AZURE

In assembling the stories in this issue about circular design, one word kept coming up: value. It surfaced early on in my conversation with Zita Cobb (“All the Right Moves,” page 60), the Shorefast founder and visionary behind Fogo Island’s resurgence. Describing the difference between something that has inherent value versus a status symbol, she recalled a friend of hers, Amos the fisher, who was confused about how a Louis Vuitton purse could sell for thousands of dollars while he couldn’t earn a meagre income hawking his fish. “The economy will start to work,” she told me, “when we practise true cost pricing.” “The economy” is a phrase, Cobb likes to say, that is quick to clear a room. And it’s certainly not the usual scope of this magazine. But if…

When the SS Andrea Doria ocean liner took to the seas for its maiden voyage in 1953, it featured a sun deck filled with custom chaises longues designed by Gio Ponti. The seats are a perfect reflection of the Italian architect’s knack for angular geometry, with a side profile defined by a twisting line of solid teak. Another handsome touch: two rounded notches that help to shelter the headrest from stray ocean breezes. While the Andrea Doria suffered a tragic collision and sank in 1956, it is still regarded as one of the most beautiful ships to cross the Atlantic. Now, almost 70 years later, Ponti’s design has risen from the heart of the ocean, revived as part of Molteni&C’s inaugural outdoor collection. Reintroduced this March as the D150.5, the chaise…

Since 2014, fashion brand Lisa Says Gah has defined its own distinctive aesthetic characterized by bold prints, vibrant colours and offbeat styling. So when making the leap from online retail to bricks and mortar, it was crucial that founder Lisa Buhler find the right person to translate her company’s signature vibe into a physical environment. Enter Adi Goodrich, multidisciplinary spatial designer and co-founder of Sing-Sing Studio, whose immersive, whimsical interiors for L.A. shops Dreams and Wine & Eggs made a strong impression on Buhler. Working with a narrow storefront on L.A.’s Sunset Boulevard, Goodrich crafted Lisa Says Gah as a community-minded boutique that is an outgrowth of her own meditations on history and post-pandemic design. “I was thinking about what happened after World War II in Europe with Gio Ponti,” she…

Toronto designer Jamie Wolfond explains the thinking behind his latest, triple-pronged creation with a riddle: “What can three things do well on the bottom [of a lamp], and what can three things do well on the top — and how do the three things on the bottom relate to those on the top?” Crack the code and you get the trifurcated floor lamp that Wolfond recently launched with Detroit-based furniture brand Floyd. A forked base provides stability, while the top branches out to form a cone-shaped lighting source and two supports for a curved paper shade. Together, these opposite ends add up to a sculptural, charming silhouette. In addition to being a satisfying conceptual exercise, the design achieves Floyd founders Alex O’Dell and Kyle Hoff’s request for a lamp that emitted…

American landscape architect and D.I.R.T. Studio founder Julie Bargmann describes PARK(ing), a 2,230-square-metre site in Detroit’s Core City neighbourhood, as a green space first and a parking lot second. “Let’s imagine that the whole thing is a crazy wild forest,” she says, “and then you take your eraser and put in as many cars as necessary.” In this case, that means parking spots for 28 vehicles — each one nestled among a dense thicket of native trees, grasses and flowers. Brought to life by local real estate development and property management company Prince Concepts and designed by Bargmann with Prince’s in-house landscape designer Andrew Schwartz, the site melds greenery with permeable pavers and granite ground covers in a way that recalls the resilient pockets of nature found along railway tracks and…

While Cartier has long been synonymous with sparkle, its European flagship just got a whole lot sparklier. The French jewellery brand recently tapped Czech glassmaker Lasvit to design a nearly 55-square-metre “ice corridor” that leads from the main area of its Geneva boutique to an exclusive department dedicated to rare collector’s pieces. Built from over two tonnes of Czech crystal glass that covers both the walls and ceiling (the floor is carpeted in a watery blue-grey), the passageway is like a supersized version of the multi-faceted gemstones on display around it. “I approached the piece as an artwork made up of many different components,” explains Lasvit senior designer Wanda Valihrachová. Designed to evoke the glacial caves found throughout the Swiss Alps, the architectural focal point is also a nod to its setting.…