Markus Andrews

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    The Wayfinder hotel designed to “feel as if you were staying with friends” in Rhode Island

    New York design practice Reunion Goods & Services has renovated this hotel in Rhode Island to be reminiscent of a colourful home with a fireplace and cosy seating nooks.Formerly the Mainstay Hotel, The Wayfinder property is located in Newport and was refurbished by Reunion Goods & Services for developer Dovetail + Co. It includes 197 suites, a restaurant, lounge, patio and outdoor swimming pool.

    Reunion Goods & Services designed the hotel to be evocative of a house rather than a hotel and sought to optimise the amount of natural light. White walls are enlivened with a variety of colours like burnt red, blue, green and mustard.

    “The goal of this project was to freshen the spaces and bring as much light into the rooms as possible,” the team said. “The intent was always for the rooms to feel as if you were staying with friends or at a summer house.”

    The rest of the interior design is a combination of existing details, like stone and terrazzo floors with wood-panelled walls, alongside woven and wooden furniture pieces for a relaxed yet playful feel.
    The lobby features its original white terrazzo flooring with a new dark blue ceiling for contrast, while a free-standing fireplace in mustard with a glass enclosure is the focal point. It is surrounded by a custom white sofa in a U-shape.

    The hotel rooms have a paler palette reflective of the hotel’s beach location with off-white walls and chair railing in soft blue and green tones.

    Tourists hotel in The Berkshires takes cues from classic American motor lodges

    Continuing the relaxed, residential aesthetic is a lounge area with couches, pouffes, indoor plants, chairs, woven roller shades and woven cane dining chairs. Colourful fabrics enliven the space with its stone floors, while window trim is teal.

    The sitting area joins the hotel restaurant Nomi Park, which has bolder colours like red-tiled walls, burnt orange leather banquettes, a bar clad in light blue tiles and dining benches upholstered in a cheetah print.
    The wood dining chairs in dark blue are made locally by O & G Studio that is one of the emerging studios based in Rhode Island.

    Art by more local artists rounds out the interiors, including a piece in the restaurant by Mea Duke and a mural outside in the patio near the swimming pool by Sean Spellman. Others artists whose work is displayed are Catherine Druken, Jenn Shore, Jenny Brown and Liz Kelley.

    In addition to the Wayfinder hotel, other boutique accommodations in small towns and rural areas of the Northeastern United States are Tourists hotel in Massachusetts’ Berkshires region, Scribner’s Catskill Lodge, Sound View on Long Island and Troutbeck hotel by Champalimaud.
    Photography is by Read McKendree.

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    TS-H_01 by Tom Strala is a pared-back family home on a Swiss hillside

    Architect Tom Strala has completed TS-H_01, a minimal family home just outside of Bern, Switzerland that includes separate living quarters for parents and children.TS-H_01 perches on a grassy slope in the municipality of Kirchdorf and is occupied by a couple with two daughters and a son.
    Local architect Tom Strala has designed the house to offer a “contemporary form of cohabitation” where parents and children can easily live side by side.

    “I always aim to create a tailor-made suit for my clients,” Strala told Dezeen.

    “My approach is to first understand how my clients live, what their inner dynamic is and what’s important to them on a daily basis,” he continued. “With that knowledge, we together developed a concept that naturally became pragmatic-poetic.”

    The architect also wanted TS-H_01 to emulate the easy-going internal layout of his own home in Werkbundsiedlung Neubühl, a housing complex in Zurich that was built by a collective of Swiss architects between 1930-32.
    “Spaces in Werkbundsiedlung Neubühl are not big but they are shaped in such a way that you never feel limited; it was built 90 years ago and I tried to translate this quality into our time.”

    The children’s sleeping quarters have been allocated to the home’s lower-ground floor.
    Strala specifically wanted to contradict the arrangement of a typical family home, which he thinks are too-often organised in a way where “youngsters are either protected, guarded or spied on by their parents”.

    Each bedroom has two doors, one that grants access to the garden and another that leads to the children’s private lounge area.
    “Whether a ‘good child’ or a pubescent teenager, the child decides day after day for itself how strong a connection it wants to form with its family, its siblings or the outside world,” explained Strala.

    Family members can unite on the ground floor of TS-H_01, which accommodates the communal living spaces. This includes a sizeable sitting room fronted by sliding glazed panels that open onto an outdoor terrace.

    Think Architecture creates minimal hilltop house in Zurich

    At the centre of the adjacent kitchen is a chunky white prep counter, while down the side of the room is a sequence of full-height storage cupboards with circular timber-edged handles.
    Two of the cupboards can be pushed back to reveal a hidden doorway to the home’s indoor garage.

    The parents have complete free rein over the attic, which is where their bedroom suite is located.
    “It’s similar to a single loft space,” said Strala. “Even if you are a caring father or mother, you remain a human being with a life of your own.”

    The interior has been minimally finished throughout with raw plaster walls and pale timber floorboards.
    Splashes of colour are offered in the bathroom facilities, where glazed, midnight-blue tiles clad the shower cubicle and window ledge.

    Other pared-back properties in Switzerland include Haus Meister by HDPF, which boasts bare concrete surfaces, and Montebar Villa by JM Architecture, which is exclusively covered in dark grey tiles to resemble “a stone in the landscape”.

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    Iram Sultan designs pill-informed interiors for Indian pharmaceutical company offices

    Iram Sultan studio took visual cues from common medicinal products when designing the office interiors for Indian pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila, which feature curved archways and vaulted ceilings.Iram Sultan was tasked with designing the 20,000-square-foot office floor belonging to the chairman, managing director and director of leading pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila, which is located in Gujarat on the western coast of India.
    The studio wanted the interior spaces to reflect the work that the firm does. Each room’s structure has therefore been based on the shape of tablets and pills, symbolising pharmaceuticals.

    All corners of the interior structure have been rounded, accompanied by receding arches and curved, vaulted ceilings. This is particularly apparent in the main corridor that leads to both wings of the office floor.

    The image of pills has also been extended to details like the wall panels and door mouldings, which feature the shape of two halves of a broken-apart pill.
    On either side of each door at skirting level are small inlaid pieces of bronze carved in the shape of a circle and a cylinder, to represent a tablet and a pill.

    The chairman, managing director and director all have their own office on the floor, each with its own washroom and dresser as well as adjoining meeting rooms.
    A pill-shaped, lacquered table inlaid with dried flowers acts as the centrepiece in one of the meeting rooms, while another meeting room is punctuated with a large, dark table whose base mimics the shape of a rock.
    In this same space, the curved corners of the walls are dotted with small, handmade porcelain art pieces that are designed to be an abstract representation of the plant-based ingredients that go into Zydus Cadila’s products.

    Other elements of the interior spaces were informed by the company’s logo, which comprises its name, Zydus, in blue with the letter d in red, and the shape of a cross replacing its centre.
    This includes the marble flooring along the corridors, which features strips of white framed with black outlines with an inlay pattern of black crosses.

    Iram Sultan extended this medical cross symbol across the whole office floor, incorporating it into various tables, which feature a black cross at their centre or sculpted, three-dimensional forms of the shape across their surface.
    The logo’s colours also informed the custom carpet in the board room, which is covered in algebraic markings in black, red and blue.
    This was one of the most fun elements to create, according to the studio, who chose the scientific equations as “a gentle nod to the bedrock of research that the company is built on.”

    To warm up the interiors, the studio chose to clad the walls in dyed oak veneer. Thin sheets of bronze wrap around each archway lining the corridors, which also work to accentuate the spaces as they reflect the light.
    Wooden floors of a slightly darker tone feature in individual offices in contrast to the surrounding hallways.
    Each individual office was tailored according to the user’s personality and their working requirements. One office features soft grey lower-wall panels made from stone, while another has walls completely clad in light veneer and a large, oblong desk.

    “The project is beautiful for us because it reflects the client brief perfectly,” said the studio. “While fulfilling all the requirements of an office space, the space is not a typical cookie-cutter design, but a bespoke creation made specifically for the people who use it.”
    “The design is also beautiful because of the balance we managed to achieve in both the material palette and the space volumes,” it continued. “It is a serene space with quiet drama that we created using bespoke elements, clever details and unexpected materials.”

    The Zydus Cadila chairman’s office floor was Iram Sultan’s second project for the client, having previously designed the interiors for their home.
    “A project very close to our heart,” said the studio. “When we started work on this space, we had established a relationship of trust and understood the client well.”
    “The project has been designed in the spirit of collaboration, beginning with the clients and adding other collaborators like product designers, manufacturers, contractors and consultants,” it added.

    Dezeen Awards 2020 interiors longlist announced

    Iram Sultan’s Zydus Cadila office has been longlisted in the large workspace interior category of Dezeen Awards 2020.
    Other longlisted interiors projects include an office in Japan by Shuhei Goto Architects, in the small workspace interior category, which features large, stepped boxes that introduce different levels to the space.

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    White stucco Casa Mami by Working Holiday Studio contrasts California desert landscape

    Los Angeles design firm Working Holiday Studio has transformed a property in the California desert into a shoppable holiday home that “stands out” against its desolate landscape Casa Mami is located in Pioneertown, California, an unincorporated community outside of Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California.
    After visiting the area Carlos Naude and Whitney Brown of Working Holiday Studio wanted to purchase a house of their own to spend holidays in and to rent out to overnight guests.

    The 92-square-metre stucco house has an adobe-style construction and is situated on five acres (1.6 hectares) overlooking the barren desert landscape.

    To make the tiny building “stand out” against its surroundings a black portico contrasts the updated white exterior and light-coloured gravel around the property juxtaposes the sandy ground.

    “Most houses around the desert in that area try to blend in with the environment through earthy and brown tones, we wanted the opposite, we wanted our house to stand out which is why we chose to surround the house with white gravel to create a separation between the desert ground and house and painted it white and black, which not only made it really stand out but also brought a Mediterranean feel to it which is a good contrast to the dry hot desert,” Naude told Dezeen.

    For the interiors, the designers took cues from Scandinavian and Japanese design styles. This was coupled with bright colours found in work by Mexican architect Luis Barragán and a mix of pattern and shape used by French interior designer Jacques Granges and British designer Terence Conran.

    “I would say that we borrowed Luis Barragán’s use of colour – like the monochromatic yellow hallway, Jacques Grange’s ability to mix styles – between Scandinavian and Japanese, and Terence Conran’s incorporation of playful shapes and silhouettes,” he added.

    An Aesthetic Pursuit designs shoppable Airbnb in Maine

    Beige walls are paired with white moulding and painted grey floors throughout the house. In the kitchen the cabinets and drawers are punctured with a tiny hole to form a handle instead of with a traditional metal knob.

    A set of translucent glass doors with black trim is situated between the open-plan kitchen and living space frames the desert landscape, which is speckled with vegetation. Another pair is located in the master bedroom furnished with two semicircular nightstands and black light fixtures.

    In the living there is blue couch with rounded cushions and a circular coffee table topped with a terrazzo surface. The furnishings face a white, sphere-shaped fireplace installed to heat the tiny home.

    Photograph is by Candida Wohlgemuth
    The studio worked with over 30 brands to decorate the space with furniture, appliances and houseware items that guests can purchase online, forming part a new trend to design “shoppable stays”.
    Others include a holiday house in Maine designed by An Aesthetic Pursuit to showcase its new furniture collection and a rental property in Long Island Studio Robert McKinley has decorated to double as a showroom.

    Other details of Casa Mami are a hallway with bright yellow walls, decorative potted plants and an outdoor patio nestled into a corner of the structure.
    It is also powered by solar panels and a hauled water system, so the homeowners and guests are more conscious about their energy and water usage.

    Casa Mami has been longlisted in the hotel and short stay interior project category of Dezeen Awards 2020, with shortlists set to be announced at the start of September.
    Working Holiday Studio is a Los Angeles design studio led by husband and wife duo Carlos Naude and Whitney Brown. It worked with Francesca de la Fuente on the renovation of The Ruby Street co-working space in Los Angeles.
    Photography is by Carlos Naude, unless noted otherwise.

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    Shuhei Goto Architects turns lecture hall into multi-level work space

    Shuhei Goto Architects added large, stepped boxes to a former lecture hall to transform it into a playful multi-level office in Shizuoka, Japan.The Shizuoka-based studio worked with creative agency Loftwork on the project, called CODO, which was designed for logistics company Suzuyo’s head office in the city.

    An auditorium, which had previously been used for in-house events, was turned into a multi-use room where employees can work or take their breaks and the company can hold events and lectures.

    Shuhei Goto Architects’ design was informed by the 913-square-metres room’s high ceiling height. It added box-like steps to its periphery to fully utilise the existing space and allow people to circulate freely.

    “By fully utilizing the space in all directions, a new sense of distance among those present is generated, which is totally different the sense of distance in conventional office spaces,” the studio said.
    “Those working side by side don’t feel disturbed by each other’s presence because their eye levels do not coincide, or conversely, those sitting apart from each other feel interconnected because their eyes meet.”

    The stacked steps, which the studio describes as “too large for furniture and too small for architecture”, can be used as benches or tables, or simply as raised platforms to add seating on different levels of the room.
    A walkway between the stacked boxes connects two sides of the room, and details like soundproof built-in phone booths and a cantilevered viewing platform give it a playful feel not usually associated with office spaces.

    When the company hosts events, one of the boxes serves as the stage and others as seating areas.
    As the building is used as an emergency evacuation shelter for the area, the hollow steps of the boxes can also be used as storage for emergency supplies.

    Shuhei Goto Architects used wood to create the multi-level boxes and added pale-coloured, sheer curtains to the windows.
    “It’s a multi-use material: for sitting, walking, or writing,” said Shuhei Goto Architects  founder Shuhei Goto.
    “The double curtain-lace and shade is printed in gradation colour,” he told Dezeen. “The double gradation makes it look like natural light is leaking out.”

    Shuhei Goto’s Floating House in Ogasa features two-tone cladding and a 360-degree window

    Different materials were used for the floors on the different levels, with the floor of the space itself made from concrete and the lowest-level platform made from hardwood flooring.
    Some of the upper levels were carpeted to denote a difference in the areas.

    “This office was designed as a prototype for offices in a new era of innovation, based on the idea that today’s office space needs some room for flexible renewal and updates initiated by employees themselves,” the studio said.
    The CODO project has been longlisted for a Dezeen Award in the small workspace interior category this year.

    Shuhei Goto Architects was founded by Shuhei Goto in 2012. The studio has previously created the Floating House in Ogasa and designed a residence formed of four connected, house-shaped volumes.
    Photography is by Kenta Hasegawa.
    Project credits:
    Project management and creative direction: Loftwork Layout UnitArchitectural design and furniture design: Shuhei Goto ArchitectsStructural design: Tetsuro Adachi/OAK plusWood coordination, furniture production and furniture production direction: Hidakuma Inc.Curtain design: Studio Akane MoriyamaSign design: Hokkyok

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    Squashed serpents feature in Polly Morgan's How To Behave At Home exhibition

    Twisting snakes with iridescent scales squeeze through concrete and polystyrene blocks in How To Behave At Home, the latest exhibition by British taxidermy artist Polly Morgan.The How To Behave At Home exhibition, which looks at themes of societal norms and expectations, comprises a series of sculptures that feature the coiled bodies of taxidermied snakes.  Morgan believes the animal is an apt symbol for the way in which people utilise social media, particularly photo-sharing apps like Instagram.
    “The skins of snakes are alluring, decorating what is essentially a killing and eating machine,” Morgan told Dezeen.
    “These patterns are thought to either camouflage the snake or warn would-be predators away; some non-venomous snakes also mimic the bright colours of poisonous snakes to avoid capture,” she continued.
    “The filters we apply to our social media feeds, either literally or just by our careful selection of one image over another, is done for similar purposes; to allow us to blend in and avoid crowd censure, or to allow a particular perception of us to flourish.”

    Untitled, 2020, by Polly Morgan
    Morgan had a loose idea of what How To Behave At Home’s themes would be from the beginning of this year.

    However, as the coronavirus pandemic hit and millions across the globe were placed under stay-at-home orders, the artist gained a heightened awareness of the disparity between reality and the idealised content presented over social media.
    This influenced the new work that she has created for the exhibition, as well as the selection of older pieces that have been included.
    “Watching the changes in my own and others’ behaviour made me think more clearly about what the work represented and exactly how I wanted it to look,” she explained.
    “I was interested to see how peoples’ Instagram feeds would change, with no parties to attend or events to promote; would they let the veneer slip or turn to a new kind of boastfulness,” Morgan added.
    “I felt celebrities flounder; flaunting their luxurious life was irrelevant and unwelcome and they had to reconfigure their online selves – feeling squeezed and trying to be authentic, my ideas evolved a lot in that period.”

    Untitled, 2020, by Polly Morgan
    Some of the slithering creatures in the exhibition have been given a subtle iridescent coating, which takes cues from the colourful trompe l’oeil effects often seen in nail art.
    Morgan – who has used snakes in several of her previous works – also referenced the appearance of sunbeam snakes, which have shiny, rainbow-like scaling.
    “It struck me that using a highly iridescent snake was the ultimate way to represent the vibrancy of our complex lives,” said Morgan, who experimented with paints, varnishes and nail transfer foils to achieve the final effect.
    “Having used the actual skins of snakes for years they suddenly felt inadequate; once they dry onto the form they lose a lot of colour and all their iridescence,” she continued. “I realised I’d been, literally, hidebound by taxidermy.”
    “Uncharacteristically I went to have my nails done and requested an iridescent finish so I could watch the techniques and learn from them – the fact that nails are everyday veneers fed directly into the work I was producing.”

    Every Other Dance, 2018, by Polly Morgan
    In the majority of the sculptures, the snakes appear as tangled piles squeezed through holes in concrete or polystyrene blocks.
    Polystyrene was specifically chosen to mimic the “accidentally architectural” packaging that Morgan would receive whenever she ordered goods online during the lockdown period of the pandemic.
    “The way these objects were cocooned in these protective forms seemed to parallel our own lives during lockdown, safeguarded in our homes,” she explained.

    Sebastian Errazuriz exhibition at New York’s R & Company features taxidermy Bird Chandelier

    The artist also thought the twisting shape of the snakes reflected how people can shape themselves to adhere to societal expectations.
    “The title of the show, How To Behave At Home, comes from a chapter heading in a Victorian book on etiquette,” Morgan revealed.
    “Etiquette, just like architecture, can encourage us to behave a certain way, to contain our baser instincts and to conform to certain rules,” she added.
    “We no longer have books on etiquette but we do have a new set of social strictures that proliferate online, and I see people contort themselves in every direction in order to avoid censure.”

    Nothing Like Before, 2019, by Polly Morgan
    Polly Morgan is based in London and has been practising sculpture and taxidermy since 2004. The artist’s How To Behave At Home exhibition will be showing at The Bomb Factory in London from 14 October until 2 November 2020.
    For more design and architecture events, visit Dezeen Events Guide.

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    OMA designs glass volume to top Tiffany & Co's New York flagship store

    OMA New York, led by Shohei Shigematsu, has unveiled its design for a glass addition to top the historic Tiffany & Co store on Fifth Avenue in New York City.The project involves the preservation of the jewellery brand’s 80-year old flagship location, a renovation of its ground floor and the construction of a rectangular glass volume that will span three storeys, adding space for hosting exhibitions and events.
    Built in 1940 by Cross & Cross, the existing limestone facade of the Tiffany & Co building is marked by its grid of windows and scalloped edges. In 1980 an upper volume was added to the building to house offices, which will be demolished and replaced by the new glass structure as part of this latest renovation by OMA.

    “Tiffany’s Fifth Avenue Flagship is more than a retail space, it is a destination with a public dimension,” said OMA Partner Shohei Shigematsu. “The new addition is informed by programmatic needs of the evolving brand – a gathering place that acts as a contemporary counterpart to the iconic ground level space and its activities.”

    “The floating volume over an existing terrace provides a clear visual cue to a vertical journey of diverse experiences throughout the building,” he added.
    OMA’s design plans to form the new volume using two stacked glass structures. The lower one will comprise a recessed box covered with glass windows, while the upper portion will be wrapped with slumped glass walls modelled after the building’s decorative parapet.

    OMA adds iridescent glass escalator to New York’s Saks Fifth Avenue

    The ridged glass requires minimal vertical support and has a reflective surface designed for viewing the city from the interiors while offering privacy looking in from the exterior.
    An outdoor patio for hosting events surrounds the lower, two-storey volume. The existing space is furnished with tables and plants that overlook Fifth Avenue and on to Central Park. Its double height walls are wrapped with smooth glass panes and vertical silver frames to tie the two volumes together.
    “The two spaces of the upper volume that make up the new addition is a moment of clear but complementary contrast to the original flagship,” the studio added. “It is a symbolic ending to the building that reflects an evolved luxury experience that is more a journey than a destination.”

    The project is currently under construction and is expected to complete in Spring 2022.
    Shigematsu leads OMA New York with fellow partner Jason Long. The outpost is intended to function independently from the studio’s international offices, including Rotterdam, Beijing, Hong Kong, Doha and Australia, as part of an initiative of founder Rem Koolhaas.
    Last year the studio installed a multicoloured escalator inside the renovated Saks Fifth Avenue department store.
    Other recent projects by the New York office include a plan for the 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington DC and a series of galleries inside Gio Ponti’s Denver Art Museum.

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    Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel sets up in-house lab dedicated to generative design

    Architecture firm Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel has launched ACPVLab, a research and development unit that will focus on using generative design to develop bespoke interiors.Led by Paolo Mazza and Marco Brambilla – who are both partners at Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel – ACPVLab will use generative design technology to “move beyond off-the-shelf solutions” and create “richer” interiors at a fast pace.
    Generative design involves using computer software to generate a variety of design solutions that meet the pre-set parameters of a given space.
    “Generative design, assisted by artificial intelligence, has now reached a level of accessibility and computational power which allows us to use it for our bespoke design, now supported by more and better-informed decisions,” Mazza told Dezeen.
    “Generative design and its algorithms will improve the speed with which variables such as comfort, people-to-people distance, headcount maximization, sustainability, natural lighting and other environmental and project data can be taken into account during the design process.”

    Wallgren Arkitekter and BOX Bygg create parametric tool that generates adaptive plans

    Using generative design, ACPVLab is setting out to develop its own scripts and software tools that will be able to process a greater amount of input data and therefore consider a wider array of spatial parameters.
    These tools will be able to be to produce different types of spaces including residential, commercial and offices – something which Mazza says is particularly important in light of the global coronavirus pandemic, which has challenged the way in which we can safely use and occupy workspaces.
    “We believe that the change of culture in workplaces is profound and will change the proportions between collaborative and personal workspaces, shifting the weight heavily towards collaborative spaces – social distancing is just one of the many parameters we feed our scripts with,” added Mazza.
    “In its essence, the new tool will allow for a more free, unconstrained and wide terrain of possibilities and configurations within which architects can operate and react quickly to ever-changing needs.”
    ACPVLab joins a growing number of architecture, construction and design companies turning to generative design. Last year, Wallgren Arkitekter and BOX Bygg worked together to create a parametric tool called Finch which can help architects and designers adapt their floor plans to suit the constraints of a given site.
    Phillipe Starck also employed generative design software developed by Autodesk to produce the AI chair for Italian furniture brand Kartell. Autodesk claimed it is the world’s first chair created using artificial intelligence to go into production.
    Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel was founded by Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel and is based in Milan.

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