Dwell Jul-14 /Aug-14

We are an American magazine, and hometown design is one of our favorite themes to explore. All year long we work hard to find exciting and innovative modern projects, but we are especially thrilled to feature places we don’t often visit, like Auburn, Alabama (page 100), and Parthenon, Arkansas (page 60). Highlighting cities that are outside our usual milieu reminds us that great strides in modern design and architecture are happening all over the country, and we are proud to showcase those creative practitioners in our pages. Regional interests aside, we know that the best design helps people live better lives. This salient truth is underscored in this issue in a very special addition created by architect Ko Wibowo in Tacoma, Washington, for a couple battling the challenges presented by…

I’m in my 90th year and am an avid reader of Dwell. I look forward to each issue. My design philosophy has always been that the language of midcentury-modern (MCM) architecture is not a style, and your April 2014 issue solidly reinforces that concept. With its legacy now more than 80 years old, MCM is still spoken and enjoyed by a new generation of architects and landscape architects thanks to Dwell. The MCM language is never out of date. It always unfolds and adapts to new technologies and challenges, but the language stays the same. Mary Barensfeld said it all: “Architecture doesn’t stop with the building…architecture and landscape should meld into one design process.” That was my design philosophy in 1950 when I became a licensed architect in California and…

July/August 2014 Fred A. Bernstein Since learning about Sea Ranch as an architecture student, Fred A. Bernstein has wanted to visit the legendary enclave of modernist houses. He finally got his chance when reporting “Back at the Ranch” (p. 122). The only problem was the drive—hours on a road so twisty that it explains how Sea Ranch remains pristine during an era of rampant real estate development. Mitchell Alan Parker While interviewing homeowner Sally Julien for “The Big Payback” (Renovation, p. 80), Mitchell Alan Parker thinks he might have discovered the source of her smart design chops. “Her parents had a striped, crushed-velvet living room set,” says Parker, a writer and editor. “She told me that that’s probably where she learned exactly what not to do.” Helen Thompson Texas native…

A Travel Wallet by the Good Flock, $149 Stow your travel trappings—like passports, boarding passes, and cash—in this vegetabletanned leather pouch designed and made in Portland, Oregon. thegoodflock.com B Peninsula Chair by Ben Klebba with Matt Pierce for Phloem Studio, $2,700–2,900 Handcrafted in Portland, the Peninsula Chair—an homage to Klebba’s home state, Michigan, in name and in its honest construction—features a wood frame, leather seat, and brass details. phloemstudio.com C Cone stop by Studio Gorm, from $40 Debuted at Salone Satellite in April 2014, the conical wood doorstop from Eugene, Oregon–based Studio Gorm has a looped handle for hanging when not in use. studiogorm.com D Drawer Accessory System by Henrybuilt, price upon request Henrybuilt’s kitchen systems are fabricated in Seattle, including this organizer designed to work to keep utensils and…

The bedding industry has never had a shortage of made-in-America options, a rarity in today’s importheavy marketplace. Serta and Sealy, two name-brand mattress manufacturers, still produce domestically along with regional companies like Jamison Bedding (Nashville, Tennessee) and King Koil (St. Paul, Minnesota). We take a look at a trio of alternate choices, from an all-organic line made in Ohio to two upstarts that use design thinking to lower costs. Organic bedding purveyor Naturepedic, which was founded by an environmental engineer in Ohio and is produced by Amish craftsmen, is touting its new EOS Customizable Organic Mattress Sleep System ($1,599–$4,399). The system allows buyers to customize their mattress with a choice of coils that range from plush to firm or latex, plus wool, cotton, or PLA plantbased fiber batting with cotton…

Designed by architect Eero Saarinen and landscape architect Thomas Church, the 320-acre General Motors Technical Center campus initially featured 25 buildings. The most visually arresting and technically challenging of these is the aluminum-clad Styling dome, an auditorium and exhibition space. Harley Earl, GM’s chief of style at the time, believed that the center’s architecture should reflect the automaker’s emphasis on advanced engineering and design, and persuaded the company’s leadership to be ambitious and bold when commissioning the concept, says Susan Skarsgard, manager of GM Design Archive and Special Collections. More than a half-century later, the center is still GM’s thriving creative hub where designers, engineers, and craftspeople develop prototypes and technologies—and the architecture continues to inspire. “Seeing the giant ‘wall of water’ on the lake for the first time in…