vernacular design

culture city

This page: Ceramic artwork by TaylorRobenaltCeramics. com, TDRobenalt@aol.com, @ceramic_casualties and @ contemporary_clay_culture

Autobiographic Fantastic

TAYLOR ROBENALT SCULPTS HER LIFE’S JOURNEY IN PURE PORCELAIN—and what a year it has been. A year of new life and new beginnings, with Robenalt celebrating her first child and her canine companion having puppies in solidarity— not to mention starting a new job at Ringling College of Art & Design and receiving an artist residency in Greece. The resulting exuberance and optimism pour forth in the porcelain forms of rabbits, raccoons and squirrels, silver-tongued wolves and ruby-lipped women with red cardinals atop their heads. Each piece is handbuilt by Robenalt, who describes the joy of working in this most delicate ceramic material as “like working with butter.” Whimsical and totemic, the series sees the artist further exploring a symbolic narrative that harnesses the fantastic to transcend the specific. “In a weird way, I end up hitting a chord with people,” Robenalt says. “Inevitably, I will sync up with somebody.” SRQ

VERNACULAR DESIGN

HIVE ARCHITECTS DESIGNS A CONCEPT FROM THE GROUND UP ON THE INSPIRATION OF A SINGULAR NAME/DESCRIPTOR. FOR A NEWLY-FINISHED ABODE ON THE BAYOU, THE JAPANESE WORD “SHIBUSA” BECAME ITS ENTIRE ETHOS AND IDENTITY.

VERNACULAR

This page: Interior and exterior photography by Ryan Gamma (@rgammaphoto).Hive Architects Inc., 1570 Boulevard of the Arts Suite 110, Sarasota, 941-951-6191, hivearchitects.com, @hive_architects.

Architectural design firm Hive Architects has an inimitable way of creating their clients’ dream homes.

After some precursory conversations, Principal Architects and husband/wife power team Joe Kelly, AIA and Gwen Leroy-Kelly, AIA, get to know their clients, their lifestyle goals and site-specific conditions before coming up with a unique name for the project. This given name is to encapsulate the entire scope and theme of their vision, carrying through to the design process and constructing it to life. “The word comes before the design on every project,” they share. “But we don’t reveal the name right away—we let our clients get excited and anticipate the name till the schematic design/ presentation.” There, Joe and Gwen present the word, its definitive meaning and how those descriptive traits will be distilled singularly into the concept. “The word ends up being a springboard that unfolds and expands into the features of the home,” Joe says. “This milestone moment triggers the creativity and drives the design.”

For husband and wife clients from the Midwest— Kate Nord, an entrepreneur in various businesses, and Richard Nord, a landscape architect—they anxiously awaited Joe and Gwen’s reveal for their first-ever modern-style home build. Nestled on the north end of Siesta Key—in the same neighborhood as the ever-beloved Cocoon House designed by the late, great Paul Rudolph in 1948—the Nord’s property extends from Big Sarasota Pass on one side and Bayou Louise on the other. “As with all of our projects, we spent a great deal of time interviewing our clients to better understand the program requirements and qualities of the spaces they envision for their new home,” Gwen says. “Kate and Richard’s goal, we learned, was for the building to reflect their simple, uncomplicated but refined lifestyle while maximizing the use of the site.”

A build is worth a thousand words—but this insight led the Hive team to pick just one for this project: “shibusa.” The Japanese word is a concept that “encompasses an enriched, subdued appearance or experience of intrinsically fine quality with economy of form, line and effort.” The meaning and