Tuesday 23 April 2019

Stuart Silk Architects Updates a Mid-Century House in Rancho Mirage

Stuart Silk Architects Updates a Mid-Century House in Rancho Mirage

Originally built in the 60s, the Thunderbird Heights Residence was in need of a renovation to update it for modern times. Stuart Silk Architects were challenged by the Rancho Mirage, California, project as they wanted to retain its mid-century charm while creating an open, light-filled home for today’s lifestyle.

The ranch is located on a 1.3 acre lot just above the Coachella Valley with the Santa Rosa Mountains just off in the distance behind the backyard. Situated on the middle of the property, the 6,357-square-foot home remains remarkably mid-century feeling without looking dated.

Large roof overhangs were added to help shade the interior from the hot sun while increasing the outdoor space’s usability.

Floor-to-ceiling windows were added to ensure views of the surrounding landscape and mountains were maximized. They also fill the interior with lots of natural light throughout the day making it feel larger and brighter.

The freshly remodeled interior boasts a new floor plan that opened the spaces up for better functionality.

Polished white terrazzo floors set the tone with wooden ceilings, fun colors, and interesting architectural elements offering visual interest throughout.

The kitchen and living room now open to two terraces, extending the usable square footage.

Additional bedrooms were built to create a total of five, including the master bedroom that has a bathroom with a private outdoor shower attached to the main shower.

Photos: David Papazian



from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/stuart-silk-architects-updates-a-mid-century-house-in-rancho-mirage/

MDW19: These Short-Lived Installations Made a Lasting Impression

MDW19: These Short-Lived Installations Made a Lasting Impression

Milan Design Week concluded on Sunday, April 14th last week. Thereafter, installations were brought down, showrooms shuttered. But if design weeks are about brands and designers putting their most attractive foot forward to lure in clients and the crowd, then these eye-catching installations, short-lived as they are, have succeeded in their mission of creating an awareness of the people and studios behind them.

Tarkett and Magis exhibit at the Circolo Filologico with help from Swedish designers at Note Design Studio. Photo by Keshia Badalge.

Formations, inside the historic Milanese library Circolo Filologico, showcases all the ways that French floor and wall covering company Tarkett’s new iQ Surface material can be molded, bent, shaped, and used to furnish all kinds of spaces. The Stockholm-based Note Design Studio worked with Tarkett to conceive of something certainly noteworthy here: under a glass roof, in a spacious lobby, 24 speckled columns in shades of red, navy, white, and grey are topped with silver spheres, coral cubes, cones, spheres, and other assorted totems.

Table with shapes exhibiting Tarkett’s moldability at the library of Circolo Filologico. Photo by Keshia Badalge.

It’s an exercise in subtle showing off: instead of exhibiting how Tarkett’s new vinyl flooring can be used in various domestic roomscapes, the sculptural installation invites people to touch, play, and even rest. Yes, rest: one of the most important things a design exhibition can do, at Milan Design Week, is to create a space for visitors to slow down, rest, charge their phones, and just take in the sight of something without having to explicitly interact with it.

Aesthetics aside, the iQ surface is actually made from a quarter of recycled materials. At the end of the installation, the surface can be taken back and reused for the future.

In a cozy meeting room setting in the Circolo Filologico, Tarkett’s surfaces meet Magis’ furniture. Photo by Keshia Badalge.

Whether wandering through the Sala Liberty, or into one of the meetings rooms Tarkett designed with iQ Surface flooring and Magis’ furniture, or through the library room where smaller volumes are wrapped in iQ Surface to show—up close—the possibilities that this material can be made into, we never felt like there was something being sold to us. It felt more like a sculpture park or an art gallery, something made for pleasure rather than for purchase, and that pretty terrazzo-like surface has been stuck in our minds since.

In Sala Reale at Milan Central Station, Advantage Austria, created by architects Michael Vasku and Andreas Klug, transformed what was once the waiting room of the Royal House of Savoy into a “design pool.” All day, we saw visitors wade, run, swim, roll, bellyflop, through a sea of foam that was interspersed with designer objects propped on lavender colored pedestals. Groups came in to sleep within the styrofoam puddles and create styrofoam showers for their Instagram photos. One suggestion, though: what gives pleasure might not be the world’s treasure. Foam isn’t the most environmentally sustainable material, and while we’ll remember this approach to presentation, maybe there can be something else to shimmy through next year that won’t sit in the landfill for centuries after.

Nilufar Depot. Photo by Pim Top.

Inside a vessel at Nilufar Depot. Photo by Pim Top.

Nilufar Depot’s exhibition FAR, created by Studio Vedèt with exhibition design by Genoa-based Space Caviar, creates a fluid galaxy with habitable, translucent membranes. Elevated gobbles, injected with furniture, surround an open wide floor that doubles as a gallery space for some quaint, colorful designer objects. Whether you’re a bubble person or someone more down-to-the-floor, this place was made to delight.

Photo by Marc Wilmot

Photo by Marc Wilmot

For heated tobacco/vaping brand IQOS, British sculptor Alex Chinneck employed his signature rip/unzip effect to a building in Milan’s Tortona district. As the building’s 17-meter-wide wall appears to fall off, the interior layer reveals a blue light, similar to a vape pen that illuminates the street at night. The interiors of the building feature the same style replicated on the walls and the floor.

Even though these installations have a life of only a week, they’ve set people talking about the brands who helped to conceive them, and in Milan, it’s not just all the high-end sofas and designer lamps we see that’s important, it’s what’s left on our minds a week after that counts.



from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/mdw19-these-short-lived-installations-made-a-lasting-impression/

ANDlight’s 2019 Additions Are Authentic and Approachable

ANDlight’s 2019 Additions Are Authentic and Approachable

Since its launch in 2013, ANDlight has designed and produced functional lighting that feels authentic and approachable. The Vancouver-based company recently unveiled three new collections at Euroluce, designed by Lukas Peet and Caine Heintzman – the Pebble, Array, and Vale series. The Pivot series, as well as an addition to the Spotlight series, round out ANDlight’s 2019 releases. Each lighting solution has almost endless possibility and versatility, with a variation of form, finish, and material.

The Pebble series is a celebration of stones, translated as translucent sculpture and blown glass. The irregularly paired shapes take on different forms from different perspectives, each with four possibilities for finishes. The Pebble series offers a double glass pendant as well as a single glass sconce version.

“The initial inspiration for the series was the inherent beauty of river rocks—seemingly simple, the complexity of their form and how they interact are the result of thousands of years of sculpting by nature. Glass blowing was an interesting process to utilize for this idea, as the process is enabled for manipulation and malleability of the material. I wanted to allow these primordial shapes to glow—adding to their profoundness and giving them a soul,” said designer Lukas Peet.

The Vale series features a sort of undulating profile thanks to its curvature, creating a gradient of diffused light. The fixture may suspend horizontally or vertically as well as singularly or grouped. The Vale series is available as a single pendant as well as a surface mount.

“Dynamism, created by juxtaposing light with a wave-like contour fueled the initial research. Exploring scale, pitch and frequency, and various materials helped settle for the most effective and interesting radiance. Focused specifically on the lens of the luminaire—the process development determined form and functionality as it needed to be lightweight and translucent, yet able to create volume,” said designer Caine Heintzman.

The Array series diffuses light to create an ambient aura in any space thanks to its circular panels, much like the moon reflects light from the sun. The fixture is available as a single or multiple fixture, as well as in multiple finishes.

Peet shared, “The starting point for the Array collection was a subtle indirect light fixture. The components’ form and finish were elegantly refined to reflect the light source, while remaining functional as well as approachable. The fixture’s methodical form and orderly rhythm is contrasted by the subtly textured and seemingly disorderly natural stone-like finish. The Array family is quite technical, yet pure and minimal in the end.”

The Pivot series is lighthearted and playful in design. The shade balanced upon an opalescent globe, directing light down as well as up and allowing for easy adjustments and dimming with a large spherical knob. Pivot is available in three natural stone-like finishes.

“The idea for the Pivot was to create a friendly and approachable table light that was based on a number of functional elements. The shade ‘pivots’ on the glass light source, allowing for directional downlight and constant uplight. The large spherical dimming knob mirrors the glass globe while also being a point of contact and adjustability. The cord length can be adjusted by simply wrapping or unwrapping it around the base underneath the fixture,” Peet explained.

Meanwhile, ANDlight’s Spotlight series has added a floor lamp to its collection. Inspired by, yes spotlights, the series is based on four shade profiles that can be combined in 16 configurations for various amounts of both down- and uplighting. The Spotlight Volumes Series features a pendant and table light version, alongside the new floor lamp.

See ANDlight’s full line of offerings at andlight.ca.



from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/andlights-2019-additions-are-authentic-and-approachable/

The Dazzling Damaged Photographs of Paul Anthony Smith

The Dazzling Damaged Photographs of Paul Anthony Smith

Paul Anthony Smith pierces and picks the surface of his photographs thousands of times to create a surface that is both scarred and dazzling; that is visually magnetic and yet obscuring. The textured images are on view in a double-venue show titled “Junction” at two Jack Shainman Gallery locations in Chelsea, New York through May 11th, 2019.

Lands Apart (detail)

Paul Anthony Smith uses a technique he calls “picotage”, to cut into and lift the surface of the photograph into geometric patterns over images he personally photographs. When viewing the works in person, the greatest surprise is that the white sections change and introduce NEW patterns when viewed from the right or the left. Visible in the two images below, this strange phenomenon is the result of the angle he gouges the paper. When viewed from an angle, the scars in the paper will either mask their damage or reveal more of the torn white paper. So the thick white bars in “Junction” (below) will split into a dark stripe and a light stripe when viewed from the side, and then reverse when viewed from the opposite side. In the same way, Smith can reveal or hide select portions of the image when viewing from an angle.

Junction, 2018

Junction (detail)

The content of the images explores “the rich and complex histories of the post-colonial Caribbean and its people”. Smith was born in Jamaica and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, so the images are photographed in both places. For the New York images, dancers and crowds are captured at the West Indian Day Parade, an annual celebration of Caribbean islands and culture. The geometric patterns are references to “breeze block fences”, an architectural element in the Caribbean that are designed to partially veil and obscure. Those patterns perform that same sense of voyeurism, mystery, or an uneasy sense of imprisonment or separation from the subjects of the image. A tropical beach when viewed through a chain-link fence, for example, doesn’t feel much like paradise.

And yet, there is joy in every image, as those same scars seem to sparkle like sequins as you walk around the gallery.

Paul Anthony Smith “Junction” at Jack Shainman Gallery, 2019

Paul Anthony Smith “Junction” at Jack Shainman Gallery, 2019

Lost with Time, 2018-2019

Dead No Have No Reason, 2018-2019

Dead No Have No Reason (detail)

Paul Anthony Smith “Junction” at Jack Shainman Gallery, 2019

These works speak to extremely complex and often dark personal histories of displacement, colonization, belonging, and cultural pride. And I’m not an expert on any of that. But that’s exactly why this work is so incredibly successful, and why I’ve visited 3 times now.

The best art in the world doesn’t scream or lecture at a viewer, nor does it gently satisfy with something known. Great art makes you curious about something that has always been there, but wasn’t in your personal field of view. Paul Anthony Smith has beautifully damaged photographs with exceptional precision, and in doing so has locked the viewer (joyfully) in front of his images for several minutes as patterns shift with angled views. And what remains when walking out of the gallery is an insatiable curiosity about these histories and issues. For me personally, I’ve already marked my calendar for the next West Indian Parade.

Adjacent to the Evening Sun, 2018-2019

Paul Anthony Smith “Junction” at Jack Shainman Gallery, 2019

Paul Anthony Smith “Junction” at Jack Shainman Gallery, 2019

What: Paul Anthony Smith “Junction”
Where: Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 W 20th Street and 524 W 24th Street, NYC
When: April 4 – May 11, 2019

All images © Paul Anthony Smith. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.



from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/the-dazzling-damaged-photographs-of-paul-anthony-smith/

ICFF 2019 Is Around the Corner!

ICFF 2019 Is Around the Corner!

In less than a month, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) opens its doors to showcase the latest and greatest in design for its 31st edition of the show. We’re excited because this is also the fifth year that we’re bringing the Milk Stand popup shop back to the show floor! ICFF 2019 takes place this May 19-22, 2019 at the Javits Center. Register to attend here.

Nardi Spa

The show will be the cornerstone event of NYCxDESIGN week and there are lots to put on your radar. With over 900 exhibitors arriving from across the globe, there’s no shortage of amazing designs to check out. Here are some things you shouldn’t miss:

CF+D

ICFF Talks always brings a wealth of information and this year’s speakers include Italian architect Piero Lissoni, interior architect Lauren Rottet, and Chad Oppenheim of Oppenheim Architecture + Design. See the full schedule of talks here.

Barkiture

Ross Gardam

The ICFF Contract pavilion is new this year and will showcase lighting, furniture, flooring, wall coverings, seating, and materials by designers of commercial spaces. Participants will include Arper, Bernhardt Design, Blå Station, Humanscale, Kartell, Loftwall, Materia, Poppin, and Scandinavian Spaces. You can be sure we’ll be posting our favorites over on @designmilkworks.

Poppin

MOJOW

Explore global design without leaving the city. ICFF will have special pavilions dedicated to regional design, including The British European Design Group, Luxe France, Interiors of Spain, The Italian Trade Commission, Brazil, Romania, Austria, Norway, Scandinavia Poland, and a special Ventura New York – The Dutch Edition presentation.

Abbatte

Finally, it’ll take you a while but take a walk through every aisle of the show floor to check out emerging designers + established brands’ latest collections – we do it every year! ;)

Woven Concepts x Jaime Derringer

Register for ICFF here.



from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/icff-2019-is-around-the-corner/

Monday 22 April 2019

A Tiny Flat in Budapest That’s Not Broken Down into Rooms

A Tiny Flat in Budapest That’s Not Broken Down into Rooms

With just 35-square-meters (approx. 377-square-feet) to work with, MÁS maximized every inch of this Budapest flat. Interior walls were removed to open the space up into one room so that it feels larger. Now that it’s not broken up into tiny rooms, The Zero-Room Apartment has a main space that serves as the kitchen, dining room, living room, and bedroom.

In order to reduce clutter, most of the functions are hidden away. The kitchen, closet, and bed reside behind doors that open or slide away when not in use in order to leave the space looking clean.

Most of the surfaces are an aged metal which can easily feel cold. To balance it out, they incorporated books, textiles, and a long, hanging planter above the kitchen table/island.

A Murphy bed folds up between bookshelves leaving the middle of the room empty during the day.

Photos: David Kis Photography



from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/a-tiny-flat-in-budapest-thats-not-broken-down-into-rooms/

Patricia Urquiola Designs a Sofa for Moroso Inspired by Japanese Stones

Patricia Urquiola Designs a Sofa for Moroso Inspired by Japanese Stones

Fresh off its launch at Salone del Mobile, the Gogan sofa takes a fresh approach with seating design. Its curvy, oversized components reference Japanese stones that become smooth over time thanks to the wind and water. Designed by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso, the plush, irregular shape appears solid yet comfortable to lie on, perfectly positioned to hold its form much like a rock sculpture.

The seat slightly inclines towards the back for added comfort allowing the back cushion to remain low.

Abutments join the seat cushions with the back before running underneath the sofa for its structure, giving it the appearance that it’s floating.

The direction-free bouclé fabric is based on a 70’s fabric found in the Moroso textile archive which gives it a river rocklook.

Photos: Alessandro Paderni



from Design MilkDesign Milk https://design-milk.com/patricia-urquiola-designs-a-sofa-for-moroso-inspired-by-japanese-stones/