California cool: Studio Shamshiri debuts handmade door handles and pulls

‘As humans and as designers, we find ourselves drawn to things rooted in nature,’ says interior designer Pamela Shamshiri (a former Wallpaper* Design Awards judge and among the Wallpaper* USA 400), reflecting on what inspired her collections of handcrafted door handles and cabinetry hardware. ‘The perfect lemon, a fish and its associated good luck, the delight in finding a rock that feels just right in your pocket – those are the feelings we started with and the feelings we chased throughout the design process.’

Teaming up with longtime collaborator, New York hardware manufacturer The Nanz Company, Shamshiri has brought to life two collections – named ‘Los Angeles’ and ‘Ojai’ – that embody the handmade ‘rustic California’ style for which her eponymous Los Angeles practice is known. ‘As a firm based in Los Angeles, we have a large portfolio of LA projects,’ says Shamshiri (a Pacific Palisades house that Wallpaper* visitied among them), ‘but there is a sizable contingency of people who leave the city and take respite in Ojai for its wildness. As such, we have worked on numerous Ojai homes, institutions, and hotels, so both bodies of work stem from not one specific project in each area so much as our collective experience in both places. If “Los Angeles” is the city collection, “Ojai” is its country counterpart.’

This difference is subtly reflected in choice of material and form – while both collections feature weighty cast bronze designs with lines and textures inspired by the Californian landscape, the LA collection has a slightly more refined appearance with the inclusion of polished finishes and geometric handles and knobs made from walnut and African blackwood cleverly attached to metal components. Meanwhile, the Ojai collection includes pieces with leather-wrapped details and playful fish motifs.

For Shamshiri, it was essential that each piece would be made and finished one piece at a time, evoking the handmade nature of the houses of artists like JB Blunk, Georgia O'Keeffe, Gordon Onslow Ford, David Ireland, Russel Wright, and Harvey Fite.

‘Georgia O’Keeffe’s home and the assortment of natural objects she had in her life is a source of endless inspiration for me,’ explains Shamshiri. ‘You can tell by every surface in O’Keeffe’s home that those were the moments she deeply valued. We wanted this collection to have a natural hand feel and to create a sensory impression, as these are the objects that become the fundamental tactile jewelry of a home.’

Elsewhere, surrealist elements, such as the ‘Fish Lever’ in the ‘Ojai’ collection and the ‘Potato Knob’ in the ‘Los Angeles’ collection, nod to the home of Gordon Onslow Ford and his journeys in lucid dreaming, surrealism, and meditation. ‘There is an inherent geometry to his paintings, which can be seen in the beaded edges of our “Lemon Pull” and in the shafts of every lever,’ says Shamshiri. ‘I am drawn to the details in his work that transport you through time and space. We hoped to capture the essence of both artists’ ethos in our collaboration with Nanz.’

For Nanz – a manufacturing company accustomed to making larger runs of virtually identical products – the collaboration presented an opportunity to work at a smaller and more intimate scale, going back and forth on small but significant adjustments. ‘Pamela’s adjustments were both specific and subtle,’ says Nanz co-founder Carl Sorenson, recalling some of them – a slight reduction in the thickness of the rose for the beaded lemon knob, a small increase in the radius of the bend in the fish lever, and an adjustment to the level of polish on the arc lever. ‘These were minor changes with maximum effect.’ As a result, each handle stands apart, reflecting meticulous craftsmanship and distinct character.

nanz.com
studioshamshiri.com