Table of contents for 3/1/2016 in Dwell

Interior design is not about arranging furniture. Interior design is about manifesting comfort and pleasure in an environment sheltered from the world at large. It’s about summoning the power of the senses to communicate feelings of safety and ease. Interior design is about creating spaces in which one can live on one’s own terms. Think about the most pleasant room you’ve ever encountered—not the most expansive or expensive, mind you, but the most serene and welcoming. Most likely when a space comes to mind, it’s a sensory experience that triggers the memory: perhaps it smelled wonderful, or carried the sound of water, or maybe the furniture was incredibly soft and accommodating, the lighting brilliant or cozily subdued. Whatever the impetus, in that moment, you felt the energy of your surroundings.…

“ The rules for the good house as an ideal do not change in principle and have only to be looked at afresh. How does one enter a garden? How does the seating area relate to the door and the window? There are many questions like this which need to be answered, and the house consists of these elements. This is modern architecture.” Excerpted from The House as Path and Place, 1931, by Josef Frank Josef Frank: Against Design, which runs through April 2016 at Vienna’s Austrian Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art, is a comprehensive study of the prolific architect, designer, and author. A companion catalog, comprising essays from over two dozen design scholars, provides context for Frank’s creative successes and setbacks, as well as his philosophies and concepts, including…

Project Paris Texas Antwerp Architects Nathalie Wolberg and Tim Stokes Location Antwerp, Belgium “It was a disaster, but a disaster with potential.” That’s how Texan artist Tim Stokes describes his first impression of the home he now shares with his French architect wife, Nathalie Wolberg. Located in a former red-light area near the port of Antwerp, the ramshackle old warehouse building had been, until recently, occupied by an import and export office, and 1960s additions had camouflaged the original fabric and negated any good features. “Everything was covered in acoustic-panel cladding; you couldn’t see any brick, concrete, or skylights,” Tim says, referring to the most distinctive characteristics of the nowrenovated building, with its lofty light- and art-filled spaces and lush interior garden. “Back then, the courtyard was filled with 12…

42 Flights of Fantasy BarlisWedlick Architects barliswedlick.com Bill Stratton Building Co. billstrattonbuildingcompany.com Building Science Consulting by Levy Partnership levypartnership.com Structural insulated panels from Vermont Timber Frames vtf.com Roof panels by Agway Metals agwaymetals.com Windows by Intus Windows intuswindows.com Low Settee bench by Studioilse for De La Espada delaespada.com Peroba sofa by Jean-Marie Massaud for Environment Furniture environmentfurniture.com Armchair by Ian Ingersoll Cabinetmakers ianingersoll.com Custom rug by Sacco Carpet saccocarpet.com Custom LED pendant by Stickbulb stickbulb.com Concrete countertop by Get Real Surfaces getrealsurfaces.com Tractor counter stools from Design Within Reach dwr.com Kitchen backsplash, bathroom, and shower floor tiles by Mosaic House mosaichse.com Glazed subway tiles by Daltile daltile.com Montclair Danby marble from Stone Source stonesource.com Heyburn cast-iron tub by Signature Hardware signaturehardware.com Bath fixtures by Waterworks waterworks.com Macramé wall hanging by…

I recently listened to a fantastic podcast on @99percentinvisible about Brutalist architecture and concrete buildings of the 1960s, and how they were much maligned. Today, I spotted a #concrete home on the @dwellmagazine feed with a sneaky swiveling panel (“Heart of Stone,” October 2015)— nothing but love for this. @ofkin Posted to Instagram LETTERS Your recent issue on small spaces only features examples for private owners (November 2015). Isn’t there an unspoken obligation to address a rising social issue in this country—homelessness? If the subject of design and its capacity to influence lives for the better is an important theme for your publication, would not projects that focus on thoughtful solutions to an ever-increasing homeless population be just as valid? Mike Smith Austin, Texas I love beautiful, uniquely designed small…

Sight A phenomenon of light and visual perception, colors signal a language of their own. EDITOR’S PICKS 1 Polychromie Le Corbusier by kt. COLOR Produced with the Le Corbusier Foundation, this historically faithful swatch of 81 hues was sourced from the architect’s own wallpaper samples, paint chips, designs, and storied investigations into the essence of color. ktcolor.ch 2 Ruutu Vases by Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec for Iittala Though simple in form, creating these diamond-shape vessels in an array of delicate, watercolor-like hues in glass requires exacting precision. store.dwell.com 3 Kinetic Wire Sculpture by Alexander Calder The American artist’s hanging artworks—referred to as “mobiles” by contemporary Marcel Duchamp—are exercises of abstraction and color in motion. calder.org PROJECT: The Saguaro Palm Springs After they revamped the brand identity of The Saguaro Scottsdale,…

Project Fox Hall Architect BarlisWedlick Architects Location Ancram, New York Two hours north of New York City, an unusual barn emerges from a hill just off a country road. Its black siding and bright-red window frames hint at the imaginative playground inside. This space, with its roperailed catwalk and indoor tent, is just one element of the multifaceted getaway architecture and design firm BarlisWedlick Architects designed for fund manager Ian Hague. Farther up the hill sits its counterpoint, a 1,800-square-foot home designed to meet strict Passive House Institute efficiency standards. “I have a practical side, and a much more important whimsical side that most of the time I try to repress,” says Hague, whose shock of silver hair offers a sense of gravitas tempered by his shorts and woven-leather espadrilles.…

Project Casa Clara Architects Nicolas Tovo and Teresa Sarmiento Location Buenos Aires, Argentina Buenos Aires is an idiosyncratic capital city, with oases of rural tranquility amid an otherwise bustling metropolis. Exploring the city by foot is a guaranteed way to stumble upon sleepy, green-canopied streets, which appear for a few blocks before ending abruptly, and where gentle breeze and birdsong are the only audible interruptions. One such cobbled passageway, on a block smaller in size than the standard 300-footby-300-foot city lots, reveals plots of land that are compact and uniform in size. It is unclear what lies behind many of the perimeter walls here, as is the case with Casa Clara; its crumbling whitewashed brick and climbing vines give very little away. For three years, the house has been a…

PROJECT TOY LOFTS KITCHEN DESIGNER ANDREA MICHAELSON LOCATION LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA Toy Lofts Plan A Living Room B Kitchen C Bedroom D Entrance E Bathroom Located in the fashionable Warehouse District of downtown Los Angeles, the Toy Factory Lofts comprise 119 reimagined live/work spaces, in a historic 1924 building with the word “Toy” emblazoned across the facade. A rooftop swimming pool offers sweeping views of downtown and the L.A. River, and, downstairs, the security guard keeps watch from a shipping container embedded in the lobby, with its exposed pipes and concrete floors. This raw detailing carries through to Richard Michaelson’s 1,400-square-foot loft, redesigned by his sister-in-law, Beverly Hills–based designer Andrea Michaelson. “Every surface except the exposed ceiling was gutted and replaced,” says Andrea, about the apartment, which was dated and…

When reenvisioning the interior of a 1930s summer bungalow in Sagaponack, New York, designer James Huniford paired a discarded sifter found in Indiana with rugged pine-paneled walls, and conceived minimalist, aluminum indoor/outdoor furnishings for the eat-in area. “[The project] is really about design, and not decor,” Huniford says. “We’re approaching a time in the design world where people don’t want a formulaic interior.”…

Amara Holstein A former editor at Dwell, Amara Holstein is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, Wallpaper*, and Frame. She visited a brightly updated 1959 home in the city for this issue (p. 50). “I was struck by the way art and color are seamlessly integrated within every aspect of the house, from the sculptures outside to the pops of orange in the kitchen,” she says. What does your dream interior look like? “Big windows, high ceilings, and no clutter.” Ye Rin Mok Los Angeles–based photographer Ye Rin Mok captured a sleek, renovated kitchen in the city’s Toy Factory Lofts building (p. 86), where she fell in love with the “delicate brass trim and shelving.” Her portraits and interiors have…

An oracle-like presence, Li Edelkoort has advised the design industry with big-picture lectures, books, articles, and exhibitions to wide influence for more than forty years. Her company, Edelkoort Inc., counts three offices worldwide—one each in Paris, New York, and Tokyo—that track the pulse of lifestyle and culture, to economy and social science. From 1999 to 2008, Edelkoort was chairwoman of the Netherlands’ Design Academy Eindhoven, and in 2011, cofounded the School of Form in Poznan, Poland. On the tails of her recent appointment as dean of a new Hybrid Design program at New York’s Parsons School for Design— a multidisciplinary course soon to roll out this year and next—we met with the forward-looking Dutch doyenne to hear what she sees in store for the future. You cast an incredibly wide…

Project Ruell Residence Designer Jessica Helgerson Interior Design Renovation Architect Dale Farr Location Portland, Oregon Tucked under a grove of towering fir and cedar trees, Aaron and Yuka Ruell’s house in southwest Portland is long and lean, its structure carefully sitting upon the suburban landscape with large expanses of glass, a bountiful use of wood, and generous overhangs, all markers of its vintage. It’s a bright beacon of 20thcentury Pacific Northwest design—refreshed for today. When the Ruells decided to remodel, there was no question that they’d hew closely to the home’s original style: As Aaron says, “The architecture of this house almost demands that the interiors follow suit.” To achieve their vision, they turned to a team of professionals who understood their desire to honor the home’s history. Working with…

Daniel Rozensztroch has a nose for real estate. The French designer and author moved into the Bastille District of Paris when it was a shabby, undesirable neighborhood. Today it’s a booming one. But after more than 30 years there, he felt that it was time for a change. His discerning eye lit on an architectural treasure—a 17th-century manufacturing plant in the Marais, a historic district that abuts the Bastille. The building, which housed a toy factory owned by Gustave Eiffel in the 19th century, was a rare gem that developers had purchased to turn it into apartments. Rozensztroch was smitten and decided to buy a raw space there. He’s far from naive about the ordeals of renovation—Rozensztroch was creative director of Marie Claire Maison, one of France’s leading home design…