Archive for May, 2009
Loft Tour: Half-Open Loft
5/28/09
We can’t seem to get enough of the loft projects by BSC Architecture (see our other post ). The design of this 3,000 sq. ft. “Half-Open Loft” had a lot to keep in mind for the floor plan and the lifestyles of the owners (an art collector and an art book publisher): the accommodation of daily domestic life as well as the flexibility to host readings, performances, and tours of the art collection. Through a design of ‘half-openness’ in the L-shaped loft, its segmented spaces are designed to be “see-through” and to view artworks in juxtaposition with one another, plus provide multiple views of the urban surrounding. The loft’s wood and white combo have us hooked, how about you?
Posted by Kyra Shapurji
Model Loft in Atlanta
Tribute Lofts in Atlanta sets the scene for Emanuel, Christina, and Audruis (Click Models) as they showcase hot fashion in this very hot loft. Furnishings by BoConcept. For more information on the fashion, subscribe to receive our 2009 Spring issue.
‘
For more information about the space above, please visit Tribute Lofts website.
Loft Tour: 12th Street Loft
5/27/09
We’re always drawn to loft spaces that show us creative division of space. Catching our eye was the 12th Street Loft, completed in 2006 by BSC Architecture and features a loft floor plan divided up by three screens to create implied programmatic zones.
The first, a diaphanous fabric box lit by fiber optics is located between the living and dining spaces. Its transparency and visual weight vary with the change of natural and artificial light. Also, a double-sided wall of bookshelves with an acoustic glass layer defines a private study while adding a wash of color to the light that passes through. And last, a motorized scrim at the kitchen masks the work area during dinners and gatherings. It’s printed with a work commissioned from the artist Julien Bismuth and becomes both mobile artwork and backdrop for social events. It’s hard to choose our favorite screen, but if you can, which one’s your fav?
Posted by Kyra Shapurji
Design Resource: Santa Monica Flea Market
5/26/09
On the first and fourth Sundays of every month, Angelenos far and wide make the pilgrimage to the Santa Monica Airport, home of one of the better flea markets gracing the city. Although nobody is boarding a flight, design inspiration is sky high in this treasure trove of vintage, antique, and collectable goodies. Despite their flea market origin, with the right point of reference, plenty of these pieces can dress up any loft to designer heights.
Used and vintage Spode dishware isn’t just for the tabletop anymore.
Flea market Spode dishware.
Kelly Wearstler's Spode plate wall at the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica, CA.
Kelly Wearstler creatively mounted Spode plates on the outdoor wall of the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica. Buy your dishes cheap at the flea market and spend your money on a great handyman to hang them instead!
Antler plaques were aplenty at this Sunday’s flea market, priced at $75 for the smaller ones and all the way up to $250 for the larger vintage plaques. However, the real find was this old buck trophy head. One of his antlers was slightly broken, but he was in overall great condition, and only $75! According to interior designer Thom Filicia, the taxidermy look works in any home that knows how to balance it out with some refined lines and sophisticated touches. Purse designer, Carrie White, certainly applied Filicia’s school of thought after buying the stag’s head for her own home!
Vintage horn plaques found at the flea market.
Flea market stag's head.
Page featuring stag's head from Thom Filicia's book, STYLE.
Stag's head featured in Carrie White's hallway, mounted on what will be her wallpaper for that space.
Anthropologie may be the first store that comes to mind when searching for cool, antique looking hardware for your home, but the flea market is an equally great resource for much cheaper prices. The market had everything from etched glass doorknobs to vintage iron hooks, perfect for adding function to that fashionable loft kitchen!
Bins of used and vintage hardware at the flea market.
Bins of new hardware (made to look vintage) at Anthropologie.
The Best of ICFF 2009
This years ICFF did not disappoint! Despite a noticeably leaner amount on display, the booths of both big and small companies alike brought the wow factor with innovative design showcased in oh-so-creative ways. Here is a round-up of some of our favorites:
Photography by Linden Hass
Trend Alert: Denim
Denim may be one of the world’s oldest fabrics, but it has remained eternally youthful at the hands of designers and denim devotees worldwide. And, with the spring/summer season upon us, it seems that varying shades of blue denim are flooding the pages of fashion magazines and boutique racks everywhere. But this trend is definitely not limited to your closet. Adding denim touches to your home can enhance a room with just the right amount of ruggedness and bohemian flare to an otherwise polished space.
According to Elle magazine’s Denim Guide, bleached and tie-dyed denim went from fad to high fashion this season. From big brands like DKNY and BEBE, to smaller ones like Erin Wasson X RVCA and KSUBI, the bleached look is trickling down from the runways to wardrobes, so why not to your home too?
Purchasing vintage denim curtains from the thrift store, cutting them to size, and then tie dying them with bleach yielded these denim cushions. The bleached effect gives a more relaxed, hippie vibe to the room and they provide just enough padding for a comfortable fireside chat.
These CB2 napkins might not be denim, but the certainly give off the same effect! The napkins are actually tied, then dyed in blue and brown on 100% white cotton. Pair with jute place mats and crisp white plates for a summer tabletop sure to pleasantly surprise any dinner guest.
Sherwin Williams has certainly taken the blue jeans trend and run with it! As seen in the latest issue of Lucky Magazine, the paint brand showcases their catalog of paint colors sure to match your favorite pair of jeans. Whether they are “’70s blue”, “retro blue”, or “acid blue”, they have just the shade to make your home into “your own blue heaven”.
Loft Tour: Orderly Display in a Philadelphia Loft
5/18/09
Frank and Ditta Hoeber’s Philadelphia loft is all about display. The architectural and design firm behind the space, Qb3 Design, wanted to create a “silent background” within which the couple could feature their book collection, art and objects. The building was originally a window factory from the early 1900’s, and has maintained this industrial feel post renovation.
There is so much to love about this space: the use of everyday white dishes stacked upon open shelving, Eames molded plywood chairs set against the wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that serve as partitions, the gallery of Ditta’s original drawings that rest on slender plywood-painted-white shelves and, of course, the abundant use of white. The space marries form and function beautifully, exemplifying how the stuff we actually use does not need to be hidden.
Photography by Trevor Dixon and Todd Mason.
Check out previous loft tours.
UPCOMING EVENT: MA09 Design Is Human Launch Party
Join us this Friday to kickoff the Modern Atlanta “Design Is Human” Home Tour. Starting today, May 12th and running through Sunday, May17th, a series of tours and events will be held around Atlanta showcasing the finest in modern design.
Home tour tickets – which can be purchased at DWR, (context), and Octane Coffee Bar & Lounge – include Friday’s entry ($10 otherwise). Check out the full schedule of events here.
When: Friday, May 15th
Where: White Provision
Address: 1168 Howell Mill Road NW, Atlanta
When: 7:00 – 9:30 PM
BKLYN DESIGNS ‘09
With much better weather this year (last year’s torrential rain and wind storm are still quite vivid in my mind) to guide me through BKLYN Designs (the three-day “Locally Grown, Internationally Known” event), I was prepared to soak up a lot of furniture, wall paper, and home accessories with the sun on my back.
But this year’s fair startled me in its size–with really only one location (if you don’t count the teeny tiny kid furniture outpost next store) at St. Ann’s Warehouse, I couldn’t believe that was all there was. “That’s it?” I thought to myself. I believe the emphasis got placed on “other locations” for the Dwell Home Tours and Dumbo Gallery Tour, but I wanted to see the cold, hard designs, and I felt a bit cheated after 2008’s three locations.
But I will say, despite the one location, the designers that did present at BKLYN Designs weren’t to be dismissed just because they hail from the ‘borough across the river’. As usual I felt the designers to be the most approachable, creative, and fresh. I still walked away impressed by more than a handful of designers and found the event was a great start to May’s ‘Design Month.’ So incase you missed hitting up the borough, I’ve rounded up the most impressionable pieces (& my favorites) for your perusal.
The Standard Chair
Composed of found chair backs, steel plate, and aluminum, The Standard Chair picks up where an old manufacturer left off. Designers, Jason Horvath and Bill Hilgendorf, found the hand-carved chair backs (with legs) at Build It Green and added their own touch of plate steel seating and front legs to the ornate royal back and a wire mesh backing where typically upholstery would stand in. The municipal or “park bench” color palette choice and the contract that comes in each seat together created an inventive and even, artistic design. Uhuru landed on our roundup from last year, and it was great to see a familiar face in Brooklyn design once again.
Enso Table
I couldn’t walk past Eric Manigian’s piece without stopping to stare at its sheer size (15 feet in diameter) and to run my hand across the beautifully sanded top. Named for and inspired by the Zen Buddhist symbol “enso”–a simple circle drawn with a single broad brushstroke as a symbol of infinity, void, and enlightenment–the table consists of five single boards locked together like puzzle pieces, all salvaged from a spalted maple tree. It was in my eyes, the single most natural (and in the most litearl sense) and beautiful piece at the fair. I’m a sucker for simple woodword, what can I say?
The Strict Chair
I fell in love with Hugh Hayden’s whimsical sense of design when he showed a piece at a recent AAD Future Perfect exhibition, so it was great to recognize his designs (they do sorta stand out, right?) among all the other designers. His “FUNature” line is a always a breath of fresh air and isn’t really for those old at heart.
Platypus Chair
One of the designers featured in the yearly Pratt student designers’ booth, Michael Weaker conceived this piece as part of the Graduate Thesis Program. He took familiar elements found in standard chairs (but with uncommon lines and volumes) and combined them to offer a multiple range of seating possibilities. He says, “These shapes allow a viewer’s imagination to take over and relate the chair’s shape with a positive personal memory. The relationship between the chair and each user is therefore personal and unique.”
Posted by Kyra Shapurji
Q & A: Design Partners Angel Sanchez + Christopher Coleman
When we heard established fashion designer Angel Sanchez would be collaborating with his partner, noted designer Christopher Coleman, we knew the results would not be your run-of-the-mill interior styling. Debuting with a game room at this year’s Kips Bay Decorators Show House, the duo has been working on a series spaces together. In addition to the showroom, there was a table with DIFFA’s Dining by Design event, as well as a Flat Iron District restaurant, not to mention their shared Williamsburg loft-condo in the works.
Equally complimentary of one another, Coleman says, “A collaboration is a wonderful exchange of ideas. But becomes even more intense when passion and creativity meet. Our loft lounge for Kips Bay show house is a fusion of our two talents; design and fashion, refined… edited. But a space with style, personality and playfulness, which is a big part of ‘us’.”
As for Sanchez, “Working with Chris is like to play a fun ping pong game of ideas…..where in the end it is so satisfying to see the results. We get in a place where he or I won’t get there by ourselves… it shows us a new version of our own individual taste. I enjoy seeing the balance between his colorful version of a space and my clean architectural vision… that is the reason we want now to explore it outside our personal living projects.”
LoftLife: Based on both of your respective backgrounds in design, what was the hardest part of combining Angel’s architectural knowledge with elements of fashion and Chris’s understanding of space and of interior design?
AS + CC: The hardest part is having patience with each other, and understanding scale takes time to learn.
LL: The Kip’s Bay loft-lounge space is for the “stay at home recessionista to work, relax, and play.” Is there currently a market for a $65,000 steel ping pong table? We’d love to know.
AS + CC: Yes there is a market – we have received a dozen calls for the steel ping pong table.
LL: You worked together on Angel’s showroom. His line includes elegant evening wear as well as bridal, and clients include celebrities. What was the vision for the showroom, and how was it kept functional as a workspace?
AS + CC: The vision was to make it sexier and sleeker than his previous showroom which was all celadon walls, carpet and curtains, lots of curtains. So the new showroom is all black and white, very graphic and bolo! It flows well as a workspace, it’s open and well planned out.
LL: Tell us about the restaurant you’re working on in the Flatiron District. What type of Latin influence can diners expect?
AS + CC: Nuella is the restaurant we are working on together, it’s a very large space, so we are trying to make it intimate by defining various areas. Colors are hot yellow and firey red with black. Interesting materials.
LL: We hear you’re finishing up your home in Williamsburg. Was it hard to not bring work into your home?
AS + CC: Our Williamsburg space, we live and breathe design, so it’s just a continuation of everyday, the nice part about home, is it is a laboratory to try things.
LL: What do you find is the most important, or first thing clients ask for when designing a space?
AS + CC: Most important thing when designing a space is who is occupying the space, what is their use of the space, then it continues from there. What do client’s ask for? That varies from client to client. Someone asked where will we put our dirty clothes, they have to be separated, so we made a bench at the foot of the bed with three flip tops for darks, whites and dry-cleaning.
LL: These days most of us cannot afford a top to bottom luxury overhaul of our homes, but are spending more time there than ever. What are the simplest decorating changes you can make to make a more comfortable and luxurious atmosphere, perfect for both nesting and entertaining.
AS + CC: Simple home decorating changes in hard times:
1) Paint is the easiest, you can do a feature wall, meaning painting only one wall in a room-say-the TV wall.
2) For entertaining, buy a few ottomans for extra seating in 3 different colors. Adds a big punch to a room.
3) There are so many inexpensive [online] catalogs that I use, that everyone knows about; Home Decorators, Shades of Light. Great economical sources!
Posted by Erin Ryder
- March 2011
- July 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
