In with the old, in with the new

Maybe Grandma was on to something pairing that old club chair with the faded Persian rug she’s had since the last war. Maybe a modern interior does not have to look like the inside of Karim Rashid’s brain after all. Maybe the classics just need a little freshening up for the new year.

In the spirit of making a something old into a something new, FREAKS free architects gave this Parisian apartment a face-lift by cutting directly through wainscoting and moldings to create contemporary spaces while conserving the Napoleon era decorative elements. It goes to show, there is no need to overdo lipo and implants, less renovation is more renovation.

Have you ever wanted to draw mustaches on the dusty portraits in your grandfather’s study? Fornasetti has, and has given many a countess a youthful comeback on a plate or side table.

Inspired by the decorative frieze lining the ceiling of his Amsterdam apartment, Marcel Wanders conceived the ‘Skygarden’ pendant light so everyone could take a piece of it home with them.

As the decorative molding is only situated inside the light with the outer shell left simple and modern, the light creates a charming surprise when guests sit down at a table it is hung over.

 Old carpets are the new new carpets. The more distressed, the better; but decolorized and overdyed to artfully underline statement modern furniture.

Another piece that recycles beautifully is the Artek chair, which has not been out of style since 1935. So much so in fact, that there is a whole market for second hand, with a specialized 2^nd cycle store in Helsinki.

The current master of classic style with a twist is definitely Spanish designer Jaime Hayon.

Taking inspiration from a mixture of Louis, Georges, Charles and Victoria, the man who singlehandedly brought the knickknack back cleverly uses gilding, tufting and hand painting alongside more contemporary finishing techniques to bring to life a quirky collection of furnishings for the modern-day Marie-Antoinette.

 by Claire Toussaint

Season's Greetings

Alternative Upholstery

Beyond fiber and down, here is a series of furniture pieces where designers tried to think differently about upholstery…

Tokujin Yoshioka uses fabric in a completely different way to create a flower-like effect for the ‘Bouquet’ chair. The upholstery of hand sewn fabric ‘petals’ becomes the cushion rather than covering one.

What Hans Bellmer did to his girlfriend Unica Zurn (see below), Meike Harde is doing to foam mats, creating a not only aesthetically interesting but functional pieces with integrated storage.

'Tenir au Frais' by Hans Bellmer

Somewhere between Christo and a spider, the Thread-wrapping-machine designed by Anton Alvarez envelops pieces of furniture in colorful thread, replacing nails and screws to hold it together, with surprising results.

A close cousin of knit-bombing, this crochet method is an interesting way to dress up some of the less padded furniture options. Le Corbusier’s LC4 has never looked so cozy.

Why separate pillows from the sofa when the whole composition could be covered in a single slip-cover?

 

Who says sofas should be filled with either foam or down? Certainly not Ola Giertz, who decided to fill transparent poufs with hair. Modern take on old-timey mattresses? Quite a novel eco-friendly idea, although I’m not sure it passes CA 117.

By Claire Toussaint

The New Cubicle

Let’s face it, cubicles are back.

We’re not talking your garden ‘Dilbert’ variety though; gone are the days of three walls surrounding an individual rectangular desk you wheel your task chair around in.

Cubicles today are about escaping the hustle and bustle of the open-plan office for specific tasks: meeting, emailing, napping, etc. They help office workers join and separate from the rest of the team when needed, and create different environments to provide a change of scenery and seating positions.

Premiered at the Orgatec 2012 Office furniture fair, Workbays by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec are a system of sheltered work spaces which let each individual pick the environment that suits them best for the work they are planning on doing.

Another Bouroullec Bros. design, the Alcove, which started as a sofa in 2006, has now morphed into a workstation.

 After the Alcove Work, which provides a space for an individual to work on a laptop, the new Alcove Meet creates a meeting space wrapped up in a cozy sofa, insulating a group of up to four from the sights and sounds of the rest of the office.

For those less fortunate workers in a spatially challenged office, there is also the option of making a cubicle directly out of the office chair to find a little relief from their open-space neighbors; like in this hooded configuration of Citterio’s ID chair concept.

To escape the office completely, there is always the option of Vitra’s 15 minute Power Nap; or in extreme cases the Ostrich pillow by Kawamura-Ganjavian should do the trick.

Cubicles can also be used to encase other activities which would normally disrupt the work environment. Docklands by Bene and Pentaphone by Robert Stadler are designed to muffle mobile phone conversations for a little privacy.

With offices so well endowed, home offices have developed major cubicle envy. Here are a few of our favorite home versions:

By Claire Toussaint

Camper Culture

30 years after opening their first store in 1981 in Barcelona, Camper now boasts 300 stores and 4,000 points of sale in over 50 countries.

The difference between Camper and other major brands though, is that instead of designing a store identity that made all their shops recognizably the same around the world, they hired different designers to make each shop completely different and unique.

From opulent to minimalistic, stark tiles to flowery upholstered walls, each Camper store becomes its own little jewel of design and experimentation.

The following are a few of our favorites..

 

 

The New York Camper store in Soho designed by Shigeru Ban and Dean Maltz is a diagonal design in a rectangular space, featuring one of the best uses of Artek’s 10-unit system we've seen and a saavy hidden way of showing the shoes.

 

 

A different approach is used in one of the London Camper stores, designed by Tomas Alonso, where the shoes are laid directly into view, and highlighted by the tile trompe-l’oeil in the background.

In addition to the tiles, the use of metal tubing throughout the furniture and fixtures in the store give this design a certain quirkiness, reminiscent of the 2D cube-based video games of our youth.

 

A completely different use of tiles is shown here in Alfredo Haberli’s Barcelona shop, where red mosaic takes over the bottom half of the front of the store (a cross between a metro station and a Gaudi building?), only to lead the weary customer to an elevator-like lounge where one can sit on a ‘Take-a-line-for-a-walk’ armchair designed by the same Haberli for Moroso and try on shoes at their leisure.

 

 

Another Barcelona store, this one designed by Spanish designer Jaime Hayon, takes the same color red in a very different direction, with furniture that looks like it most certainly would have been adopted by a French monarch named Louis, had there been any in the 21^stcentury.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another opulent proposition is Tokujin Yoshioka’s design for a London Camper store, which utilizes the same folded fabric technique on a large wall panel, as in the Bouquet chair he designed for Moroso, also present in the space.

 

 

 

 

In contrast, Nendo’s minimalist design for the Osaka store focuses on nothing but the shoes themselves, by making the completely white background (including wall, ceiling and floor) disappear and giving the shoes the appearance of floating.

 

 

 

 

 

By Claire Toussaint 

The Island of Misfit Furniture

A far cry from Lissoni’s or Citterio’s sleek archetypes of modern design, Rudolf’s got nothing on Moroso’s sculptural seating propositions.

Now celebrating 60 years of prototype making, Moroso looks back with Domus on their creations of plywood and foam, and the craftsmanship that made them great.

 

Be sure to check out Domus' interview of Marino Mansutti.

Anne Fougeron in the NY times

 

After  Lisa Koshkarian and Tom Di Francesco had chidren, they realized their 3,600 sq ft home at the top of  Potrero hill presented a major  acoustic challenge. The location of the living room, sandwiched between the children’s bedrooms, made it impossible to entertain after Rex and Zia went to bed.

Disappointed in what the housing market had to offer, Tom and Lisa turned to modern architectural guru Anne Fougeron to marry their love of sleek minimalist design and family-friendly spaces. Taking issue with what she calls the ‘Dwell Light Disease’ signifying modern houses that all end up looking the same, Fougeron made some bold decisions in the design of the Koshkarian and Di Francesco home.

She started by switching the ‘quiet rooms’ to the street side of the house, and moved the entertaining areas to the back towards the garden.

In order to take full advantage of the gorgeous views of downtown San Francisco, Fougeron created a wall of glass, exposing the back rooms of the house. The ‘dollhouse’ effect of this slightly (but unashamedly) exhibitionist design is alleviated by the faceted shape of the glass wall, which give the back of the house its character, and steers clear of the ‘unintentional uniform’ Fougeron decries.

 

Lisa Koshkarian and her children, Rex and Zia

 

 

by Claire Toussaint