Architectural Digest February 2023

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“When people come to the house, I want them to walk into our lives. And our lives are much more expansive than just an Oscar or a Tony.”—Viola Davis Independent thinkers, innovators, game changers: This issue is full of them, from adventurous homeowners to daring architects and designers. Take our cover couple, actor-producers Viola Davis and Julius Tennon, founders of JuVee Productions, whose credits include the acclaimed recent film The Woman King, starring Davis in yet another tour de force performance. When the power pair need to escape the Hollywood grind, they retreat to their LA residence. “Our definition of home is a sanctuary, and this is definitely a sanctuary,” says Davis, adding that it is the place where “we talk, we laugh hysterically, we reconnect.” And perhaps plot their next…

A fleet of women with perfect posture. A happy couple, arm in arm. A lounging lady, legs stretched out in grace-ful recline. These are just a few of the characters that populated Jack Risley’s childhood home in Middletown, Connecticut, where his artist parents, John and Mary Risley, made everything, from the furniture to the flatware. John, who honed his modernist style at the Rhode Island School of Design, at Cranbrook Academy of Art, and in the office of industrial designer Russel Wright, began making these so-called People chairs in the early 1960s. Meticulously hand-welded from thin steel rods and spray-painted black, they worked indoors and out. They were humorous, yes, but at the core these figurative seats were about simplicity of line and formal principles of design and craft, not unlike…

Ask most Angelenos about Fossil Ridge Park and they’ll probably draw a blank. The paleontological site, named for its abundance of fossilized marine life dating back some 10 million years, is tucked in the mountains above Sherman Oaks, off the beaten path and familiar largely to people who live, work, or go to school in the vicinity. Peggy Hsu and Chris McCullough, principals of the LA-based architecture firm Hsu McCullough, are fortunate to have a front-row seat on the natural wonder. They designed their two-story house to frame particular vistas not only of Fossil Ridge but also of the San Gabriel Mountains and the San Fernando Valley floor. “We wanted to live in a hillside community with views,” explains Hsu, a native of Taiwan who moved to LA in her…

In 2014, Boko Haram terrorists razed the village of Chibok, Nigeria, displacing countless families and abducting 276 female high school students, of whom more than 100 still remain missing. Nearly a decade later, the region’s fight against jihadist insurgents is far from over, and thousands of people are still living in camps. But the United Nations Development Programme is helping to rebuild communities like Chibok so that internally displaced persons (IDP) can return home. This past October, 2,500 residents moved into a new settlement in Ngarannam, a three-hour drive northeast of Chibok. The community’s architect, Tosin Oshinowo, refers to the homes as “house proud,” noting that they’re self-sufficient, familiar, and safe. “It was very important to give people a comfortable place to rebuild their lives,” says the Lagos-based principal of cmDesign…

“I went down a complete Alexander Calder rabbit hole,” says Workstead’s Robert Highsmith, reflecting on the genesis of the AD100 firm’s new lighting collection, Pendolo. “Looking at his mobiles, looking at his two-dimensional forms, I began to explore the distillation of movement,” he continues, wondering aloud, “How do you create implied kineticism?” Pendolo explores that tension in adjustable fixtures that honor Workstead’s long-standing interests in flexibility and tactility, all the while branching out to a bigger scale. Available in three sizes and wrapped inside and out in burlap or linen, the shades come as large as 18 inches high, requiring an embedded wire structure to maintain the illusion of weightlessness. “The cone is a very monumental form, but it’s also very hollow,” Highsmith reflects. “We wanted the shades to have…