FUTURE PERFECT: FIRESIDE FLOOR LAMP. ESPASSO: SOFA, FIRESIDE ARMCHAIR (LIVING AREA); SOFA (CABANA).

DELTA: RECESSED LIGHTS (LIVING AREA). LUMINART: PENDANT FIXTURE (DINING AREA). ARTEFACTO: DINING TABLE. CARL HANSEN & SØN THROUGH SUITE NY: DINING CHAIRS. KNOLL: OUTDOOR DINING TABLE AND CHAIRS (TERRACE). LE PORCSHOP: CUSTOM OUTDOOR LOUNGE CHAIRS (TERRACE, PATIO); SOFA (PATIO). ROSTEN FURNITURE THROUGH CHAIRISH: COFFEE TABLE (CABANA). ALL WOODS CABINETRY: CUSTOM CABINETS. ABC CARPET & HOME: RUG. HOLLAND MARBLE COMPANY, INC.: KITCHENETTE COUNTERTOP; WINDOW BENCH (CABANA); ISLAND MARBLE TILE (KITCHEN). CERAMICA SURO: CUSTOM WALL TILE (CABANA, PATIO); CUSTOM LAVA-ROCK PLANTER (SHOWER COURTYARD, PATIO). GARIBALDI GLASS: CUSTOM WINDOW WALL (MAIN-SUITE APERTURE). LAPALMA: BAR STOOLS (KITCHEN). GAMFRATESI THROUGH SUITE NY: CHAIRS. B.LUX: TABLE LAMP, PENDANT FIXTURE. MIELE: COOKTOP, OVEN, DISHWASHER. SUB-ZERO: REFRIGERATOR. LOBSTER’S DAY: COFFEE TABLE, SIDE TABLES (PATIO). GLAZING VISION: SKYLIGHT (GALLERY).

JUNO: TRACK LIGHTING. THROUGHOUT BYBEE STONE COMPANY: LIMESTONE FLOORING AND CLADDING. PERMALAC: EXTERIOR STEEL-PANEL FINISH. SKY-FRAME, WESTERN WINDOWS, MHB: WINDOWS AND DOORS.

Top: The cabana patio is furnished with coffee and side tables by Albert Garcia Llongarriu, custom lounge chairs and sofa by Paula Silva-Ruvalcaba and Rodrigo Vázquez Guerrero, and a monolithic planter of black volcanic stone by José Noe. Bottom: Tall enough to accommodate large-scale works, the plain white-box gallery is set 18 inches below grade in order to meet neighborhood building-height codes.

Opposite top: Hung with Salubra 2, a 14-panel acrylic-on-mahogany work by Sherrie Levine, the hallway gallery connecting the children’s rooms to the main suite looks down on the living area. Opposite bottom: Gaps in the street facade’s solid limestone cladding create a slatted screen concealing a pair of private second-floor courtyards.

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text: edie cohen photography: david zarzoso

they make a village Francesc RifĂŠ Studio reinvents a farm compound in Catalonia, Spain

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Architecture, interior design, industrial design. They’re all pretty much one and the same to Francesc Rifé, whose eponymous Barcelona studio, founded in 1994, gravitates toward multidisciplinary endeavors. Those interrelated skills certainly came into play when masterminding a recent project: the remodeling of an erstwhile farmhouse compound in the El Vallès region of Spain into a weekend getaway for repeat clients—a job that extended from master planning to architecture to furniture design. “The clients, who have three sons, wanted a retreat for family and friends that would allow them to unplug from their work and urban lifestyle,” Rifé explains. (The homeowners’ primary residence, which his studio also designed, is in nearby Sabadell.) “They were excited by the idea of building something combining traditional architecture with modern features.”

Located about a 30-minute drive northwest of Barcelona, the site spirals around a stone- and brickpaved courtyard, a configuration akin to an old European town with a central piazza. The main structure is a three-story farmhouse dating to at least the 19th century, albeit modified by decades of adaptations. The parcel also encompasses various outbuildings that were added later, including what’s now a sprawling guesthouse/ service annex. There’s also a poolside changing-room structure and a horse stable. The aesthetic of the compound, Rifé says, “is reminiscent of stereotypical Catalonian rural architecture.” All are built of masonry 102

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Previous spread: A new steel pergola symbolically connects the main farmhouse with the guesthouse annex at left; the bench at the courtyard’s center is also steel.

Opposite top: A sheet-iron partition frames the first two levels of the farmhouse staircase.

Opposite center: The original masonry of the farmhouse, which dates to the 19th century, was left exposed. Opposite bottom: A concrete volume subtly separates the entry and dining areas; the restored table came with the property.

Bottom: The living room’s ancient ceiling and sidewall, the latter backdropping a new custom steel fireplace, were whitewashed to disguise unsightly patches.

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Top: The kitchen island is topped with black granite; Rifé’s studio designed the custom pendant fixtures above. Center: A cozy reading area in the second-floor corridor boasts custom lounge chairs and Miguel Milá’s walnut lamp. Bottom: The studio also designed the main bathroom’s oak dressing table and accompanying Tap stool.

Opposite: One of the four bedrooms, with new flooring and custom bed, both oak.

construction, typical of the milieu and the era. Yet the relatively newer guesthouse is painted anthracite gray “to differentiate it from the masonry walls with more history,” the designer notes.

Paint is but a small part of the exterior reinvention. The designer’s main feat was devising two steel pergolas that serve to unify the various buildings. One is at the front of the farmhouse, adjacent to the courtyard; the other is at the back, creating a poolside terrace. Establishing a symbolic

connection between the buildings— the pergolas don’t actually touch them—the steel members exemplify one of Rifé’s tenets: “Designing through the eyes of history is the most beautiful form of design, and I always prefer to add rather than to change.”

There’s no mistaking the mutual respect between the old and the modern here. “This element with a strong 21st-century aesthetic is a new page in the history of the place,” he says.

Inside, the 6,200-square-foot main dwelling was subject to a full-scale renovation. “We essentially maintained the longitudinal structural walls and modified the transverse walls,” Rifé explains. He retained the 104

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broad strokes of spatial distribution: living room, dining area, kitchen, and dual points of entry on the first floor; four bedrooms and baths on the second; a loftlike office-family room on the third. But he revamped organization. For example, the original entry became the dining area, and the former kitchen was converted into the living room. Similarly, he retained the second floor’s vaulted stairwell and wide-open central corridor but removed and added walls to create a new layout for the bedrooms. “We also took advantage of some openings in the walls—former doorways— by enclosing them to create wardrobes,” he adds.

The new plan is so logical, it looks as if it’s always been this way. In fact, the entire house appears more or less untouched. Nothing obstructs volumes, vaults, and beams—clearly assets of the property’s heritage.

Existing masonry, ceilings, and stone floors were, for the most part, also left exposed. The exceptions are those instances where elements were previously patched with less-thanstellar matches, such as the living room’s vaulted ceiling and fireplace wall, which were instead whitewashed. Same with the beams and wall in a second-floor reading area and in the office one flight up. Concrete now covers floors in rooms whose original stone was uninteresting, such as the kitchen, laundry, and some bathrooms, while oak planks take over in the bedrooms and stair.

Clearly contemporary is the stair’s sheet-iron partition and a chunky block of concrete that provides both visual and subtle spatial separation between the dining area and entry.

Since part of his studio is dedicated exclusively to product design, Rifé always aims to create as much custom furniture as possible for each project.

Bespoke pieces here include upholstered lounge chairs, oak beds and headboards, and the long MDF office table lacquered forest green. “We want everything to speak the same language,” Rifé says. Purchases

“Designing through the eyes of history is the most beautiful form of design, and I always prefer to add rather than to change”

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Bottom: Antoni Arola’s porcelain pendants hang in the vaulted stairwell, with original upper banister; blued sheet-iron panels newly define the second-floor balustrade.

Opposite, top left: A steel awning shades the guesthouse/annex at left. Opposite, top right: In the third-floor office, Rifé designed the leather-handled Tap stools and the desk of lacquered MDF. Opposite bottom: A Romanesque lintel tops the archway leading from the formal dining area, past an antique grape press, to the kitchen’s eating nook, where a Moaré pendant by Antoni Arola joins table and chairs by Rifé.

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were chosen with that ethos in mind.

Note the living room’s stark metal fireplace, akin to a work of sculpture, conversing harmoniously with Lluis Codina’s generous sofa, Miguel Milá’s opal-glass table lamp, and the classic Luminator floor lamp by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni. The formal dining table, newly restored and painted, was a fortuitous find that came with the house. Meanwhile, the family generally gathers for meals in graceful wood chairs at the kitchen’s stone table, all designed by the studio. Most charming of all, though, is Rifé’s enviable oak dressing table within the main bath, which has a flip-up mirror. Spanish or Catalan, all create a rich dialogue.

PROJECT TEAM SÒNIA PELLICER, SERGIO ALFONSO, BRUNO BENEDITO, CARLOS FERNÁNDEZ SARACIBAR, PATRICIA GURIDI, PAOLA NOGUERA, MAURO EGEA, NURIA PEDRÓS, STEFANOS SIDEROGLOU, JAUME ABRIL: FRANCESC RIFÉ STUDIO. COBLONAL: WOODWORK, GENERAL CONTRACTOR. PRODUCT SOURCES FROM FRONT HEARTWOOD: FLOORING (STAIR).

DYNAMOBEL: CHAIRS (DINING AREA).

SANTA&COLE: TABLE LAMP (LIVING ROOM), FLOOR LAMP (HALL), CHANDELIER (STAIR), PENDANT (SECONDARY DINING). CARMENES: SOFA (LIVING ROOM), ARMCHAIRS (HALL). HAY: COFFEE TABLES. FLOS: FLOOR LAMP (LIVING ROOM). TEIXIDORS: CUSHIONS (LIVING ROOM), BLANKET, PILLOWS (BEDROOM). BULTHAUP: CABINETRY (KITCHEN).

COOKTOP: GAGGENAU. ROCA: FITTINGS (BATHROOM). JMM: STOOLS (BATHROOM, OFFICE).

VIBIA: LAMP (BEDROOM). THROUGHOUT MINIM BARCELONA, MATÈRIA BARCELONA: FURNITURE SUPPLIERS.

earth, sea, and sky Studiohuerta’s innovative residence in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, works in concert with the elements text: rebecca dalzell photography: roland halbe 108

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Previous spread: Open skylights move air through the central courtyard of the passively cooled house.

Top: A concrete-floored hallway connecting the kitchen and living-dining areas opens onto the courtyard. Center: A Tolomeo suspension light illuminates the quartzcomposite kitchen counter. Bottom: Mexican Cantera stone clads a concrete shell that insulates the house from the desert heat.

Opposite: Huerta carved granite rocks found on the property into a courtyard sofa.

Growing up in Tijuana, Mexico, Gabriel Huerta lived in the kind of modest concrete house that fills cities across the Baja California peninsula. “Half of the lot was a courtyard,” the Studiohuerta principal says. “The house was made cool through thermal mass and this exterior space. I don’t remember living with air conditioning.” As Baja urbanized in the mid 20th century, architects developed a pragmatic building style that used limited resources to shelter residents from the arid climate. For a vacation home in Cabo San Lucas, Huerta employed the same strategies and gave them a modern sculptural form.

Huerta earned a master’s degree in environmental design from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, studying how preindustrial Spanish villages integrated into their landscapes. He came home curious about how to apply those ideas to Baja and founded Studiohuerta, based in Tijuana and New York, in 2011. Five years later, Huerta completed the Center for Postgraduate Studies at Cetys University in Mexicali, an energyefficient structure insulated from the heat of the Sonoran Desert. It caught the eye of a group of developers in Cabo, who hired Huerta to build something similarly rooted in its environment.

The brief called for a typical weekend house, with a catch: It would have a shared ownership structure, like a co-op, with several families rotating in throughout the year.

So, spaces had to be flexible and comfortable for large or small groups. Huerta also had to consider neighborhood guidelines, which stipulated a pitched, tiled roof; limited apertures; and a beige or gray exterior.

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Top: The stair has a brushed-aluminum handrail and Venato marble treads. Bottom: Custom white-alder bed frames furnish the four upstairs bedrooms.

Opposite top: A Hans Hopfer Mah Jong sectional circles a custom powder-coated-steel table in a ground-floor family room that converts into a fifth bedroom. Opposite bottom: Window walls in the living room, as elsewhere, are low-e glass.

“The idea that underpins the design is that we created a project within a project,” Huerta says. Outside, the 8,000-squarefoot house, Casa Escondida, has a terracotta roof and Cantera cladding that comply with regulations; inside is a diaphanous concrete shell that sleeps 15 people.

“What interested us was the chance to design in this climate,” Huerta says. “Los Cabos is a desert that happens to be surrounded by coast. It makes for an unlikely and beautiful landscape, but it’s challenging to build some-

thing there that’s truly acclimated to its surroundings.” The half-acre site wasn’t particularly hospitable. Its uneven slope had limited views of the Pacific Ocean and was covered in sand and granite boulders; high temperatures hover around 90 degrees. Inspired by the regional architecture of his childhood, Huerta honed in on the layout and material best suited to the conditions. He oriented the house around the ocean breeze and chose 112

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concrete for its thermal properties. Doublelayer exterior walls isolate hot air and hide storm curtains, while a cantilever shields the southwestern facade.

The plan centers on an internal courtyard angled in the direction of the southwest wind. “The core of the house is this void, which is open on two sides, so the breeze comes in and goes back out,” Huerta explains. “It’s a way to cross-ventilate the entire house. All the bedrooms and living spaces circle this courtyard.” It’s covered except for five tapered, open skylights that filter in the sun. Some skylights tilt north and some south, creating differences in temperature that move the air through the house. Huerta used the play of light and shadow to dramatic and practical effect.

A south-facing skylight, for instance, brightens the entrance; one facing north keeps a sitting area cool at midday. Beams slant against the board-formed concrete walls like abstract compositions.

The courtyard serves a programmatic purpose too, enhancing the flexibility of the house. When visitors step in from the street, they can go straight to the front door or left to follow a passage to the terrace and pool.

“You can move through the exterior of the house without going inside,” Huerta notes.

“The courtyard could be a long space for events, or it could be used by an individual.

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“Even though the spaces are connected, they can feel private and secluded”

Top: Concrete walls retain traces of the sandblasted pine boards used for the formwork.

Opposite: Indoor-outdoor acrylic cushions top daybeds in the courtyard.

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Top: Barrel cacti, creeping succulents, and palo verde and black olive trees fill the halfacre grounds. Center: In one of two main suites, a Wetstyle soaking tub overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Bottom: A pergola and outdoor curtains shelter poolside daybeds.

Opposite: The pool stair is tiled in mosaics.

Even though the spaces are connected, they can feel private and secluded.” The living quarters are also both expansive and cozy.

On the ground floor, the kitchen-living-dining area has continuous views of the ocean.

Stairs lead to an office nook on the mezzanine and four upstairs bedrooms. Another living room by the terrace converts into a fifth bedroom apartment separate from the rest of the house.

Many of the furnishings grew out of the construction process. Huerta doubled as a contractor, as is common practice for architects in Baja, and was on site every day. As workers cleared the land of rocks, Huerta took some to carve into granite sofas and daybeds. Instead of dumping concrete left over from the pour, he set it into molds to make bases for coffee and side tables.

“There was so much concrete we could just play with it,” he says.

All that concrete did the trick. When Huerta visited on a 100-degree day last July, it was a cool 75 in the courtyard—no A/C required.

PROJECT TEAM ARSHIA GHARIB, JOHN MC MAHON, ANGELOS PALASKAS: STUDIOHUERTA. PRODUCT SOURCES FROM FRONT CAESARSTONE: COUNTERTOPS (KITCHEN).

BO CONCEPT: BAR STOOLS. ARTEMIDE: SUSPENSION LIGHT. KOHLER: SINK. DORNBRACHT: FAUCET. BOSCH: RANGE. WOLF: OVEN. EUROCAVE: WINE CELLAR. SUNBRELLA: CUSHION FABRIC (COURTYARD). NATURAL STONE CABOS: STAIRCASE MARBLE (STAIRWELL). ROCHE BOBOIS: SOFA (LOUNGE). INDIAN COTTAGE INDUSTRY: RUG. ROKU BLACK: SECTIONAL (LIVING ROOM). BELLA-DURA; COVINGTON; P/K LIFESTYLES: CUSHION FABRICS. LEGRAND: LIGHTSWITCHES. GUBI: TABLE LAMP. WETSTYLE: TUB (BATHROOM). DESIGN WITHIN REACH: ARMCHAIRS. T WOVEN: RUG. PALDI: CURTAIN FABRIC. THROUGHOUT GRUPO BASICA: CUSTOM SLIDING DOORS, WINDOWS, AND SKYLIGHTS. WAC LIGHTING: SPOT FIXTURES, STRIP LIGHTING. CABOBARBA CARPENTRY: CUSTOM CABINETS. TIJUANA POWDER COATING: CUSTOM METALWORK.

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upping the ante text: edie cohen photography: roger davies

Deftly sutured into its vertiginous site, a Southern California abode by KAA Design and Pamela Smith Interiors interweaves indoors and out in serenely complex fashion

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Previous spread: The main bedroom, with custom walnut bed and Jiun Ho upholstered bench, has a private courtyard featuring a reflecting pool and a Japanese ofuro soaking tub.

Top: A cedar garage door contrasts with the motor court’s wall of board-formed concrete. Bottom: The ground-level great room has retractable glass walls on two sides that open to create a breezeway.

Right: Tongue-and-groove cedar surrounds the glass-wrapped living room’s floating steel fireplace; Christian Liaigre’s faux-leather lounge chairs pair up with a custom sofa and quartzite-top bronze coffee table.

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Most empty nesters downsize. Not this couple: Rebuilding on the same Southern California property where they’d raised their three children, the duo upsized from around 6,000 square feet to 10,500—and did a complete about-face design-wise. Leading the clients on their journey from traditional to contemporary were L.A.–based architecture firm KAA Design and San Diego’s Pamela Smith Interiors. A full-fledged collaboration gave rise to what’s been dubbed the Tree House.

The trapezoidal site was, in a word, spectacular. Set on a promontory overlooking the Pacific Ocean about a mile away, the two acres were filled with mature oaks, Torrey pines, and magnolia trees—ergo the home’s sobriquet. “We didn’t want to just preserve the trees; we wanted to weave

them into the architecture,” says Grant Kirkpatrick, who founded KAA more than 30 years ago to specialize in luxury residences. “We viewed the entire site as a canvas—for the house and for an indoor-outdoor environment,” one that would encompass generous grassy lawns, a swimming pool, and even a bocce court.

In terms of site planning, “our breakthrough was in re-envisioning how you come onto the property and approach the house,” KAA partner Duan Tran explains. “Rather than pulling off the street and directly into a garage, cars arrive via a romantic entry sequence.” The long and winding path threads through the trees and past a monumental board-formed concrete gate before arriving at a porte-cochère that allows entrée to a motor court. Graced with a granite boulder and pruned Japanese black pine, this zen garden serves as an anteroom to the main event.

The two-story dwelling is a series of interconnected volumes, their cubist simplicity contradicting an underlying complexity. Voids are as important as solids, with glazed expanses allowing sweeping ocean views that curiously had been blocked in the previous structure, a tear-down. The house reads as an assemblage of pavilions, with an elongated cedar-clad box seemingly supported on either end by plaster-and-concrete plinths. Below this stained-cedar box, its rectilinear overhangs curving inward to accommodate a tree, is the literal and figurative nucleus of the house: an all-inone great room comprising kitchen, dining, and family areas.

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The space is bookended by limestone walls that frame the walnut kitchen cabinetry and a loungeside fireplace, the latter incorporating shelving for a collection of wood-turned bowls by Moulthrop Studios, a three-generation maker. These interior zones know no boundaries; likewise, solid borders between built and natural settings dissolve when the room’s double-sided glass sliders are stacked aside within their gutsy, painted-steel frames. It’s a straight run from this de facto breezeway to an uninterrupted panorama of the Pacific.

The larger of the two plaster-clad concrete plinths flanking this centerpiece houses a two-car garage and service spaces plus the formal dining and living rooms, the latter of which cantilevers over the stepped lawn. The smaller plinth houses the main bedroom suite, a true sanctuary. It’s a tough call to determine its most enviable asset. Would that be sleeping quarters, with Smith’s custom platform bed cocooned in a walnut niche? Or the serene reflecting pool just beyond the sliding door, part of a private courtyard whose limestone enclosure contains a special cutout for the owners’ statue of Buddhist deity Quan Yin? Maybe it’s the bathroom’s freestanding soaking tub, situated just so to enjoy another aquatic vista?

Scenery is not limited to external views; indeed, interior sight lines are just as dramatic. For instance, the great room overlooks a curving walnut and painted-steel stair that ascends to the second floor’s mezzanine library. (This level also houses an office and three bedroom suites.) “It’s a showstopper,” Kirkpatrick says proudly. Tran describes it as “the more feminine shape within the masculine house.” Its helical form is an intentional reference: “The client is a biotech entrepreneur who worked with DNA-related technologies,” Kirkpatrick notes.

In curating furnishings—a mix of custom creations and production pieces from A-list designers— Smith adhered to one maxim. “I wanted to keep everything contemporary but warm and inviting, particularly since the clients came from a traditional house.” Here’s a partial roll call in the great room: a live-edge walnut dining table with bronze inlays by PSI, a Lindsey Adelman brushed-brass chandelier, Hans Wegner’s unmistakable Wishbone chairs, creamy leather bar stools along the quartzite counter, Jeffrey Bernett’s swivel Tulip chairs by the hearth. These keep company with custom pieces of Smith’s design, including an acrylic and painted-aluminum coffee table, a sofa, and 124

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Previous spread: The main bathroom enjoys an uninterrupted view of the Pacific from Matteo Thun’s freestanding soaking tub, serviced by an acrylic-and-nickel side table by McCollin Bryan.

Opposite: Kitchen appliances, including a rotisserie, are encased in walnut cabinetry framed by stacked limestone.

Top: Jeffrey Bernett side and lounge chairs, a Jiun Ho gold-patina table, and PSI live-edge nesting tables furnish the guesthouse game room. Bottom, from left: The walnut and bronze-painted steel feature staircase invokes the DNA molecule. It is illuminated by an oculus skylight. The stair ascends from the great room zone to a mezzanine library.

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Top: An oval stretch of lawn forms an amphitheater for watching the sunset. Bottom: A view from the pool to the game room/guesthouse, with bocce court.

Opposite: The lounge zone of the great room, with Tulip chairs by Jeffrey Bernett and custom cherry console and acrylic-top coffee table.

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a console crafted of cherry with holly wood inlays. It’s all a harmonious composition.

Ultimately, says Kirkpatrick, “the house was to be a timeless companion to the trees and an heirloom.” With seven grandchildren and two more coming, it’s well on its way.

PROJECT TEAM PHILIP GROCHER: KAA DESIGN. MAKE GROUND; GREG HERBERT: LANDSCAPE CONSULTANTS. KGM ARCHITECTURAL LIGHTING: LIGHTING CONSULTANT. ONE TOUCH LIVING: AUDIOVISUAL. KPFF CONSULTING ENGINEERS: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. COFFEY ENGINEERING, INC.: CIVIL ENGINEER. TW CONSTRUCTION: GENERAL CONTRACTOR. PRODUCT SOURCES BEDROOM NANCY CORZINE: HEADBOARD. JIUN HO: BENCH. LAPCHI: RUG. CEDRIC HARTMAN: LAMPS. POOL AREA VONDOM: DAYBED. LIVING ROOM FORMATIONS: STOOLS. CHRISTIAN LIAIGRE: CHAIRS, FLOOR LAMP. ALVAREZ UPHOLSTERY: CUSTOM SOFA FABRICATION. OPUZEN: SOFA AND LOUNGE CHAIR FABRIC. GLANT: ARMLESS CHAIR FABRIC. JBM DESIGNS: CUSTOM COFFEE TABLE. TUTTO MARMO: COFFEE TABLE TOP. AMARI DESIGN RESOURCE: RUG. CEDRIC HARTMAN: SIDE TABLE. BATHROOM RAPSEL: TUB. DORNBRACHT: TUB FILLER. HOLLY HUNT: TABLE. PACIFIC ARCHITECTRAL MILLWORK: WINDOWS, DOORS. GREAT ROOM MODERN BUILDERS SUPPLY: WALL STONE. ARIZONA TILE: COUNTERTOP STONE, BACKSPLASH TILE. WOLF: WALL OVENS. LA CORNUE: ROTISSERIE OVEN. DOMAEN CABINETRY: CABINETRY. BONTEMPTI CASA: STOOLS. LINDSEY ADELMAN: CHANDELIER. CARL HANSEN & SØN: CHAIRS. ALVAREZ UPHOLSTERY: CUSTOM SOFA FABRICATION. CALVIN FABRICS: SOFA FABRIC. B&B ITALIA: LOUNGES. BERNHARDT DESIGN: OTTOMANS. MICUCCI: LAMPS. STANTON: RUG. GAME ROOM B&B ITALIA: CHAIRS. JIUN HO: GAME TABLE. FUNCTIONS: STOOLS. CHANDRA: SHUFFLEBOARD TABLE. TERRACE DEDON: SECTIONAL. ROYAL BOTANICA: TABLE, CHAIRS. THROUGHOUT CTT FURNITURE: CUSTOM FURNITURE FABRICATION. INDOTEAK DESIGN: WOOD FLOORING. UNIQUE STONE IMPORTS: LIMESTONE FLOORING. FLEETWOOD: WINDOWS AND DOORS. FERGUSON KITCHEN & BATH: KITCHEN AND BATH SUPPLIER. HARSEY & HARSEY, THOMAS LAVIN, THEO DÉCOR, THE FUTURE PERFECT, DWR, DIVA GROUP, INTERIORS FINE FLOORING, GROUNDED: DISTRIBUTORS.

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sheltering in style Designer Daniele Daminelli renovates an urbane 1930s apartment for his housebound family in Treviglio, Italy text: jackie cooperman photography: silvia rivoltella/photofoyer styling: alberto zordan

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In his 1,720-square-foot apartment 23 miles east of Milan, interior designer Daniele Daminelli has achieved something difficult: creating a dark-colored yet light-filled dwelling that is as hospitable as it is stylish, affording his young family a haven that is both comforting and aesthetically engaging, even during the pandemic.

“COVID’s really allowed me to think differently about working from home,” says Daminelli, who with wife Giulia is raising their two children in the town of Treviglio. “Fortunately our apartment allowed us to experience quarantine easily, and actually enjoyably.

We are interested in creating sophisticated spaces, even for the kids, and teaching them how to live with respect for beauty.”

The three-bedroom flat is on the ground floor of a small 1934 building designed by the Milanese architectengineer Elio Frisia as managerial housing for the Gerosa glass factory that once thrived across the street.

The couple had been eyeing the place for a decade while Daminelli was working at Milan’s Dimore Studio, but only after the designer founded his firm, Studio 2046, in 2017 did they feel ready to take on the challenge of reimagining a space there. Finally, in

December 2019, the Daminellis left their neighboring turn-of-the-century Liberty-style house and moved into their new home.

“The apartment hadn’t been inhabited for 20 years, so it needed work,” Daminelli reports. While some elements, such as outdated electrical wiring, had to be replaced, the renovation was quite smooth and took only four months. “We had very clear ideas, and fortunately the distribution of the rooms was very well designed. And because the original materials were of high quality, they were still in good shape and had maintained their natural beauty.”

Previous spread: In the living-dining room, original casement windows frame linden trees, while 1970s Kazuhide Takahama sofas join 1950s Gio Ponti armchairs on a 1920s Nicols Chinese Art Deco rug.

Top left: The entry features reproduction 18th-century chinoiserie wallpaper in modern colors and a 1950s Hans-Agne Jakobsson ceiling fixture. Top right: Vintage decorative trays, one of Daminelli’s collecting passions, line the kitchen’s custom stainless-steel countertop and backsplash.

Bottom left: A 1950s Italian rosewood shelf system holds a plethora of the ceramic, glass, and other vintage objects that Daminelli also loves to collect. Bottom right: In the kitchen breakfast area, Takahama’s 1970s Bramante lacquered storage unit flanks Eero Saarinen’s classic 1960s Tulip table attended by Ponti chairs from the 1940s and ’50s.

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Top: Six of Jordan Mozer’s Elbert chairs, designed in 1990 for the Cypress Club in San Francisco, surround an adjoined pair of Daminelli’s Velasca square marble tables in the dining area. Bottom: As in the kitchen and bathroom, the entry has a resin floor the same color as most of the apartment’s walls and ceilings; the flooring in the other rooms, however, is the original 1930s walnut parquet.

Opposite: Hand-carved Italian beds from the 1950s and Osvaldo Borsani’s walnut modular wall unit from the same period bring a sophisticated midcentury vibe to the children’s bedroom.

Still, previous owners had dropped the ceilings, obscuring some original gesso rosettes as well as darkening the rooms in general. Daminelli reinstated the full 13-foot ceiling height.

Enamored of the unusual casement windows in the living-dining and children’s rooms, he hired local artisans to restore them. “They’re really works of art,” he enthuses. “The system was an engineering feat.”

Initially, Daminelli thought he would relocate the kitchen and bathroom, but ultimately decided to leave them and maintain the sensibility of the original flow. “I tried to respect the nature of the spaces,” he says. “I didn’t want to leave traces of my work.” Still, he did pursue a more “invasive” renovation in the large shared family bathroom, separating the toilet and bidet from the tub and shower and installing stately Carrara Bianco finishes that echo the original marble lining the building’s common staircases.

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The project afforded Daminelli the chance to learn more about Frisia, who worked with some of Milan’s most prominent architects, Gio Ponti and Piero Portaluppi among them.

“Before I bought the place, I didn’t know about him, though I did know some of his buildings, like Palazzo Vittoria,” he says, referencing a 1930s apartment block in Milan. Daminelli praises Frisia as a “master of engineering,” whose talent for designing well-conceived spaces is particularly evident in the large living-dining room, its 6 ½-foot-tall windows overlooking the linden trees in the street outside. “It’s my favorite room and the heart of the house,” he says.

The room is also an example of how seamlessly Daminelli combines his own work with pieces from his enviable collection of 20th-century design, which here includes 1950s Gio Ponti armchairs and 1970s Kazuhide Takahama sofas sitting on a 1920s

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Nicols Chinese Art Deco rug. In the dining area, 1990s Jordan Mozer chairs flank an adjoined pair of Daminelli’s Velasca square marble tables, which debuted at the 2019 Salone del Mobile. “The harmony is essential,” he notes. “It’s a question of combining proportions, materials and colors, and historic and contemporary objects. If pieces are beautiful, they’re also timeless.”

That sense of immutable design begins with the entry’s wallpaper, which reproduces an 18th-century hand-painted chinoiserie pattern, updated with a more modern color palette. Historical color—a deep blue-green from the library of an 18th-century English country house— informs another striking choice: It’s

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used on the walls and ceilings in the main rooms, as well as on the resin floors in the entry, kitchen, and bathroom, giving the spaces an almost undersea-grotto atmosphere.

Daminelli and his wife—whom he calls his muse—frequently refer to their favorite influences, from fashion designer Dries Van Noten to 20thcentury design icons Josef Hoffmann, Charlotte Perriand, Carlo Scarpa, and Gae Aulenti. But of all Daminelli’s inspirations, it is the iconoclastic Turinese architect, designer, and photographer Carlo Mollino who remains paramount. “I’m fascinated by him because he loved design and he loved life,” the designer explains.

“Mollino sought beauty in living well and being surrounded by beautiful

people and ideas. That is my attraction to the maestro.”

Mollino’s philosophy has proved particularly useful during the pandemic. “Through COVID, we have discovered this method of working with clients over Zoom that allows us to live in a new and interesting way,” he says. “It’s a fresh mode of thinking, but it’s also like the Renaissance ideal of an integrated life. I think we’re heading for a new Renaissance.”

PROJECT TEAM MAURO ONGIS: STUDIO 2046 PRODUCT SOURCES FROM FRONT STUDIO 2046: MARBLE TABLES (DINING AREA). PIERRE FREY: WALLPAPER (ENTRY HALL). BERTAZZONI: COOKTOP (KITCHEN).

RUBINETTERIE STELLA: FAUCET. POZZI GINORI: BASIN (BATHROOM). THROUGHOUT LITTLE GREENE: RESIN FLOORING, PAINT.

Top left: A pair of Peter Celsing’s 1966 Applique sconces adorns the Carraraclad walls in the renovated main bathroom. Top right: Overlooked by a 1953 Luigi Caccia Dominioni floor lamp, Marcel Breuer’s 1950 chaise longue sits in front of the main bedroom’s original built-in wardrobe. Bottom left: The room features a headboard Ponti designed for the Royal Hotel, Naples, in the 1950s, while one of his 1940s side chairs services a 1960s Borsani desk with a 1950s Jakobsson table lamp.

Bottom right: A pair of Austrian carved-wood dancing figures lends a note of whimsy to the children’s bedroom, where a 1950s Marco Zanuso armchair rests on a vintage Iranian handwoven carpet next to an original built-in wardrobe.

harmonic convergence Joanna LavĂŠn and David Wahlgren are totally in-tune collaborating on a home for their family in the Stockholm archipelago

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Previous spread: In the ground-floor living area, what was formerly an indoor swimming pool has been repurposed as a conversation pit, which was sized to fit Says Who’s modular sofa.

Top: A pair of custom coffee tables with onyx and Paonazzo marble tops and wood bases form a rearrangeable unit. Bottom: A tripartite vase by a local ceramicist sits on the custom oiled-teak-clad island in the secondfloor kitchen.

Opposite: The freestanding brick fireplace on the ground floor is original, but one side was removed so the hearth can be enjoyed from the conversation pit. In the second seating area, a pair of vintage Pierre Jeanneret Kangaroo chairs sit on a hand-tufted wool rug by Lena Bergström.

Under the best of circumstances, any couple can find renovating their own home an ordeal. Not so for Swedish stylist and interior designer Joanna Lavén and her partner, programmer David Wahlgren, who collaborated happily on the makeover of their newly acquired family house near Stockholm. It was particularly easy because their ideas were totally in sync, plus they had revamped several previous apartments together before moving here. So harmonious, in fact, that Wahlgren works on all Joanna Lavén Design projects. The duo’s only problem was one of time: “You can’t really set aside three months just to work on your own house!” Lavén admits.

Located on wooded Lidingö island just northeast of the capital, the two-story brick-and-glass house is half-buried in a steep hillside with its main entry on the top level. Built between 1958 and 1970, the six-bedroom residence was sold to them by the original owners, so not a lot had been changed over the years.

The couple made a few strategic structural alterations, including opening up a wall between the kitchen and dining room on the second floor, which makes the space feel more modern and gives a view from one side of the house to the other.

Otherwise the interior remains largely as it was, except for what is now an expansive sunken seating area on the ground floor. That, if you can believe it, was once an indoor swimming pool. At first, the couple and their two children wanted to keep it, but a pool consultant talked them out of the notion. In addition to a pervasive smell of chlorine throughout the house, it was explained that there would be an issue of dampness creeping everywhere and seeping into the woodwork. “We eventually gave up on the idea,” Wahlgren says wistfully. “But it would have been cool.” Rather than design a costly custom sofa to fit this newly available conversation pit, the couple did a sort of reverseengineering project, finding an affordable modular unit they liked, then adjusting the size of the opening around it.

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“It’s also about surrounding yourself with pieces that are special and that mean something to you”

Left: Joe Colombo chairs gather around the dining area’s Danish table overlooked by an Angelo Lelli ceiling fixture— all vintage—while the painting is a collaboration between Lavén and London-based artist Jared Green. Right: A vintage Tobias Scarpa side chair sits next to the upstairs fireplace, which separates the dining and formal sitting areas.

Opposite: Among the main bedroom’s many vintage pieces are a 1960s chandelier by Carlo Scarpa and a steel-wire armchair by Warren Platner from the same period; the headboard is custom, the photograph above it is by Linda Alfvegren.

The house is organized as a series of gathering points, some set up for casual family time, others for more adult pursuits and entertaining guests. People also congregate in different parts of the house according to the seasons. The downstairs living area, which incorporates the conversation pit and another seating group, is more of the winter zone. Indoor plants flank the pit, which faces a large-screen TV that comes up from the floor. “We watch movies,” Wahlgren reports. “The whole family can lie around on the sofas.” Between the two sitting areas is a freestanding brick fireplace, which is also original, although they opened up one side of it so the hearth can be enjoyed from multiple angles.

In summer, life plays out more on the second floor, which is closer to the garden and where the kitchen is located. The couple installed a custom teak-clad island—a natural hangout spot where, as in most households, the family can often be found. The kitchen is now open to the dining area, beyond which another freestanding fireplace plays sentinel to a slightly more formal sitting area. Occupying a fully glazed corner with panoramic views of the island and surrounding water, it’s a perfect place to have drinks with grown-up friends.

When it came to finishes and furnishings, Scandinavian cliché might predict an abundance of blond wood and blanched surfaces. But the partners filled the house with deeper, earthier tones. Generous moments of dark-hued oiled teak show up as cabinetry, doors, radiator covers, space dividers, balustrades, and more. Most of the richly patinated hardwood flooring, laid in the distinctive style known as Dutch parquet, is original. It has been extended to replace other types of flooring in a number of areas, including some really unattractive brownish floral vinyl 140

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Top left: The two-story brick and glass house was built between 1958 and 1970.

Top right: In a child’s bedroom, a vintage desk is served by a Gio Ponti chair.

Bottom: Like much of the millwork in the house, the main bath’s slatted divider is made of oiled teak; the marble-tile floor is a custom pattern.

Opposite: With views of the island and sea, the second-floor sitting area is used for more formal entertaining; furnishings include a pair of vintage 1970s Verner Panton lounge chairs and a suede-upholstered Mario Marenco sofa originally designed in the same period.

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in the kitchen and stretches of tile around the erstwhile pool. The kitchen also featured garish, bright-orange wallpaper, which was, of course, eliminated in favor of paint.

Lavén has a penchant for combining periods and styles of furniture, starting with a base of midcentury modern and branching off in directions both older and newer. The couple loves to incorporate vintage pieces, and their process usually begins with finding a few special things, then building around them. They both dislike the feeling of an environment that looks as if it was put together in a day, preferring to layer, using found objects and furniture to add a sense of history.

They also prize items where you can see the actual craft, the hand of the maker, behind them. “It can be a well-executed ceramic bowl or a table that’s really admirably made,” Lavén says. “Or it could be a material used in a genuine way—honest materials that look how they are supposed to: wood that looks and feels like wood, stone that looks and feels like real stone.”

In the end, the project was about creating harmony, about conjuring cozy spaces you want to stay in. “It’s also about surrounding yourself with pieces that are special and that mean something to you,” Lavén concludes. “That adds to the feeling of a home.”

PRODUCT SOURCES FROM FRONT BOLIA: MODULAR SOFA (CONVERSATION PIT). FLOS: BOOKSHELF LAMP. VITRA: WALL CLOCK (KITCHEN). DESIGN HOUSE STOCKHOLM: RUG (GROUNDFLOOR SEATING AREA). WHEN OBJECTS WORK: BLUE GLASS VASE (DINING AREA).

ARTEMIDE: TABLE LAMP. COLLECTION PARTICULIÈRE: MARBLE VASES (MAIN BEDROOM). B&B ITALIA: CHAIR (CHILD’S BEDROOM). VANITAS STUDIO: FLOOR TILE (BATHROOM). ARFLEX: SOFA (FORMAL SITTING AREA).

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The Conservatory: Gardens Under Glass

by Alan Stein and Nancy Virts New York: Princeton Architectural Press, $60 256 pages, 259 illustrations (210 color) Greenhouses, glasshouses, hothouses, orangeries, conservatories—all these, we are told in this handsome book, evolved from simple wooden backyard sheds, originally with shutters rather than glass, that sheltered delicate plants from cool European climates.

Perhaps the earliest forerunner, however, was built for the Emperor Tiberius at his villa on Capri because his doctors prescribed a healthy, daily diet of easily spoiled fruits like melons and cucumbers, which needed to be protected in cold frames.

In the Middle Ages, monks and nuns cultivated vegetables and other food plants in wood or stone huts with small windows providing light. And in the 17th century these rudimentary shelters were adapted to shield citrus and other exotic plants that explorers were introducing to Europe. (Columbus, we learn, found pineapples in South America and brought them to Spain.) In this country, early examples include an orangery at the 1785 Wye House in Talbot County, Maryland, and one designed by George Washington for his Mount Vernon estate. Mark Twain included one in his own house in Hartford, Connecticut.

We are shown, of course, some enormous and impressive examples of conservatories: the Grand Palais in Paris; the Crystal Palace for the 1851 Great Exhibition in London; the Palm House at Kew; and L’Orangerie du Château de Versailles. But the authors are also passionate about the inclusion of smaller versions in private houses of today. “Our need for nature,” they write, “has brought the conservatory into the home. Filled with natural light and greenery, the home conservatory is a peaceful oasis. . . .These spaces nurture the soul and lay a balm on the cares of modern life.” The late British neurologist Oliver Sacks is quoted as having said: “In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication.” The popular prefabricated Eichler homes (more than 10,000 were built in California to designs by A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons) were often centered on small interior gardens open to the sky. And something more: As the climate continues to change, conservatories may be the last refuge and salvation for myriad endangered plant species.

The authors are the founders of Maryland-based Tanglewood Conservatories. Their authoritative book includes an index, bibliography, and contact information for more than 50 public conservatories in a dozen countries.

B O O K s edited by Stanley Abercrombie Designing History: The Extraordinary Art & Style of the Obama White House

by Michael S. Smith with a foreword by Michelle Obama New York: Rizzoli International Publications, $60 304 pages, 372 color illustrations What interior design commission can be more prestigious than the White House? But what can have more precedents, expectations, and restraints?

Take the existing furnishings, for example—such as Gilbert Stuart’s fulllength portrait of George Washington or the HMS Resolute desk in the Oval Office (a gift from Queen Victoria) or Lincoln’s bed. Can these be scuttled? Can they even be moved? And the plethora of crystal chandeliers? These surely should be kept, but also discreetly modernized, perhaps—a little recessed lighting here, a dimmer there?

These perplexing questions faced Michael S. Smith when in 2010 President Obama asked him to update the executive mansion’s very public first floor. But, as this book shows, there had been fewer prohibitions when in 2008 he had tackled the Obama’s private second-floor quarters. Then Smith had been freer to follow his own taste and that of his clients, which is seen most clearly in new art, including works by Robert Rauschenberg, Giorgio Morandi, Hans Hofmann, Sean Scully, Mark Rothko, and more.

In several cases—public and private—we see Smith’s presentation boards of colors and materials as they were shown to the Obamas as well as the finished results. There is a book-full to be seen in Smith’s accomplishments here, but he shows us even more in a generous number of images of these famous rooms as they looked in past eras and for other occupants and with different designers.

A fine book, but it leaves us with an unanswered question: What does the private White House look like today?

The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris

by Alicia Drake New York: Back Bay Books, $7 448 pages

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“Anything about Yves Saint Laurent intrigues me. Add Karl Lagerfeld to the mix and you have my full attention.

Reading about design icons in the earlier stages of their careers (in the 1970s nonetheless) inspires me. I love discovering their virtues but also their flaws—it makes them human.

This book reinforces that following your instincts, being true to yourself, and owning your light is always the best recipe. It also confirms that it is rarely a smooth road and that success requires lots and lots of hard work. Nothing comes easy and we must learn from our mistakes.

We recently launched Elements, a fully modular outdoor kitchen system for Brown Jordan Outdoor Kitchens. Fashion is always a huge source of inspiration for me: It tells me about textures, colors, layers. Although this is not a design book per se, its poignant narrative puts you into the rooms where fashion design history was being sown in the 70s. And the book’s photography gives you a peek into their private lives, surroundings, tastes, and clothing.”

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BOTTOM, FROM LEFT: NICKY HEDAYATZADEH; HENRY TAMARIN

What They’re Reading...

DESIGNERS IN AT HOME Nina Yashar (“Nina Yashar Shelters in Place,” page 27), nilufar.com GianCarlo Montebello (“Nina Yashar Shelters in Place,” page 27), bomontebello.com

DESIGNERS IN OPEN HOUSE Clarice Semerene Arquitetura (“Material Comforts,” page 36), semerene.com Kevin O’Sullivan & Associates (“Material Comforts,” page 36), kosullivan.com Montalba Architects (“Material Comforts,” page 36), montalbaarchitects.com Plus Ultra Studio (“Material Comforts,” page 36), plusultra-studio.com Rina Lovko Studio (“Red-Hot and Oh-So Cool,” page 31), rinalovko.com Vitale Design (“Material Comforts,” page 36), vitaledesign.com.au Vladimir Radutny Architects (“Material Comforts,” page 36), radutny.com

DESIGNER IN INTERVENTION Bolivar Arquitectos (“Gray Matter,” page 147), bolivararquitectos.com

PHOTOGRAPHERS IN FEATURES Roger Davies (“Upping the Ante,” page 118), rogerdaviesphotography.com Casey Dunn (“The Power of Art,” page 90), caseydunn.net Roland Halbe (“Earth, Sea, and Sky,” page 108), rolandhalbe.eu Silvia Rivoltella (“Sheltering in Style,” page 128), Photofoyer, photofoyer.it James Stokes (“Harmonic Convergence,” page 136), Living Inside, livinginside.it David Zarzoso (“They Make a Village,” page 100), davidzarzoso.com

PHOTOGRAPHER IN OPEN HOUSE Yevhenii Avramenko (“Red-Hot and Oh-So Cool,” page 31), someperception.tumblr.com

Interior Design (USPS#520-210, ISSN 0020-5508) is published 16 times a year, monthly except semimonthly in April, May, August, and October by Interior Design Media Group. Interior Design Media Group, 101 Park Avenue, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10178, is a division of Sandow, 3651 NW 8th Avenue, Boca Raton, FL 33431.

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i n t er vention

gray matter

Encompassing 17,600 square feet on three levels, Bolivar Arquitectos’ villa at Herradura Golf Club in Monterrey, Mexico, is no doubt a grand one—perfectly suited for an exclusive gated community. But it is also surprisingly at home with the landscape, both the natural and the man-made.

Credit the sensitivity of its geometry and its monolithic materials palette.

The scheme is basically linear, allowing sweeping views of the surroundings. But instead of reading as one long box, the structure has instances of jagged cutaway corners and curvaceous forms that reference the Sierra Madre mountains, visible as backdrop. Italian porcelain tile covers 85 percent of the exterior, resulting in a singular sleek facade. Firm principal Mario Bolivar specified soft gray modules in five sizes, which made it easier to install the tiles over the faceted corners. As a result, seams are all but invisible.

Porcelain continues inside, too, where Bolivar opted for quartzite- and marble-effect coverings to clad walls and floors. “Here in Mexico, high-end homes use mostly natural stone,” he comments. Winner of the Ceramics of Italy tile competition, he not only aced the test but hit a hole in one. —Edie Cohen

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KnollTextiles

The Destination Collection

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THE LURE OF THE FINISH. CHOOSE FROM A SEA OF FAUCET FINISHES—INCLUDING VIBRANT® OMBRÉ— AND DESIGN YOUR SPACE AROUND WHAT CAPTIVATES YOU.