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New Norm
Jon Jon, Lilith, and Lucian Rufino
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EDITOR’S NOTE
CONTENTS
ON THE RADAR 4
We put Jon Jon Rufino and his beautiful twins, Lilith and Lucian, on the cover of our December issue because to us, family is the core of the season. It’s true that the holidays can be tiring, and in this country, gift giving can sometimes feel more like a chore, but the gatherings we attend during this month are the ones we cherish most. I’ve been working on this magazine since its conception, and producing RED has been one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done. The goal from the start was to present an intelligent magazine for people with discerning taste and to show them ideas on how they may want to spend their time and money, whether on art, fashion, or travel. But I think it’s time to move on, focus on my blog www.riarecommends.com, and pursue other interests. So with a heavy but grateful heart, I would like to wish all the readers of Inquirer RED adieu and a wonderful 2018. The truth is, what I will miss the most about producing this magazine are the people I have been working with and the ones I’ve met through this job. One in particular is our art director Nimu Muallam. From being simply a colleague, she has become a friend and someone I choose to be part of my family. With Christmas as a celebration of family, both the ones we were given and the ones we’ve chosen, may we always remember how fortunate we are to have them in our lives. Happy holidays!
Home and tech accessories for every aesthete
ART 6
A magnum opus going digital, and the loftiest artworks that broke auction history
EMPOWERED 8
Macky Fäh masters the elements of earth and fire in her artisanal work
DEVOURED 12
Italy sets up a smorgasbord akin to Disney theme parks
ATTIRED 14
A selection of items we love, in holiday colors we can’t seem to shake off
ADMIRED 20
Jon Jon Rufino on the joys of unconventional parenthood
EXPLORED 24
@riarecommends
A not-so-concrete jungle arises in the urban landscapes of Milan
ACQUIRED 26
Customizable ottomans and surfaces for you to put up your feet On the cover: Jon Jon Rufino wears Paul Smith, his twins, Lilith and Lucian, both wear Gingersnaps Styling Ria Prieto Photos Joseph Pascual Hair and makeup Dorothy Mamalio
Group Publisher Bea J. Ledesma Editor in Chief Ria Prieto Creative Director Nimu Muallam Associate Editor Alyosha J. Robillos Copy Editor September Grace Mahino Editorial Assistant Belle O. Mapa Staff Photographers Patrick Segovia and Nicco Santos Account Executive Liza Jison
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Contributing Writers Angus MacKinnon/AFP,
Celine Cornu/AFP
Contributing Photographers Joseph Pascual, Vincenzo Pinto/AFP, Miguel Medina/AFP Contributing Hair and Makeup Dorothy Mamalio
Board Chairperson Alexandra Prieto-Romualdez SVP and Group Sales Head, Inquirer Group of Companies Pepito Olarte AVP, Sales Ma. Katrina Mae Garcia-Dalusong Head of Operations and Business Development Lurisa Villanueva Business and Distribution Manager Rina Lareza Sales Inquiries Email: sales@hip.ph Telephone No: +63 (2) 403 8825 local 239
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Want to see the other issues of Inquirer RED Magazine? Check out inquirer.net/red Inquirer RED Magazine is a monthly luxury magazine published by Hinge Inquirer Publications. RED is available at Fully Booked for free. For subscription inquiries, please contact 0917-5854870 or visit go.hip.ph/subscribe.
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MINO
ON THE RADAR
Standout Scene
Gear up for 2018 with these fun and eye-catching finds WORDS ALYOSHA J. ROBILLOS
MOBILE MAKEOVER
FAIR FRAGRANCE Those who put a premium on wellness and relaxation may want to update their candle collection in time for 2018. From fruity and flowery scents to musky and woody notes, it’s best to choose a candle that’s a joy to see and sniff.
Buly 1803’s Campagne d’Italie, made from plant-based wax and with notes of pepper, cypress, and incense, is housed in a “zebra marble” receptacle, and is covered by a bell jar to preserve fragrance.
Techies ought to treat themselves—and their overworked gadgets—to a major facelift before the year ends. Spruce up smartphones with a pop of color or some glittering crystals. From the brand’s Wonders collection is Fendi’s Blossom appliquéd leather iPhone case, which comes with bright red pyramid studs, hanging silver legs, and a suede backing in sky blue or baby pink. A more daring pick would be an embellished, printed, and textured leather iPhone case from Dolce & Gabbana. All items from this selection feature statement patterns and crystals arranged to look like various flora.
A “powerful refreshing blast of woody essential oils” awaits anyone who lights up Tom Dixon’s Materialism Oil Candle. Its dark, iridescent glass vessel, striking even from afar, mimics the way gasoline interacts with water. Malachite by Fornasetti is encased in a ceramic vessel hand-painted to look like the green gemstone, and “opens with notes of pine, clary sage, and galbanum.”
RAD RIDE Hungry for adventure? With boards from designer brands and lifestyle labels, you can skate in style and master those flips. Go all out with the Hermès Cavalcadour-printed Vosges maple skateboard, done with bright purple wheels for that added oomph.
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ART
Digitized Masterpiece
An online exhibit shows hidden depths of Picasso’s Guernica Lawrence modular seating system
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Spray-painted in murals, wielded on anti-war banners, and even once hung as a tapestry at the United Nations, Pablo Picasso’s Guernica might be the world’s most famous political artwork. Now, organizers of a new initiative are inviting art lovers to revisit the iconic blackand-white painting, using the latest imaging technology and releasing a trove of previously unseen documents to chart its turbulent history. “Guernica is a source of never-ending artistic material, and it’s a privilege to be with as an art historian,” says Rosario Peiro, head of collections at Madrid’s Reina Sofia modern art museum. She is part of the team behind Rethinking Guernica an interactive exhibition launched this week about the work. “Putting all of this together allows you to rethink the history of the painting.” Guernica, conceived in the depths of Spain’s devastating civil war, shows the bombing of a Basque town on April 26, 1937 by German and Italian air forces under the orders of future Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Hundreds died in an aerial attack on civilians that shocked the world and set a precedent repeated often by German and allied forces in World War II. Picasso, then living in France, was commissioned by the struggling Spanish Republican government to produce a work depicting the bombing for the
1937 World Fair in Paris. Storied history That commission and hundreds of other documents concerning Guernica are now available online for the first time. They tell the story of a hugely well-travelled work, with stops in Scandinavia, Britain, and the United States, where it spent decades on loan at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). There are papers relating to its trip to Venezuela in 1948 that was cut short due to a coup d’etat, and a frantic telegram sent by MoMA collections director Alfred H. Barr Jr. informing the artist that his works were safe after a fire tore through the museum in 1958. “Clearly, it is a political painting because it was requested by the government for a propaganda purpose,” says Peiro. “The truth is, during all these years of travel and being in different places, the work was depoliticized.” Researchers took thousands of images using visible and ultraviolent light as well as infrared reflectography and high-definition x-rays to create a “gigapixel” rendering that allows users to browse a 436-gigabyte composite of the work. Details of its restoration, individual paint strokes, and even rogue hairs from Picasso’s
brushes can be seen still stuck to the original canvas. Residue from a 1974 act of vandalism is visible in the form of barely perceptible reddish discoloration across central areas. “For me, what is interesting to see is the geography of the painting, its surface, as if it’s a kind of history map,” says Peiro. New perspectives The Reina Sofia currently displays dozens of black-and-white war images alongside Guernica, many captured by legendary Catalan conflict photographer Agusti Centelles. Some critics credit the photos for Picasso’s decision to eschew his usual vivid colors in the piece. As Catalonia’s independence crisis exposes Spain to its deepest political turbulence since returning to democracy in 1978, Peiro, however, insists the current installation isn’t about politics. “We do show a lot of Barcelona photographs, but that’s because the best Spanish photojournalist of the time was Catalan,” she said. Peiro hopes the new project will provide new perspectives on one of the 20th-century’s defining images. “Guernica is the most important work, physically and symbolically, for the museum, so we have to keep on working on it,” she says. “It’s the least we can do.”
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ART
Under the hammer
The top record-breaking art auctions
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Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi (or Savior of the World), one of fewer than 20 da Vinci paintings generally accepted as being from the Renaissance master’s hand, sold for $450.3 million at Christie’s.
A 500-year-old work of art, believed to be by Leonardo da Vinci and depicting Jesus Christ, sold in New York for $450.3 million, smashing the record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, Christie’s said. The exact value of private sales is often not revealed. But a Willem de Kooning painting and a Gauguin were reportedly sold separately for $300 million each in 2015, according to US media reports. Below is a list of the 10 most expensive art works ever sold at an auction. Unless stated otherwise, all are paintings.
2 Pablo Picasso’s The Women of Algiers (Version O) fetched $179.4 million at Christie’s in New York in May 2015.
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Picasso’s Nu au Plateau de Sculpteur (Nude, Green Leaves and Bust) lured $106.4 million at Christie’s in New York in May 2010.
10 Picasso’s Boy with a Pipe sold for $104.2 million at Sotheby’s in New York in May 2004.
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Jean-Michael Basquiat’s Untitled (1982) sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s in New York in May 2017.
8
Andy Warhol’s Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) sold for $105.4 million at Sotheby’s in New York in November 2013.
9
Alberto Giacometti’s sculpture Walking Man I sold for $104.3 million at Sotheby’s in London in February 2010.
5 Edvard Munch’s pastel The Scream fetched $119.9 million at Sotheby’s in New York in 2012.
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3
Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu couché of a reclining naked woman drew $170.4 million at Christie’s in New York in November 2015.
4
Francis Bacon’s triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud sold for $142.4 million at Christie’s in New York in 2013.
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EMPOWERED
Earth, Bling, and Fire
Macky Fäh’s emporium of worldly delights WORDS BELLE O. MAPA PHOTOGRAPHY NICCO SANTOS
A sweet, musky scent greets those who step foot into Bijoux Fäh, the eponymous showroom of jeweler and candlemaker Macky Fäh; it comes from a smokeless candle softly burning in the corner of the sitting area. The aroma makes the place feel even more like the inside of a jewelry box, rich in lush textures and shimmering trinkets. The showroom is a petite but far from modest space. The ambience is earthy, what with the tapestry hanging on a concrete wall, the plush green velvet couch, and the lit column of Silvergil, Fäh’s favorite candle. With a scent that’s an elixir of amber, pomegranate, vanilla, and almond, it’s also the bestseller from Fäe, her line of beeswax candles. It’s easy to deduce that Fäh loves green. Unsurprisingly, she’s a Virgo, an earth sign, and she exudes a sophisticated, welcoming, and almost maternal energy. True enough, she started her candle-making business while on a two-year sabbatical from creating jewelry,
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when she was expecting and then nursing her first child. “Bijoux Fäh does not exist when I’m pregnant. For me, that first year [with my newborn] is something I will not get back,” she says of Fäe’s genesis. “When I was pregnant, my sense of smell became so sensitive that I’d buy all the candles. My husband said, ‘Why don’t you just make them?’ So I did the research and partnered up with chemists. I wanted [to create] something that I would buy.” Each hand-crafted candle is made from cosmetic grade beeswax and imported wicks, and then packaged in rich frosted glass and a gold-embossed box. The logo, with its glyphs, tops everything off with an air of luxury. There’s almost a fantastical quality to it as well. Fae, after all, is the French and Gaelic word for “fairy.” From perfume to packaging, Fäe is a whimsical sensory delight. “I guess
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“I make stuff that can be kept forever. My jewelry is not just about selling; they’re keepsakes.” at the time [when I was still building the brand], I was reading a lot of children’s books,” Fäh says with a laugh. “The label is also a play on my last name. I was lucky enough that my husband has a fun name to play [with]. My friends [call me] ‘fähbulous,’ they mess with my name all the time. We try to have fun with it.” Jewelry and candle-making may seem to be two far-fetched trades to be housed under the same roof, but for Fäh, both are distinguished only by the senses that enjoy them: Where opulent gems conquer sight, candles triumph over olfaction. “In a lot of ways, they’re similar,” Fäh says. “I have to think of what to put together. I have a base, a top, a middle. Something has to be green or a little earthier. It’s a balance.” Fäh draws inspiration from her surroundings, particularly when she goes hiking with friends.
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She describes the things she’s seen on her journeys: virescent leaves bigger than her hands, crystalclear running water, even the bugs she runs away from have their own beauty. On a mannequin hand upholstered in laminated manta ray leather, an emerald ring gleams like a beetle bathing in the sunlight. Something about the fresh air and the excitement of a mountain conquered allows Fäh to open up, not just socially but creatively as well. She believes in an aesthetic that is both refined and versatile, and certainly with a good amount of gold and beautiful jewels. “If I’ve been going to the beach a lot, you’ll see a lot of starfish and shells,” she says of how her experiences of the outdoors are reflected in her jewelry. “If I’d gone hiking a lot, you’ll see a lot of greens. If I had been in the city a lot, you’ll see more angular stuff. I believe that when you look
at your surroundings, you shouldn’t limit yourself.” The jewelry she makes all starts with a stone—perhaps something given to her by a client or a friend to be reset into an earring with a more contemporary feel, or a collection of diamonds to be forged into a three-tier tennis bracelet. She plays with both metals and gems, treasures sourced from the very fires and orifices of the earth. “Aesthetically, I find it important [for a piece to be] made well,” Fäh says. There’s fearlessness in her experimentation with colors and finishes, a reflection of her creative spirit, and what emerges is a memento that can be passed on from mother to child. “I make stuff that can be kept forever. My jewelry is not just about selling; they’re keepsakes.”
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DEVOURED
Made in Italy
Step into the “Disneyland for foodies” WORDS ANGUS MACKINNON|/AFP PHOTOGRAPHY VINCENZO PINTO/AFP
A gastronomic theme park designed as a celebration of Italy’s field-to-fork food culture opened this month, with backers aiming to pull in six million visitors a year. Dubbed a “Disneyland for foodies” and billed as the biggest venture of its kind in the world, FICO Eataly World is located on the outskirts of Bologna. It is the brainchild of Oscar Farinetti, the entrepreneur behind Eataly, a global network of upmarket Italian food halls that has taken New York and a string of other major cities around the world by storm in recent years. Spread over 10 hectares, the park, which will operate as a conference venue as well as a tourist attraction, will be run by a partnership of Eataly and Italian retail group Coop. The venue has been financed by a consortium of private investors and the local authorities in a city famed for its rich cuisine but off Italy’s main tourist track. The FICO of the park’s name comes from the acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Contadina (Italian Farming Factory). Fico is also the Italian word for “fig,” and a popular slang term for “cool.” The
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multiple meaning is in keeping with Farinetti’s multi-faceted vision of a venue that will allow visitors to take part in activity workshops ranging from food photography to gelato-making via the basics of truffle-hunting. “Total panic” A fifth of the park, assembled in what was the city’s wholesale fruit and vegetable market, is outdoors, with some 200 animals and 2,000 species of plant life due to be on show. “Education is fundamental to the whole thing. But it is also about having fun, eating, shopping,” Farinetti said in an interview ahead of FICO’s opening. The park is also about celebrating the culinary and farming crafts that lie behind many of Italy’s most famous gastronomic products, and the bio-diversity of a country that stretches from Mediterranean islands within sight of Africa to snow-capped Alpine peaks. Visitors can explore that diversity via more than 40 eateries and a similar number of learn-
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how-its-done displays by specialist producers of everything, from rare-breed beef to licorice sweets. As the opening date nears, Farinetti says he is caught between rampant enthusiasm at seeing a dream realized, and “total panic.” “This for me is quite normal. I’m terrified that people won’t come in the numbers we expect. You can’t help but feel panicked when you start something like this.” Park CEO Tiziana Primori said the target was to draw six million visitors a year by 2020, with the business plan envisaging a third coming from the local area, a third from the rest of Italy, and a final tranche of around two million from abroad. Betting on success Asked if that target is realistic, Farinetti responds with a broad smile. “No, it’s utopian, but every project I have been involved with has been utopian. The whole world is realistic; I prefer utopia. I don’t know if we will make it but we’ll give it our all.” Underpinning that ebullience is the success enjoyed by almost all of the Eataly stores that have been opened from Copenhagen to Sao Paolo. “At the moment, there is an absolutely crazy interest in Italian food from the citizens
of the world, for pasta, for pizza, for our simple cuisine,” said Farinetti. That, he says, is down to the ease in which dishes tasted in Italy or in restaurants can be reproduced in domestic kitchens. “You can buy half a kilo of pasta, some extra virgin olive oil, and San Marzano tomatoes, and go home and make what you had. And it is very digestible and light.” Among those backing Farinetti’s vision is Antonio Capaldo, owner of the Feudi San Gregorio wine company and one of dozens of entrepreneurs involved in the project. Capaldo has teamed up with a seafood wholesaler to create a fish-based fast-food eatery at the park, which will showcase his expanding company’s white and sparkling wines. “We know all the complications, but there is a great thirst for Italian culture around the world, and that, combined with Oscar’s track record, is why we are betting on this being a success,” he said.
“Education is fundamental to the whole thing. But it is also about having fun, eating, shopping.”
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ATTIRED
Holiday Hangover
Conversation pieces that come in gold, green, and red
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Candle, Cire Trudon, XXX; printed socks, Paul Smith, Greenbelt 5
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Classic buckled belt, Jil Sander, XXX; clip ear cuff, Balenciaga, Greenbelt 5; belt with gold buckle, Gucci, Greenbelt 4; geometric earrings, Marni, Univers, One Rockwell; satin pumps, Manolo Blahnik, XXX
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Cards On The Table clutch, Olympia Le Tan, XXX; tiger clutch, Kenzo, XXX; mini shoulder bag, Marni, Univers, One Rockwell; flat clutch, Maison Margiela, XXX
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EXPLORED
The Family Way Jon Jon Rufino lives by a modern outlook as he brings up his brood WORDS BELLE O. MAPA PHOTOGRAPHY JOSEPH PASCUAL
20 We catch Jon Jon Rufino on a cloudy afternoon just as his kids, Lilith and Lucian, awake from a nap. Lilith is shy at first, almost demure, but after the photo shoot ends and the sun has set, she is handed a microphone and transforms into a little songstress, taking center stage in the piano room. She banters with her brother Lucian over the accompanying dance to the Tagalog lilt she sings. The twins, equally exuberant and sweet, were born via donor and surrogate on Father’s Day five years ago. And the rest, as they say, is history. If there’s one thing universally agreeable around this time of year, it’s that the holidays are a time to spend with good company. Family: It’s a word that rings true for anyone, though its definition may vary depending on whom you ask. For Rufino, a progressive thinker, an environmentalist, and a proud member of the LGBT community, his treasures are his twins and his partner, musical director Rony Fortich.
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How do you explain your advocacies to your kids? I have taken them to Pride Parades since they were six months old. I take them hiking and swimming. I encourage them to think on their own. I haven’t gone into the deeper concepts of what each of those things mean, though—maybe soon. Maybe when they’re seven. How would you define your family dynamic as a solo parent of two kids, and now with a partner? I didn’t have kids until I was 37. This means that I was able do a lot of other things first, which has put me in a great frame of mind with the kids. They are the priority in my life. I chose this. So I have to plan everything for them, especially at this age. But living in this country, I have amazing help. First of all, both my parents love the twins like their own children, and they spend time with them practically every day. And then I’m so lucky that we have good nannies, thanks to my sister Kris, who asked her daughter’s nanny Dia to work for me. She’s so trustworthy. I
love taking care of the kids on my own, but what a load off of my shoulders that I’m able to plan adult activities, knowing that my kids are in safe hands with their nanny or their grandparents. And then I met Rony [Fortich], who’s fantastic with the kids. It was a challenge balancing a relationship with being a parent before, but Rony and I are generally on the same page. We are still in the process of finding what “normal everyday” means, but isn’t everybody? I love that he sees and prioritizes educating the kids in certain ways that I might have not focused on, like teaching them about kindness. Without him, I might have just focused on politeness. What are the twins like? Lucian is a bundle of joy. He smiled to me on the first day. Our nanny saw him when I brought him home from the hospital a week later, and she confirmed that he [also] smiled to her then. He’s also very attached to me; I’m his favorite bed. He
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makes friends easily in school, and since the age of three, he has been turning anything into a sword or a gun to “fight the bad guys.” Lilith is mastering her powers as a woman. She does not give her affection away easily, even to me, but when she does, she can make you feel as if you’re on top of the world. She also loves singing and watching musicals. And she enjoys tennis and is developing pretty well for a five-yearold—already on the road to fulfilling my fantasy. She loves babies. She loves pretending to be a baby sometimes, then other times, she loves playing at being the older sister or the mother, except she’s bothered by the idea of childbirth. At this point, she prefers to adopt, ha ha! What are you getting the twins for Christmas? Lucian is obsessed with Ninjago right now while Lilith is obsessed with Matilda the Musical.
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How do you empower your kids? I made a promise to my children during their naming ceremony, when I invited their guide parents to share words or a quote from a book or a line from a song with them, that I would never lie to them. My main motivation for having kids initially was to share my curiosity of the world with them. So that’s my priority: to implement that desire to learn. I also promised that I would allow them to solve problems in their own way. If I tell them that they need to do something, I will explain to them why. And if they come up with a better way of doing it, we can do that instead. Now that they’re five, we are finally able to start implementing this, little by little. I’m also on board with the idea that they don’t have to kiss all of my friends or my parents’ friends if they are not feeling it. They need to know that their bodies are their own.
How are you celebrating the holidays with your family? Rony’s a musical director, and he has a concert in Dakak just before Christmas, and a New Year's Eve concert in Dubai, so we are watching him on both shows. Actually, I’m taking one kid to one and the other to the other, because I value individual time with the twins. It allows them to further develop their unique relationships with me; otherwise they demand the same thing from me at the same time. Also, my parents so appreciate having one child with them without me around, ha ha! Rony and I have even started having individual dates with the kids, which I highly recommend to other parents. Go to a different restaurant with one kid while your partner goes somewhere else with another kid.
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Any special holiday traditions? None yet, but we’ll invent some along the way. I’d like the kids to invent them.
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12/12/2017 5:12 PM
Green Revolution
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EXPLORED
Italy’s high-rise forests take root around the world TEXT CELINE CORNU/AFP PHOTOGRAPHY MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP
As balconies bristle with tree branches and sunshine dapples the leaves of thousands of plants, two apartment buildings in the heart of Milan have almost disappeared under lush forest. The brainchild of Milanese architect Stefano Boeri, the Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) uses more than 20,000 trees and plants to adorn the high-rise buildings from top to bottom—a project now being exported all over the world, from China to the Netherlands. The two original leafy towers dominate the skyline in the northern Italian city, giving residents—which include celebrities like footballer Ivan Perisic—an enviable view over the new district of Porta Nuova and beyond. Cherry, apple, and olive trees spill over balconies alongside beeches and larches, selected and positioned according to their resistance to wind and preference for sunlight or humidity. Boeri said the idea came from his obsession with trees and determination to make them “an essential component of architecture,” particularly as a weapon to combat climate change. “I was in Dubai in 2007, and I watched this city growing in the middle of the desert, with more than 200 glass towers multiplying the effect of heat,” he recalls. He wanted, instead, to create something that “as well as welcoming life, can contribute to reducing pollution, because trees absorb microparticles and carbon dioxide.
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“Cities now produce about 75 percent of the carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere. Bringing more trees into the city means fighting the enemy on the spot,” he said. “Best Tall Building Worldwide” Opened in 2014, the Vertical Forest won the prestigious Frankfurt International Highrise Award, and the Chicago Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat named it the Best Tall Building Worldwide. “It’s a unique thing to live here. We’re in direct contact with the plants while being in the city center and in a super modern skyscraper,” says Simona Pizzi, who can see the mountains from her 14th floor apartment. “The plants have developed a lot over the past three years, and we see them changing with the seasons,” adds the proud owner of an apple tree, where the white flowers contrast magnificently with the green foliage.
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Boeri worked closely with botanists to create a nursery of a thousand trees that have been trained to grow under specific conditions. The team faced numerous challenges, from how the balconies should be structured to take the weight of the plants, to how to secure the tree roots and what needed to go into the soil. They even carried out resistance tests at a hurricane center in Miami. “For every human being living in the building, there are about two trees, 10 shrubs, and 40 plants,” Boeri said. The future of housing? The vegetation soon transformed into a veritable wildlife park: Nine thousand ladybirds brought over from Germany to eat parasites—to leave the plants pesticide-free—multiplied over the space of a few weeks. “The extraordinary thing that we did not expect was the incredible amount of birds that nested here. We have small hawks on the roofs, and swifts that had previously disappeared from Milan,” Boeri said. The architect and his team are now working on a dozen or so Vertical Forest projects around the world, including Lausanne in Switzerland, Utrecht in the Netherlands, Sao Paolo in Brazil, and Tirana in Albania. The aim in Eindhoven in the Netherlands is to swap the sort of luxury pads seen in the Milan project, which go for some €11,000 ($12,900) per sq. m., for social housing—a project Boeri says he’s particularly keen on. And because the cost of the trees is low, it’s not an unreasonable ambition, he says. He is also thinking big in China, where not only are two towers under construction in Nanjing and a hotel in the works in Shanghai, but there are plans for a “Forest City” of some 200 buildings in Liuzhou. “China is now realizing it faces the dramatic problem of air pollution, but also of uncontrolled urbanization, with cities growing out of suburbs, creating megacities,” he said. “Every year, 15 million peasants abandon the countryside to come to the city. We have to come up with some answers, with new green cities,” says Boeri, who took part in the COP21 conference on climate change in Paris in 2015. The architect has not patented the Vertical Forest and has even written a book revealing the secrets and techniques behind it, which he hopes will encourage a new, greener way of developing cities.
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Surface Beauty
Provide guests the space to put their drinks and other personal effects on WORDS BELLE O. MAPA
Elevate entertaining at home into a tasteful affair with Flexform’s collection of modular pieces that fuse contemporary lines and sharp angles with classic curvature. While a living room’s focal point is the sofa set, it’s the center table that truly transforms a space into inhabitable luxury. And it’s not called a console without reason: A standing surface is a source of comfort as much as it is a complement to your seating.
CABARÉ SMALL TABLE A reflective metal tray adds dimension to the matte finish of the solid wood console. The tray can also be detached from its two-tier frame to use for serving. FILICUDI OTTOMAN SET The Filicudi’s crowning feature is the almost three-dimensional cowhide herringbone weave. While ottomans are for putting up your feet, they’re great too as extra surfaces for table displays. FLY SMALL TABLE Antonio Citterio’s design is defined by its architectural anatomy: a single leg diverging into three feet. The collection’s different shapes encourage a layering of white Italian marble tabletops. INFINITY STORAGE SYSTEM Flexform’s iconic Infinity line is both a conversation starter and a personal composition. The freestanding sheet metal structure can hold cowhide baskets for extra storage space and accents. JIFF SMALL TABLE SET Three legs converge at the base of this monomaterial collection, which looks great as a trio next to a large sofa. The Jiff only comes in solid wood: Canaletto walnut, ashwood, and teak.
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