Design Bureau Issue 3

Vienna’s new design scene

indiana’s hidden design utopia

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 $8 USA/CAN

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Musician Juliette Commagere’s Curatorial Instincts

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Wonderfilled world of design

CAFÉ CULTURE

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MARIAN BANTJES’

design studio 01 project projects

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

Luminaire presents: Double C-Future OLED Light Fixture by Ingo Maurer 2 DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

Luminaire presents: Baghdad Table by Ezri Tarazi

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

CHICAGO SHOWROOM 301 West Superior Street 312.664.9582 800.494.4358 CORAL GABLES SHOWROOM 2331 Ponce de Leon Blvd 305.448.7367 800.645.7250 LUMINAIRE LAB 3901 NE 2nd Avenue 305.576.5788 866.579.1941 KITCHEN & BATH 2600 Ponce de Leon Blvd 305.448.7869 800.645.7250 OUTDOOR THERAPY 161 NE 40TH Street, Suite 100 305.571.5144 866.579.1941 www.luminaire.com info@luminaire.com

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DESIGN BUREAU

DESIGN BUREAU:

The Intelligencer Design Bureau goes beyond print by engaging readers with The Intelligencer, a free bi-weekly e-newsletter sent to readers, delivering a dose of inspiration on everything design.

Publisher & editor-in-chief

Chris Force -----

MANAGING EDITOR

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

copy editor

SALES EXECUTIVE

editoriAL INTERN

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Kristin Lamprecht kristin@alarmpress.com Kyle Gilkeson

Ellie Fehd ellie@alarmpress.com Amy Amato

Kathryn Freeman Rathbone -----

Marketing manager

Elise Schmitt elise@alarmpress.com

DESIGN DIRECTOR

Lindsey Eden Turner lindsey@alarmpress.com art director

MARKETING INTERNs

Jon A. Murray IV James Stearns

Bojan Radojcic

----

design intern

account managers

Cyril Marsollier

Cheyenne Eiswald Megan Hamlin Rick Joyce Tarra Kieckhaefer

----contributors

Chris Allsop, Amy Anderson, Ann Binlot, Murrye Bernard, Ben Colen, Molly Each, Chris Eichenseer, Katie Fanuko, Sarah Ferguson, Alan Foreman, Jane Gaspar, Isaac Gertman, Jamie Hartford, Anne Hartman, Steven Heller, Jesse Hora, Rod Hunting, Noah Kalina, Ellen Knuti, Anastasia Kruglyashova, Brian Libby, Shannon McGrath, Richard Meier, Christopher Moroff, Scott Morrow, Jon A. Murray IV, Ben Nicholson, Jason Payne, Kathryn Freeman Rathbone, Bryan Sheffield, Kaira Townsend

---controller

Andrea DeMarte accounting assistant

Anya Hoestetler

assistant to the publisher

Brittany Miranda -----

Human resources

Greg Waechter greg@alarmpress.com

cover image

Juliette Commagere shot in Los Angeles by Bryan Sheffield

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DESIGN BUREAU // Contents

Contents

INFORMER 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 25 26 28 29 30 32 34 36 39 40 42 46

United Nude: Structural Shoes Patrik Ervell Redesign: Death's Door Spirits Fold Flat Shelter Bike By Me Industrial Facility Warby Parker Bacterioptica Design Icon: The Vienna CafĂŠ Chair Loden Dager Miyake Lamp Cloud Seating AND_i Pamela Love Storefront: Post 27 Hemipode Watch by Ikepod Qclocktwo by Biegert & Funk Sliding Kitchen Redesign: Baxter of California Surface to Air Weathering the Elements The Curtain Rises for Louis Vuitton The Family Five: Hershel Baltrotsky, Girl Skateboard Company Bureau Expert: Aidan O'Connor, Curatorial Assistant, MoMA Expert Essay: Steven Heller Bureau Expert: Noel Stewart, Hat Designer Design Dialogue: Nicola Casciato, WZMH In the Industry: Jose Tavel & Cara Cummins DESIGN THINKING

48 54 58 62 66 70 76 82

Building Transparency: Clive Wilkinson Arts in the Mountains: Stephen Dynia Creativity Within Constraints: Perimteter Redesigning History: Partners by Design Shifting Scale: Global Design Strategies The Mind Behind the Design: Tom Polucci Designing to Build: Peter Gluck and Partners Structure Against Nature: KUBE Architecture FEATURES

86 92 96 102 108 118 126

Rock 'N' Roll Refuge New Harmony: 185 Years of Progressive Design Marian Bantjes' Wonderland Interrogating the Form Breaking Design Protocol Taking it to the Streets: Vienna's New Design Scene MuseumsQuartier: Vienna's Wunderkiend PLUS

08 09 128 129 130

Editor's Letter Contributors Letters ALARM: 7 New Albums Design Bureau Launch Party For Hire: Andrew Lister

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DESIGN BUREAU // Contents

Taking it to the Streets Vienna, Austria's forward-thinking café culture is the centerpiece in the city's efforts to bridge the divide between high design and public spaces. Page 126

Marian Bantjes' Wonderland The graphic artist considers her future design legacy—one in which “pretty” things have no place. Page 96

Top: Das Möbel, photo by Chris Eichenseer.

Bottom: Marian Bantjes, TypeCon 2007: Letter Space poster for the Society of Typographic Afficionados, vector art, 2007.

DESIGN BUREAU // Contents

Designing to Build Whether designing an inner-city school or a luxe pool house, architect Peter Gluck makes sure his firm is responsible for every apsect of a project, from the sketches to the screws. Page 76

Interrogating the Form A conversation with Project Projects' principals reveals the studio's old-school approach to design, based in dialogue and reflection. Page 102

Top: Peter Gluck's Pool Pavilion project. Bottom: Project Projects, photo by Noah Kalina.

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DESIGN BUREAU // Letter Informer & Contributors

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

DESIGN BUREAU CONTRIBUTORS

My friend’s dog is dying.

It’s fine. The dog is old. It had a good run. That’s how Earth works.

I’ve never owned a dog, but my friend told me he planned on getting a new dog soon, so that during his current dog’s remaining years it would train the new dog—that an older dog can naturally train a younger dog, show it the ropes.

This made me think about when I first started going to punkrock concerts in high school—escaping the seemingly meaningless excess and ritual of the suburbs for the alluringly gritty, pragmatic ways of the urban working-class environments that typically hosted these types of events. After my first concert, I was hooked. Everything I did revolved around concerts, bands, zines, and every kind of DIY craft that comes along with it. I became an untalented but enthusiastic band member, concert organizer, show promoter, circle-pit starter, street marketer, gigposter designer, and magazine publisher. Along the way, the older guys subtly showed me the ropes, consistently demonstrating how to maintain a supportive community, who to hug, who to handshake, and who to turn away.

We had our set of odd and rigid rituals, but we did our best to keep our tiny scene together. I witnessed that the most supportive communities always produced the best bands, the best venues, the best record deals, and the best fans. They also had the most fun, took the most risk, and made the most interesting stuff.

Independently thriving scenes make inspired, fearless work.

Bryan Sheffield is a Los Angelean photographer. He enjoys nipples, Xanax™, Ambien™, mountains, film, and tiny animals.

Sheffield’s work can be seen in the pages of Nylon, The Wire, & Neon magazines, as well as on a number of album covers. Besides picture making, Sheffield loves traveling on American Airlines, Red Box, and Oxford commas. www.bryansheffield.com

Jane Gaspar is a Chicago-based editorial and portrait photographer. When not behind the lens, she spends time cycling furiously with her gear strapped to her back, poking around industrial areas for inspiration and being smitten with large-eyed animals. www.janejgaspar.com

Brian Libby is a Portland freelance writer, photographer and filmmaker. He has previously written for The New York Times, Architectural Record, Metropolis, Dwell and Metropolitan home, and adores his cat and the Oregon Ducks.

Kathryn Freeman Rathbone is a graduate student at the UIC School of Architecture in Chicago.

Being born and bred in Cleveland has left her with soft spots for midwestern attitudes, lake effect snow, and industrial wastescapes.

She's happiest when exposing the new twists in entrenched design environments and enjoyed writing about Vienna's rebirth as a contemporary design scene.

As Design Bureau continues to scour the planet for inspirational design, the “hugs and handshakes” model consistently appears, with a recurring reliance on subtle, intuitive collaboration and impossible-to-label job titles and responsibilities. “Design is not a single vision,” notes architect Tom Polucci of HOK Architects (page 70). Though we assume a certain amount of teamwork in any business, creative professionals tend to take encouragement and camaraderie to higher levels.

They’re often fiercely protective of each other’s work to outsiders, while internally pushing each other to near-madness in an effort to find better solutions.

In this issue of Design Bureau, we celebrate community-based retailers, collaborative architects, and multi-talented designers.

Owner Angela Finney-Hoffman of the boutique Post 27 speaks about how “collaborating creates community and new relationships” (page 22). On page 53, we see an unexpected multi-level, 200-person worktable, designed by Clive Wilkinson, to allow for unassigned collaboration. The adventurous architect also designed an unorthodox workspace for a bank, where more than half of the employees naturally work in a new area every day.

How does your team allow you to thrive and make fearless work? Let us know at letters@wearedesignbureau.com.

Chris Force Editor-in-Chief

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

LETTERS TO DESIGN BUREAU Launch Issue

problem solving: Pugh+Scarpa “I just came across Design Bureau this morning and so far, it’s looking like a great and in depth resource for a multitude of design fields. Having a background in architecture, I feel slightly obligated to make a comment on the inaccurate statements in the article about LEED. First, only buildings are LEED certified, not materials.

Although this building is very sustainable, with some quick research, it doesn’t appear to be LEED certified. Second, LEED certified materials do not exist. Certain materials, regional or recycled, may contribute to attaining credits, but no materials should be referred to as LEED certified.

I hope to have helped… looking forward to more design insight from you guys.”

Kenny Isidoro , via the web Editor's Note: Thanks, Kenny, for clarifying what LEED actually means, and for keeping us on the straight and narrow. For a more in-depth explanation on the complex certification process, we turned to Amie Kesler, Managing Editor of Green Building & Design magazine. “Created to promote an all-encompassing guideline for sustainability when applied to the built environment, LEED certification is measured on a 100-point scale—110 points if the optional bonus points are obtained. When applying for LEED certification, points awarded can fall into seven categories (or nine categories, if you are trying to obtain a LEED for Homes certification). One specific category focuses on Materials & Resources, which takes into consideration how the products used in the building process were obtained, manufactured and shipped. While materials themselves cannot be LEED certified, they are very important in reducing a building’s overall impact on the environment.”

The Design of Conversation

Russian skateboard fashion

“Great read! Abbott’s work really has quite a handsome consistency.” Luke Williams, via the web

“Thank you for doing such an insightful feature about Russia's new style icon Gosha “It’s nice to see how an ultimately visual company Rubchinsky and masterfully linking it with the socio-politcal changes having taken begins every project with words.” place in the country over the past 20 years. Written so well, the story is undoubtedly Guess The Lighting, via the web a revelation for many, especially style wise—not much (if anything) has ever been written or publicized in the Western world about the world of fashion in Russia. Rub- “Nice little read from Design Bureau on Abbott Miller chinsky's designs are simple and edgy at the same time—in fact, in their quiet, solid (and a really GQ photo to boot).” simplicity characteristic of the industrial world of ex-USSR mixed with contempo- The blog part of it all , via the web rary urban culture, his clothes speak louder than any high profile couture brand. Rubchinsky is a rebel against convention. He does not tolerate subordination or being like someone else. The new McQueen of Russia has been born.” - Anastasia Kruglyashova Sergey Safonov Editor's Note: Anastasia enjoyed the first issue of Design Bureau so much she became a contributor. Check out her story on KUBE Architecture's modern Forest home on p. 82.

“Very charming character design, nice to read about someone going out there and making something on their own. Good article.” Jon , via the web

Have a question or comment? We want to hear from you. Give us a shout at letters@wearedesignbureau.com.

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

United Nude: Structural shoes Rem D. Koolhaas has manipulated familiar forms into a line of groundbreaking footwear “The smallest architectural scale-level is that of the part of a human body. A shoe is the only architectural object at that level because it houses the foot and structurally carries a human being,” says Koolhaas, nephew of famed starchitect Rem Koolhaas and cofounder of the sharply crafted footwear line.

The Dutch designer's Möbius shoe, the style that established United Nude in 2003, shrinks the architectural Möbius strip found in Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Chair to the scale of the shoe platform. It features either a 2.5” or 3.5” heel height and is available in a wide variety of neon patents and neutral leathers, and also comes in a boot variety for cold winter months.

But it's the Lo Res design Koolhaas favors at the moment. “This answer differs from day to day or hour to hour. Its like asking a parent which of your children is your favorite. Nevertheless, at this specific moment in time, my favorite shoe is the United Nude Lo Res because of the design technique we developed to achieve the shoe.” The Lo Res shoe is part of an automated design revolution: an object is digitally scanned into a 3D computer model and regenerated into various resolutions.

United Nude, Clockwise from top: Eamz Pump, $250; Möbius, $200-250; Lo Res, $260, www.unitednude.com

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

Patrik Ervell Rubber rainwear For menswear designer Patrik Ervell, clothing design is about the zeitgeist, and his 2010 Fall/ Winter collection is a true reflection of the modern man. His expertly-executed ensembles draw inspiration from contemporary military themes and feature cadet jackets and field coats.

However, his rubber and vinyl raincoats are the stars of his collection. “There is a strangeness to these materials that makes them interesting to work with,” the designer says. “The rubber raincoats, for example, can’t be sewn together. The seams have to be bonded together, so, in a way, the coat is one molded piece of rubber.”

Designer Patrik Ervell

Patrik Ervell, Modified Duffel Coat, $720, exclusively at Barney's New York

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

REDEsign: death's door spirits

"We wanted to capture Death's Door as a company reminiscent of old apothecary shops and the pre-prohibition cocktail culture." - kelly kaminsky, principal, grip design

When Death’s Door Spirits needed an identity lift, the Madison, Wisconsin distillery turned to Chicago-based Grip Design. “Death’s Door wanted to develop a series of design that feels like a family,” says Grip principal Kevin McConkey. “So, we wanted to bring in a Paul Newman 2.0 ethos—a strategy that considered all the aspects of the company in order to positively impact its total performance.”

Death’s Door president Brian Ellison initially created the line of spirits as a way to revive the dying farms operations in northern Wisconsin. He vowed to make the highest grossing product possible from their crops—and thus the Death's Door distillery was born.

The Grip team took this story into consideration and actually visited the rural farms as a part of their research. They talked to the company’s key distributors and held intense brainstorming sessions with Ellison to determine the company’s core objectives and values. According to Kelly Kaminsky, another Grip principal, “By the time we began to design, we really had an invested interest in the company.”

Grip redesigned every aspect of Death’s Door packaging, from its shipping boxes to its bottle shapes, giving the distillery’s image an elegant, cohesive style. “We wanted to capture Death’s Door as a company reminiscent of old apothecary shops and the preprohibition cocktail culture,” says Kaminski.

“We developed the typography, color palette, graphic design and product design to embody this spirit.” A map of Death’s Door Passageway, the straight that separates Door County from Washington Island, Wisconsin, now anchors the distillery’s imagery.

The rebranding of the Death’s Door distillery reflects the company’s local roots and downto-earth nature, and Grip's research and deep knowledge of the company adds historical credence to its new public image.

Death’s Door Gin Death’s Door wanted its gin bottle to possess a unique shape—they understood that people like to feel a bottle's heft when they lift it off the shelf. So Kaminski and McConkey went all the way to France in order to find a producer who could manufacture the bottle’s perfect, heavy, trapezoidal form.

Death’s Door Vodka Being able to clearly see the spirits within the bottle was very important Ellison, and Grip responded to this request by using a screen process to transfer the graphic design to the bottles instead of using stickers.

The gold floral graphics and old-fashioned type treatment (reminiscent of an apothecary motif) have been individually silk screened onto each bottle.

Death’s Door White Whisky As prohibition era white whiskey is an extremely rare libation (its specialized aging process gives the spirit its clear color), Grip felt it required an equally unique bottle. To emphasize the whiskey’s one-of-a-kind qualities, the designers pared down the Death's Door look and instead placed a simple black-andwhite graphic sticker low on the bottle’s form and left the back of the bottle blank, contrasting starkly against the gin and vodka bottles.

Client: Death's Door Spirits Firm: Grip Design—Chicago, IL Level of Success: Since the redesign, sales have increased ten times over Death's Door Vodka packaging before the redesign

Death's Door Gin, Vodka and White Whisky, $34.99 - 36.99, www.deathsdoorspirits.com

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

FOLD FLAT SHELTER Adrian Lippmann, founder of German design firm form-al, has taken the standard tent design to the next level with the Fold Flat Shelter. The structure combines the strength and stability of a traditional tent’s triangulation design with DIBOND, a lightweight aluminum and recycled materials composite to create a sturdy, yet compact design with little assembly needed. As the name claims, the shelter folds flat and is easily assembled by two people, creating a convenient and portable refuge against the elements.

BIKE BY ME At Bike By Me, the customer—not the bike manufacturer—is the designer. The Swedish company’s design-it-yourself concept allows for the cyclist to apply his or her own combination of colors to a blank-canvas fixed-gear bicycle. The bike’s simple aesthetic and bare bones design enables riders to create a unique cycle that is truly one-of-a-kind. And Bike By Me’s color customization process extends to every aspect of the bike, from the chain to the handlebars. And for those averse to bright colors, leaving the bicycle's white base untouched is also an option.

Fold Flat Shelter, $1,500 - 2,000, www.form-al.de; Bike By Me custom color bicycles, €499, www.bikebyme.com

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

industrial facility The work of this design think tank explores the intersections of industrial design and everyday life The studio breaks with traditional forms and functions to adapt typical products to a level of high design. “Working with Industrial Facility lends clarity to each project.

Clients from a variety of sectors value the office’s deeper contribution to their design thinking, and often incorporate resultant project directions into their broader future,” say Sam Hecht and Kim Colin, the company’s founders. Featured here are some of their most notable collaborative works with manufacturers from around the world.

Bell Clock by IDEA International Bell Clock promotes the nostalgia of reading an analog timepiece. Its bell forms part of the clock’s body, minimizing the number of components necessary for production. Bell Clock, which is is louder than most digital alarms, is available in Fire bell Red, Bicycle bell Chrome, and Door bell Black.

Bath Radio by Muji Japan Bath Radio maximizes the efficiency of two shower products by combining them: the refillable shampoo bottle and the waterproof radio. Sound quality has been tuned to the scale of the shower, and water resistant seals protect the radio from moisture. The radio also functions as a shampoo dispenser, streamlining two distinct objects into one wacky product that embodies Muji’s imaginative spirit.

Cantilever by Yamaha Cantilever brings the electronic piano into modernity. Electronic components control its two simple volumes, and when pushed back, the top surface reveals the piano’s keys.

Clockwise: Bell Clock, $65, www.idea-in.com/en/, Bath Radio, $37.50, www.muji.com , Cantilever piano, design still in development, www.global.yamaha.com

WARBY PARKER Stylish specs with a philanthropic view Eyewear design house Warby Parker takes its name from two of Jack Kerouac’s literary characters: Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker.

As self-proclaimed “little guys,” Warby Parker aims to create vintage-inspired, boutiquestyle frames at an affordable price point—each frame is just $95, including lenses.

Warby Parker’s smart aesthetic is maintained within every aspect of the spectacles, including its modern take on the monocle. The best example of its smart design style is found in the Roosevelt frame, which combines an oldschool keyhole bridge with modern eyewire to create a look that is classic, cool and undoubtedly confident. The literary references are ubiquitous throughout the line, alluding to such illustrious authors as Ayn Rand and Aldous Huxley. The most stylish part of the young brand? For every pair of glasses sold, Warby Parker donates a pair to someone in need in the US or in the developing world.

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Featuring Mike Patton Konono No. 1 Matmos

From top: Tennessee Whiskey Fillmore; Sandalwood Matte Huxley; Bondi Blue Roosevelt, $95, www.warbyparker.com

J.G. Thirlwell The Locust Liars Trentemøller

Mark Jenkins Super/Prime Phantogram and more

Available in stores nationwide and at www.alarmpress.com

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

BACTERIOPTICA The unorthodox chandelier grows, evolves and adapts using its diners' saliva Bacterioptica’s inception began when Madlab, a multifaceted firm dedicated to environmental sensitivity and intelligent design, received a call from a couple celebrating their 50th anniversary. As a gift to each other, the two wanted to commission a chandelier. “They had just wallpapered their powder room in Tintin cartoons, and I instantly sensed their spirit for adventure,” says co-founder Petia Morozov (the other co-founder is Jose Alcala). “What most impressed me was a long hallway adorned from top to bottom with photographs of every family member, from every generation. The concept of what it means to be an extended family sparked the larger inspiration to test this notion about the inseparability of cultural and natural systems.”

The bacteria-based light is an experiential take on traditional chandeliers. Attached to the fixture are many Petri dishes that house actual DNA swabbed from the homeowners and visitors to create a network of living, breathing bacteria that interacts with the immediate environment. “This is just the type of work we get excited about—the more offbeat and progressive, the better,” says collaborator Justin Grodner of Grodner Metalcraft. He cites the budget and the time frame as the real difficulties—not the gross factor.

Bacterioptica’s fluid design is meant to suggest movement and is achieved by a web of slinky fiber optic strands that hang ominously overhead, illuminated by headlights.

“We loved how sinuous and organic the fiber optics could perform over the lifetime of the chandelier," Morozov says. “We also wanted to use a form of lighting that could be free from the visual noise of heavy wiring cables.” Says Morozov of Madlab’s unique take on a dining room staple: “We find ourselves more inspired by the experimental inquiry that lies outside of design’s traditional boundaries, and have pushed ourselves to ask the right questions before we can ever know the right answers."

“This is just the type of work we get excited about—the more offbeat and progressive, the better.” - Justin Grodner, Grodner Metalcraft

A LIVING, CHANGING HOUSEHOLD ORGANISM

Top of Petri Canister (3 sizes) Petri Dish (3 sizes) Bottom of Petri Canister (3 sizes) Bacterioptica, $16,000, www.madlabllc.com

Rods (3 sizes)

Changes can be made by reconfiguring the lengths of each stem and arm, interchanging the Petri dishes with other sizes, and adjusting the fiber optic feeds into each Petri dish canister.

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

Two rounds, two rods, one curve and a few nuts and bolts are all the pieces needed to make the classic No. 14 Chair.

DESIGN ICON: The Vienna Café Chair More than a century later, Michael Thonet's simple chair design is still a staple of café style and culture The current understanding of the modern café as a creative hot spot was born in the seats of Thonet’s 1859 chair design. The café scene in Vienna was burgeoning during the height of No. 14’s early popularity. Artists, intellectuals and many leading writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were known to often meet, exchange ideas and even write within the confines of Viennese cafés.

Famed architect and designer Le Corbusier has stated, “Never was a better and more elegant design and a more precisely crafted and practical item created.”

Having been dubbed the “chair of chairs,” the No. 14 Thonet chair (also knows as the Vienna

Café chair) is simply constructed using just six pieces of wood, 10 screws, two nuts and a woven cane seat. Thonet created his unique design by becoming the first to master bending wood to create strong, smooth curves. The bentwood back and cane seat are not only attractive, but are also practical; both allow for easy water drainage, making the chair ideal for outdoor café settings.

The No. 14 chair’s wood-bending, smooth appearance and functionality won it the gold medal at the 1867 World Expo in Paris. Today, the chair is the best-selling chair of all time and is still viewed as the quintessential bistro chair, synonymous with casual conversation, creativity and café dining.

“Never was a better and more elegant design and a more precisely crafted and practical item created.”

- Le Corbusier on the Vienna Café chair

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

LODEN DAGER The smart menswear line from former Marc Jacobs designers Paul Marlow and Oliver Helden Loden Dager's Spring/Summer 2011 collection is inspired by the subcultures in America during the late '60s and early '70s, and features silhouettes and styles reminiscent of the concurrent optical art movement.

However, it’s the careful consideration taken with the materials and construction that makes Loden Dager’s pieces really stand out.

“The important part is combining the right material with the right garment,” says Helden. “We’ve produced 100-percent polyester suits and downy soft cashmere sweaters. Both felt like the right pairing for the garment, and both felt like they equally represented the line.”

Construction and materials aside, Loden Dager pieces also feature unique, next-level design details: extra fabric has been built into jean back pockets to ward off wallet wear and tear, and interior support straps were added inside blazers to hold fits in place.

“Something that is equally important is the craftsmanship. If the design is good, and the materials are right, it won’t matter unless it’s made well.”

Loden Dager, $87 - 1,125, www.lodendager.com

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

DESIGN BUREAU MAGAZINE:

Inspiring Dialogue on Design

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

Cloud seating

MIYAKE LAMP

Designer Jason Phillips brings a whole new meaning to being stuck in the clouds with his Clouds lounge seating collection. Inspired by cumulus cloud formations, each piece of the globular seating collection is made from high-quality fiberglass reinforced with a stone-cast inner wall. The pieces are usable for both indoor and outdoor situations, and are available in white, bronze or black.

Designer Arihiro Miyake set out to create a new standard in lighting design, one that required minimal care and had no complicated mechanisms. The result was the Miyake Lamp, a minimalist masterpiece with a simple shaft, topped with a modern LED light source. The base is bound by polygons and straight edges to further accentuate the sleek design aesthetic. “The lamp will be available in a few sizes, so a lot of decorating situations can be considered,” explains Miyake. “I may light the downstairs neighbor’s apartment from the balcony with the biggest version.” The Miyake Lamp is sold exclusively through Moooi retailers.

AND_i According to designer Andreas Eberharter, his collections of architectural face masks, eye patches and jewelry should be considered “wearable sculptures,” or, in some cases, “glamorous armor.” The pieces from his line AND_i are as complex conceptually as they are visually. Pieces from the 2010 couture collection are meant to reflect contradictory sentiments of both submission and dominance, due in part to the designers affinity for leather and aluminum. “The material and its feel are essential to my creative process,” says Eberharter. “The culmination is bold and uncompromising design that is easily recognized—a unique aesthetic that fuses tribal and science fiction effortlessly.”

Miyake Lamp, price upon request, www.moooi.com; Clouds Lounge Chair, $5,000 - 10,000 www.jasonphillipsdesign.com, www.phillipscollection.com; AND_i, Holy Eye Patch, €95, Plain Alligator Buckle Waist Black, €160, shop.and-i.net

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

pamela love The rock 'n' roll jewelry designer finds inspirartion in alchemy and art Designer and Scorpio Rising drummer Pamela Love has created an inventive and gritty line of jewelry that marries art and artifact. Each piece in Love‘s line fuses rare materials with her signature punk sensibility. The Talon Cuff, born of a collaboration between Love and jewelry designer Derek Cruz of Black Sheep & Prodigal Sons, is a multifarious piece made from hammered sterling silver, black diamonds and 30,000-year-old, hand-carved Siberian woolly mammoth tusks. Her edgy Quartz Crystal Python necklace boasts a large quartz stone and a 14K gold slithering serpent wrapped around it.

“I like each piece to feel personal, and to come from some place that’s important to me,” says the designer. “I’m always inspired when traveling—I have been on several road trips this year to the Southwest and New Mexico.

I’m also inspired by the ideas of mysticism, alchemy and astrology.” Love lists famed painter Georgia O‘Keeffe as a muse. “Her sense of shape and sculpture really inspires me,” she says.

"I'm always inspired when traveling... I'm also inspired by the ideas of mysticism, alchemy and astrology."

- pamela love

Above all, Love creates her heirloom-like jewelry with the hopes of instilling confidence in the wearer, and designs each piece to be reflective of their individuality. “I want to empower people—make something they never want to take off.”

Kaira Townsend is an apparel assistant for Anthropologie and freelance writer currently residing in Chicago.

Top to bottom: Quartz Crystal Python & Cobra Necklaces, $250; Talon Cuffs, $1,000-1,250, www.pamelalovenyc.com

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

STOREFRONT: POST 27 Angela Finney-Hoffman curates a collection of rare finds at her Chicago home furnishings shop Text by Molly Each, Photos by Jane Gaspar

Some creative types see design as a solitary adventure. Not Angela Finney-Hoffman. As the brains behind eclectic furniture store Post 27, Finney-Hoffman stresses that owning a shop is as much about collaboration as it is about hawking unique home decor.

“Ninety percent of [what’s inside] my store is made locally, whether it’s old or new,” says Finney-Hoffman. “And everything I source is within 90 miles of the city limits.”

In the spacious flea market-meets-gallery space housed inside a former lampshade factory on the West side of Chicago, FinneyHoffman and her co-owner/husband Barkley curate an array of home finds scoured from local auctions, estate sales and flea markets, often refurbishing the pieces and giving them a modern update.

The life of a thrifter seems a natural fit for Finney-Hoffman who began flea marketing with her mom as a toddler. While in elementary school, Finney-Hoffman says she began saving her allowance to stock up on her market finds. “By the time I went to college, I had my entire apartment furnished,” she says. She went on to hone her abilities as a designer and stylist while working for interior design legend Holly Hunt, as well as through her own personal experimentation with pottery, jewelry, textiles and metals.

Now, Finney-Hoffman’s flea market-finding skills are so finely tuned that her friends joke she can find the one gem in an enormous pile of junk. “It’s not easy, but the hunt is the fun part,” she says.

While Finney-Hoffman’s keen eye is essential to the success of Post 27, she will be the first to admit that, from top to bottom, her store relies heavily on the other creative types in her neighborhood. “My refinisher is down the street. My upholsterer is down the street,” says Finney-Hoffman of her teamwork approach. In addition to locally refurbished antique goods (including a headboard crafted from the old bleachers of Chicago’s

"I love that I know exactly who makes everything, and exactly where everything comes from."

- angela finney-hoffman

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

Top left: Time O Light vintage dark room timer, $48; industrial tray, $90; 1950s mahogany credenza, $625; Bottom: Store view with installation of vintage sign painting stencils by Finney-Hoffman

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

St. Ignatius High School), her vintage-meetsmodern stock includes nesting tables from Metal + Works, ceramics from Up in the Air Somewhere, industrial felt pillows from designer Noel Ashby and visual art from Cody Hudson—all artisans based in and around the Windy City. Even her window displays are a team effort; Finney-Hoffman recently worked with an artist friend to cover an installation of vintage lampshades with layers of live moss. “I love that I know exactly who makes everything, and exactly where everything comes from.”

But Finney-Hoffman is not just a shopkeeper with impeccable taste—she is also a furniture designer. She works closely with custom cabinet experts Shaun Owens-Agase and Tyler Peterson of Stone Blitzer to create Lapel, a line of fine furniture inspired by industrial designer George Nelson’s office series from the 1960s. “We want to do design for things that are needed, and owning a furniture store, I know what people are looking for,” she says. That insider perspective helped the team create its first piece: a walnut credenza with multi-hued doors that functions as a media console. The design is clean, simple and perfect for a variety of homes and styles.

Her collaborative spirit extends beyond Post 27 and Lapel, with her latest efforts focused on bringing good design to the community at large. This year, she’s rallied a group of creative neighbors, friends and vendors for a monthly “Inspiration Hour,” an open exchange of ideas and resources. She also helped start up Art Camp, a four-day cabin gathering at a restored 1940s summer camp on Lake Wandawega in Wisconsin. At Art Camp, more than 30 established designers and artists—including many Post 27 vendors—indulge their inner craft-maker spirit by participating in a slew of art activities involving restoring and reusing old materials. At a past camp, the collaborative crew built a giant treehouse from scraps and reclaimed parts. “We collage, we make birdhouses…it’s a real sense of community,” Finney-Hoffman says. During breaks, the campers swim, sit around the bonfire, cook meals and draw inspiration by viewing slideshows of each other’s work.

“I feel so fortunate to be surrounded with talent,” she says. “Collaborating is a meeting of the minds, and a product is so much richer and well-designed if there are multiple people involved.” She adds, “Collaborating creates community and new relationships, and that’s my favorite aspect of owning the store.”

Molly Each is a freelance writer, storyteller, editor, and teacher living in Chicago. Check out her work at www.mollyeach.com Top: Faceted bud vases by Future Unlimited, hand-cut glass, $30/ea; Middle: Bjørn Wiinblad, $150; Sawyer handmade, food-safe serving tray

by Roscoe Jackson, $150; Bottom right: Knadstrup Denmark dish set, $195; Post 27, Chicago Il, www.post27store.com

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

HEMIPODE watch BY ikepod Whether aesthetically or conceptually, luxury watchmaker Ikepod and designer Marc Newson are revolutionizing time telling. Newson’s previous work runs the gamut from sculptural work to aviation and aerospace design, and his Swiss-crafted Hemipode collection is no exception in creativity.

Newson's curvaceous design expertly pairs a streamlined aquatic look and feel with upscale 18-carat rose gold

and platinum casings. The timepiece forgoes traditional clasps and buckles, and instead opts for a rubber wristband with near-seamless button-to-hole convergence.

In an unexpected twist, the strap of the masculine watch has been infused with a hint of vanilla scent. The iconic hemispheric shape, from which the device garners its name, features both chronograph and alternative timezone capabilities to accommodate the sophisticated lifestyles of the jetsetting elite.

Lindsey Gregory

QCLOCKtwo BY BIEGERt & funk Not digital, nor analog—it's a dynamic clock that changes with the environment and speaks your language.

German communications designers Marco Biegert and Andreas Funk began designing Qlocktwo more than 10 years ago. “As teenagers, we came up with the idea: wouldn’t it be great to have a clock that displays the time like people talk to each other . . . like ‘it is half past nine’ instead of 9:29:58,” says Biegert. Qlocktwo’s LED lights spell out time in words rather than numbers and symbols. Its sleek typography directly references Bauhausian design philosophies, and its contemporary technology allows the clock to keep precise time and respond to dynamic environmental light conditions. “Qclocktwo is beautiful because it is a simple, clean design that changes throughout the day,” says Roland de Fries, Biegert & Funk’s USA representative. The clock comes pre-programmed with 14 language options and includes a changeable clock face, available in five neon colors or stainless steel.

Hemipode watches by Ikepod, €25,000, www.ikepod.com; Qclocktwo, from €885, www.qlocktwo.com

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

SLIDING KITCHEN A modular kitchen design fit for cooking and entertaining alike Sliding Kitchen was the first project for Robert Highsmith and Stefanie Brechbuehler, the pair behind Brooklyn architecture and design firm Workstead. They took on the job for graphic designer, friend and fellow Brooklynite, Melissa Jun. “We were excited to work with another creative mind,” Highsmith says.

“From the outset, it was a true collaboration between the three of us.”

The project’s name comes from the series of sliding cupboard doors, which double as storage or display space. “The design is loosely based on a grid, but you can change the way the composition reads, like text on a page," Highsmith says. "Melissa appreciated the straightforward nature of the construction, and we designed it as a composition that would appeal to her as a designer.”

Because the kitchen is adjacent to the living room, it needed to blend function with form.

The designers created hideaways and special spaces for many of the appliances: the refrigerator is tucked into a cabinet; the freezer is located in a pantry, out of sight; and the television is hidden inside a different cabinet.

Highstead drilled finger-holes into the wood to open and close the cabinet doors, further fostering the minimalist style. “We used a limited vocabulary and very little hardware [in the design].” A series of sliding doors keep half of the contents displayed and half covered, but many different combinations are possible.

“Part of the idea is that if someone uses this kitchen, they could use it all for cooking, or combine it with books and displaying objects,” Robert says. “It has that flexibility to it that’s hard to accomplish while making something aesthetically appealing.”

And if there is one signature to the Sliding Kitchen besides its sliding ability, it is the stunning gray—almost silvery—birch veneer that was used for the cabinet surfaces. “It’s what everyone responds to,” Highsmith says.

“It just seemed perfect: this really fine comParquet flooring was used for most of the bination of something very elegant, but very kitchen in place of the existing tile, but one casual, too. It’s almost like a silk; it really patch in front of the oven (the key workspace has a sheen to it.” The choice was no accifor cooking) was deliberately left as-is. “We dent. Brechbuehler researched the look, feel left it as a rediscovered piece of the floor that and performance of countless different wood outlines the kitchen proper,” Highsmith ex- grains. “I think there’s a lot of poetry in the plains of the once damaged area. “Stefanie subtle nature of materials,” Highsmith adds. and I love things that are old enough have a The result is a highly functional kitchen with story to them." a subtle, stylish finish.

Text by Brian Libby Photos by Robert Highsmith

“I think there's a lot of poetry in the subtle nature of materials.” robert highsmith, workstead

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

About Workstead The creative forces behind the young firm came to design from other creative backgrounds.

Brechbuehler, a Switzerland native, studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before turning to interior design, while Highsmith, who is a classicallytrained violinist, comes from three generations of architects. The two met while studying architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and ventured into a business partnership in 2009. They are now engaged and planning a wedding in the summer.

Below: The plans for Sliding Kitchen reveal an intuitive, grid-like layout, with an emphasis on balance and proportion.

Ample cabinet space provides storage as well as options for gallery-like displays.

A close up view of the sliding track in the kitchen

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

REdesign: BAXTER OF CALIFORNIA Taking a cue from consumers, this skincare line gets a packaging facelift In 1965, Baxter Finley decided that men needed a protector against the hot California sun that wasn’t pink or floral. He took it upon himself to create a men’s moisturizer, and shortly thereafter, Baxter products were covering the faces of nearly every Hollywood hotshot and playboy in the Golden State. Since the line’s heyday in the 1970s, the brand has undergone numerous packaging and design makeovers, including the latest redesign crafted around customer feedback. Baxter of California President Jean-Pierre Mastey discusses the brand’s design evolution.

What design elements inspired the new packaging?

The latest look for the packaging was intended to be an evolution and not a revolution in redesign. In 2005, we launched the “blue bottle,” a unique shade of blue with a soft touch tactile coating on the bottle. The look and feel of the packing was very well-received by consumers, buyers and the media, but after some time on the shelf, we had customers send us recommendations on how the packing could perform even better. Customers asked for larger product titles, pumps on the 10 oz. bottles, and a solution to get every drop of product out of our mini blue bottles.

All of the customers' feedback was addressed in the in newly updated packaging [for 2010].

Keeping the style and design cues from the 2005 re-launch was essential in keeping the branding coherent—typography was obviously key in creating the new product titles, with multiple languages and the brand story carried on the packaging.

How does the new packaging reflect Baxter of California’s overall aesthetic?

The new look is cleaner, more sophisticated and simple. It very closely ties the brand's philosophy of a simple, but focused grooming range that is performance-based.

How has the new rebranding modernized Baxter of California’s 1970s playboy figure?

The brand is known best for its unique heritage dating back to its launch in 1965. The products and packaging have surely modernized the brand, but updated packaging and modern formulations will not take away the special brand legacy that has spanned five decades.

Baxter of California, $8 - 24, www.baxterofcalifornia.com

Updated packaging for 2010 "Blue Bottle" launch, 2005

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

SURFACE TO AIR Distinct fashion, art and film divisions comprise this creative triple-threat Started in 2000 as “a group of people who wanted to do projects that they loved and believed in,” Surface to Air is a multidisciplinary company specializing in fashion and film creative direction and consultation.

The group has a diverse portfolio of clients, ranging from up-and-coming brands like Band of Outsiders and Delfina Delettrez to the pinnacle of fashion luxury, Louis Vuitton.

The company is aiming to set a new precedent by encouraging multifaceted design that relies on versatility to foster novel work. S2A (the shortened moniker) features three distinct arms—fashion, art direction and film division. Various projects include events, music videos, photo shoots and corporate identities work for the brands under their umbrella. “I can’t say that we have a specific design aesthetic or only do things a certain way,” says Chloe Wilk, founding member of S2A. “The sole cohesive aesthetic between all three branches is passion and believing in the project that we are working on at that particular moment.”

But even with S2A's wide range of capabilities, Wilk readily admits that working on film and music videos is the most exciting aspect of their enterprise. “Through film you can really see the heart of Surface to Air, whether it be the styling, the art direction or the artist.” Past forays into film include music videos for Chromeo and The Streets, as well as Louis Vuitton commercials featuring hip-hop mogul Pharrell Williams. But this preference for film work is not meant as a slight to its popular clothing brand of the same name. “Our clothing line is the force today behind the brand, but without all three departments working simultaneously, the clothes would have no soul and nobody would be challenged.”

Clockwise from top: Tyrol Cape V1, €400; Boots, €220; Packer Wedge, €325, www.surfacetoair.com

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

Weathering THe Elements An experiment with the effects of nature on a shingled schoolhouse Text by Jason Payne, principal of Hirsuta and assistant professor of architecture at the University of California

This project is a full renovation and restoration of an existing, one-room schoolhouse built in northern Utah in the early 1900s.

The effects of weathering (or lack thereof) are captured in the shape, texture and color of the original wood cladding and shingles.

While the structure’s southwest façade faces directly into prevailing winter storms and southerly solar exposure, the northeast side has remained nearly perfectly preserved.

In contrast to the formal-geometrical project of the interior, the design of the exterior addresses the affective material qualities of wood subjected to various degrees of weathering. Appearing relatively flat and monolithic upon completion, over time, this expression of natural weathering—coupled with an accelerated process brought about

by intentionally improperly attached shingles—will encourage premature curling.

The undersides of the shingles on this side are stained much more brightly than the dark topsides, ranging in color from orange to purple to match the four colors of raspberry species indigenous to the site. Thus, when the shingles begin to curl, their undersides reveal a flamboyance that is in marked contrast to the darkened reserve of the initial skin.

Over many years, it is hoped that the shingles on the exposed side take on the character of fur, growing slightly fuller with each season.

Meanwhile, the northeast side—the only façade subjected to local scrutiny due to the orientation of the building on the site—will remain reasonably straight and composed.

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

Left: Southwest building façade showing wood shingle cladding after many years of weathering. Various degrees of deformation occur due to overall massing (more in the tight neck, less on flat planes.)

Above: Building plan showing interior, exterior deck, and raspberry planting.

Right: Building section showing eventual difference in shingle curl on each side.

Above: The wood shingles are intentionally installed “improperly” to amplify and accelerate the expression of natural weathering forces. The shingle-curl accelerates exponentially over time on a flat elevation.

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

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THE CURTAIN RISES FOR LOUIS VUITTON Designing a curvilinear glass façade for the luxury retail giant proved to be just as detail-laden as its signature monogram pattern Text by Brian Libby

1. A look at the curtain-like glass façade at the

Louis Vuitton flagship store in Singapore

2. The façade achieves a delicate balance of a

sense of transparency while still maintaining a more private, intimate client experience.

Good design often means making the very “Light hitting the building doesn’t have a single complex seem clear, but sometimes design- point of reflection anymore, but [refracts] over ing with the opposite in mind can be equally thousands of surfaces. Even in the day, it difas transformative. This idea was brought to fuses the light in a pattern. It looks like linen life while designing a curtain wall for Louis in the day, and in the night, like a waterfall Vuitton’s 9,000-square-foot flagship bou- of glass.” tique in Singapore—the largest LV store in Southeast Asia.

Resembling thin drapes of fabric, the doublestory glass façade lets in a bounty of natural Designers from New York architecture firm light while partially obscuring what’s hapFront Inc., in partnership with LV’s in-house pening inside. “One of the challenges was to design team, created a dramatic textured and do something that was very curved and excurved glass façade for the luxurious two-level pressive while retaining a sense of elegance store. The curtain-like façade was created and restraint,” explains Simmons. “It had to using an innovative multi-stage, kiln-based have that sensuality to it, and be an authentic forming process. First, its molten surface interpretation of their brand. In retail, brand was dipped in sand to provide a rougher is everything, and how you interpret it is very, organic texture, leaving its imprint after the very delicate.” The façade achieves a delicate glass cooled and the sand was washed away. balance of giving the sense of transparency Then the pieces were heated again in order desired by the landlord while still maintainto be gently curved. ing a more private, intimate client experience sought by Vuitton.

“We were looking for a luminescent façade that was diaphanous and changeable from day to The almost transparent quality of the glass night,” says Marc Simmons, one of Front’s wall is also, the designers hope, a reinterpretathree principals (along with Bruce Nichol tion of the genius pattern-making and materiand Michael Ra). Simmons lived for several als that initially made Vuitton famous. “The years in Hong Kong and Kyoto, and also helped brand is synonymous with the quality of its design the gossamer glass façade for Rem leather goods,” Simmons says. “It has a legacy Koolhaas’s landmark Seattle Central Library. going back to the 1860s. The patterns used on

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Zaha Hadid’s Broad Museum in East Lansing, Michigan.

the goods have endured.” With the glass, the material has changed, but the approach was born from Vuitton.

This was the first curvilinear Louis Vuitton store—a brand built on rectangular leather suitcases. As a result, the company’s designers re-imagined new custom displays and configurations. Structurally, the glass façade also had to be completely suspended from the top of the building by builder Gartner because there was a subway pass underneath that couldn’t handle the weight.

Vuitton was so pleased with the Front's design that it hired the company to design three more flagship stores in Asia for its subsidiary brand, DFS Galleria. Although less prestigious than LV, the stores come with footprints more than five times the size of its first project, giving Front the chance to work on a grander scale.

At the same time, Simmons says, the nature of the firm adapts to each situation. “We creatively inhabit the space and try to act in a way that fulfils the needs of the project. Sometimes we’re filling holes that are needed, and other times we’re taking a subordinate role. We’re not traditional in that we don’t look at things agnostically regardless of the project. We want to have an emotional stake.”

Raising Respect Worldwide for Architectural and Engineering professionals.

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

THE FAMILY FIVE: Hershel Baltrotsky, Girl Skateboard Company In Los Angeles, a city known for its flashy Hollywood lifestyle, graphic designer Hershel Baltrotsky has managed to stay grounded and sincere. “I create graphics and general awesomeness for the Girl Skateboard Company,” he says. Fair enough.

The Post Family speaks with the designer and skateboard enthusiast.

Cornell, Woody Allen, Ray Johnson, Henry Darger, Matt Furie, Garry Winogrand, Steve Martin, Ian McKay, John Flansburgh and John Linnell, Annie Leibovitz, Alfred E. Newman, Marc McKee, and on and on and on...

You were just in a show recently with the other guys from the Art Dump. Can you tell me a little bit about it?

Girl Skateboards partnered with Project Red to create co-branded products to help raise money for Red’s Global Fund. The art show was another outlet for us to create original artwork that could help with fundraising. We displayed a print by each artist, wooden OGs (Girl dolls), and all the original artwork created to make the co-branded products. Everyone in the Art Dump is awesome (and I’m not just saying that either), so any time we do a show it’s always a blast!

Hershel Baltrotsky portrait by Ben Colen

Q+A by Rod Hunting Each month, The Post Family interviews a new designer/studio with the goal that they reveal all of their most secret wisdom so that we may learn to be as radical as them. www.thepostfamily.com

I know when I was a kid, I used to get my mom to take me to the skate shop just to look at the different deck graphics. I was super into the old Powell graphics by VCJ. Were there any companies or artists that you were into growing up skating?

My first memories of board graphics were from hand-me-downs around the neighborhood. Sims, H-Street, Vision...stuff like that.

My brother and I actually got into a fight the first time we went to get our first real deck. We both wanted the same Matt Hensley H-Street board, where he’s swinging around the street sign. We both ended up getting it, mine with natural veneer and his with red. When I was a little older, I was really into Ed Templeton Toy Machine graphics and more local East coastish stuff like Capital, Zoo York, and Alien Workshop.

Outside of skateboarding, is there anyone out there that you get really inspired by?

I could list a lot of people, and truthfully it’s always changing...but here’s the short list of current and all-time inspirations: Dad, Joseph

You’ve got some really nice photos on your blog, ArtRaffle.com. How long have you been shooting? What’s your preferred medium? Is it all digital?

I’ve been taking photos my whole life. I grew up in a photographic family—my father is a photographer and had me working in the darkroom from an early age. My preferred medium would have to be black and white 6x6 or 35mm. As of late, most of what I shoot is either digital or 35mm film, I’d say it’s a 50/50 split.

What’s your favorite place to go if you want to get out of LA for a little while?

How 'bout my top three, in no particular order (I have a hard time answering anything with one answer): Fernwood in Big Sur, Amtrak Surfliner South to San Diego, and a NYC weekend!

1. On Tap Series 2. Frieswitdat? - Mike Carroll's signature deck 3. Clip In - Guy Mariano's signature deck

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

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BUREAU EXPERT: Aidan O'Connor, Curatorial Assistant, MoMA London has exhibited some of its most spectacular graphic design in a very unusual location: the Underground. Design Bureau talks to Aidan O’Connor about the posters that document the city's radical shifts in art, cultural life and political spirit.

Why did London need this poster campaign and what did it communicate to the city’s citizens?

Aidan O'Connor

It was a push on many fronts to have a modern identity for a very modern system. The London Underground was the first subterranean rail system in the whole world. When the London Passenger Transport Board evolved in 1933, it needed a cohesive and apparently modern identity, which extended to the interiors of the train, the bus stops, and even the trash bins inside of the stations. It’s really about expressing and celebrating modernity: the speed of the train, the fact that you can get around the whole city and out into the country. The posters were a promotion for the city itself and the system—especially the roundel, which was the logo. These became icons not only of the system, but also of the city itself. Both the posters and the roundel are icons that have lasted through today.

How did these posters function within London’s larger system of cohesive design?

There was a larger system surrounding these transport posters. It involved typography, and extended to the architecture of the stations, the trains and the upholstery of the trains. We can’t extend that through just a small graphics corner, but we want to put into context that these posters were part of a larger whole—a corporate identity. Beginning when the London Passenger Transport Board was formed in 1933, with Frank Pick in the lead, it had many different elements pulling together to create a full identity. The posters were the strongest visual representation of that.

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E. McKnight Kauffer, 1930 Hans Schleger (Zero), 1943 E. McKnight Kauffer, 1926 Abram Games, 1949 László Moholy-Nagy, 1936

Once the campaign was launched and the posters introduced, were they the sole graphic presence in the Tube? Or were there other advertisements and visual identities distracting from their strong graphic identity?

I think it was more tightly controlled than contemporary subways, in which you have tons and tons of posters. These would have been the primary graphics in stations. Not all of them were about the system, they were also advertising different events as a way

of encouraging people to use the transport system to get around the city. Some of them are very direct.

The first poster in our exhibition, called “Publicity Pays,” is designed by Edward Kauffer, one of the biggest names in this installation.

This is an entire poster about how it benefits you to advertise in the London transport.

Another is called “Power: The Nerve Center of London’s Underground” and shows a factory, a very muscular arm and lightning bolts coming out of the fist. So that’s really about the system itself, and celebrating the power and speed of the trains themselves. Some of them are quite pastoral and encourage the riders to get out of the city. One of my favorites is by Graham Sutherland, and it’s called “Go Out Into the Country.” In it you have the juxtaposition of a dark, small flat in London and the dream of getting out into the country.

The other group we have is from WWII. These are posters that familiarize people with new protocols and instructions during the war. For example, one warns against using a flashlight when waving down the bus; instead, it says to wave something white, like a handkerchief. Some are quite interesting, like one by Nicolas Bentley called “Let Your Eyes Grow Used to the Gloom.” It sounds ominous, but it’s actually very practical and stresses the need to conserve power. At night, the stations would be very bright, so this poster shows a man on an escalator, and explains that you have to let your eyes adjust to the dark as you’re exiting the stations and going out into the dark street.

Would you consider the posters propaganda?

Have they been analyzed from that perspective?

It was always very clear that these were part of a corporate identity, so I think that was always very transparent. The “Thanks to the Underground” poster is another one that celebrates the efficiency of the system. In it, you’re arriving on time, and they’re using the Roundel to visually reinforce the system. It’s just like any corporate identity, but this one just happens to be about transportation.

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How is the show being curated?

It’s a very dense installation— we have 24 posters in a fairly small space. We’re very keen to show posters in a different way from how you see other twodimensional works in the rest of the museum. Instead of having frames, we’ve been working with our frame shop to develop a method to sandwich our posters between acrylic. So there’s really no frame around the edges. It’s just the posters speaking for themselves and having a nice presence on the wall.

We’ve also decided to remove wall labels from the equation. Instead of having labels dotting the walls and distracting from the posters, we’ve moved the labels to booklets that are laminated and available in boxes along the wall. Then, if you want to know the designer, the date, the title, the name of the printer and the credit line for each poster, you can pick up these little booklets and flip through them.

Graphics have their own way of speaking and engaging the general public. That’s the point: design is something you can relate to as part of your everyday environment. If not in your home, in an urban context or workplace.

Graphics do draw people in visually and they are accessible works.

How do you think the show is resonating with contemporary audiences?

I think it must be interesting for people who visit the MoMA using public transportation. I’m sure most of our visitors stepped out of the NYC subway moments earlier and ended up in this installation. I think it does resonate with anybody who has experience in the city, and it doesn’t just have to be London. It gets you to think about transportation within a larger design system of architecture, graphic design and train interiors.

“Graphics have their own way of speaking and engaging the general public. That’s the point: design is something you can relate to as part of your everyday environment.” - Aidan O'Connor, MoMA Curatorial Assistant The [Underground] map, which Harry Beck designed and released in 1933, represents another promotion for the city. Beck based the map on the arrangement of electrical circuits; that’s why there are very clear right angles, 45 degree angles and the iconic map. It’s been tweaked, but lasts through

today. It has influenced other major transport systems, including New York, Sydney and Stockholm. This is such a major project and still celebrated today as a progressive beacon for identity design.

Above: E. McKnight Kauffer, 1924.

Underground Gallery: London Transit Posters 1920s-1940s is on view at the MoMA through January 11. For more information, please visit www.moma.org.

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

Expert Essay: Wisdom is a Pie in the Sky by Steven Heller A young pilgrim learns that if he wants true enlightenment, he must taste a piece of the rare delicacy known as Maple Furber Pie, baked only once a century by a venerable monk who is acknowledged as the wisest man on earth—a descendant of the Greek goddess Sophia. To reach the monk’s distant sanctuary, our pilgrim must trek across deserts and through jungles, across the seas and oceans, climb the highest mountains and peaks, enduring snow, rain, sleet and dust, as well as severe hot and cold temperatures. Only after arriving at the Shangri-la where the wise man ascetically resides, will our pilgrim show he is worthy to receive his wedge of wisdom.

Undaunted and unfettered by worldly possessions, our fearless pilgrim makes this intolerable, exhausting venture, which takes him the better part of his life to complete. Along the way he witnesses all the beauty and ugliness the earth has to offer. His exhausted body suffers every hardship that man and nature can render. When finally our pilgrim reaches the highest plateau on which the wisest man ponders earthly and heavenly existence and safeguards the invaluable pie, he barely has enough breath with which to utter these words: “Oh please great wise one, may I taste but a crumb of your fabled Maple Furber Pie?” Steven Heller is co-chair of the MFA Designer as Author Department at the School of Visual Arts, the Special Consultant to the President of SVA for New Programs, and writes the Visuals column for the New York Times Book Review.

The bearded wise man intensely, yet compassionately, stares at the pilgrim. He knows full well that his journey was more difficult than life itself, and acknowledges that his visitor is the only person in the past 100 years to actually reach these treacherous heights. Then the wise man slowly takes a breath and tenderly utters: “I’m sorry, we are all out of Maple Furber Pie.” Crestfallen, our anguished pilgrim returns the gaze—the tears in his eyes betray his disappointment. And then, barely able to get the words from his heart to his lips, he responds thusly: “Okay, I will take apple instead.”

In those few words, he embraces wisdom.

Accepting that which he invested so much to achieve was merely an illusion, our pilgrim willingly—indeed happily—adjusts his sights. With the wisdom of the ages, he accepts the next best thing.

So, what do we learn from this? What wisdom can be gleaned? Perhaps it is, “You can’t overcook a good pie.” Or, in layman’s terms, “Pie is always cooked best when cooked most.”

Or, to make it perfectly clear, “It's not the pie, it’s the filling” that fills the mind and body and soul. In other words, wisdom is calculating and then understanding the limitations of the temporal world and reconfiguring the expectations to underscore the realities. Pie has little to do with anything, but the wisdom that fills the pie is the real fruit or cream or meat in the collective lives of man (and woman).

Illustration by Jesse Hora www.jessehora.com

Wisdom comes in many packages. The pie is one. Design is another. Yet, only the truly wise designer will know how to make wise design. Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” Wisdom is about watching, learning, using and accepting the pie that’s baked, not the one still in the oven.

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BUREAU EXPERT: Noel Stewart, Hat Designer The master of millinery explains what goes into making a quality headpiece. feel good about themselves. The hat should be fresh; it should be something that you just want—it’s incredibly desirable.

What about a poorly designed one?

I think the bad hats don’t do anything for you.

They’re not flattering, they’re made poorly, and they make you look crappy, the same way that a bad skirt or badly fitting jumper does when it doesn’t work for your outfit.

Does stitching, material and shape matter?

Oh, it’s critical. It’s got to be made on every level, from the blocking to stitching to the trimming, to the way the label is sewn in, to the way it’s packed, to the way the swing tags fit in—everything.

Above: Gazar, mussel and dome vignette

As a child, Noel Stewart was always constructing things. Growing up, he split his time between London and Wilter, England, and later took his passion for creation to the Royal College of Art, where he pursued a degree in decorative arts. Stewart landed many fashion-industry internships and a high-profile stint as assistant for famed milliner Stephen Jones at Christian Dior Couture. Eventually, Stewart’s own sculptural headpieces caught the eye of fashion greats like Roland Mouret and Oscar de la Renta, and now, his hats have been spotted atop the heads of celebrities like Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and Keira Knightley.

Describe the woman (or man) who wears your hats.

It tends to be someone who wants a very good hat. Not something overtly flashy, but something that’s going to give them that extra edge without being too aggressive.

Subtly sophisticated.

Q+A by Ann Binlot, a New York-based journalist who has written for Swindle, Time.com and Elle.com.

What elements go into a well-designed hat?

Good hat design should complement a woman’s outfit or personality, or make them

Does a hat need to be expensive to be considered well made?

No, hats can be well made and be cheap. It’s not necessarily the price point, but more about the quality. I’ve walked into charity shops and I’ve seen a hat that was a fiver and I just had to have it; it was the most beautiful hat to me at that moment.

What are good hats to wear in the winter?

Something warm and something that’s flattering. I made this really cute hat that’s sold at Barney’s this season, and it’s actually the same style I did for Marc Jacobs. We used this Melton felted wool and put a grosgrain piped edge and these little ear flaps and moleskin lining around the ear flaps. It’s nice and cozy and warm, and at the same time it’s got a beak, so it’s going to protect you from the rain and keep you warm, but also be very chic. And it’s sculptural, so it’s quite modern, but at the same time not fussy.

What advice would you give to somebody in search of the perfect hat?

Try on lots and lots of hats and make it a playful, fun thing. Try wearing them in different ways, as well, until it suits you.

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Design Bureau gets to know the man behind the hats When did you realize that you’d made it?

There have been a few moments when I think, ‘I’m doing okay, and it’s not going to be a disaster after all, and maybe I should carry on.’ But still, every season, I question it. I think if I thought I’ve “made it,” I’d be retiring.

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Who is your favorite milliner?

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Ooh, that’s a tough question.

I think everybody has their own perspective, and I respect their perspective and approach to the discipline.

I think Stephen Jones is so adaptable and is producing things I’ve never seen before— stunning. But I don’t think there’s anyone who actually does a bad job, which is quite miraculous. I think partly because there’s so few of us.

You don’t survive if you do a bad job in this industry.

What has been your most memorable collaboration so far?

1. Laquered mussel wig headpiece 2. Marbled acrylic with VHS pompom headband 3. Gazar sun hat with stained wire rouche 4. Ribboned Cityscape

Last season, I worked with Marc by Marc Jacobs and their team, which was most memorable for me. I only ended up spending seven hours in New York and it was completely crazy. It was such an opportunity, and also kind of a dream, because working at that level, it’s so professional.

It was a huge boost to my confidence, apart from anything else, and it worked really well and it looked fantastic, and everybody was really happy.

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

DESIGN DIALOGUE: with Nicola Casciato of WZMH Architects Nicola Casciato has been busy shaping the Toronto skyline for more than 15 years. But what really goes on in the mind of this visionary architect? Design Bureau finds out.

If you weren’t an architect, what would you do for a living? And what would be your favorite thing about that job?

Jazz drummer. Constant improvisation.

Bach's Double Violin Concerto—I love the relationship between the two violins.

What’s your favorite type of pizza?

Do you have a green thumb?

Capricciosa.

The green thumb started in my mother’s backyard garden and now I have several indoor plants.

If you had a snow day to do whatever you wanted, what would you do? And who would you take with you?

I would want to go tubing with my wife, Nathalie, my son, Alessio, and my daughter, Bianca.

Would you call yourself more of a car guy or a watch guy?

Q+A by Amy Anderson, a writer, editor and lover of beauty. www.amyandersonwrites.com.

Do you use an alarm or music to wake up in the mornings?

I use three things: an alarm, music and my Blackberry alarm, with a Formula One ringtone. I set them each seven minutes apart. I don’t like to be late!

Do you have a favorite piece of music?

Nicola Casciato

like the classics. Throw in a fine Cuban cigar, and I’m in heaven.

Both. I love the 1968 Dino Ferrari 206 GT designed by Pininfarina and the 1938 Panerai Radiomir. I guess I just

The Durham Consolidated Courthouse (left) Clad in spandrel and clear glass, the Durham Courthouse in Ontario, Canada, has changed the framework of downtown Oshawa and challenged the traditional notion of civic buildings.

Designed by Casciato's firm WZMH, the $150-million, six-story building houses courtrooms and prisoner-holding facilities, along with a large, outdoor public space. But the main goal for Casciato’s project was to create a courthouse that departed from the style of closed-off, inaccessible city government structures.

“There’s a lot of anxiety going into courtrooms, so we flooded all of the corridors and waiting areas with natural daylight,” says Casciato. “Not only does [adding light] ease the tensions of the people in the building, because they have these spectacular

Besides classical, what types of music do you like?

I listen to salsa on Saturdays (it drives my kids nuts) and baroque on Sunday mornings. But my pump-up song is "Don’t Stop Believin’" by Journey. The kids love that one, but who doesn’t?

Favorite sports team?

Team Canada. Gold in 2014!

views of the outside, but it also means that on a practical level you don’t actually need lights on in that area during the day because the natural daylight floods the building.”

Casciato enlisted Charles Turpin of Verval Ltd., who specializes in designing and creating curtain-wall glass. He was eager to get involved with the civic structure. “We worked well with the architects to change the conventional stick curtain-wall to a unitized curtain-wall (meaning the glass and aluminum were pre-assembled in a shop and then erected on site.) And the architects worked hand-in-hand with us to adjust levels so we could do most of it in unitized way,” says Turpin. The result was a light-filled courthouse that has restructured the way civic buildings are perceived.

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“There's a lot of anxiety going into courtrooms, so we flooded all of the corridors and waiting areas with natural daylight.”

- Nicola Casciato

Above: The glass façade of the Durham Consolidated Courthouse creates an inviting, light-filled interior, atypical of traditional civic architecture.

Below: The interior of the Durham Consolidated Courthouse.

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

The Bay Adelaide Center This project held particular significance for Casciato because it was the first tall building completed in the heart of downtown within the past 15 years. According to the architect, the concept behind the building was to create a simple, prismatic structure with clean lines and curtain wall detailing. Casciato created a transparent lobby within the space so passersby can actually see through the elevator course to the plaza on the other side.

He took his inspiration for the building from legendary architect Mies van der Rohe. “He did [transparent buildings] quite a bit and very successfully. And I think we managed to achieve that on this project, as well. It’s one of the only truly transparent buildings in downtown Toronto.”

The influence of Mies van der Rohe is apparent in The Bay Adelaide Center's simple, prismatic lines and focus on transparency.

Aside from the uniqueness of the physical structure, the project also features a vast public art installation by James Turrell. A well-known American artist, Turrell designed a light installation along one of the street façades for The Bay Adelaide Center, animating the street with panels that change color gradually over time. “If you’re standing there talking to somebody and you look up, it’s changed color and you hadn’t even noticed it,” says Casciato.

Beyond your expectations Verval Ltée 915 boul. St-Joseph Gatineau, Québec, Canada J8Z 1S8 Tel: (819) 770-0161 Fax:(819) 770-0166 www.verval.com

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DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

in the industry: Architects Jose Tavel and Cara Cummins The husband-and-wife design team creates restaurant spaces that stand out.

Blending aspects of functional modernism and minimalist architecture, Jose Tavel and Cara Cummins of TaC Studios combine multiple disciplines to present a unified theory of design that transcends the ordinary.

“I think it is irresponsible not to address interior design and furniture design within the architecture," says Cummins. “How can you design a room without knowing what you would sit on, or how fabric would shade a window? We don’t leave a room naked and alone.” The duo, which has designed some of the most notable restaurants in Atlanta, discusses the challenges involved in creating an inviting dining ambience, and what type of restaurant they would want to open someday.

You’ve been married almost as long as you’ve been business partners. Describe the dynamic between you; what makes it work?

Q+A by Christopher Moroff, an independent journalist, writer and photographer whose work has appeared in a number of national and international publications.

He lives in Philadelphia and his work can be found online at www.christophermoraff.com.

Cummins: Jose and I have different backgrounds and we may have a different way of seeing a project, but our approach is very similar. We like to meet with the client together because there are so many different ways of hearing what people have to say. Jose may hear one thing and I may see another thing, with regards to body language or the gestures that a client makes. We really want

our work to be a conversation; we don’t want it to be a monologue.

In Atlanta, you’ve made quite the name for yourselves by designing restaurants. How would you describe your process?

Tavel: We start all of our design work from the back door to the front. Restaurants have to work. They must be functional. A beautiful restaurant will not succeed if the engine— the kitchen—does not work. Once the flow and function is determined, we begin to focus on the aesthetics. The aesthetics have always been in the back of our minds, but we suppress it until it works. Once we start working on refining the aesthetics we constantly ask ourselves “Is that really needed? Is the design stronger without it?” The easy part of design is adding too much and making it too expensive.

As artists, what do you hope to contribute to the dining experience?

Tavel: To us, a restaurant is the perfect, affordable, mental mini-getaway. We like to engage the customer from the moment they leave their car and put their hand on the door handle. Ideally, once they step inside, the

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

combination of visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile combine to create an experience that is very different from what you had just left.

Cummins: Our job is to create a ‘place,’ and that encompasses engaging the senses, not just placing objects within a space.

What do you find to be most challenging about working on restaurants? Most rewarding?

Tavel: Restaurants are very technically challenging; they are very tough in that they operate long hours, the climate control is difficult because of the density of the people, the heat load due to lighting and because of the humidity created by cooking. And cooking and prepping is dirty business; there is a lot of cleaning required, which can mean harsh detergents. The rewarding part is that it is a place that many people will visit and usually associate with a positive experience.

How you use the three disciplines of architecture, interior design and furniture design to create a specific ambience for each different space?

Tavel: We want to use everything within our realm of design to deliver a cohesive product and experience. Too often the architects are relegated to designing the exterior wall of the building and a different company is called in to take over the interior. We prefer projects that provide us with the opportunity to not only create the building, but also continue the same thought process to the interior.

You’ve said that light is one of your favorite materials to work with.

Tavel: Light is a very, very strong element; it’s something that keeps [a space] very dynamic.

It creates textures without there being textures.

What do you hope people take away from your work?

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Tavel and CUmmins share a list of their favorite things: Building: Tavel: The Bayon Temple, Angkor Thom, Cambodia.

Cummins: Museo di Castelvecchio [Verona, Italy], by Carlo Scarpa. Another more recent one is the Delano Hotel in South Beach, by Philippe Starck, which is very romantic.

Food: Tavel: My mom’s black beans and rice, and all of Cara’s cooking— she is quite a chef.

Cummins: Ceviche and Mexican food from the Yucatán.

Historical figure: Tavel: Leonardo da Vinci, with his all-encompassing interest.

Cummins: Cole Porter, he seemed to have a great time and made music.

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Possession: Tavel: Art by Rev. Howard Finster and Charles Counts.

Cummins: My sketchbooks.

Pastime: Tavel: My koi pond.

Cummins: Gardening.

Tavel: We always try to provide for the client’s needs, within their budget with an overlay of aesthetics. We do not have a magic wand to deliver all of the client’s desires within a fixed budget—but we try.

If you were to build and run your own restaurant, what would you build?

Cummins: It would be a small taco stand overlooking the ocean.

Tavel: A cocktail bar near Cara’s taco stand.

Left: Octane Café Above: Azio Vinnings Restaurant

We speak designer.

(800) 536-9224 • www.specialtytile.com

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Building Transparency Architect Clive Wilkinson's quest to redesign a bank for the modern age

Architect Clive Wilkinson says Macquarie Bank Group made a very brave move when hiring his firm to design its headquarters in Sydney, Australia. “We won that project mostly by coming in out of left field,” says Wilkinson, founder, president and design director of Los Angeles-based Clive Wilkinson Architects (CWA).

Known primarily for its work with clients in the creative and tech industries, CWA had never worked with a financial institution before Macquarie; past clients include Google and ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day, whose office contains a basketball court. The idea of creating a bland, traditional bank was one the team quickly threw out the window. “The archetypical bank goes back over 100 years, to institutions that actually kept money in them,” Wilkinson says. “But the truth is, in 2010, banks don’t keep that much physical money in them anymore. It’s all done electronically.”

According to Wilkinson, much of the architectural tradition built up around banks— stone, columns—was meant to reinforce the idea that the institutions were safe, stable places to store money. But in this new age of being “too big to fail” and toxic assets, banks

are more concerned with portraying values such as openness and transparency. With that in mind, CWA set out to convey those ideals for Macquaire through the bank’s new design.

Case in point: the glassed-in “meeting pods” climbing the height of the building’s 10-story atrium. Inspired by the shipping containers carried by crane to the docks of Sydney's Darling Harbour, the 26 pods create clear lines of sight throughout the building.

CWA’s design also changed the way both clients and employees experience the Macquarie brand, Wilkinson says. Staircases connecting the various areas form a “Meeting Tree” and are symbolic of the interconnectedness of Macquarie’s client relationships. Before, when clients came to call they were shepherded to a guest relations floor, which Wilkinson says provided a high level of hospitality but prevented them from interacting with, or even seeing, many of the bank’s employees. “We turned that on its head,” he says. “Now, when they’re in a meeting room, they feel all around them a connection with the bank. I think that message was a major achievement.”

The design was influenced by Macquarie’s adoption of an activity-based work style,

Text by Jamie Hartford Photos by Shannon McGrath

Opposite page: Meeting pods inside Macquarie's 10-story atrium stack in a vertical line like shipping containers used in the nearby harbor.

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On each floor, themed plazas modeled after archetypes of human interaction—the Dining Room, Garden, Tree House, Playroom, and Coffee House—encourage spontaneous encounters among different groups. where there are no assigned desks and employees choose which space they inhabit from one day to the next. To enable that, CWA eschewed closed-off offices in favor of neighborhood-like work zones, each accommodating up to 100 employees. “It’s a space that is not only innovative architecturally, but also in how people are in that space,” says Christian Daniels, principal at EGG Office, a design firm that worked with CWA on the project.

Bright colors and extensive glass paneling comprise a Macquarie meeting room 2. Macquarie's purple conference room 3. The open, airy entrance to Macquarie conveys a refreshing sense of transparency 1.

On each floor, themed plazas modeled after archetypes of human interaction—the Dining Room, Garden, Tree House, Playroom, and Coffee House—encourage spontaneous encounters among different groups (think marketing runs into IT, executive meets em-

ployee). The ground level “Main Street” has communal spaces for corporate and philanthropic events, as well as café and dining areas.

Since Macquarie moved into the space in late 2009, employees have largely embraced the freedom their new digs afford them.

More than half change where they work daily, while three-quarters appreciate the option, according to CWA. “They were starting with the same kinds of thoughts everyone else has about banks,” Wilkinson says. “But by the time we finished, I think they had actually changed their own understanding of their brand.”

Jamie Hartford is a freelance writer based in Hood River, Oregon. www.jlhartford.com.

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Eric Eric Laignel Laignel

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interior design: Clive Wilkinson Architects

EGGOFFICE.COM

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A brightly colored, futuristic meeting pod appears to float high above the ground floor.

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JEFF CUMMINGS CONSTRUCTION

Mother, London In Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter asks, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” In Clive Wilkinson’s wonderland (also known as the headquarters of London-based ad agency Mother) there are no desks, and the riddle is a little different: Why is a table like a racetrack?

Since Mother’s founding, all of its employees had worked around a single table. And as the agency grew, so did the table—expanding from an original capacity of six to seat 60. CWA’s challenge was to build one big enough to sustain Mother well into the future

New Construction / Remodels and Renovations / Custom Furniture / Home Maintenance

without forcing people to yell across it. “A table can get infinitely long, but not infinitely wide, or else you’ve broken the social bonds of table,” Wilkinson says.

For its design, CWA drew inspiration from the iconic rooftop racetrack at the old Fiat factory in Turin, Italy.

The 250-foot-long concrete worktable seats 200 people and connects with a staircase from the first floor. “We even banked the table at one part, which actually makes it more even like a racetrack,” Wilkinson says.

Jeff Cummings Construction • PO Box 1535 • Jackson WY 83001 [P] 307-730-1958 • Jcummings144@yahoo.com

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ARTS IN THE MOUNTAINS Jackson Hole's efforts to save its displaced art community through architecture and design

Text by Anne Hartman Photos by Ron Johnson and Paul Warchol (opposite page)

Jackson Hole, Wyoming resident Doug Henderson admits most Americans wouldn’t call his city a hotspot. “I don’t know what people think of when they think of Jackson Hole,” he says. “They probably don’t know what ‘Jackson Hole’ means. They might even wonder where it is.”

Although Jackson Hole may not be as easy to find on the map as other glam mountain cities like Vail or Breckenridge, it has been quietly establishing itself as a destination for the arts community, bringing in tourists thanks to its numerous galleries and festivals like the renowned Grand Teton Music Festival.

“Once people get here, they see there’s a lot more to this little town,” Henderson says. “It

has a rich history of art and it’s a very creative community.”

Jackson has become known for embracing any new talent that comes its way, and is home to many budding and veteran artists alike. Henderson himself has experienced the community’s artistic flair firsthand: he’s facility director of the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts, an arts campus in the heart of downtown Jackson. The center is a direct result of the community’s efforts; back in the early '90s, artists in Jackson began kicking around the idea of building a facility to house the numerous artistic groups in the area.

With ever-increasing rents and inadequate facilities housing many of the motley groups

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“The most unique aspect of this place is that it works in multiple configurations for multiple events, and all of them are served quite well—from the single spoken word to orchestral events.”

- Stephen Dynia

of artisans and performers, they feared the artistic community wouldn’t be able to survive, let alone thrive.

The project took over a decade to develop, and involved input from Jackson residents and an aggressive fundraising campaign that brought in nearly $35 million. It was built in two phases. The first phase, an arts and education pavilion with classrooms, offices and studios, was completed in 2004, and is home to 18 of the city’s varied arts organizations, like the Jackson Hole Community Band and the professional dance company, Dancers’ Workshop.

A performance-style theater was the next step in the process, when the Jackson residents intervened with one major requirement.

During the summer tourist “high season,” the theater needed to accommodate events large enough to pack the house (like traveling Broadway shows) but it couldn’t feel empty during the rest of the season’s smaller, more low-key happenings common during Jackson’s off season.

Henderson and the arts community turned to local architecture firms to design the 35,000-square-foot, $21-million theater (which also houses a rehearsal space and a music wing.) Stephen Dynia Architects was the design architect, while Carney Logan Burke acted as executive architect. For the ‘star’ of the center, the theater itself, the architects decided to forgo the traditional theater seating set-up of a larger orchestra level and smaller balcony level, and instead replaced it with the exact opposite. This way, the orchestra level’s 200 seats would not feel so empty during small performances in the off season, and it would still be able to accommodate up to 300 more people for larger showings. “The most unique aspect of this place,” Dynia says, “is that it works in multiple configurations for multiple events, and all of them are served quite well—from the single spoken word to orchestral events.”

Never forgetting the Jacksonite’s love of natural landscape, the design team was also able to incorporate the town’s trademark mountainscape within its design. Dynia

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constructed a glass lobby that allows exiting theatergoers to view a stunning panorama of majestic Teton mountain range. Conversely, the glass wall also provides curious passersby with a look inside the Jackson Hole Cultural Center.

DYNAMIC BUILDERS

Henderson is pleased to report that the second phase of the center’s design is fulfilling its goal of luring tourists and residents alike to check out events that pass through town. One such event was the New York City Ballet that popped in for a week of teaching, performances and a gala.

“The three performances filled the house, which opened up new opportunities for the community,” Dynia says. “Everyone has been greatly enhanced by this center.”

Anne Hartman is a freelance writer based in Chicago.

Left: A glass-encased lobby offers sweeping views of the Teton mountain range Below: The two-tiered theater inside the Jackson Hole Cultural Center; at night, the JHCC's massive glass panels provide passersby a peek inside

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CREATIVITY WITHIN CONSTRAINTS Brothers-in-law John Issa and John Miyares embraced the challenge of a small, irregular site, and problem-solved their way to a striking, mixed-use residence

Designing a first home with a contractor can be tricky, especially when the contractor is an in-law. But the business-with-family relationship seems to work for brother-in-law team John Issa and John Miyares. “He is very eager to take on challenges, and our agreeable relationship means one less thing for clients to worry about,” says Issa. He is grateful for his contractor/brother-in-law’s willingness to work together to explore unconventional details, which was especially true when Issa himself became the client.

Issa tasked his Miyares with building his own home (and the offices for Perimeter) on a smaller-than-standard lot in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. The trapezoidal plot measured just 25 feet wide by 125 feet deep, including a side that at one point measures a mere five feet. Such a narrow site called for an aggressive solution to gain additional square footage.

The designers pursued an administrative adjustment to reduce side-yard setbacks in order to gain additional square footage. They also raised the house onto stilts, allowing for parking and outdoor space beneath the home. Although such spatial constraints might have given other designers headaches, Perimeter found the challenge of the site appealing. “Without constraints, there’s no problem-solving,” Issa believes. “We really enjoy the lively debate surrounding zoning requirements and building code as a catalyst to make design discoveries.” Such constraints ultimately resulted in more creative solutions. “If you have a blank slate, what are you reacting against? There were so many things to set the stage on this lot to produce an aggressive solution.”

The limited space available inside Issa’s home required it to be multi-functional, needing ample room for living, working and

Text by Murrye Bernard

Opposite: Making the most of an atypical plot of land in Chicago's Lakeview eighborhood, is the home of Perimeter Architects' principal John Issa.

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playing (especially for the couple’s young children). Issa and Miyares divided the space accordingly: Perimeter’s office occupies the ground floor, while Issa’s family lives on the second and third floors, which contain three bedrooms, two and a half baths and a child’s play loft. The floorplan also features a studio for Issa’s wife, photographer Ana Miyares, and a roof deck that provides the family with additional outdoor space.

Affordability played a big part in the project, and required the designers to manipulate standard materials in creative ways. The exterior of the home was covered with commercial-grade cement-board panels, and to distract from the many unsightly nails required to hang the material, Issa designed horizontal aluminum bands that also helped to break down the scale of the three-story home. He later discovered that this detail accentuated the way light danced across the

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facade throughout the day. Bamboo millwork and splashes of yellow paint also lend warmth to the Issa family home.

Though it may stand out among the more traditional homes on the street, Issa's modern, mixed-use model has proven “a phenomenal success.” “[This home] allows us to demonstrate to clients that people can actually live in smaller spaces,” Issa says.

Miyares, who mostly worked on traditional homes throughout his career, had thought of contemporary homes as “sterile.” However, through his collaborations with Issa and Perimeter, he gained a new appreciation for modern design. Chicago may be a fairly conservative city architecturally, but Issa’s modern Lakeview home proves that new can exist peacefully among old.

Murrye Bernard is a freelance architecture writer in New York City. www.murrye.com

To combat Issa's sons' roughand-tumble nature, they coated the white floors in the combination kitchen, dining and living area with epoxy resin, a coating often used in hospitals that can stand up to beatings from toys and natural wear and tear.

1. Perimeter's John Issa in his office.

2. Issa's boys play in the combination

kitchen, dining and living room.

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Irregular Site: The plans for John Issa's home reveal the trapezoidal shape of the site. By using every inch of the space and building up, Issa was able to incorporate an office into the ground floor and his home into the second and third floors. Parking is located below the structure, and a deck sits on the rooftop.

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REDESIGNING HISTORY Relocating the Pabst Blue Ribbon headquarters from Texas to Illinois without losing its heritage required serious work—in a seriously short time frame

In an age of countless microbreweries and boutique brews saturating the marketplace, it seems counterintuitive that a near centuries-old ale would experience a dramatic resurgence amongst a hip crowd of beer drinkers. That beer is, of course, Pabst Blue Ribbon.

But the classic brew hadn’t always evoked such an emotional response from its drinkers.

Originally started in 1848 under the name Best Select, PBR was most popular amongst a blue-collar audience, particularly for its strong taste and affordability. In the '50s, the tagline “The Premium Beer and a Popular Price” was befittingly coined to describe PBR. But as more lauded beers like Budweiser and Coors hit the market, PBR took a backseat and a nosedive in sales for nearly two decades— until it experienced a rebirth, thanks in part to the hipster counterculture that appreciated it for the exact same reasons that had originally made PBR a hit.

Rowland of Partners by Design for the project, and gave him a short four-month time frame to complete the project. “To do a project of this speed with the level of design that was required, we needed a great champion of the project, which Kevin Kotecki was,” says Rowland. “Having him share our vision of where the project would go allowed us to move quickly.”

Text by Chris Allsop

The enthusiastic CEO had his sights set on constructing a new 12,000-square-foot headquarters in Woodridge—not a small task, and one that was especially difficult given the short window for completion.

The space was to be used for the company’s business meetings and tours, alike. Within three business days of the firm’s initial meeting with Pabst, Rowland assembled a senior team of designers and architects to begin work on the fast-tracked project, with a particular emphasis on how to pair the nostalgia factor Kotecki wanted with the new facility’s framework of contemporary design. The architects began by looking into Pabst’s past.

Pabst noticed a particularly strong affinity for the brand was occurring in the Midwest, so MillerCoors, who had taken over the actual brewing for Pabst (now a "virtual brewer"), “My team and I ended up touring a nondecided to relocate the Pabst headquarters heated former brewing facility of Pabst’s in from San Antonio, TX, to Woodridge, IL in Wisconsin in January,” recalls Rowland. The order to gain the maximum value from the mothballed facility was like a museum for upturn in its appeal. Pabst CEO and president obsolete brewing technology and antiquated at the time Kevin Kotecki mandated that the equipment, but he notes that a two-story move happen fast, so as not to lose momentum. bottle cleaner and mutiple conveyor belts He enlisted Chicago-area architect Tom inside the plant caught the team’s collective

The Pabst Blue Ribbon headquarters in Woodridge, IL incorporates vintage paraphernalia and defunct factory equipment into its design.

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“Part of the bottle washer became a display wall in the lunchroom, and the conveyor belts were built into the reception desk, and an old beer vat was placed in the reception area and hooked up to the desk.� - Tom Rowland, Partners By Design

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Beer’s best companion?

The Solo cup. design eye. The pieces were dismantled and “By placing a supergraphic of a factory floor sent to Woodridge to be integrated into the next to a broken brick wall, we created an design as physical reminders of Pabst’s active effect akin to getting a sneak peek inside the brewing past. “Part of the bottle washer old Pabst brewery,” explains Rowland. “The became a display wall in the lunchroom, layering of the elements helped tie the old and the conveyor belts were built into the and the new together.” The new boardroom reception desk, and an old beer vat was also incorporated pieces of Pabst’s history placed in the reception area and hooked up to into its design, including a wall showcasing the original certificates of Pabst stock and the desk,” says Rowland. sharebills that had been digitally scanned and Kotecki also provided another unique relic reproduced. The completed layout featured a for the space: a historic wagon that had once visual icon of Pabst’s past at either end of the transported beer kegs before trucks were corridor, ensuring the brand’s heritage was used. “After we had started design, Kevin said, always within view.

‘Oh, by the way, I’m having the wagon shipped up from San Antonio, can you fit it into the Although the tight time frame called for space?’” recalls Rowland. The wagon became serious work, Rowland and his team did part of a layering effect that Partners by manage to find some time for fun along the Design repeated throughout the entire space, way, particularly when it came to installing with the wagon itself placed behind the working beer taps in the lunchroom. “We reception desk in front of a supergraphic of had to have a lot of ‘meetings’ to ensure they factory workers. The large-scale decorative worked,” Rowland jokes. The PBD team also had some fun at the expense of Kotecki’s design gave the illusion of extra space. unbridled enthusiasm. “We would tease Kevin Although Kotecki wanted the overall space that he was going to get divorced because of to reflect the brewery’s long history, he this project,” he says. “At one point, he bought mandated that the PBR lunchroom (where 400 historical plates on eBay, at four in the the company usually held team meetings) morning, and stored [them] in his living room. have a modern loft-space and factory feel But all the historical paraphernalia that he to it. He’d had the idea while enjoying acquired helped surround the visitors with the the ambience of the loft style conference history and passion of this company. Working room in the Partners By Design office. To with a client like that is a pleasure.” accomplish this, Rowland brought in warm Chicago common brick to the new Pabst Chris Allsop is a freelance writer who enjoys Pabst HQ, which the architects used to create a Blue Ribbon with takeout pizza or a selection of layering effect.

European cheeses. www.callsop.com

Building the Solo Cup Company's new headquarters The Solo Cup Company had just installed an entirely new management team when Partners By Design was called in to redesign the company’s new headquarters, as well.

Solo’s goal was to move away from what Partners by Design partner Michael Berger calls “a very traditional organizational structure,” and instead move towards something more modern and collaborative to match the new management.

Partnering with Clune Construction (a company which Berger describes as “ideal partners in the project”), Partners by Design created an environment that provided access to natural daylight for all employees, and one that integrated the famous red Solo Cup into the design. “Part of the challenge was trying to get them to understand how much of an improvement they could make in their space,” says Berger. “And it wasn’t a big challenge, as they were a phenomenal client to work with because they respected and listened to us.”

The final result for the client was an update and a modification of the company’s culture rather than a complete departure, with its heritage embedded into an environment that, Berger adds, “would engage and attract a younger workforce.”

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Shifting Scale Art enlivens a minimalist Tribeca loft

Text by Murrye Bernard

It’s rare for a firm that is known for its designs of skyscrapers and multi-million dollar developments to entertain the idea of renovating a single apartment unit. But that’s exactly what multi-disciplinary design firm Global Design Strategies did with Loft 108, a light-filled living space inside the former van Houten Chocolate factory in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood. “Many of our larger architectural projects draw on the surrounding city as a compositional participant,” explains architect Michael Kirchmann. “Loft 108 allowed GDS to explore such parameters on a different scale, and the building infused character into the design.”

Michael Kirchmann and GDS acted not only as the architect, but also as designer, developer, construction manager, financier and art curator for Loft 108, after the family inhabiting the apartment requested an eclectic installation of artworks to complete the loft’s makeover. “A big part of the inspiration was ‘the love of art as education.’ Every piece of art in the loft has a rich story behind it that can be passed along to their two children,” Kirchman says. His firm’s unique artistic expertise was gained through past collaborations with artisans, writers, choreographers, scientists and engineers on its many international building designs.

Kirchmann gives Design Bureau a tour of the art gallery/loft apartment that inspired him to put his skyline-grazing designs aside.

The Concept: Kirchmann decided on using a simple style for the loft space, which meant stripping a quarter of an inch of old paint from columns and beams and revealing beneath it wrought iron and natural timber.

GDS used off-white walls to maximize the daylight that naturally streamed into the apartment through dramatic floor-to-ceiling double-hung windows. Kirchmann called on Lenny Kushnir of Siberian Floors to help select the best finish to make the loft’s floors pop, deciding on wide-plank Russian white oak floors. “In spaces such as this, the finish of the floor has to work together with the light in the space and the furniture,” explains Kushnir.

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The Detailing: Since the space was a historic renovation, Kirchmann wanted to maintain many of the space’s original intricacies. Detailing like the pressed-tin ceiling and pendant light fixtures from the 1930s and 1950s remained intact, giving the loft a sense of history while still maintaining a simple overall aesthetic.

The Price: One significant difference between other lofts in the area and Loft 108 was the overall cost of renovation. Whereas similar projects often cost upwards of $400550 per square foot, the cost of remodeling Loft 108 ran the homeowners a mere $150 per square foot, including construction materials, finishes and appliances.

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GDS kept the bedroom's exposed brick wall.

Global Design Strategy's renovation of a Tribeca loft stripped away excess while leaving many of the original features intact, such as the pressed-tin ceiling and exposed brick walls. The overall effect is an effortlessly elegant living space featuring a carefully curated collection of art.

The Gallery: Loft 108's subtle material palette created the perfect blank canvas to install more than 30 works by New York City artisans, along with antique African art, many pieces of which Kirchmann sourced and procured himself. Featured works include: Light Therapy 108: A performance light installation by Matthew Schreiber, which he exhibited in the loft in front of an audience of peers, press, writers, gallerists and videographers. The large piece, which was inspired by the concept of light therapy, glows inside a niche in the combination kitchen, dining and living room, and is made up of a pinwheel of fluorescent tubes.

Prints by William Kentridge: A South African artist known for his animated films and lively hand drawings.

An LED Matrix piece: Artist Leo Villareal created the installation based on a large-format Polaroid of Tom Sachs' “Hello Kitty” design, purchased after the owners took their kids to see the installation at the Lever House.

A Collage of Twine: Famed artist Fred Sandback, noted for his minimalist conceptual-based yarn sculptures, drawings and prints, created the piece. In line with the theme of “art as education,” the composition includes a copy of a transcript for Dia Beacon on how to maintain and restore Sandback’s works. “The narrative behind the art is valued as much the pieces themselves,” says Kirchmann.

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Text by Katie Weber Schroeder

Tom Polucci shot by Jane Gaspar

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THE MIND BEHIND THE DESIGN: Tom Polucci

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fter more than two decades designing interiors, Tom Polucci has racked up a prolific list of achievements. Design Bureau recently caught up with the HOK Chicago group president and design director to talk about a few of his favorite things—Glee, for one.

Text by Jamie Hartford

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Inside the HOK office.

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Tom on...

What design means to him:

His favorite spaces:

“For me, it’s a couple of things. First and foremost, it’s “I like that spaces tell stories. It creates ownership not only about creating a solution to a problem. And problem isn’t for the team but also for the client. At the Washington necessarily a bad word—all kinds of things need to be solved. University School of Medicine [Farrell Learning and Teaching Center] open house, the class president of the Design is also about humanity. We’re designing space medical school got up and talked about how the building for people. People have to feel good about it. They need we had designed worked, even though he was never part to be energized and excited when they walk into an of the design process. To hear him describe that was so environment. It needs to inspire them. They need to feel thrilling. He completely got the building. He owned the emotionally connected to it…there’s nothing worse than story. He got the space and knew why things were there. It was intuitive enough.” walking into a big, beige box.

Design is also fun because you get to know people when you’re working with them. There’s an intimacy between the designer and the client. You get to really understand their needs and issues and work together to create the best possible solution.”

Collaboration: “I’m really proud of my relationship to the group of people I’m very lucky to work with every day. Design is not a single vision or approach. It can’t be. It takes many people to create the right kind of solution. Each person has a different specialization or expertise, and every person is passionate about something that can be brought into that project. Orchestrating that is probably my greatest thrill.”

Favorite websites: “NYTimes.com, UrbanSpoon.com, Gilt.com, RueLaLa.com, Ted.com, ArchiDose.Blogspot.com, and HokLife.com” The greatest compliment he’s ever been given in his work: “Probably that we listened to the client and exceeded their expectations.”

What he doesn’t leave home without: “Sunglasses.”

His personal theme song: “Right now, anything from Glee!”

Sustainable design: “I like to use materials that people can ask questions about and point at but not just look at and say, ‘That’s sustainable.’

I don’t want them to say, ‘Oh, that’s bamboo.’ I want them to look at something and question it and go, ‘That feels like it has authenticity and character to it.’ I want them to wonder how it became part of the environment they’re in.”

What offices should be like: “It’s exciting to see people own the environment and be behind the message. [In HOK’s new office, which Polucci helped design], when World Cup soccer was going on, there would be a dozen and a half people in the café, cheering when the USA games were on. That is really cool that there is a place blow off steam.”

Where he would go if offered a free plane ticket anywhere in the world: “Rome.”

Executive Construction Inc. is proud to have

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Tom's Favorite Books An avid reader, Polucci shares his favorites.

I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir

by Josh Kilmer-Purcell “Great memoir. Anyone that can live such a big life (nice Midwestern boy takes a turn as a New York drag queen) and tell their story with grace, humor and humility, I’ll get hooked.”

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett “At the dawn of civil rights in Jackson, Mississippi, [The Help] is told from the perspective of African American women working as domestics. The stories they tell are eye-opening, tragic, and yet warm and loving. These women are brought together by one woman trying to find her own voice, who is white. She convinces these ladies to tell their stories by collecting them for a book. I could not put it down.”

The Story of a Marriage

by Andrew Sean Greer “A story about a woman who falls for a beautiful man who could be in a relationship with another man. Takes place after the war in San Francisco. The couple are black, the possible lover is wealthy and white. It’s a story about assumptions and miscommunication and that we all need not to be afraid to share our thoughts and feelings in the most important relationships we have.”

Plainsong

by Kent Haruf “This is a compelling story of grief, bereavement, loneliness and anger, but also of kindness, benevolence, love and the making of a strange new family in a small town in the plains of Colorado. It is a depiction of courageous, decent, troubled people, going on with their lives. It is so beautifully written and moving. I read it years ago, and I still can’t forget it.”

Heat

by Bill Buford “Total foodie book! The author quits his job to take an internship at Babbo, Mario Batali’s famous New York restaurant. He then travels to Italy to learn from the chefs, farmers and restaurateurs Batali learned his craft from. Love it. It was an exciting read. I was jealous; who doesn’t want to fly to Italy and eat and cook!”

Views of reception, work, and lounge areas inside HOK offices

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On Tom: What his colleagues have to say.

“He’s always the optimist, an out-of-the-box thinker who’s always able to come up with a creative solution to the particular issue a client is trying to address with the space.”

-Matt Liebing, project executive, EKG

“I’ve been able to watch Tom’s career grow and evolve over the last seven or eight years, and it has been very cool to see him enter the market here in Chicago. In the time he’s been here, he certainly elevated HOK’s interior group and become a leader in the Chicago design community.”

-Alan Almasy, A&D sales director, Herman Miller

"He’s just fun and a delight to work with…He makes it very easy and fun.

He’s a partner and real part of your team." -Natalie Jones, vice president of creative product and brand development, Mannington

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DESIGNING TO BUILD An inner-city Harlem school and a family estate pool complex don’t sound as if they have much in common. But for architect Peter Gluck, the process is the same, no matter the project or price tag.

Text by Anne Hartman

According to architect Peter Gluck, the traditional method of designing and constructing buildings is inherently flawed: architects don’t know how to build and contractors don’t understand design. So when Gluck started his architecture firm, Peter Gluck and Partners, he did so with the goal of fixing this broken process. “When architects construct buildings, it’s common knowledge that there are problems; they take too long to build, they leak, they’re over budget. But we really understand construction,” Gluck says.

In order to avoid these types of unnecessary building issues, Gluck and his team use a design-build process, meaning that his firm is completely responsible for a project from the first stroke of the pencil to installing the last light bulb. It’s this process that has allowed Gluck and his team to build everything from an Adirondacks pool pavilion on a sprawling family estate to an innercity school in East Harlem.

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Gluck's Pool Pavilion project, located in New York's Adirondack Mountains.

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From flooding to fully-functioning: The East Harlem School Project

us to not only do high-end projects, but also some low-end, inner-city work,” Gluck says.

“We’re able to design anything the same way— The East Harlem School mission is righteous, we’d design a more expensive project, and we but dead serious: to provide a rigorous can still come in under budget.” It's a process academic program for low-income families that is not far off from how the school itself is at no cost, and to embrace creativity and structured. “The school is involved with the entire lives of the children, even after they’ve ambition with a no-nonsense attitude. graduated,” says project architect Stacie But Ivan Hageman, head and co-founder of Wong. “It’s not only about educating the kids, the school, knew the building that housed it but also about being completely committed just wasn’t saying what he wanted it to. The and accountable in their lives. For us, our structural damage was obvious: there were process is the same thing.” four cramped classrooms for the 60 students enrolled—one of which flooded every time it Spending so much time with co-founder rained. It had fallen into dire straits. Coupled Hageman and the East Harlem School, with the fact that Hageman wanted the Gluck’s firm became familiar with EHS' student body to triple in size, it meant East ethos. The firm used that knowledge to create Harlem School’s beaten-down facility finally a building with a home-like feel, despite it's considerable presence. Gluck and company had to be ditched for good. opted for a checkerboard gray, white and To revive the school, Hageman enlisted black façade. The base used opaque etched Gluck’s New York–based architecture firm, glass, which ensured privacy for the building where he implemented his design-build while still allowing passersby to sneak a peek process. “The design-build process allows at the building abuzz with activity.

“The school is involved with the entire lives of the children, even after they’ve graduated. It’s not only about educating the kids, but also about being completely committed and accountable in their lives. For us, our process is the same thing.”

- Stacie Wong, project architect

Above and facing page: Gluck and his team completed The East Harlem School under budget by $500,000.

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Above: The interior of the Gluck design-build pool pavilion, located on a private residence in Lake George, NY.

The firm also chose to divide up the fivestory school to create smaller, more intimate spaces within the building. Communal areas such as the gym, cafeteria and lobby were placed on the lower level, while the upper levels housed the classrooms and the library.

With shorter corridors featuring soft rubber flooring, carpeted classrooms and an airy ambiance, the design rid the school of the drab, institutional feeling found in most other inner-city schools. In another departure from the original structure’s cold, utilitarian design, Gluck’s camp incorporated whimsical circle detailing throughout—from circular lights to “holes” in the lockers. This motif was meant to echo the school’s daily tradition of meeting in a circle, reminding students of the community that they are a part of at EHS. It’s a community that both Gluck and Wong have also become part of: Gluck’s on the board of trustees at the school, while Wong tutors students in math, grammar and reading in her spare time.

Both Gluck and Wong say this type of project isn’t a one-time deal—they’re in the nonprofit world to stay. “If we were regular architects doing only design, we would never get this kind of work to do,” Gluck says. “And the institutions that we work with would never get the quality of buildings that we’re able to deliver to them.”

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“The design-build process allows us to not only do high-end projects, but also some low-end, inner-city work, We’re able to design anything the same way we’d design a more expensive project, and we can still come in under budget.”

- Peter Gluck, architect

Detailing with design build: The Pool Pavilion, Lake George, NY About 200 miles from East Harlem, Gluck’s team had an entirely different wish list to fulfill for a client in upstate New York: conceiving and building a pool pavilion that would serve as the central gathering place for a family’s estate in Lake George, NY. Gluck and his team were familiar with the property and the client; his firm had previously built a lake house, boathouse and a couple of guesthouses on the family’s property, each building designed to be private and secluded from one another.

With the remaining space on the property boasting a prime view of the lake, Gluck’s team was summoned to create a multifunctional recreational facility for the family, though the architects cringed at the thought of plopping a clunky pool house in the middle of pristine land. “We investigated a lot of ways to maintain that sense of openness,” says project architect Charlie Kaplan. “We liked the idea of creating a central green.”

From that idea sprung a “rift in the landscape” concept. The team built the pool pavilion into a hill so that it gracefully melted into the

Cut, Lift, Punch, Pop-Up: The Pool Pavilion Strategy Gluck and Partners seamlessly integrated the Pool Pavilion into the landscape with a simple technique demonstrated here in a three-dimensional paper model.

land, looking as if it had been there all along.

They also made a sod roof for the structure that doubled as an open playing field and connected it back to the original landscape with a sod ramp. Gluck’s team felt this was the responsible option, respecting the natural feel of the landscape.

Like many of Gluck’s buildings, the pool pavilion employed a sleek, modern design using building materials that appear natural: glass, grass and stone. “Rather than take a beautiful spot and destroy it with a big building, this took a spot and enhanced its beauty, and the building kind of goes away,” he says.

The owner’s office was placed on the second story, perched above the roof with a lookout over the lake. And the pavilion’s interior didn’t skimp on features, either, boasting a 75foot lap pool, sauna, steam room, kitchen and lounge area and a theater. Subtle detailing was added to soften the interior space, including a fabric ceiling liner in the pool area (meant to dampen the hard echoes common with indoor pool houses), and floor lighting in the pool itself , which creates abstract patterns of light in the water’s ripples. It’s these details, Gluck says, that are achievable through the money saved by using design-build.

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STRUCTURE AGAINST NATURE Nestled in the woods of Great Falls, VA, a traditional family home with a modern, towering addition stands in stark contrast to its natural surroundings

Forest House, an award-winning residence located in the woods of Great Falls, VA, challenges conventional perceptions of forest-based architecture by purposefully standing out from, rather than blending in with, its natural surroundings. “Forest House is an object in its own right. It aims to make a statement,” says Janet Bloomberg, partner and architect at KUBE Architecutre in Washington DC.

conservative, it would look out of place. “The solution we came up with was to create a plinth at the ground level that would link both houses, thus providing interconnectedness between the two,” Bloomberg says. “That also helped to create a certain ongoing rhythm between stylistically very different structures. The homeowners found the idea and its later visual manifestation appealing.”

The architects created a vast two-story open The project, which features a four-story area inside the tower that consists of a media white tower attached to a more traditional- room and an office connected vertically. style family home, is a sharp departure from “The media room and office are open to each the natural, wooded landscape. “Originally, other, and a large bookcase running along the homeowners wanted an addition to their the staircase connects the two,” she says. old house, but they were worried about a The space features minimalist furnishings new, modern structure looking ‘tacked on’ to and "a large, two-story window to provide their existing house. However, we convinced a tranquil view of nature and let as much them that the new addition could be woven in light in as possible, ” Bloomberg notes. The successfully.” tower also features a playroom, bedroom and master suite and has become a place But developing this unique design presented of great relaxation for its homeowners—a quite a few challenges for the architects. The modern, yet serene oasis enveloped in natural homeowners’ major concern, according to surroundings.

Bloomberg, was the futuristic façade and the tower’s many windows appearing unnatural Anastasia Kruglyashova is an international and haphazardly placed around the perimeter. journalist specializing in art and style. She They feared that if it were ever to stand as an currently divides her time between freelancing for a independent structure next to the original number of publications in US and Europe and doing house, which was very symmetrical and multilingual translations.

Text by Anastasia Kruglyashova

Opposite page: The Forest House

by KUBE Architecture

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A tall bookcase links the first-floor media room to the second-floor office A four-story white tower was added to the existing, more traditional strucutre Smaller windows were used to cut costs and frame views of the surrounding forest A single, two-story window draws in natural light and showcases lush views

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Creativity in Concept KUBE used smaller window openings as a way of framing the surrounding landscape, and as a method of staying on budget for the homeowners.

“Having a limited budget requires reinventing, rethinking and being experimental in ways that a full budget doesn’t,” says Bloomberg. “Finance-conscious projects make the architect generate new ideas based on getting the best result—impressive, original design—out of less material usage. So, you are more inventive on a tighter budget. Less can really be more.”

KUBE’s Eco-friendly Philosophy KUBE aimed to preserve as much natural environment as possible, especially since Forest House was a project rooted in the outdoors. “Hardly any trees had to be removed from the site during construction,” Bloomberg notes. To stay in tune with the project’s sustainable style, a tankless hot-water heater was used in the house, and an electric radiant system was used in the tower’s master bathroom.

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ROCK 'n' ROLL

REFUGE Austin's Bouldin House fuses clean lines with gritty, rock-star panache

Text: Brian Libby Photographer: Alan Foreman Model: Scarlet with Wallflower Management Stylist: Caitlin M. Ryan Hair and makeup: Willow Witten

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THIS IS IT A neon sign stating “This is it!” illuminates the couple's stairway, bring with it a sense of whimsy and nostalgia. “Through one of the windows upstairs, the red light [from the sign] comes out,” owner Anne Suttles explains. “We can see it when we take walks at night. It’s like making art out of your whole house. It’s a reminder that we’ve gone through all this crazy change, but we’ve flown through it.

It’s like a dream life without being a cheesy fantasy.

It’s really happening on our terms. This really is it.”

The stairway also features a bold, vintage diamondpatterned wallpaper, a vast departure from the white walls elsewhere in the house. "We’ve been in love with that wallpaper for years,” Suttles says.

“We originally were going to paint the stairs a glossy hot pink. Stairwells can be boring, but we didn’t want some dramatic over-the-top [stairwell]. This makes it fun, but it’s not the red carpet at the Oscars.”

Funky touches In the master bathroom, simple white tiles are complemented by a floor pattern in the large, open shower that mimics the floor pattern of stick-on bathtub decals from decades past. Also upstairs: the office for General Public Management, where the walls have been decorated with records by artists Shah has represented, including John Mayer and Ray LaMontagne.

Previous Spread: Model is wearing T by Alexander Wang boxersl, Niki bra, Farylrobin shoes.

DESIGN BUREAU // Informer

Model is wearing Lake and Stars panties and L'Agence sweater.

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Wood and glass Blurring the lines between indoor and outdoor spaces, the palette of concrete and stained wood was used both on the exterior façade and indoors. Downstairs floors are concrete, while upstairs features rough wood floors that were reclaimed from a barn in Missouri.

the homeowners

Sam Shah once considered himself a lifelong New Yorker, until his work started bringing him to Austin music events like South

By Southwest and Austin City Limits. “The first time I got off the plane I was just so blown away by Austin and everything it had to offer,” he recalls. Then when Shah met his future wife, designer Anne Suttles, the stage was set for taking to Texas permanently.

Acting as both their residence and the headquarters for their music managing business, General Public Management, the Bouldin Residence juxtaposes clean lines with roughhewn reclaimed materials, which give the space a lived-in feeling. “I didn’t want to be in an über-modern space,” Anne says. “We needed it to feel comfortable.” Contemporary but not cold, artfully fun without over-thetop kitsch—the Bouldin residence reflects the owners’ personalities.

“There’s a lot of them in this house, which I like,” says the Bouldin Residence’s architect, Kevin Alter of Alterstudio. Alter serves as director of the University of Texas School of Architecture while also running Alterstudio as a collaborative business that empowers his students to do real work.

The house itself occupies a corner lot in its namesake Bouldin neighborhood, home to many artists and musicians and popular for its easy walkability to downtown Austin.

“That was so important for me, coming from Manhattan,” Shah says. “I don’t want to jump into my car for everything.” Bordering the busier street, a concrete wall creates a private courtyard with a pool. On the quieter side, the house opens up to the neighborhood with floor-to-ceiling glass.

“They were sanded, just enough that you don’t get splinters,” Alter says. “And it will weather differently in different places.

They already had this lived-in quality, which calmed down the white walls and the other sleek surfaces. We all liked the juxtaposition of slick and rough. Having slick and rough elevates both.” At the top of the stairs, a square segment of glass is set into the floor, which helps distribute natural light into the first-floor interior and highlights the contrast in materials.

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Model is wearing Stella McCartney boxers.

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New Harmony 185 Years of Progressive Design To the undiscerning eye, the settlement of New Harmony, IN can be easily mistaken for just another boring blip of a farm town. Upon closer inspection, however, it reveals itself as a haven for high design.

Text by Kathryn Freeman Rathbone

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For a town of only 0.6 square miles ,

INDIANA

New Harmony, IN boasts some pretty impressive architecture credentials. Harmonist leader Johann Georg Rapp founded the town in 1814 along the banks of the Wabash River, nearly 300 miles south of Chicago.

Ten years later, Rapp sold the entire settlement to Welch social reformer and philosopher Robert Owen. Working with architect Stedman Whitwell, Owen drew up the ideal town plan for his utopian vision. This plan, which depicted New Harmony as a closed campus, emphasized community life over individual success. It could support 800 citizens who shared similar social, cultural and moral beliefs. Owen led New Harmony until 1829, when social and political fighting forced

him to abandon his utopian agenda. Although Owen never built Whitwell’s design, New Harmony’s radical social experiment drew approximately 1,000 people and established a culture of innovative design for the town.

As a result of the settlement’s support for high design, New Harmony has quietly vetted some of the world’s most radical architects during its 125-year history, commissioning them to build key public sites. Famed modernist Philip Johnson constructed his theatrical, non-denominational Roofless Church here in 1960; architect Friedrich Kiesler conceptualized his Grotto for Meditation specifically for New Harmony in 1963; and the town hired master postmodernist archi-

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“It’s unique to have [the freedom] to make a building that is about movement, about how you experience the space and how you experience what is around it.” R ­ ichard Meier tect Richard Meier in 1979 to design and construct a remarkable visitors center named the Atheneum. Meier’s center still stands today as an American postmodern masterpiece, and is arguably New Harmony’s most noted structure. The Atheneum privileges the experience of space and challenges the user to form new relationships with architecture, further extending the long tradition of New Harmony’s support for high design.

Here, architectural theorist and town resident Ben Nicholson talks with Meier about the design of the Atheneum and its impact on the architectural and cultural fabric of New Harmony.* Ben Nicholson: The Atheneum has a masterful shift in grids, which occurs orthogonally, diagonally and at five degrees. You made that wonderful detail, perhaps in homage to Mies

[van der Rohe], an inverted column whose base has one side shaved by five degrees. That detail seems to be the reduced code of everything the building stands for. Did you think of that corner of as being the pearl within?

Richard Meier: I love that building, and I loved the whole experience of doing it. It’s unique to have that kind of freedom: to make a building that is about movement, about how you experience the space and how you experience what is around it. I wish I had another opportunity to solve a similar problem elsewhere!

Nicholson: Before we get into the interior of the building, let’s discuss the planning of the five degree shift.

Meier: Well, whenever you start a project, you look at the program, the location, the site

and the siting. It seemed to me that the building had a responsibility both to the world outside New Harmony as well as to historic New Harmony. The five degree shift made that transition from what one saw as the edge of the Wabash River—it is really not straight, but one saw it that way—from the bridge, and the location of the historic houses that one passes through as you go from the Visitors Center to the town. So the shift really is a device to say that we are not relating to New Harmony in only one way, but relating [to it] in two ways: both to the present, as well as the past.

Nicholson: How about the issue of the many entries to the building? The New Harmony Atheneum is really the essay [for the United States] of movement.

Meier: Well, for me that’s what it’s about: movement internally to experience the external setting.

Nicholson: How do you see the contribution of your building in coming to terms with the inside and the outside, an issue that the 20th century has spent such a lot of time working through?

Meier: It is antithetical to Frank Lloyd

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1. The Atheneum, photo provided by

Historic New Harmony

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2. Maze outside The Atheneum,

photo by Carol M. Highsmith

3. The Roofless Church,

photo by Carol M. Highsmith

4. Grotto for Meditation,

photo by Ben Nicholson

Nicholson: So, [therefore] you could design without models.

Meier: I think models are sometimes useful, but very rarely do models indicate a need for change.

Nicholson: My [next] question concerns the restoration of the building, which the current historic New Harmony has on the table right now. The building is well-kept and things are in pretty good shape. The question now before us is: what should the building be used for and how can the vision of the building be restored so that the program and the building are synchronized? How would you address the larger constituency who are interested in the building?

Wright’s vision of the relationship of interior and exterior space. Wright always thought about the extension of space to the exterior from the interior. This is not about the extension of space. It’s about the relationship of spaces between exterior and interior.

Nicholson: It’s like there is a one-way omnipotence in Wright’s vision; you’re in the ship looking out. Whereas with your building, you never know whether the landscape is coming in or you are going out to the landscape.

Meier: Right. It’s different.

Nicholson: But what was your technique of the design of the building? Obviously the plan is important.

Meier: Oh yes, very much. The making of the thing was through drawings.

Nicholson: It seems that in your design process, of going from the two-dimensional plan to three dimensions, you are able to visualize the three-dimensional quality of a space as a musician would hold a score in the head and be able to hear the nth-dimensional quality of the music, Is that what it was for you?

Meier: It is that for every project.

Meier: I think that the building is going to have a difficult time standing on its own. It has to be attached to some program in New Harmony for which this building becomes used as a center for studies for whatever that may be. The problem is that there is no university in New Harmony that can use it for tours and make exhibitions. That would be ideal!

The Open Altar: Philip Johnson’s Roofless Church At Johnson’s Roofless Church, a brick wall marks the perimeter of the interior courtyard. In the courtyard stands an abstract bronze sculpture

by Jacques Lipchitz, entitled “The Descent of the Holy Spirit,” and Johnson’s dome, an altar shaped as an inverted rose that symbolizes the Harmonite society. True to its name, the church is open to the sky, allowing people of all faiths to comfortably worship on its grounds.

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Nicholson: Do you imply that the building can respond to the activities of the town?

Meier: It’s a building in search for a home. It still could be used by a university as a place for scholars to go for research and special studies of some sort.

Nicholson: It’s as if the town is blaming the building for its own sense of lack of direction.

Meier: It’s not the building’s fault. But the town itself never really had any real direction.

Nicholson: It’s the tragedy of utopia, and it is still that way.

Meier: Father Rapp came in with 895 people to New Harmony. I don’t think there are many more there today. It’s the same.

The Closed Sanctuary: Friedrich Kiesler’s Grotto for Meditation Kiesler conceptualized his Grotto for Meditation as a site-specific design that responded directly to Johnson’s Roofless Church. The Grotto’s proposed design worked the site through the dynamic shape of a spiral, terminating in an enclosed cave intended as a refuge for meditation.

Although never built, the plans for Kiesler’s Grotto for Meditation reinforce the high value New Harmony has always placed on strong design.

*The original conversation between Ben Nicholson and Richard Meier took place on March 25, 2010 in New York City. For an extended version of this interview, please visit www.archinect.com.

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Marian Bantjes' Wonderland Text by Sarah Ferguson

The graphic designer opens up about how the wonder within design inspires her to create works that are more than just pretty

BY SARAH FERGUSON

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all Marian Bantjes’ designs what you will, but just don’t call her work pretty.

It seems the self-described graphic artist would rather someone use the word ugly than the dreaded “p” word when describing her work. The people who use the word are part of a group Bantjes has deemed the “unicorn set.” She gives no further explanation as to what is so wrong about this group, but it’s clear after speaking with her for a short time that she’s not shooting for pretty.

“I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about that word in connection with my work,” she says.

“It may be pretty, but it’s not brainless. I want my work to awaken curiosity, to inspire awe. I want it to fill people with wonder.”

Bantjes had great success early in her career, the type that many young graphic designers only hope for. She was the co-owner and creative force behind Digitoplis, a design firm in Vancouver, Canada, where her work gained her critical acclaim in and around the city. However, after the excitement of doing strategic design in a corporate environment wore off, the work Marian was doing became creatively draining, and she realized she was beginning to despise graphic design. After this revelation, Bantjes began taking her work in a more personal direction, much to the chagrin of her business partner. “I needed to have control over my work. I detested dealing with bullshit copy editors and bullshit changes; I just couldn’t fucking stand it anymore. This made me entirely unsuitable as a designer,” says Bantjes with a laugh. “It was like I turned 40 and went into a full-blown midlife crisis. I imagined myself on my deathbed thinking ‘is this what I want my design legacy to be?’ and the only answer I had was, ‘absolutely not’.” Eventually, she and her business partner parted ways, and Bantjes began her solo career as a designer.

It was in the midst of trying to find and evoke a sense of wonder in her personal work that the idea for her appropriately-titled book

I Wonder was born. I Wonder is a feast for the eyes of design aficionados and casual observers alike. Page after page, the intricate works in I Wonder all but slap the reader in the face with thoughtful, intricate detailing— from the strangely beautiful pattern she derived from illuminated manuscripts (created by monks in the 12th century), to an ornate design she created using only macaroni noodles (forever putting to shame macaroni wreaths created by second-grade classes every Christmas).

Bantjes’s early design “education” as a book typesetter is evident in the book, easily recognized by the purposeful layouts and typography found on each page. Her highly ornamental style and obsessive hand-work can, at times, seem as strange as it does precise and logical—an aspect of her work of which she is very proud. “Because of my background, I think I am surprisingly logical when I design,” Bantjes explains. “I would probably make an amazing interface designer, but I’m not above fucking it up. I’m just not a big fan of design that requires no thought.”

Along with her illustrations, Bantjes included articles she has previously written for the now-defunct graphic design blog, “Speak Up.” “I liked these articles and I believed they had a future, but I felt presenting them in the format of text and then image was limiting.

I didn’t want the articles to stand alone and then have the images be something you refer to. I wanted them to live together.” In the book, Bantjes has created a symbiotic relationship between the text and the images. The text, which explains her design process, opinions on design and her vision for her work, dances within her hand-scrawled drawings and creations. The result is powerful. “I don’t know why illustrations have to become immature as we get older; the older we get, the more the illustrations begin to disappear.

I think each makes the other more alive when they are coupled.”

In speaking with Bantjes, she makes it clear how she feels about a majority of Continued on p. 100

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Left, top row: Saks Fifth Avenue Snowflakes “Last year Saks commissioned me to draw 30 snowflakes for its 2008 Christmas season.

Terron Schaefer encouraged me to be very loose and varied in my approach. I spent a number of days sitting on my couch in July, drawing snowflakes. I drew some like feathers, like antlers, with little people, one made all of houses, some like sparkly lights, a hairy one, a few like ribbons, some were complex and three-dimensional, others simple and flat.

After I delivered the drawings, the design team at Saks went to work applying them to everything under the sun. Saks even commissioned various jewelers to make one-of-a-kind pieces based on my drawings.”

Artwork: Marian Bantjes Design: Saks Fifth Avenue Client: Terron Schaefer, Saks Fifth Avenue Medium: pencil; pen Year: 2007/2008

Left, bottom two rows: Saks Fifth Avenue “Want It!” Campaign “The signature piece for “Want It!” and the 18 ‘Want It!’ items were created in close collaboration with Michael Bierut and Terron Schaefer.

Making typography look like the thing it described was both challenging and amusing. Some came together easily, others took many rounds of revisions.

In the end, the Saks creative team did an amazing job of using the artwork in pretty much every way imaginable.”

Artwork: Marian Bantjes Client: Pentagram / Saks Fifth Avenue Art Direction: Michael Bierut / Terron Schaefer Implementation: Saks Fifth Avenue creative team under Terron Schaefer Medium: Vector Art Year: 2007

“Design Ignites Change” Poster “This poster is for the design unit within the Academy for Educational Development, a DC-based international non-profit. It is part of a series of posters that they do to promote the importance of design in development work.

The slight burn mark left in the paper alludes to the “ignites” part of the poster, but more importantly, because of the holes, the poster changes depending on what you see through it.”

Design & Artwork: Marian Bantjes Client: Academy for Educational Development Medium: laser cut from white paper Year: 2008

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“For the past couple of decades there has been continued praise for clean and simple design—I just find it tediously boring.” contemporary design. “It’s boring,” she says. knowledge of a computer program. “Design “For the past couple of decades there has was done by artists back then,” Bantjes says, been continued praise for clean and simple while recalling graphic design from the design—I just find it tediously boring.” '20s through the '50s. “The sense of balance Fortunately for her, boring is definitely not between the colors and the art was inventive a word that comes to mind when describing and inspired. It’s just crazy, and you look at I Wonder. One might even go as far as to these pieces and you think ‘what the fuck call her book the dreaded “p” word—just is that?’” not to her face. Her “pretty with a brain” work is reminiscent of designs from an era Sarah Ferguson is a freelance writer and graphic past—work that required more than a basic designer currently residing in Minneapolis.

The National Poster “This poster for the band ‘The National’ (one of my favorite bands) is three posters in one. It is silk-screened (by Delicious Design League) in black, fluorescent pink and glow-in-the-dark ink.

Photographing it is near impossible, but these three views show approximately how the same poster looks in daylight, under UV light (or black light) and in the dark.”

Artwork & Design: Marian Bantjes Medium: Vector Art Year: 2010

I Wonder Book 208 pgs, Monacelli Press, October 19, 2010 Design & Artwork: Marian Bantjes Medium: laser cut from white paper Year: 2008

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FEEDBACK, THOUGHTS, QUESTIONS, RANTS, RAVES, ARGUMENTS, IDEAS, CRITICISM, ACCLAIM, QUOTES, GIFTS, PHOTOS, WRITINGS, TIRADES, VERBAL ABUSE, GENERAL PRAISE...

EMAIL US. letters@ wearedesign bureau.com

“ t h e re a re a l wa y s t wo p e o p l e in ev e r y p i c t u re : t h e p h o to g ra p h e r a n d t h e v i ew e r . ”

w w w. s a m a n t h a s i g ht . co m ta ke my p i c s @ s a m a n t h a s i g ht . co m 7 0 8 - 4 6 9 - 8 711

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Interrogating the Form A discussion with Adam Michaels, Rob Giampietro and Prem Krishnamurthy of graphic design studio Project Projects Entering the Project Projects office is like stepping into the middle of a bustling workshop. Just past the entrance of their Lower East Side space is a communal worktable, occupied by a half-dozen staff designers and interns. Piles and piles of books (both old and new) are scattered about, feeding the company’s insatiable appetite for context and reference within its projects—typographic, topical or otherwise. A scan of the studio’s walls reveals an archaeological exploration of layered visual references: black and white print-outs of type treatments and giant-sized replicas of the first releases from the Inventory Books series.

The creative studio shares its office space with sometimes-collaborators, architecture firm WORKac. Although the two companies maintain

separate spaces, the conference table area is where their practices meet, a scattering of proposals from each office are strewn on top of the table as if already in conversation with one another. It’s this environment of controlled chaos mixed with constant dialogue that allows Project Projects to work across such a wide range of media and topics, including books, exhibitions, identities, publications and websites concentrated in art, architecture and urbanism.

Founded in 2004 by Prem Krishnamurthy and Adam Michaels, and later joined by Rob Giampietro as a principal in 2010, the Project Projects team approaches design in a manner that sometimes seems at odds with the speed of today’s design zeitgeist.

“We've always believed in doing things thoroughly,

Text by Isaac Gertman Photos by Noah Kalina

Right: Adam Michaels, Prem Krishnamurthy and Rob Giampietro.

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“It used to be that the constraints for a project came from the client, but we're at a point now where we're creating the situation and establishing the cast of characters that will have that dialogue.”

- Adam Michaels methodically—sometimes to a fault,” Krishnamurthy explains. “When we have a new project, we try to spend as much time as we can considering the project, its background and what makes it particular, in order to figure out a conceptual tack that makes sense. This is not always the most expedient approach—a long-time collaborator of ours once joked that the Project Projects’ slogan ought to be, ‘Why do it twice when you can do it thrice?’ However, I think this is what sets us apart from much contemporary design, in which speed, efficiency, and novelty are valued more than thoughtfulness and craft.”

This bespectacled trio of Krishnamurthy, Michaels and Giampietro share a similarly hip, yet unassuming uniform of jeans and button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Though they now share a similar fashion taste, their formative experiences are all very different. Krishnamurthy hails from Connecticut, and was heavily influenced by his time spent abroad in Germany, both as a Fulbright fellow and while working as a designer in Berlin. Giampietro is from Minneapolis and became interested in graphic through his passionate interest in jazz and album art, and through majoring in Art at Yale (which is where he met Krishnamurthy, when the two were designers for the Yale Literary Magazine). Michaels, a native of Chicagoland, started playing in punk bands at age 14. His interest in design stemmed from the need to produce a demo cassette and flyers for his first band, and after relocating to Minneapolis to attend MCAD in 1996, he continued to play in bands, design zines, put out 7” records, and volunteer at the co-op record store.

“Our process of working on commissioned projects involves a significant give-and-take: we listen carefully to our clients and respond to their desires, while also bringing our own experience, independent research, and ideas into the mix,” says Krishnamurthy. “Since we’ve chosen to work primarily on projects that touch on topics close to our hearts, this allows for a more interesting conversation that extends beyond the scope of a given project itself.”

Although the principals of Project Projects embrace their primary role as graphic designers, they are as comfortable originating content as they are designing it, and it is not uncommon that during their client collaborations, they take on multiple roles, including that of writer, researcher, curator or editor. “The designed form of much Continued on p. 107

2010 Hugo Boss Prize (2010) The 2010 Hugo Boss Prize book for the Guggenheim Museum features six artists, one of whom will receive a solo show at the museum in the future. At the time of its publication, the winner had not yet been chosen. This uncertainty inspired the design of the book.

The conventional book form is destabilized into a spiral-bound volume with heavy dividers that can be rotated to make six different book covers, allowing the reader to have a dialogue with the book object—where it begins and ends, and how formal or informal of an object it may be.

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After Neurath: The Global Polis (2008) The Global Polis: Interactive Infrastructures (2009) This exhibition held at the Center for Architecture in New York grew out of an earlier exhibition, After Neurath: The Global Polis, held at Stroom Den Haag in the Netherlands, and curated by Nader Vossoughian. The New York exhibition was originally conceived as a reinstallation of the past exhibit, but morphed into a conceptual extension of the original that was more specific to New York, and explored ideas from the first show to question how infrastructure can be adapted to consider community, identity and history. The exhibition design was a nod to the show in Den Haag, using a single newsprint publication to act simultaneously as the container for all of the exhibition materials when mounted on the brightly painted homasote walls, and also as exhibition take-away.

Into the Open: Positioning Practice (2009) Curated by Aaron Levy and William Menking, Into the Open is an exhibition that focuses on socially-engaging architecture practices in the United States. Presented at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Gallery at Parsons The New School for Design, the exhibition is a woven composite of its structural elements: chalkboard painted walls, stenciled super-graphics, photographic reproductions, digital projects, display furniture and large text banners. The chalkboard walls presented an open forum for visitors that grew into a palimpsest over the exhibition’s duration.

Museo Tamayo identity (2010) Project Projects created an identity system for contemporary art museum, Museo Tamayo in Mexico City. The playfulness of the Museo Tamayo logo literally suggests a playful morphing position between the museum and its emblem, and the shifting relationship between the institution and its visitors.

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Inventory Books Inventory Books is a new series of pocket-sized volumes, edited by Adam Michaels, designed at Project Projects, and published by Princeton Architectural Press. The series is a platform for research related to transformations in urban spaces and culture. The graphic approach to the series, Michaels quips, is “like a trojan horse of fun”—in which a lively, approachable paperback format is used as a vehicle to convey complex ideas to broad audiences. But the conversation isn’t really meant to end when files are sent to the printer. Discussion of the topics contained in the books and related events continue through the Inventory Books website (www.inventorybooks. info), allowing the story to unfold and the project grow into its next form.

Street Value: Shopping, Planning, and Politics at Fulton Mall, by Rosten Woo and Meredith Tenhoor with Damon Rich (with a photo essay by photographer Gus Powell) The first in the series is an outgrowth of a 2005 collaboration between Project Projects and the Center for Urban Pedagogy on the outdoor exhibition Values & Variety: Shopping on Fulton Street. The exhibition, which called attention to the history of one of Brooklyn’s most famous shopping districts, was composed of a series of posters that were situated on 11 information kiosks located throughout the shopping area.

Each poster highlighted stories and perspectives of the area from the 1800s to the present. The book uses the exhibition’s content as a starting point, and offers a more in-depth look at the mall’s ongoing redevelopment saga—its past, present and a re-envisioning of its future.

Above the Pavement—The Farm!

by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, principals of WORKac Above the Pavement is about P.F.1 (Public Farm 1), the project WORKac designed and organized for MoMA’s P.S.1 2008 Young Architects Program. The project was an exploration of new modes of urban infrastructure, producing its own power, reclaiming rainwater and growing its own food. The book takes its name from the zine Project Projects had created for the opening of P.F.1, which provided a conceptual and historical framework for visitors, the cover of which proclaimed, “sur les pavés la ferme!,” a clever riff on a rallying cry of the May 1968 protests in France—capturing the radical visions of the relationship between cities and food introduced by the project. Above the Pavement provides a more diverse discussion of the relationship between architecture, urbanism and food.

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“We've been both picky enough and lucky enough with the topics that we've dealt with have almost all been things that we are deeply interested in, and that curiosity doesn't go away at the end of a project.”

- Rob Giampietro

of our work frequently stems from dialogue, “We’re interested in building a coherent both within the studio, and with external col- body of work, and as we’ve layered our exlaborators,” says Michaels. “And while many panding set of shared interests, the percepof the constraints in our work have come tion of what we can bring to a project has directly from given commissioners, we’re increased,” says Giampietro. “The value excited to be at a point in which we’re more that we bring to a project now is very difactively creating situations for ourselves, ferent than what we would bring to a project where we establish the cast of characters several years ago, but because of the track record of the studio, we’re able to move producing a project’s generative dialogue.” forward in a sustainable way.” Michaels In much of their work, there is a sense of notes that the dialogue is enabled by being open-endedness that allows for their designs able to return to a site or topic, or being able to act as platforms for exchange, with room to to work with repeat clients, is what fuels the change and grow. This approach allows new studio. “We’re happiest when we’re able to developments to stem from the resting place of develop long-term collaborative relationpast collaborations. “I think there’s something ships, as our best work tends to emerge from nice about building in time in design practice a framework of mutual trust.” for reflection and the space for the re-dissemination of a project, so that after it is released Isaac Gertman is a graphic designer, educator, the first time, it can happen again in a new displaced mid-westerner, cyclist, and occasional way—that the ideas can percolate through a writer residing in Brooklyn, NY. Noah Kalina lives set of objects that we make,” says Giampietro. and works in Brooklyn, NY. www.noahkalina.com

Look our for the next release from Inventory Books to be released in Fall 2011, as well as the forthcoming exhibition catalogue in for Guggenheim Bilbao, The Luminous Interval, which opens in March 2011

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Defining Style Vintage-obsessed songstress Juliette Commagere explains her self-coined "gothic hippie" style and talks about her quest for ethereal beauty in music and beyond

Text by Katie Fanuko Photos by Bryan Sheffield

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uliette Commagere may be best known as the keytar-playing badass from Hello Stranger, but since 2008, the musician has been making a name for herself as a solo artist with her debut disc Queens Die Proudly and her latest release, The Procession. Commagere felt she was taking a gamble with her musical career when she decided to take a break from the band to focus on her solo career, but it was a risk that ultimately paid off for the young singer—one that resulted in finding herself and her personal style.

“I admit I was afraid at first to sort of just be in charge of everything,” she says of making her first album. “There were ideas that I had that I might not have brought to the band because I thought that they were too experimental and strange. So with my music, I wasn’t afraid of failing because it was my fault and nobody else’s. It completely changed my life, and that’s why I decided to make a second record.

It was really a big turning point for me.”

Opening spread: Commagere in her handmade brown feathered capelet.

Left: When not making music or working with her hands, Commagere scours thrift stores for rare, one-of-a-kind items.

While recording The Procession, due out this fall, the Los Angeles-based songstress felt no pressure to make her album radio-friendly, and as a result, her intricate arrangements delve deeper into the classical compositions that have inspired her work. “I think that [this album is] pushing boundaries even more [than my first solo album],” she says. “I wanted to try and be even more experimental and to just let the songs unfold.”

After Commagere finished recording The Procession, she turned her attention to her love of crafting. “After we finished the record, I just started making things,” she says. “I guess it’s just a need to always be creating something, whether it’s music or something with my hands.” The reason many of her stage outfits appear to be one-of-a-kind is because they are all handmade by Commagere herself, including the brown feathered capelet she often pairs with some of her favorite dresses.

She also handcrafted the feather headpiece she dons on the cover of The Procession. The Mayan-inspired creation pays homage to Commagere’s Mexican heritage. “It took me three days to make. There was a lot of trial and error involved, but I can just get lost in projects for days at a time.”

She also happens to be quite the vintage connoisseur; her current fixation is on all things Victorian. “Right now, I’m really obsessed with Victorian clothing, so I’ve been collecting little beaded capes and long cotton nightgowns,” she says. “Whatever I’m into, I just become obsessed with and I go around and buy whatever I can. I’m a hoarder basically; I’m not afraid to say it.” Some of her favorite LA spots to shop for vintage goods include Tavin and Shareen Vintage, which is located in a downtown warehouse. “That’s like a girl’s heaven over there. There are no boys allowed and there are no dressing rooms, so it’s just like, tons of girls in their underwear.

And there’s candy. It’s really awesome,” she says. Commagere has also found some of Continued on p. 115

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FAVORITE FINDS

Juliette lists her top five thrift-store buys

1. The 1920s Whiting and Davis shawl I got for $30 in a thrift store in Grand Junction, Colorado.

2. A late '70s or early '80s cuff I found at Centricity in New York. It’s a gold cuff covered in iridescent mesh with opal-like crystals on it, topped with an enormous crystal pyramid in the center.

It’s almost like a weapon. I’ve never seen anything like it, and people literally stop me in the street when I wear it.

3. A 1960s gold chainmail top that I found at the Santa Monica flea market that looks like armor and instantly makes me look like a warrior.

4. A gigantic panther mirror covered with red and gold glitter that I found at The Attic in Las Vegas, and I insisted on stuffing it in the van to take home. I love it because [it makes] you wonder who owned it and what kind of shenanigans they were up to.

5. Also, a giant French “Juliette of the Spirits” poster that I found at a little poster shop in Paris that I can’t remember the name of. The guy in the shop said he had two of them, and that Martin Scorsese bought the first one and I bought the other one!

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The Making of The Procession Commagere crafted the one-of-a-kind, feathered headdress that she dons on the cover of her album all by herself.

With a glue gun, feathers and hours of dedication, she assembled the impressive headgear piece by piece.

Photos by Elliott Lee Hazel

“My concept was to juxtapose an Aztec and Mayan-inspired headdress with intricate Victorian lettering and detail like you see on 19th century classical sheet music. I wanted it to evoke that odd feeling, like what you feel in the final scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where things are put together that really don’t go together.

The headdress took me three days to make and I almost gave up at one point, but I’m so glad I didn’t. We took tons and tons of pictures and I finally decided on the rock-climbing one because it reminded me of a '60s surrealist film—it’s very Fellini-esque, and I just loved that. I wore the unitard and my gold chainmail top over it because, honestly, I just didn’t know what else to wear.

I thought the unitard would look like a shiny suit but instead I just look naked. My parents were horrified at first, but I think it makes me look like some kind of animal or alien. I think it is the perfect accompaniment to the darker, more mysterious aspects of my music. My clothes, my music, my home—it’s all just one never-ending experiment.”

- Juliette Commagere

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“Whatever I’m into, I just become obsessed with and I go around and buy whatever I can. I’m a hoarder basically; I’m not afraid to say it.”

-Juliette Commagere

Above: Commagere's latest album, The Procession

from the porch, and from the back you can see the Griffith Observatory,” she says. “It’s really a magical little house. I never want to leave it.”

The couple recently painted their living room black for a music video shoot for the song "Impact" off of The Procession. They liked it so Commagere’s solo efforts have also allowed much that Commagere decided to make it the her the opportunity to tour overseas, which room’s focal point, and she proceeded to build has added a new element to her creative the rest of the room’s décor around it, a style process. “I get very romantic and wistful she refers to as “gothic hippie.” “Now that the when I’m away from home, so I think my living room is black, [I’ve added] a lot of gold perspective on life changes. [I’ll] be on this elements to it. I like a lot of natural elements. long train ride and just look out the window I’m not really that into plastic furniture. and watch the scenery change, and it’s this There’s a lot of wood, leather, crystals and very romantic feeling that you get caught up rocks—stuff like that. And I have my two in,” she says. “Lyrics and melodic ideas come strange feather headdresses on display,” she very quickly. It’s kind of like your brain can says. The result is a space that is mysterious, just be free and you’re not worrying about yet inviting—similar to her music. “I think going to buy groceries and doing laundry. You that there is an element of fantasy and don’t have to worry about any of that stuff experimentalism in my music that definitely influences my style,” she says. “I would like when you’re on the road.” to think that I am creating something otherWhen not on the road, Commagere calls LA’s worldly, and I definitely want my style to Echo Park neighborhood home, where she reflect that.” is settling into married life with husband Joachim Cooder. “You can see downtown Katie Fanuko is a Chicago-based freelance writer.

her favorite pieces by scouring resale shops while on the road. “I find so many things on tour because LA is very expensive,” she says.

“I found a Whiting and Davis beaded shawl for $30, and I’ve seen it in vintage stores for $500.”

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Vintage Juliette Commagere shares her favorite vintage shops around the World Los Angeles:

San Francisco:

Tavin – Echo Park (above) La Rosa – Haight Ashbury “Tavin is a little, tucked-away boutique, “The clothes are real vintage­—they are and all the pieces are carefully selected pristine—and the girls are so impeccably with a more romantic, whimsical point of dressed. They are so inspiring.” view. You can find Victorian dresses there, some incredible '60s and '70s stuff, as well as clothing and jewelry made by local London: designers. It’s right down the street from my house, so I always think I’ll just pop in just to take a peek and not [actually] buy anything, and then I blow all my rent money.”

Shareen Vintage – Downtown L.A. “Shareen used to feel like a secret, and even though the cat's out of the bag, I still find incredible pieces, and her price point is always really really good. It's set up in a warehouse, and there's no dressing rooms, and there's vintage furniture scattered all around and candy and treats, so it feels like a slumber party with everybody trying things on.”

Portland: Magpie – Downtown Portland “Portland probably has the best vintage shopping in the country and Magpie is my favorite.”

Paris: Free P’Star – Rue Ste Croix la Bretonnerie “In Paris, it’s tough because you just want to be insanely rich so you can buy everything. But Free P’Star is so cheap and complete madness.”

Tokyo:

Luna And Curious – Shoreditch “They have a small, but incredible selection of gorgeous vintage [pieces], and then they have unusual home items and other odd things like paper eyelashes. I bought a Swarovski crystal eye mask made by local artist Natahsa Lawes. It blows people's minds.”

La Foret – near Tokyo Metropolis “I know it’s not vintage, but I spent an entire exhilarating day in La Foret. You can find things like jewelry made out of dolls heads that you can only find in Japan.”

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TAKING IT TO THE STREETS: VIENNA'S NEW DESIGN SCENE From its aggressive architecture to its delicate handcrafted objects, Vienna has always been recognized as a European leader in high design.

Today, however, the Viennese design world is finally opening up to the public, meshing old traditions with new concepts to create a design scene primed for innovation.

Text by Kathryn Freeman Rathbone Photos by Chris Eichenseer

In Vienna, the so-called “café culture” does not resonate as a foreign concept. Within its coffeehouses, the Austrian capital has nurtured a stalwart appreciation for the arts and its related disciplines since the industrial revolution. Ask any Viennese citizen if this is a new development, and they’ll most likely scoff—discreetly, of course—at your cultural crudity and lack of historical awareness.

However, to say that Vienna’s café culture has not changed over the course of its 125year history is to ignore one of the greatest shifts in the contemporary European design community.

Over the past 10 years, Vienna has become a mecca for new European designers who are constantly looking forward. This isn’t Berlin, where decades of political, social, and cultural divisions have produced enough fuel for a slow-burn counterculture revolution. It’s not Paris, a city expected to uphold its avantgarde nature just on principle. This is Vienna, a place where design is a very serious matter.

Most Viennese designers still hail from rigorous technical educations. They are the students of the esteemed Academy of the Fine Arts, having completed apprenticeships at centuries-old craftmakers, yet their work is anything but traditional. And in keeping with

their non-conformist ideas, they’re showing and selling their work in non-traditional places: Vienna’s cafés.

When you consider the evolution of modern Viennese design, it’s not so strange that this has come to pass. In 1857, Emperor Franz Joseph I bulldozed the city’s walls and replaced them with the Ringstrasse’s aggressive architecture. The city has incorporated design into everyday life ever since. After all, you can’t ignore design if you live in a city literally built to the edges of its property lines.

People here accept design because it’s omnipresent and a welcome cultural facet. Couple this love for material objects with a robust historical café culture, and it’s no wonder that contemporary cafés are beginning to morph into design studios.

But Viennese design certainly has not been corralled exclusively into the cafés.

All over the city, studio think tanks, traditional artisans and the new showroomcoffeehouse hybrids are redefining the aesthetics and principles of 21st century Viennese design. Here, objects have always been privately crafted with incredible care.

Processes that are no longer taking place behind closed doors.

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A view of Vienna's MuseumsQuartier

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New contemporary design studios like Walking Chair are determined to open design to the public. Designers Fidel Peugeot and Karl Emilio Pircher formed their partnership in 2002; Peugeot classically trained in communications design at the University for Design in Basel and Pircher, first trained as a mechanical engineer in his home country of Italy, and later continuing his studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Eventually finding each other while drifting through the Viennese design circles, the duo decided to set up shop as a can-do-all design studio in the Landstrasse neighborhood, home also to the famously-quirky HundertwasserHaus.

They even chose a converted Viennese café as their studio’s home base.

“This is the first time the city is recovering from its ‘shit’ period [after World War II]. There’s a lot of opportunity for work to be done.”

- Fidel Peugeot, Walking Chair Design Studio

Walking Chair specializes in product design, architecture and graphic design. In fact, the studio is named after one of Pircher’s mixeddiscipline designs, an animal-esque chair that actually walks. To Peugeot and Pircher, this wide-angle body of work makes sense in a city currently undergoing a design renaissance. “This is the first time the city is recovering from its ‘shit’ period [after World War II],” states Peugeot. “There’s a lot of opportunity for work to be done.” Their experimentation with vivid colors, non-traditional materials and zany product installations serves as a testament to the Walking Chair philosophy.

The studio’s products range from a playful series of P.E.T lights, chandeliers assembled from shrunken plastic bottles meant for the private home, to the bright red You May furniture unit, large enough and durable enough to withstand use and abuse in a public space.

Peugeot explains this exploration simply, stating, “The way we work is the way we are living. We believe in our craziness—we don’t want to become Coca-Cola!”

Disseminating their vision of good design, whether it is with their own work or the work of somebody else, is a key tenet of Walking Chair’s principles. “We like design, ours and others,” says Peugeot. In 2007, the designers opened Walking Chair Gallery right next door to their studio in order to showcase both types of work. The admission-free gallery exhibits three to four shows a year, often debuting the work of unknown Viennese designers.

This past fall’s show featured Klangbox instruments, guitars made by Vienna scavenger Elmar Zeilhofer. And while they don’t serve coffee in the gallery, artists like Zeilhofer insist that its space captures the familiar Vienna café culture vibe because it publicly but casually encourages design innovation. “I was visiting a friend to show him two new instruments, one with a deer skull, and Walking Chair is on the same street,” says Zeilhofer, recalling how he walked into the studio off the street to introduce Peugeot to his madcap

Accessibility is a key component to disseminating contemporary Viennese design. All of the above companies have public spaces open to visitors nearly seven days a week. If you’re in Vienna, be sure to stop by.

Walking Chair Design Studio Visit Peugeot and Pircher in their studio to witness their design process.

The open layout of their shop allows visitors to see Walking Chair work at its various stages of development. The adjacent gallery show rotates every three to four months and exhibits experimental work done by some of Austria’s craziest artists.

Walking Chair Studio and Gallery, Rasumofskygasse 10, www.walking-chair.com

J. & L. Lobmeyr At Lobmeyr’s main store, you can walk through the company’s Vienna Glass Museum, an installation showing a curated collection of their crystal drinkware sets and homewares objects.

Here, Lobmeyr’s great process comes alive by tracing the history of the designs. In the main store you can also browse and buy crystal pieces that are for sale.

Lobmeyr, Kärtnerstrasse 26, www.lobmeyr.at

Das Möbel Das Möbel café is a great place to stop after hitting Museumplatz, the street that is home to many of Vienna’s finest cultural institutions. The café serves daily coffee and food specials, and, since it’s a local favorite, is almost always busy.

Come in to test out the great furniture and gauge the aesthetic currents and ideas surrounding contemporary Viennese design.

Das Möbel, Burggasse 10, www.dasmoebel.at

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Clockwise from top left: Inside J. & L. Lobmeyr's Vienna Glass Museum, a Vienna street; Walking Chair design studio's Fidel Peugeot, Heinz Boesch and Karl Emilio Pircher; Leonid Rath, head of J. & L. Lobmeyr

guitars. “I was curious to see what reaction the instruments would cause. Fidel was very much interested in the idea, although he later admitted that his first thought about their non-expected appearance was: ‘Is that a wild one or what?!'” Shortly thereafter, Walking Chair decided to take a chance on Zeilhofer, commissioning a solo exhibition that ran this past summer. When asked how he feels his Klangbox instruments swerve the Viennese design scene, Zeilhofer plainly replies, “Hmm…I simply don’t know. The exposition at the Walking Chair Gallery is my first connection to the local design culture so far.” This response seems perfectly fitting. Because, as Peugeot and Pircher have proven time

and again, Walking Chair likes to encourage the growth of new design by showing fun, offbeat work in their relaxed public space.

mitted to preserving high levels of craftsmanship while simultaneously pioneering modern design aesthetics.

Even though their studio and gallery may feel casual, the zealousness that characterizes Walking Chair’s passion for design is unmistakably Viennese. In this city, design is an entrenched culture enricher, and it has always been treated accordingly. The histories of old companies such as world-renowned fine crystal makers J. & L. Lobmeyr can—and do—attest to design’s high cultural value. By the beginning of the 20th century, Vienna’s artists and designers recognized Lobmeyr as a serious design institution, a company com-

The company has always shunned industrial production. To this day, the crystal makers handblow, engrave, cut and polish each piece of work that they produce. Each piece is made from a hand-milled mold that can only be used 100 times. Paper silhouette patterns ensure that all new molds exactly replicate their patterned predecessors. Lobmeyr’s materials and products reference historicism, and its manufacturing process is almost too protracted to ever have been considered modern. On its time-tested apprenticeship

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Vienna Café Culture Many hip independent shops are tucked into the historic architecture of the city’s neighborhoods. Walk into these places if you want to find obsessive coffee brewers, resourceful fashion designers and downright cool spots to hang out.

Schon Schön Bar Schon Schön is the brainchild of one Viennese hairstylist, one fashion designer and one bartender, and all three practice their trades in the shop. Here you can get your hair cut into an avant garde style, shop for clothes made by independent Viennese designers, eat in the organic café and get a drink in the basement champagne bar.

Schon Schön Bar, Lindengasse 53, phone: 06991/53777

This rare coffee bean is collected from bird excrement.

Alt Wien Kaffee Located in the bustling Schleifmühlgasse district near Naschmarkt, Alt Wien Kaffee serves up traditional brews to coffee purists. “I always loved good coffee,” owner Christian Schroedl says. “More than a decade ago, there was this little coffee roaster in Belvederegasse. I used to buy my coffee there. Fresh, creamy, tasty, just my cup of coffee.” Schroedl bought Alt Wien nearly 10 years ago when he learned that the shop’s proprietor was retiring. “After sampling other coffees in Vienna that came nowhere near what I was used to, I decided, in the end, to learn from the old master and buy the place to become a coffee roaster myself,” he says.

Craftsmanship, just like at so many Viennese establishments, is the shop’s highest priority. Alt Wien hand picks, roasts,

and grinds all their beans, ensuring that each cup of coffee has been processed to yield its best aromatic and flavor profiles.

The tiny shop welcomes all coffee lovers, but isn’t about to compromise quality for speed. Remarks Schroedl, “There is one group of people that we have to disappoint: the coffee-to-go people. There is always time to sit down for five minutes and enjoy a perfectly made espresso.” If you take the time to sit and enjoy, Alt Wien will be sure to treat you to only the best cup. “Give us a chance to enchant you with the pure stuff,” says Schroedl. “There is no need to put in sugar or milk or even soy products, as some people have the nerve to ask. Give good coffee a chance. It will not disappoint you.”

Alt Wien Kaffee, Schleifmühlgasse 23, www.altwien.at

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program, Leonid Rath, a sixth-generation Lobmeyr family member and current head of the company, says, “About five years are needed to be able [to] learn copper wheel engraving or glass cutting.” The process is so laborious and so technical that each designer typically only masters one or two design positions. As Rath proudly admits, “Not everybody can do everything even after 30 or 50 years. There are certain challenges we only can give to one specific craftsman.”

Ina Kent Down the street from Schon Schön Bar, designer Ina Kent packs her miniscule space with her own handbag creations. She makes all the bags herself out our high-end leather, and each bag can be adjusted through a combination of straps and carabiners to suit the likes of the owner.

Ina Kent, Lindengasse 46, www.inakent.at

It’s slightly baffling to think of Lobmeyr, a crystal maker so tied to intricate craftsmanship, as champions of contemporary design.

However, the company has always collaborated with leading contemporary artists and designers, such as architect Aldolf Loos, glass sculptor Vera Liskova and product designers Marie Rahm and Monica Singer of POLKA, in order to generate new stemware collections for fabrication. To this day, Loos’ pattern no. 248 still sells as one of their most popular glassware sets. Debuted in 1931, the design itself is sleek and simple, limited in ornamentation and unmistakably modern.

Lobmeyr attributes the pattern’s historic success to the miniscule intricacies that comprise its perceived simplicity. “There are many small details that even make a very simple design unique if designed and crafted through until its perfect,” states Rath. “A good sample is the very simple [Loos] tumbler set. The tumbler is quite a bit wider at the top than at the bottom, but you will not recognize that seeing the actual piece. On the contrary, you will feel the tumbler getting narrower on top, if the shape is made exactly cylindrical.” Loos’ tumbler indeed exhibits the Corbusian phenomenal transparency—a modern design property so rarely achieved when a detail is only indirectly perceived, not directly observed.

These properties, Rath reaffirms, can only be created through Lobmeyr’s meticulous process of artisinal hand manufacture.

This is how the company justifies training craftsmen in a field of such narrow work opportunities. “We have the experience that our people stick to their job with a certain passion,” Rath asserts. “I do not know many who ever changed their job.” Lobmeyr also offers to the world an alternative definition to the hot-box term, sustainability. The company strives for emotional durability, an idea based on the concept that consumers will keep goods for decades if they truly love them. “Objects have to stay desirable for their total physical lifetime. We know that carefully hand-crafted products have a very high emotional durability. In a world overloaded by mediocre products, it is touching how customers can be affected by the uniqueness of a glass they touch.”

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Clockwise from top: Phil Café; Katharina Marginter, co-founder of Das Möbel; children partaking in sport and lesiure on a Vienna street, Das Möbel café interior

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So, although its products may be associated with high brow institutions and vintage social traditions, Lobmeyr’s work processes of design collaboration, manufacturing and sustainability prove that the company has

“The concept of design is no longer equated with fashion trends and costly prettification of living spaces, but stands for furniture-creations that connect with their users in form and function on a daily basis” - Lothar Trierenberg, Das Möbel rightfully earned its place as a Viennese design heavyweight still setting the bar for its contemporary compatriots.“We think that Vienna [design] stands for the incorporation of emotion and rationality, and that this is the most important base to manage the massive fine tuning, which has to be achieved in [the design] world in the next decades,” Rath says.

This is a serious proposition that’s going to take a tremendous joint effort within this relatively small community. But, in looking to some of the new showroom-cafés, it becomes so evident that the fine-tuning of the Viennese design scene has already begun.

Klangbox Klangbox founder Elmar Zeilholfer says he ended up in design because he failed as a guitarist. “Six strings seemed way too complex for me,” claims the designer. “So instead of spending years in guitar lessons, I decided to build a three-string instrument with materials from the store and things I had in my kitchen.” Zeilhofer has become quite skilled at crafting garbage-based instruments, using objects like old cigar boxes and wooden fruit and vegetable trays in his creations. On larger instruments, he substitutes motorcycle clutch and brake cables for strings. “My instruments are experimental and rough compared to industrial products. I built them for myself, and I don’t care too much about details.” His quirky-yetresourceful creations add a welcome lightheartedness to the serious world of instrument craftsmanship that is appreciated by music lovers and design tinkerers alike.

These new hybrid design showrooms, with names like “Phil” and “Das Möbel” (“furniture” in English), capitalize upon Vienna’s long history of strong café patronage and love for the design disciplines. “Vienna’s design scene is definitely upcoming,” states Das Möbel team member Katharina Marginter.

“Designers come to live and work in Austria, especially Vienna. There is a strong cooperation between designers and economy.” Obviously, this energy provides a prime space for new design exhibition techniques. Whereas the cafés of old Vienna often invited designers and artists to come and engage the public in a dialogue about their work, these new cafés instead place the work directly within their spaces. But it’s more than just showing art on the wall or sculpture on the floor. These culture hot-spots literally furnish their interiors with hardware, industrial products and furniture done by Austria’s best design up-and-comers. Their casual vibe just makes the work all that more accessible.

Das Möbel really pioneered this new design space typology. Founded in 1998 by Lothar Trierenberg and Margreta Schieszwohl, the café has become a design-collecting hub where the general public can confront designers and their work over a cup of coffee and piece of strudel. The space itself is

sparse, but it is filled with all kinds of colorful objects produced by an interesting mélange of Central European designers, with every piece in the expanded three-story coffee shop for sale. “In the café, people can use the furniture and find themselves in a relaxed shopping atmosphere,” he says. “You can come as often as you like, without having a sales assistant sneaking up on you and asking if you want to buy something.”

While Trierenberg admits that Das Möbel encourages exhibited designers to spend as much time as they can at the café, he firmly believes they don’t show up just to hawk goods. They come to exchange ideas and further build up Vienna’s burgeoning design culture. “For designers, Das Möbel is an international contact point and a design scene expert regarding Austrian style,” Trierenberg says. “It establishes access to the market and presents an up-to-date survey of contemporary Austrian and Central European design work in temporary exhibitions.” Over the past few years, Trierenberg and his team have worked closely with the Austrian design community in order to hone its principles. “The concept of design is no longer equated with fashion trends and costly prettification of living spaces, but stands for furniture-creations that connect with their users in form and function on a daily basis,” says Trierenberg. “In this public living room, exchange will continue in the future.”

Today, Vienna is a unique city in that it considers how good design can affect people’s lives. Ultimately, what is most striking about Vienna’s new public design scene is the fierce passion that drives its evolution. Just like the café culture, this passion has a long history, and takes many shapes.

Playfulness and optimism are on view at studios like Walking Chair. Lobmeyr is still training artisans and fabricating crystal goods with painstaking care and the utmost respect for materials. And the slew of new cafés like Das Möbel actively encourage designers and the public to come utilize their spaces as public platforms to talk about good design. Although these approaches are all different, they promote the same goals: actively engage design, realize that it must be produced at a high level of quality and keep it alive for the future. This is not about a political statement, a cultural movement or a class distinction. As is so evident in the city’s galleries, showrooms and—most publicly of all in its cafés—in Vienna, good design equals a good way of life.

Chris Eichenseer is the creative force behind the design studio Someoddpilot, Chris Eichenseer Photography and Public Works. He also plays drums in Beak—the world's heaviest metal band.

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Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier: Contemporary Art’s Wunderkind Text by Ellen Knuti

Vienna’s expansive MuseumsQuartier is trying its best to be everything to everyone, with the goals of providing an art space, a creative space and a living space for the millions of visitors who pass through its doors each year.

Stiftung Ludwig (MOMUK), Vienna’s preeminent museum of modern art. The impressive contemporary art museum Kunsthalle Wien, host to blockbusters like the Liverpool Tate’s thematic ‘Summer of Love’ and individual shows by Eva Hesse and Keith Haring, is sandwiched between the two. Also housed in MQ are unique spaces devoted to architecture and modern dance with the Architekturzentrum Wien and Tanzquartier Wien, and the thoroughly interactive ZOOM Children’s Museum.

Along the way you’ll see a gaggle of restaurants, shops, and cafés, where you can make like the locals with an afternoon stehkaffee (a cup of coffee, consumed upright at the bar).

Located in the heart of Central Europe’s baroque city, the MQ Wien is one of the largest cultural institutions in the world with more than 600,000 square feet (58,000 square meters) of space at its disposal. Much like Prague and Budapest, Vienna has been busy rebuilding itself in the wake of its own rambling and melancholy history. The MQ is quite literally built into the city’s past; its physical space is located on the site of the former imperial stables, and many of its The innovative quartier21, a multi-purpose current buildings were repurposed from the “cultural lab” offering space and support to original structures designed by Fischer von about forty small and medium-sized arts Erlach in the first half of the 18th century. The initiatives, is one of the MQ’s biggest draws, stables were originally positioned on the focusing on fashion, design and digital culture. escarpment behind the old town fortifications, Meant to serve as a foil to the more conventional but over time the city grew up around institutions that surround it, quartier21 them. During his stay in Vienna, Napoleon aims to bring together the next generation of used the stables as a stronghold during the cultural producers in its experimental setting bombardment, and in the period following with its own unique exhibition, presentation World War I the buildings were used and events galleries. However, at the heart primarily as a fairgrounds for trade shows. of the MQ is its courtyard—nearly 100,000 It wasn’t until 1982 that the possibility of square feet of it—where the Viennese glitterati using the grounds as an arts space gained real come to lounge and relax on large sculptural momentum. Nearly 20 years and €145 million chaises conceived specifically for the space in the summer months. later, the MuseumsQuartier Wien was born.

Within its historic setting, you’ll find the Leopold Museum, home to the largest collection of works by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele—including the controversial “Portrait of Wally,” for which the museum paid $19 million in 2010 to the estate of Jewish gallery owner Lea Bondi Jaray. There’s also the monolithic Museum Moderner Kunst

In addition to its main entrance, the MQ is accessible by elongated barrel passageways stemming from each cardinal direction and connecting individual courtyards. In a playful nod to cultural expression, the welltrodden entrances have been redesigned into public art channels, each with a unique focus ranging from sound art (Tonspur

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Above: Aerial view of MusuemQuartier.

Copyright Popelka Above right: MUMOK (Museum of Modern Art) and "Enzi" outdoor furniture elements created by the architectural team PPAG. Copyright Ali Schafler.

Left: Typopassage is a small, but powerful tribute to typography, with rotating exhibitions and accompanying catalogues available 24 hours a day from a customfitted vending machine.

passage) to the comic strip (Kabinett comic passage) and street art (Street Art Passage Vienna).

The most recent addition arrived in November 2009—the Typopassage—or, The Design Micro Museum With and About Lettering, as named by the founding partnership of quartier21 and Austrian design firm bauer – koncept & gestaltung. The passageway is a small, but powerful tribute to typography, with rotating exhibitions and accompanying catalogues available 24 hours a day from a custom-fitted vending machine.

“Messages only obtain their character through typography,” explains Erwin K. Bauer, the driving force behind bauer—koncept & gestaltung, “The Typopassage is the place to rediscover this cultural asset usually perceived unconsciously.”

What distinguishes the Typopassage from

the other passageways is, in part, its stylized vaulted ceiling, which both speaks to the space’s baroque history and announces its new life. Incorporated into the design are the words of Federico García Lorca’s poem “Pequeño Vals Vienés” (1930) and the Leonard Cohen song it inspired, “Take This Waltz,” which refer to Vienna as a place where dreams are made if not fulfilled.

As MuseumsQuartier continues to change, evolve and add to the creativity happening inside its walls (and beyond), one thing remains the same; with areas inside the complex devoted to diverse disciplines in design like typography, modern art, children’s art and comic strips, its clear the space has made good on it's efforts to be everything to everyone.

Ellen Knuti writes, shoots photos and lives in New York City. www.ellenknuti.com

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7 new albums

Presented by

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Tristan Perich

1-Bit Symphony (Cantaloupe) In 2004, contemporary composer Tristan Perich first created his unorthodox (yet old-school) means of delivering minimalist electronic creations—by programming different bleeps and buzzes onto a microcomputer, which was built into a circuit (with a headphone jack) and placed in a jewel case. The result—1-Bit Music—was fascinating for the direct relationship that it established between listener and music, with the music being performed anew each time that the “on” switch was flipped. Now Perich is back with 1-Bit Symphony, using the same means of delivery but presenting a formal electronic work. Over five movements, 1-Bit Symphony shifts through harmonized sine waves and dot-matrix sounds. The total package is impressive, but you don’t realize just how meticulously and painstakingly 1-Bit Symphony is programmed until you see the “liner notes”—the full programming code, with notes and rests dictated over a massive script. /01 02/

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MiM0SA

Silver Lining (Muti Music) MiM0SA is a rising dub-step producer from the West Coast who shares an electronic aesthetic with the usual Low End Theory crew (the LA club, not the album by A Tribe Called Quest). Silver Lining is his newest “full-length” (dubbed a mini-LP), and though it’s a funky, enjoyable dance disc, MiM0SA has made some of his biggest waves via remixes. Be sure to check out his webexclusive remix for “I Put a Spell on You,” the classic Screamin’ Jay Hawkins jam that was later covered by Nina Simone. /02

Zach Hill

Face Tat (Sargent House) A founding member of math rockers Hella, Zach Hill is among the most accomplished and prolific drummers in the avant-rock community. In 2008, amid his countless collaborations, he issued a solo debut to push the boundaries that other drummersturned-leaders set before him. The result was a demented tech-pop oeuvre, and now Hill (who remains as busy as ever) offers his sophomore effort. Like its predecessor, Face Tat enlists a bunch of top-tier guest talent—including Prefuse 73, Devendra Banhart, and members of Tera Melos, Hella, and No Age—but the result is decidedly Hill’s own strange style. /05

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Brent Amaker & The Rodeo

Please Stand By (Spark & Shine) Seattle’s wiley Brent Amaker & The Rodeo, known for its invigorating live shows and Johnny Cash vibe, is a group of characters—literally. The band’s brand of country/ western is as much an homage as anything, calling on the tried and true clichés of sex, booze, and rock ’n’ roll. But buried beneath all the tongue-in-cheek posturing is a wellcrafted blend of hooks, hooting backing vocals, and reverberated guitar solos. /03

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Lazer Sword

s/t (Innovative Leisure) Comprised of DJs Low Limit and Lando Kal, Lazer Sword is a (newly international) electro duo that, like many in its field, has built reputations on remixes and dance nights.

Following a pair of short vinyl releases, this self-titled Lazer Sword debut is 15 tracks of synth grooves, space sounds, and dance beats. Though it exudes futuristic vibes, a definite old-school feel permeates the music, and it borrows a few hip-hop heavyweights in the form of Antipop Consortium’s M. Sayyid and Freestyle Fellowship MC Myka 9 for cameos. /04

James Falzone’s Allos Musica Thunderball

Lamentations (Allos Documents) Chicago clarinetist and composer James Falzone uses his different Allos Musica ensembles to traverse modern chamber music, world music, and jazz—often within the same song. Lamentations, the debut album from his newest Allos incarnation, derives a great deal of inspiration from Arabic music, stemming from time spent in American Arabic neighborhoods after the US invasion of Iraq. The musical influence is profound, but it never overpowers Falzone’s songwriting style; on the contrary, it adds another dynamic fold to an already-expansive catalog. /06

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12 Mile High (ESL Music) Based in Washington, DC, the eclectic production trio known as Thunderball shares the globetrotting MO of hometown DJ duo Thievery Corporation, whose record label, ESL Music, has now released four full-length Thunderball albums. Previously, the group has explored down-tempo, drum ’n’ bass, and other electronic sub-genres while adding more and more organics to its sound. 12 Mile High expands Thunderball’s cinematic, multi-ethnic sound further, adding elements of Indian, Latin, and jazz music to a concoction of 1960s spy films, dub, funk, and soul. /07

Scott Morrow is the music editor at ALARM and author of This Week’s Best Albums, an eclectic weekly series presenting exceptional music.

Visit www.alarmpress.com for more.

DESIGN BUREAU

WE ARE DESIGN BUREAU: Launch Event, July 21, 2010

Chicago’s design scene stepped out to celebrate the launch of Design Bureau, the newest venture from publisher Chris Force and ALARM. The magazine celebrated the inaugural issue at Chicago’s historic Glessner House Museum.

Partygoers filled the garden of the revolutionary South Loop townhouse mansion, and found themselves surrounded by rusticated stone blocks, round arches, and Romanesque design elements. Event Creative provided the decor, setting up garden-side lounge seating and florals matching the magazine’s yellow, black and white color scheme, while Art of Imagination made the space pop with elegant lighting.

Design professionals from a variety of industries mingled throughout the night, talking shop and flipping through the magazine as they sampled delicious culinary offerings by chef Joshua Linton of the Dana Hotel’s Aja Restaurant, with catering accompaniment by the Entertaining Company. Libations courtesy of Stella Artois, Pernod Ricard, Absolut Vodka, and Plymouth Gin were flowing as the festive atmosphere was complemented by music from from Zing!, The Andreas Kapsalis & Goran Ivanovic Guitar Duo, and Herculaneum.

Bars, both inside and outside, were emblazoned with Design Bureau’s striking logo, provided by Culture Studio. As the landmark event came to an end, attendees left with gift bags by Halo [For Men] in hand, buzzing with excitement over a bold new print publication, Design Bureau.

Clockwise from top: Outside the Glessner House Museum with chic decor by Event Creative; Premium beer and spirits served at the event; food provided by Aja, with catering accompaniment from Entertaining Company; partygoer Patrick Borg; the team at Box Studio architects; the crowd inside the Glessner; Matthew Golombisky of Zing!; refreshing cucumber cocktails; Art of Imagination beautifully lit the museum after dark; Brook Jay and Steven Jaeger.

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FOR HIRE: Andrew Lister The UK -born and -bred graphic designer crosses the pond to enroll in the Yale School of Art

Tell us a bit about your background—where you’re from, where you grew up, how you initially became interested in design and where you went (or are currently attending) for school.

I grew up and went to school in Norwich, in England and this summer I graduated from the BA Graphic Design degree at Northumbria University. Currently, I’m in the process of adjusting to life in New Haven, Connecticut and the MFA Graphic Design program at Yale School of Art.

How did you pick graphic design as your area of expertise?

Up until A-levels at school, no subject particularly grabbed me. I had notions of studying history or geography at university and took graphic gesign as a peripheral subject. Graphic design was the first subject that really clicked with me, to the extent that it didn’t even seem like ‘work.’

How would you describe your aesthetic?

For me, striking the balance between aesthetics and concept is the important thing; to have a rationale behind everything you do and to not make arbitrary design choices based on style.

There’s a quote from Buckminster Fuller that I constantly refer back to, which underpins how I want to approach my work: “When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”

Is there a particular style of design or object that you absolutely despise?

I hate packaging that you can’t get into and end up having to cut or rip apart. There’s an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry is constantly frustrated by impenetrable packaging that illustrates my irritation quite well.

What are your post-graduation career goals?

Andrew Likes: The Beach Boys, the ‘Ernst Bettler’ incident, Werner Herzog, Alan Partridge, BBC football "Transfer Rumours," Woody Allen, Four Corners books, This Is Spinal Tap, the inspiration behind Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, Arrested Development Andrew Dislikes: Crocs, people that walk really slowly in front of you but you just can’t seem to overtake them, any television show with ‘Strictly’ in the title, coffee, Banksy, flimsy plastic cups, the loading screens for CS5, huge newspapers, the phrase “what’s the craic?”, New Years Eve.

A friend and I have talked briefly about potentially starting a studio when we both finish our studies. I’d be somewhat worried about my lack of entrepreneurial knowledge, but it’s something that really interests me.

RESUME SNAPSHOT: ANDREW LISTER EDUCATION Yale University (Present) MFA in Graphic Design, Expected Graduation date: 2012 Northumbria Univeristy (2007-2010) BA Graphic Design

Internships Inaria—London, England Intern Designer Tayburn—Edinburgh, Scotland Intern Designer Castle Museum—Norwich, England Intern Curation Department

Interested in being featured in For Hire? Email us at forhire@wearedesignbureau.com

exhibitions CCNY Zine and Self-Published Book Fair New York, July 2010 D&AD New Blood London, June 2010 Reveal—Northumbria University Newcastle Upon Tyne, June 2010

Wanna hire Andrew?

Check out his website: www.andrewlister.co.uk

DESIGN BUREAU //Informer

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