Inhoudsopgave van September/October 2022 - Dwell

My grandparents had caning as a wall treatment in a guest room, and I fell in love. @gimmemynikkers Expensive and not very sturdy when exposed. Rarely worth the money. Sold my Cescas. @planteidyll The texture and rhythm are gorgeous (unless made with virgin plastic). @prettysharppencil Gets dusty. @noshsense It reminds me of my childhood dinners with family. @kt.june It’s too often used in generic contemporary designs to evoke a sense of “craftiness” without really engaging with technique or tradition or saying anything new. Jack Balderrama Morley, Managing Editor Grandpa used to cane our chairs. It’s an art. @gminger It’s too fragile. @mindypinz It’s comfortable and tropical and adds texture. Suzanne LaGasa, Creative Director It’s a reminder of artisans and ancestors. Love it! @day.to.day.sara Reminds me of Grandma. And plastic on…

When Bahareh Atash and Hesam Rostami, cofounders of Toronto firm Rostami Atash Atelier, purchased a 1920s worker’s cottage in 2015, the architect couple wanted to create something different from the area’s standard row houses. “The original house was about 900 square feet in two stories,” says Atash. “We rearranged the interior with minor structural modifications and built a two-story rear addition of about 700 square feet.” During construction, the pair did their best to limit waste production. “We started with a simple principle: Nothing goes to the landfill unless absolutely necessary,” says Atash. “Most of the old kitchen cabinets and appliances were salvaged, repainted, and used in the lower unit.” “Reclaimed materials can impart a wonderful sense of history while lightening a project’s environmental footprint.”MIKE CHINO, SENIOR DESIGN EDITOR…

On a typical day, Nicolás Tovo and Teresa Sarmiento’s house is a hive of activity. Upon my arrival at the architects’ new family home in Buenos Aires, Nico ushers me inside, where the couple’s three children, three cats, and Jack Russell terrier are buzzing around the open plan. Over coffee and flaky medialunas, Teresa enthusiastically fills me in on the story behind their home while Nico doodles intricate floor plans to help explain. In need of more space for their burgeoning brood, the couple, founders of architecture and design firm La Base Studio, purchased a 1970s home in the well-heeled district of Belgrano. They demolished all but its concrete structure, which they used as a framework for expansion. The original home sat on a roughly 4,000-square-foot lot at the intersection…

As dawn breaks, crenellated ribbons of orange light streak across white cabinetry deep inside the East Boston loft of architects Elle Gerdeman and Kyle Coburn. Part psychedelic laser show, part contemplative art installation, the phantasmagoric display results from early morning rays hitting a distorted sheet of thin steel in the living room, then bouncing off a polished steel coffee table and projecting onto the wall behind it. The architects, who were college sweethearts and are founding partners of the firm CO–G, first tested the setup by using a reflective emergency blanket in an attempt to push sunlight throughout their loft. “There were funky reflections scattered everywhere, so we bought the steel to see what it would do,” Elle says of the sheet, which she bent by hand until it refracted…

Sharmila Sen has always had a penchant for renovation projects. “I think I should have been an architect,” the photographer jokes. Upon encountering a dilapidated barn in North Salem, New York, she became convinced that the structure and its main house could be transformed into a home for her and her husband, neurosurgeon Chandra Sen. They were planning on retiring from the bustle of Manhattan to the tranquility just a few miles north in Westchester County. After the couple purchased the nine-acre property in late 2018, they contacted Brooklyn architecture practice Worrell Yeung because they had seen one of the up-and-coming firm’s barnlike houses online. But architects Max Worrell and Jejon Yeung saw potential for something beyond yet another trendy black farmhouse, and they worked with Sharmila and Chandra to…

Utkarsha Laharia Utkarsha Laharia noted that her subjects’ journeys were all so different. “All the designers that I interviewed did not start as designers at all,” says Laharia. “Their education and background are in such varied fields,” which is something that Laharia knows well. After becoming an architect in India, she studied architecture journalism in the U.S. to become, as she puts it, an architect who writes as well as a journalist who designs. Ilya Shrayber Ilya Shrayber, a San Francisco–based writer and Dwell editorial fellow, fell in love with print media in college, doing deep dives into music, architecture, downtown culture, and technology for the California Aggie. For this issue, Shrayber delved into his subjects’ creative processes. “There’s nothing quite like watching a designer’s face light up when they’re…

It could have been the same old story: A city couple looking to start a family give up their one-bedroom apartment to buy a fixer-upper with the cash they have and renovate down the line. But architect Chris Gilbert, founding director of the studio Archier in Melbourne, Australia, and his partner, Miranda Louey, who handles the firm’s marketing and communications, weren’t interested in buying anything outdated. The cost of updates to a run-down home, not to mention making it energy efficient, would be expensive, they knew, and others close to them felt the same way. Chris shares an office with Peter Steele, an environmental consultant and cofounder and former director at sustainable development firm Hip V. Hype, and Liam Wallis, the firm’s founding director. The three discovered they were all…

Indie musician Drew Straus, who performs under the name Onsen, will be the first to tell you that his early records were “brooding and moody.” But if his debut album, filled with electronic vibrations and atmospheric percussion, makes you want to pull down the shades and sink into bed, his latest release, Keeper, which came out last year, strikes a different chord. Its dreamy synth-pop beats beg you to throw open the windows and dance in the sunlight. It’s an apt analogy, as Drew’s new home set the stage for a key change. “The experience of being here, compared to anywhere else I’ve lived, is incredibly soothing,” says Drew. And as a result, he says, his work is “distinctly sunnier.” Drew purchased the property, located in the Silver Lake neighborhood…

“Now that’s just a little slice of perfection. That sandstone is sublime.”—Bobby Vilas, Dwell.com Re: “Tropical Storm: Hawaii is drowning in a flood of the same factors creating a housing crisis all over America. Will the state become a model for finding a way out—or a cautionary tale?” July/August It would be amazing if strong leadership could actually break ground for desperately needed housing, but it will take an enormous amount of education to overcome the local skepticism. CHRISTA VIA DWELL.COM Re: “An Idea With Legs: Inspired by an errant arachnid, a designer couple weave contemporary elements into a traditional Kyoto townhouse,” July/August Gorgeous story, gorgeous family, gorgeous design. This whole thing has feel-good vibes all around. Gotta say I’m feeling slightly jealous! @IDEMOLISHRAMEN VIA INSTAGRAM Re: “The Cube One…

When Covid hit, Herman Wakefield’s industry was turned upside down. Prices for midcentury antiques skyrocketed because of the home improvement frenzy, and uneducated new dealers were everywhere, ruining furniture and hawking fakes. You could make more money, but you’d have to work harder, improvise, and deal with a lot of idiots along the way. Wakefield, who is in his early 40s, had been selling vintage furniture for four years—and been a fan for nearly 20—and he needed to “blow off some steam.” Though he’d never made a meme before, on November 3, 2020, he pieced together a “starter pack” making fun of new vintage dealers who didn’t know what they were doing. The goal wasn’t to go viral but just to make a handful of other seasoned colleagues laugh. What…

“We like the feeling of floating in the air,” Constanza Ríos says of the home she built with her husband, Pierangelo Caimi. Peering out at sky and ocean through wall-height windows that wrap the living area of their cabin, which rests on a cliff on the Chilean coast, you can’t help but feel weightless. It can be jarring for some. “People with vertigo sometimes come to our house and say they can’t get near the windows,” says Pier, laughing. “They feel like they’re going to fall into the ocean.” In 2018, he and Constanza, both dentists, yoga instructors, and surfers, were seeking a deeper connection with the outdoors when they decided to move from their hometown of Viña del Mar, a metropolis of 325,000, to the remote beach community of…

In 2015, architect Victor Ebergenyi Kelly had his dream job (albeit a bureaucratic one) working in public housing and urban redevelopment in Mexico City when he got a call that would change the course of his career. It was from his former thesis adviser, Juan Carral O’Gorman, who asked Ebergenyi to join him in Cancún. Carral was working on a project in a struggling part of the coastal city, a world away from the nearby glittering seaside resorts, and he wanted Ebergenyi’s help. Carral’s focus was Donceles, a working-class neighborhood of 1,161 homes, developed in the 1980s by the Mexican national housing institution, Infonavit, for hospitality workers. Even when new, the area had plenty of troubles: Pedestrian walkways were left unpaved, there wasn’t much shade in public spaces, and the…