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Down to Earth A Prefab Passive House Takes Root in New York British New Wave How a 17th-Century Cottage Became a Boho Surf Retreat At Home in the Modern World

Wild Life Great Outdoor Spaces

The architecture studio S-AR designed a beach house that frames the landscape near Puerto Escondido, Mexico.

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May/June 2020 “The windows act like a camera, so during the winter, when the trees start to lose their leaves, the walls become a shadow play. It’s a different way to bring the outdoors in.” Mark Motonaga, designer Page 78

CONTENTS

features

60 Going Up the Country

COVER PHOTO BY

Outside Woodstock, New York, a prefab passive house sails atop a Catskills hillside.

Benjamin Rasmussen

TEXT

ABOVE

A grass-filled garden and deciduous trees surround a backyard pool in Los Angeles. PHOTO BY Hunter Kerhart

David Sokol PHOTOS

Pippa Drummond

68 Artistic License

78 The Big Reveal

84 Second to Nature

A secluded beach house near Puerto Escondido, Mexico, embraces the landscape in a minimalist grid.

An architect and an artist flip the script inside their Los Angeles bungalow and create a glorious secret garden behind it.

A couple restore a woodsy suburban property in northern California with a house that opens to the outdoors.

TEXT

David Lida

Kelly Sanchez

Deborah Bishop

PHOTOS

Benjamin Rasmussen

Hunter Kerhart

Joe Fletcher

May/June 2020

CONTENTS

departments 11 Editor’s Letter 14 Community

108 Sourcing PHOTO: COURTESY TASCHEN/STEPHEN FOOTE (46 )

See it? Want it? Need it? Buy it!

23 Modern World

40 Conversation

54 Renovation

For our annual roundup of the best new outdoor accoutrements, we consider everything you need to outfit your oasis, no matter what kind of climate you live in. We also asked landscape architects to share insights on designing for their regions— from the desert to the beach.

Sweet Water Foundation cofounder Emmanuel Pratt talks about how pointed interventions can transform neglected urban parcels into sites of “regenerative design.”

A family converts a seaworn cottage on England’s Cornish coast into a boho-chic surf retreat.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY

Josh Gosfield

112 One Last Thing

36 Smart

Landscape architect Lisa Switkin’s box of mementos from her travels in the natural world shows how stories influence her work.

Advances in battery technology are making it easier than ever to cleanly power your home and be energy independent. Jennifer Pattison Tuohy ILLUSTRATIONS BY Playmetric TEXT BY

TEXT BY

Duncan Nielsen Sam Kerr

ILLUSTRATION BY

46 Book Author Julia Watson reveals how age-old technologies can provide design solutions for our contemporary climate crisis. TEXT BY

Mandi Keighran

50 Focus Swooping concrete walls define the interior of a hilltop residence in Belgium. TEXT BY

TEXT BY

Tiffany Jow Evie Johnstone

PHOTOS BY

92 Outside Former summer-rental mates build their dream vacation home on New York’s Shelter Island. Julie Lasky PHOTOS BY Pippa Drummond TEXT BY

96 Interiors In an Italian penthouse apartment, an imposing wall of marble steps up to a rooftop terrace. TEXT BY

Rocky Casale Gianni Antoniali

PHOTOS BY

Tracy Metz Tim Van de Velde

PHOTOS BY

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DESIGNED TO BRING NATURE CLOSER | BM OUTDOOR SERIES |

BØRGE MOGENSEN | 1971

Originally designed for Børge Mogensen’s private balcony, the Outdoor Series is a testament to the beauty of simple, functional design. Now reintroduced by Carl Hansen & Søn, the foldable designs in untreated, FSC®-certified teak bring lasting beauty to outdoor spaces thanks to their considered combination of careful craftsmanship and lasting, high-quality materials.

FIND A CARL HANSEN & SØN FLAGSHIP STORE OR AN AUTHORIZED DEALER NEAR YOU. CARLHANSEN.COM

editor’s letter

New Normals

We were halfway through producing this issue when San Francisco shut down. Like millions around the world, our team there began working from home to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. A few days later, our New York office did the same, and the reality set in that what was to come would be unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes. Now, as then, our thoughts are with everyone fighting the virus, with the doctors, nurses, and other health workers who selflessly care for them, and with everyone doing the essential jobs that keep food on our tables and our neighborhoods functioning. As we extend our hope and gratitude, we’re also adjusting to a new normal. Though what exactly “normal” looks like changes nearly every day. What’s clear is that our homes are at the center of this crisis. They are doing double and triple duty as offices, schools, and refuges for many of us. We asked readers to show us what that looks like for them, and they sent us photos of kitchens-turned-yoga-studios, Zoom weddings, and many overloaded dining tables. We gathered a few of their responses in Dwell Asks (p. 18) and Comments (p. 14), and you can find more stories about how the coronavirus has affected home life in the New Normal section on Dwell.com. At a time of quarantine and claustrophobia, design can still offer an escape, and our annual issue dedicated to outdoor living provides some stellar examples. Our Modern World section (p. 23) gathers the latest exterior furnishings, lighting, decking, and other accessories for your home, whether you have a forested property or a well-fitted-out fire escape. The houses we feature also embrace the outdoors, but they focus less on vast sites and heroic landscapes—though there are a few—and more on human-scale moments in nature. A bungalow in Los Angeles (p. 78) conceals a secret garden, and a prefab passive house near Woodstock, New York (p. 60), sets a scene with the reintroduction of native plantings, to name just two. We don’t know how this tragedy will play out. But we can be certain that it will have massive social and historical consequences. And that it will have lasting effects on how we design our homes. Practices like remote working and homeschooling that were once exceptions have become the norm and will likely remain that way, at least periodically, into the future. We’ve already begun rethinking our homes as small cities for our families, with zones for virtual education, work, fitness, and socializing. For now, we hope your home is and continues to be both a sanctuary and an inspiration—no matter what normal turns out to be.

PHOTO: WESLEY MANN

William Hanley, Editor-in-Chief william@dwell.com

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Dwell Editorial Editor-in-Chief William Hanley Managing Editor Camille Rankin

Dwell San Francisco 595 Pacific Avenue 4th Floor San Francisco, CA 94133

Executive Digital Editor Jenny Xie Senior Editor Mike Chino Articles Editor Anna Gibertini

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Associate Editor Samantha Daly

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DwellÂŽ, the Dwell logo, Dwell Media, and At Home in the Modern World are registered trademarks of Dwell Life, Inc.

Assistant Editor Duncan Nielsen Contributing Editors Kelly Vencill Sanchez Jennifer Pattison Tuohy Copy Editor Suzy Parker Fact Checkers Karen Bruno Brendan Cummings Stephanie Fairyington Dora Vanette Editorial Fellows Grace Miller Cullen Ormond Design Director Penny Blatt Photo Director Susan Getzendanner

Founder / Chair Lara Hedberg Deam CEO Zach Klein CRO Nicole Wolfgram Board Member Dave Morin Advisor Jennifer Moores

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BRING SOMETHING MORE TO THE TABLE

comments

“We practice gratitude and find the joys in simple things as we slow down life and try to stay sane.” —Nicole Schmiedl, Denver, Colorado

COMMUNITY

Feedback

What Does Your “New Normal” Look Like?

You ask about “shoes off” in the house [Dwell Asks, March/April]? I would encourage you to take a moment to readdress this question in the age of Covid-19. This is not a personal preference issue, but a public health question. The dirt and grime on shoes (whether seen or invisible) carries millions of microbes along with it. Why bring that into your house? Be safe, be clean, and take off your shoes!

We asked readers how staying home to slow the spread of the coronavirus has changed their daily lives. Share your story, too, at Dwell.com.

SHANNON FOSTER, MD, READING, PA

The house in Sydney, Australia [“Mission Statement,” March/April], is extraordinary. I appreciate the architect’s efforts to harness the climate for solar gain, food production, and bringing real life into the home. Love the creativity, too. SHARON CRANE, VIA DWELL.COM

We are both working from home and doing our best to entertain and educate our son (1). I’ve been working in a space in our kitchen and occasionally on the dining table. We’re all over the place! STEPHANIE AND JOSH WELLS, SUN VALLEY, ID

When we ﬁrst heard of school closings, we knew we needed a

routine. So my wife, Christina, and I got together and wrote down a schedule. I get up early and do about half a day’s work, while she gets our three children ready for the day, doing morning meetings with their class and some schoolwork. Then we switch (2).

From there we’ll head to our “ofﬁces” for the day (3), the couch or the breakfast table. We’ll unwind from the day by FaceTiming with friends, making meals, and having puzzle or movie night. We also treated ourselves to rooftop camping! NICOLE SCHMIEDL, DENVER

KENNY ISIDORO, BOSTON

We’ve tried our best to establish and maintain a routine—get up at 7 a.m., make coffee, and watch our daily allotment of the news.

I live with my husband and two pugs. We run our own freelance interior design studio out of our 1,000-squarefoot home, built in 1951. We were in the middle of a renovation

(4 ) when construction was deemed nonessential. We are keeping positive, though. And we found original hardwood ﬂoors! KENDRA SHEA, WEST SEATTLE

Here’s my four-yearold daughter on a Zoom call with her preschool class (5) doing show-and-tell. I deﬁnitely started crying when I heard all their little voices excitedly greeting each other after being apart for two weeks. TESSA HARRIS, SALT LAKE CITY

MAY/J U N E 2020

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AJ Family Design by Arne Jacobsen

Celebrating the 60th anniversary of SAS Royal Hotel with new colors, sizes and materials Design to Shape Light louispoulsen.com

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What’s new at Dwell.com? Don’t miss our daily mix of home tours, design news, shopping guides, and more. Join Dwell+ for access to exclusive stories, videos, and the Dwell archive. 2

PHOTOS: CRISTÓBAL PALMA ( 1) ; BENJAMIN HILL ( 2 ); THE AGENCY ( 3 ); JENNY MCCLARY AND ALLIE LEEPSON (4)

COMMUNITY

1. A Cantilevered Retreat in Southern Chile Take a video tour of a family outpost surrounded by a mountainous landscape that inspired its design. 2. 30 Architects’ Personal Homes Being your own client comes with a unique set of challenges and rewards. We rounded up a group of designers who pulled it off in style. 3. How to Bring a Bit of Palm Springs to Your Interiors Cultivate a sunny state of mind with pieces that channel a breezy brand of midcentury modernism. 4. Five Home Improvements DIYed for Less Than $26K These homeowners rolled up their sleeves and tackled their own renovations.

MAY/J U N E 2020

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THE BACKDROP TO A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP The comfort of quiet evenings, twilight skies, and peaceful moments together might just set the stage for a more restful sleep. At Marvin, our windows and doors are inspired by how you live, so you’re inspired to live well. See windows and doors differently. marvin.com/inspired

Marvin Ultimate™ Casement Designed by Peterssen/Keller Architecture, Minneapolis, Minnesota

dwell asks

What are you doing to spruce up your space while hunkering down?

COMMUNITY

With the coronavirus crisis keeping so many people at home, we asked readers what steps they were taking to enhance their environments.

Finally painting our common areas four years after moving in. Bye-bye, avocado-colored “accent” wall! @melissa_moe Um, we just ripped out our kitchen on Friday… so there is that! @benjakaiden Decluttered the kitchen, made a “coffee bar,” cleaned and reorganized all the kitchen cabinets. Bathrooms are next. @desert_lisek

We urgently needed places to work for everyone in the family, so we found pieces of wood in the garage, got some shelves at the hardware store, and mixed and matched to construct desks. These times call for being creative. @melbacarolinareid Renovating our front porch… and mixing afternoon mai tais. @sbwhippet Anxiety-induced cleaning! @violagirl285

We set up a homework station on the kitchen island and shoveled the snow around in the backyard so we could set up a trampoline. @kakisv Pretty much shuffling art and decorative items to different spots around the house. Also looking to see what I have that I could use for a DIY project. @cobystarck

Well, our liquor bottles were getting dusty, so I’ve started emptying them into cocktail glasses. @pk2bk One, reorganize the entire house, including the basement, and two, make a donation pile and clean and sanitize everything in it. @mtntopbassdrop Painting a paintby-number beach scene I bought in Nashville. Janice Nichols

Remodeling the master bathroom. @zsoc95 Taking out those long-forgotten trinkets I had in boxes (since moving into our house 23 years ago) and displaying them in various nooks and crannies. Alwiah Salleh Getting dirty in my garden. @jpoechill Making coffee tables out of toilet paper rolls. @miamififi

Finally rehanging all the artwork in the house and rotating accessories. @bernal.phillip

MAY/J U N E 2020

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ILLUSTRATION: JUSTYNA STASIK

Nurturing indoor plants to improve our physical and emotional wellness. @opiarydesign

Step outside the ordinary

As outdoor trendsetters, Techo-bloc lives to create and breathe life into landscaping products that ignite each and everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spark for design. Discover our vast array of products from patio slabs to outdoor kitchens that are reshaping the idea of what landscapes can look like. Get inspired at techo-bloc.com/lb/dwell

Slabs - Pavers - Edges - Walls - Caps - Steps - Outdoor features

houses we love

Lofty Ambitions An efficient renovation makes the most of a compact Russian garret. PHOTOS BY

Anna Gibertini

Dmitry Yadrov

COMMUNITY

TEXT BY

MAY/J U N E 2020

DWELL

Architecture in St. Petersburg follows the city’s political and cultural history, with Czarist palaces next to Art Nouveau shopping centers and austere Soviet-era office buildings. In the newly capitalist 1990s and 2000s, investors and landlords began converting attic spaces into apartments— a practice the government initially encouraged but tenants often fought as infringing on communal property. One strategy to win approval was to add a French-style mansard roof, which was considered an architectural improvement and allowed for a brighter, more open interior space. Such conversions are rare now, so when Vladimir Samsonov, a software developer, and Alya Shipilova, a designer, moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 2017, they felt lucky to find a mansard apartment for sale in a 19th-century building. The fifth-floor walk-up had great views and a partial loft. There was one problem, however. “The

upstairs was barely usable. You had to crawl or bend over just to get onto it,” says Alexey Koptev, one half of the design team behind a new renovation. He and his partner, Polina Kopteva, did a total overhaul, moving the staircase and placing the bedroom and a second bathroom on the loft level. Even with these additions, the apartment measures a compact 613 square feet. The styling was just as important as the rearranging of elements. Polina sourced several vintage upholstered pieces and painted the walls in calming shades of blue. Recessed LED lighting in the kitchen keeps ﬁxtures from cluttering the small space. Today, Alya and Vladimir mostly live and work in Stockholm, but once a month they return to St. Petersburg. Eventually, they hope to turn their pied-à-terre into their full-time residence. “It’s not a classic home, but it’s our dream to come back here and call it ours one day,” says Vladimir.

“We were influenced by Scandinavian style, but a white box with modern furniture would not have been right for us.” Alya Shipilova, resident A pair of vintage chairs and an IKEA side table provide a cozy place to sit in Vladimir Samsonov and Alya Shipilova’s St. Petersburg pied-à-terre (opposite). In the loft bedroom (above),

designer Polina Kopteva installed birch plywood shelving. In the kitchen (below), she used Tikkurila N435 blue paint. The dimmable round sconces (right) are from Marset.

More at Dwell.com Do you have a project you’d like to see published in Houses We Love? Share it at dwell.com/add-a-home

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MAY/J U N E 2020

Artisans of Comfort

SPRING 2020 MGBWHOME.COM

G RE AT O UT D O OR SPACE S

Whether youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re fitting out a porch or a patio, a backyard or a balcony, these new accoutrements will help you greet the open air in style.

Modern World

ILLUSTRATIONS BY Josh Gosfield

ASSORTED PAINTED PADDLES SANBORN CANOE CO.

Handmade in Minnesota, these paddles are lightweight and functional, plus they look as good on the wall as they do in the water.

DWELL

MAY/J U N E 2020

outdoor spaces

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A...

SUBTROPICAL GARDEN ACCORDING TO RAYMOND JUNGLES Miami, Florida In our region, we have a pronounced dry season, as long as six months, and then we get precipitation when there’s a clash of systems. It can be as much as 60 inches per year—a lot of it from hurricanes and tropical storms. Plants have to be able to make it through both. I look primarily to native species and then incorporate complementary plants from other subtropical climates. I believe in botanical interest and also creating a habitat with birds, butterflies, squirrels, and foxes, where humans can live more closely with nature. That’s what gives me joy. For butterflies, you need flowers. For birds, you need insects, seeds, and fruit. After that, my main goal is to create comfortable spaces for humans. That means bringing in trees and shade, beautiful textures and fragrances. I’m trying to build a grocery store for local flora and fauna that then will give me pleasure. You need plants that were made for the environment. You don’t want a garden that looks like hell, where everything’s struggling. I do a lot of beach properties, and beach plants have been developed by nature to live in sand, to be able to take airborne salt. That’s a whole particular palette. You’ll start to see a lot of sea oats, bay cedar, thatch palms. Beach gardens should look natural and strong, haphazard and preexistent. They need to be tough. I don’t do things purely for the aesthetics. When you make a habitat, there is less maintenance. It’s more laissez-faire. I don’t understand topiary or highly manicured gardens. If you’re always striving for perfection, you won’t generate the beauty that comes from imperfection.

CEMENTINE_OPENAIR FIORANESE

The Cementine series of decorative tiles, designed for outdoor patios and swimming pools, combines crisp modern geometry with a sun-washed Mediterranean feel.

MAY/J U N E 2020

DWELL

BEACH HOUSE 1 WOOD & WIRE CHAIR BEND GOODS

The L.A.-based maker of (what else?) bent-wire furnishings and lighting has married its signature Op-Art patterns with oak-veneered plywood for a new chair. Colors include eye-catching aqua as well as basic black or white. 2 SWING

PAOLA LENTI

“Statement piece” might be an understatement when it comes to Paola Lenti’s impeccably woven bench swing, which is now available with an aluminum frame and a glossy finish. If electricyellow chartreuse isn’t your thing, it also comes in other equally arresting colors. 3 TRAVELFIRE MODFIRE

Modfire’s latest fire ring comes in tangerine and turquoise finishes. But the best thing about Travelfire is that its foldable legs and 25-pound weight make it unusually portable. 4 GIRAVOLTA 1799 LAMP PEDRALI

The Giravolta’s disc-shaped element rotates 360 degrees, so you can easily adjust the lighting direction. It comes in five colors—the newest is pink—and has an optional magnetic base for firmly securing to a metal table or wall.

5 OTTERÖN POUFFE IKEA

Designed by Maria Vinka, this pouf is perfect for an informal outdoor space. The woven fabric cover dries quickly, resists fading, and is machine washable. 6 CITRON BANDS POT TERRAIN

While technically this is an indoor pot— you’ll have to keep it in a covered area outside—the lemony glaze can add the perfect pop of brightness to your patio. 7 6

MALIBU ORGANIC BEACH TOWELS COYUCHI

DWELL

MAY/J U N E 2020

Coyuchi’s towels are not only soft and beautifully dyed—think Turkish hammam meets Southern California—they also meet high standards for sustainable materials, nontoxic pigments, and socially responsible labor practices.

outdoor spaces

MOUNTAIN HOUSE 1 MODELO V01 NOORI

Three Brazilian friends—a designer, an environmental engineer, and an architect—devised this Swiss Army–style combination grill, pizza oven, rocket stove, and fire pit that debuted last year. 2 AYANA COLLECTION B&B ITALIA

Naoto Fukasawa looked to traditional joinery for a new chair for B&B’s outdoor collection. The teak rods are connected with wooden pins rather than screws, which allow them to weather without cracking. 3 AMPHORA LANTERN BOVER

Spanish designers Gonzalo Milà and Alex Fernández Camps’ entrywayready, handwoven lantern comes in four sizes, ranging from just over one and a half feet to nearly five feet tall. 4 ETEL ZC2 COFFEE TABLE

THE INVISIBLE COLLECTION

A handmade coffee table—designed by José Zanine Caldas—calls to mind tree canopies with its asymmetrical shapes. It’s available in multiple woods to match your favorite forest. 5 FIELD BARISTA SET

SNOWPEAK

Sure, they were made for camping, but Snowpeak’s wood and stainless steel kettle, grinder, and drip funnel—all designed and manufactured in Niigata, Japan—are great for deck lounging, too. 6 BEE HIVE

LOLL DESIGNS

We’ve been fans of Loll’s made-inAmerica outdoor furnishings for a long time, but the company surprised us earlier this year when it decided to bring a little bit of the Bauhaus to beekeeping by making a functional hive in its signature, stripped-down style.

MAY/J U N E 2020

DWELL

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A...

MOUNTAIN GARDEN ACCORDING TO SHERI SANZONE OF BLUEGREEN ASPEN Aspen, Colorado In the Rocky Mountains, we have this beautiful blue sky that is very clear at this altitude, but the greens are really toned down. They’re more of a blackish green. So when everything starts to leaf out and things are really hopping, that contrast makes the colors of anything in bloom really striking. The UV light here intensifies the effect even more. How natural processes and the light at our elevation affect the natural colors in the landscape is amazing. With that in mind, I’ve been really interested in native plants that bloom twice during the year—like the lupine or the Rocky Mountain penstemon. They will bloom in the spring and then you’ll see them again in the fall. I like being able to use those to deliver a planting design with a long season of color. Similarly, we take advantage of microclimates a lot, and especially microclimates created by the architecture. A certain type of plant may be one month or two months ahead in the growth cycle on the south-facing side of the house compared to the north side, and I enjoy designing for those variations. Obviously we have periods of the year when there’s snow and periods when we might get torrential rain. I think it’s about 270 days of the year that we experience freezing and thawing. That can take a tremendous toll on pavers, walls, and other hardscape materials, as well as on some species of trees, so we steer clients toward climate-appropriate materials and of course native plantings adapted to the weather. 3

DWELL

MAY/J U N E 2020

outdoor spaces

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A...

LAKESIDE GARDEN ACCORDING TO MAURA ROCKCASTLE AND ROSS ALTHEIMER OF TEN X TEN Minneapolis, Minnesota Lakes are magnets to Minnesotans. They fuel our identity and our fitness. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re our playground, our respite, and our calendar. Changing waterfowl marks migration, the extent of ice determines the depths of winter (for now), and in summer sunlight hangs longer over this kind of horizon than any other. As designers, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re inspired by how a lake can intensify the changing seasons. Across our projects, we spend time getting to know our clients, the site, and the larger regional context. We do a lot of listening, photographing, and inventorying in order to understand what makes the site on a lake or in another critical watershed unique. We want any proposed project to build stronger relationships between people and their land. Rather than look to specific landscape strategies right away, we discuss practices for stormwater management, climate, and ecology. Lake and riverside projects contend with the dynamic challenges of flooding, erosion, and frequently changing water levels. Designers and owners need to consider approaches that do not see a line between wet and dry, but rather a liminal wetness that needs to be able to flex and adapt over time. The way people experience these sites is very personal. We always ask: How can we frame daily rituals that build reciprocal relationships between humans and the natural resources that surround their homes?

1 2

7 PRO RESERVE COLLECTION TIMBERTECH

The durability and low maintenance of composite decking often means a sacrifice in look and feel, but this new collection, made from 80 percent recycled materials, pulls it off. It also comes in four versatile colors.

MAY/J U N E 2020

DWELL

LAKE HOUSE 1 SHOKUNIN KAMADO GRILL KALAMAZOO

Fire can be built on any of three levels inside this American-made grill from Kalamazoo, depending on the type of heat you need. The deep shape makes it ideal for cooking with an offset fire or cultivating an even heat for smoking. 2 SMOKEY FIRE PIT BLU DOT

Blu Dot’s tough but minimal fire pit has a sleek, cylindrical shape. It’s sold separately, but we recommend pairing it with the company’s Pokey von Pokerson Fire Poker, if only for its amazing name. 3 SOLAR LAMP ETHIMO

It doesn’t get more country-fresh than Ethimo’s nod to a milk jug. The solarpowered portable lamps are delightfully retro but still look sophisticated lining a walkway or a patio. 4

JUG, TUMBLER, AND MINI TUMBLER FALCON ENAMELWARE

The classic British enamelware brand continues to update its offerings with new styles and colors, and these sunny pitchers and cups will bring some summer camp goodness to your coffee table or cocktail hour. 5 LENA SWING DIABLA

A duo of young designers—Alessandra Balsotti and Francesca Rosignoli, who go by Frale Design—created this playfully simple swing available in five colors of cord. It’s just one example of a trend toward weaving in outdoor furniture this year. 6 THE DECK CHAIR SERIES CARL HANSEN & SØN

Danish designer Børge Mogensen came up with this outdoor collection for his own balcony in the 1960s. Carl Hansen just reintroduced it with deck and dining chairs, a table, and a bar cart, all made of FSC-certified teak. DWELL

MAY/J U N E 2020

outdoor spaces

DESERT HOUSE 1 TEJA DINING CHAIR BIVAQ

Another example of the weaving trend in outdoor furnishings, Bivaq’s textured collection—which includes armchairs and sofas—comes with a wood or metal base threaded with marine-grade rope. 2 DECO FIRE BOWL GLOSTER

Made of powder-coated milled steel, designer Henrik Pedersen’s fire bowl strikes the right note between tough materials and a refined profile. 3 VERTICAL GARDEN PLANTER EXTETA

Designer Massimo Castagna’s planter also balances rough-and-ready and refined, with aluminum bowls of various dimensions suspended between steel rods. One can anchor a space, but a series makes for a verdant room divider. 4 5

SILHOUETTE OUTDOOR RUG NANIMARQUINA

Jaime Hayón’s new collection has the wit that we’ve come to expect from the Spanish designer. This outdoor rug, made from 100 percent recycled fiber, intertwines nine portraits in a doodle-like composition. 5 KENGO

SONNEMAN

This sconce reminds us of traditional Japanese design filtered through Frank Lloyd Wright—it wouldn’t look out of place at Taliesin West. An LED source directs light down through teak louvers. 6

DNA LOUNGE CHAIR GANDIABLASCO

From the masters of outdoor chic, the sharp lines of this lounge complement the warmth of its rhythmic wood slats. The aluminum can be finished in multiple colors, and the sustainably harvested teak will hold up to any weather. 7 RGC WATERING CAN

MOMA DESIGN STORE

We love the proportions and shape of this watering can designed and made in Japan. Its slender neck and wide spout provide a consistent gentle shower.

MAY/J U N E 2020

DWELL

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A...

DESERT GARDEN ACCORDING TO CHARLIE RAY OF THE GREEN ROOM Scottsdale, Arizona In the Sonoran desert, we have to create shade, so the first thing we usually do is bring in mature plantings—like oldstump ironwoods or a big saguaro—to make an instant canopy. It creates a whole different habitat for the plantings underneath. Getting those trees and other big materials in sets the whole design intent. We like to place them close to a house to bring the scale of the architecture down to a human level. We also use a lot of large stones. We look at them like artwork. One beautiful stone with just the right look to it, just the right character, and just the right placement can set the tone for a space. So can water. We try to incorporate the movement, the sound, or the feel of water on most projects, whether it’s a feature in the entryway or in another outdoor space. We’re not talking gushing European fountains. It’s about using small amounts in a big way. We think about how the landscape will be experienced from the inside as well. How will it extend into a room or make vignettes through the windows? How will it create a narrative? But one benefit of our environment is that we can be outside year-round. And with just small changes—whether it’s a shade structure or a fire pit or a water feature—we can be outside for more of each day, too. Ultimately, we want to create excitement and surprises in the landscape. For example, there is quite a bit of plant material that just peeks up after a little monsoon rain—that’s a moment we can design for, so that we can capture that energy of beauty and change.

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outdoor spaces

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URBAN GARDEN ACCORDING TO BROOK KLAUSING OF BROOK LANDSCAPE New York, New York We’re always thinking about longevity and an element of timelessness in our designs. In urban areas, people purchase real estate like clothing. It gets bought, torn down, destroyed, and then bought again. If you have a really classic design template and a base of plantings that maintains over the decades, it’s touched less with every transition. Leaving flexibility for different people to utilize things in different ways is important. In terms of plantings, we always try to provide a base layer of 60 percent solid, easy-to-maintain plants that creates the environment and sets the tone. That way, if the clients want to play with their own ideas, they can take a risk with some temperamental plantings. You’re coming up with something that’s easy to maintain and that looks great even if some of it gets a little wild or disappears. So we might have large boxes that accommodate big roots for trees and shrubs, but then we’ll leave space for some perennials or even something edible like strawberries to grow in there. I love heirloom tomatoes—they’re like candy. But asparagus and dill look absolutely gorgeous when they grow. Onions look beautiful as well. I used to have a raspberry bush at my old apartment, and it was just great to go up to the roof and pick raspberries. Fifty percent of our work is probably rooftops, and the hardscaping is very important. With some that are in full sun all day, we’ll do a shade structure. When they have a view, we pull out fewer tricks and just incorporate fireplaces and other things that make parts of the space feel more intimate. But whether you’re on a roof or in a courtyard, it goes back to making sure you have a really nice template at the beginning.

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CITY HOUSE 1 SPARK GRILL SPARK

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Lightweight and stackable, Barber & Osgerbyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outdoor chairs for Emeco get their name from their material. Made of 70 percent recycled plastic bottles, 20 percent glass fiber, and 10 percent nontoxic pigment, the chairs can eventually be recycled into new ones. 6 EXTERIOR POTS AND GROW WATERING CAN BOCONCEPT

Low-slung and bulbous pots with urbane matte finishes make the perfect contrast to this sleek-stemmed and polished watering can. DWELL

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P R O M OT I O N

An expansive sliding glass door allows the owners of this Texas residence to step out of bed and onto the edge of a canyon.

Life on the Edge In West Texas, a young couple called on Tucson-based Hazelbaker Rush to design a home that would take advantage of its site’s location in the foothills of the rugged Franklin Mountains. “We pushed the home as far south as we could, placing it as near the canyon wall as possible to give that feeling of living on the precipice,” say architects Darci Hazelbaker and Dale Rush. Local gray basalt stone, used in the home’s lower floors, blends seamlessly into the hills. The upper portion, which contains the private spaces, is clad in bright white stucco and appears to float weightlessly above the mountainside. Designing with the sublime views and desert ecosystem in mind, the team turned to Western Window Systems to establish an effortless connection with the surrounding landscape. Extra-wide Series 600 DWELL

Multi-Slide Doors in the kitchen and master suite fully expose these areas to sweeping vistas, while smaller Series 670 Fixed Windows at strategic locations frame postcard-worthy views. The thoughtful apertures create dynamic moments that feel vivid, fluid, and memorable. A window at the end of the upper floor hallway presents an artistic snapshot of the mountains as they slope down to meet the city of El Paso below. As you move closer to the window, the edge of the canyon sharply falls away, eliciting a feeling of floating in midair. “The change in perception as you move through and live in a space is a key element to designing the experience,” say Hazelbaker and Rush. “Every opening in the building is a choreography of some kind.” dwell.com/westernwindows

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A Texas family’s home seems to hover above a cinematic mountainside.

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Batteries Included

We recharge our phones, our cars, and our laptops. Is it time to recharge our homes? When architect Richard Schuh installed solar panels on his Mayacamas Mountains home in northwestern California two decades ago, going completely off the grid wasn’t a real consideration. He just couldn’t quite abide the banks of ugly leadacid batteries he would have needed to store that amount of excess solar power. Today, it’s a different story. Two sleek Tesla Powerwall lithium-ion batteries hang inconspicuously on a carport wall, ready to supply nearly all the energy his home needs, even during blackouts. “They constantly interface with the grid and with the solar panels to optimize usage,” says Schuh. “It’s a very smart

system.” The software that manages the connections between the grid, panels, and batteries keeps the transitions from one to the other seamless. Schuh says his family doesn’t notice when it switches from solar to backup power at night, or even when the grid goes down. “The system does it all for us,” he says, adding, “If we had a larger system, we’d be completely independent.” Tesla is one of a handful of companies (others include SolarEdge, Enphase, LG, and Sonnen) that manufacture smart home energy storage systems that deploy power when needed. This solar-plusstorage solution is set to revolutionize the home energy market and could at long

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“The bottom line has been the satisfaction of self-sufﬁciency. It’s an amazing feeling in a time when things are increasingly vulnerable.” RICHARD SCHUH, ARCHITECT

last bring the power of the sun into homes simply, safely, and steadfastly. Lithium-ion batteries have made these systems possible. More expensive than lead batteries upfront, they last much longer and store far more energy. They’re also sleek and unobtrusive, not bulky eyesores. Increased demand for them in everything from mobile phones to electric cars has brought the price down by 85 percent in the last decade, making them a much more popular way of powering a home. Price tends to be consistent among brands. The biggest differentiators are design, capacity, battery life, and software. “A residential battery in the range of 10 to 20 kWh costs between $8,000 and $15,000,” says Barry Cinnamon of Cinnamon Energy Systems, a Silicon Valley solar and battery installation company. To power a 2,200-square-foot home with Tesla Powerwalls that can each hold 13.5 kWh, including the ability to charge

your car and run your AC, you could use three at a cost of just over $20,000, without installation. “But you don’t need a giant system,” says Cinnamon. “As long as the sun comes up the next day, your batteries will recharge, and you’ll have power.” And the smart systems can save you money on the power you draw from the grid. “In California, where electricity rates are lowest during the early part of the day, you can buy cheap electricity from the grid then and save the solar energy in your battery for when electricity is more expensive,” Cinnamon says. This type of time-of-use program has saved Schuh a significant amount of money on his power bill—he’s now spending just $100 a year (including powering two Tesla Model S vehicles). But for Schuh, the financial benefits of battery backup are just gravy. “The bottom line has been the satisfaction of self-sufficiency,” he says. “It’s an amazing feeling in a time

when things are increasingly vulnerable.” (According to an industry report, publicsafety power shutoffs associated with California wildfires have prompted a rush on residential solar with storage.) While time-of-use programs can help offset some of the cost, it’s only once energy companies recognize the potential of residential power storage as a way to manage the grid, and then start subsidizing them, that a real sea change will likely occur. A network of home batteries, for instance, can be a virtual power plant, tapped into and deployed automatically based on grid needs. Some of this is already happening: Green Mountain Power in Vermont has started subsidizing Tesla Powerwalls; National Grid has programs in Rhode Island and Massachusetts that pay customers with battery storage to draw on their excess power. “Today batteries are one of the most flexible resources we have on the energy grid,” says Josh Castonguay, Green Mountain’s chief innovation officer. By tomorrow, he speculates, they will be essential to our greener, smarter homes. A home battery integrated with a smart electrical panel that could balance your energy needs and let you categorize and prioritize your loads is truly a sign of a smart home, he says. “Just tell the system how you want the house to operate day-to-day or in the event of an outage, and then just let it do its thing.”

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Emmanuel Pratt

The MacArthur fellow and cofounder of the Sweet Water Foundation speaks about “regenerative design” and reclaiming a neglected part of Chicago for its community.

Emmanuel Pratt doesn’t have a master plan. In fact, the Chicago-based designer, artist, and urban planner says his work is in strident opposition to a top-down approach to city development. Instead, he believes in “urban acupuncture,” a theory that small-scale, local interventions, realized in conjunction with the people who live in the targeted area, can have positive effects that resonate throughout a city and beyond. Pratt cofounded the Sweet Water Foundation 11 years ago to put those ideas into practice. The nonproﬁt has transformed several adjacent parcels of formerly

vacant properties on the South Side of Chicago into The Commons, a collection of public spaces that serves as a thriving neighborhood hub. One of them, the [Re]Construction House, is a formerly derelict home—the last of its kind standing on a long-razed block—that now houses classrooms and exhibition space. Another, the Thought Barn, went up in 2017 and serves as a platform for a variety of activities, from performances to yoga workshops to community meetings. The centerpiece is a thriving urban farm and greenhouse where volunteers cultivate fresh vegetables to sell to the neighborhood.

Once a cluster of neglected lots on Chicago’s South Side, the Thought Barn and surrounding farm are part of Sweet Water Foundation’s neighborhood regeneration strategy. The timberframed barn, built and hand-raised by community members alongside Trillium Dell Timberworks, is believed to be the first timber-framed barn built in Chicago in more than a century.

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“We live in a time of polarization. Where people are alienated or ousted, or displaced because of gentriﬁcation, we’re reversing that.” EMMANUEL PRATT

A man from the neighborhood sketches a design for a produce box that doubles as a stool (above and right) as part of Sweet Water’s educational programming. The barn is used for visual and performing arts, community gatherings, and whatever the neighborhood can dream up. An area of Chicago that was essentially a food desert is now a wellspring of produce (below).

Last year, Pratt received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship to build on his efforts. We spoke with him about the origins of his work, what’s next for Sweet Water, and what he means by “regenerative design.” What set you on the path toward establishing Sweet Water? I grew up in Chicago in settings where I was constantly on the verge—the verge of erasure, the verge of being lost. So it was rough. I became an artist and a musician, and I drifted into architecture because people said I should get a real job. But then I was frustrated by the profession’s silos and reductive responses to real-life challenges. Neighborhoods like the one I grew up in were devoid of investment and design opportunities. And you can’t just invest in a built structure. You have to consider context as well. When I went into urban design, that’s what I started to look at: the bigger context. How do you describe your approach? Identify a stress point, ﬁgure out the history behind it, and insert a design moment, something that offers an opportunity for the community to respond. Then, use that feedback to design a space that serves its context. That’s why Sweet Water links architecture to education, to gardening, to carpentry apprenticeships. Why did you start with a farm? People need fresh, good food. Period. Full stop. What’s the point of growing organic lettuce if you’re selling it at a premium? That’s just immoral, unethical.

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What are you planning next? Everything we do—the garden beds, the greenhouse—is a lesson plan that we can teach and then scale. We call this “regenerative neighborhood development,” and we now have a proven design strategy based on it. Next, we’re building a regenerative design team to expand it. We’re doing really ﬂexible, modular installations around the city that create spaces for programming and feedback in their communities.

The foundation’s carpentry and design apprenticeships take students’ ideas from concept to reality (top). Riffing on the 19thcentury worker cottage, Pratt and his team erected a timber structure on a vacant lot in one of Chicago’s redlined neighborhoods. Then, in six hours, they rebuilt it inside the Chicago Cultural Center for last year’s architecture biennial to start a conversation about affordable housing (center). The foundation’s temporary Lightbox Theater was built inside the Thought Barn to host cold-weather events and art shows (left).

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PHOTOS: COURTESY SWEET WATER FOUNDATION

“Everything we do—the garden beds, the greenhouse—is a lesson plan that we can teach and then scale.” EMMANUEL PRATT

What ties all of this work together? We live in a time of polarization. Where people are alienated or ousted, or displaced because of gentriﬁcation, we’re reversing that. We have to do something that is like a magnet for people to come together, to ﬁnd each other, in order to reclaim their humanity. Let’s move away from traditional, 20th-century design practices that have created voids in our cities, alienated populations, and closed down schools. We’re in crisis mode. But now we have a tremendous opportunity to look at a new beginning. And that’s where the regenerative design and development comes in. That’s why we do the work.

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New Old Solutions

Designer and author Julia Watson urges us to use thousand-year-old ideas to build a world in symbiosis with nature.

As the world faces an unprecedented environmental crisis, our cities must implement innovative, sustainable solutions to survive. But what if the forwardthinking ﬁxes we need lie not in new technologies but in something older? “We commonly think of sustainability as bringing plants and trees onto buildings, but what if our most sustainable 46

innovations were rooted in cultures that ﬁgured it out a millennia ago?” asks Julia Watson, author of Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism. “There are hundreds of nature-based technologies that need to be considered as potential climate-resilient infrastructures. It is possible to weave ancient knowledge of how to live symbiotically with nature

into how we shape the cities of the future before this wisdom is lost forever.” Here we present four case studies, taken from Watson’s book, that show how native peoples in mountains, forests, wetlands, and deserts have developed sustainable approaches to living. We also examine how they could be applied to challenges we face today.

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MOUNTAIN JINGKIENG DIENG JRI LIVING ROOT BRIDGES

The Khasi people of northeast India cultivate livingroot bridges (left) to travel between villages during monsoon season. Their homelands experience some of the highest levels of precipitation on earth. Watson proposes that living bridges such as these could be used to reduce the urban heat-island effect by providing canopy cover over city streets. In cities where flooding due to sea level rise is inevitable, they could even retain their original use.

FOREST KIHAMBA FOREST GARDENS

In the forests surrounding Mount Kilimanjaro, the Chagga people grow many varieties of bananas—alongside some 400 other plants—in forest gardens, humanshaped ecosystems that behave like natural forests (above and left). Some of these gardens are as large as Los Angeles and can take two and a half hours to drive through. In contrast to industrialized agriculture, in which clearcut

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logging is followed by monoculture farming, this ancient agricultural system simultaneously supports forest biodiversity and human population growth. “The Chagga have figured out a way to retain the complexity of the natural rainforest but also integrate a really complex agroforestry system that is incredibly productive,” says Watson. “This has made them one of the wealthiest communities in their region.”

WETLAND TOTORA REED FLOATING ISLANDS

“The indigenous cultures of the world need to be recognized as innovative rather than primitive and have their knowledge embedded in our thinking about the future.” JULIA WATSON

The Uros are a preIncan civilization who live directly on Lake Titicaca in the Andes Mountains. To protect their homes from hostile neighboring tribes in the past, they began constructing houseboats, islands, and platforms built from totora reeds, a local material (above), on the lake. They still live on them today, with some added modern conveniences, like solar panels. “Today’s commercial floating islands are typically composed of potentially harmful and unbiodegradable materials,” says Watson. “In contrast, the Uros’ technology is uniquely inhabitable and completely biodegradable.”

DESERT WAFFLE GARDENS

Waffle gardens (left) were developed by the Zuni people of western New Mexico. Their grid shape and sunken plots can catch and hold enough water to support a family or a neighborhood for long periods. In a world where a third of the global population lives with limited access to water, Watson believes these systems could provide a sustainable alternative to monocropping and industrial irrigation, which deplete soil health and strain resources.

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PHOTOS COURTESY TASCHEN: AMOS CHAPPLE (OPENER) ; ULRICH DOERING ( MOUNTAIN AND FOREST ) ; ENRIQUE CASTRO-MENDIVIL (WETLAND) ; SCOTT WARREN/ALAMY ( DESERT )

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Curtain Call

Swooping arcs of concrete separate the spaces within a Belgian family’s home.

In the house architect Jan Vanweert designed for his cousin Jo Vanweert (pictured here) and Sofie Hens, cutaway portions of concrete walls create curved passageways and open sight lines between rooms. The side chairs in the dining room are by Harry Bertoia and the table is by Eero Saarinen, both for Knoll.

Jo Vanweert knew two things when he decided to build his first home: It would be on the highest point in his small hometown of Bilzen, Belgium, where his family has lived for generations, and it would be designed by his cousin Jan Vanweert, an architect 11 years his senior. Jo told his cousin he wanted a house that had clean lines inspired by classic modernism and that took advantage of its hilltop site. What his cousin delivered has a modernist rigor tempered with a surprising softness, a twist that turned out to be perfect for the younger Vanweert’s evolving family. The architect and his team designed a glass box sandwiched between two concrete slabs as the top floor—the plan directly references Mies van der Rohe’s Fifty by Fifty Feet House—and placed three bedrooms, one bathroom, and the entrance on a lower floor dug into a knoll. The rooms down below all have sunken patios that allow for natural light and private outdoor spaces. (A psychiatric nurse, Jo finds

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the subterranean bedrooms perfect for sleeping after a night shift.) A single pillar on each of the house’s four sides stabilizes the structure and allows for a gap between the top of the patio walls and the upstairs floor, creating the illusion of a glass pavilion floating above the ground. The space upstairs is divided into four quadrants—kitchen, dining area, living room, and playroom—by arcs of concrete that Vanweert calls “curtains.” “Only parts of the walls support the structure, so we could cut away the extra concrete to make these soft, curved shapes,” he says. The effect is twofold: The rooms are separate yet connected by partially open sight lines, and the curves of the cutaways soften the interior and make the boxy shape feel more inviting. Sliding glass doors open to a narrow balcony around the full perimeter of the concrete floor slab, although it could more accurately be called a ledge, given the lack of railings to prevent the occupants from falling

onto the patios below. The views stretch all the way to Maastricht, just across the border in the Netherlands. Jo initially envisioned the home for himself and his now 13-year-old son. But during construction, he met his future wife, Soﬁe Hens, and before the house was completed, the two had a daughter, now a year old. Despite the growing family, little changed about the original design (though railings are now under consideration), but what appears to be an unforgiving shape has been able to adapt to family life. The older ones say they don’t mind sharing a single small bathroom, while the baby enjoys the most spacious quarters of all, with a big playroom upstairs and the largest of the bedrooms below. The concrete curtains further contribute to the human scale of the home by allowing people to move about through the cutouts. “We actually use those more than the wider spaces along the glass walls,” says Jo. “It has really surprised us.”

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focus

“We designed the house to have beautiful views of the countryside and of the village where our family has very strong ties.” JAN VANWEERT, ARCHITECT

The house is a glass box that appears to float over the highest point in Bilzen, Belgium (opposite). The subterranean bedrooms are cut into a knoll, a move inspired by the hilly region’s roads, which

were traditionally dug into the landscape. The dining room (above), living room, kitchen, and playroom all flow into one another. The views are spectacular, but drapes (right) can wrap the upstairs for privacy.

House VH ARCHITECT LOCATION

Dhoore Vanweert Architect Bilzen, Belgium

A Entrance B Patio C Bedroom

D Master Bedroom E Bathroom F Powder Room

J Living Area K Playroom

G Mechanical Room H Kitchen I Dining Area

ILLUSTRATION: LOHNES + WRIGHT

A B First Floor

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Second Floor

renovation

When renovating a centuriesold beach cottage in Cornwall, architect Adam Casey of Watershedd covered one of the existing additions in vertical black timber (above). The material is in stark contrast to the rough-hewn walls of the original stone structure.

Visits to Cornwall have always given Gaby Dellal what her thriving career and cosmopolitan life never could: a slower pace. Jutting into the Celtic Sea from the southwestern tip of England, the county— where wrinkled headlands rise from iceblue waters and visitors can walk along its coast for miles without seeing a soul— offered an escape from Gaby’s work as a ﬁlm director who ping-pongs between London and New York. Her three sons often tagged

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Tiffany Jow

Evie Johnstone

along to ride the waves that make Cornwall one of Europe’s best surﬁng spots. Years ago, a friend there tipped her off to a 17th-century stone cottage for sale in the northern village of St. Agnes. Set upon the cliffs of scenic Trevaunance Cove, the 1,600-square-foot structure—whose former iterations included a coastguard lodging and a ﬁsh house—proved irresistible, and Gaby decided to buy it. But the cottage wasn’t the most

Shelter From the Storm

A film director transforms a 17th-century cottage into a surf retreat that blends into England’s Cornish coastline. 54

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renovation

“For us, the owner’s involvement was really exciting. We ended up doing a job that was much more eccentric than what’s usually seen in this market.” MARZOUK AL-BADER, DESIGNER

comfortable place to unwind. Previous owners had increased its footprint, and the interior spaces felt cramped and disconnected. A large, tired-looking extension howled with the constant hammering of winds off the sea, and there wasn’t a place where her boys, coming in from the surf, could store their boards and rinse off. In 2017, Gaby attended a dinner party at the home of a neighbor, Marzouk Al-Bader, cofounder with Adam Casey and Poppy Trevillion of the design firm Watershedd. Taken by the way his place reflected the area’s coastal character, she decided to update the cottage and hired his firm for the job. “In Cornwall, the pace of life is the pace of the sea—it’s spiritual in many ways, and we want to capture that,” Al-Bader says of Watershedd’s work,

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renovation Gaby sourced many of the interior furnishings from salvaged goods dealers and reclamation yards. The hanging rail in the surf room (opposite) and several pieces of furniture in the living/dining space (left) came from Retrouvius. The sink (below) is by Crosswater London. The designers were very cognizant of the cottage’s sensitive surroundings when renovating the structure (bottom). The home lies within a government-designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

which focuses on houses in the region. “Gaby understood our approach,” says Casey. “We were a good match.” To create more room without disrupting the site’s natural beauty, Watershedd looked to the land—and dug in. Further excavating the rocky terrain below the home, they created a surfboard room, media room, and fourth bedroom, which connect to the existing below-grade bedroom and living area. They also covered the wind-worn, L-shaped extension in black-coated larch cladding and added a steel terrace with an oak barrier, which is weathered by spray from the sea below. Gorse-ﬁlled hedges and native Cornish plants were placed around the premises. Steps made of old railroad ties and ﬂanked by stone

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renovation

walls—laid by a local stonemason who carved each rock to fit into a given place— lead to the ground-level entrance. Inside, Watershedd removed walls to create airy, open rooms. A stairway leads to the lower floor, where the surfboard room, finished in ocher-polished plaster, is illuminated by a pair of skylights. Its shower is separated by a glass-block wall (“We went a bit retro with that,” Casey admits), as a sleek sheet of glass didn’t fit the aesthetic.

For Gaby, the cottage has become a refuge from her transatlantic professional life, a place of privacy and quiet. In fact, since completing the project last summer, Watershedd hasn’t heard much from her about the house. “Previously it was too small, and it’s still small. But it’s much more comfortable now, and she spends more time there than she ever had before,” Al-Bader says of his neighbor. “To me, that’s very good feedback.”

An outdoor shower (left) is at the ready for post-beach cleanups. In the dining room (below), the whitewashed floorboards, walls, and ceiling provide a bright contrast to the tempestuous Cornwall weather.

Gull Cottage ARCHITECT LOCATION

A B C D E F

Watershedd St. Agnes, Cornwall, England

Entrance Kitchen Dining Area Living Area Bedroom Bathroom

G H I J

Terrace Powder Room Media Room Wet Room

E F C

D E

A Ground Floor

ILLUSTRATION: LOHNES + WRIGHT

E J A

Lower Level

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PHOTOS BY | @PIPPA_DRUMMOND

David Sokol

Pippa Drummond

A prefab passive house near Woodstock, New York, realizes a coupleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dream of rural living.

Going Up the Country

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Adrian Bueno and Yvette LeeperBueno sit on the simple platform porch that extends from the living room of their weekend retreat in Saugerties, New York. The cedar-wrapped house, designed by BriggsKnowles A+D, is gently curved at the center (opposite).

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“The multilayered approach to this house— the use of healthy materials, the prefab, the relation to nature—has deﬁnitely changed our practice.” LAURA BRIGGS, ARCHITECTURAL DESIGNER

Woodstock, New York, has beguiled artists, free spirits, and Manhattan-ﬂeeing professionals for more than a century. Adrian Bueno and Yvette Leeper-Bueno joined the ranks of the enchanted the ﬁrst time they visited more than 20 years ago. At the time, day trips and the occasional vacation rental were all the then newlyweds could afford, but they continued dreaming about having a more permanent stake in this corner of the Catskill Mountains region. So when the couple saw a stunning six-acre site for sale in Saugerties on a spring day in 2012, they made an offer on the spot. In the intervening years, Adrian and Yvette had also assembled something of a design squad. In 2005, Jonathan Knowles and Laura Briggs of BriggsKnowles A+D

created a primary residence for them in Harlem, and interior designer Jonsara Ruth worked with Yvette on her nearby restaurant, Vinatería, which opened in 2013. Shortly after receiving news about the pending land purchase, they all hustled upstate for reconnaissance. The property abuts Sloan Gorge Preserve, an almost entirely hidden, 88acre canyon at the base of the Catskills’ Overlook Mountain that includes swaths of pines, various oaks, and mountain laurel, interspersed dramatically with ledges of bluestone. “I pictured building a house on this huge rock,” Adrian says of a large outcropping on the site. “I imagined a sailboat in the middle of the forest.” He and his wife asked the collaborators-turned-friends to work together on that idea, and over the next two years, the group transformed the couple’s vision into a house that was prefabricated by Bensonwood in New Hampshire and then assembled onsite in just two weeks. Cabinetry and surfaces were wrapped up in 2015. The landscaping, an admittedly ongoing project, required a few more seasons. The realized “land ship” has a totemic quality that makes it appear larger than its 1,500 square feet, thanks to its mooring atop the bluestone ledge. Roof extensions on the east and west ends of the two-story building make the cedar-clad structure seem all the more impressive by elongating its curved plan into a boomerang shape with wings that semi-enclose a porch and the masterbedroom sundeck. “We tried to create a meandering quality,” Knowles says of the design. Briggs compares ambling around the house to exploring the nearby canyon. The interior journey takes its cues from the natural environment. Walking through the arcing house reveals folds, niches, and overlooks ﬁnished in locally

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The dining area includes a custom table by interior designer Jonsara Ruth, Soren chairs from Room & Board, and a Skan pendant from Vibia. The kitchen countertops are soapstone and the faucet is by Axor. All of the homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interior walls were finished in plaster. In the living room (opposite), cork flooring meets a fir staircase. The lofted family room features a chair from the Danish Design Store and a Grasshopper floor lamp by Greta Grossman for Gubi.

dwellings Using exclusively native plants, landscape designer Karin Ursula Edmondson created a layered garden of creeping sedges, ornamental grasses, bee balm, mountain mint, shrubby St. John’s wort, fragrant sumac, and more. “The ecosystem of the site was so spectacular, it was all I needed for inspiration,” she says.

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“The request for grasses and the directive for a soothing green landscape dictated that the gardens be wildish in nature.” KARIN URSULA EDMONDSON, LANDSCAPE DESIGNER

sourced or reclaimed materials. “You feel like you’re still in the landscape when you’re inside the house,” Ruth says. Briggs and Knowles designed the project according to the strict insulation and energy-efﬁciency standards of the Passive House Institute, and the interior designer insisted on using only healthy materials, since off-gassing could be particularly harmful in such a tightly sealed building. The house runs entirely on electricity, most of which comes from a solar panel array. Electric bills average only about $50 a month, says Adrian. When the house was complete, it immediately became a place of solace. “I meet a lot of people as a restaurateur,” says Yvette. “When I come here, I’m looking for a sanctuary where I can reinvest in my own well-being, reconnect with nature, and rest.” Yet in the couple’s ﬁrst year of occupancy, the landscape immediately surrounding the house was preventing them from feeling fully enmeshed in the idyll, with invasive mugwort and lawn grasses popping up in the rocky, acidic soil. So the homeowners added a new member to their crew, tapping Catskillsbased landscape designer Karin Ursula Edmondson to transform the remaining visible outcroppings into gardens where native plants could thrive with minimal human intervention. Focusing on the exposed bluestone located beneath the western, most public face of the house, they envisioned grasses to soften the intersection between structure and earth, as well as an overall greenon-green palette that reveals its beauty in the same slow, unfolding manner as the architecture and interiors. “I’d considered plants that would work for dry shade like hellebores and brunnera, but decided against them because they looked too cultivated—they were better

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The rear garden (opposite) is filled with ferns, sedges, lowbush blueberry, and a poplar tree growing out of a rock face. The master bedroom (below) looks out onto a private, cantilevered deck. “This

house for me is about contemplation,” says Adrian. “You come here from the city and the place is saying, ‘Hi, meet yourself again.’” A closet in the guestroom (right) echoes the home’s shape.

suited for more formal or traditional gardens,” says Edmondson. Instead, she conceived a ground cover comprising native sedges, with rivulets of sedum planted between boulders and in the crevices of a dry-stacked stone retaining wall. Nearer to the house, Edmondson layered in taller ornamental grasses, perennials, and shrubs whose colors harmonize with the cedar cladding and exposed stones. The plantings are mostly self-sowing, and more recently Edmondson has focused on clarifying newer vignettes, such as a patch of shade at the south end of the bluestone ledge and a more formal composition at the front door. Adrian views Edmondson’s continuing work as an extension of the experience of the house. The couple share space with pollinators feasting on St. John’s wort and mountain mint in summer and critters bedding down in the grasses after frost. Human visitors are also welcome and, following in their hosts’ footsteps, are instantly enthralled. As Adrian says, “The songs of the forest, the birds, the wind—everything is beautiful here.”

Saugerties Residence ARCHITECT

LOCATION

BriggsKnowles A+D

Saugerties, NY

ILLUSTRATION: LOHNES + WRIGHT

A B C D E F G H I J K L M

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Entrance Porch Living Room Kitchen Dining Room Bedroom Bathroom Powder Room Sleeping Nook Sauna Master Suite Deck Study

K C

J L

B First Floor

Second Floor

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Aranza de AriĂąo and Claudio Sodi gave the architects at S-AR carte blanche to design their 850-squarefoot beach retreat. The studio delivered an open structure that frames its natural surroundings.

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Artistic License On a rustic strip of coastline near Puerto Escondido, a couple give their designers permission to do less.

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TEXT BY

PHOTOS BY | @BENJAMINRAS

David Lida

Benjamin Rasmussen

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Theater producer Claudio Sodi is part of a creative family. His partner, Aranza de Ariño, is an architect. His mother is the actor Laura Zapata, famous for her telenovela roles. And his brother is the wellknown artist Bosco Sodi. Together with Claudio’s real-estate developer father, they have spent the last few years turning a secluded area near Puerto Escondido, Mexico, into an enclave that combines the surf town’s bohemian vibe with unusually ambitious architecture. Bosco Sodi founded Casa Wabi, a nonproﬁt arts center—designed by Pritzker Prize winners Tadao Ando and Álvaro Siza, among others—that anchors the area. Within walking distance is a tiny house, featured in many travel articles about the region, that Aranza designed while still a student. When Aranza and Claudio, who are based in Mexico City, set

out to build their own getaway nearby, they gave their designers a fitting amount of creative latitude. They hired S-AR, a young firm from Monterrey, and set some ground rules: The house could not exceed 1,075 square feet (100 square meters), and Aranza and Claudio could specify the number of bedrooms. Beyond that, they gave architects Ana Cecilia Garza and her husband and partner, Cesar Guerrero, carte blanche. “We asked them, what does it mean to design a vacation home for Mexico today?” says Claudio. “The only way to let them fully express their response was through complete liberty. There was a dialogue, but the firm had the last word.” The designers came up with a simple, one-story concrete structure based on a three-dimensional grid. Some sections of its square plan are covered by a roof and

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In the houseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s single bedroom (opposite), a queen-size bed sits on a platform constructed by local woodworkers. They also made the chairs in the living room (above). Claudio and Aranza lined up nine

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blocks of wood from nearby construction sites to create an ad hoc coffee table. The enclosed portions of the house have massive louvered sliders, also built by local carpenters.

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“We proposed a rule in the beginning that the architects would have complete liberty in their design.” CLAUDIO SODI, RESIDENT

There is minimal decoration in the house, keeping the focus on the plantings that surround it (opposite). The kitchen (above) has only the

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essentials. “It’s not a house in which you’re supposed to live 365 days a year—it’s set up as a place to get away and relax,” says Claudio.

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partially enclosed by large wooden doors, while others are left open, demarcating outdoor spaces. Despite its rigid shape, its minimalism means the architecture hangs back, serving as a frame for views that connect the sand below to the sky above and nature all around. The openstructure is also practical. The house is in a seismic zone, and extending the grid on all sides allows it to absorb telluric movements in any direction. Guerrero notes that this uniﬁes the structural and architectural aspects of the house. “One goes hand in hand with the other,” he says. “You literally can’t separate them.” There is no traditional entrance, just the louvered sliders. All of the movement between rooms takes place around the perimeter. The living room, kitchen, and bedroom are delineated by abbreviated concrete walls and minimal storage spaces, and the effect is openness rather than division—each room eases into the next. Vegetation looms around the house, so the spiral staircase to the roof beckons for a glimpse of the ocean. The roof is also a perfect perch for the sunset. A “water mirror,” a steel bowl painted black,

Casa Cosmos

ARCHITECT

LOCATION

S-AR

Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico A Deck B Storage

C Bathroom D Living Room

E Dining Room F Kitchen

G Bedroom H Terrace

A Ground Floor

Roof

ILLUSTRATION: LOHNES + WRIGHT

H F

The bathroom (top) picks up on the circular form of the home’s cylindrical stair and the “water mirror” on the roof. The motif continues in a window between the bedroom and bathroom (above). For the dining room, Claudio asked local artisans to create an homage to Donald Judd’s Library chairs using Oaxacan materials (opposite).

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The orderliness of the home’s structure (above) contrasts with the wildness of the plantings that surround it. On the roof (opposite), Claudio and Aranza sit on salvaged

blocks of wood around a “water mirror” that reflects the sky. On clear nights, you can gaze both up and down at the stars, an activity that gives Casa Cosmos its name.

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reﬂects the stars after the sun goes down, giving the house its name, Casa Cosmos. Guerrero says that working with people who understand architecture so thoroughly was a little bit like playing soccer with professional teammates. And the owners stuck by their promise of giving the designers an atypical amount of freedom. They asked for a guestroom, but Guerrero refused, so a daybed incorporated into the living room wall serves as the extra accommodation if anyone else pops in. Claudio did bend the rules when it came to the size. The house ultimately measured 850 square feet, but the peripheral outdoor spaces add another 350, tipping the total above the 1,075 mark because Claudio decided he wanted a larger pool.

Casa Cosmos is one of ﬁve houses in the complex that Aranza and Claudio are developing, each with a different up-and-coming architect (the same hands-off rules will apply to the other owners). Even with neighbors on the way, the location is notably isolated, the sort of place where it’s recommended to stock up on groceries before you arrive. Once you’re there, the house is enchantingly spare and feels as far away as possible from the tourist hubbub of other beaches in the region. It’s also deliciously quiet, and most of the time a sensuous breeze drifts in from the ocean. The ground rules kept the design simple, with just the essentials one needs to ease into the landscape.

“Over time, the frame will ﬁll up with vegetation, and the house will appear to ‘capture’ the site.” CESAR GUERRERO, ARCHITECT

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The Big Reveal A boxy revamp of a Los Angeles bungalow opens to an unexpected outdoor living space.

TEXT BY

PHOTOS BY | @HUNTERKERHART

Kelly Vencill Sanchez

Hunter Kerhart

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dwellings â&#x20AC;&#x153;A conglomeration of boxes around a bit of a pitched roofâ&#x20AC;? is how creative director Mark Motonaga of RCH Studios describes his transformation of a 1920s Los Angeles bungalow for himself and artist Guy Clouse. Inverting

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the traditional layout, he set the private rooms in the front and a large, open living area in the rear. With an eye to sustainability, the couple replaced the existing concrete with gravel on the path to the entrance courtyard.

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Mark Motonaga and Guy Clouse’s home might be smack dab in the middle of Los Angeles’ vibrant East Side, but it feels like a secret hideaway. Steps from a street lined with apartment buildings, modest older homes, and commercial warehouses, the house, with just a single window on the front facade, looks inward, becoming more open as you move through it to the surprisingly lush backyard. The 5,400-square-foot property, on the edge of the Atwater Village neighborhood, was in foreclosure when Mark, the creative director of L.A.’s RCH Studios, and Guy, an artist, ﬁrst saw it. After living in a Hollywood Hills apartment for more than a decade, they wanted something on one level, but with an industrial, loft-like feel. They also longed for a garden. The couple considered replacing the run-down 1920sera bungalow on the site, but then Mark— part of the team that transformed the L.A. Terminal Market and surrounding area into ROW DTLA—came up with a plan to fold it into a new design. They

stripped down the house to the studs and added boxy volumes at the front and the back, in a way that suggested additions built over the years. The renovation brought the square footage to its current total of 1,500. From the street, glimpses of the original pitched roof peek out from between the new sections. The entrance path brings visitors through a large portal and into a side garden. A second opening leads down a few steps, where the pool is visible through a canopy of trees—one of the property’s several “framing moments,” as Mark calls them. Rather than use a traditional layout, he set the public areas in a generously proportioned, windowed space at the rear and the bedrooms and bathrooms at the front. Three sets of steel-framed French doors lead from the side garden into a highceilinged, open-plan expanse containing a chef’s kitchen and a living/dining area. Shadows play on the long wall opposite the entrance, which shifts throughout the

Guy chose Dawn Pink paint by Benjamin Moore for the master bedroom (left). A sofa by Stephen Kenn Studio joins ceramic tables by artist Ben Medansky in the glasswalled living area (above).

The AIM pendants are by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Flos and the Oda floor lamps are from Pulpo. The metal artworks are by Guy. Hardwood floors throughout are from Bois Chamois.

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“We wanted to build on the idea of a borrowed view. Because of the layered foliage, everything feels like it’s on our property, but it’s not.” MARK MOTONAGA, DESIGNER AND RESIDENT

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Atwater Hideaway

ARCHITECT

LOCATION

RCH Studios

Los Angeles, California

D E

A Entrance B Entry Courtyard C Living Area D Dining Area E Kitchen F Laundry Room

G H I J

Bathroom Bedroom Master Suite Outdoor Lounge K Outdoor Dining Area

day from teal to dusky blue. In the afternoon, light reﬂects off the pool, enters through the windowed rear wall, and dances on the ceiling. “We wanted to explore indoor/outdoor living in a different way,” Mark says. “And because we have only ﬁve rooms in the whole house, we created a series of layered experiences that hopefully make it seem bigger.” The couple has assembled furnishings by local artisans like ceramicist Ben Medansky and furniture designer Stephen Kenn, while large canvases by artist friends lean against the wall alongside Guy’s weldedwire creations. Covered in plate brass, the kitchen island has been allowed to patina and stain. “Just like the leather on the sofa, we wanted it to be a bit schlubby,” says Guy, who oversaw the interiors. “It’s so easy to get everything taut and clean, but then you can’t really live with it.” Where the main room is all jewel tones, the master bedroom is bathed in a luminous peony-pink. “I suppose people could

have an aversion to pink, but it’s nice to wake up in this enveloping glow,” says Guy. For the master bathroom, he selected patterned Moroccan and glazed white tile. Guy, an avid gardener, also collaborated with Mark on the landscape, which combines native grasses, bay laurel hedges, and sycamore and crape myrtle trees. “A lot of people like to plant their gardens so they don’t change with the seasons,” he says. “But it slows down life to have a deciduous garden—it makes you more mindful of time.” The landscaping extends to the pool surround. “Even though the pool is rectilinear, we imagined it as a pond, so we pulled the native grasses right up to the edge,” says Mark. Mark and Guy ﬁnally have their loft and garden in the city, one that’s as much a respite from daily life as a reminder of nature’s constant changes. “Being on a small lot in an urban setting can be limiting,” says Mark. “But we’ve created space for ourselves. It’s very serene.”

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Guy (holding Pickles) and Mark transformed the backyard, adding a pool and planting sycamore trees and native grasses. In the skylit master bathroom, Dandelion tile from Marrakech Design is paired with tile from

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Ann Sacks (opposite, left). The fixtures are by California Faucets. Tweak sits at the brass-clad kitchen island on a Ghost stool by Philippe Starck (opposite, right). The wall paint is Tucson Teal by Benjamin Moore.

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On a lot studded with oldgrowth oaks and redwoods and crossed by a creek, Ian and Krista Johnson asked Field Architecture to design a house that would defer to its natural surroundings.

Says Krista, “We needed to know that whatever we built would not take away from the landscape.” Piero Lissoni’s sofa for Living Divani joins a coffee table by Egg Collective in the living room.

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Second to Nature A sun-ďŹ lled home brings a suburban California site closer to its untamed roots.

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TEXT BY

PHOTOS BY | @JOEFLETCHERPHOTO

Deborah Bishop

Joe Fletcher

dwellings Large sliders by LaCantina Doors bring ample light into the kitchen (below), which features a blackened steel pendant by the architects and counter stools by Fyrn. As elsewhere, the floors are

At night a full-throated chorus of frogs lulls Krista and Ian Johnson to sleep in their Los Altos, California, bedroom, and at dawn they’re greeted by a symphony of birdsong—interrupted by an occasional off-key quack. For the couple, being immersed in the sights and sounds of nature is a radical corrective to their highpaced jobs in the tech industry—one that their previous home never quite provided. Sitting atop a nearby hill with killer views of Silicon Valley, it had seemed perfect when they purchased it. “But in reality,” says Ian, “being up higher than the trees meant we had no protection from the blazing sun. We rarely went outside, never opened the blinds, and felt totally cut off from the natural world.” Avid hikers and campers, they vowed to do things differently should they ever build their own home. They found kindred spirits in fatherson architects Stan and Jess Field, whose experiences in their native South Africa (where among other projects they created plans for a wilderness center) have come to define their firm’s land-first approach to architecture. The designers say nurturing and restoring a site’s ecology dictates

concrete and the casework is crafted of reclaimed sinker cypress. A centuries-old blue oak stands near the intersection of the two wings of the house, which is clad in Alaskan yellow cedar (right).

what they build and where it is placed. When Ian and Krista spotted a grassy, one-acre parcel that they felt had potential, they invited the architects to weigh in before making a bid. “Part of the challenge in the suburbs is peeling back all the layers to reveal the land’s natural identity,” says Jess. Dotted with oaks and redwoods, the plot had been amended over the years with fences, a swimming pool, and a street-facing house, whose driveway, trash-collection area, and cinder block retaining wall were obstructing a debris-ﬁlled stream that had become infested with invasive plant species. Ian and Krista knew they wanted to make a fresh start, but the most suitable area for placing the kind of house the couple envisioned was an awkward triangle, in the middle of which grew a magniﬁcent oldgrowth blue oak. The architects devised a plan to work around it. Their design alludes to a typical hip-roofed ranch house, but one that has been split in two. “It’s as if we carved through the middle and let the two sides wishbone away from each other to settle into the topography,” Jess explains. Nestled between the two structures is MAY/J U N E 2020

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“We decided to split the house into two volumes to let in light and allow us to be more nimble with where we placed the structures.” JESS FIELD, ARCHITECT

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Architects Stan and Jess Field enclosed the steeland-timber staircase to the master bedroom upstairs in cedar slats that filter the natural light (opposite). A gravel path leads from the dining area to a bridge across the restored creek

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that runs along one side of the house (this page). “When we bought the property, the sale disclosures included a line stating that a pair of ducks have nested here every year for fourteen years,” says Ian. “We see them every spring.”

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The dining area is completely open to the outdoors. “Ian and Krista wanted to celebrate their everyday routine and abandon things they don’t use, like a formal dining space,” says Jess. The chairs

are by Fyrn and the grill is by Lion. Leger bedside tables by Minotti join a Lifesteel bed by Antonio Citterio for Flexform in the master bedroom (opposite), where sliders lead to a large deck.

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Dawnridge

ARCHITECT

LOCATION

Field Architecture

Los Altos, California

L K

Second Floor

F G

G F E J D

C I

A B

First Floor

Entrance Pantry Kitchen Porch/Dining Area E Living Area F Office

ILLUSTRATION: LOHNES + WRIGHT

A B C D

G H I J

Bedroom Bathroom Garage Laundry/ Mudroom K Master Suite L Deck

a courtyard where the old oak reigns like a living piece of art. The private wing of bedrooms and offices extends deeper into the trees, creating the feeling of camping out in one’s own home. “Many would have deemed this house unbuildable,” says Jess, “but it worked because of Ian and Krista’s priorities. They wanted to remove fences, restore the habitat, and connect their land to the bigger regional landscape.” Jess, who like his father has gone on many safaris, envisioned the house as a kind of game hide—a place to observe wildlife without being seen. The two architects liken the exterior cladding of Alaskan yellow cedar to a riff on traditional board-and-batten siding, with the boards narrowed to the same width as the batten, or, in the case of the windows and overhangs, eliminated altogether. Here the slender vertical louvers invite dappled light and airflow while reducing solar gain. The covered, open-air dining room is used year-round, so that brunch might be enhanced by the smells of flowering fruit trees from the orchard, the shriek of an owl, or the splashing of the restored stream. And the living room is bookended by sliding glass doors that open to the courtyard on one side and a rock garden on the other. Upstairs, the

master bedroom looks through the covered deck and into the live oaks, which are within touching distance of the railing. “It’s like being in the ultimate tree house,” says Krista. The neutral palette—concrete and graywashed oak ﬂoors, blackened steel, reclaimed sinker cypress casework—helps to create a calm and muted setting from which to observe deer, hawks, bobcats, weasels, jack rabbits, ducks, herons, coyotes, and a host of other creatures going about their business, now unimpeded by property-dividing fences. Before taking them down, Krista and Ian brought homemade chocolate chip cookies around to the neighbors. “We were afraid some people might object, but the response was just the opposite,” says Krista. “One older couple told us how beautiful it was having our yards blend into each other, and how it took them back to the time when this land was much more open and covered in orchards.” But, she adds, “the project only worked because we were so in sync with our architects. I remember telling Jess, ‘You know, when a bird looks for a place to build its nest, it doesn’t knock down all the branches to ﬁnd the perfect spot. It makes a home within the realm of what’s already there.’ And that’s what Jess and Stan did here.”

“When you get light ﬁltered through the trees, there’s no better way to wake up or move through your day.” KRISTA JOHNSON, RESIDENT DWELL

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TEXT BY

PHOTOS BY | @PIPPA_DRUMMOND

Julie Lasky

Pippa Drummond

Four of a Kind

A group of friends builds a communal beach house with matching gables at the eastern end of Long Island.

A multi-gabled house designed by architect Corey Yurkovich for a couple and their longtime friend sits amid beech trees, cattails, and seagrasses on New York’s Shelter Island. The cladding is triple-stained black cedar shiplap. The doors and windows are by Andersen.

For 11 years, Mara Lipner and Gabrielle and David Chamberlain shared a summer rental on Shelter Island, the verdant knob that sits in a bay between the North and South Forks of Long Island’s East End. The trio grew to be close friends, meeting up most weekends throughout the summers to enjoy the house and its water views from its vantage point in Shelter Island Heights. The only problem came in mid-September, when the season ended.

The house wasn’t winterized, so yearround visits were not an option. Mara, who works in ﬁnancial services and lives in Manhattan’s East Village, and the Chamberlains, executives at experiential design agencies who live in Harlem, eventually looked into buying or building separate weekend retreats that they could enjoy all year. They searched for places on Shelter Island with water views that they could afford. But eventually

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DUNE COLLECTION BY SEBASTIAN HERKNER

LOS ANGELES 路 CHICAGO 路 MIAMI 路 DANIA BEACH 路 NEW YORK FLAGSHIP WWW.GLOSTER.COM

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they realized they could do something more interesting if they pooled their resources. “Originally we thought of one piece of land with two houses,” David says. “With a zip line!” adds Gabrielle, known as Gabi. One day the three of them checked out a cedar-forested two-acre parcel. They broke through shrubbery to ﬁnd West Neck Creek, one of several bodies of water that notch into Shelter Island, creating long peninsulas. “We got into our respective cars and drove back to the city,” Mara recalls. Chatting en route with each other and the broker, they quickly made up their minds. “By the time we got back,” Mara says, “we had put in an offer.” The next step was recruiting Corey Yurkovich, a New York designer they knew socially. By this point they had decided on a single house that the three would share. It would preserve the convivial setup they had enjoyed and be more economical than two autonomous dwellings. Also, the construction would be easier for three busy professionals to oversee. “It worked out that we could tag team when someone had to be on the phone with the contractor or make a day trip to the island,” Gabi says. They were clear about the architectural

“Corey’s idea of decoupling the boxes into separate units meant we could play with how far forward or back each one was.” GABRIELLE CHAMBERLAIN, RESIDENT

The Margaret’s Drive Project

LOCATION

Office CY Shelter Island, New York

A Bedroom B Bathroom

A B

C Powder Room D Utility Room

D F

A F

G Living Area H Dining Area

I Patio J Master Suite

E Kitchen F Entrance

I First Floor

Second Floor

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ARCHITECT

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style, opting to echo old barns. Gabi says the building type appealed to David because of “his more rural upbringing” in southern England and to Mara because she’s “a hip person who appreciates good design.” Gabi herself was favorably reminded of the “black, clean silhouettes of abandoned tobacco barns” in Kentucky, where she often has to travel for work. The design evolved into four structures connected by a glass hallway in a notquite-straight line. The volumes at either end are book-matched two-story buildings, one for Mara and the other for the Chamberlains. Each has a private entrance, bedroom, and living room downstairs, and an individual staircase leading to two more bedrooms, including the master, upstairs. Between the private volumes are two single-story communal structures. One has a combined kitchen and dining room. The other houses a living room, pantry, and powder room. Sliding doors in both of the smaller buildings lead to paved outdoor seating areas overlooking the water. From the water—say, on a paddleboard—the house looks like a charming silhouette cut out of construction paper. The friends have customized their

connected-yet-separate domiciles. The Chamberlains’ side reﬂects a trained eye for contemporary design and an emphasis on hospitality. Mara has furnished her end with Nakashima heirlooms inherited from her family. This wing is also populated with toys belonging to her four-year-old son, Barrett. (Let it be known and admired that Mara gave birth six weeks after the new homeowners received their certiﬁcate of occupancy. She soon discovered that the distance between the private quarters came in handy when she was up at night with a crying baby.) Four years into this social experiment, family members on both sides stake out the extra bedrooms, while friends drop by spontaneously for drinks or a meal. Yurkovich, who visits with his wife and kids, says the children love to race up and down the glass hallway, which functions as its own spacious room. The trio has no intention to sell in the short term, but they have fun imagining future scenarios—in-law setups, caregiver quarters, or maybe another cluster of close friends who like the idea of sharing a roof. “For a family with a couple of teenagers,” Mara says, “it would work really well.”

Sliding glass doors in the smaller volumes lead to a pair of paved patios (right). A sitting area faces a West Elm Geo fire pit. The Terassi dining table and Lisboa chairs are from Design Within Reach. In one of the bedrooms (top), the bed is by Huppé and the linens are from The Company Store. The kitchen (opposite, left) features LG quartz countertops, appliances by KitchenAid, and molded plastic stools by Charles and Ray Eames from Design Within Reach. In the living room (opposite, right), a Malm stove faces a Como sectional from Design Within Reach.

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A jagged staircase leads up to the roof terrace of Giuseppe and Elena Dilenaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s penthouse apartment in Udine, Italy. Made of black-painted iron, it contrasts with the sumptuous block of Verde Alpi marble just below it.

TEXT BY

PHOTOS BY

Rocky Casale

Gianni Antoniali

Mini Mies

An Italian attic apartment channels a modern masterpiece.

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interiors

You can find Giuseppe and Elena Dilena’s home on the top floor of a 1930s apartment building in northern Italy. Designed in the Liberty style (an Italianate variant of Art Nouveau), the building resembles many of its neighbors in the historic center of Udine, a city about 30 miles from the Adriatic Sea. But in the attic, the couple has converted a loft-like space into a miniature homage to an icon of 20th-century design. “My wife and I are both very passionate about architecture and design, although I would say we are just hobbyists,” says Giuseppe. “We love the local Liberty style, but we’re also quite passionate about modernists like Mies van der Rohe.” The apartment specifically nods to the 1929 Barcelona Pavilion, with its rich stone and free-floating walls, which Mies designed with Lilly Reich. “We all had the same architectural and design refer-

ences in mind in the early stages of this project,” says Piero Zucchi of GEZA Architecture, who designed the space for the couple. To foreground views of the surrounding cityscape and allow plenty of space for entertaining, the designers gave the 2,583-square-foot penthouse an almost entirely open ﬂoor plan. It is broken up only by a long rectangular block clad in deep green Verde Alpi marble. “It acts as the dividing element in the apartment, separating the living space from the sleeping area,” says GEZA cofounder Stefano Gri. With this broad expanse of book-matched marble panels, Zucchi and Gri transported Mies’s masterpiece into what is essentially a cool urban loft. Taking the path to the left of the marble wall brings you to a combined kitchen/ living/dining area, as well as a winter garden enclosed in ﬂoor-to-ceiling glass.

The minimalist aesthetic in the open-plan living room (below) is softened by leather and wood furnishings. Other than the Michel Effe sofa by B&B Italia, the room is outfitted in vintage pieces, like the Eames lounge chair, ottoman, and Model A stool, all from Vitra.

“The contrast between the minimalist features of the interior and the Art Nouveau building is a real surprise for people who come to the apartment.” PIERO ZUCCHI, ARCHITECT

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“We thought of the garden as a sort of internal terrace or greenhouse, where the clients can enjoy good views of the city while having breakfast,” says Zucchi. Between the marble and the plants, these splashes of green provide the only hint of color in this otherwise white, black, and gray space. Giuseppe and Elena also added a roof terrace to the apartment. “It was such a challenge to get the permissions to add that element,” Giuseppe recalls, because of the building’s historic designation. To access the roof, GEZA designed a sharp, severely angled staircase rising from the marble-clad block, zigzagging up into a bright white skylight like some kind of modernist ascension into heaven. From their attic sanctuary, the Dilenas can look out on their beloved hometown through numerous windows as skylights ﬂood the space with natural light. “This attic was bare bones when we ﬁrst saw it,” says Giuseppe, “but we immediately fell in love with it, seeing its radical potential just by squinting our eyes.”

DLN Penthouse ARCHITECT LOCATION

GEZA Architettura Udine, Italy A Entrance B Mechanical Room C Laundry D Bathroom E Bedroom

A C D

E J

G F H

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Master Suite Living Area Kitchen Dining Area Winter Garden

ILLUSTRATION: LOHNES + WRIGHT

“Verde Alpi marble is fascinating,” says Gri. “It has unique veins and shades of colors, from dark green to white.” The marble (above) is mined only in the Aosta Valley region of northwestern Italy. The kitchen countertops (above right), made of Silestone Eternal Calacatta Gold, extend into the winter garden. An Eero Saarinen dining table is paired with plastic side chairs by Charles and Ray Eames.

F G H I J

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sourcing The products, furniture, architects, designers, and builders featured in this issue. 20 Lofty Ambitions Polina and Alexey Koptev koptev-architect.ru 20 Chairs, vintage; Piano Stool table from IKEA ikea.com 21 Sconces from Marset marset.com; sofa from Innovation Living innovationliving.com; dining table and chairs from IKEA ikea.com; refrigerator from Liebherr liebherr.com; cooktop, oven, and dishwasher from Electrolux electrolux appliances.com; faucet from Omoikiri omoikiri.jp; N435 paint by Tikkurila tikkurila.com

50 Curtain Call Dhoore Vanweert Architecten dhoorevanweert.be General contracting by Clauwers clauwers.be Structural engineering by Yuvico yuvico.be 50 Dining chairs by Harry Bertoia from Knoll knoll.com; dining table by Eero Saarinen from Knoll knoll.com 53 KV1 faucet from Vola vola.com; cooktop from Novy novy.com

by Bensonwood bensonwood.com Ashley Home Construction Co. ashleyhomesllc.com Civil engineering by Steven Boek sboek@yahoo.com Karin Ursula Landscapes kulandscapes.com Interior design by Jonsara Ruth saltylabs.us 60 Windows by Zola zolawindows.com 62 Chair and coffee table from Danish Design Store danishdesignstore.com; Grasshopper Floor Lamp by Greta Grossman for Gubi from Herman Miller hermanmiller .com; Japanese pantry by Shibui Kotto shibui.com 63 Custom dining table designed by Jonsara Ruth saltylabs.us; Soren dining chairs from Room & Board roomandboard.com; Skan pendant by Lievore, Altherr, Molina from Vibia vibia.com; faucet by Axor axor-design.com 67 Bed linens from Calvin Klein calvinklein.us; platform bed from All Modern allmodern .com sconces from Schoolhouse schoolhouse .com; “OMG” artwork by Tsherin Sherpa tsherinsherpa.com

54 Shelter From the Storm Watershedd watershedd.com Noble Construction Ltd. kieran@nobleconstructionltd .com Structural engineering by Martin Perry Associates mperryassociates.com 56-57 Hanging rail, reclaimed furniture, and doors from Retrouvius retrouvius.com and The Architectural Forum thearchitecturalforum.com; sink and faucet from Crosswater London crosswaterlondon.com; pendant lights from SkinFlint skinflintdesign.com 58 Outdoor showerhead from Hydra Plumbing copperoutdoorshowers.com

60 Going Up the Country BriggsKnowles A+D briggsknowles.com Structural engineering

68 Artistic License S-AR s-ar.mx Cesar Guerrero, Ana Cecilia Garza, Carlos Morales, Maria Sevilla, and Luis Dela Garza General contracting by Jose Eudes Ramirez Structural engineering by Roman Cuellar Civil engineering by Fermin Perez Cabinetry design by Ubaldo Rios Blacksmithing by Mario Ramirez 70-71 Couch cushions designed by S-AR s-ar.mx; bed frame, chairs, sliding doors, and coffee table, custom; bed linens from Luuna luuna.mx; pendants designed by Claudio Sodi 72 Dresser designed by Claudio Sodi 73 Sconce designed by S-AR s-ar.mx 74 Sconce, faucet and mirror

Dwell® (ISSN 1530-5309), Volume XX Issue 3, publishes six double issues annually, by Dwell Life, Inc., 595 Pacific Avenue, 4th floor, San Francisco, CA 94133, USA. Occasional extra issues may also be published. Copyright ©2020. All rights reserved. In the US, Dwell® is a registered trademark of Dwell Life, Inc. Publisher assumes no responsibility for return of unsolicited manuscripts, art, or other

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78 The Big Reveal RCH Studios rchstudios.com Ecostone Construction 310-625-5237 Tuscher Engineering Group teglosangeles.com eSquared Lighting Design esquaredlighting.com Harold Jones Landscape Inc. 805-582-7443 John Crystal Pools johncrystalpools.com 80-81 Dawn Pink paint from Benjamin Moore benjaminmoore.com; sofa by Stephen Kenn stephenkenn .com; custom ceramic tables by Ben Medansky benmedansky.com; Aim pendant by Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec for Flos flos.com; Oda floor lamps from Pulpo pulpoproducts.com; hardwood floors from Bois Chamois boischamois.com 82 Dandelion tiles from Marrakech Design marrakechdesign.se; subway tiles from Ann Sacks annsacks.com; fixtures by California Faucets calfaucets .com; Ghost stool by Philippe Starck starck.com; Tucson Teal paint from Benjamin Moore benjaminmoore.com; stove by Wolf subzero-wolf .com; custom range hood by Imperial Kitchen Ventilation imperialhoods.com; mirror from Paris Mirrors parismirror .com; master bathroom fixtures by California Faucets calfaucets.com 83 Custom dining table by Angel City Lumber angelcity lumber.com; vintage chairs from Amsterdam Modern amsterdammodern.com

84 Second to Nature Field Architecture fieldarchitecture.com Forsythe General Contractors forsythegc.com Strandberg Engineering strandbergeng.com Civil engineering by Benjamini Associates benjamini.com

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Geotech engineering by Romig Engineers romigengineers.com Landscape design by Joni L. Janeki & Associates jlja.com Urban Tree Management urbantreemanagement.com Lighting design by Vita Pehar Design vitapehardesign.com Cabinetry design by Mueller Nichols Builders mnbuild.com Timber fabrication by Spearhead spearhead.ca 84-85 Dumas sofa by Piero Lissoni from Living Divani livingdivani.it; lounge chairs and ottoman by Charles and Ray Eames for Herman Miller hermanmiller.com; Lawson coffee table from Egg Collective eggcollective.com; poufs from CB2 cb2.com; Rivet side table from Frama framacph.com; blanket and pillows from Muji muji.com 86 Sliding doors from LaCantina Doors lacantinadoors.com; windows from Blomberg blombergwindows.com; pendant and cabinets by Field Architecture fieldarchitecture .com; countertops from Concreteworks concreteworks.com; range by Wolf subzero-wolf.com; sink by Kallista kallista.com; faucet by Boffi boffi.com; De Haro stool by Fyrn fyrn.com 90 Jorn dining table by Minotti minotti.com; Mariposa chairs by Fyrn fyrn.com; grill by Lion lionbbqdirect.com; heater by Heatstrip heatstripusa.com 91 Lifesteel bed by Antonio Citterio from Flexform flexform .it; Leger side tables by Rodolfo Dordoni from Minotti minotti.com; linens by Coyuchi coyuchi.com

92 Four of a Kind Office CY office-cy.com Condon Engineering condonengineering.com Fokine Construction fokinebuild.com White Oak Farm and Gardens whiteoakfarmandgardens.com Liberty Landscaping Binder Pools 92 Doors and windows from Andersen andersenwindows .com; standing seam metal

roof by Atlas atlasroofing.com 94 Quartz countertop from LG Hausys lghausysusa.com; Architect Series appliances from KitchenAid kitchenaid .com; stools by Charles and Ray Eames for Herman Miller from Design Within Reach dwr .com; Como Sectional Chaise by Giorgio Soressi for Design Within Reach dwr.com; chair from Softline softline.dk; stove by Malm malmfireplaces.com 95 Geo Fire Pit from West Elm westelm.com; Terassi dining table by Studio Tolvanen for Design Within Reach dwr.com; Lisboa dining chair by Joan Gaspar from Design Within Reach dwr.com; Bridge bed from Huppé huppe.net

96 Mini Mies GEZA Architettura geza.it Impresa Costruzioni Del Bianco impresadelbianco.com Structural engineering by Ing. Alessandro Nutta nuttassociati.it Mechanical engineering by Tecno-i Studio Energy Solution tecnoienergy.it 98 Michel Effe sofa by B&B Italia bebitalia.com; lounge chair, ottoman, and stool by Charles and Ray Eames from Vitra vitra.com; fireplace by Gyrofocus focus-fireplaces.com, Neuro light by Davide Groppi davidegroppi.com; Projecteur 165 Pincer Clip light by Le Corbusier for NEMO nemolighting.com 100 Dining table by Eero Saarinen for Knoll knoll.com; chairs by Charles and Ray Eames from Vitra vitra.com; Verde Alpi Marble from NC Marmi ncmarmi.com; Eternal Calacatta Gold countertops from Silestone silestoneusa.com; Miss light by Davide Groppi davidegroppi.com; Mendori light by Artemide artemide.com

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P R O M OT I O N

Steptreads and landings at the i|o @ Playa Vista campus in Los Angeles.

Getting Custom With Concrete Banishing two boring facades, a pair of ofﬁce buildings in Los Angeles were combined to create i|o @ Playa Vista, a new commercial campus. The revamped exterior’s roll-up doors now open onto vibrant courtyards, and pop-out balconies provide open-air workspaces. An external staircase connects all of them and gives the new facade its commanding identity. Seeking a material to complement the staircase’s steel stringers and risers, the architects turned to Stepstone, Inc. for their precast concrete Steptreads. “The precast advantage is strength,” says Patty Muldoon, the Stairtread Division Manager. “Our Steptread product is

highly engineered, with a 5,000 PSI rating that meets building codes for both standard and long-span treads. We also offer numerous safety and design options to benefit commercial or residential applications.” Stepstone works with architects and designers to create custom solutions. “Each Steptread is individually made and wet cast, giving our team a lot of flexibility to accommodate the needs of a project,” says Muldoon. “Our non-slip finishes range from a light sandblast to heavier options for more exposed aggregate. We offer more than a dozen standard colors and can also match our treads to other products used on site.” For this project, DWELL

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the architects selected Steptreads with a light sandblast ﬁnish. Other Stepstone products—including stair landings, pedestal pavers, and Large Scale CalArc pavers in several coordinating colors—create a cohesive look among the staircases, balconies, and entryways. “All of our products add a little embellishment to the standard, poured-in-place concrete infrastructure, helping to highlight the steel staircase as a focal point,” adds Muldoon. “Each product complements the other—that’s what makes it look special.” dwell.com/stepstone

PHOTO: CADDIE HASTINGS PHOTOGRAPHY

Stepstone’s precast concrete stair treads, available in made-to-measure sizes and myriad styles, prove that concrete is surprisingly adaptable.

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one last thing Lisa Switkin is a senior principal at Field Operations, a landscape architecture and urban design firm. Her box of mementos contains objects from Maine, Minnesota, Brittany, France, the Mediterranean and Caribbean seas, and many other places she has visited.

PHOTO BY | @JAMIECHUNGSTUDIO

Jamie Chung

Landscape architect Lisa Switkin muses on the power of nature and memory to inspire a deeper approach to designing our outdoor environments. I’ve been collecting these mementos—rocks, corals, pieces of driftwood, shells, and pinecones—for more than 25 years. When I touch their surfaces, I’m reminded of the power of memory and stories. Not just my own stories, but others’ stories, historical accounts, and even the untold stories I might never know. For example, the

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driftwood is from Hills Beach in Maine, near the home of my husband’s great-great-grandmother. When I see these pieces, I recall the story of her journey to America from Ireland, traveling alone over the ocean as a young girl, carefully cradling a hawthorn seedling. She planted it near her eventual house, and a stately hawthorn

tree stands there today. All of these objects live in a box near my desk, where they inspire me with their perfect and imperfect forms and connections to larger ecosystems. They resonate with my belief that design is about finding the essence of a place. What makes it specific? And how can we inspire deep connections to it?

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