INTERIORS • ARCHITECTURE • FASHION • ART • DESIGN ™
The DESIGN MAGAZINE for the Pacific Northwest
Kitchen + Bath
NEW TRENDS, BOLD PATTERNS, BRILLIANT BUILT-INS AND UNEXPECTED FINISHES
PARTY BOAT: A FLOATING HOME BUILT FOR ENTERTAINING
welle seating elements & vp globe designed in 1969 by verner panton - made in denmark by verpan
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Karuna House, designed by Holst Architecture and built by Hammer & Hand 2013 AIA Portland Design Award, 2014 National Institute of Building Sciences Beyond Green Award GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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cont 44
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october november.15
12. hello
Where the heart is.
SCENE 23. news
Forget about sandboxes and plastic slides—Seattle Center’s latest kidcentered space wows with a 35-foot climbing tower, musical swings, and artist-designed installations.
26. here & there
A new way to buy art, Portland’s most stylish new coffeehouse, and the WestEdge Design Fair: what’s happening in the region and beyond.
28. the scoop
Seattle’s Hayden Collective showroom unveils Kelly Wearstler’s debut lighting collection.
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STYLE 37. sourced
You don’t have to live in Europe to co-opt the high-end style of a Continental kitchen. Here are five sleek kitchen systems to complete your culinary dreams.
44. trend
When it comes to kitchen and bath design, it’s not always black and white—sometimes it’s just black.
46. kitchen
Layered in gray, a Portland kitchen shows the sexy side of minimalism.
48. bath
Designer Tova Elise Cubert teams up with mosaic artist Kate Jessup on a one-of-a-kind tilework installation.
50. bath
Chadhaus’s fascination with Finnish saunas heats up a Seattle backyard.
52. fashion
Borrowing your boyfriend’s jacket has never looked cooler. Meet Olderbrother, Portland’s new gender-neutral, eco-friendly clothing line.
56. context
A floral designer and a photographer collaborate on a lush photo series.
64. interiors
A revamped early-20th-century home strikes a dynamic balance between contemporary and classic design.
70. interiors
A Vancouver designer’s aesthetic dreams come true when her clients openly embrace bold colors, patterns, and textures—sometimes all at once.
tents 76
FEATURES 76. pure of art
A Victorian house in Portland becomes a labor of love for owner and designer Grey Crowell, who spent years uncovering its layers of history in the name of timeworn elegance.
82. view finders
With help from Giulietti | Schouten AIA Architects, an active Oregon couple nearing retirement embraces contemporary design—and their new home’s stunning ocean views.
88. rock the boat
A social Seattle couple breaks the bohemian houseboat mold with a modern floating home built for parties.
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BACK OF THE BOOK 94. architecture
The University of British Columbia Bookstore gets a stunning, student-friendly redesign.
100. profile
GRAY sits down for an intimate and wide-ranging conversation with renowned artist-designer Roy McMakin.
110. resources
Your guide to the designers, shops, furnishings, craftspeople, and suppliers featured in this issue.
100
✤
On the Cover
An eclectic kitchen in a modern Seattle houseboat by Baylis Architects and Trend Construction. SEE PAGE
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114. my northwest
Artist Gage Hamilton brings vibrant murals and a global perspective to enliven the streets of Portland.
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I N S P I R AT I O N • P A S S I O N • I N NOVA T I O N • P E R F O R M A N C E • D E D I CAT I O N
Anne Decker Architects • BETHESDA RESIDENCE
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hello
where the heart is Imagine opening someone’s kitchen cabinet and becoming enchanted. If you poked around Gretchen Rubin’s New York City kitchen, you’d discover a miniature, three-dimensional alpine scene secreted amid mundane dishes and glassware. Rubin, author of the bestseller Happier at Home, wanted to draw more whimsy and pleasure into her domestic life. So she commissioned artist Jacqueline Schmidt to create a glass-encased diorama, complete with tiny bluebirds and blackberry bushes, perfectly scaled for her cabinet’s bottom shelf. Some might see it as folly to give up precious storage space, yet the poetic artwork, hidden inside the most pedestrian of furnishings, sparks happiness every time Rubin opens the cabinet. It’s like “Narnia inside the wardrobe,” as her daughter puts it—a bit of magic in everyday life. I thought about Rubin’s minute wonderland as we put together this issue. From a meticulously modern houseboat (p. 88) to a tiny backyard sauna (p. 50) to artist-designer Roy McMakin’s offbeat furniture and architecture (p. 100), our fall issue is woven through with surprising, one-of-a-kind projects that reflect the singular personalities and priorities of their designers and clients. Consider the mosaic that Kate Jessup, a tile artist, created with designer Tova Elise Cubert for a client’s bathroom— a wild explosion of color and pattern in an otherwise sedate room. Like Rubin’s secret landscape, the riotous tilework is a pleasant shock when you open the door. The client couldn’t be happier: “He loves it so much he sometimes works in there,” reports Cubert. “He told me, ‘I never want to leave this bathroom, ever.’” Personal touches are what make a house a home. But it’s the flash of the unexpected that makes a space memorable. Is anything more boring than a house renovated solely for resale value, or a design landscape bleaching itself out with miles of buyer-friendly subway tile and white quartz countertops? Enough with settling for unobjectionable—embrace the things you love, however quirky, and let them shape your environment. The thrill you’ll feel when you open your door will brighten your every day.
Jaime Gillin, Editorial Director jaime@graymag.com
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ADVERTISING: shawn@graymag.com SUBMISSIONS: submissions@graymag.com SUBSCRIPTIONS: subscriptions@graymag.com No. 24. Copyright ©2015. Published bimonthly (DEC, FEB, APR, JUNE, AUG, OCT) by GRAY Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint or quote excerpts granted by written request only. While every attempt has been made, GRAY cannot guarantee the legality, completeness, or accuracy of the information presented and accepts no warranty or responsibility for such. GRAY is not responsible for loss, damage, or other injury to unsolicited manuscripts, photography, art, or any other unsolicited material. Unsolicited material will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope. If submitting material, do not send originals unless specifically requested to do so by GRAY in writing. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to GRAY, 19410 Hwy. 99, Ste. A #207, Lynnwood, WA 98036. Subscriptions $30 us for one year; $50 us for two years
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Celebrating the modern idiom
modernfan.com
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Cool by Design
Flow >> Matte Nickel with Bamboo Blades and Optional Light
contributors
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JEFF AMRAM jeffamram.com pg 46
WILLIAM ANTHONY wmanthony.com pg 114
RACHEL EGGERS pg 48
EVIANA HARTMAN pg 52
ALEX HAYDEN alexhayden.com Cover, pg 64, 88
AMARA HOLSTEIN amaraholstein.com pg 76
MAKITO INOMATA makito.ca pg 70
STUART ISETT isett.com pg 23
DAVID PAPAZIAN papazianphoto.com pg 82
EMA PETER emapeter.com pg 94
CARLA RICHMOND COFFING go-carla-go.com pg 76
JESSE YOUNG jesseyoungphoto.com pg 50
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Adams Architecture adamsarchitecture.net
AKJ Architects LLC akjarchitects.com
pacific northwest architects
Architecture Building Culture architecture-bc.com
Beebe Skidmore Architects beebeskidmore.com
These architecture and design firms are doing outstanding work in this region. They also support GRAY and our efforts to advance the Pacific Northwest’s vibrant design community. Please contact them for your next project. Visit their portfolios at graymag.com or link directly to their sites to learn more.
DeForest Architects deforestarchitects.com
Giulietti | Schouten AIA Architects Guggenheim Architecture + Design Studio gsarchitects.net
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guggenheimstudio.com
Integrate Architecture & Planning integratearch.com
BattersbyHowat Architects
Baylis Architects
BC&J Architecture
Ben Trogdon | Architects
Castanes Architects
Chesmore Buck
Emerick Architects
FIELDWORK Design & Architecture
Gelotte Hommas Architecture
Iredale Group Architecture
Janof Architecture
KASA Architecture
battersbyhowat.com
bentrogdonarchitects.com
emerick-architects.com
iredale.ca
baylisarchitects.com
castanes.com
fieldworkdesign.net
janofarchitecture.com
bcandj.com
chesmorebuck.com
gelottehommas.com
kasaarchitecture.com
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Lane Williams Architects
McLeod Bovell Modern Houses
Potestio Studio
mcleodbovell.com
potestiostudio.com
Prentiss Architects
rho architects
richard brown architect
SHAPE Architecture Inc.
Skylab Architecture
Stephenson Design Collective
lanewilliams.com
prentissarchitects.com
shape-arch.ca
STUDIO-E Architecture studio-e-architecture.com
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rhoarchitects.com
skylabarchitecture.com
Workshop AD
workshopad.com
rbarch.com
stephensoncollective.com
pacific northwest architects Visit their portfolios at graymag.com or link directly to their sites to learn more.
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Tell your story with traditional farmhouse aesthetics from the Oak Hill collection. Just one of many carefully
curated design movements from the 150-year design anthology that is DXV. To learn more, visit dxv.com. DESIGN CONSULTANT: Holly Hollingsworth Phillips
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scene
WWW.ISETT.COM
news
WHERE THE WILD An audacious new playground in Seattle—co-designed E R A by artists, landscape architects, and hundreds of kids— S G IN TH reimagines playtime.
Written by LAURA HARGER : Photographed by STUART ISETT GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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scene
| news TOP: Backed by the lofty Space Needle, play-equipment manufacturer Kompan’s two towering tube slides— one curly 38-foot chute and a long luge tube at 52 feet—delight little thrillseekers. MIDDLE: Kids in contemplative mode can wander along sculptor Judith Caldwell’s evocative in-ground Story Lines, featuring tales written by children. BOTTOM: Giving the EMP a run for its chromatic money, the do-re-mi Alphabet Tree teaches tiny musicians the tones of the octave.
t
he future of the Northwest’s urban spaces concerns all the region’s citizens—but perhaps none more so than its tiniest residents. So when the Seattle Center decided to transform a cheerless 3-acre asphalt plaza near the EMP Museum into an art- and music-focused playground, the project team asked its “clients”—Seattle’s kids—to help plot out the playscape of their dreams. At 15 community outreach meetings in 2014, hundreds of children from toddlers to grade-schoolers drew pictures and wrote stories about how they loved to play. Their images and words inspired the all-star planning group—including Seattle landscape architects Site Workshop, sound artist Trimpin, metal sculptor Judith Caldwell, playground specialist Highwire, and manufacturer Kompan—to create the Artists at Play playground, which opened in May. “At the forums, Trimpin talked with the kids about sound while Caldwell asked them to draw and write stories and poems,” says Clayton Beaudoin, a principal at Site Workshop. “Having the kids’ inspiration kept us both loose and focused on the children’s priorities throughout the complex design process.” Now kids can ascend a 35-foot climbing tower and navigate the delightfully treacherous-looking Sky Walk—whose design Highwire and
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Kompan pulled almost directly from an eight-year-old’s drawing of her ideal playset. Children work together to make music on sound swings (whose oscillations trigger “singing” sculptures set upon the upper bar) and lose themselves in a labyrinth with a mysterious rebus at its heart. And a seemingly simple area of turf mounds, designed to represent sound waves, epitomizes the project team’s open-arms approach to play areas: small kids and those with disabilities can crawl or roll on the mounds, while bigger ones can jump and hop. All the play areas are connected by Story Lines, wavelike ground inlays on which Caldwell cast poems and stories penned by kids at the outreach meetings, interspersed with the artist’s own fanciful images. Trimpin, the Northwest’s sculptor-musician Renaissance man, added the Song Fence, a vertical xylophone activated by children’s whaps and whomps that recalls his other ingeniously interactive musical instruments, such as Sea-Tac Airport’s 80-foot Contraption, a microtonal xylo “played” by the movements of rushing passengers. Artists at Play fits in with the new, kid-driven crop of city playgrounds popping up all over the country: it’s just risky enough to develop kids’ independence and challenge their physical—and aesthetic—boundaries, no matter their age or level of ability. It’s also a model of the “spectacular spaces,” in Caldwell’s words, that cities can craft when planners, independent artists, and key stakeholders—in this case, very small ones—learn to play nicely together. h
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scene
| news
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here+ there
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CELEBRATE Award season is right around the corner, so join us in honoring this year’s most talented Pacific Northwest designers at these GRAY-sponsored events. October 22 brings IIDA Oregon’s 2015 Design Excellence Awards to Portland, with a new “Maker” category recognizing fabrication and product design. GRAY’s editors will once again pick (and publish) a GRAY Award–winning project among the IIDA entrants. On November 12 in Vancouver, the Lighting Architecture Movement Project (3), or L A M P, unveils the winners of this year’s International Lighting Design Competition (theme: “Crystallize”) at the kick-off party for a nine-day exhibition. And on November 16, AIA Seattle’s 2015 Honor Awards (4) celebrates the best architecture in Washington with an awards ceremony and champagne toast at Benaroya Hall. See you there! ›› iida-or.org ›› welovelamp.ca ›› aiaseattle.org
WANT If you’re looking for new art but don’t have time to gallery-hop, let recently launched site Captured 52 serve as your curator and consultant. The Portland-based startup offers large-format works from emerging photographers around the world. See something you like? Snap it up fast—each of the 52 images is available through the site for only a week. (Alice, by Ellen Cantor (2), will be available the week of November 7.) ›› captured52.com
3. AARON ZENGA’S LENTICULAR LIGHT, FROM L A M P’S 2014 COMPETITION. ©MICHAEL YOUNG; 4. OREGON STATE HOSPITAL MEMORIAL COLUMBARIUM BY LEAD PENCIL STUDIO, WINNER OF LAST YEAR’S AIA SEATTLE’S HONOR AWARD. ©STEVE HANSON
Oct. 22–25
Once again, GRAY is a proud media sponsor of the WestEdge Design Fair (1), now in its third year. The four-day design extravaganza, held in the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, features 150 exhibiting brands and products for the home, ranging from furniture and lighting to kitchen and bath lines. Highlights include industry speakers, a popular opening-night party, and the West Hollywood Design District exhibit, curated and designed by Gulla Jonsdottir of G+ Design. ›› westedgedesignfair.com
gray loves
Famously bold New York–based industrial designer Karim Rashid brings his vivid viewpoint to a recent collaboration with the luxury handmade-rug company Lindström Rugs. Marrying the ancient art of Japanese origami with 20th-century cubism, Rashid’s Korgamy Collection features complex patterns of intersecting lines and faceted shapes that span expanses of hand-tufted New Zealand wool—a 180 from Lindström’s traditionally free-form patterns. Korgamy Collection for Lindström Rugs, from $82 per square foot at Terris Draheim, Seattle, terrisdraheim.com.
We’ve long lusted after Swedish manufacturer Superfront’s stylish fittings, designed to upgrade Ikea furniture. Last year, the company finally began to ship handles and legs to the U.S., and this October 1, it launched a spate of new products, including Angles legs, created by renowned Swedish designer Christian Halleröd (5). Special delivery indeed. ›› superfront.com
VISIT With its on-point blond-and-white interior, spattered with reclaimed terra cotta accents, the newly opened Upper Left Roasters (6) in Portland serves an au courant design experience with each cup of its roasted-onsite brew. Responsible for turning the historic 1920s building into the minimalist roastery and café was Fieldwork Design, whose trifecta of design specialties—architectural, interior, and furniture—created a cohesive, airy, and well-crafted place to recharge and recaffeinate. ›› upperleftroasters.com
HEAR Oct. 23, Dec. 11
One of the design community’s most highly anticipated events returns to Seattle for the second year, bringing a string of worldclass designers to the city. Produced by local firm Civilization and sponsored by GRAY, the Design Lecture Series begins on October 23 with a talk by Lance Wyman, the renowned American graphic designer, along with special guest Adrian Shaughnessy, writer and cofounder of the U.K. publishing venture Unit Editions. Next up: graphic designer Paula Scher, partner at Pentagram, on December 11. Tickets to the free lectures go like hotcakes—grab yours now. ›› designlectur.es
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©BRIAN WALKER LEE GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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scene
| news
“The entire collection works together seamlessly, creating beautiful light quality through soulful, classic modern features that transition effortlessly within any space. Artisanal details juxtaposed with beautiful forms, mixed metals, and organic textures evoke a distinctive voice that is raw and refined.” —KELLY WEARSTLER, DESIGNER
THE SCOOP This October, Hayden Collective in Seattle’s Capitol Hill unveils a dedicated Kelly Wearstler lighting gallery, featuring her debut collection of bold, artistic light fixtures developed in partnership with Visual Comfort & Co. From spiky, sea urchin–like chandeliers to circular alabaster-and-metal sconces, “the collection really highlights Kelly’s love of metals and innovative scale and textures,” explains Carrie Hayden. Hayden shuttered her former retail space, Great Jones Home, in 2013, and relaunched her brand this September to include a design firm, bespoke products, and Hayden Collective, a modern showroom open to both the public and the trade. Wearstler is in good company: the glamorous space also includes a carefully edited collection of furniture, lighting, art, and accessories by the likes of Bradley, Aerin Lauder, and Bolier. h ›› carriehayden.com
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DESI GN EXC ELLE NCE AWA
THE IIDA OREGON CHAPTER DESIGN EXCELLENCE AWARDS Recognizing Interior Design Achievement and Innovation
AWARD CATEGORIES: Corporate Education Public & Civic Institutions Healthcare Hospitality/Restaurant/Retail Residential Maker - Realized Product Design or Installation by a Fabricator AWARD LEVELS: Best Of Category Category Honorable Mention Overall Jurors’ Choice Overall People’s Choice Impact Award Gray Award
The IIDA Oregon Chapter is proud to present the Design Excellence Awards, a juried competition for design excellence and innovation. Interior designers, architects and industrial designers from Oregon have submitted entries for interior spaces, to compete for a GRAY Magazine award, in addition to Best Of Category, Category Honorable Mention, Overall Jurors’ Choice and an Overall People’s Choice Award. This year’s award competition will also feature a ‘Maker’ category (recognizing product design and installations by a fabricator) and an ‘Impact Award’ to recognize work completed for clients whose mission positively impacts the community. Join us as we celebrate and acknowledge excellence in Interior Design! Visit iida-or.org to register to attend the ceremony and cast your vote for People’s Choice Award, beginning October 19th.
$50
$60
MEMBERS
AFFILIATE ORGANIZATION MEMBERS (AIA, ASID)
$70 NONMEMBER
$30 STUDENT MEMBERS
GRAY Magazine is the exclusive media sponsor for the 2015 Design Excellence Awards. Follow @IIDA_Oregon on social media to read about our guest jurors.
#iidaor #iidaor_awards
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n ma Wy ce L an p x E 30
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THE BARKER HANGAR, SANTA MONICA, CA
DESIGN FAIR
OCTOBER 22–25, 2015 | westedgedesignfair.com
THE WEST COAST’S PREMIER CONTEMPORARY DESIGN EVENT
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From left: WestEdge Opening Night Party, Jenn-Air, Resource Furniture, Martyn Lawrence Bullard & Kathryn M. Ireland, Zia Priven, and Sorelle Fine Arts
SPONSORED IN PART BY:
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INTERNATIONAL LIGHTING DESIGN COMPETITION & EXHIBITION - VANCOUVER, BC - NOVEMBER 12TH
@lampladies #welovelamp for a chance to win tickets Lighting Architecture Movement Project
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style
kitchen The dark horse of design, the color black isn’t a traditional choice for kitchen cabinetry—but it certainly makes a lasting impression (for more on the dark-hued trend, see page 44). Italian design company Arclinea introduced its new Armour finish last spring, and now it’s available locally. As its name implies, this durable, scratch-resistant resin finish will protect your kitchen from even the most aggressive of iron chefs.
Armour by Arclinea (shown here on the Italia system), available through Livingspace, Vancouver, livingspace.com.
SYSTEM LOGIC
Kitchens are complicated spaces to design, with decisions cropping up in every corner—which finish for the cabinets? Which drawer pull? The infinite options can boggle even the most design-savvy brain. We think Europeans have a smart solution—for decades, they’ve embraced the kitchen system, a customizable, all-in-one product that’s easily integrated into spaces of all sizes and typically encompasses cupboards, drawers, countertops, and sometimes even appliances. We’ve rounded up our favorite new features and systems that combine the convenience of modular design with luxury materials to create a truly cosmopolitan look. » Edited by JASMINE VAUGHAN
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style
| kitchen
“Salinas is a return to the social kitchen. As soon as you see it, you want to grab a glass of wine and start cooking with friends. It is not an object to be simply admired, but rather a well-crafted tool to help you create.” —ARNE SALVESEN, KITCHEN DESIGNER, INFORM INTERIORS, VANCOUVER
For more than 80 years, Italian company Boffi has made high-quality kitchens and bathrooms, and its brand-new modular Salinas system is no exception. Designed by Patricia Urquiola, Salinas is available in a variety of sustainable materials, colors, and configurations, with a large integrated stone sink and a tubular black metal frame that accommodates everything from ladles to shelves to LEDs. Salinas Kitchen by Boffi, available through Inform Interiors, Vancouver, available December 2015, informinteriors.com.
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The collection’s name says it all: Urban, a line inspired by city living, was introduced by Siematic this spring. Open shelving, freestanding furniture-like components, and the elegant and versatile Siematic 29 Kitchen Sideboard are hallmarks of the collection—compact enough to fit into a small apartment and understated enough to layer into any interior style. Details such as gently curved side panels and black matte metal legs and power outlets are high-end touches worthy of any urban sophisticate. Siematic 29 Kitchen Sideboard and Urban line by Siematic, Seattle, siematic-seattle.com. »
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Designed by Italian architect Alfredo Zangiaro, Pedini’s Arts & Crafts Kitchen espouses the beauty of minimalism. Inspired by both modern and rustic design, the collection mixes detached units with wall-mounted shelves and glass-doored modules that let you display your favorite dishes and objets. Available in a steel-and-walnut or pewter-and-bleached-ash combination, the line offers a wide range of components, including wood-and-steel étagères and sculptural worktops that double as dining tables. Arts & Crafts Kitchen by Pedini, Seattle and Vancouver, pediniusa.com. »
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Kitchen Design at its finest. BLANCO STEELART速 stainless steel sinks.
Steel elevated beyond expectations. Each STEELART速 sink is handcrafted from a single panel of the finest steel with loving attention to detail, highest quality standards and exceptional designs. The quest for perfection does not end here. Our European design kitchen faucets and quality accessories complement our award-winning BLANCO STEELART速 selection for an ultimate kitchen design experience.
CANADA: USA: www.blancocanada.com www.blancoamerica.com GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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Henrybuilt pioneered American kitchen systems when it arrived on the scene in 2001, and it has since gained renown for its exceptional woodworking and long-lasting products. The company has a single flexible system that can be customized for any space—add leather pulls, interior drawer accessories, and modular Opencase shelving as you like. Now, thanks to a state-of-the-art finishing booth just installed in its Seattle workshop, Henrybuilt has a fleet of new finishes on offer. Later this year, it will debut the Cloud Gray line of tongue-and-groove oak panels and panel profiles, shown here with Henrybuilt furnishings including a steel-legged table, walnut chairs, and a split-seat bench. Cloud Gray tongue-and-groove panels by Henrybuilt, Seattle, available late 2015, henrybuilt.com. h
“The concept of a kitchen system is confusing to many people— professionals and homeowners alike—but people who want the best are starting to understand that systems are the only way to get it.” —SCOTT HUDSON, FOUNDER AND CEO, HENRYBUILT
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C OMPL ET E YO U R K I T C H EN E V E N T
Complete your kitchen with up to $7,000 worth of Wolf Gourmet products! Purchase a combination of Sub-Zero and Wolf appliances now, and get up to $7,000 worth of Wolf Gourmet products, from countertop appliances to cookware. The “Complete Your Kitchen” offer is good through March 31, 2016. For details, visit subzero-wolf.com/promotion
Albert Lee Appliance Seattle - 206.282.2110 albertleeappliance.com
Arnold’s Appliance Bellevue - 425.454.7929 arnoldsappliance.com
Basco Appliances Portland - 503.226.9235 bascoappliances.com GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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back in black Edited by JASMINE VAUGHAN, with NESSA PULLMAN
Give in to the dark side of design. Black adds edgy drama in the kitchen and bathroom, and it’s an especially bold statement in fixtures and major appliances. White is bright, but for a look both new and timeless, black is where it’s at.
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1. 42-inch built-in French-door refrigerator with obsidian interior by Jenn-Air, from $8,500 at Arnold’s Appliance, Bellevue, WA, arnoldsappliance.com. 2. Dishwasher by KitchenAid, from $1,299 can at Hudson’s Bay, Vancouver, thebay.com. 3. Stamp tea towel by Ferm Living, $18 at Woonwinkel, Portland, woonwinkelhome.com. 4. Shape Up pendant (Cone) by Ladies and Gentlemen Studio for Roll & Hill, $3,780 can at Lightform, Vancouver, lightform.ca. 5. & 6. SO612 thermostatic shower head and MB289 single-hole faucet by MGS, $2,850 and $1,750 at Best Plumbing, Seattle, bestplumbing.com. 7. Cementine Black&White tile by Fioranese, $18.80 per 8-by-8-inch tile, at Statements Tile & Stone, Seattle, statementstile.com. 8. Muse one-piece toilet by Icera, $850 at Chown Hardware, Portland and Bellevue, WA, chown.com. 9. Blanco Precis Medium kitchen sink with drainboard in Anthracite by Blanco, $964 can at Just Add Water, North Vancouver, justaddwaterbc.ca. 10. Mandello 114 vanity in Piano Black by Victoria + Albert (available end of 2015), $6,080 at The Fixture Gallery, multiple locations, thefixturegallery.com. h
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DEKTON IS UNLIMITED Cosentino Center Vancouver 152-8518 Glenlyon Parkway V5J 0B6 Burnaby, BC (604) 431-8568 GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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DESIGN TEAM
silver fox
A kitchen in Portland’s Pearl District debunks the “gray is gloomy” stereotype with sleek finishes, refined materials, and a custom island with an architectural twist. Written by RACHEL GALLAHER : Photographed by JEFF AMRAM
Simple requests don’t always produce simple solutions. That’s what Andee Hess of
Osmose Design learned when she renovated the condo of a wayfaring client who required a peaceful place to regroup between trips. Built in 2004, the loft had exposed concrete ceilings and concrete columns—not a bad aesthetic starting place, given the client’s affinity for the color gray. But the concrete posed design and construction challenges. “We couldn’t penetrate the floor or the ceiling to add recessed fixtures or electrical outlets,” says Hess. Contractor Hammer & Hand stepped in to devise workarounds. Lighting and outlets were integrated into the cabinetry. A strip of exposed conduit over the custom island was reworked to accommodate three Flos Smithfield pendant lights from Hive. Oak flooring from DuChateau’s Vernal Collection runs up the side of the island, giving way to a refined powder-coated steel top. Three slabs of heavily veined Silver Fox granite clad the backsplash, lending quiet drama to the design. Gray has never looked so good. h
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interiors: Osmose Design construction: Hammer & Hand
Taking inspiration from the original concrete structural elements in this Portland loft, designer Andee Hess worked with Hammer & Hand to create an upscale industrial kitchen. Two stools by Designform Furnishings break the rectilinear rhythms of the custom island by Hammer & Hand and custom cabinetry by Big Branch Woodworking. The ultra-thin PentalQuartz countertops further slim and refine the elegant space.
C H O W N H A R D WA R E
C A N T U B AT H R O O M S & H A R D WA R E
M O U N TA I N L A N D D E S I G N
P O R T L A N D , O R | B E L L E V U E , WA
VA N C O U V E R , B C
S A LT L A K E C I T Y, U T GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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Of her lively tilework for a Yarrow Point bathroom, artist Kate Jessup comments: “Mosaic waterscapes in a shower or tub allow for interaction. You’re inside the art—it’s dynamic. I have a visceral reaction to working with such ancient materials: I cut into them and find their raw natural state.” OPPOSITE: Whimsical Tom Dixon glass knobs from Inform Interiors take the place of typical towel bars.
off the GRID
A mosaic artist and a designer create a jaw-dropping fine-art intervention in a light-filled, carefully structured bathroom. Written by RACHEL EGGERS : Photographed by MARK WOODS
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During a post-collegiate jaunt in New Zealand in the
early 2000s, Kate Jessup transformed herself into a mosaicist. She’d experimented with tile—along with several other media, such as paint and ceramics—over the years, but the chance to be an artist-in-residence at a boutique lodge there was the first major step in her mosaic career. Jumping at the sudden artistic opportunity “was a decision that sent me off on a magical trail,” Jessup says. She’s since been mastering the technique and craft of mosaic—and remaking the form along her way. In 2014, designer Tova Elise Cubert came across Jessup’s work through mutual friends and visited her West Seattle studio. She was charmed: “I can be very wary of ornamentation, but my inner crow came out—instead of fighting it, I embraced it,” she says. Cubert recruited Jessup to lend her artistic vision to a master bathroom she was renovating in upscale Yarrow Point, Washington. Together they conceived of a glass mosaic that became the room’s focal point, blooming along the back wall that connects the shower to the tub. The dynamic artwork enlivens the otherwise rigorous symmetry of the room. A grid of large, wood-patterned porcelain tiles gives way to what Cubert calls a “chaos moment—a bit of tension in this calm retreat.” Inspired by the Northwest Mystics—a group of painters in the ’30s who embraced the moody palette of the region—and the growth patterns of lichen and moss, the design is “dramatic but based in the environment,” says Jessup. “It’s at once organic, soft, and surprising.” The pair chose colors found in nature, both muted—taupe, silver, sage—and flamboyant—chrome yellow, brilliant poppy, cuts and drops of shiny gold. Dominating the design is a lovely explosion of stacked teardrop shapes recalling an unfurled Elizabethan ruff. It’s this element, Jessup notes, that exemplifies the centrality of andamento (the flow and direction of tiles, or tesserae) in her craft. “The pieces are like letters or words,” Jessup explains. “They flow into one another to create the sentences that tell a story.” h
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CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: For a private
sauna in a Seattle backyard, Chad and Emily Robertson, designers and co-owners of Chadhaus, built a pivoting steel entry door with firewood-storage cubbies. The sauna opens to a changing area with a shower and recessed LED strip lighting tucked into the tongue-andgroove ceiling. An electric heating unit creates steam when water is poured over the hot rocks on top.
Hot House
A meditative private sauna springs up in a Seattle backyard. Written by LAURA AGUILERA-FLEMMING Photographed by JESSE YOUNG
After a five-month trip to Finland for his graduate
thesis research in 2005, Chad Robertson and his wife, Emily, returned to the States with a fascination for Finnish saunas. “Sauna has been and still is a part of daily life and culture in Finland,” Chad explains. “It’s both a personal and a communal experience that feels wonderful and encourages good health.” Now co-owners of the Seattle furniture and design studio Chadhaus, the couple found that their Scandinavian experiences
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served them well when, six years later, one of their repeat clients asked them to design a sauna for their backyard. The clients had several specific requests—including a pivot door, a showerhead with a pull chain, and space to recline—but let the Robertsons take the lead on aesthetics. Inspired by traditional Finnish materials, the designers chose hypoallergenic hemlock wood for the interior. Etched matte glass windows filter in natural light while imparting a cloistered feel. Benches line two walls, allowing the clients to sit or lie down while enjoying the steam. The designers carefully calibrated the building’s scale to their clients’ bodies: “We measured them sitting, standing, and lying down,” says Emily. “We based the sauna’s interior height on the dimensions needed for them to lie on the top bench with their legs resting vertically on the wall.” More complicated was wedging the 100-square-foot structure into the compact backyard. According to Joseph Schneider, president of JAS Design Build, the general contractor for the project, that process was “a little like building a small boat inside a telephone booth.” When the puzzle finally came together, though, it was the picture of relaxation. h
Naturally more relaxing We are proud to present our new ionian bath, the perfect balance of style and comfort. Its naturally white, smooth form is created from our signature Volcanic Limestone™ material, ENGLISHCASTŽ. A truly stunning addition to a world class collection.
To find your nearest Victoria + Albert dealer, visit www.vandabaths.com Featured product: ionian
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born to dye
Two West Coast fashion designers collaborate on a gender-neutral Portland label that’s as eco-friendly as it is cutting edge.
“I
grew up in Portland, so it was second nature to be conscious of my impact,” says Bobby Bonaparte, one-half, along with Max Kingery, of Portland-based fashion design duo Olderbrother. Both men worked in the industry before teaming up—Bonaparte as the designer of cult brand Lift Label, Kingery in garment production—and both “lamented the fact that while we live healthy lifestyles, we see how gnarly the typical production process is, with chemical dyes and fast fashion,” Bonaparte says. “There weren’t any natural and sustainable lines that also came in cool, contemporary shapes and cuts.” But now, thanks to the duo’s year-old line, there are.
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“These are clothes that we feel comfortable but also sophisticated in,” Bonaparte says. Inspired by Japanese minimalism and the style scenes of New York and Paris, the pared-back streetwear silhouettes are manufactured in Los Angeles using low-impact materials such as organic cotton, hemp, and bamboo. Vegetable dyes from indigo, madder root, and oak galls (formed when wasps lay eggs in the trees’ buds) lend the simple shapes a unique patina that evolves with age. Every item in the line is unisex— but these aren’t merely guys’ clothes that gals can borrow. Rather, Bonaparte explains, each piece is tailored to fit and »
PORTRAIT: ©SCOTT LEON; PHOTO THIS PAGE AND OPPOSITE: ©CHARLIE SCHUCK
Written by EVIANA HARTMAN
Two looks from Olderbrother’s spring 2016 collection feature organic Japanese Supima cotton T-shirts (a collaboration with creative agency Zioxla and tattoo artist David Schiesser) paired with, from left, organic Japanese gabardine trousers and Tencel-blend pants. OPPOSITE TOP: Bobby Bonaparte (left) and Max Kingery at Olderbrother’s Los Angeles studio. OPPOSITE BOTTOM: A look from spring 2016 includes a gabardine jacket and trousers and oxford shirt, all in organic cotton.
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flatter men and women equally. “Clothes can represent a person without all those layers of stereotypes,” he says. “We’re exploring what it means to make a completely gender-neutral garment.” As for their name? “Olderbrother works on multiple levels,” Bonaparte says. The natural dyes, he points out, give the clothes the feeling of vintage hand-me-downs, and the brand’s eco-friendliness also has a teachable aspect. “I’m an older brother myself, and I always tried to set a good example and show my siblings what was right. Max and I view the company in a similar way: as the perennial older brother, and as a role model for slow fashion, playful spirits, and considerate business.” h
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PROCESS IMAGES ©SCOTT LEON; BOTTOM LEFT IMAGE: ©CHARLIE SCHUCK
RIGHT: Olderbrother’s natural dye process takes place in Los Angeles. Indigo dyeing, shown here, is a highly involved technique that requires four precisely timed dips for each garment. Items are then hosed off and hung to dry. BELOW: A recycled Japanese nylon windbreaker is paired with an indigo-dyed T-shirt and Tencel-blend pants.
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in full
B
loom
After 10 years spent creating event installations and floral arrangements—first for high-end design studios in Chicago and then for Erba Floral Studio, the company she founded in Portland—Riley Messina felt constrained by traditional definitions of florist. “People brought me photos of what they wanted—pictures from Martha Stewart or wedding blogs—and said, ‘I want this!’ It was creatively stifling,” she recalls. One spring afternoon in 2013, she broke free. Inspired by fruit trees blooming in her neighborhood, she foraged for branches and flowers and
Written by JAIME GILLIN : Photographs are a collaboration between photographer PARKER FITZGERALD and floral designer RILEY MESSINA
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brought her bounty to her photographer friend Parker Fitzgerald’s studio. They called up more friends and staged a few artful shots. Shortly afterward, Fitzgerald went to Tokyo on assignment for a magazine, and Messina tagged along. The pair met a Tokyo gallerist who invited them to exhibit their work. Things snowballed from there. Their resulting series, which they dubbed “Overgrowth,” will be released in a stunning selfpublished, Kickstarter-financed book of the same name in early October 2015. Here’s an exclusive first peek. »
“When people hear ‘floral design,’ they automatically think about weddings and Valentine’s Day. That’s not me,” says artist Riley Messina, who breaks the mold with the striking images she creates with her longtime collaborator and friend, the photographer Parker Fitzgerald. “Overgrowth” places its subjects— friends volunteering as models—in wild environments where they’re seemingly engulfed by flowers or foliage. OPPOSITE: “For our ‘Overgrowth’ series, we wanted to accomplish everything on film and in-camera—no Photoshop tricks,” says Messina. “This was one of the first shoots we did specifically for the book, and it required a technical complexity above anything we’d done to that point. Getting this shot required two subjects, a wall of flowers, a carefully placed mirror, and two backdrops.”
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Messina’s background in theater (she previously worked as a set designer and costumer) served her well when she and Fitzgerald explored new concepts for their photo series. “I’ll always be amazed by how fast she can put together a set!” says Fitzgerald. “Subjects lying in moss or foliage or a bed of flowers were a particular joy for us to shoot, and creating installations like that was second nature for Riley.” OPPOSITE: “One of our original ideas was to surround a subject in a field of gold-leaf-covered olive branches against a studio backdrop,” says Messina. “But we found that gold-foiling each leaf took just way too long. We resorted to regular gold spray paint, but that made the leaves dry up. So we had to work quickly. We’re happy with how the images turned out, but that day taught us the importance of testing things out before we arrive on set.” »
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“We set off to do something for ourselves, to push ourselves and be creative in our own way. Our only goal was to make beautiful images. We never thought anyone else would see them.”—RILEY MESSINA
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“Finding a decent film camera for shooting in water was tough. Keeping the models from freezing was even more difficult. It was a miracle we got these images, considering what went on behind the scenes.” —RILEY MESSINA
As “Overgrowth” grew, so did Messina and Fitzgerald’s ambition. Messina describes their underwater images as the series’ most challenging undertaking. “It was intensely physical—Parker and I were in wetsuits in freezing water, herding flowers against the current. The images look beautiful and serene, but in reality it was really chaotic.” h
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MAISON INC interior design
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Fiddlehead
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rollandhill.com
GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
+1 718 387 6132
Photo Michel Gibert. Special thanks: Philippe Desloubières sculptures - TASCHEN. 1Conditions apply, contact store for details. 2Program available on select items, subject to availability.
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SECOND TIME AROUND
An architect and her longtime clients nudge the interiors of a turn-of-the-century Seattle house in a modern direction.
a
Written by RACHEL GALLAHER : Photographed by ALEX HAYDEN : Styled by RACHEL GRUNIG
fter a two-year stint in Luxembourg, a family of four returned to Seattle eager to see their newly renovated kitchen, which Amy Janof of Janof Architecture had capably transformed in their absence. The revamp thrilled them—but so did the unexpected news that a house they’d long coveted, two doors down, had just come up for sale. They acted quickly and sold their former home, gleaming kitchen and all, and rehired Janof for Renovation Part Two.
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This time the project was bigger than a single room— the entire house needed help. An original foursquare, it had a ground floor with four identical rooms that, according to Janof, “chopped up the space and made it feel closed off.” It also had outdated ’80s finishes and wall-to-wall pink shag carpeting. To open up the main level, Haak Construction combined the two rooms at the west side of the house into a single large living room and relocated the dining room to the area formerly occupied by a staircase and a fake fireplace. »
DESIGN TEAM Janof Architecture completely gutted the kitchen in an early-20th-century Seattle house. New cabinetry by Evan Scott Cabinet and Furniture, built in the style of the original casework, counterpoise the custom modern island. Allied Marble & Granite installed the Calacatta marble backsplash and white PentalQuartz counters. The Shaws fireclay farmhouse sink is by Rohl. OPPOSITE: Swirls wallpaper by Robert Crowder & Co. glams up the dining room. The vintage chandelier is a thrift-store find, and the glass candlesticks are by Roost.
architecture: Janof Architecture construction: Haak Construction stone fabrication and installation: Allied Marble & Granite kitchen island, cabinetry, and dining table: Evan Scott Cabinet and Furniture
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CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Brass-hued aluminum laminate detailing lightens the custom walnut island. “We made sure it wouldn’t look heavy in the middle of the room,” says architect Amy Janof. “The metallic legs balance the dark wood, lifting it up on gleaming pedestals.” The custom light fixture over the island is by Studio:PGRB. A reproduction Papa Bear chair from Modernica anchors one end of the living room, along with a Crate & Barrel credenza and original Rorschach inkblots. OPPOSITE: The dining room is an elegant mix of high and low: chairs from Overstock.com surround a custom bronze-and-elm dining table.
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The renovated living room mixes contemporary and midcentury-inspired furniture from the family’s previous home, with the addition of two velvet lounge chairs from Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. And the new dining room flaunts its elegance, with a custom bronze-legged elm table by Evan Scott Cabinet and Furniture and four panels of Swirls wallpaper by Robert Crowder & Co.—a splurge the clients made after spotting the pattern in a magazine. When it came to the kitchen, Janof juggled old and new—an exercise she describes as “a great stylistic stretch inspired by the boldness of the clients and their love of the house.” To honor the residence’s early-20thcentury architecture, she had the kitchen cabinetry and new woodwork milled to match the home’s original trims. But she and the homeowners skewed modern with the
custom walnut island, with its brass-colored aluminum laminate details. “We let ourselves get a little glamorous and fun with the island,” she says. “We didn’t want to violate the bones or detailing of the original structure, but the clients are not into living with a bunch of antiques.” While the traditional-style kitchen in the clients’ former house was designed via email while the homeowners were out of the country, this one came together through in-person meetings and joint shopping excursions with the clients. Janof, in fact, credits all the home’s modern elements to this face-to-face design process: “I was able to embolden the clients’ choices and encourage them to embrace a fresh, adventurous style.” Sometimes you just need a second take. »
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The living room is an amalgam of contemporary and midcenturystyle furniture, including a Rochelle sofa from Crate & Barrel and two velvet lounge chairs from Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. A see-through Peekaboo coffee table from CB2 keeps the space from looking cluttered. At the Saarinen table in the corner sit two green leather chairs that the clients have owned since their wedding. A light from Restoration Hardware’s Antiqued Metal Drum collection hangs above them. h
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“The clients love eclecticism and wanted to reach out of their safe zone. The juxtaposition of frankly modernist pieces with beautifully detailed, era-appropriate architecture gives the project its zip.” —AMY JANOF, ARCHITECT
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OWNING IT
A lively family of six invites vivid color and spirited patterns into every corner of their home in Richmond, British Columbia. Written by LINDSEY M. ROBERTS Photographed by MAKITO INOMATA
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A Richmond, B.C., home spotlights the work of local craftspeople. In the den, Pyramid Metalworks fabricated the desk’s metal base; Dakota Homes created the built-in walnut bookcases. OPPOSITE: The great room centers on the fireplace’s marble slab surround, which is set off by crescent-moon wallpaper by Bartsch. “The result is contemporary but still in line with the classic style of the home,” says interior designer Amber Kingsnorth. Local woodworker Kate Duncan crafted the coffee table, which sits on a rug from Jordans Interiors. The sofa is from Zientte, and the flooring is by Kentwood Floors.
DESIGN TEAM
- Interiors interiors: MaK construction: Dakota Homes kitchen tile: Edgewater Studio GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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A
s old architecture comes down around Vancouver—goodbye, Vancouver Specials—and the new goes up—hello, Monster Houses—can residents find a happy medium? The Karimuddin family found it in a new build by Dakota Homes in Richmond, British Columbia, just outside the city proper. The 3,700-square-foot contemporary Craftsman is big enough for the family of six (and a rotating cast of relatives and friends) but doesn’t live large on its lot. The Karimuddins appreciate the home’s traditional interior and the all-white kitchen. But they also wanted the home to express their lively personalities—something they knew that - Interiors, interior designer Amber Kingsnorth, owner of MaK could deliver. She had worked on their previous residence, in Victoria, and she again pushed the envelope of their already adventurous spirits on almost every design choice in their new home. And they adore her for it. “They love all the quirky things, the weirdest patterns,” Kingsnorth says. “For them, it’s all about layering a contemporary feeling onto classic bones.”
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Kingsnorth especially nailed this balancing act in the kitchen. To set off the all-white cabinets, the designer went elegantly, tastefully wild with the backsplash. Working with Edgewater Studio, she designed and produced a custom aqua fish-scale glass tile in a pixelated gradient pattern to enliven the space and echo the blue tones that flow throughout the home like water. From the robin’s-egg Eames Side Chairs in the breakfast nook to the navy hues of the adjoining great room to the touches of bold azure in the playroom rug, the blues help unify the home’s disparate elements. Typically, clients are open to one risky idea, says Kingsnorth. But to her delight, the Karimuddin family breaks the mold. “These guys said, ‘Oh, you want to do five different wallpaper patterns that don’t go together? Sounds great!’” As a result, the designer “got a chance to mix up all these interesting materials.” A happy family is made up of vibrant individuals coexisting harmoniously—and the same is true of this house. It’s the distinct design moves, cleverly assembled, that create beauty. »
The custom backsplash brings color to the mostly white kitchen, while pendant lights from Mint Interiors add an industrial touch. OPPOSITE: In addition to blue hues, brass makes the home’s rooms cohere: the material appears in cabinet pulls and a pendant over the kitchen island, in a Jonathan Adler Ventana pendant over the breakfast nook, and in a Jonathan Adler Sputnik fixture over the dining room table, itself a commission from Once a Tree Furniture.
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“These clients were not afraid to take design risks to make this home their own. ‘Gradient fish-scale backsplash?’ they asked. ‘Why not? Black ceiling in the dining room with black-and-white splatter wallpaper? Sure!’” —AMBER KINGSNORTH, INTERIOR DESIGNER
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The clients’ four children got a special playroom created just for them and enlivened by a colorful Anthropologie rug. The two-story playhouse is integrated with the millwork but can be removed when the kids outgrow it. The space is “fun without being themed,” Kingsnorth says. h
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Pure of Art
RATHER THAN DOING A “HIPSTER FLIP” ON HER VICTORIAN HOME, DESIGNER GREY CROWELL PLAYED UP ITS HISTORIC PATINA—AND THE RESULT IS A DREAMY SPACE FOR HER CREATIVE GATHERINGS. Written by AMARA HOLSTEIN : Photographed by CARLA RICHMOND COFFING
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The centerpiece of Grey Crowell’s remodeled 1906 Victorian is the old wallpaper and plaster that she discovered under layers of paint. “You have only one chance to expose and preserve those details before they’re gone,” she says. Flourishes of rose and sage green match the walls in the living room, with its hemp linen window coverings sourced from Whole 9 Yards, an ’80s Deco-style lamp she sourced on Etsy, and a midcentury couch upholstered in rose corduroy that she found at the Estate Store in Portland. The floors are original to the house.
DESIGN TEAM
interiors: Foundation for Architecture and Design construction and carpentry: CitiLites Builders carpentry: Byerly Remodeling, Bill Hynes custom woodworking: Western Index GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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hen designer Grey Crowell, then a college student, bought a modest Victorian house on a quiet North Portland street a decade ago, she intended to simply tweak its interiors. A little paint here, some new fixtures there—that sort of thing. Over the years, as her house became a hip hangout for her friends, Crowell slowly chipped away at improvements. Even as she hosted bands in her dining room and let a friend live in a teepee in her backyard, she pulled up the brown shag carpeting and scraped the walls, which she says “had a really heavy ’70s brown spackle texture. They were gnarly.” In 2009, Crowell moved to New York and then to Paris. “I honed my tastes in Europe,” she says, “and discovered a love for early-20th-century furniture and design.” Next Los Angeles beckoned for architecture school, and after
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graduating in 2013, she spent a few years doing remodels for a real estate developer there and showing her multimedia artwork at local galleries. All the while, she continued to tinker with her Portland house, flying up from Los Angeles whenever she could and renting out the place to artist friends. Last year, she started her own firm, the Foundation for Architecture and Design, and hired a contractor for a minor remodel of her house. “Not that much,” she says of her initial plans. But just before work began, her contractor called to tell her that water had been gushing out of the bathroom for two weeks. With water literally dripping through the floors, “what was supposed to be a minor remodel became a major one,” says Crowell. “The flood changed everything.” In L.A., she’d spent her time doing “hipster flips,” as she calls them—turning old houses into clean, modern »
“I love playing with circles and squares in design,” says Crowell. That’s especially evident in the dining room, where the graceful curves of an 1890s J. & J. Kohn bentwood bench from Portland’s Grand Marketplace (opposite), as well as a vintage brass bar cart and the designer’s own clay sculpture (this page), are set against the strong lines of the geometric paneling and built-ins that Crowell added. The gray paint is Burnished Tudor, from Miller Paint Co.’s Evolution line.
“I’d been craving a chance to put in details that other people leave out. It’s really important for me to maintain that level of detail in all my work and make places come alive.” —GREY CROWELL, DESIGNER
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Upstairs, natural light streams through new Velux skylights onto walls painted in Miller Paint Co.’s Sealskin Shadow. Plenty of plants, a bentwood bamboo chair, and vintage Turkish angora-mohair tulu rugs add texture and warmth to the rooms. “My sister calls my style ‘modern monastic,’” Crowell says with a laugh. Nine-inch baseboard moldings provide quiet drama.
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TOP RIGHT: In an upstairs guest room, a curvy vintage mirror and revealed bits of wallpaper adorn the otherwise-bare walls. BOTTOM RIGHT: Crowell is fond of making little vignettes out of design elements, as in the downstairs bathroom, where the architectural detail on a new built-in makes stacked towels and a simple vase look special.
blank slates. But Crowell decided to “do something more surgical in my house, to uncover layers and see where they guided the design. In Europe, there are houses with old stone walls, with layers upon layers and odd bits chopped off. In the U.S., some people push that look too far, and it becomes shabby chic. But there’s a point at which the look is really elegant—I’m interested in that border between antique and kitsch.” Peeling away the many layers of paint in the living room, Crowell discovered old wallpaper attached to the underlying plaster walls with a wash of greenish glue. Rather than cover them up, she exposed the layers of glue, plaster, and wallpaper and sealed them with a matte acrylic lacquer, preserving their dusky pinks and greens. Similarly, she revealed flashes of old wallpaper in the upstairs bedrooms and hallway, like islands of history surfacing amid the newly pristine white walls. Despite the home’s Victorian vintage, it had “no architectural detailing, no molding or trim,” says Crowell. “I had to add everything.” Riffing off an original doorway molding (the home’s sole ornamentation), Crowell created geometric paneling throughout the downstairs to contrast with the old wallpaper, “allowing for something messy and raw to sit within something very controlled and clean.” Indeed, the whole house is a study in well-matched contrasts, rustic vintage furnishings and details commingling with new finishes and chic minimal style. Original Douglas fir floors, roughly sanded, flow throughout, complemented by gallery-white walls (the elegant gray in the dining room is an exception; “I wanted it to feel more formal,” Crowell says). After nine months of remodeling, Crowell’s house is finished at last. She rents it to visiting creatives to fund her fledging design firm and a new house that she’s building in L.A. But the Portland house still holds a place in her heart. “I used it to express my work,” she says. “Hipster flips suck the character out of houses. I’d been craving a chance to put in details that other people leave out. Now it’s really important for me to maintain that level of detail in all my work and make places come alive.” h GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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view finder No doilies here—an active couple on the verge of retirement commissions a modern abode.
Written by RACHEL GALLAHER : Photographed by DAVID PAPAZIAN
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ot everyone gets the chance to watch an orca while drinking their morning coffee—but for Mary and Phil Krueger, that’s a typical start to the day. Yet observing wildlife from the living room is only one perk of their new seaside home in Lincoln City, Oregon. In 2012, the Kruegers approached Giulietti | Schouten AIA Architects to replace their existing 1938 house— set on a stunning 13,500-square-foot waterfront lot— with a modern one where they could retire. Their architectural wish list included large windows and features such as wide doorframes and curbless showers that would enable them to easily age in place. To reconcile the clients’ spatial desires with strict building codes, the design team came up with a 2,600-square-foot
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two-story house that consists of two narrow, parallel rectangles, one shifted slightly ahead of the other on the lot. Interiors are trimmed with Douglas fir and the floor is rift-sawn oak; together the woods warm up the house’s crisp lines. Other contemporary features include a sliding barn door in the upstairs master suite and floating stairs that marry the two levels. The guest bedroom downstairs can be converted into a master suite should stairs eventually become too difficult for the clients. But for now the active couple, who love to kayak and hike, say that the cantilevered oak treads, supported by thin stainless-steel rods, are their favorite feature—second only to the expansive oceanfront windows. “The rest of the house had to work around those windows,” says Phil. “The sea life is often doing something interesting outside, so we always have a pair of binoculars on hand.” »
The interiors of this Lincoln City, Oregon, house are trimmed with golden-hued Douglas fir. The kitchen is positioned just past the entryway of the open-plan first floor. “It’s easy to come in, drop off your groceries, and walk into the living room to see spectacular ocean views,” says architect Dave Giulietti. The slab on the custom island and the countertops are PentalQuartz in Coastal Grey. A trio of Flos Fucsia 1 pendant lights from Hive hangs over the island, and stainless-steel appliances from Basco Appliances complement the room’s contemporary aesthetic. Oak floors throughout the house were installed by Western Hardwood Flooring.
DESIGN TEAM
architecture: Giulietti | Schouten AIA Architects construction: Don Young & Associates metalwork: Falcon Metalcraft cabinetry: L & Z Specialties
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“the clients knew they
wanted a modern house, but they didn’t want it to feel cold. in this project, the wood floors, ceilings, and trim provide a sense of warmth.” —DAVE GIULIETTI, ARCHITECT
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Homeowner Phil Krueger, a photography buff, captures images of whales, birds, and sea lions from his living room. Milgard Essence windows with Douglas fir interior trim offer floor-to-ceiling views of the Pacific Ocean. Walnut Cherner side chairs encircle a Saarinen dining table with a matte arabescato marble top while a Foscarini Big Bang suspension lamp hangs above (all from Hive). OPPOSITE: The home’s western views are breathtaking, but to maintain privacy on the eastern side, the architects installed a Milgard clerestory window. It lets light flow inward and frees up wall space for floating shelves, installed against Starphire tempered glass with white Opaci-Coat, sourced through Culver Glass and installed by Don Young & Associates. 
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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Floating shelves in the second-floor lounge house a book collection and a beloved thrift-store find—“We thought a house on the ocean needed to have a model ship,” notes Mary, one of the homeowners. Two bright Egg Chairs from Hive add a burst of color. The TV sits above a custom console designed by Phil and crafted by Portland cabinetmaker L & Z Specialties. The sliding barn door leading to the master suite was also made by L & Z, with hardware from Krownlab. In the suite, a Copeland Astrid bed sits on a shag rug from Unique Carpets. Floating stairs are a stylish touch. “To make them as light and transparent as possible, we chose oak risers without visible supports,” Giulietti explains. “You can see right through them.”
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Three deep skylights crown the space between the first and second levels. “The stairs are centrally located, and we wanted to bring light down into the first floor,” says Giulietti. “We used three standard skylights so light would reflect off the wood and bring warmth into the house.” h
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rock the
boat
A high-styling, highly social couple build a modern houseboat on Seattle’s Lake Union. Written by STACY KENDALL : Photographed by ALEX HAYDEN : Styled by RACHEL GRUNIG
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DESIGN TEAM
architecture: Baylis Architects construction: Trend Construction
In a Seattle houseboat’s dining area, a Saarinen table and armchairs from Design Within Reach evoke the golden years of midcentury design. Residents Kevin Gaspari and Kent Thoelke bought the Branching Bubble chandelier on a visit to lighting designer Lindsey Adelman’s New York City studio. The art is by local Vietnamese artist Diem Chau. OPPOSITE: The exterior panels are metal on the lower floor, fiber cement on the upper floor, and natural cedar siding in the recesses. To avoid visible fasteners, the construction team employed a cutting-edge gluing technique more commonly used in commercial projects. »
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While their houseboat was under construction, Gaspari and Thoelke made shopping trips around the country, seeking out clean-lined contemporary furniture and playful accessories. In Los Angeles, the couple visited Phase Design’s studio, then purchased its Bride’s Veil barstools through Totokaelo Art + Object. The living room sofas are from DDC New York, the carpet is from Driscoll Robbins, and the side chairs are iconic Knoll Barcelonas from Design Within Reach. The white kitchen cabinets, from Bellan Construction, are coated in a high-gloss polyester finish.
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evin Gaspari brought something unusual back from a 2007 trip he and his husband, Kent Thoelke, took to Bangkok: a fascination for homes built on the water, like those he saw along the banks of the Chao Phraya River. “I loved the movement of the water around these homes and the vibrant boating traffic, and I wanted that feeling for us in Seattle.” So in 2009, when they learned about an opportunity to buy a slip in one of the last houseboat developments allowed by the city of Seattle, Gaspari campaigned heavily to build on it. “Friends and I would drop hints to Kent about how cool it would be to live on a houseboat,” he says, aiming to thwart Thoelke’s visions of the bohemian bungalows that historically characterize Seattle’s houseboat scene. A few months later, the two toured a modern floating home being built in a local shipyard. Thoelke began to fully grasp the design possibilities, and the pair plunged headlong into
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the creation of their new home. Strongly driven by a personal interest in and talent for decorating, Gaspari took the lead by sketching out a rough plan on a napkin (both sides). The houseboat community’s listing agent suggested they talk to Juris Mindenbergs, owner of Trend Construction, because of his experience in building floating homes—a complicated process that often takes place in a shipyard and requires the construction of a 160-ton concrete float (which the houseboat sits on), as well as tugging the finished home into place after construction is complete. Mindenbergs, in turn, suggested Baylis Architects, the firm that had designed his own home, as a good fit for the project. The couple agreed—especially once they realized how well the two firms work together and how open they are to working closely with clients. “We wanted the process to be really collaborative,” says Thoelke. “There were a million decisions to make, and we wanted to be
FROM LEFT: The homeowners handpicked each walnut panel for the dining room sidebar. The powder room boasts groovy sconces by Jonathan Adler and Aimée Wilder’s Loops wallpaper. The master bedroom on the first floor features an Eames Lounger from Design Within Reach, a rug from Restoration Hardware, and Jonathan Adler bedding. Truman, one of the couple’s two West Island terriers, is the room’s finishing touch.
involved in every one of them.” The architects embraced their clients’ enthusiasm as well as their concept for a warm, modern structure that opened to the water. “These were dream clients,” says Brian Brand, senior principal at Baylis. “They knew what they wanted from the beginning and stuck to the vision.” Many design decisions were driven by the couple’s social lifestyle. To facilitate entertaining and ensure a seamless flow from room to room, the architects and builders devised a structural system using a grid of exposed steel beams across the 30-foot span of the main living room floor, obviating the need for internal load-bearing walls or vertical beams. Interior elements such as the kitchen cabinets and fireplace were placed strategically on this framework for aesthetic balance. “It’s a really nice concept that they brought to us,” says Thoelke. The pair entertains year-round, so they needed a versatile, weather-ready indoor-outdoor living space. A wall of
floor-to-ceiling windows that opens accordion-style overlooks Lake Union, leading to a deck where the couple hosts dinner parties. When the weather turns chilly, they lower the electronic sunscreens and turn on overhead heat lamps, making the space as cozy as an indoor dining room. The rooftop, too, which spans the full 30-by-40-foot dimensions of the house, is an entertainment space. Since some of the outdoor furniture had to be craned individually into place while the house was still under construction, “we had to be really sure of our selections,” says Gaspari with a laugh. All their efforts paid off handsomely: the day their completed house made its journey from the shipyard where it was built to the slip where it would reside, the couple came along for the ride. “We got to sit on the roof, on our furniture, with a bottle of champagne,” Gaspari recalls. As they glided behind a tugboat across Lake Union, “people were honking and waving—it was pretty crazy.” When you live on a houseboat, life is never ordinary. h GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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architecture
Since its renovation by Vancouver firm Office of McFarlane Biggar Architects + Designers, the University of British Columbia Bookstore has been nicknamed “the Lantern” for its glowing transparency at night. Lime-green furniture and accents brighten an otherwise neutral material palette on the mezzanine. The university’s goal was to “draw people in and transform the building into a vibrant social space,” interior designer Michelle Biggar says.
ONE FOR THE BOOKS
Vancouver’s Office of McFarlane Biggar Architects + Designers writes a new chapter in modern design for the University of British Columbia Bookstore. Written by BRIAN LIBBY : Photographed by EMA PETER
DESIGN TEAM
architecture, interiors, and branding: Office of McFarlane Biggar Architects + Designers construction: Syncra Construction landscape architecture: Hapa Collaborative structural engineering: Fast + Epp mechanical engineering: Integral Group electrical engineering: MMM Group millwork: Morinwood
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HOME FURNISHINGS SHOWROOM DESIGN CONSULTATION SERVICES 1122 NW GLISAN ST. PORTLAND, OR 97209
Photography: Michael Stearns / Hybrid3 a design studio
WWW.EWFMODERN.COM | T. 503.295.7336
Furniture, lighting, hardware & doors—we create the unique objects you desire. GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
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t
he University of British Columbia Bookstore in Vancouver has long enjoyed a prominent place at the heart of campus. But the physical building, completed in 1983, wasn’t inviting: the store’s entrance was sunk 8 feet into the ground, and its interiors were dimly lit and compartmentalized into small sections. “It felt cave-like,” recalls Debbie Harvie, UBC’s managing director for university community services. So the university embraced the chance to renovate and reimagine the bookstore: to make it not only more welcoming, but also a place to linger, with plenty of public areas and gathering spots inside and out. With its expertise in architecture and interior and graphic design, Vancouver’s Office of McFarlane Biggar Architects + Designers took a holistic approach to the project. First the
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LEFT: The designers framed a series of opened books to highlight favorite literary quotes chosen by locals. TOP: A simple palette of natural wood fixtures and furniture keeps customers focused on the colorful merchandise. The millwork, by Morinwood, combines natural wood and white Corian. ABOVE: The new mezzanine, outfitted with Spark lounge chairs and Maya Lin Adult Stone tables, both by Knoll from Inform Interiors, gives visitors places to study or hang out.
firm lifted the main space up to grade with the street, which made the bookstore “much more visible, but also lighter and brighter,” explains Michelle Biggar, OMB’s interior designer. The new entry is flush with the exterior plaza, and a secondlevel mezzanine lines the perimeter of the store’s addition, providing views of the interior spaces and cantilevering over (and shading) the exterior plaza. The design also focused »
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architecture LEFT AND BELOW: The glass façade, emblazoned with quotes from dozens of books, provides extra sun protection for students and shoppers and casts a series of text-shaped shadows. BOTTOM: OMB collaborated with Vancouver landscape architecture firm Hapa Collaborative to activate the adjacent plaza with fresh greenery.
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are emblazoned with text from books chosen by members of the community, washing the interiors with diffuse light and throwing sentence-shaped shadows. Any college bookstore sells textbooks and supplies, but UBC’s has become something more: a place where people can meet and exchange ideas. “We’re an anchor for the campus now,” Harvie says. “People are always coming in to see what’s new, and there’s always something fresh for customers to see through the windows. The space makes me smile every time I go inside.” h
LATREILLE-DELAGE
on improving foot traffic and opening sightlines. “Before the renovation, you couldn’t see from one end of the store to the other,” Biggar says. Now everything feels connected. The firm also created a new logo for the store and unified the space’s formerly disjointed interior materials with a simple palette of exposed-concrete floors and stairs, white walls and metalwork, and natural wood ceilings and millwork. To encourage students and faculty to gather, as well as to provide informal study spaces, the mezzanine level offers a series of tables and seating. Its fritted glass walls
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TheBurrard.com • 1.800.663.0366 99 GRAY ISSUE No. TWENTY-FOUR
furniture complex
©ILANA PANICH LINSMAN
profile
Don’t call him a designer—intrepid artist Roy McMakin is scything out his own creative path. Written by JAIME GILLIN : Photographed by MARK WOODS
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oy McMakin’s career path has been anything but linear. Over the past 40 years, he’s created furniture, sculptures, houses, glassware, public art, paintings, and more. He’s founded three successful businesses, exhibited his work at major museums and galleries across the U.S., and built a cult following as he’s blurred the lines among architecture, art, and furniture. The Seattle- and San Diego–based artist attributes his breadth and unabashed genre-hopping to inherent confidence: “Throughout my life—and to my utter disbelief—I’ve been selfassured about my creativity,” he says. “I’ve always felt I could take on anything.” His formal training is in studio art (he’s never taken an architecture or design class), and he treats each commission as an original artwork. “I build a house or a chair in the same way that I make a sculpture. I don’t think I’m really a designer. Design is, to a large degree, about problem-solving, but I am more interested in philosophical issues: perception, meaning, and the way that objects both contain and trigger emotion.”
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His pieces are functional, but they transcend practicality. Through playful details and odd proportions, such as a single oversized knob or upholstery that flaunts its selvage, they encourage us to engage with them closely. Latent in their offkilter visual language is an affective undercurrent—“They’re about home, and the longing for home,” McMakin says. McMakin’s own relationship to home is still evolving. After 20 years in Seattle, he recently decamped for San Diego when his geneticist husband took a job there. They brought along McMakin’s architecture firm, Domestic Architecture. (Big Leaf Manufacturing, McMakin’s furniture workshop, still operates in Seattle, so he splits his time between the cities.) It’s a homecoming for McMakin: he began his career in San Diego in the mid-’80s after graduating from UC San Diego’s MFA program, and he credits Southern California as the birthplace of much of his aesthetic—specifically the region’s early-20thcentury interpretation of the Arts and Crafts movement, with its emphasis on fine craftsmanship and democratic design. We caught up with McMakin in his Seattle loft, surrounded by moving boxes and a scattering of his own furniture, to discuss his singular vision and unconventional path. »
Domestic Architecture, Roy McMakin’s architecture firm, works primarily on residential commissions. Pictured here is a cottage McMakin renovated in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Rustic Canyon in 2010. The furniture, all custom pieces by McMakin except for a set of vintage dining chairs he altered with paint, “plays off the building’s cottageness,” he says.
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profile
Was there a particular moment, person, or thing that first sparked your interest in furniture? You know how a baby animal can imprint on the wrong species as its parent, like a rabbit that thinks a wolf is its mother? As a small kid, you look for security and unconditional love. I didn’t get that from my parents, so I imprinted on furniture. I became fascinated with furniture and houses starting around 10. I looked at stuff around my house and learned what I loved: furniture’s sculptural aspects and emotional content. I always had good drawing and painting skills, and in my early teens, in Denver, I had art shows at banks and sold little landscape paintings for like 200 dollars. I was this rich little prodigy painter. Then my mother and I would go to estate
be a different piece. These kinds of issues are intriguing, and they’re at the heart of what I do. Even when I make houses, I think about how to create both familiarity and the sense of seeing something for the first time. It’s a formal process, done by playing with scale and tiny juxtapositions. But there is a word for that process, and it is sculpture. You know what I mean?
Can you tell me more about the emotional pull of objects? This is complicated stuff. Why does a certain thing move us? Some people are drawn toward stylish, au courant objects, as if they are advancing the dialogue of fashion, but that’s not what interests me. A guy in my Seattle workshop once recorded the heights of coffee tables I’d made, which fluctuated within a 2-inch range. The variance occurred because I wasn’t thinking about style— just the relationship of my body to the tables’ plane. That’s what fascinates me.
In 1987, you opened Domestic Furniture, a showroom in Los Angeles, and quickly became an art- and design-world darling, with clients ranging from museum curators to Hollywood celebrities. How did that transpire? I was dabbling in functional furniture alongside my studio art practice, and I was trying to get commissions from Los Angeles collectors for pieces for their lofts. But then I got drunk one night with my friend Anne Nugent, an art collector who was looking to do something new. I said, “Well, we could open a furniture company! It would be fun and easy.” This was the late ’80s, when zero American furniture was made. You bought Italian furniture, antiques, or High Point bullshit— that’s all there was. So I thought, “Let’s do a little furniture thing that has a real point of view. Let’s create pieces that are an alternative to »
Yes, I think so. I’m just circling around why I think I’m an artist. As a kid, I essentially looked for art and meaning in the objects in my life. I initially just pulled whatever furniture was stored in our basement up into my bedroom to study, and then I took my riches from painting pictures of mountains and bought other objects, which I imbued with the same value as a fine painting or a piece of sculpture. They were really deeply meaningful to me. Given my “I HAVE A CLEAR POINT OF VIEW AND A SET OF ISSUES circumstances, I had no sense of the hierTHAT INTEREST ME, AND THEY’VE BEEN CONSISTENT archy of objects. It’s the Marcel Duchamp SINCE I WAS VERY YOUNG. MY WORKS HAVE ALWAYS idea: you move a urinal into a gallery and thus shift it from the realm of everyday life HAD DOMESTICITY AS THEIR SUBJECT MATTER—THEY’RE to the realm of special consideration. ABOUT HOME AND THE LONGING FOR HOME.” —ROY MCMAKIN Some people say that my work has a subversive nature because I refuse to completely buy into the value hierarchy of art objects. On the other hand, I’m saying my stuff should be considered as if it were made by an artist, sales and flea markets, and I’d obsessively buy furniture. My with a high level of intentionality. To a degree, this tension first piece, when I was 12, was a Gustav Stickley drop-front in my thinking has contributed to my career success. Still, it desk for my room. I had no idea what it was or what it was would be easier if I could just make nicely designed things. worth. I just responded to it as an interesting object.
How a small change can have a big effect on a piece? Yeah—a tiny change matters a lot. Look at somebody’s face: the difference between finding him incredibly attractive and incredibly unattractive can be the smallest variance. [Gestures at the table.] Were this tabletop even a little thinner, it would
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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Part art installation, part guestroom, Untitled (True Guest Room) was a 2003 commission from McMakin’s longtime clients, the Seattle art supporters Bill and Ruth True. The couple’s master bathroom offers views of Lake Washington and Mount Rainier from the shower. For the Rhodes residence renovation, McMakin took his clients’ request for a “more open” home literally, slicing an aperture in the wall and door between the dining room and stairwell. A crisp white pool pavilion in Beverly Hills sets off a vignette of custom Domestic Furniture pieces, each painted its own custom hue.
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profile
In 2008, McMakin exhibited a series of sculptures at Matthew Marks Gallery in New York City, including this set of nested-together wood tables—one found and one meticulously fabricated by Big Leaf Manufacturing, McMakin’s Seattle workshop. OPPOSITE: A door emblazoned with an all-caps “I LOVE U” is McMakin’s playfully literal response to a client’s request for a “friendlier house.” »
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postmodernism”—connected to it but without its cartoonish nature or overtness—and which don’t quote as much as deeply embed references to older architecture and design into their forms. I was thinking you need to stare down the past to move into the future, and about objects that were simultaneously part of the present, the past, and the future.
Your career has been expansive: it’s continually encompassed more project typologies, materials, and design genres. Are you still spreading out or narrowing in? When you’re my age—basically 60—you wonder what you really want to do. Until now I’ve just done all kinds of things. I am in a pretty contemplative place right now and getting tired of the hustle of getting commissions and running companies. I’m building a home in San Diego for my husband and myself, and I would love to do a few more very serious residential commissions with the right people. I’ve written a children’s book about objects—I just need to do the illustrations. There’s also a part of me that just wants a studio art practice again: I’ll have my studio in my house, and I’ll do little drawings of vases or something, and people can buy them. Or not.
How did you get into designing houses? That’s quite a leap in scale. A couple of clients came into Domestic Furniture to buy a sofa for a house they were remodeling. They showed me their plans, which they felt a little negative about. I offered to design it for them—I presented my notion of what I wanted to do, and they commissioned it. In hindsight, now that I’m older and wiser, I’m like, “What were these people thinking?” ‘I like your table, so you can design a multimillion-dollar house?’” It seemed reasonable at the time, but it’s incredible to me now. But then more and more “I DON’T people asked me to design their homes.
Does it feel good to be back in San Diego? DO I love Seattle, but I think I’ll get more traction in Southern CaliforDESIGN. I DO HAVE nia. I lived in Seattle for 20 years Are you fond of any particular house? A DESIGNER’S POINT and got attention on an internaI designed a house in Washington Park for my OF VIEW, BUT I AM tional level but only a handful of close friends Ruth and Bill True. It reflects their AN ARTIST AND local commissions. I’m not that personalities, which are 180-degree opposites. I THINK LIKE AN out there, but apparently people in Ruth never shuts up or stays still. Bill is very Seattle consider me edgy. People quiet, stationary, pondering. So I created a house ARTIST.”—ROY MCMAKIN in the Northwest want a level of that was both peaceful and a hamster cage—it neutrality. My stuff is not neutral. has way more ins and outs and stairways than My stuff has personality. are needed, so Ruth can run up this staircase and When I set up my workshop in Seattle in the mid-’90s, it down that staircase and all around. A great house is one that was a working-class city, and it seemed like a place to build you experience not only visually, but also choreographically. interesting new things. Then it got all fancy. As it turns out, Seattle is more of a money-focused city than an art city. That’s the house with that wild art installation as its guest room? You’ve found a different vibe in San Diego? Ruth and Bill had this super-depressing guest room, and they Here’s my line about San Diego: If I’m going to eventually wanted to make it groovy. But they didn’t want to commisgrow to resent a place, it might as well have good weather! sion my furniture because it’s really expensive to build. So I proposed that we go shopping at some dumb, creepy furniture Yeah, it’s about money here, too. But people actually do fight over cute little buildings that are getting torn down, and they store in Bellevue and buy all the furniture in one swoop—and make a big deal. There’s lingering utopianism here. » then we hopped in the car and did it. I came up with the idea that the room would have three zones: gray, natural-colored, and white. We modified and painted over the crappy furniture accordingly and then decided, “Okay, that’s it!”
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TOP LEFT AND RIGHT: A 2002 wingback chair, commissioned by an art-collector couple in San Antonio, puts unexpected emphasis on a toile fabric’s wide selvage. “I thought it was funny the way it cut through the pattern,” McMakin explains. ABOVE AND BELOW: McMakin founded Big Leaf Manufacturing in Seattle in 1997, originally for the sole purpose of building his own custom pieces—both furniture and sculptures—at a high level of quality. “It was kind of like putting together a band,” he reflects. “We worked together to perfect the work and fabrication process. Now it’s probably one of the greatest furniture shops in the world.” Full-time artisans on staff include a finisher, upholsterer, and several woodworkers. The company recently began accepting fabrication commissions from other architects, artists, and designers.
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profile
©PHILIPP SCHOLZ RITTERMANN
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: The various elements within Love and Loss, an interactive outdoor sculpture in Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park, spell out “love” and “loss,” with a rotating neon ampersand hovering above. McMakin’s Favorite Color mural, depicting locals’ favorite colors, brightens a street in San Diego’s La Jolla neighborhood. “I’m fascinated by people’s intense emotional reaction to color,” he says. “I think the one question that gets rid of cynicism is ‘What’s your favorite color?’ It just takes you back to when you were a kid. Everyone has an answer.” In 2004, Domestic Architecture transformed a 10,000-squarefoot Seattle warehouse into the (now-shuttered) Western Bridge contemporary art center. A custom door with a transparent glass corner creates a surreal effect when viewed from the interior. h
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Landscape Architecture Urban Design
hapacobo.com 604 909 4150
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resources
23. NEWS Caldwell Sculpture Studio Seattle caldwellsculpturestudio.com EMP Seattle empmuseum.org Highwire Inc. highwireus.com Kompan Tacoma, WA kompan.us Seattle Center Seattle seattlecenter.com Site Workshop Seattle siteworkshop.net 26. HERE & THERE AIA Seattle Seattle aiaseattle.org Captured 52 Portland captured52.com Civilization Seattle builtbycivilization.com Fieldwork Design Portland fieldworkdesign.net IIDA Oregon iida-or.org LAMP welovelamp.ca Lindström Rugs lindstromrugs.com Available through: Terris Draheim Seattle terrisdraheim.com Superfront superfront.com Upper Left Roasters Portland upperleftroasters.com WestEdge Design Fair Santa Monica, CA westedgedesignfair.com 28. THE SCOOP Hayden Collective Seattle carriehayden.com Kelly Wearstler kellywearstler.com
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Visual Comfort & Co. visualcomfort.com
Lightform Vancouver lightform.ca
37. SOURCED Boffi boffi.com
MGS mgstaps.com
Henrybuilt Seattle henrybuilt.com
Roll and Hill Brooklyn, NY rollandhill.com
Inform Interiors Vancouver informinteriors.com
Statements Tile and Stone Seattle statementstile.com
Livingspace Vancouver livingspace.com
Victoria + Albert vandabaths.com
Pedini pediniusa.com
Woonwinkel Portland woonwinkelhome.com
Redl Kitchen Studio Vancouver redlkitchenstudio.com SieMatic siematic.com 44. TREND Arnold’s Appliance Bellevue, WA arnoldsappliance.com
DuChateau duchateau.com
CB2 Vancouver cb2.com
Chown Hardware Portland and Bellevue, WA chown.com
Hammer & Hand Portland and Seattle hammerandhand.com
Icera icerausa.com Jenn-Air jennair.com Just Add Water Vancouver justaddwaterbc.ca KitchenAid kitchenaid.com
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Parker Fitzgerald Portland ransomltd.com
Benjamin Moore benjaminmoore.com
Osmose Design Portland osmosedesign.com
Hudson’s Bay Vancouver thebay.com
Overgrowth seeovergrowth.com
Designform Furnishings designformfurnishings.com
Blanco blancocanada.com blancoamerica.com
The Fixture Gallery Multiple locations thefixturegallery.com
56. CONTEXT Erba Floral Studio Portland erbastudio.com
64. INTERIORS Allied Marble & Granite Seattle alliedmarbleinc.com
Hive Portland hivemodern.com
Ferm Living fermliving.com
Zioxla zioxla.com
46. KITCHEN Big Branch Woodworking Portland bigbranchwoodworking.com
Best Plumbing Seattle bestplumbing.com
Fioranese fioranese.it
52. FASHION Lift Label Portland liftlabel.com Olderbrother Portland olderbrother.us
48. BATH Inform Interiors Seattle and Vancouver informseattle.com informinteriors.com 50. BATH Chadhaus Seattle store.chadhaus.com JAS Design Build Seattle jasdesignbuild.com Perry Excavation and Concrete Renton, WA perryexcavation.com Quality Plumbing Multiple locations qualityplumbing.cc Swenson Say Faget Seattle ssfengineers.com
Crate & Barrel crateandbarrel.com Evan Scott Cabinet and Furniture Seattle evanscottcabinet.com Haak Construction Seattle (206) 782-6684
Restoration Hardware restorationhardware.com Robert Crowder & Company robertcrowder.com Rohl rohlhome.com 70. INTERIORS Anthropologie anthropologie.com Bocci Vancouver bocci.ca Dakota Holdings Vancouver dakotahomes.ca Edgewater Studio Vancouver edgewaterstudio.com Jordans Interiors & Floor Coverings Vancouver jordans.ca Kate Duncan Vancouver kateduncan.ca Kentwood Floors Vancouver kentwoodfloors.ca MaK Interiors Vancouver makinteriors.ca Once a Tree Furniture Vancouver onceatreefurniture.com
Ikea ikea.com
Pyramid Metalworks Vancouver pyramidmetalworks.com
Janof Architecture Seattle janofarchitecture.com
Salari Fine Carpets Vancouver salari.com
Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams Portland mgbwhome.com
Zientte Vancouver zientte.ca
Modernica modernica.net
76. PURE OF ART Byerly Remodeling Portland byerlyremodeling.com
Overstock overstock.com Pental Granite & Marble pentalonline.com Pottery Barn potterybarn.com Raymond Barberousse studiopgrb.com
CitiLites Builders Portland citilitesbuilders.com Estate Store Portland communitywarehouse.org Foundation for Architecture and Design ffaad.com
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resources
Grand Marketplace Portland grandmarketplacepdx.com
Diem Chau Seattle diemchau.com
Miller Paint Co. Multiple locations millerpaint.com
Lindsey Adelman lindseyadelman.com
Western Index Portland westernindex.com 82. VIEW FINDERS Basco Appliances Portland bascoappliances.com
Jonathan Adler Seattle jonathanadler.com Miele miele.com Phase Design phasedesignonline.com
100. PROFILE Big Leaf Manufacturing Seattle bigleafmfg.com Domestic Furniture Seattle domesticfurniture.com 114. MY NORTHWEST Forest for the Trees Portland forestforthetreesnw.com Gage Hamilton Portland gagehamilton.com
Copeland Furniture copelandfurniture.com
Restoration Hardware Seattle restorationhardware.com
Culver Glass Multiple locations culver-glass.com
Room & Board Seattle roomandboard.com
Don Young & Associates Portland dyaconstruction.com
Totokaelo Art-Object Seattle art-object.totokaelo.com
6. Alchemy Collections Seattle alchemycollections.com camerichseattle.com
Falcon Metalcraft Canby, OR 503-223-2989
Trend Construction Redmond, WA (425) 885-5333
75. Anderson Poolworks andersonpoolworks.com
Giulietti | Schouten AIA Architects Portland gsarchitects.net
94. ARCHITECTURE Fast + Epp Vancouver fastepp.com
Hive Portland hivemodern.com Krownlab Portland krownlab.com L & Z Specialties Portland (503) 774-5322 Pental Granite & Marble Multiple locations pentalonline.com Unique Carpets uniquecarpetsltd.com Western Hardwood Floors (503) 289-7777 88. ROCK THE BOAT Aimée Wilder aimeewilder.com Baylis Architects Seattle baylisarchitects.com Bellan Construction Seattle bellan.com Design Within Reach Portland and Seattle dwr.com
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Hapa Collaborative Vancouver hapacobo.com Inform Interiors Seattle and Vancouver informseattle.com informinteriors.com Integral Group Vancouver integralgroup.com
AD INDEX 23. AIA Seattle Seattle aiaseattle.org
95. Argent Fabrication Seattle argentfab.com 5. B & B Italia Seattle bebitalia.com divafurnitureseattle.com 16. Bellevue Arts Museum Bellevue, WA bellevuearts.org 36. Best Plumbing Seattle bestplumbing.com
Knoll knoll.com
97. Beyond Beige North Vancouver beyondbeige.com
MMM Group Vancouver mmmgrouplimited.com
41. BLANCO blancocanada.com blancoamerica.com
Morinwood Victoria, BC morinwood.ca
43. Bradlee Distributors, Inc. Multiple locations bradlee.net
Office of McFarlane Biggar Architects + Designers Vancouver officemb.ca
17. Chown Hardware Portland, Bellevue, WA chown.com 32. Civilization Seattle builtbycivilization.com 45. Cosentino cosentino.com dekton.com 22. DXV American Standard dxv.com 95. EWF Modern Portland ewfmodern.com 115. The Fixture Gallery Multiple locations thefixturegallery.com 4. Hammer & Hand Seattle and Portland hammerandhand.com 109. Hapa Collaborative Vancouver hapacobo.com 2. Hive Portland hivemodern.com 29. IIDA Oregon Chapter Portland iida-or.org 11. Interlam interlam-design.com 109. K & L Interiors Seattle kandlinteriors.com 35. L A M P welovelamp.ca 10. Loewen loewen.com Available through: Sound Glass Tacoma soundglass.com Windows Doors & More Seattle windowshowroom.com 116. Lounge22 Los Angeles lounge22.com
55. Brian Paquette Interiors Seattle brianpaquetteinteriors.com
109. Madera Furniture Company Tacoma, WA maderafurnitureco.com
Syncra Construction Vancouver syncraconstruction.com
14. Bright on Presidio San Francisco brightonpresidio.com
61. Maison Inc. Portland, maisoninc.com
The University of British Columbia Vancouver ubc.ca
99. The Burrard Vancouver theburrard.com
15. The Modern Fan Co. modernfan.com
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111. OPUS Hotel vancouver.opushotel.com 22. OOLA Distillery Seattle ooladistillery.com 97. Ragen & Associates Seattle ragenassociates.com 63. Roche Bobois Seattle, Portland roche-bobois.com 62. Roll & Hill rollandhill.com 13. Room & Board Seattle roomandboard.com 21. Schuchart/Dow Seattle schuchartdow.com 99. Studio Gioia Seattle sgioia.com 43. Sub-Zero, Wolf Available through: Albert Lee Appliance Seattle albertleeappliance.com Arnold’s Appliance Bellevue, WA arnoldsappliance.com Basco Appliances Portland bascoappliances.com 7. Tufenkian Portland tufenkianportland.com 25. The Urban Electric Co. urbanelectricco.com 109. Vanillawood Portland vanillawood.com 99. Vida Design Portland vida-design.net 47. Waterworks waterworks.com Available through: Chown Hardware Portland, Bellevue, WA chown.com Cantu Bathrooms & Hardware Vancouver cantubathrooms.com Mountain Land Design Salt Lake City mountainlanddesign.com 30. WestEdge Design Fair Santa Monica westedgedesignfair.com
market The ultimate buyer’s guide. Your resource for everything from design studios and artisans to trades- and craftspeople.
MODERN SLIDING BARN DOOR HARDWARE
Jamieson Furniture Gallery
Ragnar by Krownlab is the new industry standard in sliding door hardware. Strikingly simple design. Completely field adjustable. Fast and easy to install. ADA compliant. Industry leading 10-year warranty. Designed, engineered, and fabricated in Portland, Oregon.
For the past 25 years, designer Richard Jamieson has been recognized as a leader in the modern urban plank movement. Jamieson Furniture’s large Bellevue showroom artfully blends handcrafted live-edged tables with unique and custom-designed hardwood furniture for all the rooms in your home.
krownlab.com support@krownlab.com | (800) 356-8586
10217 Main Street, Bellevue, WA 98004 www.jamiesonfurniture.com (425) 577-8627
Tom Bakker Design
not2big®
Are you building a new home, condo, or office, or are you planning to remodel? As a professional interior designer, I would love to work with you. I’m a great listener and have been involved in projects all along the West Coast, from Vancouver, B.C., to La Jolla, CA. I also create one-of-a-kind contemporary art, and I’d be happy to discuss your custom-art needs as well. My latest commission was recently installed in a home at Big Horn Golf Club in Palm Desert, CA.
React. Reduce. Rethink. Recycle. Relax. At not2big, we build modern artisan furniture and accessories one piece at a time. Handcrafted and individually numbered, no two pieces are exactly alike. Our designs combine the warmth of wood with a creative mix of other materials to produce timeless furniture that is functional and beautiful. Whether you choose an in-house design or a custom piece, it will be a true original. Our goal is to inspire, delight, and surprise, bringing our clients a personalized experience and providing them with a unique product not available anywhere else. We’re rethinking how furniture is made.
Call me today to book your first consultation. (206) 877-3327 • (604) 329-9419 tom@tombakkerdesign.com • www.tombakkerdesign.com
www.not2big.com (425) 503-0710
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my northwest WHO:
gage hamilton
Artist and founder, Forest for the Trees WHERE: Corner of SW 12th Avenue and SW Stark Street, Portland Photographed by WILLIAM ANTHONY
A few years ago, artist Gage Hamilton looked around Portland and saw a discrepancy
between his hometown’s reputation as a vibrant creative community and the way the city looked from the street (“too pristine, and blander all the time”). In cities such as Rio and Buenos Aires, he’d seen public murals enlivening urban space, making a walk through the streets an inspiring and dynamic experience. He wanted the same for Portland. So in 2013, after securing the necessary permits, Hamilton invited 13 visual artists from around the world to create 10 large-scale public murals throughout Portland in an effort to “let artists have a hand in creating the visual environment of the city.” The now-annual event, dubbed Forest for the Trees, has grown with each iteration. This year’s drew 30 artists from as far afield as Peru, New Zealand, and Russia to splash Portland with 20 murals—including a collaboration (pictured here) between San Francisco mural painter Troy Lovegates and Portland ceramicist Paige Wright. The paint’s still drying (the last F.F.T.T. mural will be completed on October 20), but Hamilton already feels the impact: “Property owners who aggressively said no to me the first year are now reaching out to request murals. They see that public art makes neighborhoods brighter and more livable.” h
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SEE MORE FOREST FOR THE TREES MURALS AT GRAYMAG.COM/ FFTT
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