ISSUE
51
architecture interiors design fashion
THE VANGUARD ISSUE IA N G R IF F IT HS G IO R G IO G U ID O T T I P A U L A SC HE R J E NNY E . SA B IN A ND E E HE SS T HO M A S ING E NLA T H J E A N P A U L G A U LT IE R T O LU C O K E R T A D A O A ND O R E NZ O P IA NO + MORE
ch24 wishbone chair, 1949 by hans wegner - made in denmark by carl hansen & son
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n 2011, GRAY embarked on its mission when CEO Shawn Williams found the uncommon courage to blaze a new trail and launch the first magazine dedicated to world-class design emerging from the Pacific Northwest. At the time, it was a big risk rooted in heart, passion, instinct, and dreams. Much has changed in the near-decade since. The world has become ever more connected, a digital cacophony speeding the flow of ideas across countries and continents to a point where design truly knows no boundaries. So now, we take another leap of faith (an act with which the vanguards featured in this issue are well acquainted) to proudly become the only international design magazine based in the region—one that cuts through the noise to spotlight the best in global design from our uniquely grounded and distinctive point of view. We’re thrilled to be stepping onto the world stage, but as this issue attests, we’ll never forget where we came from, or our core belief in the power of design to change life and culture for the better. As such, we remain deeply committed to providing a platform for the most noteworthy work in the Pacific Northwest. Alongside the inspiring projects and people from our local community that have long defined GRAY, Issue No. 51 presents exclusive features with some of the most dynamic designers in the world today: a creative director of a famed Italian fashion house whose feminist influence extends well beyond the runway; a groundbreaking graphic designer who has forever altered New York City’s visual landscape; the chief design officer of a revered Swedish automotive company that is pushing the bounds of sustainability; and an architect merging the fields of biology, artificial intelligence, and materials science. These stories bring to light the perpetual exchange of ideas that occurs across disciplines, a vivid reminder that the lines between architecture, interiors, design, and fashion aren’t black and white—they’re GRAY. In the months to come, we will continue to explore the spaces in between and look forward to sharing the adventure with you. As we go to press, the world is changing in ways few of us could have imagined, with our industry—and society at large— confronting a watershed moment. We sincerely hope this issue will help to provide a sense of optimism and, at the very least, a momentary escape. In solidarity, Your friends at GRAY
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OUR SINCERE THANKS TO ALL WHO MADE ISSUE NO. 51 POSSIBLE AGS STAINLESS
ATELIER DROME
BC&J ARCHITECTURE BLU DOT
BABIENKO ARCHITECTS
MALIN BERDEN
BOCONCEPT
BRADLEE DISTRIBUTORS
CHADBOURNE + DOSS ARCHITECTS RUSSELL DATZ
JORDAN BERTA
CHOWN HARDWARE
DOWBUILT
CAMERON FLAHERTY
ALICE GAINI
FIRST LAMP
GUGGENHEIM ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN STUDIO LINDSAY HANSON ERIC HORVITZ
MELANIE HEICKLEN
OLIVIA LUGARINI
ALEXIA MENTIS
RAGEN & ASSOCIATES RUFPROJECT WES SEELEY
ÉLODIE JOLIVET
SARAH REID
KYLIE SALEE
ALLIE SALIANI
KIDESSA SHATTUCK
STEELHEAD ARCHITECTURE
THE RICHARDS GROUP
VIRANI REAL ESTATE ADVISORS WOLF
JUDGIE GRAHAM
REBECCA HAINES
SKYLAB
WORKSHOP AD
PROVENANCE HOTELS ROOM & BOARD
SCOTT | EDWARDS ARCHITECTURE
STEPHENSON DESIGN COLLECTIVE
KENDALL SMITH ROBERT STOREY
NICOLE SWANSEN
TYLER ENGLE ARCHITECTS
KRISTEN WEIL
JIAXIN LIN
SCOTT ROBERTSON
EMILIE SMITH
EVIE SUDLOW
ANDREA IACOPI
SABRINA LEE
ROSSANA PALMISANO
RESOURCE FURNITURE
JAMIE HAN
AMELIA HOKE
HYDE EVANS DESIGN
LA DESIGN FESTIVAL
AMANDA TRANTINO
WANTEDDESIGN
WORKS PROGRESS ARCHITECTURE
LAUREN GLAZER
HOEDEMAKER PFEIFFER
JELKA MUSIC
SUB-ZERO
MORGAN THEYS
FERGUSON
SHAWNA (ROWAN) SCHMITZ
KATHRYN STENGER
COVE
EMERICK ARCHITECTS
HACKER
BENJAMIN HUBERT
SKHS ARCHITECTS
STUDIO AM ARCHITECTURE | INTERIORS
HIVE
KURT KOEPFLE
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COSENTINO
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ANNE MURPHY
MARLENE CAPRON
DESIGN WEEK PORTLAND
GATH INTERIOR DESIGN
HOSHIDE WANZER ARCHITECTS
JANOF ARCHITECTURE
FRANCESCA COLOMBO
EGGLESTON | FARKAS
HIGHTOWER
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JILLIAN DESANTIS
DESIGNER FURNITURE GALLERY
DOVETAIL GENERAL CONTRACTORS
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STEFANIA CANTA
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DESIGN WITHIN REACH
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WEWORK
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LINGJUN XU
GRAY
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NO 5 1 : THE VANGUARD ISSUE
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6 . H E L L O 10 . M A S T H E A D 1 2 . C O N T R I B U T O R S
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INTEL
DESIGN DNA
1 9 . F I R S T L O O K Jean Paul Gaultier releases nature-inspired wallpaper, Bellevue Art Museum honors architect Steven Holl, creative agency Layer designs a speaker with Bang & Olufsen, and more.
3 7 . B O D Y O F W O R K Avant-garde sophistication, classics that meet the moment, and a highly elegant form of feminism make Max Mara a singular force in fashion— decade after decade.
3 0. O B J E C T S O F D E S I R E Sit back, relax, and enjoy the best of what’s new in seating.
4 6 . O N T H E R I S E Nigerian-British designer Tolu Coker explores identity, community, and lived experience through fashion, film, and rich visual narratives.
on the cover
Maggie Rizer wears Max Mara’s Giorgio Coat in a 1999 photograph by Richard Avedon. Courtesy of Max Mara. SEE PAGE 37
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VA N G U A R D S
L AST CALL
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CHANGEMAKER Faber Futures uses biopigments to create fabric dyes with a reduced environmental impact.
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SINGULAR SENSATION Groundbreaking graphic designer Paula Scher shapes the visual and cultural landscape of New York.
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CONTRACT HIGH From Los Angeles to London, exceptionally designed spaces to eat, play, work, and stay.
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GENESIS Toronto-based Objects & Ideas combines high design with traditional craft to create bespoke furnishings with a voice.
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PROOF OF CONCEPT Design disrupter Andee Hess pushes her artistic side from Portland to Seoul and beyond.
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TRANSPORT In Polestar, automotive designer Thomas Ingenlath has found his true north.
7 8.
MIND & MATTER Architectural designer Jenny E. Sabin creates responsive structures that are poised to transform the built environment. GRAY
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MASTHEAD
Publisher Shawn Williams A DV E R T I S I NG
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No. 51. Copyright Š2020. Published bimonthly (FEB, APR, JUNE, AUG, OCT, DEC) by GRAY Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. 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. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to GRAY Media, LLC WeWork 1201 Third Avenue Tower, Floor 22 Seattle, WA 98101 United States
Live a life as individual as you are. Change the size, colours and materials of almost every design and style your house your way.
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CONTRIBUTORS
BACKSTAGE PASS P I L A R V I L A DA S (“Singular Sensation,” page 62) is a freelance writer and editor and former design editor for T: The New York Times Style Magazine. Previously, she has written for Architectural Digest, The New York Times, Elle Decor, Town & Country, and Galerie, among other publications. She lives in New York. CH R I ST O P H E R GA RC I A VA LLE (“Singular Sensation,” page 61) is a New York–based editorial, fashion, and music photographer whose work has appeared in Vice, Surface, OUT, and GRAY, among other publications.
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ilar Viladas, acclaimed design writer and editor, says of her story on graphic designer Paula Scher: “I’ve interviewed many design world luminaries, but after I read about Paula Scher and previewed her new book on her long-standing collaboration with the Public Theater, even I was intimidated. I needn’t have been. Scher is down-to-earth and straightforward, with a combination of self-deprecating humor and self-assuredness. It was fascinating to hear her talk about her work, and her obvious passion for what she does.” Feature photographer Christopher Garcia Valle captured Scher at her Pentagram offices and says: “Meeting Paula Scher was a real treat. She greeted me with a warm smile, and we were quick to get started. After shooting inside, we made our way outside, where Paula pointed out a logo she designed for a nearby business. I asked what it felt like to see her work displayed publicly. She explained that it doesn’t faze her much now, but that it still feels important as an acknowledgement that she’s contributed to our cultural landscape in some way.”
ANDREW VANASSE, FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHER FOR INTERIOR DESIGNER ANDEE HESS, captured Hess at her recently redesigned snack bar for Portland’s Oaks Park Roller Rink. Vanasse says: “Andee was a joy to work with and her rad personality definitely comes out in her work. We had a blast shooting at this disco-era roller rink—the only thing missing was John Travolta’s character from the movie Saturday Night Fever!”
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A N D R E W VA NA S S E (“Proof of Concept,” page 70) is a Portland- and Los Angeles–based photographer who has previously shot for Nike, The North Face, Adidas, Reebok, Inc., Seattle Magazine, and GRAY. RO BE RT BA R K E R (“Mind & Matter,” page 78) is a photographer and former director of photography at Cornell University. He has shot for Architectural Record, Newsweek, Time, and Scientific American, and is a three-time winner of Communication Arts Magazine’s Award of Excellence. He is based in Ithaca, New York.
Architecture: MW Works Builder: Dovetail Photo: Kevin Scott
ARCHITECTURE + INTERIORS
The following design firms are among the best in the world, and are included here on an invite-only basis. We are proud to call them our partners. Consider them first for your next project. Read more about each firm on our website graymag.com
Baylis Architects baylisarchitects.com
BC&J Architecture bcandj.com
David Coleman Architecture davidcoleman.com
Designs Northwest Architects designsnw.com
First Lamp firstlamp.net
GATH Interior Design gathinteriordesign.com
Atelier Drome atelierdrome.com
babienko ARCHITECTS pllc babienkoarchitects.com
BjarkoSerra Architects bjarkoserra.com
chadbourne + doss architects chadbournedoss.com
Eggleston | Farkas Architects eggfarkarch.com
Emerick Architects emerick-architects.com
Guggenheim Architecture + Design Studio guggenheimstudio.com
H2D Architects h2darchitects.com
Hacker hackerarchitects.com
Hoedemaker Pfeiffer hoedemakerpfeiffer.com
Janof Architecture janofarchitecture.com
RUFproject rufproject.com
skylab skylabarchitecture.com
Steelhead Architecture steelheadarchitecture.com
Tyler Engle Architects tylerengle.com
WILLIAM / KAVEN williamkaven.com
Hoshide Wanzer Architects hw-architects.com
Hyde Evans Design hydeevansdesign.com
SCOTT | EDWARDS ARCHITECTURE LLP seallp.com
SHKS Architects shksarchitects.com
Stephenson Design Collective stephensoncollective.com
Studio AM Architecture | Interiors studioamarchitects.com
Works Progress Architecture worksarchitecture.net
Workshop AD workshopad.com
TO THE TRADE IN THE SEATTLE DESIGN CENTER dfgseattle.com
INTEL
COURTESY LELIÈVRE PARIS
New and noteworthy in global design.
EVOKING EARTH, SEA, AND SKY, JEAN PAUL GAULTIER’S NEW UN MONDE PARFAIT—OR, A PERFECT WORLD— WALL COVERINGS COLLECTION for textiles house Lelièvre Paris is a vivid exploration of nature in all its fantastical forms. Comprising 10 prints, the designer-led journey begins deep below ground with Magma and eventually culminates in Étoiles, the stars. “Everything that is around me inspires me, but when I’m working on interiors, the starting point is often something I
have presented for the Haute Couture shows,” Gaultier tells GRAY. Replicating the organic elegance of shagreen, Précieux, shown here, is embossed with the texture, pattern, and distinctive spine detail of stingray hide naturally eroded by waves and time. “I call it morphing, like a trace or an impression of something that was there for a fleeting moment,” Gaultier explains. “I love the visual but also the tactile—both are of equal importance.” Available through Scalamandré in the US. —Matthew Dakotah h
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FIRST LOOK
INTEL
BRIDGING THE FUTURE
After tragedy, Renzo Piano designs a new bridge for his hometown. By Rachel Gallaher
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ON THE MORNING OF AUGUST 14, 2018, AFTER HEAVY RAIN HIT THE NORTHERN ITALIAN PORT CITY OF GENOA, a section of the 1960s-era Morandi Bridge, a key viaduct spanning the Polcevera River, collapsed, sending dozens of cars hurtling onto railroad tracks below. The tragedy, traced to the failure of a set of the bridge’s stays, caused 43 deaths and dozens more injuries and deeply wounded the city’s
civic pride. So, when it was announced just three months later that Genoa-born architect Renzo Piano had offered to design the replacement bridge free of charge, hope reverberated through the community. With a streamlined and minimal form that seems to float in midair, the new steel-and-concrete structure opens to traffic this April. Steel elements are powder-coated in white to harmonize
COURTESY RENZO PIANO; GIOVANNA GIUSTO
with the surrounding landscape, while seamlessly integrated photovoltaic panels power all systems, including lighting and sensors. “The new bridge must be simple and straightforward but not ordinary,” says Piano. “It is going to look like a ship moored in the valley. During the day, it will reflect sunlight and absorb solar energy, and at night, it will return it. It will be a sober bridge, respecting the character of the Genoese.” h
FROM TOP: A rendering of the Renzo Piano–designed bridge opening in Genoa this April. Piano at the raising of the first bridge deck.
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UPWARD SPIRAL
Tadao Ando’s latest museum design is a lesson in spatial awareness.
FROM TOP: Architectural rendering of the building’s exterior. Architect Tadao Ando.
THE RECENTLY COMPLETED HE ART MUSEUM (HEM), IN THE SHUNDE DISTRICT OF FOSHAN, in southeastern China, is a hallmark example of Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando’s celebrated work. Lauded for his balance of simple forms and complex spatial circulation, poetic use of natural light, and stunning minimalism, the self-taught Ando has risen to the occasion once again with this modern art museum, which is slated to open this summer. Designed with an asymmetrical profile, the more than 170,000-square-foot building comprises four stacked spherical levels with a doublehelix spiral staircase at their center. The pure, fluid lines of the structure nod to HEM’s founding philosophy, which emphasizes balance and harmony. Visitors will enter the museum via a walkway that cuts through a tranquil water feature—another vital element of Ando’s nature-centered style. —RG h COURTESY HEM
FIRST LOOK
INTEL
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© 2020 Design Within Reach, Inc.
Hung-Ming Chen and Chen-Yen Wei Designers of the Story Bookcase www.dwr.com
INTEL
BODY TALK
HOUSE BEAUTIFUL
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California-based architect Scott Mitchell’s landmark residences are characterized both by what they renounce (excessive opulence) and what they embrace (purity of form and space). Informed by Japanese minimalism and Shinto aesthetics, Mitchell’s works are fusions of rich organic materials, sculptural concrete, and seamless connections to the natural landscape. This May, Rizzoli debuts the book Scott Mitchell Houses, a charting of the architect’s design trajectory from a modern interpretation of an
18th-century farmhouse to the monumental Malibu estate seen in Tom Ford’s 2016 film Nocturnal Animals. The book includes a foreword by architectural critic Paul Goldberger and contributions from longtime friend Calvin Klein. “I am most happy with the way that the book conveys, through the voices of contributors and friends, the emotional impact of what I aspire to create in my work,” Mitchell tells GRAY. —CB
LAETITIA BICA; COURTESY SCOTT MITCHELL STUDIO
FIRST LOOK
Conventional Western beauty standards bore Belgian costume designer Jennifer Defays, so she’s spent the past two decades creating ensembles that accentuate and morph the body in unexpected ways. On April 23, Defays will present her newest work at Brussels’s TicTac Art Centre in MUTE, an exhibition that highlights her use of costume to explore societal stigmas and oppressions. Featuring haunting cotton masks with protruding artificial cheekbones and her provocative Window Dress series—designed like targets, with circular openings at the pelvis, the works denote prostitution and the patriarchy’s narrow gaze on the female figure—MUTE is a layered multisensory experience that explores the stifling of self-expression, incorporating recorded shouts and cries as well as text by writer Natalia Dusfraise. “My definition of costume is a crafted work on the human body,” Defays tells GRAY. “It’s like a sculpture, and it opens a lot of possibilities.” —Claire Butwinick
Home, Transformed.
Tango Space-transforming solutions for every room. Designed and made in Italy. Exclusively from Resource Furniture, celebrating 20 years of redefining form and revolutionizing function. Large selection of wall beds and transforming tables in stock for worldwide delivery.
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FIRST LOOK
INTEL
Known for sharp angles, industrial materials, and a strict color palette, minimalism is often perceived as cold and inhospitable. But earlier this year, two global furniture brands—Seattle-based Hightower and Spain’s Ondarreta—proved otherwise with the release of Ondarreta, Spring 2020 from Hightower, a versatile Basque-designed and manufactured collection that will launch in the US this June.
The fresh assortment of chairs, benches, barstools, tables, and shelving, with its streamlined silhouettes in unexpected proportions, pairs dreamy pastels and earthy neutrals with warm wood and rounded edges that promise to soften commercial and residential spaces, both inside and out. —Lissa Raylin Brewer with Claire Butwinick
TACTILE ILLUSIONS “I always had a sensitivity for images and a fascination with moving images. On the other hand, I studied furniture design,” says Netherlandsbased designer Audrey Large, who unites her design background with cutting-edge
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cinema technology in her creation of fluid, otherworldly sculptures. Initially handsketched on a tablet and then printed on paper and 3D-printed with polylactic acid and an iridescent sheen, Large’s works explore the boundaries between digital and analog objects. Implicit Surfaces, her latest installation, slated to debut at Milan’s Nilufar Gallery, features seven new sculptures as well as a CGI animation projection, expanding on Large’s earlier interrogations of the slippage between the real and the (deep) fake. —LRB, CB
COURTESY HIGHTOWER; AUDREY LARGE, DANIELE IODICE
SEATING FOR ALL SEASONS
Landscape Design and Installation Architectural Planters for Commercial and Residential Applications 517 E Pike Street Seattle WA 98122 206.329.4737 www.ragenassociates.com
INTEL
FIRST LOOK
DOUBLE DUTY
Beosound Balance—a recently debuted collaboration from British crossdisciplinary creative agency Layer and Bang & Olufsen—isn’t just a sound system; it’s also a conversation piece. Marking the firms’ first partnership, Beosound Balance boasts high-end touch- and voice-activated technology, while its refined shape recalls minimalist sculpture. Supported on a timber base, the speaker’s cylindrical sound system is wrapped in black or natural Kvadrat textiles typically used for interior upholstery. In the age of technologically integrated household accessories, Beosound Balance holds true to its name by blurring the line between high-end electronic device and elegant objet d’art. —Annie Dahl with Claire Butwinick
MEET THE MAKER
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Although architect Steven Holl was born and raised in Washington, only two of his projects are located in his home state. (A third, Quincy Jones Square, is slated for completion in Bremerton, Washington, in 2021). One of these projects, the Bellevue Arts Museum, which opened its Holl-designed building in 2001, is celebrating his work with its current exhibition Steven Holl: Making Architecture. Now based in New York, Holl has a hard-to-pin-down
style marked by close attention to place, light, and unusual geometries. The exhibition, which runs through September 13, organizes its journey through the architect’s 40-year career around three ideals—Thinking, Building, and Reflecting—that exemplify how Holl approaches his craft. Displays include Holl’s own watercolors, small exploratory models, sculpture, writing, and photographs taken during the construction process. —RG h
COURTESY LAYER; RICHARD BARNES
The Reach theater space at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
This dinner
started here.
The Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Cove Showroom will help you create a kitchen that’s uniquely yours. On-site chefs, product experts, and inspiring designs will help you envision the possibilities for your home – and all of the delicious moments to come.
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INTEL
indoor OBJECTS OF DESIRE
Imagined by Norwegian designer Stine Aas for Dims., the stackable Cleo chair (shown here in fjord blue) is inspired by archways and decorative motifs in classical architecture.
lounge act Sit back, relax, and enjoy the best of what’s new in seating. By Claire Butwinick
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indoor
Designed by Karim Rashid for BoConcept, the soft curves and restrained colorway of the Chelsea sofa (shown in mustard cotton-velvet fabric) nod to the designer’s signature style, which he calls “sensual minimalism”; Roche Bobois’s Odea armchair, created by Italian designers Roberto Tapinassi and Maurizio Manzoni, evokes the petals of a blooming flower; The marshmallow-esque Pukka sofa by Ligne Roset pays homage to Gaetano Pesce’s 1969 collection UP50; The seat of Industry West’s Sable armchair (shown in Moss 59) is wrapped in hand-painted water-buffalo leather or velvet, and cantilevers on a powder-coated black or brass-plated steel frame; The Bloke 60-inch sofa from Blu Dot (shown in ochre velvet) appears to hover over its thin, powder-coated steel legs. »
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INTEL
indoor OBJECTS OF DESIRE
From the Hommage Ă Pierre Jeanneret collection by Cassina, the invertedV-shaped teak Capitol Complex office chair closely resembles seats found in the midcentury Le Corbusierdesigned Chandigarh Capitol Complex in India; The asymmetrical Theron sofa, created by Dianna Karvounis and Vivian Philippa of the Greek design firm Anaktae, is made with woven linen fabric on an oxidized brass base; The Sveva sofa from Flexform, shown in tobaccocolored cowhide leather upholstery and burnished cast-aluminum base, is available at Inform Interiors; A Design Within Reach exclusive by British furniture manufacturer Ercol, the Von bench is available in solid walnut, natural ash, or blackpainted ash, and is topped with a Kalahari full-grain semi-aniline leather seat pad.
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indoor
This chair from Atra’s Atraform collection nods to Creative Director Alexander Diaz Andersson’s Swedish-Mexican roots with its midcentury Scandinavian shape and heritage materials that include walnut and leather; French designer Erwan Boulloud’s Kàmptô chair—sold at New York City’s Twenty First Gallery—is wrapped in a crustacean-like patinated-steel shell and upholstered in off-white wool bouclette. »
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INTEL
OBJECTS OF DESIRE
outdoor
To withstand the elements, the Saparella sofa by Michel Ducaroy for Ligne Roset features high-resilience polyurethane Bultex foam and a water-resistant inner liner; Restoration Hardware’s Crete lounge chair by designer Louis Ho is marked by clean lines, dynamic angles, and an open frame crafted of pure stainless steel with solid teak insets; Available in red, silver, white, and graphite, the Theo lounge chair from Room & Board is made entirely of powder-coated steel.
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outdoor
The teak Quadrado armchair from Minotti includes bronze finishes and a reclining backrest defined by an open grid pattern; The Sam Son chair by Konstantin Grcic for Magis (now available at Design Within Reach) reimagines the armchair with its durable rotational-molded polyethylene structure and futuristic form. h
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DESIGN DNA
AUTUNNO INVERNO 1998-99 FOTOFRAFATA DA RICHARD AVEDON
The concepts and creatives shaping our lives.
AMERICAN MODEL AND ACTIVIST MAGGIE RIZER wears the Giorgio Coat in a 1999 photograph by Richard Avedon—one of countless iconic ad campaigns produced by Max Mara since its founding in 1951. Creative Director Ian Griffiths often refers to the storied Italian fashion house as “classic but not conservative,” a description perfectly captured in this timeless moment.
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EMPOWER HOUSE Avant-garde sophistication, classics that meet the moment, and a highly elegant form of feminism make Max Mara a singular force in fashion— decade after decade. By Lauren Gallow and Matthew Dakotah
COURTESY OF MAX MARA
BODY OF WORK
DESIGN DNA
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Wearing a trench coat of virgin wool and cashmere, a model commands the runway with a confident stride at Max Mara’s Spring/Summer 2020 fashion show at Bocconi University in Milan.
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BODY OF WORK
DESIGN DNA
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tunning supermodels, front-row celebrities, famous photographers, iconic ad campaigns, dramatic statement stores in creative capitals across the globe—all in celestial orbit around beautifully rendered, covet-worthy clothes that transcend short-lived seasons. As a revered Italian fashion house, this is precisely what one might expect of Max Mara. But perhaps more surprising, and branddefining, is what lies just beneath the beauty and buzz—a decades-long feminist whisper that has steadily grown to an all-powerful roar. To explore this long arc of challenging conventions and the nuanced role it plays in Max Mara’s design DNA, GRAY sat down with Creative Director Ian Griffiths and Worldwide Communication and PR President Giorgio Guidotti, on the eve of their Fall/ Winter 2020 show in Milan. “For me, it’s separating the concept of classicism from the concept of conservatism,” Griffiths says. This simple statement encapsulates the fascinating duality at the heart of Max Mara. The brand has led a steady march toward gender equality since its founding in 1951, but through an elegant insistence rather than a flashy ultimatum. “When Achille Maramotti established the company, he was identifying women in the workplace as the future,” Griffiths continues. “His idea was that these were clothes for women to engage with the world and change the world. And if you’re setting out to change the world, you don’t wear experimental clothing. You wear clothing with its roots in classicism. That doesn’t mean that your gender, as a woman, is a conservative one.” Far from it, Griffiths explains. “The idea of female empowerment was very much at the forefront of Achille’s thinking; he was a real radical. But at the time, the very word feminism was associated with a kind of dangerous political world that was not discussed in polite society. Now we can declare it.” For the past seven decades, Max Mara has been the force behind some of the movement’s most influential power uniforms, each armed with an impeccably tailored coat. And since joining the company in 1987, Griffiths has faithfully carried Maramotti’s trailblazing career woman into the future with collection after collection that achieves an effortless sophistication, at once timeless and contemporary. Although Griffiths is obviously proud that Max Mara took the lead in defining “a dress code that gave women access to the corridors »
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COURTESY OF MAX MARA
LEFT: A look from Max Mara’s Pre-Fall 2020 collection, arriving in stores now. The cotton T-shirt features an iconic Weimaraner image by American artist William Wegman. ABOVE: Creative Director Ian Griffiths’s mood board for the Pre-Fall 2020 collection. “The concept was initiated by an exhibition I saw in London of Holly Solomon’s collection, the New York gallerist. It reminded me of her enormous contribution to the art scene in the 1970s and ’80s and how she nurtured artists like Lichtenstein, Mapplethorpe, and Laurie Anderson,” Griffiths says. “I imagined a downtown New York scene sometime in the late 1970s, where all of Holly Solomon’s protégés were partying with the likes of Jagger and Debbie Harry.”
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BODY OF WORK
DESIGN DNA
“THE IDEA OF FEMALE EMPOWERMENT WAS VERY MUCH AT THE FOREFRONT OF [MAX MARA FOUNDER] ACHILLE MARAMOTTI’S THINKING; HE WAS A REAL RADICAL. BUT AT THE TIME, THE VERY WORD FEMINISM WAS ASSOCIATED WITH A KIND OF DANGEROUS POLITICAL WORLD THAT WAS NOT DISCUSSED IN POLITE SOCIETY. NOW WE CAN DECLARE IT.”
COURTESY OF MAX MARA
—IAN GRIFFITHS
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LEFT: A silk taffeta shirt with ruche detail and long velvet skirt with rounded splits grace the runway at Max Mara’s Fall/Winter 2020 show. BELOW: An installation at Max Mara’s 2017 Coats! exhibition in Seoul, which was designed by Migliore+Servetto Architects. Spanning 60 years of Max Mara history, Coats! reflected the changes in tastes, lifestyles, and societal norms that have defined each decade. Continually reimagined, the traveling exhibition has also been presented in Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, and Berlin.
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of power,” he doesn’t see it so much as a uniform now. “In the time that I’ve been at the company, I’ve noticed how women have come to expect and demand the right to express themselves, even at work,” he says. “When they walk into a room, they want to announce themselves; they want to announce their success and their power. And quite rightly so.” It’s a subtle shift, but one that illustrates the brand’s attunement to the ways that fashion can reflect—and in the best cases, help drive—positive change in social mores. And that evolution is evident in what Griffiths has been sending down the runway. “What I’ve been working on over the last 10 years or so is discovering a slightly edgier interpretation of classics,” he says. “Everyone knows I come from this English 1970s/’80s punk background, and I’ve been injecting a little bit of that because the Max Mara woman is far from conservative. She’s out to change the world for the better.” To celebrate the power of femininity and bring his collections fully to life, Griffiths has found one of his closest creative conspirators in Guidotti, who has also shaped the public face of the brand since the 1980s. The mind behind some of fashion’s most memorable moments, Guidotti has produced countless ad campaigns with acclaimed photographers such as Richard Avedon, Arthur Elgort, Steven Meisel, and Mario Sorrenti. “I’ve been lucky to work for many years with Ian, who is a great partner in terms of defining the brand—when I’m in Italy, every morning I have coffee in his office,” Guidotti says. “First we try to focus on the woman, and of course the theme of the collection is very important. We are very stable and focused and get to work with the best of the best. But it’s a work in progress. I’m not staying still.” Aside from dressing the self-possessed career woman, Max Mara has long used its privileged position to amplify women’s creative voices around the world. In 2005, the company partnered with Whitechapel Gallery in London to establish the Max Mara Art Prize for Women, a biannual award supporting a UK-based female artist with a six-month residency and two major solo exhibitions. It’s a belief in the close relationship between art and fashion that began with Maramotti’s avant-garde art collection (now open to the public at the company’s original headquarters in Reggio Emilia) and continues through such collaborations as the
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Max Mara Whitney Bag, originally designed in 2015 with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop to commemorate the firm’s new downtown Manhattan building for the Whitney Museum of American Art. Not surprisingly, the bag’s fifth-anniversary edition is dedicated to American modernist painter and feminist Florine Stettheimer, who, along with museum founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Griffiths fondly describes as “strong, formidable women who demanded things on their own terms.” Beyond the Whitney Bag, Max Mara’s intimate connection to art has long weaved its way into Griffiths’s work—most recently the Pre-Fall 2020 collection, which is arriving in stores now. “It was initiated by an exhibition I saw in London of Holly Solomon’s collection, the New York gallerist, who was a great friend of Giorgio’s,” he explains. “Giorgio’s introduction to Holly opened up a whole world of experience, and this exhibition reminded me of her enormous contribution to the art scene in the 1970s and ’80s and how she nurtured artists like Lichtenstein, Mapplethorpe, Nam June Paik, Laurie Anderson, and Mary Heilmann. At the same time, Debbie Harry’s autobiography came out and was another reminder of those years. It was a moment that Giorgio and I lived, and Max Mara really identified with.” At a time when the fashion industry, and Western business at large, is clamoring to take the mantle of female empowerment, Max Mara stands as a brand that’s been deeply—and uniquely—engaged from the start. It’s a legacy that Griffiths and Guidotti don’t take lightly. “I never finish what I’m doing,” Griffiths says. “There’s always that moment, a night or two before a show, where I have huge doubts about what I’ve done. I think that’s a natural part of the creative process. The point at which you don’t think, ‘Oh, my God, this is the worst thing we’ve ever done!’ is the moment when you don’t care anymore, and so it’s the moment you stop doing it.” Thankfully, neither Griffiths nor Guidotti appears to have lost an ounce of interest in their long-loved brand. “It’s still exciting. I’m not going to retire anytime soon,” Guidotti says. “I’m having a fun time doing it,” Griffiths adds. “If you have a look at my Instagram account, my most frequently used hashtag is #ilovemyjob.” h
“FIRST WE TRY TO FOCUS ON THE WOMAN, AND OF COURSE THE THEME OF THE COLLECTION IS VERY IMPORTANT. WE ARE VERY STABLE AND FOCUSED AND GET TO WORK WITH THE BEST OF THE BEST. BUT IT’S A WORK IN PROGRESS. I’M NOT STAYING STILL.”
—GIORGIO GUIDOTTI
COURTESY OF MAX MARA
BODY OF WORK
DESIGN DNA
TOP: Backstage at Max Mara’s Spring/Summer 2020 show. Joanna (center) wears a bomber in silk twill. BOTTOM: The Max Mara Whitney Bag’s fifth-anniversary edition debuts in April. Originally designed in 2015 with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop to commemorate the firm’s new downtown Manhattan building for the Whitney Museum of American Art, the 2020 version is dedicated to American modernist painter and feminist Florine Stettheimer.
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ON THE RISE
DESIGN DNA
CULTURE QUAKE 46
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COURTESY TOLU COKER AND O.G STUDIOS
Nigerian-British designer Tolu Coker explores identity, community, and lived experience through fashion, film, and rich visual narratives. By Claire Butwinick
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DESIGN DNA
LEFT: The finale of Coker’s sophomore collection, Juvenile Consciousness, included a sheer dress made of deadstock fabric, accessorized with a Nigerian-inspired headpiece fashioned from discarded belt buckles, bolts, and old jewelry. BELOW: Coker with her models for Juvenile Consciousness.
FOR LONDON-BASED DESIGNER TOLU COKER, FASHION DOESN’T START OR END WITH AESTHETICS. Instead, it’s a portal to socially conscious storytelling. Since 2018, she has captivated the fashion world with her breakout eponymous clothing label, expressing her African diasporic identity through youthful yet politically aware collections. At the same time, Coker has asserted black visibility in other media, creating commissioned illustrations for the Tate Modern, celebrating African beauty and the Black Panther movement in a series of collages for H&M and Loewe, and challenging Eurocentric viewpoints with her in-depth documentaries and fashion films. And at 26, she’s just getting started. “I think about the way in which narratives are written,
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who controls narratives, and what they’re trying to portray—not just in fashion but in society in general,” she tells GRAY. “Identity and narrative are things that I’m always questioning in my work.” A recent graduate of London’s celebrated Central Saint Martins fashion school, Coker first sparked international buzz with her 2017 premier collection, Replica, an intimate exploration of her African heritage and British upbringing. Her creative process was groundbreaking: rather than ruminate introspectively in sketchbooks and mood boards, Coker spent a year filming the lives of four Africandiaspora youths in London and Paris, whose experiences then influenced her designs. Asked why she employed this unconventional method, Coker replies
with another question: “Fashion is such an identifying tool for us, so why doesn’t it reflect real people’s stories more?” Comprising seven genderless looks, the collection included leather jackets hand-painted with faces from her muses’s family photos, hip-hop-inspired patchwork denim overalls, bedazzled boomboxes, and an upcycled sheer lace gown with an illustration of one of the muses, Ayishat, adorning the back of its detachable train. The recipient of the coveted Vogue Talents Award, Replica was embraced by celebrities such as Rihanna and Rita Ora and appeared in a film for Vogue Italia that Coker codirected. Storytelling also guided Coker’s 2018 sophomore collection, Juvenile Consciousness, but this time, she dove into her »
RORY JAMES PHOTO; LAURA DE MEO; JAMIE KENDRICK
ON THE RISE
OPPOSITE: A model wears a piece from Coker’s genderless collection Replica on set for the designer’s 2018 fashion film, A Seat on the Throne with O.G Studios for Vogue Italia.
“PEOPLE ALWAYS THINK ABOUT THE BLACK PANTHERS AS A POLITICAL MOVEMENT, BUT I ALWAYS GREW UP KNOWING IT AS A COMMUNITY MOVEMENT.” —TOLU COKER
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own family history, particularly that of Kayode Coker, her Nigerian-born father, a British Black Panther in the 1960s who documented the movement in photos, diary entries, and memorabilia. “People always think about the Black Panthers as a political movement, but I grew up knowing it as a community movement,” she says. “The American sector of the Black Panthers started out in soup kitchens. It was about feeding the community before it was about disrupting the establishment, which subjugated these communities and marginalized them.” Honoring her father’s legacy, she adapted his photographs into illustrations on
“Replica isn’t going to represent every single person,” says Coker. “But through the documentary, I saw people’s very distinct differences, but also so many similarities. Even though that collection was designed around four real people, many people messaged me after the show saying, ‘I really connected with that and I could see it in the clothing.’”
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deadstock leather jackets, pairing them with denim crop tops and wide-legged pants, which were upcycled from old jeans supplied by Coker’s neighbors and friends. Each look was accompanied by intricate handmade Nigerian tribal– inspired headpieces constructed from broken buckles, bolts, and old earrings sourced from Japanese factories. With each collection, Coker designs wearable protests that promote holistic black representation in a culture that all too often fails to portray people of color with accuracy or depth. Her work not only creates space for marginalized groups, but also holds up fashion as a mechanism for social change. Last fall, Coker put the power of fashion activism to the test when she teamed up with African fabric manufacturer Vlisco to design graduation outfits for members of the City of Joy, an organization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that empowers women who have survived gender violence. “Through that project, in our small way, we were actually changing the world,” she says. This year, Coker and her brother, Ada Coker, are creating a film project in Nigeria, titled Masqueraded Memoirs, which she hopes will inform her next collection. At the same time, she is earning her postgraduate certification at Central Saint Martins and lecturing other, younger students to help diversify the fashion industry and hold the door open for emerging black designers in the process. “When you build leaders around yourself, you build a legacy,” she says. “You build something that outlives you.” h
JAMIE KENDRICK; LIAM J LESLIE
ON THE RISE
DESIGN DNA
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CHANGEMAKER
DESIGN DNA
SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Faber Futures is leading the way in biopigments to create fabric dyes with a reduced environmental impact.
ACCORDING TO DESIGN RESEARCHER NATSAI AUDREY CHIEZA, THERE WAS NO SINGLE “AHA” MOMENT that led her to pursue the monumental challenge of tackling sustainability in the textile and apparel industries. After studying architecture at Edinburgh University, she parlayed an interest in materiality into a master’s degree in materials futures at Central Saint Martins college of art and design in London. After receiving her degree, for which she explored the nascent field of synthetic biology—which includes the fabrication of new biological entities such as enzymes, genetic circuits, and
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cells, as well as the redesign of existing biological systems—Chieza started to think about using biopigments (in this case, bacteria) to dye fabric. “I was fascinated by the idea that not only could we engineer an organism for use in pharmaceuticals, but that there was a materials revolution coming,” Chieza says on the phone from London. Faber Futures, the biodesign lab and creative research agency she founded in 2018, is based in Peckham, a neighborhood south of the River Thames. “I became very interested in the implications of this technology,” she says. “Given my »
COURTESY FABER FUTURES; PORTRAIT: TOBY COULSON
By Rachel Gallaher
THIS PAGE: London-based biodesign lab and creative research agency Faber Futures uses the bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor to produce a pigment that creates chemical-free textile dyes to color silk (as seen in this scarf). OPPOSITE: The soil-dwelling bacteria Streptomyces coelicolor. Faber Futures founder Natsai Audrey Chieza.
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to 100 liters (3,381 ounces) for a single T-shirt. The results are gorgeous, Monetesque patterns with swirls of pink, purple, and blue. In 2017, after spending time at Boston’s Gingko Bioworks (a lab that designs custom organisms with the aim of replacing targeted technologies with biology), Chieza partnered with the company to help develop the Gingko Creative Residency, a program that offers three-month residencies during which practitioners can explore the intersections of their disciplines and synthetic biology. It’s a rapidly growing field that includes companies such as Bolt Threads and Modern Meadows, both of which are materials-solutions firms using naturally occurring processes to create alternative textiles and threads (synthetic spider silk, mycelium-based animal-free leather) with a fraction of the environmental impact. In 2017, Bolt Threads partnered with renowned fashion designer Stella McCartney, who debuted a sleeveless gold dress made from the company’s MicrosilkTM fabric at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Currently, Faber Futures is exploring how its dyeing technique could be scaled to an industrial level. In addition to
dramatically reducing the amount of chemicals and water used in the textilemanufacturing process, the company’s approach will provide consumers with cleaner, healthier clothes that don’t compromise on beautiful aesthetics. Encouraging this kind of imaginative thinking, and normalizing it in academic and scientific settings, could be the key to unlocking the next set of innovative ideas that helps save our planet. When asked why she continues to take on these difficult challenges, and what keeps her from just walking away, Chieza takes a thoughtful pause before answering: “If you walk away, then you’re saying that there’s no hope and that there’s no point to life,” she says. “I take courage in knowing that I’m not the only person trying to do this. If everyone plays their part, then it’s less daunting. I do have hope that we can build a more resilient future.” h
COURTESY FABER FUTURES
architecture background, I’ve always been fascinated by trying to design for complex systems, and the fashion industry seemed like an interesting space [in which] to explore that.” For the past decade, Chieza, who left her native Zimbabwe for London as a teenager, has been exploring this intersection of science, design, and creativity for the sake of social impact. “I’m not a scientist, so a lot of the work we’re doing is collaborative,” she says, stressing the importance of a cross-disciplinary approach. In 2011, she began working with Professor John Ward of the Department of Biochemical Engineering at University College London, and together they developed Project Coelicolor, a research and development venture that has produced a suite of biocentric dyeing methods. The duo worked specifically with a wild strain of the soil-dwelling bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor. This organism produces a pigment that creates colorfast textile dyes in a process that uses no chemicals and significantly less water than traditional dyeing methods. Growing the bacteria directly onto a material (in this case, silk) only requires 200 milliliters (about 6.7 ounces) of water, whereas current coloring techniques can use up
THIS PAGE: The pigment produced by the bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor has a range of hues, including purples, blues, and pinks. OPPOSITE: Faber Futures grows the bacteria directly onto a material (in this case, silk), then removes it during the downstream processing (the recovery and purification of biosynthetic products) to reveal a colorfast textile.
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DESIGN DNA
GENESIS
“WHEN YOU LOOK AT OUR PIECES, EACH ONE IS TELLING YOU ABOUT ITS HISTORY AND SHARING A STORY ABOUT HOW IT WAS MADE.”
Handmade from solid maple, the Mono chair by Objects & Ideas playfully combines spirit and functionality.
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COURTESY OBJECTS & IDEAS; PORTRAIT: KUBA LOS
—BOB DODD
FROM LEFT: The Paradise chair is constructed from sustainable Canadian maple by master artisans in Toronto. Designer Bob Dodd says of the Mono collection, “We depend on expert craftspeople for advice on engineering and construction issues, such as how to make the curved parts of the table and chair in an efficient way.” Objects & Ideas co-founders Bob Dodd and Di Tao.
DEEP DIALOGUE
Toronto-based design firm Objects & Ideas combines high design with traditional craft to create bespoke furnishings with a voice. By Lauren Gallow WHEN DESIGNERS DI TAO AND BOB DODD, FOUNDERS OF OBJECTS & IDEAS STUDIO, wrote in their company’s manifesto that they want their furniture to speak for itself, they probably didn’t anticipate how far interviewers might run with this statement. “Each of your products has a distinct personality—they’re like characters in a story,” I say during a GRAY interview with the two. Dodd laughs in response. “When you said that, I thought of the movie Night at the Museum, where all
the objects come to life,” he says. “It’s a bit like that!” Playful and idiosyncratic as its highly curated collection of furnishings may be, when it comes to the production process, the Toronto-based studio is all business. A deep attention to craft informs the brand’s practice, with each piece handmade by regional master artisans. For example, the Mono chair, part of a collection the studio released earlier this year, is composed of several pieces of hand-turned wood meticulously joined
in a single undulating line to form the back and three legs. A minimalist study of line in space, not to mention a feat of ergonomics and woodworking know-how, the chair also has an undeniably spirited personality. As Dodd says, “You look at it, and somehow it is talking to you.” This interest in creating products that communicate at a deeper level is what drives Dodd and Tao, who met in Helsinki in 2000. At the time, Tao was studying for his master’s in product design at Helsinki’s University of Art and Design »
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DESIGN DNA
GENESIS
“OUR PRODUCTS ARE MADE BY HUMANS, SO EACH ONE HAS ITS OWN DIFFERENCES AND CHARACTER.” —DI TAO
FROM TOP: The Aero coffee table is an airy, lightweight complement to the Paradise chair. Made from polished aluminum, the Flow coffee table is a ribbon of complementary colors. The Wye rocker— the product that helped launch Objects & Ideas— won the European Product Design Award in 2018.
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COURTESY OBJECTS & IDEAS
and Dodd was working on UX design for electronics brand Nokia. After collaborating on side projects for years in Helsinki, the duo reunited in Canada in 2015 and started talking seriously about launching their own design studio. “It took us about two years of going through the initial prototyping process to build things we were happy enough to show people,” Dodd says. Three years after the brand’s official launch, an iterative, time-intensive process still drives Objects & Ideas. Although they rely on artisan expertise to craft their furniture, Dodd and Tao still hand-sketch many of their designs before creating digital models and rough initial prototypes in their studio. “We both came from a high-tech world where everything was made from plastic and glass,” Dodd says, “so to come back to natural materials like wood, we had to stop and rethink.” While every piece presented by Objects & Ideas starts from a deeply conceptual place—the Wye rocker, for instance, was inspired by the movement of wind through swaying bulrushes—it’s the hands-on, give-and-take exchange with woodworkers, metalworkers, and upholsterers that brings the furniture to life. “Our products are not made by industrial machines; they’re made by humans, so each one has its own differences and character,” Tao says. “We talk about our products having a soul, and our process is part of that,” Dodd adds. “When you look at our pieces, each one is telling you about its history and sharing a story about how it was made.” h
design week
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designportland.org
1–8 Aug
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portland
THE VANGUARDS Women revolutionize graphics, interiors, and architecture.
GROUNDBREAKING GRAPHIC DESIGNER PAULA SCHER, photographed by Christopher Garcia Valle for GRAY at Pentagram’s New York headquarters on February 13, 2020. A longtime partner at the firm—the world’s largest independently owned design studio—Scher is marking yet another career milestone with her new book, Paula Scher: Twenty-Five Years at the Public, A Love Story, which debuts in April.
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NEW YORK
SINGULAR SENSATION
NEW YORK Arguably the most influential graphic designer of her generation, Paula Scher has shaped the visual and cultural landscape of New York one exuberant word at a time. By Pilar Viladas Portrait by Christopher Garcia Valle Images courtesy Pentagram
n Gary Hustwit’s 2007 film Helvetica, about the ubiquitous modernist typeface, graphic designer Paula Scher recalled that when she studied at Philadelphia’s Tyler School of Art in the 1960s, a teacher suggested that instead of applying ready-made type to an illustration, she should illustrate the type itself. As a result, she recalls, “I realized that type had spirit and could convey mood, and that it could be a broad palette to express all kinds of things,” a revelation that helped shape her subsequent, now five-decade-long career. Scher, who in 1991 became the first woman partner in the renowned design firm Pentagram, has built a legendary résumé that includes iconic album covers and book jackets as well as identities for commercial clients from Citibank to Shake Shack and for New York cultural institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the High Line, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the “I REALIZED THAT Metropolitan Opera. TYPE HAD SPIRIT Even the New York City AND COULD CONVEY Department of Parks and Recreation uses MOOD, AND THAT Scher-designed graphics. IT COULD BE A She once covered the BROAD PALETTE TO exterior of a performing arts center in Newark, EXPRESS ALL KINDS New Jersey, in large-scale OF THINGS.” all-caps words: THEATER. DANCE. MUSIC. In the —PAULA SCHER 2017 Netflix series Abstract: The Art of Design, Scher said, “Typography is my biggest high.” Scher’s numerous awards include the AIGA Medal and a National Design Award from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Michael Bierut, one of Scher’s partners at Pentagram, says, “Paula is, to a remarkable degree, an uncompromising artist. I’ve never met anyone
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in our field who is so ill at ease with repeating herself.” At the same time, he says, “she’s one of the most articulate people in the world at explaining things.” Pentagram’s own website says Scher “straddles the line between pop culture and fine art in her work,” creating images that have “entered into the American vernacular.” One of the best-known examples of these images is the subject of Scher’s new book, Paula Scher: Twenty-Five Years at the Public, A Love Story, coming in April from Princeton Architectural Press. It chronicles her remarkably long relationship with the Public Theater in New York, in which Scher revolutionized the way a cultural institution presents itself by making type the dominant force in posters, programs, and other printed forms of communication. “I wrote the book for designers,” she says. “All of us make pronouncements about how identities are going to be, but you have no idea. I had to invent it as I went along,” which may be why she calls the Public “my R&D.” In an essay in the book, Ellen Lupton, Senior Curator of Contemporary Design at the Cooper Hewitt, says, “It’s a story about how graphic design really happens.” Graphic design started happening for Scher even before she knew what it was. She made posters for school proms and football games as a teenager, but “didn’t think about graphic design as a separate activity.” At Tyler, Scher, who thought she would be an illustrator, realized that graphic design “was about problem-solving,” something she realized was far more compelling. And there was that fateful epiphany about type. Once out in the world, Scher worked for Atlantic Records as a designer, and later for CBS Records as an art director. There, she designed album covers and posters for the series The Best of Jazz which anticipated her early work for the Public Theater and, to her chagrin, art-directed Boston’s 1976 self-titled debut album, which »
OPPOSITE: For nearly three decades, Scher’s environmental graphics for the Public Theater have appeared across New York City, including the 1996 Times Square billboard pictured here. NEXT PAGE, LEFT: Scher has designed posters for more than 100 Public productions, including this one from 1994. NEXT PAGE, RIGHT: Scher’s largescale installation for Planned Parenthood’s national headquarters in Lower Manhattan includes a mural that remixes a century of the organization’s ephemera as it ascends the main staircase.
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PETER MAUSS/ESTO PETER MAUSS/ESTO
“PAULA IS, TO A REMARKABLE DEGREE, AN UNCOMPROMISING ARTIST. I’VE NEVER MET ANYONE IN OUR FIELD WHO IS SO ILL AT EASE WITH REPEATING HERSELF.” —MICHAEL BIERUT featured a guitar-shaped spaceship. Scher recalls in her 2002 book Make It Bigger that a friend at CBS predicted that “art director of the original Boston album” would be her epitaph. “The thought has always horrified me,” she writes. But, when interviewed years later for a project with a big technology company, Scher—with characteristic savvy—mentioned the Boston cover. “I felt a hush of reverence permeate the room,” she says, and she got the job. After leaving CBS in 1982, Scher went out on her own, eventually founding Koppel & Scher with Terry Koppel, a classmate at Tyler, before joining Pentagram less than a decade later. She was its sole female partner for 10 years, but being part of the company gave her access to clients she might not otherwise have had. Now, she says, things are better for women:
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“I used to try to make men think that women were really good designers,” a task that she recalls as impossible. “You can get them to respect you for who you are and what you do, and in that way, you’ve changed them.” It was at Pentagram that Scher was approached in 1994 by George C. Wolfe, the director of the Public, which was famed for its work by new playwrights, its staging of popular hits such as Hair and A Chorus Line, its acclaimed productions of Shakespeare, and its illustrated posters by Paul Davis. Wolfe enlisted Scher to help convey the message, as he says in the new book, “that the institution was becoming expansive and inclusive and intensely vibrant.” Her response—to overhaul the theater’s visual identity by making “Public” its logo and by using big, inyour-face type rather than illustrations—
was startling. When Scher presented the graphics at one of Pentagram’s international partners’s meetings, some of her colleagues from the London office walked out. Wolfe calls Scher’s graphic design for the 1995 musical Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk—which featured large photos of a dancing Savion Glover surrounded by multidirectional type— “Paula’s most joyfully aggressive work.” The images appeared all over New York, Wolfe says, and “Noise/Funk, the city, and the Public had visually become one.” Since 2005, Scher has worked with Oskar Eustis, Wolfe’s successor as artistic director, on productions including Gatz, Here Lies Love, and the blockbuster hit Hamilton, all the while evolving the theater’s graphics, aided by her own and the Public’s in-house design teams. Among her many current projects, Scher is redesigning Jazz at Lincoln Center’s logo. “I love when they come back and want to redo it,” she says. Her work beyond the sphere of the arts includes the new lobby of Le Méridien Dania Beach Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, featuring an inlaid terrazzo floor that
is a giant map of the city. And, working with the landscape architecture and urban design firm James Corner Field Operations, she has designed a new identity and signage for the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, the nation’s first transit mall. In her spare time, Scher spends weekends painting large-scale, information-and-commentary-rich maps—of cities, states, and continents, of a type that she’s made since the 1990s—at the Connecticut weekend house she shares with her husband, Seymour Chwast, the graphic design icon who cofounded Push Pin Studios with Milton Glaser and Edward Sorel. “He works all weekend. That’s why I started painting,” she quips. (Actually, childhood tests revealed that Scher, a mapmaker’s daughter, had a gift for quantitative reasoning.) And she shows no signs of slowing down. In the Netflix series, Scher says, “Making stuff is the heart of everything. What can I make next? I’m driven by the hope that I haven’t made my best work yet.” h
OPPOSITE, TOP LEFT: Environmental graphics for Bloomberg LP headquarters, Midtown Manhattan. OPPOSITE, MIDDLE: A satirical promotional campaign for women’s body care brand Flamingo. THIS PAGE: Cover and inside spreads of Scher’s new book, Paula Scher: Twenty-Five Years at the Public, A Love Story, a behind-the-scenes look at her longstanding collaboration with her first major client as a Pentagram partner.
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Andee Hess, photographed by Andrew Vanasse for GRAY at Oaks Park Roller Skating Rink in Portland on March 9, 2020. Hess recently redesigned the snack bar for the long-loved rink, which has seen many evolutions since opening in 1905. Hair/makeup by Kylie Salee, styling by Kidessa Shattuck.
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PROOF OF CONCEPT Pacific Northwest design disrupter Andee Hess is pushing her artistic side from Portland to Seoul and beyond. By Lauren Gallow
Portrait by Andrew Vanasse
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While some designers scramble to fill this space with spinoffs of work they’ve done before, or latch onto the Pinterest mood boards their clients create, Hess pushes herself to hold steady. “We take on projects only if there’s time in the scope dedicated to conceptual exploration,” she says. “That means defining and recognizing your core values—really taking the time to understand how and why you’re drawn to certain things, why you and your client make certain decisions. It’s an exercise that hopefully helps us dodge trends.” This resolute commitment to conceptually rich designs that will outlast their 15 minutes of Instagram fame is what defines Hess and her Portland-based studio, Osmose Design, which she founded in 2007. Despite her trend aversion, Hess has steadily emerged as one of the region’s most sought-after designers, her vibrant graphic language setting her apart in a sea of monochromatic Pacific Northwest minimalism. Her portfolio includes a futuristic, rainbow-colored workplace for a software company; a dark, moody, Art Deco-inspired tasting room for a craft distiller; and a suburban home modeled on the concept of a surreal Italian disco. Most recently, she completed a ’70s-inflected redesign of the snack bar in Portland’s beloved Oaks Park Roller Rink. While some designers might turn up their noses at the idea of designing a snack bar, Hess is seduced by oddball assignments. “I’m always looking for new project types that are in a different realm or a new industry,” she says, her curiosity palpable. “The variety of what I get to explore is so exciting—that’s one of my favorite things about design.” Across her residential and commercial work, Hess has created a raucous set of environments that delight the senses even as they verge on the fantastical. Year after year, she has honed a signature style that’s aesthetically rich in its dense layering of colors and textures, but also resonates more deeply, each »
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Hess’s design for Carioca Bowls, a Portland-based açaí café, took inspiration from the vibrant lifestyle and colors of Rio de Janeiro. The hanging ceiling sculpture and handdyed textiles are reminiscent of clear skies and ocean water. “I’m always looking for project types in a different realm or a new industry,” she says. “The variety of client types I get to work with is extremely exciting to me.”
DINA AVILA, COURTESY OSMOSE DESIGN
Interior designer Andee Hess revels in the unknown— that open abyss preceding every creative project, where the possibilities are infinite and the potential for self-doubt almost as high.
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DINA AVILA, COURTESY OSMOSE DESIGN
In creating this Portland residence for Chris Cantino and Jamie Schmidt, founders of the Schmidt’s Naturals brand, Hess integrated ’70s-era design elements such as louche shag carpeting and a rich, saturated color palette. The bespoke sofa was built by InHouse and the tables—a custom Osmose design—are crafted of amber onyx tops and powder-coated metal bases.
The Schmidt master bedroom features a Scarpa-inspired stepped velvet headboard and a ceiling niche of palladium-leafed wallpaper. Hess was drawn to the light fixture for its distinctive shape, which she describes as “a sculptural abstraction of a chandelier.” »
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Hess describes her design for this tasting room at Portland’s House Spirits Distillery as “Art Deco-futurism.” The reinforced aluminum inlay shelving and warm Douglas fir details were fabricated by Acme. Long a champion of Hess’s work, GRAY featured her on the cover of Issue No. 3 in 2012.
KEN HAYDEN, COURTESY OSMOSE DESIGN
project communicating something of the client’s identity. Her combination of conceptual depth and visual play has fueled Osmose Design’s steadily growing influence. Hess is currently crisscrossing the globe as she develops a new café concept for Baskin-Robbins in Seoul. As creative director for the new freestanding five-story Seoul outpost, she is designing custom lighting and furniture and has commissioned Pacific Northwest artists to create large installations throughout the building. Even as Osmose grows, Hess remains staunchly rooted in the Pacific Northwest. “One of the really exciting things is our ability to stay small but have a growing influence,” she says. Hess’s designs for iconic Portland exports Stumptown Coffee and Salt & Straw Ice Cream have gone viral as the brands open shop in locales across the US, but she resists the label of Portland design poster child. “We definitely have people from out of state who say to us, ‘We want that Portland aesthetic.’ But I’ve worked really hard to skate around that. We have a responsibility: we are involved in the built environment. People are working and living and investing in these spaces—it’s more than a graphic design or a staging exercise for me. Design has a real impact on multiple levels. It’s not just an image that gets thrown away.” Often this concern manifests in custom pieces Hess designs for her projects in collaboration with local makers and artisans. These bespoke elements activate her kaleidoscopic environments, allowing them to come to life in the real world and not serve as mere clickbait in the digital realm. Hess’s background in fabrication and material studies—after working in her father’s leather-repair business, she developed a passion for welding and made custom wine tanks as co-owner of a metal fabrication studio in the late 1990s—keeps her grounded in the physical, even as the world of design increasingly turns to the digital. “I started with a barebones understanding of how materials intersect and work together, rather than starting from aesthetic interest,” she says. “At Osmose, we’re looking at real materials, and of course I want our designs to be fun and exciting, but in a more meaningful way.” Hess is using 2020 to kick off a new concept phase in her own creative process, exploring artist residency opportunities in locations around the world as she continues her design projects. When asked what she’ll do with that uninterrupted creative time, she says, “I want to get back into metalwork or ceramics, or maybe something I’m completely unfamiliar with. That line between interior design and art, function versus experience—that’s a really interesting topic I want to explore.” Although it’s infinitely exciting for Hess to dive into the blank space of creative possibility, she admits it doesn’t come without discomfort. Yet for her, fear is part of the process. “Every year, I challenge myself to do something that scares me. So, if calling myself an artist is the thing that scares me, then that’s my challenge now.” h
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Architectural designer Jenny E. Sabin looks to biology, artificial intelligence, and 3D printing to create responsive structures that are poised to transform the built environment.
JAKE KNAPP
By Rachel Gallaher Portrait by Robert Barker
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Designed and assembled by architectural designer Jenny E. Sabin, Ada is a 20-foot-tall, 1,800-pound responsive photoluminescent 3D-printed pavilion that transforms aggregated data—people’s facial expressions and voice tones—into flashes of color that illuminate the structure’s knitted, web-like nylon sections. Standing underneath the structure and smiling or frowning at the camera overhead directly influences the colors. Ada is currently installed in the atrium at the Microsoft Research Lab.
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ABOVE: Ada’s exoskeleton comprises 895 unique and custom 3D-printed nodes that connect 1,274 fiberglass rods into a web of hexagons. Photoluminescent, digitally knit textiles are bolted onto the frame. OPPOSITE: People gathering inside Ada.
JAKE KNAPP; JOHN BRECHER FOR MICROSOFT
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he first time I meet Ada, I’m surprised at how large she is. Tall and broad, she stands out among the workers clustered at tables in the hushed atrium of the Microsoft Research Lab in Redmond, Washington. While they drink coffee and chat quietly over laptop screens, Ada towers in a corner, silently taking it all in. “She looks great now, but she is gorgeous in the evening,” says Asta Roseway, principal research designer and cofounder of the Artist in Residence program at Microsoft Research. She’s the reason Ada’s here, and as we walk toward her, Roseway points out her purplish flush. “Purple is serious,” she explains in a lowered voice. “Yellow is happy. Blue is content or neutral. If four people smile at her all at once [from a specific place], she goes into unicorn mode, which is a crazy rainbow of flashing lights.” If it isn’t obvious by now, Ada (named after 19th-century English mathematician Ada Lovelace) is not actually a person, or technically even female. She’s a
20-foot-tall, 1,800-pound responsive photoluminescent 3D-printed pavilion that transforms aggregated, anonymized data—people’s facial expressions and voice tones—into flashes of color that illuminate the structure’s knitted, web-like nylon sections. Ada looks a lot like a giant brain, and although she doesn’t have one, she sits at the exciting, creatively charged crossroads of art, architecture, and artificial intelligence. It’s a frontier that Ada’s creator, architectural designer Jenny E. Sabin, has helped develop and define over the past two decades. Currently serving as the Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger Professor in Architecture and Associate Dean for Design at Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning and the Department of Architecture, Sabin also runs her own eponymous experimental architecture studio in Ithaca, New York. The studio builds upon Sabin’s academic research, using biological and mathematical principles to inform its design of architectural structures, and it experiments with 3D printing and the adaptation of materials to new contexts using »
Architectural designer Jenny E. Sabin is at the forefront of studying the ways in which science, architecture, and math can interact and inform one another.
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ABOVE: Sabin’s Lumen, the winner of MoMA and MoMA PS1’s 2017 Young Architects Program, was made from more than 1 million yards of digitally knitted responsive fiber and featured 250 hanging tubular structures, 100 robotically woven recycled spool stools, and a misting system that responded to visitors’s proximity. HERE: Inside the Lumen structure.
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infiltrating, a semipermeability that is similar to that of cell membranes. As the first architectural pavilion structure to be driven by human sentiment data in real time, and powered by artificial intelligence, Ada is another step in Sabin’s explorations. Six camera-andmicrophone stations placed in innocuous locations throughout Microsoft Research (and one in Ada herself) record people’s facial expressions (raised brows, frowns, smiles) as they pass, aggregate that data, then feed it to Ada. Different quadrants on the pavilion correspond with different camera stations, so the resulting colors
show a real-time visualization of how certain areas in the building are “feeling.” It’s like a colossal, futuristic mood ring. “I’m very interested in humancentered design,” Sabin says. “At the heart of it, I’m a maker. I want to explore how emerging technologies are impacting the way that we think and work through the design process across multiple scales.” Born and raised in the Seattle area, Sabin excelled in both the arts and mathematics as a child. Her parents are artists, and she recalls a house remodel “that went on for what felt like most of my childhood,” in which she was »
JESSE WINTER; PABLO ENRIQUEZ; JAKE KNAPP
cutting-edge technology. In addition, she directs the Sabin Lab at Cornell College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, where she conducts most of her core research with her team. Sabin, whom Roseway selected in 2018 for the Artist in Residence program, has been exploring these disciplinary intersections since college, and her work—from interlocking 3D-printed bricks that don’t require mortar to large-scale collaborative architectural interventions whose exterior skins have been woven by drones—has the potential to completely upend the ways architects and designers think about, approach, and construct the built environment. “Inherent to data are intangible and difficult-to-read structures and patterns,” Sabin explains. “If you reveal them through light, color, and material [as happens with Ada,] it makes them easier to access, interact with, and understand. Some of the questions we deal with go back to my research and my thinking about how a building might behave like an organism in responding and adapting to the spaces around it.” Although she hasn’t designed any full-scale buildings (yet), Sabin’s ideas, such as looking to human cell structure and behavior as a template for design, line up with the evolving technologies embraced by those who do. For example, most modern buildings have air barriers that keep conditioned air from escaping and exterior air from
A close-up of the digitally knit textiles that make up Ada. According to Asta Roseway, principal research designer and cofounder of the Artist in Residence program at Microsoft Research, it took a year of planning, four months of fabrication, and a month of assembly to complete the structure.
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of collaborators in cell biology, materials science, and mechanical engineering launched a project that used the ECM study to inform biomimetically designed passive materials and sensors meant to be integrated into responsive building skins. Such façades would allow buildings to react and adapt to environmental factors, including the sun and human activity. “Even at the most experimental level,” Sabin says, “my goal has always been to ask how the research I’m doing impacts the way we think about design and ultimately how we make and construct buildings.” As Sabin’s Ada project suggests, the possibility of scaling real-time, datadriven systems and incorporating them into, say, schools, hospitals, or other public spaces isn’t necessarily as frightening or dystopian as it might sound. In fact, intelligent environments have the potential to help humanize the built environment. What if they could help people with limited mobility regain some independence? Or regulate air quality inside kindergarten classrooms? “Part of what we’re trying to do with this artist residency is present diverse narratives of AI,” Roseway says, “ones that are more positive or inclusive or feminine. For Jenny, this project was an opportunity
THIS PAGE: PolyForm, a permanent pavilion commissioned by Cornell’s College of Human Ecology, will open this May. OPPOSITE: The Beacon, designed in collaboration with MedStudio at Thomas Jefferson University, is a free-standing structure that features knitted and woven lightweight, high-performing, formfitting, and adaptive materials held in tension with nonstandard stitched laser-cut steel modules. The exterior skin, woven over 10 days, is one of the first examples of large-scale material construction by drones in architecture.
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to apply data as a living entity into her material practice. For Microsoft Research, Ada was one instance of exploring how ambient AI might exist in our near future.” Sabin’s work is complicated and often operates at elevated academic levels, but her method—looking to biology as a potential informant for architecture— could open new doors in the design and construction of resilient buildings. In addition to her academic deep dives, Sabin regularly taps into her artistic side, creating installations for companies and institutions that help make her research accessible. In 2012, she and five other innovators were commissioned to create an original work for the International Nike FlyKnit Collective architectural challenge. In 2016, she created PolyThread, a light-reactive pavilion made of digitally knitted responsive textiles, for Cooper Hewitt’s design triennial, and in 2017, she unveiled Lumen, the winner of MoMA and MoMA PS1’s Young Architects Program. A wildly popular immersive installation, Lumen was made from more than 1 million yards of digitally knitted responsive fabric and displayed in the museum’s courtyard. In addition to teaching and directing her lab, Sabin often travels to lecture, continues her work in materials research, and runs her practice with a group of architects, designers, and artists. The studio’s upcoming projects include a multilevel Serena Williams–inspired pavilion for the atrium of a new building on Nike’s Beaverton, Oregon, campus; a commissioned outdoor canopy installation and beach activation for a mixed-used development in Abu Dhabi; and a permanent pavilion set to open in May at Cornell’s College of Human Ecology. “I hope that my work offers space for people to pause, reflect, and connect,” Sabin says. “I’m interested in how moments like that—ones that contribute to people’s well-being and quality of life— can be brought into built environments in a permanent way.” Ada isn’t permanent, but she’ll be around for a while. Roseway notes that the current plan is to host her at Microsoft Research Lab for two years and then possibly move her to another building on campus. “This is the most ambitious project we’ve ever done,” she says. “Working with Jenny was an amazing experience; it’s mind-blowing how meticulous and thoughtful she is. In the end, we both view art and design as a bridge into humanity.” We both look up, smiling, and Ada flashes yellow in agreement. h
JENNY SABIN STUDIO; CORY J POPP
encouraged to assist in a very hands-on way. “I remember helping put the roof on,” she says. “It gave me a strong confidence around materials that was an important foundation for my work.” After attending the University of Puget Sound and then University of Washington, where she initially planned to study biochemistry but switched to ceramics, Sabin ran her own art studio and worked at the Seattle Art Museum as the Director of Admissions. While continuing to search for the right setting to explore her overlapping interests, Sabin pursued a professional master’s degree in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2006, she cofounded Sabin + Jones LabStudio with UPenn cell and molecular biologist Peter Lloyd Jones to provide an arena for architects, mathematicians, materials scientists, and cell biologists to exchange ideas and explore how their disciplines can inform one another. In one instance, Sabin and Jones investigated the form and function of the extracellular matrix (ECM)—a connective tissue that, much like building scaffolding provides structural support to cells—and how cells modify it using minimal energy. In the fall of 2010, with a $2 million collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation, Sabin and a group
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LAST CALL
COURTESY LAURIAN GHINITOIU
One more round of inspired design.
CONTINUING THE LEGACY OF THE LATE ZAHA HADID—the Pritzker Prize–winning architect dubbed “Queen of the Curve” by the Guardian in 2013—Dubai’s recently opened Opus building makes a compelling case for unconventional architecture. Located in the city’s stylish Burj Khalifa district and designed by Hadid’s eponymous firm, Opus is an ambitious mixed-use project holding 12 restaurants, a nightclub, extensive office space, and the first Middle Eastern branch of ME by Meliá Hotels. The eight-story
amorphous void carved through the building’s center is spanned by a three-story bridge connecting the two main towers, and every space features commanding views of the surrounding city. The darkened façade, enveloped in UV-protective frit-pattern glass, reflects the expansive skyline. ZHA’s project director for Opus, Christos Passas, tells GRAY that the structure reflects Hadid’s “unwavering optimism [about] the future and belief in the power of advanced design, material, and construction.” —LRB, CB h
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Exceptional spaces to eat, play, work, and stay.
Business travelers feel right at home in Stockholm’s Grow Hotel. LAST FALL, STOCKHOLM WELCOMED A NEW BUSINESS TRAVELER’S RESPITE, GROW HOTEL. Defined by an open-concept lobby that seamlessly segues into a restaurant, bar, and lounge, its main level offers a relaxed atmosphere in which guests connect over meals or cocktails. Designed by 2019 GRAY Awards judge Johannes Carlström of Note Design Studio, Grow employs monochromatic color schemes that correspond with the function of each space—the entrance floor is washed in vivid earthen hues and includes a raw terracotta partition, while the hotel’s 176 rooms feature ceilings in a calming deep blue. “The overall idea when designing the space was to create a warm and vibrant entrance floor for social interactions,” says Carlström, “and tranquil, almost serene aesthetics in the rooms for a good night’s sleep and recovery.” —AD, CB h
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In Grow’s JapanesePeruvian restaurant Norobata, blush pink chairs and an Alicante Rojo marble bar effortlessly balance the cool green open kitchen, with Verde Guatemala marbletopped counters.
JONAS LINDSTRÖM / STAFFAN SUNDSTRÖM
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StoreyStudio designed Roven’s brick-and-mortar shop and developed the beauty retailer’s brand identity with custom graphics across storefront windows, nature-inspired shopping bags, and a curated playlist that sets the mood for shoppers.
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THE ONLINE NATURAL-BEAUTY RETAILER ROVEN TOOK ITS DIGITAL DREAMSCAPE ANALOG by opening its first Los Angeles pop-up shop. The IRL experience, established on Abbot Kinney Boulevard last fall, was designed by London-based StoreyStudio, which aimed to preserve the ease of shopping Roven’s digital platform while immersing customers in a surreal setting inspired by natural landscapes. Following the shop’s sequential layout, which reflects the steps of a daily beauty routine, visitors first encounter Roven’s skincare line: cleansers and serums are displayed on beds of moss set atop islands whose swirled-sherbet hues are meant to echo those of China’s Rainbow Mountains. Farther afield, they discover makeup and fragrances on tiered shelves whose undulating shapes carry forward the otherworldly aesthetic. But StoreyStudio didn’t stop there: tucked behind a sunset-colored curtain at the back of the space is the wind room, a mirror-lined, cavelike space where hand-painted wheatgrass dangles from the ceiling. Inside, customers experience the whip and whirl of a wind simulator, meant to remind them of the Southern California breeze. —CB h
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London’s new Sri Lankan eatery fuses organic materials with industrial chic.
IN THE HEART OF LONDON’S BUZZY SOHO DISTRICT, a leafy oasis awaits restaurant-goers in the form of Kolamba, the neighborhood’s new Sri Lankan eatery. Softened by verdant native Sri Lankan foliage, cotton-and-bamboo pendant lights, live-edge tables, and a bar with a terrazzo backsplash (fashioned from upcycled chunks of teal marble set in white resin), the space’s industrialbotanical mashup is a sophisticated take on tropical modernism. The style, first articulated by renowned Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa, combines the organic beauty of natural forms and materials with the dynamic angles and clean edges of modernism to achieve an escapist yet elegant aesthetic.
“There are parts of Kolamba that are quite jazzy and parts of it that are more stripped back,” says Annie Harrison, the project’s lead designer and founder of London-based interiors firm Fare. Kolamba is structured much like the internal courtyards found in many Sri Lankan homes, which invite nature indoors—another tenet of tropical modernism. The main dining space is lined with polished concrete walls and plush leather banquettes, while the area near the kitchen is clad in dark evergreen tile to heighten the drama of the live flora. As Harrison explains, “It’s meant to feel like you’re looking through the restaurant to a lush tropical space.” —AD, CB h
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DESIGN THAT MOVES YOU TRANSPORT
In Polestar, automotive designer Thomas Ingenlath has found his true north.
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Ingenlath watches both fashion and architecture for, as he explains, “almost opposite reasons”: fashion for cues in materials and color schemes, and architecture for the exterior because “buildings are some of the longest-lasting products you can design.” In the next decade, Ingenlath sees auto innovation centered on two things: the human-machine interface and CO2 neutrality. “The future of luxury means you are doing a good deed—making a thoughtful yet aspirational purchase,” he predicts. When asked how it feels to pursue perfection to such a degree, Ingenlath says, “People underestimate the effort that goes into the last third of the project, which is the hardest part. You have to fight for what’s right in the end product, but it’s worth it.” We have to agree, as it seems that in Polestar, this designer has found his true north. —Matthew Dakotah h
“THE FUTURE OF LUXURY MEANS YOU ARE DOING A GOOD DEED.” — THOMAS INGENLATH COURTESY POLESTAR
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irst there was the dramatic revitalization of Volvo, fueled by a fresh design language initially seen in the 2016 XC90 luxury SUV. Next came a new electric performance brand from the long-loved Swedish company and its parent, Geely Auto Group, with the launch of Polestar 1—an ultra-exclusive halo coupe with just 500 cars allocated for its inaugural 2020 model year. Now comes the Polestar 2, an exquisitely crafted five-door fastback—expected this summer—with a distinctive crystal light blade illuminating its rear, and a vegan interior that takes inspiration from high-tech sportswear. Leading the charge is Polestar CEO and Volvo Chief Design Officer, Thomas Ingenlath. “Of course, both Polestar and Volvo are Scandinavian, so this means a certain type of minimalism is critical for design at both brands,” he says. “But I am a heavy advocate for the two being very different. Volvo gives a sense of community both inside and outside the car. Polestar is much more selfish—it’s about you and the machine.”
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