INTEL

ARCHITECTURE

Work Culture

Second Home, the buzzy European coworking space for creatives and entrepreneurs, is officially launching stateside: its LA location opens in September. With thriving locations in London and Lisbon, Second Home has spent the past five years fine-tuning the coworking model to embrace the aesthetic and culture of its locations. In July, ahead of the LA opening, Second Home brought the iridescent 2015 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion by Spanish architecture firm SelgasCano, which also designed the new coworking space, to the La Brea Tar Pits as a bit of catnip for what is to come.

Intended to echo quintessential LA design, Second Home Hollywood embodies the city’s history, environment, and fastpaced lifestyle. It taps into the typology of the city’s early-20th-century bungalow court residences, with 60 oval studios wrapped in curved, transparent acrylic walls surrounded by more than 6,500 plants composing the lush exterior gardens. The design also pays homage to local architectural legend Paul Williams, whose iconic designs include the Ambassador Hotel and the LA County Courthouse. He was the first African-American member of the American Institute of Architects. “We referred to the history of LA by refurbishing one of Paul Williams’s buildings,” says Rohan Silva, cofounder and co-CEO of Second Home. “What better way to respect and continue the architectural history of the city?”

The project, which includes both collaborative workspaces and private studios, has been in the works for three years. Like most coworking spaces, membership is necessary at Second Home, but the public will have select access to certain parts of the space through cultural programs that include an auditorium, post-production facilities, a restaurant, outdoor terraces, and a bookshop.

“There are two gardens intertwined with the workspaces,” Silva explains. “We wanted to take the buildings out into nature.”

—Teaghan Skulszki with Rachel Gallaher

ART

Girl Power

The Guerrilla Girls, a group of anonymous activist feminist artists, emerged in the 1980s to unmask gender and racial inequities in the art world—but their work still isn’t done. This August, Girlfriends of the Guerrilla Girls, an exhibition at Seattle’s Center on Contemporary Art, explores the group’s ongoing practice and legacy by showcasing a selection of their politically charged posters alongside equally charged work by nine other feminist artists. According to artist Ann Leda Shapiro, who helped organize the show, other biases like these “have not changed enough over time.” Artists in the exhibition explore ever-present issues of sexism, bias, autonomy, fertility, and gender fluidity. Cecilia Concepción Alvarez’s paintings of strong Chicana/Latina women address themes of entitlement and poverty, while E. T. Russian’s graphic works on paper foreground disability, queerness, and self-reliance. All artists featured are based in the Pacific Northwest and do not have gallery representation—a conscious choice for Shapiro, who wanted to create a counterpoint to the commercially driven Seattle Art Fair, whose run overlaps with the start of the CoCA presentation. » —Alexxa Gotthardt

TECH

Aesthe-Tech

Walking, waiting in line, and eating lunch are now all socially acceptable times to tap, click, and scroll. So it’s no surprise that we’ve thrown open the doors of our homes to integrated tech, too. Accordingly, Sonos and IKEA teamed up to release the two-product SYMFONISK collection: a table lamp and a bookshelf, each with embedded speakers that work over a home’s wireless network to deliver uninterrupted, high-quality audio streaming. The devices, launching in early August and intended to work together as paired speakers or with a home theater system, are controlled via the Sonos app.

“We’re taking furnishing and technology one step further by actually building our sound into everyday home furnishings,” says Sara Morris, senior product manager for Sonos. “We knew from the start that we wanted to challenge traditional high-tech aesthetics,” adds Iina Vuorivirta, a designer of the SYMFONISK lamp. The team created both objects as elegant showpieces in contrasting light and dark colors that will complement any style of décor; the lamp’s sinuous glass shade is built to withstand even the deepest bass. Morris, underlining the importance of light and sound in the home and their impact on people’s moods, says she hopes Sonos will “democratize sound in the home. We know how transformative the experience of listening together can be.” »

—TS/RG

ARCHITECTURE

Social Fabric

Community input is a crucial aspect of every project architectural designer Bryony Roberts undertakes. So when Exhibit Columbus, the annual design festival in Indiana, chose her eponymous firm as one of five practices to receive the Miller Prize—an honor that goes to international leaders in their fields who connect people to place and community in unexpected ways—the first thing she did was sit down and make a list of organizations that regularly interact with the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill–designed Columbus City Hall, her firm’s assigned project site. “We think about site in an expanded way,” says Roberts, whose installation Soft Civic will be up from August 24 through December 1. “It’s not just about the physical buildings, but also about the social history of a place and the community that uses it. I never come into a space and assume that I know more about it than the people who utilize it regularly.”

After consulting with various political activists, performance troupes, and youth organizations that have used City Hall for events in some capacity, Roberts came up with a plan to activate a semicircular exterior plaza on the northwestern side of the building, where she’ll install custom-fabricated steel structures interwoven with colorful, durable parachute cord to create screens, platforms, and seating areas. Her interest in—or, as she puts it, her “recent obsession” with—textile and fiber art drove the materiality of the piece: the softness and flexibility of the cord is an attention-grabbing contrast to the rigidity of the civic building.

Her aim is that the installation will invite people to interact with the structure in new ways, from using it as a place to deliver an impromptu public speech to simply hanging out. “Creating structures with textiles produces different types of movements and social interactions that are a bit more playful and childlike,” Roberts says. “I hope this pushes people to rethink what is possible in a civic space.” » —RG

ARCHITECTURE

Tied Together

When John Christakos and Maurice Blanks were seeking an architect for the Portland outpost of Blu Dot, the modern furniture retailer they cofounded in 1997, Waechter Architecture caught their eye, and for all the usual reasons: they liked its work and its approach, and they believed their project would be a priority. They knew their instinct was correct when the firm’s founder, Ben Waechter, said that a single word guides every project he undertakes. “That word is clarity,” recalls Blanks. “It resonated with us because clarity is such an [integral] part of what Blu Dot is all about.”

Construction of the company’s Waechter-designed store (Blu Dot’s eighth shop) has begun inside a historic 1921 building in Portland’s Pearl District, and it’s slated to open in September. “The main space is made up of a beautiful grid of heavy timber columns,” Waechter says. He notes that the structure’s less beautiful yet essential features—its building core, a mezzanine, and a ramp—worked against the organized, quiet interior he’d envisioned. So he introduced a white oak floor and a “ribbon” (in the form of an airy white oak batten wall) that curves around the existing elements to create an environment that can be experienced as one unified space, or as four discrete ones. “The intervention creates a quiet backdrop while maintaining a sense of materiality and craft,” he says.

Blanks says that sensibility is important for the Portland shop. “Portland is a lot like our hometown, Minneapolis: there’s an appreciation for making things,” he says. “We picked the Pearl District because we love its industrial history, and then got lucky and found a great space with a great landlord. It doesn’t always work out that well.” —Tiffany Jow

WORKSPACE

Heavy Duty

Is it possible for a contract textile to be durable and delightful? Of course, says Carnegie Fabrics’ new Xorel Knit upholstery, which meets the demands of high-traffic spaces. Modeled upon the brand’s signature Xorel fabric—a heavy-duty, sustainable woven polyethylene textile typically used in acoustic paneling—the material blends Xorel’s durability with Carnegie yarn to create a pliable textile that’s easily wrapped around furniture frames. “I believe imagination has no limits,” says Carnegie’s executive vice president of creative Heather Bush. “And I have seen many creative applications of Xorel.” Debuting in September in four patterns, including a macro-scale plaid herringbone and a tailored houndstooth, Xorel Knit will bring colorful contemporary upholstery into commercial settings that might otherwise be mired in beige. —Claire Butwinick

BOOK

Evenly Matched

Andrea D’Aquino has long been struck by photographs of Ruth Asawa, the late Japanese-American artist known for her hand-knit, gravity-defying wire sculptures. Recently, D’Aquino, a collage artist who regularly contributes to The New York Times, observed parallels between Asawa’s story and the current political climate. As a child, Asawa and her family were detained at internment camps in the wake of Pearl Harbor, and after her release, her efforts to become an art educator in Wisconsin were obstructed by the Milwaukee State Teachers College due to her ethnicity. “Just a few years later, she enrolled at North Carolina’s Black Mountain College, surrounded by legendary characters such as painter Josef Albers, architect Buckminster Fuller, and dancer Merce Cunningham,” D’Aquino says, noting they later became her mentors and friends. “It’s such an unlikely story.” D’Aquino decided to capture the sculptor’s personal history in the book A Life Made by Hand: The Story of Ruth Asawa (Princeton Architectural Press), out in September. While the publisher’s press release says it’s for ages five to eight, D’Aquino’s narrative, focused on Asawa’s interpretations of the world, appeals to every reader.

The book’s collages were made from hand-painted and mono-printed paper, and drawn elements in graphite, colored paper, and oil pastel. D’Aquino chopped up and scanned the results. “It’s not your typical children’s book, where you have to be consistent with your character’s [appearance],” she says. “[Asawa’s] estate pushed me to represent Ruth”—one collage incorporates a photo of her face— as well as “the philosophy Albers taught her, called matière, which challenged artists to use materials in unexpected ways.” In this sense, D’Aquino is the perfect one to illustrate Asawa’s life.

As she composed the book, she spoke with two of Asawa’s six children via Skype. They believed their mother’s story should not be told in a flat, linear way but should instead be imbued with her spirit. “Ruth always encouraged children to do things themselves, and learn that way,” D’Aquino says. In turn, she included a paper-folding activity at the back of the book and devoted full spreads to Asawa’s mentors, signaling their importance to the sculptor’s creative development. “A lot of people don’t realize Ruth wasn’t just someone making these traditional woven things at home—she studied under some of the greatest progressive thinkers of her time,” D’Aquino says. “That was most important to her kids, to place her in the context of those individuals: Ruth’s name has always been there, just not on the same level as theirs. But she was very much their contemporary.” » —TJ

DESIGN

Growing Gains

Aarin Packard wants to change the way you think about bonsai, the art form derived from an ancient Chinese horticultural practice concerned with creating miniaturized yet realistic representations of nature in the form of carefully cultivated tiny trees. “Americans have never tried to figure out how bonsai could express our [own] culture,” says Packard, who spent eight years at the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum at DC’s National Arboretum before becoming curator of the Seattle-area Pacific Bonsai Museum, which holds a broadly geographically diverse collection—including 150 specimens from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Canada, and the US—that is among the world’s most renowned. Established in 1989 by paper manufacturer Weyerhaeuser, the entire collection was gifted to the newly formed museum in 2013.

“Bonsai practice needs to evolve to make it relevant for today. If it doesn’t, I don’t think it can be continued,” Packard says. To create a cultural shift in how bonsai is created and interpreted by Western audiences, he launched the LAB—Living Art of Bonsai—to free practitioners from the strict conventions of the traditional bonsai-making framework, in which the design of a bonsai’s stand and pot are dictated by that of the tree, by rethinking the process.

A four-part, multiyear experiment, each LAB session takes place in an architecturally significant setting and employs a standmaker, ceramist, and bonsai artist. The first was held last August at the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed Griggs House in Lakewood, Washington, where ceramist Ron Lang unveiled a shallow, angular bonsai container he’d made in response to the building. The second convened in April at the Mary Lund Davis House in Gig Harbor, Washington, where standmaker Austin Heitzman presented a cantilevered copper-and-wood stand made in response to Lang’s container. The third will happen August 17 at architect George Suyama’s Fauntleroy House, where a bonsai cultivated in response to the stand and vessel will be presented for discussion and critique. “The LAB is about seeing what happens when you mix up [bonsai] ingredients,” Packard says. “Will we get something extremely different? That’s the big question. It’s all uncharted territory.” —TJ

ART

Triple Threat

In today’s speed-obsessed world, one can consume exhibitions in milliseconds through digital newsfeeds. But in September, Adams and Ollman, the Portland contemporary art gallery, is tripling down on its offline presence by establishing a third location of grand proportions. Housed in a 1,200-squarefoot converted trolley factory with 15-foot ceilings, the Pearl District space will open with an exhibition featuring freestanding sculptures by Jessica Jackson Hutchins and abstract paintings by Ryan McLaughlin. Designed by Jeff Stern of In Situ Architecture, the gallery includes both a large exhibition area that provides an open, immersive experience for viewers, and a smaller gallery slated to show work—and encourage experimentation—by up-and-coming artists. “Both artists and the audience need time for ideas to develop and relationships to form,” says Adams and Ollman cofounder Amy Adams. “That happens only with extended contact.” »

PRODUCT

Breaking the Mold

Garages have been the places many bands established themselves, but ceramics studios? Not so often. Enter LGS (short for Little Garage Shop), a firm producing clay-based creations—and yes, founded in a garage—by Thomas Renaud and Noel Hennessy in 2015. Relocating to LA’s Glassell Park neighborhood, after that old Portland garage, LGS sets itself apart by the way it makes its pieces: Renaud, a New York– and Los Angeles–bred marketing executive, takes the first pass, usually on the wheel, then hands off the work to Hennessy, an art director and stylist trained at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, who adds embellishments. They trade duties until they feel the piece is complete. “Our work is not just one person, one voice,” Renaud says. “It’s very much a duality.”

LGS cut its teeth selling its tableware collections at craft fairs, occasionally opening the garage as a pop-up shop. In its new digs, it’s shifting gears toward one-off sculptural pieces, and from August 10 to 12, LGS will show for the first time at New York’s Shoppe Object trade show, introducing two collections alongside Chen Chen & Kai Williams, Dusen Dusen, Fredericks & Mae, FS Objects by Fort Standard, and other established brands.

Viewers will be smitten by Tephra, LGS’s organic, almost ancient-looking collection of stoneware lighting, vessels, tableware, and a mirror all informed by volcanic rock and Washington’s Mount St. Helens. Each piece’s distinctive exterior is achieved by hand-carving, making every one unique. There’s also the Studded series, whose columnar vessels are garnished with rows of pyramidshaped projections, much like those on a punk leather jacket. “It feels more like art-making than ceramic-making,” Hennessy says of the collections. “They’re exactly where we want to be.” »

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DESIGN

American Express

Six US designers among the 3,000-plus exhibitors at September’s Maison&Objet show in Paris will present work à l’américaine when the design fair spotlights America in the latest edition of its Rising Talent Awards initiative. The international exhibition, which celebrated Chinese creatives this spring, will feature an all-American lineup, including West Coast designer Alex Brokamp, described as “a love child of Jaime Hayon and Jasper Morrison” by Bernhardt Design creative director and Rising Talent juror Jerry Helling.

Rounding out the coast-to-coast honors will be five New York studios: Harold (chosen by Nasir Kassamali of Luminaire), Bailey Fontaine (nominated by WantedDesign’s Odile Hainaut and Claire Pijoulat), Green River Project (selected by architect Rafael de Cárdenas), Kin & Company (picked by architect David Rockwell), and lighting designer Rosie Li (selected by Rhode Island School of Design president Rosanne Somerson). “Given the varying cultural influences that span the nation, the US has no single national design character,” says Maison&Objet managing director Philippe Brocart. “Instead, [American design] tells a variety of stories.” h —Heather Corcoran

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Alex Brokamp, Green River Project, Bailey Fontaine, Kin & Company, Rosie Li, Harold.