Design Anthology UK Issue 19 by designanthologyuk

ISSUE 19

FROM THE EDITOR

y last editor’s letter waxed lyrical about travelling to a remote place in the middle of the Atlantic. Now I’m back at it again, because for this issue of Design Anthology UK I took myself up to Wildland (p50), a group of Highland estates that are home to 15 historic properties and one of the most ambitious rewilding projects in Europe. It was incredible to witness the passion the Wildland team have for their mission, and I was reminded that travel, controversial as it can sometimes be, is a mind-expanding opportunity. Which leads on to some exciting news on the same subject. We’ve now launched D/A Experiences, which will include curated trips with international itineraries created specially for our readership and anyone who is passionate about design, architecture, craft, food and culture. In 2025 we’re partnering with Design Hotels on these intimate adventures, which will be carefully put together and led by D/A UK editors. We’ll be focusing on Europe to start with, but our intention is to widen the scope further afield in 2026. In a recent reader survey and in talking to our community, it’s clear that there is a hunger for premium group travel that explores a niche interest. Our foundational idea for these trips is to bring our magazine to life, and to provide experiences that feel like walking through its pages, with the same curiosity and a desire to learn something new. Our network of friends and contacts at D/A UK is hugely inspiring; there are countless talented craftspeople, artists, architects, hoteliers, chefs and designers who we’d love to introduce you to, in splendid locations across the globe. For a more in-depth explanation of our offering, head to designanthologyuk.com/experiences. Next year there will also be one-day design tours, D/A Retreats and more – keep an eye out. Until then, enjoy issue 19! Elizabeth Choppin Editor-in-Chief

DISCOVER RADIUS DOOR, SELF SUSPENDED CABINET, MODULOR WALL PANELLING SYSTEM, SIXTY COFFEE TABLE. DESIGN GIUSEPPE BAVUSO

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MASTHEAD

December 2024

Co-publisher & Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Choppin elizabeth@designanthologyuk.com Co-publisher & Business Development Director Kerstin Zumstein kerstin@designanthologyuk.com Art Director Shazia Chaudhry shazia@designanthologyuk.com Sub Editor Emily Brooks emily@designanthologyuk.com Editorial Assistant Ciéra Cree events@designanthologyuk.com Commercial Director Rebecca Harkness rebecca@designanthologyuk.com Editorial Concept Design Frankie Yuen, Blackhill Studio Words Charlotte Abrahams, Holly Black, Emily Brooks, Elizabeth Choppin, Ciéra Cree, Giovanna Dunmall, Joe Lloyd, Daniel Scheffler, Nicola Leigh Stewart Images Enrico Fiorese, Rory Gardiner, Neal Grundy, Fernando Guerra, Genevieve Lutkin, Ruth Maria, Fran Mart, Alicia Waite

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CONTENTS

Front cover A house in Connemara, Ireland, designed by Róisín Lafferty. Image by Ruth Maria. See p60

Radar

Journey

Products Collections and collaborations of note

Read Delve into a selection of books on design, architecture and interiors

Hotel openings New design-centric destinations to explore across the globe

Q&A Buchanan Studio on materiality, theatrics – and the joy of stainless steel

Travelogue Three Highland estates with a 200year vision to let nature thrive

Profile Studio KO shines a spotlight on small, artisan makers with its online gallery

Colour muse

Architect and designer Tessa Sakhi’s onebedroom apartment in the Venetian neighbourhood of Dorsoduro. See p74

Home 60

Connemara Ireland’s wild Atlantic coast inspires an invitingly warm tonal home

Venice A designer’s apartment that uses colour to vividly reflect its surroundings

London A disused workshop, finely remade for its artist and photographer occupants

CONTENTS

Art + Collecting

Style

Diary The most compelling art and design events for the coming months

120

106

Profile Artist Lucy McKenzie’s work examines the space where commercial, civic and domestic spheres overlap

Architecture 112

Lisbon Kengo Kuma’s redesign of the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian

Most wanted A compilation of clothing, self-care and accessories that are beautiful, thoughtful and good

Culture Edit 128

Stephanie Barba Mendoza D/A UK asks its favourite tastemakers how they like to spend their downtime, from food to travel

Art & nature Kengo Kuma’s swooping timber and tiled canopy bridges inside and out at Lisbon’s Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian. See p112

Heralding Australia’s finest interior brands

Design Centre East Chelsea Harbour, London

www.thespecifed.com

Shape tables by Buchanan Studio. Read the full story on p28 Image by Alex Bramall

R ADAR Global design news

R ADAR / Products

Nedre Foss Norwegian homeware brand Nedre Foss (the spinoff of design studio Anderssen & Voll) has a noble aim: to make “century products” designed to serve you for at least 100 years. This starting point has led the design duo of Torbjørn Anderssen and Espen Voll to focus on high-quality materials such as the cast iron Ildhane candlestick and the ash Platå tray, both pictured. Until now the brand has only been available within Norway, but it has recently been added to the roster of the Finnish Design Shop. finnishdesignshop.com

Nix Interior designer Nicola Harding’s furniture and homewares arm, Nix, evolved from the “beautifully useful” pieces she designed for her clients (her work includes London’s Beaverbrook Town House as well as comfortable, multi-layered private homes). Configured with either full-length hanging space or half drawers, her two new storage cabinets work as a wardrobe, larder or housekeeping cupboard and come in two different designs: pictured is Glad Rags, with a red exterior and blush pink interior. nicolaharding.com

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Beni x Frama Terrain is a series of neutral, flatwoven wool rugs made by Danish design brand Frama and Moroccan rug company Beni. The palette comes from the High Atlas sheep from which the wool is sourced, in light, medium and dark renamed Soil, Sand and Salt. “There’s a quiet kind of grace that wool has in this unaltered state,” says Beni’s Tiberio LoboNavia. “To slow down long enough to acknowledge the pre-existing beauty in every loop of wool is a way to attune your senses to the pace of nature.” framacph.com

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Dorothée Delaye There’s a cheerful sun-soaked, south-of-France feel to architect and interior designer Dorothée Delaye’s latest limited-edition collection of furniture. The sofa, coffee table, ottoman, chair and outdoor table feature an intriguing interplay of materials – from moulded glass and hand-glazed ceramic tiles used for tabletops, to brass and oak – and an appreciation for French craftsmanship. Each piece is named after a wind, such as the Bise chair pictured, which comes in oak or mahogany, or two lacquer colours. dorotheedelaye.com

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Gubi With its heavy cylindrical base topped by an airy shade, the Space Copenhagen-designed Gravity table lamp is one of Gubi’s signature products. Until recently it was available in a selection of singlecolour marbles, but now the brand has launched a limited-edition striped version, made from offcuts from the production process. “We have found a way to transform leftover materials into something as beautiful and functional as the design they came from,” says Gubi’s Marie Kristine Schmidt. gubi.com

Dinesen Danish timber flooring brand Dinesen has teamed up with British architect John Pawson to create a collection of furniture. The two were already longterm collaborators: Dinesen’s flooring has been used in numerous Pawson projects, and the company also made some bespoke furniture in the early 1990s for his pared-back home. Those original pieces have now been updated and made available to a wider audience for the first time, alongside new furniture, including the daybed pictured.

Claus Troelsgaard

dinesen.com

R ADAR / Products

Radnor Helm is a new family of lighting available via US brand Radnor as part of its Radnor Represented offering, designed by Brooklyn-based studio Pelle. The collection is made from flat, heavy aluminium plates, their welded joints not ground down and smoothed out but left visible as part of the aesthetic, a tribute to the metal ductwork and industrial machinery that provided their initial inspiration. This utilitarian yet sculptural piece comes as a reading light, wall light and two sizes of pendant. radnor.co

Otto Tiles & Design These Marrakesh Stripes tiles possess all the lovely imperfections of a traditional Moroccan tile: each one is hand-chiselled, dried and kiln-fired before an enamel glaze is applied, for subtle colour variation and a pleasingly irregular finish. Shown in a punchy grey/black/white/paprika colourway, they’re part of Otto Tiles & Design’s Mediterranean collection, which also includes the cross-shaped Zellige Riad and roundel Zellige Circles designs, all of which are mounted on a 30x30cm mesh for ease of installation. ottotiles.co.uk

N E W CO L L EC TIO N Inspired by our heritage, designed for the modern bedroom. The Iconic Collection features floating beds with unparalleled comfort and exclusive fabrics. Handmade in Sweden

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NEW ARRIVAL Bed: Hällsö Walnut I Mattress Fabric: Designers Guild’s Skye Chalk I Rug: Hemsedal 2500 I Bed Linen: Vindstilla I Headboard: Pinnö MA D E B ES P OK E W ITH FA B RIC S FROM DESIG NER S G U ILD, KVAD R AT AN D THE R O MO G R O U P

Jimmy Eriksson

R ADAR / Products

Layered Rug-making has often been (and in many countries, continues to be) done by women working in their own homes. Stockholm brand Layered pays homage to this with its Röllakan collection, named after the traditional Swedish flatwoven textiles that were not merely used for the floor but as draft-excluding wallhangings and tablecloths too, passed down through the generations. Made from wool, the rugs’ colours and patterns have a folk art influence; pictured is Hilma, in a rich marigold yellow. layeredinterior.com

Light by Occhio – inspiration by You

Occhio store London | 91– 97 Fulham Road | London SW3 6RH | occhio.com

R ADAR / Products

J Adams & Co An elegant loop of reeded glass linked by brass endcaps, J Adams’ Strata pendant is the perfect warm minimalist lighting for illuminating dining tables and countertops. Its possibilities have recently expanded with some new sizes: the larger 2400mm and 3200mm options overcome the limits of glass production by linking two shorter lengths with central brass connecting pieces. Each light is made at the brand’s Birmingham factory using precisioncut glass and engineered solid brass. jadamsandco.com

Béton Brut Hackney design gallery Béton Brut presents two new mirrors by Archive for Space, the studio of Arabella Maza and Stephen Maginn. Made from stainless steel, they’ve been created with flexibility in mind, with multiple hanging modes: the kidneyshaped Mirror 002 (pictured), its frame bumping loosely around the looking-glass within, can be hung in four different positions. Its friendly curves bring domestic interiors to mind – offering a counterpoint to steel’s more industrial associations.

Gareth Hacker

betonbrut.co.uk

R ADAR / Products

Florence Bourel x M Éditions French product designer Florence Bourel’s Mexican Boudoir collection brings together furniture, rugs and screens inspired by Mexican architecture. The furniture component – two coffee tables and an armchair, all made from fragments and offcuts – has been created with M Éditions, the wing of marble experts Marbreries de la Seine that works with emerging designers to create new work that pushes the limits of stone. Each piece features alternating tonal stripes, with a dainty scalloped bottom edge. lesmarbreriesdelaseine.com

R ADAR / Products

Etro Home Interiors Since 2017, Italian fashion and textile brand Etro has been working alongside furniture manufacturer Oniro Group to create pieces that complement its fabrics, under the label Etro Home Interiors. Their latest Piping collection – an armchair, dining chair, dining table, coffee table and side table – throws it

back to the 1970s with its tubular frames, which come in lacquered or metallic finishes. Upholstered chairs are available in opulent Etro fabrics that contrast with the simple, slim-framed metal. etrohomeinteriors.onirogroup.it

Another Country Known for its British-made furniture and natural timbers, Another Country’s latest release is a bar trolley created in collaboration with US media and retail platform WM Brown, founded by the photographer, writer, traveller and style guru Matt Hranek. In solid oak and oak veneer, it’s designed to flat-pack for easy shipping and assembly. Hranek is rarely pictured without a negroni in hand, so fill your trolley with the holy trinity of vermouth, gin and Campari and you’ll be good to go. anothercountry.com

Image credit: Jo Metson Scott

Heather Chontos | Encounter 67 Great Titchfield St. London W1W 7PT 26 Nov - 2 Dec 2024

www.thefinchproject.com

R ADAR / Products

Kit Kemp Design Studio x Humans Since 1982 When London’s Ham Yard Hotel opened a decade ago, visitors were entranced by Humans Since 1982’s artwork, where the hands inside a grid of analogue clocks re-formed every minute to reveal the time in large-scale digits. Now, Firmdale Hotels’ Kit Kemp has teamed up with the same Swedish design duo to create ClockClock24, a scaled-down version with 24 clocks, in a saturated cobalt blue. shop.kitkemp.com

Atelier001 The opening of Atelier001’s new gallery-showroom on west London’s Golborne Road coincides with the release of its Carnevale collection. Eva Menz, the lighting brand’s founder, references concerts, theatre and the circus as inspiration, with balanced individual components likened to an imaginary

performance troupe. Lights such as the Jongleur pendant pictured feature patinated brass finishes – an Atelier001 signature – with dish-shaped shades combined with stacked roundels of glass. atelier001.com

ART GALLERY | CONCEPT STORE 2b Vyner Street, E2 9DG London | www.thehousebymah.com

PARTNER CONTENT / Ruinart

Ruinart for the ages

The world’s oldest champagne maison reveals a sparkling transformation

Words Daniel Scheffler Images Raul Cabrera/ Gregoire Machavoine

Facing page Clockwise from top: Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto’s visitors’ centre, The Pavilion, stands in contrast to the original 19thcentury buildings; the UNESCOprotected ancient chalk cellars; inside The Pavilion

uinart has been the symbol of savoir-vivre since 1729. And now, after a three-year renovation, the maison, located at 4 Rue des Crayères in Reims, is ready for exploration. This mighty project has been spearheaded by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, French landscape architect Christophe Gautrand and French interior decorator Gwenaël Nicolas. It has taken the old and entrusted it with a new voice, taking its iconic 19th-century facades and ancient caves and giving them modernity through thoughtful design. Ruinart welcomes all guests for free, even if they haven’t made a reservation. Upon arrival, they are now embraced by a tree-lined walking path with tall walls made from chalk – the very same natural chalk that’s found in the crayères underneath the champagne house, where the cellars are. These labyrinthine cellars are both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the deepest in the region (up to 38m). “It is how we preserve our Ruinart cuvées, but it also highlights a sonorous tradition that spans thousands of years,” says Frédéric Dufour, CEO and president of Ruinart. Next on view is The Pavilion, a visitors’ centre designed by Fujimoto as a modern glass rectangular box that abstracts the iconic curve of the Ruinart bottle. “I wanted to create something that looks like it vanishes away as it melts into the sky – playing with contrasts, so making one side taller and the other lower,” says Fujimoto. Here, French understanding and Japanese culture merge beautifully.

For the inside of the building, Nicolas wanted to blend organic materials such as wood and stone with more modern metals, as well as glass. “My job was to make things feel like they disappeared – and I used the metaphor of the bubbles and the bottle for that. So I created a mix of all things traditional and futurist throughout,” he says. This sensibility has been followed through to the champagne bar, lounges, tasting rooms and a glorious boutique, plus a secret cellar. When it came to the external landscaping, Gautrand’s aim was to maintain a French-style garden, but add some modernity. “Luxury today is nature,” he says. “I wanted to add shrubs that change with the seasons as a nod to the vineyards that do the same, for instance.” The purpose of these new inside-outside spaces is not only for saluting the champagne; it is also a place for the Ruinart brand to display its extensive art collection. In total, visitors can discover 110 works of art by 36 artists as they explore the grounds, including a bronze and coloured glass work by Cameroon-born artist Pascale Marthine Tayou and Dutch artist Thijs Biersteker’s LED tree panels and sensors. According to Fabien Vallérian, international arts and culture director at Ruinart, the champagne house does not just buy art; it is commissioning work that is specially developed between brand and artist. “We want artists who can have a dialogue with mother nature, and our site – and it’s important for us to have art from all cultures and all ages.”

PARTNER CONTENT / Ruinart

RADAR / Read

South Bank: Architecture & Design

Fashion, Disability and Co-design

Batsford’s latest offering is one of the first comprehensive surveys of the architecture and design of London’s “communal cultural campus”. It traces the history of the South Bank from 1951’s Festival of Britain – with its temporary pavilions and structures symbolising renewal, regeneration and a shaking-off of wartime austerity – to more recent revisions like Haworth Tompkins’s 2013 rejigging of the Hayward Gallery’s entrance. Archival imagery sits next to Rachael Smith’s photography of the buildings and interiors as they are now, eerily devoid of people but showing off the magnificence of spaces like the soaring foyers of Denys Lasdun’s 1970s National Theatre.

“This book is about the daily task of getting dressed,” states academic Sara Hendren in this book’s foreword – but really it’s about addressing the barriers to this seemingly simple undertaking experienced by the less able-bodied. Author Grace Jun (assistant professor of graphic design at the University of Georgia) emphasises putting collaboration and human experience at the heart of processes, with detailed approaches and techniques from iterative prototyping to observing dressing behaviours. The second half features interviews and case studies, including a coat that can be taken on or off hands-free and a line of T-shirts aimed at those with skin sensitivity.

by Dominic Bradbury (Batsford)

by Grace Jun (Bloomsbury)

RADAR / Read

Living in a Dream

Barbican Residents

Publisher Gestalten first explored the world of digitally rendered design in 2020 with Dreamscapes, published at a time when almost everyone was looking for an escape from a lockdown reality. This sequel shows that the trend for artificial architecture was no blip: if anything, it’s exploded, driven by the vision of its designers combined with the capabilities of AI. Those profiled include Ahmet Eren Keskin of AI for Architects, who reimagines the Great Wall of China as a bubblegum-pink inflatable playground, and GAM & Zun-Zun, who have visualised a minimalist home perched on the rocky coastal outcrop of Dedo de Dios (God’s Finger) on Mexico’s west coast.

One of the most lauded examples of brutalism in the UK has always attracted interesting creatives to live in its 2,000-plus flats, maisonettes and houses, which are spread out among gardens, walkways and high-rises. This book (by photographer Anton Rodriguez, himself a former resident) interviews just a few of the people who currently call The Barbican home, with imagery that lets you take a look behind closed doors at how they live. Each person offers a nugget about what they love the most about the place, and perhaps interestingly, it is communal space – and community – that emerges as a recurring theme, rather than the detail of homeowners’ private dwellings.

by Gestalten editors (Gestalten)

by Anton Rodriguez (Hoxton Mini Press)

RADAR / Q&A

Buchanan Studio

Angus Buchanan, co-founder of Buchanan Studio with his wife Charlotte, on theatrics, materiality – and his love of stainless steel, the inspiration for a new collection

Tell us how you met and the journey to opening a design business. Charlotte and I were at school together; we met aged 13 and were great friends for many years before finally getting together in our mid-20s. After finishing university, Charlotte had been working in advertising, and I went straight from school to work for the fashion photographer Mario Testino, before starting a prolonged stint working for the renowned production designer Michael Howells. After many years designing fashion shows and shoots for names such as Dior and Galliano, and working on other creative projects, I set off under my own name working as a set designer, but I started to be asked more and more to design houses and commercial spaces. I was starting to be overwhelmed and needing to turn a lot of work down, but Charlotte spotted an opportunity and joined me to found Buchanan Studio and build a talented team to fulfil the wide range of projects that were coming in. Charlotte is the CEO and business lead, overseeing strategy, brand, product and partnerships, and I am the creative director. The studio’s philosophy is still deeply rooted in my set design background and we take on a mix of projects from residential and commercial interiors to event and product design. We also have our own range of a fabrics and furniture available through our website. What was your first project together? It happened even before we founded Buchanan Studio, when Charlotte and I bought our first

property together – a tiny, damp, very rundown basement flat in Notting Hill – and we redesigned it and decorated it together.

As told to Elizabeth Choppin

You’re well known for your surreal, whimsical interiors and bold prints. Has the fantastical always been part of your work? The studio is heavily influenced by my set design background, which was often surreal and theatrical, and we still take on wonderful set design projects that allow us to experiment.

Images Neal Grundy/ Alicia Waite

We work across so many genres of projects and collaborations, so we feel that we can be nimble and approach each of them as a unique creative brief with fresh ideas and open minds. We take a project-led approach to interior design based on unique narratives, which are formed in close collaboration with our clients. The whimsical and surreal touch is certainly a recurring theme, but we try to avoid repeating concepts and ideas, and start each project with a philosophy of trying something new. What and who are your inspirations? Our projects take us all over the world and we get to work with a huge network of talented designers, makers, artisans and craftspeople, so we are forever inspired by these collaborators. It might be a cliche but we learn from every project – the mistakes as well as the successes. Research is a big part of our creative process and so inspiration often comes from looking into a site or building’s past and history. We are fascinated by who might have lived or worked

Facing page Charlotte and Angus Buchanan in their west London showroom/studio

RADAR / Q&A

incredibly skilled craftspeople, but it also has a sense of humour and a relaxed bohemian sensibility. Our first product was our Studio chair and we launched it in just three colours of striped linen. Simplicity was key, and a strict design decision we took at the start. The chair can really enhance and elevate a space and we love that our customers have used it in so many different interiors, from a beach house in Miami to a medieval castle in Scotland! We have now built on our fabric collection with many new stripes as well as velvets and our first floral design called Ticking Rose.

there and how they lived their lives. We are also so lucky to be located in London with such an incredible offering of museums and galleries to inspire us, but the truth is that we don’t find nearly enough time to visit them regularly enough!

Above Pink and red colour-blocking energises the kitchen of the London house that belongs to Charlotte’s parents Facing page Kitsch battenbergcake vibes in the couple’s north London bathroom

How do you want people to feel when they sit on your furniture or enter a room that you have designed? In a word, relaxed, but it’s nuanced and not a totally simple answer because we also want people to notice their surroundings and to elicit some form of emotional reaction from them. We would like people to feel inspired, calm and uplifted. Of course, comfort is key, but we love to juxtapose materials and create tension points as there is a levity created in the unexpected which we consider to be “balance”. Our furniture is first and foremost comfortable and functional. It is handmade in England by

In our design projects, we work across both commercial and residential projects, so we have been exposed to incredible insights from experts in the world of commercial design that has helped us take this knowledge into our residential work. There are so many ways that peoples mood and wellbeing can be impacted by design: there are the obvious areas that we feel passionate about, such as access to natural light and general lighting, as well as the natural world, so we always try to include plants and responsibly sourced natural materials in our designs. Textures and touch-points also make a huge impact, so we always try to work closely with our clients and relevant expert consultants to enhance the usage of any space that we are designing. One client who we have collaborated with for several projects employed the services of a colour psychologist, and that gave us some fascinating insights into human responses to certain colours in different environments. Research and data such as this is an incredible resource for a designer to be able to use. Who is your ideal client or customer? We didn’t set out with a key customer in mind who we would be actively targeting; instead we have designed products that we loved and we wanted in our homes and we were thrilled when other people seemed to want them too! We design from instinct and from the heart, and our “tribe” is finding us organically and that is very rewarding. We love that our customers now are a mix of homeowners and designers who are looking for something unique and original while appreciating the handcrafted nature of what we offer.

RADAR / Q&A

We do genuinely love collaborating with our clients on their interiors projects and realising their ambitions and visions. We work with a lot of creative clients who have strong ideas of their own but need our creative process and abilities to bring projects, buildings and spaces to life. Our ideal client is looking for something unexpected and authentic. There is nothing better than when a client trusts in the collaboration and the process, and that’s when we have our best results. You have just launched a new furniture collection. Can you explain more about it? The Daydream collection, which we named for its surreal reflections and ethereal qualities, is a celebration of stainless steel, a beautiful and versatile material we have continually returned to. There are two new pieces, the Shape table and Prism table, alongside Buchanan Studio classics – the Studio ottoman and Muse table – both reimagined in stainless steel. The pieces are intended to elevate a space, bringing a bit of an “edge” while also being practical. Different tabletop options are available in geometric shapes in materials including rare marbles and pippy oak, as well as steel. We are particularly excited about the Studio ottoman, which has a mirror-polished bottom layer and a honed top, which transforms something that is traditionally fully upholstered into a sculptural work of art in its sleek, metal form. It is meticulously hand-welded and hand-polished by highly skilled craftspeople in England. There is a thread of materiality through all of your collections, although they are starkly different. Do you see it as reinventing every time or building on what has come before? To an extent, we do see it as reinventing every time because we like to keep evolving and never to be too predictable. With that said, our collections have all evolved from a desire for the products and items to be ones that we absolutely love and want in our lives and our own home, so although the materials and styles can appear on opposite ends of the spectrum, they will all work beautifully together. For example, our 100% pure Belgian linen fabrics are a world away from the utilitarian and surreal Daydream collection’s stainless steel, yet

they work wonderfully together. The collections all share one common thread: we use the best possible materials we can source, and they are all handmade in England. Where do you go or what do you do when you need a creative recharge? We adore our west London studio and showroom, which houses all of our furniture collections as well as our design practice, and it’s the base for our amazing design team. It is brimming with samples, materials, props from set design jobs and offcuts and salvaged building materials and I find it a hugely inspiring space – but of course some distance from it is needed every once in a while! We are lucky that both Charlotte and I have our families out of London in the countryside, so weekends spent with them in open spaces and surrounded by nature is something we are incredibly grateful for, and we find this to be the best possible reset.

Above The Studio chair, recently reimagined in disco mode, in silver leather Facing page Prism stainless steel tables, with tops in various coloured marbles, steel or oak

PARTNER CONTENT / Rimadesio

Picturebook of possibility Rimadesio puts AI-driven imagination at the heart of a new publication

impact your eye for design? And among the ever-changing nature of taste, where will you find the thread of who you are?

Its new publication Modern Stories, aimed at architects and interior designers, expands on the brand’s mission to create organised spaces and meet people’s varying living needs, showcasing sophisticated sliding doors, bookcases and modular systems inserted into different AI-imagined settings. Seamlessly merging the worlds of digital and analogue, this project pushes the boundaries of where designers find inspiration. Modern Stories asks two important questions: How will modernity

While pondering what modernity means in the design landscape, designers can discover how the use of technology can hone their craft without straying too far from its roots.This spirit of innovation remains intertwined with all Rimadesio does, which means looking ahead while respecting heritage and the environment. Founded in 1956 by Luigi Riboldi and Francesco Malberti, Rimadesio has been manufacturing modern, functional products for decades. Keeping true to its founding philosophy, the brand injects a modern twist into its catalogue by revisiting existing designs and re-releasing them in updated materials, in-keeping with the times.

uxury Italian furniture brand Rimadesio has combined its flair for craftsmanship with the power of generative AI to explore the future of tomorrow: a contemporary space where design professionals can delve deeper into their visions without the restriction of physical space.

Words Ciéra Cree Images c/o Rimadesio

Above Rimadesio’s Maxi sliding doors, as imagined by generative AI Facing page Stripe sliding doors are made from glass enclosed in a frame of slim horizontal bars

PARTNER CONTENT / Rimadesio

RADAR / Profile

Hand & eye

Paris- and Marrakech-based design and architecture practice Studio KO shines a spotlight on small, artisan makers with its online gallery L’Oeil de KO

Words Emily Brooks Images c/o L’Oeil de KO

arl Fournier and Olivier Marty of Studio KO want to share the love. Having established themselves as architects and interior designers of choice for prestigious projects – from their breakthrough design for London’s Chiltern Firehouse in 2014, through to Marrakech’s Yves Saint Laurent Museum in 2017 and a number of private villas for tastemaker private clients – they have now set up an online gallery, L’Oeil de KO (“the eye of KO”) to bring to a wider audience some of the makers they admire. Although L’Oeil de KO started as platform for the artisans that Fournier and Marty had commissioned in the course of creating their buildings and interiors, the idea quickly expanded to include anyone who they felt fitted their ethos and aesthetic. “Now there’s a family of people and skills that goes way beyond what we put into our projects,” says Fournier. Some of the latest names to join the fold include Maison Pelletier Ferruel, a partnership between glassblower Stéphane Pelletier and artist Aurélie Ferruel; and abstract sculptor Pierre Mura, who works in alabaster.

Facing page Clockwise from top left: A pair of brass compotier dishes by jeweller Zoé Mohm; ceramics by Melbourne-based Georgia Harvey; a leather-covered trophy by Natalia Brilli; a bowl by Ema Pradère

L’Oeil de KO’s makers often cross boundaries between art, craft and design, from Zoé Mohm, who brings her skills as a jeweller to objects such as bottle-stoppers and dishes; to Natalia Brilli, whose lobster centrepiece made from crocheted raffia defies categorisation. Vintage and antique pieces also pop up – everything from a set of Tom Dixon hammered copper bowls to a Japanese Meiji-era cast-iron teapot. “The link between all the people we represent is the work of the hand and the use of traditional skills,” says Nathalie Guihaumé, L’Oeil de KO’s

artistic director. How does she choose who to show? “It’s all about emotion. We work with artists and craftspeople whose work moves us, touches us and challenges us in ways we can’t always explain.” She finds it hard to define the aesthetic that holds everything together but says it is “neither ostentatious nor artificial, but rather humble, intuitive and strong.” With an emphasis on sincerity, craftsmanship and materiality, Studio KO’s architectural projects have an obvious affinity with the smaller objects that it places within them. At the Yves Saint Laurent Museum, locally sourced terracotta bricks – glowing in their tonal earthy colours – have been laid in striking patterns, both to mimic the weave of fabric and pay tribute to Morocco’s traditional use of decorative tilework. At Villa K in the Atlas mountains, minimal, blocky volumes have been softened by traditional clay render. Studio KO’s Olivier Marty says that what the architecture has in common with L’Oeil de KO is an appreciation of the one-off, and of using hand-made elements. “Mass production corresponds to mass consumption,” he says. “It seems to me that we are all gradually returning to mass consumption, the ravages of which we see every day. In this respect, this approach can be compared with our architectural practice.” Working with artisans may not be the most important part of the practice’s job in terms of the overall time it takes up, but “conceptually it is,” says Marty. “It doesn’t matter how big it is, but as soon as you produce something with your hands, whatever the field, the quantities are small and controlled. We believe that this makes the objects more worthy of interest.”

“We work with artists and craftspeople whose work moves us, touches us and challenges us in ways we can’t always explain”

Above Ema Pradère’s work is the product of years of travelling, learning techniques from around the world

Facing page Pradère’s fruit bowl exemplifies L’Oeil de KO’s championing of the handmade and traditional skills

bundu

handcrafted. limited edition. kaftans.

bundutextiles.com

Wildland, Sutherland, Scotland. Read the full story on p50 Image by Alex Baxter

JOURNEY Distinctive destinations

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New hotels

Giulio Ghirardi

Unique places to stay, in destinations of note

JOURNEY / Openings

Palazzo Talìa, Italy Originally a private home for nobility and cardinals, the 16th-century Palazzo Talìa has undergone another renaissance to see it reimagined as a boutique hotel in the heart of Rome. Frescoed hallways lead to the 26 suites, 25 of which have been given a contemporary new look: think fourposter beds with slim black metal frames, rich wooden dressers and chairs clad in aubergine velvet. Studio Luca Guadagnino (the design studio of the feted film director) took charge of the top floor Terrace Suite, dressed in peachy shades and wood panelling, as well as the public spaces, where bold abstract carpets and orange velvet armchairs contrast with the historic stone vaulted ceilings. palazzotalia.com

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After launching their restaurant Harry’s Fine Foods in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, married duo chef Julian Hagood and Jake Santelli have opened up a nextdoor guest house in a two-storey Dutch colonial home. Its two suites, personally designed by Hagood and Santelli, have a contemporary but homely feel, with a cosy mish-mash of furnishings including a textured bouclé sofa, burl wood bedside tables

and clawfoot tubs. Paintings from their own art collection are mixed in with personal belongings from their friend (and the property’s former owner) Winnie, while some quirky accessories include a giant 1960s hand-carved mushroom made from walnut and an oversized mermaid painting. harrysguesthouse.com

Likeness Studio

Harry’s Guesthouse, USA

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Forestis, Italy the textured walls and a heavy wooden tasting table in the wine cellar create a more rustic atmosphere that nods to the terroir. In contrast, blonde timber brings a lightness to the restaurant, complemented by natural fabrics from a weaving mill in Trentino and some sweeping mountain views. forestis.it

Forestis

A minimalist mountain retreat in the Dolomites, Forestis has unveiled a collection of new facilities that continue the pared-back design imagined by South Tyrolean architect Armin Sader. As with the rest of the hotel, Dolomite stone takes centre stage, along with bespoke furnishings in spruce, made by a local carpenter. Smooth curved lines in the spa suites make a soothing space for relaxation, while

Michael Sinclair

JOURNEY / Openings

The Brecon, Switzerland Forty years after spending his first family ski trip in Adelboden, Welsh native Grant Maunder has opened The Brecon to welcome fellow skiers to the Swiss Alps village. Dutch design studio Nicemakers tapped into the hotel’s mid-century heyday as The Waldhaus (when it was Adelboden’s most fashionable address) to give the 22 rooms and suites a retro vibe with Alpine-inspired graphic prints and 1950s-style armchairs and curved wood minibars. Layers of tactile materials such as timber, stone, leather and wool nod to the natural surroundings: to encourage guests to switch off and enjoy it, the guest room TVs have been replaced with books, magazines and art from Amsterdam’s Bisou Gallery. thebrecon.com

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Meaning “ark” in English, the three-storey timber and steel structure of Arken has been imagined to bring to mind a boat marooned in the middle of Scandinavia’s largest game park, Eriksberg nature reserve. To place guests close to nature, interiors by Swedish design duo Bernadotte & Kylberg blur the line between outside and in. Case in point, the three suites, named either Mountain, Forest or Sky, where

rugs are inspired by clouds or moss, and wallpaper patterned with water lilies nods to the nearby Lake Färsksjön. Bespoke furnishings also take their cues from nature but the standout piece is a huge tree root taken from Eriksberg, which now hangs as a striking ceiling light in one of the suites. eriksberg.se

Stellan Herner

Arken, Sweden

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Casa Fortunato, Portugal floors, wood panelled walls and glazed Portuguese tiles are paired with playful patterns and a mix of limewashed white walls and bright block rainbow shades. Costa Lopes’ curation of vintage furnishings and a collection of artworks, some by Fortunato’s grandmother, add the finishing touches. casafortunato.com

Manolo Yllera

After launching their first Casa Fortunato hotel in Lisbon, Filipa Fortunato and António Costa Lopes have opened another property in Alcácerdo Sal, an historic town in the Alentejo region, an hour from the capital. As the heads of their own design studio the duo have of course overseen the interiors of the 18th-century former manor house, creating six guest rooms with their own eclectic style. Restored

The nature cure

Wildland, a group of Highland estates with a 200-year conservation plan – and a collection of guest accommodation designed to slow the pace of life Words / Elizabeth Choppin Images / Fran Mart

JOURNEY / Travelogue

Above Kinloch Lodge in Sutherland, whose quiet, comfortable interiors invite rest and relaxation Previous page The estate is 20 years in to a 200year programme of regeneration

he story of Wildland – a vast 250,000acre estate spanning huge swathes of the Scottish Highlands – is not a straightforward one. The land, which is actually made up of 13 smaller estates purchased over years by Danish retail tycoon Anders Holch Povlsen, has at times been a controversial topic among locals, who haven’t always agreed with the rewilding agenda of its owner. In fact, many have taken issue with the fact that Scotland’s largest private landholding – reported to make up 1% of its wilderness – isn’t Scottish-owned. But, for others, the view is that Povlsen and his wife Anne have a noble mission of restoring the land’s biodiversity and native habitats, which had long been in decline. This was their primary agenda from the start, alongside the thoughtful restoration of numerous historic properties throughout the estate, open for visitors. In 2006, when the couple acquired the

first piece of the Wildland patchwork – 43,000 acres of land on the Glenfeshie estate in the Cairngorms – their philosophy was born: “We wish to restore our parts of the Scottish Highlands to their former natural splendour. And not just the land, the whole fabric of these great estates.” They embarked on ambitious plans to rehabilitate the landscape. This meant a tectonic shift in the way the land was used, which up to that point was primarily for hunting, with a deer population of 40-50 per square kilometre. Wildland’s conservation and regeneration initiative involved some quite drastic deer reduction (down to one to two per square kilometre), so the landscape could begin to thrive in ways it hadn’t for some time. This ruffled feathers, of course, but in the near 20 years since, the long-term plan has come good, says one of the Wildland conservation team and local guide, Grant Shorten: “I do think

JOURNEY / Travelogue

that controversy has ironed itself out quite nicely, and people are now starting to really see the change in the land that the reduction of the grazing has on it,” he says. The obvious benefit for visitors to Wildland is the opportunity to engage with nature (hikes, e-bike rides, foraging, bird watching, yoga, fly fishing and wild swimming are just some of the activities available via the concierge team) while staying at any of the beautifully designed hotels and self-catered accommodation across the estate, proceeds from which fuel further regeneration of the land. In Sutherland, these properties include Kinloch Lodge, Lundies House and Kyle House; in the Cairngorms, there are Glenfeshie Lodge and Killiehuntly Farmhouse and Cottages; while the 300-yearold Aldourie Castle sits along the banks of Loch Ness. There are several more still, with 15 locations in total and more in the works.

Although the interiors vary, there is a prevailing Scandi-Scottish aesthetic that is perhaps a nod to Wildland’s owners’ roots. The one exception is Glenfeshie Lodge, which was designed in the late 1990s by Ralph Lauren. Otherwise, many of the bothies, cottages and castles available for exclusive let are the epitome of cosy, Danish restraint – with a material palette of wood, leather, brass and wool, plus an abundance of Scandinavian furniture. Artworks are carefully curated, as are the locally sourced food and whisky – all the things a discerning traveller interested in exploring the Highlands could wish for. At the 17thcentury Killiehuntly Farmhouse, guests can nip into a sauna inside a yurt perched above a river at the edge of a forest. Or, arrange for a trip up into the hills on a Highland pony for a picnic. Whichever the property, the vibe is minimalist, soothing sanctuary – low on tech,

Above Hikes, foraging and e-bike rides through the landscape are available via Wildland's concierge service

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but with all the mod-cons needed for a premium, design-led experience. For all the care taken in the hospitality side of the business, for Shorten and his bosses, the ultimate goal is to open up access to the natural bounty Wildland has to offer. “My job is to help act as a bridge for the guests coming for the hospitality, allowing them to explore the wider conservation vision and the landmass that Wildland has,” he says. Part of that conservation vision, he continues, involves the removal and thinning of nonnative conifers to help re-establish native trees, of which close to seven million have been planted as part of a major project in the Glens and the Cairngorms. In Glenfeshie, what was once a heavily grazed “pinewood remnant” has been transformed into a place where young pine, birch, alder, bird cherry, juniper, willow and rowan are thriving. Guests can view the trees as they charge up the mountain on e-bikes, with Shorten answering questions along the way. “We’re still felling for commercial use. However, we’re doing it with a sympathetic mindset to the habitat species that live there,” he explains. This means increased numbers of red squirrels and crested tits, and the rare and protected capercaillie as well its predators: pine martens, foxes and badgers. With reports of Wildland operating at a loss, this is clearly a passion project in which the owners are fully invested. In fact, the long-term vision for the estate spans 200 years – which suggests that Anders and his family see themselves as pretty long-term custodians of this beautiful corner of the world.

Above Top to bottom: A tub with a view at Kyle House, a cottage for two; the house’s ScandiScottish aesthetic includes oak-clad walls and lime plaster

What’s more, the work they’re doing has become the leading attraction. “We’re getting a lot more people coming now because of the conservation message and they’ve actually heard of the conservation work first, and then discovered the properties,” Shorten says. “So it’s a really lovely balance. I don’t think either are disappointed if they come for hospitality and conservation, or vice versa. I think, you know, we’ve got a little something for everyone.”

Facing page Surrounded by wild seas and scrubby hillsides, Kyle House sits on Scotland’s far northern coastline – a raw setting, yet with thoughtful, refined design

“My job is to help act as a bridge for the guests coming for the hospitality, allowing them to explore the wider conservation vision”

Below Killiehuntly’s wild sauna yurt. For the brave, there’s a cold plunge pool in a wooden tub outside

Facing page Two hours from Inverness, Sutherland’s landscapes provide a unique sense of seclusion

A modern design gallery and prop house. Est. 2013. betonbrut.co.uk

A house in London by McLaren Excell and Studio Iro. Read the full story on p84 Image by Genevieve Lutkin

HOME Timeless spaces

Calm & connected Ireland’s wild Atlantic coast inspires an invitingly warm home Words / Charlotte Abrahams Images / Ruth Maria

HOME / Connemara

óisín Lafferty’s most recent project began with a simple request to reconfigure two bathrooms in an existing client’s holiday home but, as soon as she stepped inside, she knew she wanted to do more. “It just didn’t feel like its surroundings,” she says. The house, an archetypal Irish cottage, is set in the wilds of Connemara on County Galway’s Atlantic coast, so those surroundings are truly spectacular: mountains, heathland and lakes as far as the eye can see. Lafferty was itching not simply to bring the outside in, but to make this house into a place that envelops its inhabitants, cocoon like, in its landscape. Her enthusiasm was clearly infectious. “The changes I proposed were much bigger than the client had anticipated,” she says, “but she trusted me.” The ground floor, where the majority of the rooms (including the master and two guest suites) are located, was dominated by a dark corridor lined with endless doors, so most of those changes involved either altering or removing entrance ways. First to go was the door from the hallway into the snug. “Nobody ever went in there,” says Lafferty. “We got rid of the door, widened the entrance to the kitchen/living/dining space and opened up a link to connect it to the lounge area. Now the snug is part of the main living space, but because you have to meander around the

double-sided fireplace to get to it, it also feels tucked away and a bit secret.” A Camaleonda sofa by B&B Italia, with textured wool fabric by Rose Uniacke, is the perfect place to curl up with a hot toddy after a cold-water swim. All the existing door frames went too, replaced with full height, fully integrated doors clad in the same material as the surrounding wall – silver travertine and polished plaster for the guest bedrooms, smoked oak and polished plaster for the outside of the master suite. It is a clever trompe l’oeil that makes the boundaries into and out of each room seem to disappear and draws the eye on into the space itself. There is a lot to look at in Lafferty’s interiors. In the kitchen, the island is illuminated by a minimal strip light by Anour, its brass finish echoed in the detailing on Inoda+Sveje’s bar stools. In the dining room, a pair of Kiwano Concept’s travertine vessels sit on a bespoke ash dining table whose grooved pedestal legs highlight the smoothness of the top. A customcoloured tufted rug from CC Tapis cosies up the snug, while a sculptural Marinace Red quartzite plinth (from Lafferty’s new Essentials line of furniture and accessories) adds to the textural layering of the master bedroom. The furniture and objects have been carefully chosen, and each is beautiful, but this house

Previous page Inoda+Sveje dining chairs sit around a dining table from Materia Facing page Kelly Wearstler’s Tableau rug for The Rug Company anchors a cosy corner of the living space Next page Moodily dark indigo cabinetry and Sea Mist marble combine in the kitchen

HOME / Connemara

has not been designed as a showcase for hero pieces; rather Lafferty’s intention was to create an interior that the family could experience as a harmonious whole. The spatial changes she made laid the framework; the material and colour palette have done the rest. Lafferty explains how she “wanted to capture the richness and depth of the landscape. Rather than using paint, we used a lot of hand-applied polished plaster, which has much more movement and almost wraps around you like a hug. We worked with an incredible plasterer who mixes all his own pigments, so we were really able to play with the tones.” Shades of pale fog greet you in hallway, warming to a hint of dawn pink in the kitchen and living area and growing pinker as you step into the master bedroom, then deepening into bramble in the guest suite. The shifts in colour are subtle, echoing the way colours change in nature through the day and with the seasons, and are just enough to define each space and create interest. “I wanted there to be points of contrast,” Lafferty explains, “but they had to be understated, so although the colours are different, the tonality is similar throughout.” The plaster is also a perfect foil for the stone which runs right through this house, filling it with natural texture and detail. Sea Mist

marble, patterned with broad sweeps of grey and white, covers the kitchen floor and wraps the island, sink and recessed wall housing storage and the hob; Travertino Rosso Persiano envelops the master ensuite in the colour of a summer sunset, while the bramble tones of the guest bedroom are reflected in the Breccia Viola marble in its adjoining bathroom. The downstairs loo may be the smallest room in the house but it nonetheless encapsulates everything Lafferty has achieved here. “The views are particularly beautiful from this room,” she says, “so I’ve used Irish Green marble for the basin and the floor. It comes from Connemara and it captures all the clashing tones of green in the landscape.” To make a utilitarian room a place of such quiet beauty is rare, but quiet beauty is the intention everywhere here. This is a house that knows its place and much of its success is the result of what is not seen: the repeated materiality – plaster, stone, limed and smoked oak, flashes of mirror and aged brass; the repeated shapes (all the bathrooms have the same formation); the immaculate mitred junctions where one material meets another. As Lafferty notes, “all these details mean that there are fewer triggers for eye to be drawn to and that makes this house feel calm, anchored and connected to its very special setting.”

Facing page A travertine floor and staircase, with polished plaster on the walls to add subtle texture and movement

“This house feels calm, anchored and connected to its very special setting”

Facing page A B&B Italia sofa tucked into the snug, a room that has been opened up to the rest of the living space

Above The colours of Connemara’s rugged Atlantic landscape helped inform the palette for the interiors

Above The guest bedroom’s welcoming feel is created by lots of soft texture, from wool to cotton velvet. The wall light is by Jaime Hayon for Monologue

Facing page Clockwise from top left: A travertine plinth, designed by Lafferty, in the hallway; the master bedroom, with a Siam ceiling light by Bover; Breccia Viola marble in the guest bathroom; Cassina armchairs create tonal harmony

Above Irish Green marble, local to the region, has been used in the downstairs loo

Above Connemara’s famous ponies roam the landscape beyond the house

Colour muse From sky blue to stucco pink, this Venetian apartment vividly reflects its surroundings Words / Giovanna Dunmall Images / Enrico Fiorese

HOME / Venice

“It was immediately clear to me that I should use light colours to contrast with the terrazzo flooring and wooden beams”

hen architect and designer Tessa Sakhi first saw the one-bedroom, 110 sqm apartment in a quiet part of the Dorsoduro neighbourhood of Venice that she went on to renovate, the home was in such a state that friends told her she was crazy to consider it. But the characterful apartment, with views on to a canal on one side and a lush garden on the other (a rarity in Venice), spoke to her.

a stylish boat), she stripped back to its original state and varnished. Sakhi likens the process to what it was like when she worked with Murano glass for the first time, something she did a few years ago. “I understood in the end that I have to work with the material. And that’s exactly what I did here. When I saw the apartment it was immediately clear to me that I should use light colours to contrast with the strong colour and presence of the terrazzo flooring and wooden beams.”

“I started off my career in Lebanon, doing conservation work on some typical architecture, those two- and three-storey buildings with the tiled roofs and triple arches,” explains Sakhi, who is Polish-Lebanese and now divides her time between Venice, London and Beirut. For Sakhi it has always been important to feel the history of a place. And this apartment, with its stone arch doorway, original wooden beams and beautiful terrazzo flooring – elements dating back centuries – had that in spades.

Sakhi opted for marmorino walls, a typical Venetian stucco made from lime and ground marble that has a luminescent quality and reflects the water of the lagoon. Her palette of pastel pinks, blues and greens for the walls is complemented by stronger colours, such as the bright yellow between the kitchen ceiling beams and on the mouldings of the dining area, and the deep red of the bedroom alcove.

Being her own client for her first interior project in as challenging a city as Venice was ideal, she says. “There were no limits, no obstacles – so I took this as an opportunity to show what I’m capable of doing.” The first phase involved gutting the kitchen and clearing the apartment of decades of accumulated furniture and junk; the second saw her removing all the suspended ceilings to reveal the beams that had been hidden for decades. Any timber elements she found, including a beautiful original cupboard and console near the doorway, and timber panelling in the bathroom (all of which wouldn’t look amiss in

“The blue is inspired by the water and the sky, and the lime green is also inspired by the lagoon, which has this greenish tone,” says Sakhi. The pink kitchen, which looks on to the garden and is everyone’s favourite room in the house, she says, references the pink terracotta of the palazzi but also the beautiful glow created by those typical Venetian street lamp made of pink glass. Around the home there are intentional repeats of the colours Sakhi has chosen, such as the sky blue Smeg fridge and blue beams in the kitchen (echoing the light blue of many of the doors and the blue living

Previous page In the living room, the coffee table is a series of concrete pedestals left over from an exhibition project. A marble table sits between a pair of 1960s leather safari chairs

Above Original terrazzo floors and worn timber beams were the starting point for Sakhi’s scheme; she specified marmorino plaster for the walls, typical of Venetian homes

Above Dorsoduro’s colourful buildings, green canals and blue sky mirror the apartment’s distinctive palette

Facing page Top to bottom: The timber cupboard was original to the apartment; Thonet chairs surround the marble dining table, which is part of Sakhi’s own furniture collection

Above In sunset-like peach and yellow, the kitchen is the most loved and used room, according to Sakhi

Next page Tropical wallpaper fronts the run of wardrobes in the bedroom, with a glimpse through to the dining room

HOME / Venice

“There wasn’t a single straight wall or beam. Usually I am quite obsessivecompulsive about things being perfect, so it was very interesting as an experience”

room walls) or the elements of pink in the wallpapered wardrobes referencing the hues of the kitchen, or the yellow chandelier in the kitchen echoing the painted yellow ceiling.

in the home, a dining table designed by Sakhi herself. Part of a new collection of handmade stone tables she is launching soon called Primitive, it is made from layers of bushhammered Breccia Pernice marble with a polished top and references the many archaeological ruins found in Lebanon. A side table sitting between the two safari chairs in the living room, made from greenish Verde Porto Cervo stone, is also from this collection, while other pieces will combine smooth and bush-hammered stone to create a chequered effect. The whole idea is to play up the craftsmanship behind the pieces, which are made in both Italy and Egypt.

The style of the furniture and furnishings is eclectic: Sakhi likes to blend vintage with contemporary alongside pieces that she has designed herself. The living room coffee table is made of a playful assemblage of concrete pedestals of different heights that Sakhi had used in an exhibition she put on with her sister. The fact that they are all of different heights provides movement and echoes of the canal and water outside, she explains, as does the large bespoke mirror above the sofa with its undulating frame and the visible handmade strokes of the marmorino on the walls.

Apart from the logistical challenge and cost of transporting construction rubble and materials to and from the house, another major challenge in this project was the wonkiness of the centuries-old building. “There wasn’t a single straight wall or beam,” says Sakhi, “so I couldn’t work on this project like I do with other design projects, where I draw a house plan on AutoCAD and then from there I do all of the details down to the last millimetre and then hand them over to the engineer.” Instead, she and the construction team had to trace and measure the whole house by hand. “Usually I am a bit of a neat freak and quite obsessivecompulsive about things being perfect, so it was very interesting for me as an experience. I had to let go and work with what I had.” Perhaps it was the act of letting go that has led to a home that is an uplifting testament to a hands-on, instinctive and craft-led approach.

The sofa too, by Italiana Divani, is multifaceted, modular and playful. “You can remove or move the backrests and sit both ways on it and even put it in the centre of a room or use it as a bed,” she explains. Elsewhere in the living room there are 1960s safari chairs by Italian designer Tito Agnoli, a Persian rug, a Catellani & Smith chandelier with a gold leaf interior and a table along one wall made by Sakhi from wooden shelving found inside the house and a circular vintage console she already had. In the adjacent dining room, beneath green beams and a wash of blue above the moulding, there are six Long John cane and bentwood Michael Thonet chairs dating from 1920. They sit elegantly around one of the stand-out pieces

Lease of life

A disused workshop, finely remade for an artist and photographer Words / Giovanna Dunmall Images / Rory Gardiner / Genevieve Lutkin

“The brief was to work in harmony with the minimal backdrop and palette of limewashed brick, polished concrete and warm timber panelling created by the architects”

HOME / London

ehind the dark grey facade of a former industrial warehouse and artist’s studio in a quiet corner of Camden, north London, is an expansive family home with generous spaces for making, art and creativity downstairs; and a large kitchen, along with the bedrooms and bathrooms, upstairs. Refurbished and expanded by architects McLaren Excell for an artist and photographer husband-and-wife duo, the original property was composed of an older Victorian workshop building and a more recent infill next door that wrapped right around the side and back of the site. As Robert Excell, co-founder of the practice, explains: “On the back of the property you had these different elements that collided into one another. There was an old extension and a black and white tiled courtyard space on the first floor.” The architects set about transforming the sprawling site and facades into a more rationalised, contemporary series of volumes and spaces that could become a comfortable home, but also fulfil the brief for a place that was a haven for reflection and creativity. They painted the Victorian facade, which had been a salmon pink, a refined anthracite colour and replaced the galvanised metal and glass facade and roll-down shutter of the extension next door with a far more contemporary powder-coated black steel, removing the upper floor glazing (which let in too much heat in summer and cold in winter) and replacing it with an insulated wall and large fixed window. A new extension at the back, made from grey brick and concrete, was also designed to combine the different elements and make the elevation look more harmonious. Inside, the

Previous page With an ethos to reuse as much as possible, the couple’s Carlo Scarpa dining table was restored

architects peeled off old layers of paint, removed walls, refurbished the original windows, restored the old brickwork and roof joists and redid the lime mortar. “We took the old floorboards from the first floor kitchen and living spaces and reused them along the ceilings and walls of the first floor corridors to give a warmer feel to that space rather than it just being white walls with little daylight,” adds Excell. New floor-to-ceiling windows on the back elevation now offer restorative framed views of the garden and beehives below. The project, which extended the size of the property by 46 sqm, uses natural earthy tones throughout, though there is a distinct change in character and rhythm between the two floors. The 200 sqm ground floor space with its 3.2m-high ceilings is fully adaptable, with spaces for weaving, photography, candlemaking, joinery and much more. Brushed aluminium covers the walls around the perimeter of the newer building and workshop space on this floor, creating a gallery-style backdrop for potential events. The sculptural staircase up to the first floor emphasises the transition between the two spaces. Made from one solid piece of hot rolled steel, it reaches up into the kitchen space above, “so that you feel submerged in this quite dark space until you emerge in the bright open kitchen,” explains Excell. “We also did a bespoke handrail, with hidden LED lighting that gives off a soft glow as you arrive into the more homely part of the house.” The hub of the home is undoubtedly the kitchen, with its 3.5m-long travertine island, stained timber walls and soft banquette seating

Facing page A comfortable seating area at one end of the kitchen, with a pair of Cab 413 chairs by Cassina

Facing page On the first floor, all the main living spaces lead off this central area, clad in Douglas fir for a warm feel

Above In the living room, a Roche Bobois sofa has been upholstered in five different indigo-coloured fabrics

HOME / London

at one end of the room. The island features two different finishes: while it’s more polished and smooth on top, it’s been sandblasted to be rougher and textured on the sides, “almost like you’ve split open a rock,” says Excell. The furniture, art and soft furnishings in the project were overseen and curated by Lucy Currell, creative director of Studio Iro, in collaboration with the homeowners. Inspired in her work by the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, which is about embracing the imperfect and respecting nature, Currell soon found her clients shared the same aesthetic. Her brief was therefore to work in harmony with the minimal backdrop and palette of limewashed brick, polished concrete and warm timber panelling created by the architects, and cast a spotlight on a few well-chosen and meaningful furniture pieces and artworks. Where possible, and in-keeping with the ethos of reuse and recycling that permeates the project, Currell chose to restore and repair objects, furniture and art that her clients already owned. Their beautiful but scuffed and chipped marble-topped Carlo Scarpa dining table and Cassina chairs were accordingly restored and the chairs reupholstered in leather to give them a new lease of life. A low Indian chair, which the couple had bought in their 20s and which now resides in the study, was also partially rebuilt and fitted with a new cushion covered in a Rose Uniacke fabric. Elsewhere Currell opted for carefully chosen vintage pieces such as the guest bedroom’s Berber rug. One of the most significant new items is a modular Mah Jong sofa by Roche Bobois in the first-floor living room, which has been

upholstered in five different indigo-coloured fabrics (cotton, velvet, linen, corduroy and bouclé), creating “a tonal patchwork effect,” explains Currell. She has combined the sofa with warmer-toned cushions and a celestialthemed curtain by east London soft furnishing specialists Nest Design over the large window. Hand-dyed and featuring burnt orange and peach colours, it not only softens the daylight coming through the window when necessary, but creates beautiful ripple effects and movement throughout the day. Elsewhere in the home, the blinds and curtains have also been made by Nest Design, as has the headboard in the master bedroom. “The clients wanted something really calming in there,” explains Currell. “It’s got a base of natural raw linen but also rich brown cotton velvet, sheep’s wool and natural raw silk that give it texture and a pattern.” The quilt on the bed, in a Rose Uniacke linen, has been made by Sit Collective, a collective of upholsterers that Currell works with in east London. The bedside tables in this room exemplify the gentle sustainability ethos that runs right through this project. Designed by Currell in collaboration with designer Adam Blencowe, “they were made out of bits of Mexican mahogany and walnut wood the client brought from the US and cut to follow the line of the wood so that the drawers have this very organic feel and no straight lines”. Similar to the bedside tables in the guest bedroom, which are made from tree trunks of different heights, it gives the minimal and clean spaces character. “I love the imbalance of it, the irregularity of these pieces that are not perfectly symmetrical or traditional,” says Currell.

Facing page Trough-like stone basins are softened by a blind made by Nest Design, layered Libeco linen bath mats and an antique Chinese stool

Facing page One of the guest bedrooms, with a linen headboard and a bespoke bedcover made by Sit Collective

Above Plants take advantage of the light well in the flexible ground floor creative space, clad in aluminium

Set design for Rusalka by John Macfarlane. Read the full story on p100

ART & COLLECTING A cultural review

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Agenda

Sights to behold: a calendar of shows and fairs for the coming months Words / Holly Black

Olga de Amaral, Fondation Cartier, Paris Until 16 March 2025

This major retrospective of the Columbian textile artist Olga de Amaral spans the 1960s to the present day, showcasing her distinct blend of modern formalism and traditional weaving practices. De Amaral’s background in architecture informs her large-scale, sculptural pieces,

which incorporate wool, linen, plastic, gesso, stucco and metallic materials, holding allusions to medieval icons, pre-Columbian worship and the glimmering gold used in Japanese kintsugi (the art of conspicuously repairing broken ceramics with metallic seams).

Brücke Museum, Berlin. Photo: Nick Ash

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

German Expressionism, Moderna Museet, Stockholm Until 9 March 2025

The short-lived Die Brücke group, active from 1905 to 1913, changed the course of art history by igniting a new era of German expressionism that broke with artistic conventions and societal norms. In the first exhibition of its kind in the Nordic region, works by the four founders

(Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Otto Bleyl and Erich Heckel) are joined by sculptures, woodcuts, watercolours and paintings by subsequent members including Emil Nolde and Otto Müller. Pictured is Kirchner’s Artiste (Marcella) from 1910.

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Winifred Nicholson: Cumbrian Rag Rugs, MIMA, Middlesbrough

Nan Goldin: This Will Not End Well, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Winifred Nicholson is best known as a modernist painter, but she also had a penchant for designing rag rugs, an ageold form of textile weaving. MIMA celebrates this littleknown element of her oeuvre with a series of charming works from the 1920s to the 1970s, centred around both domestic and exotic animals including cows, cats, birds, tigers and the handsome ram pictured. All of them were made by women in rural Cumbria, to Nicholson’s designs.

Nan Goldin, the American photographer, documentarian and activist who shook Big Pharma to its core, is presenting slide shows and film projections of her fêted oeuvre across six rooms at the Neue Nationalgalerie, all of which tell stories of love, loss, intimacy and addiction. Among them are her powerful tribute to trans friends in The Other Side (1992-2021), pictured, and a chronicle of family trauma in Sisters, Saints, Sibyls (2004-2022).

Until 23 March 2025

Until 6 April 2025

Courtesy the Magic Circle Collection

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

John Macfarlane, Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury

Tarot: Origins and Afterlives, The Warburg Institute, London

John Macfarlane & The Art of Theatrical Design celebrates this maestro of stage design, known for his epic and expressive sets as well as exceptional costuming. His work includes world-class productions including The Royal Ballet’s Frankenstein (pictured), the New York Metropolitan Opera’s Tosca and a macabre rendition of Macbeth. Gainsborough’s House is offering a rare glimpse into Macfarlane’s practice, with a range of drawings that demonstrate his distinct, decidedly dark sensibility.

Tarot has enjoyed something of a resurgence recently, so it is apt that the University of London’s Warburg Institute, as part the inaugural exhibition programme of its new gallery, explores the origins and iconographies of this ancient art of divination. Highlights include cards drawn from the Sola-Busca tarot, the earliest surviving complete deck, on loan for the first time from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, as well as luminous paintings by Lady Frieda Harris, co-creator of the Thoth Tarot.

Until 20 April 2025

31 January–30 April 2025

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ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Irving Penn: Centennial, MOP Foundation, A Coruña Until 1 May 2025

Galicia’s MOP Foundation hosts this fourth iteration of an ongoing, global exhibition programme celebrating Irving Penn’s legacy. The full weight of this giant of 20thcentury photography remains keenly felt: known for his meticulous, minimalist style, his images graced the pages

of Vogue for more than seven decades and he captured the likeness of stars from Pablo Picasso to Sophia Loren. The 175 works on show go beyond portraits of celebrities, however, with abstract nudes, early documentary street scenes and meticulous still life compositions also on show.

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ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Ithell Colquhoun, Tate St Ives, Cornwall 1 February–5 May 2025

The radical yet overlooked surrealist Ithell Colquhoun is finally receiving the attention she deserves with this major show of her work. A practicing occultist, she was ultimately shunned by her surreal peers, making her career in Cornwall where she could feel connection to

nature, cosmos and divine female power. To see so much work in the place where it was originally created is a treat, and paintings such as the shockingly suggestive Scylla from 1938 (inspired by the artist’s view of her legs in the bath) or 1944’s Ages of Man (pictured) still feel subversive.

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ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, Hayward Gallery, London 11 February–5 May 2025

American artist Mickalene Thomas has long upended the traditional western canon, by lionising black women and her own queer community through gorgeous, collaged portraiture, often bedecked with rhinestones as with 2009’s Naughty Girls (Need Love Too), pictured. In her first

UK solo exhibition, she brings together works spanning two decades, which, with their women luxuriating in repose, directly reference art historical paintings by the likes of Ingres and Manet. Further pieces celebrate the domestic interiors familiar from her childhood.

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Courtesy of D_Amico Private Collection, Salerno

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gift of Charles Wong © Irene Poon Photography Archive, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

Salvo: Arrivare in Tempo, Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin

American Photography, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Salvo’s dream-like depictions of landscapes and imagined architecture, painted in jewel-like hues, reveal little of the artist’s origins as a conceptualist. Born in Sicily, he first aligned himself with the arte povera movement, before making the unfashionable decision to dedicate his time to painting. Thankfully, the results – including 1986’s Case Con Lampione, pictured – are an awe-inspiring array of canvases that explore light, tone and imagination. This show is the most extensive ever dedicated to his work.

This is the biggest survey of American photography ever mounted in The Netherlands, covering everything from state-sanctioned documentary and street photography to advertising and landscape imagery. Household names such as Irving Penn and Bruce Davidson are shown with lesser-known and even anonymous photographers, cementing the medium’s position as a powerful storyteller that often reveals social and political truths. Pictured is San Francisco-based Irene Poon’s Virginia (1965).

Until 25 May 2025

7 February–9 June 2025

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Courtesy of The Fleming Collection

ART & COLLECTING / Diary

The Scottish Colourists, Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh 7 February–28 June 2025

The small but influential group of artists identified as the Scottish Colourists first found fame in Paris, before introducing Britain to the intense palette favoured by their European peers, particularly the Fauvists. At this show, work from these four friends – Francis Campbell Boileau

Cadell, Samuel John Peploe, John Duncan Fergusson and GL Hunter, whose Peonies in a Chinese Vase from 1925 is pictured – is displayed in context alongside pieces by Henri Matisse, André Derain, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Augustus John and John Dickson Innes.

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ART & COLLECTING / Profile

Exploring the overlap

Artist Lucy McKenzie’s work, on show at a new solo exhibition in Belgium, examines the space where commercial, civic and domestic spheres meet

thunderous sound echoes through the halls of Belgian art institution Z33, blasting fire and brimstone. As you draw closer, the tune reveals itself to be Abba’s Waterloo. It is played by a humongous dance organ integrating accordions, drums and horns, designed by Decap Brothers of Antwerp. “It sounds so spooky, when you’re looking at something elsewhere in the building and it suddenly comes on,” says artist Lucy McKenzie. Jaunty cut-out lettering proudly proclaims this work’s grandiloquent name: Super Palace. It sits at the heart of McKenzie’s new exhibition at Z33 in Hasselt, Belgium (or the Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design & Architecture, to give it its full name). McKenzie is an artist, born in Glasgow and based in Brussels, producing paintings, sculptures, installations and films. Notions of design are never far from her practice. Her works often explore the technological objects that have shaped our past, from lampposts to panoramas, and the ephemera of modern society: world fair pavilions, advertising billboards, mannequins. Many of her paintings depict interior spaces. Between 2006 and 2007, she trained at Van der Kelen-Logelain in Brussels, the world’s lastremaining school of decorative trompe-l’oeil painting, where artists are trained to transform walls into faux wood and marble. “I’m interested in art in a domestic space, in public space, in the commercial realm, within underground and self-made networks,” she says. “But I’m really, really interested in how all those worlds interact with each other: when

the subculture hits the commercial world, the civic world hits the domestic.”

Words Joe Lloyd

Super Palace encompasses all of these ideas. There is an imitation train carriage where you can watch a painted panorama, inspired by a scene from Max Ophüls’ classic 1948 romance film Letter from an Unknown Woman. There are hand-painted billboards from her Art on the Underground commission, where she hired Sudbury Town’s advertising spots and replaced them with printed images redolent of the station’s modernist heyday. Several works are sculptures made from shop mannequins. Their heads have been replaced by busts of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a Soviet resistance fighter and folk hero, noticeably larger than life. “We expect mannequins to be extremely perfect,” says the artist, “so as soon as they’re a bit off it becomes really jarring. But we can change that – we can think about our sex and beauty in a different way.” Drawing on her training in the decorative arts, McKenzie has painted them to look like Greek bronze, Roman porphyry, Etruscan terracotta and medieval stone, then finished them off with furniture polish. “There’s something deeply satisfying,” she says, “about spraying an artwork with Pledge then buffing it up.” McKenzie’s work interrogates the relationship between architecture and power. She owns a 1930s villa in Ostend designed by Nazi supporter Jozef De Bruycker, which she is gradually transforming. Several of her works concern Adolf Loos, the pioneering Austrian

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Facing page Lucy McKenzie’s illusionistic trompe-l’oeil paintings, such as Metal (Alan Potter), breathe new life into a traditional art form

Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York

“I’ve got a very odd relationship with Adolf Loos. If we’d have known each other, I would have been in to what an arrogant piece of shit he was”

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Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York. Photo: Mark Blower / Photo: Max Pinckers / Courtesy of the artist, Cabinet, London and Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York. Photo: Useful Art Services

ART & COLLECTING / Profile

modernist who was tried for teenage sexual abuse. A film work at Hasselt adds new subtitles to footage of a drama set in Loos’ Villa Müller in Prague, creating a new narrative where the paranoid, syphilis-ridden architect interacts with three of his ex-wives. “I’ve got a very odd relationship with Loos,” says McKenzie, “because I know that if we’d have known each other at the time we’d have really fancied each other. I would have been in to what an arrogant piece of shit he was.” Z33’s Vleugel 19 wing, designed by Francesca Torzo to extend the already expansive original structure of the institution, built in 1958, is an exceptional space for McKenzie’s work. Light drifts down from its tessellated ceilings. Surprising apertures allow works to be viewed as if through a window. The first thing one sees when entering, down a stupendously tall but gradually narrowing corridor, is an imitation sports shop. There are more mannequins, here modelling footballing and cricketing attire. Behind the doors and windows we can see an illusionistic mural of a shop front, itself

partially obscured by even more illusionistic painted curtains. “The phrase window-dressing doesn’t just mean window-dressing,” says McKenzie. “It’s a pejorative term. One that implies something is shallow and insubstantial. And implicit in that is a kind of gendered idea – because women like shopping.” One of the aims of McKenzie’s project is to grant women’s work the status it deserves. McKenzie also co-runs the fashion label Atelier E.B with Edinburgh-based designer Beca Lipscombe. “We work in different fields, but we have a shared local culture and DIY, self-made networks and projects,” says the artist. “It’s been the joy of my life.” The atelier’s periodic collections represent only components: there is also research, photography, distribution, illustrations and publicity. “Fashion is a bit of a spur for other things,” continues McKenzie, “and one of them is to make sculptures like this – and we do call this sculpture.” For all the outward fairground fun that characterises McKenzie’s art, it is deadly serious about smashing boundaries and hierarchies.

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Above Lucy McKenzie’s Mural Proposal for Jeffrey Epstein’s New York Townhouse (Filming of American Psycho) Facing page Top to bottom: An imaginary boutique dressed with clothing from McKenzie’s Atelier E.B fashion label; McKenzie in the Ostend house she owns, designed by Jozef De Bruycker

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Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian in Lisbon by Kengo Kuma. Read the full story on p112 Image by Fernando Guerra

ARCHITECTURE Surveying the built environment

Art & nature

Kengo Kuma’s redesign of the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian in Lisbon creates an indoor-outdoor world Words / Daniel Scheffler Images / Fernando Guerra

ARCHITECTURE / Lisbon

Left Top to bottom: A new garden is populated with native plants; bright, doubleheight interiors

Previous page Kuma’s swooping new canopy was inspired by a Japanese engawa walkway, bridging inside and out

he Gulbenkian, as locals call it, is one of the most beloved landmarks in the leafy city of Lisbon. Conceived in the 1960s as an institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts, philanthropy, science and education – thanks to the bequest of oil magnate Calouste Gulbenkian, who was British-Armenian but spent his last years in Portugal – the complex has since evolved multiple times. In the early 1980s, British architect Leslie Martin (whose work includes London’s Royal Festival Hall) designed the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian (CAM), set at one end of the park that surrounds the original 1960s museum. Blending with the greenery, it houses one of the world’s most significant collections of modern and contemporary Portuguese art, with more than 12,000 works in total. This was the starting place for Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, who has recently reinterpreted this exalted structure, with an aim to further connect it to the trapezoid-shaped gardens. This is Kuma’s first completed project in Portugal, and his soft, humane architecture is now what greets visitors: he says that he wanted to “craft a seamless fusion, where architecture and nature converse in harmony”. Instead of extending into the garden, Kuma added galleries, dining areas and exhibition spaces under the existing building, with glass windows above replacing part of the walls. To connect to the gardens, the architect took inspiration from an engawa (the sheltered walkways that surround traditional Japanese buildings). In his interpretation, a 100m-long sweeping canopy – clad in Portuguese ceramic tiles on its skyward-facing side, and ash underneath – sits on steel columns. Beautifully simple in its execution but no doubt hard to

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ARCHITECTURE / Lisbon

engineer, the canopy defines and complements the facade, swooping down in salutation to this indoor-outdoor world. Effectively, Kuma has dissolved the boundary that had existed between the old building and the landscape; the refreshed internal areas holding the art and the galleries remain inside as a sort of protected heart within all this fluidity of space. Kuma’s goal was to “invite visitors to slow down and make the space their own,” and this feeling of transparency with natural light continues throughout as it becomes the main entrance into a passage between CAM and the gardens. Lebanon-based landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic worked with Kuma to create an urban forest, which has been planted with only native species, perfectly mixing with the architecture. Completing the museum’s rebirth, it also has a new visual identity

developed by design studio A Practice for Everyday Life, which takes the sweeping curves of the engawa as inspiration. To coincide with the opening of the new complex, CAM’s opening programme (on show until February 2025) features Portuguese artist Leonor Antunes, who has created a large sculptural installation conceived across two adjacent galleries, marking her first solo exhibition. This is presented in dialogue with more than 30 women artists from CAM’s permanent collection, from the 1960s to the present day. There are plans to offer more immersive experiences, a live arts programme, experimental exhibition displays and gardens open year-round to the public. The Gulbenkian exemplifies how Lisbon is so carefully adding to its story by opening up space for its residents, but also for mother nature.

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Above Kuma’s redesign allows visitors to enjoy doublesided views to the greenery outside Next page Protective and welcoming, the canopy is a transitional space between gallery and gardens

e x per ience s launching 2025

Booking now designanthologyuk.com/experiences

Willa boot by Aeyde. Read the full story on p123 Image by Daniel Roche

STYLE Fashionable pursuits

Most wanted

Haw-Lin Services

Clothing, self-care and accessories that are thoughtful, expressive, beautiful and good

STYLE / Products

Hermès Hermès’ 08 watch, released in 2021, was the French luxury brand’s first timepiece aimed at the sports watch market; now, it has released the Hermès Cut, its first sports watch specifically aimed at women. Subtly playing with shape and material, the 36mm watch mixes satin and polished steel finishes, with an option to combine steel and rose gold. The metal

strap can be interchanged with a rubber version in eight colours drawn from Hermès’ classic palette, including its signature orange. If you’d like some sparkle to accompany your sport, opt for the version with a ring of 56 diamonds around the bezel. From £5,430; hermes.com

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STYLE / Products

Perfumer Lyn Harris’ latest eau de parfum started life as a private commission for LA antiques dealer Cameron Smith, who wanted a fragrance for his store that evoked the smell of saddle soap. Having delivered on the brief, she further developed the idea for her own line, and Saddle is the result. With top notes of bergamot and petitgrain, a heart of

jasmine and orange flower and base of patchouli and amber, its scent is intended to bring to mind aged saddle leather. As an extra treat, buy it in one of Perfumer H’s signature hand-blown glass vessels. Saddle eau de parfum, from £130 for 50ml, handblown 100ml vessel £560; perfumerh.com

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João Sousa

Perfumer H

STYLE / Products

Aeyde Feel unstoppable for winter in Aeyde’s over-theknee Willa boots, which are crafted from calfskin with a lambskin lining. The boots are available in black, rust or the cement grey pictured here, with an additional iteration in black suede; the low heel has a slightly kinked-in design, the kind of attention to detail for which the Berlin-based footwear brand

has become known. Aeyde was founded in 2015 by Luisa Dames, who set herself a mission to marry a minimalist aesthetic with slow consumption and sustainable sourcing; its footwear is all made in Italy in family-run specialist leather factories. €695; aeyde.com

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STYLE / Products

Completedworks These Whispering Plinths earrings are new from London-based jewellery brand Completedworks. A double drop of freshwater pearls is topped by a white zirconia top, set in 18ct gold-plated vermeil silver. Dressed up or down, they reflect the aims of the brand’s AW24 collection, to respond to life’s dichotomies: “The need to be both calming and

unnerving, traditional and subversive, surreal and everyday.” Pearls appear throughout the collection, as multisized clusters hanging beneath blue lace agate spheres or looped into bows as earrings and chokers: all simple, refined and very covetable. £365; completedworks.com

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STYLE / Products

Verden x Beata Heuman Danish natural fragrance and beauty brand Verden has collaborated with the Swedish-born, Londonbased interior designer Beata Heuman to create a candle that takes its scent cues from their shared Scandinavian heritage. The fragrance of Heuman’s candle mixes a fresh, citrussy acidity with a deep warmth: upon lighting it, you might find yourself

transported to somewhere between a rocky Swedish coastline and southern Italy. The specially designed branding departs from Verden’s usual minimalist aesthetic and features the shapeshifting shadowy figure of Heuman’s “house spirit”, Hap. £60; verden.world

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STYLE / Products

L’Estrange Described as “a technical trouser that feels like track pants and looks like anything but,” L’Estrange’s 360° trouser gets its name from its multi-directional stretch. Available in navy or the slate grey pictured, its recycled polyester fabric is designed to resist fading and wrinkles, retaining a tailored look – ideal for fuss-free travelling. L’Estrange is shaking up

men’s fashion with a whole-life-care approach to garments: a free repair service within 12 months of purchase is complemented by its own “rejuvenating” laundry tablet plus a take-back recycling scheme for clothing at the end of its life. £129; lestrangelondon.com

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STYLE / Products

To My Ships With a somewhat highbrow founding inspiration – Homer’s Iliad – new personal care brand To My Ships nonetheless has the fundamentals absolutely nailed, prioritising natural ingredients and offering refills to cut down on packaging. Its Of The Gods Polygonum roll-on deodorant has a green citrus fragrance and a silky texture; it is also free from

aluminium salts and suitable for sensitive skin. Layer the fragrance with the accompanying hand and body wash and eau de parfum. The Greek gods no doubt smelled heavenly: maybe it was of this. Roll-on deodorant, £35, refills from £125 for 375ml; tomyships.com

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MY CULTURE EDIT

Stephanie Barba Mendoza The Mexico-born, London-based interior designer dines at Dorian and hero-worships Freddie Mercury

A book that changed my life is… There are so many good books, but two that I have read more than once are On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Peggy Guggenheim’s autobiography. My favourite podcast is… This depends on my mood, however, the ones I keep going back to are The Grand Tourist with Dan Rubinstein, Modern Love from The New York Times, Table Manners with Jessie Ware and Desert Island Discs from the BBC. The best film of all time is… I find it very hard to choose one among so many great films, however, I love all of Luca Guadagnino’s films – the cast, the sets and the stories… The restaurant I go to time and again is... I’ve been to Dorian [in Notting Hill] a lot lately. The food is just so good! When I need inspiration, I head to… The V&A or a good exhibition happening in London. It’s great to get out and see something new and refreshing. I also enjoy listening to my favourite albums and seeing some live music. If money was no object, I’d buy a piece of art/design by… Gustav Klimt.

When I’m home alone, I listen to… Depending on my mood: Nightmares on Wax, Kendrick Lamar, Miles Davis or Róisín Murphy.

An exhibition that resonated with me was… David Bowie at the V&A was so inspiring.

A place I’ve been recently that everyone should go is… Japan. I would like to visit there in every season of the year and different places. There is so much beauty in both the country and its people.

Currently I’m watching… Ru Paul’s Drag Race and Slow Horses. The design world needs more… Authenticity.

When I’m not working, I love to… Be with my children and my husband. We play tennis at the weekend and enjoy each other’s company at home. When I’m not with my children, and have a babysitter sorted, my husband and I do like to go out dancing with friends too!

The most memorable hotel I’ve stayed in is… The Royal Palace in Jaipur, and Alila Villas Uluwatu. My creative hero is… I have a few, but let’s stick to Freddie Mercury.

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