How An Upholstery Collection Nods To Frank Lloyd Wright

The upholstery collection Elemental Wright is rooted in its namesake’s teachings: namely, Frank Lloyd Wright’s integration of nature into the built environment to conjure wellbeing. The three patterns are creative explorations of basic mathematical forms. Pentimento, a pentagonal motif that stems from a drawing made by Vernon D. Swaback, one of Wright’s youngest apprentices, combines floral and geometric elements. Circulate dials in on the qualities of a circle, organized in a grid with varied textures and tones. Vertex riffs on the triangle, the fractals an example of organic architecture that predated today’s biophilic and human-centered design. All are made from blends of nylon, solution-dyed acrylic, and postconsumer-recycled polyester, so durability is assured. Through Designtex.

Hotel Style Meets Workplace Smarts At Hyatt’s Zurich HQ

Hotel style meets workplace smarts in Hyatt at the Circle, the hotelier’s corporate office at Zurich Airport by Studio Alexander Fehre. Housed in the largest LEED Platinum–certified complex in Europe, by Pritzker Architecture Prize–winner Riken Yamamoto, that includes two Hyatt hotels, the 16,150-square-foot, ninth-floor project offers its 80 employees a business environment infused with hospitality aesthetics and amenities, via single offices, open collaborative spaces, contemplative retreat areas, and a large open kitchen. Enclosed with curved glass walls, meeting rooms have thick curtains for privacy when needed, while circulation zones are minimized by adding seating nooks, enlivening otherwise dead spots with real functionality.

The materials and color palettes reinforce the five-star vibe. Augmented by swaths of carpet, blond oak parquet in a polygonal pattern covers the floor, creating a warm glow underfoot that’s echoed by paneling and cabinetry in the same wood. Velvety fabrics in inky blues and purples upholster seating alcoves, offsetting the pale timber, as do the sunset hues of DUM stools or the metallic gleam of Graypants pendant fixtures—a mix of playfulness and elegance that, as Alexander Fehre notes, “brings that special hotel flair to the office.”

Tour This Hyatt Office With Five-Star Vibes

Celebrate Cini Boeri With This Loro Piana x Arflex Collab

Visionary Milanese architect and designer Cini Boeri would have been 100 this year—the same age as luxury Italian textile house Loro Piana. To celebrate those dual milestones, the latter brand’s decor arm, Loro Piana Interiors, collaborated with Boeri’s archives to curate a special tribute installation. On display was her seminal 1967 Boborelax chaise longue, one of the first seats made of a single block of polyurethane foam with no internal frame; the iconic 1973 Botolo chairs, on three chunky legs with hidden casters; and the perennially popular 1972 Strips modular seating system. Produced by Arflex, all are dressed in Loro Piana fabrics: Take the limited series of 100 Botolo chairs, upholstered in the company’s fluffy Cashfur cashmere-silk blend, or the Boborelax in vivid cherry-red Tiepolo wool.

Ascend To New Heights At This Contemporary Norway Haven

Perched on a windswept hill, Villa Austevoll stands in contrast to its rugged, waterfront surroundings in southeastern Norway. Its white, boxy form might initially evoke the austere anonymity of an art gallery. Yet, the 3,000-square-foot residence, by Saunders Architecture, is anything but placeless.

Situated on Selbjørn, accessible only by boat, the client, whose grandparents had lived on the island, commissioned Todd Saunders to deliver a contemporary retreat that would provide both shelter from the coastline’s challenging weather conditions and an observatory for the unspoiled terrain and North Sea. Saunders and team responded with a volume composed of intersecting rectangles arranged on north-south and east-west axes—the formation, when viewed aerially, echoing the Norwegian flag’s cross—with wide, 9-foot-tall windows capping each elevation. The structure is elevated on a triangular plinth and 10 steel pillars, not only enabling uninterrupted views and maximizing connection to site but also minimizing its impact on the landscape.

Inside, the ground floor is devoted solely to storage and utility rooms. But a swirl of a skylit oak spiral staircase beckons upstairs, where the main living areas and three bedrooms are clad in the same painted larch as the exterior. “It simplifies the detailing and gives a more cabinlike feel,” Saunders says of the unified approach, “plus the materials will develop a patina, adding character.” 

Get Electrified With This Comic-Inspired Installation

Hundreds of cities across the globe host their own comic con, an annual convention that draws crowds of comic-book and pop-culture enthusiasts. For this year’s Salón del Cómic de València in Spain last March, the city council engaged local firm Clap Studio to create a bespoke activity space that could be easily disassembled for reuse. Clap cofounders Jordi Iranzo and Àngela Montagud responded with Cloud, a knock-out installation that recalls something between a superhero comic strip and a Roy Lichtenstein painting.

“We used the flat, primary colors of comic culture,” Iranzo explains of the canary-yellow and cobalt-blue paint coating Cloud’s plywood elements, which encompass 15 stools serving 15 CNC-cut recesses around a nearly 12-foot-diameter table, used for talks and workshops. The table’s spiky form is modeled after the action bubbles that appear in cartoons—think “zap!” or “pow!”—“the kind used to communicate sounds and make emotions visible,” Montagud adds.

But the table could also be interpreted as a bright sun, especially with the LED-lit partition surrounding it, its rounded, cloud-like trim also cut by CNC. Though it’s meant as a separator from the rest of the hall, portions of it are only 5 feet high, allowing the curious a peek at what’s happening within.

Elena Salmistraro Crafts A Tribute To Architect Cini Boeri

In 2018, Milan-based artist and product designer Elena Salmistraro paid tribute to four distinguished Italian predecessors—Achille Castiglioni, Riccardo Dalisi, Michele De Lucchi, and Alessandro Mendini—by rendering each as an enameled figurine in a series dubbed Most Illustrious for Venetian ceramics workshop Bosa. Now, the first-name-only boys’ club gets an equally deserving female member: Cini Boeri, on the 100th anniversary of the pioneering architect’s birth. (Having lived to 96, she almost got to celebrate in person.)

As with the men, Salmistraro has created a wittily abstracted version of Boeri that melds her physical traits with elements from some of her best-known designs. Her signature hairstyle—a blunt-cut bob with bangs—everpresent neck scarf, and dark-framed glasses are juxtaposed with a body that incorporates the ridged modularity of her 1971 Serpentone sofa and the cushioned fullness and chrome-leg angularity of her 1973 Botolo chair. Boeri’s textiles inform the jazzy pattern and vivid glazes splashed over the 12½-inch-tall statuette, while its fluid curves echo those found in her architecture. “The figurines go beyond being simple portraits,” notes Salmistraro. “They witness the profound connection between the master and his or her work, by embodying the concept we are what we make.”

It Takes Two: Tour Nuro’s High-Tech Silicon Valley HQ

Achieving success as a tech startup is difficult. But not if an idea is landed upon that meets a need so clearly. Such is the case with Nuro, a growing robotics company developing zero-occupant, electric, self-driving vehicles that deliver goods using its proprietary mapping technology. Moving full speed ahead, Nuro’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, has recently expanded to include two 1960’s former warehouses. Thanks to Elkus Manfredi Architects, their interiors don’t just avoid generic spec territory, they center on a vision that fulfills the client’s goals, makes optimal use of a space, engages staff, and respects the planet.

The project’s scale is formidable: the renovation of a 58,000-square-foot erstwhile industrial laboratory that would expand Nuro’s existing office at 1290 Terra Bella Avenue, plus a 49,000-square-foot fit-out approximately 500 feet away, at 1330 Terra Bella. A strategy that would tie Nuro’s brand, product, and request for versatile, human-centered spaces with the vast areas became immediately clear to Elkus Manfredi principal Elizabeth Lowrey. Like “being in a plane, looking down on earth, and seeing roads and communities,” she envisioned the interiors laid out as cities, with a network of neighborhoods and a sweeping “ring road,” essentially a track that organizes work functions in its inner “urban” loop and distributed breakout spaces in its outer “suburban” loop.

Lowrey knew the strategy had to avoid crossing into kitsch territory. “How do you interpret city-making in a sophisticated, elegant, and simple way?” she says. “It was about being quiet, not having a concept that was hitting you over the head.” Lowrey navigates this territory well, having the agility and know-how to formulate dynamic interiors for projects as wide-ranging as the upscale White Elephant Palm Beach hotel in Florida to the TMC³ Collaborative Building, an innovative life-sciences and laboratory facility in Houston.

Like a thriving city, Nuro’s program is complex and multifaceted: an R&D engineering hub complete with more than 800 workstations, laboratories, testing areas, and meeting spaces accommodating small groups to town halls. Lowrey and her team embraced the warehouses’ volume and soaring ceiling heights: 14½ feet at 1290, nearly 22 at 1330. “The scale of these buildings can’t be beaten,” she continues. “So, we instead added daylight, air, scale-tempering elements like meeting rooms, and acoustically private spaces to humanize it—and then it’s like having the whole sky above you.”

The simplicity of the ring road, a two-lane, 8-foot-wide track painted on the existing concrete floor of both buildings, belies its impact. Its minimalism is the ultimate sustainable design flex. Its capsule shape nods to Nuro’s logo. It serves as a testing ground for the company’s autonomous vehicles. And, like streets in a city, it provides Nuro employees wayfinding and a main artery that connects all interior spaces.

In 1290, the 540-foot-circumference track encircles meeting rooms, laboratories, a kitchenette, and workstation hubs rotated in different orientations “like a neighborhood plan,” Lowrey explains. The outer loop hosts lounge areas, a café, and workstations distributed along the building perimeter. Private conference rooms positioned prominently along the road are topped with illuminated gable rooflines, forming a human-scale skyline.

In 1330, the 350-foot-diameter ring wraps a multipurpose space that can host all-hands meetings and is overlooked by a mezzanine. The company is currently subleasing this building in anticipation of occupying it in the coming years, according to Timothy Bergen, Nuro’s head of real estate and workplace.

Notwithstanding the occasional Nuro car or cyclist on the track—yes, bikes are allowed—the expansion exudes mobility and adaptability. Staffers, who work in robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and product design, can relocate where they need or want to work with the aid of movable furniture, repositionable track lighting, and an array of seating choices, from acoustic wraparound chairs to counter stools and task chairs in enclosed rooms for recharging or focus work. “We’re trying to empower each employee to do their best work,” Lowrey notes, “letting people control the space versus the space controlling the people.”

In addition to the creation of neighborhoods within walls, other touches distinguish the space as distinctly Nuro. Miniature models of its vehicles are sprinkled throughout 1290. Murals of abstracted street maps delineate the travel paths of the company’s cars in the cities it serves, Mountain View and Houston among them. And, in 1330’s multipurpose area, O-shape pendant fixtures wink to the Nuro’s beguiling round headlamps.

Besides preserving the elements containing the highest embodied carbon—the building structures themselves—the project also retained 53 skylights across both buildings and the wood-framed ceiling decking in building 1290. Though exterior walls were left exposed and unfinished, the renovation cuts in floor-to-ceiling windows to enable expansive viewing angles from the deep floor plates. “You can see the sky, not just what’s straight in front of you,” Lowrey says. Light fixture finishes, soft seating, and carbon-neutral carpet made from recycled materials help dampen sound in the open layouts. A natural color palette of sand, caramel, white, gray, and black conveys the company’s ethos of sustainability, humility, and handcraft.

PROJECT TEAM

ELKUS MANFREDI ARCHITECTS: TARA REILLY; LINDA MACLEOD FANNON; MICHAEL HATHAWAY; MARK VANLUVEN; JACQUELINE HIERSTEINER; MARC CIANNAVEI; MICHAEL STRAHM; ELIZABETH STEVENS; DREA PLUMMER; STEFAN VOLATILE-WOOD. LEMESSURIER: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. MONTBLEAU & ASSOCIATES: MILLWORK. DPR CONSTRUCTION: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

PRODUCT SOURCES

FROM FRONT ALLIED MAKER: PENDANT FIXTURES (CAFÉ). ANDREU WORLD: ROUND TABLES. SITONIT: SOFAS (CAFÉ, RECEPTION, LOUNGE), OTTOMANS (CAFÉ, LOUNGE), TABLES, CHAIRS (MULTIPURPOSE). MUUTO: CHAIRS (CAFÉ, RECEPTION), PENDANT FIXTURES (BREAKOUT, CAFÉ, KITCHENETTE, LOUNGE), STOOLS (CAFÉ). BLU DOT: TABLES (RECEPTION, BREAKOUT, LOUNGES), HIGH-BACK CHAIRS (BREAKOUT, LOUNGES). RBW: PENDANT FIXTURE (RECEPTION). SURFACING SOLUTIONS: DESK VENEER. LAWRENCE DOORS: GARAGE DOOR. HUMANSCALE; TEKNION: WORKSTATIONS (OPEN OFFICE). MAHARAM: HIGH-BACK CHAIR FABRIC (BREAKOUT, LOUNGES). LUCIFERO’S: PENDANT FIXTURES (MULTIPURPOSE). WEST COAST INDUSTRIES: TABLES (CAFÉ). ARCHITESSA: WALL TILE. FORMICA: CABINETRY. CAESARSTONE: TABLETOPS, COUNTERTOP (KITCHEN), COUNTERTOP (LOUNGE). GRAND RAPIDS CHAIR COMPANY: STOOLS (KITCHENETTE). LUCEPLAN: PENDANT FIXTURES (LOUNGES). THROUGHOUT PROSOCO: CONCRETE FLOORING. SHAW CONTRACT: CARPET TILE. 3M: CUSTOM WALLCOVERING. FINELITE: TRACK PENDANT FIXTURES. THE COLLECTIVE: FURNITURE SUPPLIER. ARCHKEY SOLUTIONS: LIGHTING SUPPLIER. BENJAMIN MOORE & CO.: PAINT.

Relax Inside This Oasis In Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru

At Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru in India, Enter Projects Asia builds a rattan wonderland where travelers can shop, dine, and retreat into biophilic bliss.

For the Skidmore, Owings and Merrill–designed Terminal 2 at India’s Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru, Enter Projects Asia principal Patrick Keane and team used Maya, Grasshopper, and Rhinoceros software to develop the forms and fabrication processes for a nearly 3-acre landscape of five sculptural rattan pavilions.

The layout of the pavilions takes inspiration from the 20th-century garden city movement, upon which Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) is planned, introducing a meandering informality that’s more like a stroll in a park than a direct point A to point B passenger traversal.

• Five pavilions
• 5 ½ miles of rattan
• 22 months of design + construction
• 85 designers, weavers, welders, and installers led by architect Patrick Keane

“We took the plant-based materials—rattan, reeds, bamboo—found in Southeast Asian wellness retreats to the typically utilitarian, urban space of an airport”

An elevation diagram relates the size of two pavilions to a Boeing 747 and a Concorde.

The eight-month design process included fit tests for the 168 modules comprising the pavilions, their structural supports made of aluminum tubing wrapped with rattan.

At EPA’s factory in Bangkok, the modules were handwoven by Thai craftspeople before being shipped to Bengaluru, where more than two dozen workers would complete the complex installation.

EPA’s rattan pavilions are part of what SOM has dubbed a 4 million-square-foot “terminal in a garden,” with the firm’s cross-laid ceiling of engineered bamboo, and tiered planters, 700-year-old olive trees, and other natural elements by landscape architect Grant Associates that are irrigated with rainwater harvested on-site, all of which has led to LEED Gold certification.

The pavilions house high-end retail, a Wolfgang Puck steakhouse, and lounges, the density of the weaving varying from tight, to conceal back-of-house functions, to open and airy.

This Experiential Photography Studio Captures The Imagination

Typically, a photography studio is all about control—of light, sound, foot traffic, and any unwanted visual distractions. However, for Lanwuu Imagine in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, China’s most southwestern province, Xuewan Yang, founder of and chief designer at local firm Aurora Design, created a studio that instead welcomes spontaneity. With a ground-floor café and art installations visible through playfully shaped windows, the facility is conceptualized as both a public living room and a professional-level space for photo shoots, allowing passersby to interact with an architectural typology usually known for its exclusivity.

Yang’s portfolio encompasses private residences along with retail and award-winning teahouse projects, the latter focused on creating a consumer experience defined by heightened aesthetics and engagement. As Lanwuu specializes in wedding and wedding-dress photography—Yang has also completed studios for Chinese wedding photography brands Mushi and W. Dresses—as well as portrait sessions, Yang was the ideal candidate to deliver a “complete transformation from the typical,” she says, an open-arms approach to the public.

The 4,300-square-foot location takes inspiration from its novelty as an industrial space situated in a residential neighborhood. Using construction as a conceit and an allusion to Lanwuu’s innovation, one facade features a branded stainless-steel screen supported by pink scaffolding; another has a large bifold window, referencing a garage door. Inside, Yang left the shell of the two-story building mostly raw, with concrete floors and walls and exposed ceilings. To delineate between the studio’s public and private zones, she employed a rough-luxe material palette of concrete, marble, metal, and velvet, contemporary furnishings, and site-specific architectural interventions—the latter two in more pink or other flattering pastels.

Based on their visit’s purpose, patrons can enter directly under the scaffolding and into the studio or via a circular portal, formulated to appear like a camera lens. The portal leads to the coffee bar featuring cabinetry in marine-grade birch and built-in magazine racks, which warm the adjoining catering kitchen in stainless steel and concrete. Beyond the loose, flexible arrangement here of round café tables and tubular-steel and blush shell chairs for sipping drinks and chatting is the studio’s VIP consultation area. Another nod to photography, it’s contained inside a tall, framelike structure, tilted so it’s asymmetrical and clad in butter-yellow tile, furnished with upholstered lounge seating. A mirrored wall—one of those concealing the photo studio itself—behind this semi-enclosed vignette enhances this commercial area’s cinematic feel. Black-and-white striped area rugs add graphic punch.

“Trompe l’oeil techniques create a sense of depth,” Yang explains of her interventions. “By using reflective materials such as stainless steel and mirror glass, and strategically placing lighting, the boundaries between different areas are blurred, giving the illusion of a larger, more open space.”

These techniques might trick the eye, but they also draw it closer. The studio’s lobby connects to the café by a narrow hall paneled in polished stainless steel with retractable garage door–style shading. In the lobby, a cylindrical light box is the centerpiece. Floored in rose carpet, wrapped in burl-patterned wood veneer, and capped by an eyeball-esque fixture, the space is used to hang and photograph wedding dresses. But, since it’s visible to the public through a streetside window, Yang upped the visual draw with unusual installations of stacked TVs and an equine sculpture with hay. “The dazzling light, the black horse, the small TVs—they achieve a sense of temporal confusion, creating effects that are both virtual and realistic,” says Yang, who sourced the unexpected props from a local flea market.

It may all feel a bit fantastical, but the designer’s concept argues that that is the point: Capturing emotional portraits first requires creating an environment of fantasy with clients on set. This also necessitates that the subjects look and feel their best. Thus, the studio’s makeup and dressing rooms, which feature plush carpeting and Japanese-style partitions, are reminiscent of residential interiors, intended to evoke the same sense of comfort as trying on clothes in one’s own bedroom. The coffee bar’s similar living-room vibe contributes to that cozy atmosphere. And while the photo shoots ultimately take place inside the private, black-boxlike space at the center of the building, Lanwuu’s overall layout creates ideal conditions for informal snapshots, too.

“The studio is open and flowing to facilitate the movement of natural light,” Yang explains. “By avoiding excessive partitioning, we ensure that natural, balanced light can penetrate all corners.” Playing with allusion by geometry, she designed circular windows that not only look like camera lenses but also simulate their aperture ability to diffuse and manipulate sunlight. All other openings are adjustable as well, offering flexibility throughout the day and as needs change. Back-of-house functions, including the administrative offices and image-processing facilities, are located on the second floor, to maintain the accessible feel.

Lanwuu is inherently a work in progress. “We want the project to convey this pursuit of momentary beauty and warmth,” Yang continues. As those definitions change through differing trends, preferences, and needs, so too must the sets where they are captured. Being “unfinished” is an advantage—one Yang has built into the design.

Inside Lanwuu Imagine, a Photography Studio in Southern China

AURORA DESIGN: DA WANG; SIJIE ZHANG.

FROM FRONT DP STUDIO: TUBULAR CHAIRS, TABLES (CAFÉ). SWHY FURNITURE: SEATING (VIP). TAOBAO: LAMPS.
THROUGHOUT QIANGLI JUCAI: LED SIGNAGE.

Take A Seat In This Lounge Chair Bursting With Personality

While Svoya Studio cofounder Denys Sokolov was designing furnishings for fellow Ukrainian company Noom, there was a moment when he sensed that a nearly finished lounge chair was, well…winking at him! In the spirit of greeting the seat back, he named it Hello, a moniker that also captures the inviting nature of the soft, ample, injection molded–foam forms. The design begat a mini-collection comprising the chair in low and high variants, a three-seater sofa, and two coffee tables, all equal parts art piece and functional furniture. Topping off the series (figuratively and, in the case of the seating, quite literally) is a spherical pillow that just begs to be tossed around. noom-home.com