For Venezuelan-born, Texas-based Susana Vega, jewellery design is a continuation of the craft she witnessed in childhood. Growing up, her family’s goldsmith workshop shaped a sensual approach to design, resulting in an appreciation of materials and imperfect forms.

Moving to Houston cemented this feeling, Vega says. ‘After leaving Venezuela, design took on a much deeper meaning for me. It’s not the same to be inspired by the nature and women of your country when you’re no longer there, and when you don’t know when you’ll return. There’s a profound sense of nostalgia behind my collections, an amplified love for the places I knew, and a longing for the ones I didn’t get to experience. Even if my collections don’t explicitly reference Venezuela by name, the feeling is always there.’

It is a philosophy encapsulated in the new collection, Soto, composed of hand-crafted wooden jewellery. ‘I wanted to respect the material by keeping the forms simple, timeless, yet sculptural; creating the feeling of a small, wearable work of art,’ adds Vega. ‘This collection was a huge learning experience. I loved discovering how noble wood is; how it allows itself to be shaped, sanded, and polished, how something so raw can be transformed by hand into something refined and beautiful.’

Handcrafted in Guatemala by artisans, the jewellery celebrates the natural character of the wood, keeping the small variations in grain and form, which ensures no two pieces are alike. Its distinct character encouraged Vega to design in a new way, removing, carving and sculpting the material rather than adding to it, and embracing simpler, more organic forms. ‘Understanding that shift, and designing within the virtues and limitations of the material, was both the challenge and the beauty of the process.’

Throughout, Vega pays special attention to a sense of proportion and the golden ratio, which dictates a harmony in design. She adds: ‘Nothing is accidental; everything you see has been carefully thought through to feel balanced, beautiful, and intriguing.’

susanavegajewelry.com

Ruark Amplis

Ruark has deepened its collaboration with Linley, following the earlier bespoke version of the Tempo Radio. The Ruark x LINLEY Amplis Audio System takes melodic marquetry to another level, with an inlaid case that is hand-crafted at LINLEY’s workshop using a number of matched veneers. Evoking the radiant Deco-style forms often found on early wireless cabinets, there are three different colourways available. The veneers include Sycamore, Pama, Bolivar and Anegre, meticulously matched and combined to create a device that looks as good as it sounds.

Ruark Audio R1

The latest version of Ruark’s R1 is the fourth iteration of this modern classic. Combining DAB and Bluetooth, the compact R1 is now upgraded to a USB-C charger with the addition of Light Cream and Espresso finishes. The signature slatted wooden grille is neatly hand-crafted to create a discrete but elegant device fit for any shelf or surface.

Joy Resolve Wireless Charger

We’re big fans of Joy Resolve’s Barisieur, a coffee-brewing alarm clock. Their latest product is more low-key and less eye-opening but still beautifully functional. Deploying the Qi Wireless Charging standard – as used by Apple’s new iPhone 12 and many Android phones – into a simple walnut-clad coaster, it can also be plugged into the charge port of your coffee machine for effective desk consolidation.

Tivoli Audio Limited Edition Model One

Another radio with admirable longevity, Tivoli Audio’s Model One is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2020. The American firm’s rectangular dial-driven device is honoured with a walnut wood special edition with inlaid mother-of-pearl, eschewing DAB in favour of a straightforward AM/FM set-up (with added Bluetooth connectivity if you can’t live without podcasts).

Grovemade

Finally, a wood object designed for the digital era but decidedly low-tech in its appeal. All-American company Grovemade offer a wide range of desk accessories, using natural materials like laminated and moulded walnut and maple plywood, vegetable tanned leather and natural cork. Its latest offering is an iPad stand; wood, steel and Merino wool come together to make a simple design statement for this desktop essential.

In Canary Wharf at the iconic One Canada Square building, designed by César Pelli in 1991, London based dMFK Architects has refurbished three floors of office space to a design inspired by the American corporate interiors of Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe.

The 80,000 sq ft office within the 50 storey building (London’s second tallest) was commissioned by The Office Group to fill a market gap for flexible work space in the traditional financial district – it can be adapted to fit businesses from four to 1000 people. Other assets for employees include dedicated recharge zones and informal break-out spaces, while the Peloton bike area in the fitness studio is another work perk.

There’s a clear nostalgia for the mid-century era across the design. The architects combined Kvadrat fabrics with linoleum-faced joinery to bring tactility to the shared spaces. Inspired by the original building foyer, a grand coloured marble and polished steel affair, the architects’ selected rich figured terrazzo, mid-toned sapele timber panelling and painted metalwork for the workspaces.

You won’t forget which floor you’re on either because each floorplate has a different sequence, and a dramatic staircase spirals through the floors. New linear avenues added by the architects connect views and bring light into the core, while a colour scheme of deep blue, soft pink, smoky green and terracotta.

INFORMATION

dmfk.co.uk

theofficegroup.com

It is Kengo Kuma’s ‘nth visit’ to the Amanpuri hotel on the island of Phuket in Thailand, which he first visited nearly 30 years ago, and it’s no wonder that the internationally renowned Japanese architect feels content here. On this paradise peninsula, abundant with nature and peacefully dotted with pitch-roofed pavilions, who wouldn't?

Yet perhaps it’s because Kuma and the Aman hotel brand both have some philosophies in common – the fusion of eastern and western cultures, the embrace of nature and simplicity, and a forward-thinking approach combined with traditional values.

Their relationship was further forged when Kengo Kuma and Associates (KKAA) designed a unique range of bottles for Aman’s new skincare range, released in 2019. So when Aman decided to embark on adding a new retail store for the Amanpuri, the first of its kind of the Aman brand, there was sure to be a meeting of minds.

With its peaceful setting and contextually sensitive design, the Amanpuri was the first Aman that set a high precedent for every destination (32 and counting) that then followed from Bali to Utah. Designed by architect Ed Tuttle in 1989, the resort is defined by its nature-immersed village of private pitched roofed pavilions connected by stepped pathways, inspired by the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya.

It was a good place to start for this first store, intended as a prototype for more to come, imagined as a curated stage for the best local and international design objects, clothing and jewellery. ‘This is a shop, but the concept of the shop is far beyond a shop,’ says Kuma, who has crafted show-stopping retail environments for Camper in Barcelona and Valextra in Milan. ‘We designed the space as a museum of the Aman resorts, where space has a special conversation with the philosophy behind the art and the product.’

Beautifully framed by KKAA’s columnless design, every piece for the store has been handpicked by Karen Schneider, global head of retail for Aman. From the softest bamboo and cotton mix leisure-wear, to the Kengo Kuma-designed Aman skincare range, and modern pieces informed by traditional craft – such as unique art objects from Lotus Arts de Vivre’s Bangkok gallery, atta grass bags handcrafted in Bali by Stelar and gold-lined bronze works by British-born Alexander Lamont, the offering is diverse and eclectic.

KKAA’s holistic approach imagined how an Amanpuri guest might find their way into the space – being visually welcomed by its soft geometry on arrival to the resort, casually meandering through from the spa, or walking through the entrance pavilion on the way back from breakfast perhaps. ‘The space is about the site and the pathway,’ says Kuma, ‘we just happened to cap it with a series of roofs’.

While the pitched roofs and strong axis of the building echo the traditional Thai architecture that informed Tuttle so strongly, there are some subtle differences to Kuma’s more Japanese approach, explains Balazs Bognar, design director at KKAA. ‘If you go to some of the temples in Bangkok, you can see series of stupas that appear like objects or talismans that you really cannot inhabit. In Japanese examples, it is about entry, sequence and the in-between. Our pavilion is about sequence, spatial flow, continuity.’

Both remarkably sculptural and beautifully precise, the layered roofs of the pavilion dissolve into their lush leafy environment, where the dark tiles absorb the midsummer light. This perceived lightness and simplicity however hides the challenge that came with combining two structural systems, one of cross-laminated timber, and one of steel, with glass partitions.

‘Creating the gaps between the roofs was not easy – structurally it is totally separated, and each roof is independent,’ says Kuma, who owes his success in combining the latest technology with traditional Japanese design principles, to collaborating with engineers from the very start of the design process.

The engineering explored in this pavilion has also been used for the Tokyo New National Stadium project, which uses the same system on a larger scale: ‘We learnt much from this experience to pass to the new building which will be one of the most unique CLT buildings. It is higher, with a bigger void and natural light comes through the gaps between the CLT panels,’ says Kuma.

All of this effort is geared towards helping the architecture diffuse into nature following the principles of Kuma’s 2008 thesis Anti-Object. Here at the Amanpuri pavilion, natural materials are at the forefront, construction is exposed, and a very special lighting effect occurs: ‘The light is filtered, which we call the komorebe effect, translated as ‘dappled light’. In the forest you feel dappled light through the leaves, and here we have tried and create that kind of atmosphere.’

A powerful connection to the earth is created by the sweeping roof composition, which grazes the sloping ground and shades the building with its extended eave. At the same time it also extends up high – the tallest roof is 9 metres, giving the retail space a special presence, like that of a museum, yet still levelling to a similar height to the neighbouring gallery pavilion.

‘Thai architecture and Japanese architecture both have some vocabulary in common,’ says Kuma. ‘Intimacy and human scale are important to both cultures, and sculpting the roof is one solution to creating intimacy. In Japanese architecture, we use the soffit and a small entrance to mediate the exterior and the interior, it’s a kind of Asian wisdom and a solution for [connecting the building to] the environment.’

Capturing both the dignity of a museum and the warmth of a living room, the pavilion might have been designed as a pathway that falls into step with its surroundings, yet it has also been designed as a new extension into the future for the Aman brand. And we have a feeling that this is just the beginning of a very fruitful journey for KKAA and Aman.

INFORMATION

kkaa.co.jp

aman.com/resorts/amanpuri

ADDRESS

Amanpuri
Pansea Beach Cherngtalay
Thalang District
Phuket 83110
Thailand

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The UK’s annual Wood Awards, which celebrates the use of wood in architecture and design, has awarded Niall McLaughlin Architects, Studio Weave, MUMA and Ian Ritchie Architects its prestigious timber trophies.

The awards, originally founded in 1971 as the Carpenters’ Award and renamed in 2003, celebrates projects for craftsmanship and innovation across different categories from commercial architecture to private homes.

In the education and public category, the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre in Oxford by Niall McLaughlin won gold. The building, also nominated for the RIBA Stirling prize this year, features smooth and layered European oak and Siberian larch throughout the interior of the learning centre for Worcester college, with pergolas and terraces overlooking the cricket pitch.

Another RIBA Stirling prize nominee winning gold in its category was Storey’s Field Centre & Eddington Nursery in Cambridge designed by MUMA, within commercial and leisure. The holistic design includes halls lined with oak paneling, exposed interior structure in layered ash and veneered plywood and turreted roofs clad in western red cedar.

Ian Ritchie Architects’ Royal Academy of Music theatre and recital hall was awarded gold in the interior category, for its acoustically refined cherry-lined theatre and pale lime-washed oak recital hall with sculptural roof oculus inspired by the design of a musical instrument.

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners impressed the judges with the Macallan Distillery & Visitor experience centre designed around a Norway spruce structure reinforced with steel for the structural gold award, while the Judges Special Award went to Belvue School’s undulating frame in western red cedar designed by Studio Weave.

Another RIBA favourite, nominated for the House of the Year 2018, Tonkin Liu’s Old Shed New House was awarded gold for the private category. The house, set on the site and foundation of an old shed, has a timber louvered façade inspired by silver birch trees on the property and employs Siberian larch, Latvian birch and Scandinavian spruce throughout.

Meanwhile, Studio Morison with artists Ivan Morison and Heather Peak won the small projects category with their contemporary folly commissioned by the National Trust. Set in the 18th-century walled garden designed by Georgian landscape designer Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown of Berrington Hall in Herefordshire, the structure forms a concertina that was engineered using a five axis CNS cutter and assembled in the workshop.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Wood Awards website

Much like many current creative collaborations, it was Instagram that alerted German furniture brand Stattmann Neue Moebel to the architectural work of Atelier ordinaire in 2017. ‘We were so intrigued by the wooden houses that we had to send the owner of atelier ordinaire, Thomas Walter, an email immediately,’ says Nicola Stattmann, co-founder of Stattmann Neue Moebel. A couple of clicks later and they have just designed a sustainable and minimalist prefab wood house together in Bourgogne in France. 

A mutual love of wood (and each other’s work) officially kicked off the project. ‘For me, the rooms in the houses of atelier ordinaire are themselves like well-made furniture,’ Stattmann explains. ‘The outside corresponds exactly with the inside. There is no disconnection – only wooden volumes, soft transitions and clear lines. I cannot picture our furniture in a better space.’ The wood for the structure and the furniture inside is all sourced via sustainable forestry, a mutual ethos for both companies.

The furniture chosen for the project from Stattmann Neue Moebel’s vast collection are perfectly paired with the simple internal architecture. Spread sparsely across the angular walls of the building are Brussels-based designer Sylvain Willenz’s Profile series of highly crafted oak and ash products that create a pleasing sense of continuity throughout. Clusters of Add stools by German designer Steffen Kehrle also pepper the space alongside his Plug shelves, that Stattmann explains ‘work equally well next to the wall or as a room divider.’

Stattmann Neue Moebel and Atelier ordinare ensured the bucolic French landscape outside was highlighted by the design too. Large windows throughout the space act as cinematic frames for nature. The outdoors is also reflected in the tones and textures used, the dark hued weather resistant exterior of the house nods to the bark of the pine trees, while Stattmann chose 11 tones of this natural wood for the furniture. ‘We selected the grey-green, white, nude-grey, and grey which match the garden, the light and the natural pine tree wood of the interior walls perfectly.’ she details. ‘To create contrast, we selected the black-blue and the dark-blue, which are strong without being loud. The harmony with the surrounding environment is not just a question of the colours. It is also the matt surface which shows the grain of the wood very naturally and beautifully.’

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Atelier ordinaire website and the Stattmann Neue Moebel website

Art furniture pioneer Wendell Castle passed away on 20 January 2018. The following is an article originally featured in the December 2009 issue of Wallpaper* (W*129).

Hurtling past a Currier & Ives landscape, windshield-wipers working overtime, the car gladly pulls up to the kind of countrified homestead not generally associated with sleek fibreglass furniture inspired by molar teeth and black widow spiders. Back in 1905, when electricity was the big headline in home design, a wealthy wheat farmer built this estate in Scottsville, on the hemline of Rochester in upstate New York, just as America’s Midwest sprouted its own amber waves of grain and gradually stole away the business. Now, more than a century later, to stroll the house and grounds is to surrender to the ultra-modern surrealist impulses of Wendell Castle, a midwestern émigré who is the property’s unlikeliest caretaker and renovator.

Artist in residence at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Castle is more globally celebrated as an American craft-movement elder early to the concept of art furniture. In the late 1960s, he pioneered hot rod-hued plastics and gloopy biomorphic chairs, tables and desks that have a presence in the permanent collections of all the majors. Now 77, Castle remains one of the first iconic art-furniture brands, signing his pieces as any self-respecting artist would, with a Dremel tool – a sort of hillbilly cousin to a dental drill. He has lived long enough to see the masses slowly educating themselves into the ranks of the cognoscenti. One used to have to be a decorator or an architect to buy from Knoll. Not any more. Not in an era where the gods of mod are designing can-openers for the big chain stores. Of course, some of what passes for high design these days verges on comedy: ‘These houses where you push a button and every light in the house will come on, or you need to push the TV screen to get the lights to go on... I don’t see anything wrong with just flipping a switch,’ says Castle.

The wise-old beard and Le Corbusian goggles, custom-made in Paris, both project a certain priestliness, but Castle was never such a high-minded renunciant that he didn’t demand – and receive – masterpiece prices. ‘Certainly, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, I got more money than anyone else,’ he says. Now, it’s Marc Newson who scores the repetitive zeroes on the cheques. Most recently, he has been in discussion with architect Peter Marino to make a gold-leaf bench for a client. And the older pieces have steadily appreciated; last year, one of his chairs sold at auction for $204,000. People are asking again about those fibreglass toothpaste-squeeze lamps that didn’t sell 30 years ago; luckily, the moulds were still alive in the weeds in his backyard, and another edition is in the works.

This afternoon, a pelting rain has threatened plans for a leisurely game of croquet, so Castle and his briskly attractive sculptor wife Nancy Jurs are in the living room waiting for the weather to pass. If not, there’s a ping-pong table casually sharing footage with a gangly pair of Castle’s ‘Back Widow’ chairs, a magenta ‘Osbourne’ coffee table, and a pair of Jurs’ samurai torsos. Surrealist surprises are strewn hither and yon – a tempera-bleached ‘tea party’ atop a radiator, an outdoor human-scale chess-game installation (World Piece, 2008, by Jurs) just off the porch. A spring-fed koi lake scooped out of one side of the property apparently functions as the family swimming pool. ‘The koi all have nams,’ says Jurs. ‘We buy them at PetSmart and feed them old dried bread and cereal.’ At the point in the tour, one half expects those croquet balls to be live hedgehogs; the mallets, live flamingoes.

Not long ago, the hobbity kitchen was renovated and rigged so that two cooks could do their thing simultaneously at the Gaggenau burners and a pair of mushroom-cap butcher-block islands. Jurs is a vegetarian. Castle is not. But otherwise, Castle and Jurs are boon collaborators, their works sitting side by side in the home. In the living room is yet another enigmatic artwork. ‘I was staying in a hotel about ten years ago,’ says Jurs, ‘and the art on the walls was so terrible, I said, “Wendell, I cannot sleep.”’ So she flipped it over, ‘and it was a revelation. I had all kinds of bad art in frames, so I turned it all around and painted the canvas backs silver.’

There was no art in Castle’s small-town Kansas home. His parents, a vocational agriculture instructor and a grade-school teacher, couldn’t be bothered to save any of his drawings. They wanted him to study business – ‘something that would be respectable,’ he remembers. A younger brother became a Methodist minister. ‘That was fine. They loved that,’ Castle recalls with some edge in his voice. A chance encounter with an issue of Poplar Mechanics that was lying around the house turned him on to duck decoys made from stack-laminated wood, an image that the child’s mind filed for later reference.

In the era of Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson, Castle took a degree in industrial design at the University of Kansas. A room-mate looking to become an astronaut suggested the Radiation Corporation of Florida hire Castle to design the interiors for a putative moon base. ‘It was ridiculous,’ he recalls. ‘The guy who was running it was a German scientist who I always thought was maybe a fraud. It was just total guesswork, informed by the movies.’ Then it was back to school to train as a sculptor, an obligatory bounce through New York City, ‘which didn't work out the way I wanted’, says Castle. ‘I couldn’t afford studio space except in Brooklyn just off Ocean Parkway.’ When Rochester Institute of Technology recruited him for its nascent furniture programme, he went because (frankly) he needed the money.

‘Tell the truth, Wendell!’ says his wife. ‘He got here, and he told other people – not just me – “Oh God, I hate this place.”’ But after two years, country life suited him; the 25 acres he eventually secured as a home – the ancient soya bean-factory studio a half-mile up the road – was a vast improvement over anything Ocean Parkway had to offer. Furniture could be sculpture, and Castle felt the field was wide open. ‘I could make some impression here,’ he remembers thinking.

When did he know he had made some impression? When after a reasonable success, he had tagged along on a visit to master carpenter George Nakashima’s studio with colleague Sam Maloof (aka the ‘Hemingway of Hardwood’), and Nakashima pretended he had never heard of one Wendell Castle. Such are this world’s sequoia-size egos.

Back in his own studio, Castle wields a chainsaw as routinely as a drafting-table pencil. By now, he has learned that exotics like zebra wood and bubinga are overrated. ‘It’s the form that’s more important, and if the wood has too much character, it can distract from the form.’

Two of his most valued employees are body-shop alumni who have worked on hot-rod cars, and he depends on their skill at applying the several signature coatings of iridescent automobile-grade urethane paint. Castle appreciates the musculature of classic cars and is doubtlessly the only academic in the region streaking past the sagging barns and solos in his slant-nosed Porsche 911 Turbo or his 1970 Jaguar E-type convertible, parked in the garage next to his wife’s John Deere Gator. A rare Nash-Healey, the first American sports car made after the Great Depression, is somewhere in the throes of restoration.

‘I like oddball,’ Castle admits. ‘I really haven’t had the money to buy million-dollar cars. I mean, Marc Newson can buy a million-dollar car – which he’s done.’ One senses Newson’s headlights glowing challengingly in Castle’s rear-view mirror. Castle’s daughter, an editor for Taschen who lives in Paris, is doing a book on Newson. There is some fascination with the Newson studio’s versatility, its ability to rethink restaurants, watches or a line of hoodies for G-Star Raw.

Castle admits he still spends most of his time thinking about chairs, and though he’d love to try newly voguish rapid prototyping – feed a photograph into a machine that then promises to laser out something cool – he doesn’t buy into the hysteria surrounding such NASA-novelty materials as titanium or carbon fibre. A torchère can look fabulous in simple poplar. ‘It really doesn’t seem to make so much difference what it’s made out of,’ he says. ‘A fibreglass chair used to be a cheap chair. Well, it really isn’t any more. If you made a chair out of concrete, which I am working on now, does that make a cheap chair? Not necessarily.’ As for the ‘Black Widow’ chairs, ‘they’re not the most comfortable,’ Castle freely allows. But they won’t hurt you, either.

Would he have liked to live in a modern house, all high cheekbones and minimal make-up? Well: Sure. But original mantels and mouldings painted in an automotive silvery grey go surprisingly well with his life’s work. Castle grabs a ukulele off an ash chest, the ‘Samba’ cabinet, part of the Wendell Castle Collection manufactured by Icon Design, ‘Ain’t she sweet?’ he strums, bursting into song with considerable brio.

Castle’s most recognisable piece is perhaps the rosewood-and-oak music stand in the corner. He has also designed five Steinway pianos and would love to do a sixth, encased in fibreglass, material he has only recently come back to after a 40-year hiatus. And he would probably want to do it in a vivid automotive colour. Maybe some rock star would buy it.

Asked, ‘What’s ugly?’ Castle thinks for a few seconds. ‘Well, ugly to me isn’t necessarily a bad word. I kind of like ugly. Beautiful might be the least interesting.’ He knows he doesn’t want to be designing can-openers any time soon. Or hoodies, for that matter. That kind of immortality doesn’t interest him. Suddenly, he’s feeling a chill. He reaches past the duck-headed fireplace tools and shuts the window as the rain beats on.

As originally featured in the December 2009 issue of Wallpaper* (W*129)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Wendell Castle website

Perched high above the valleys of southern Austria, the formidable basalt structure of the 17th-century Riegersburg Castle towers above a tiny mountain village. It is in a small garage in the shadow of the imposing fortress that carpenter Johann Radaschitz established his joinery workshop in 1923, creating exceptional furniture from local walnut, oak, chestnut and cherry wood with the help of just one apprentice.

Today, Radaschitz’s great-grandchildren, Bernd and Johann, run the joinery business and head a team of 37 skilled craftsmen. Earlier this year, the brothers joined forces with design duo Andrew Hays (a former creative director of Smallbone and Poggenpohl) and Kimm Kovac (an interior architect and set designer) to establish a new brand, Lanserring. Drawing its name from an 18th-century woodcutter – who according to local folk legend still wanders the forest and protects villagers from hostile spirits – Lanserring leverages the time-honed craftsmanship of the Radaschitz workshop to deliver contemporary kitchen designs and lifestyle products on a bespoke basis. The brand is yet to be launched globally, but, eager to sample its exquisite wares, Wallpaper* persuaded Lanserring to create a piece for our Handmade exhibition at Milan’s Salone del Mobile.

We introduced the team to RDAI, a Parisian interior architecture studio led by artistic director Denis Montel and design director Julia Capp, which has created offices, workshops and retail locations for Hermès worldwide. It proved the perfect match, and we charged them with creating a ‘treasure box’ for small valuable items. ‘Right from the beginning, Lanserring were interested in everything we were interested in,’ explains Capp. ‘We wanted this to be piece you’d take to a desert island. Inside, you would have everything you consider essential.’ Responding to our theme of spirituality, the proportions of the box would follow the golden mean – a ratio, approximating 1:1.6180339, considered sacred in ancient civilisations, and applied in classical and contemporary architecture alike. Inspired by the minaudière, a clutch bag invented by Van Cleef & Arpels in the 1930s, the box would be divided into four smaller compartments.

Creating the piece tested the manufacturing capabilities of the Lanserring workshop, which is accustomed to working on larger products, such as pieces of furniture and kitchens. The woodworkers rose to the challenge, says Capp: ‘Lanserring weren’t afraid to work on that scale, on that level of detail.’

The structure was hand-carved from a single piece of sustainable ironbark, which was selected for its warm, feminine colour. The lid is decorated with 24ct-gold inlays, in the shape of a circle inscribed in a square – the symbol of a perfect geometric relationship. (‘That was a tricky element,’ recalls Hays, noting that the wood had to be properly seasoned in order for the metal to fit without any gaps.) The box opens horizontally, using a pair of circular clasps, to reveal the compartmentalised interior, which is lined in pink kid suede. ‘Because of the mechanical, highly engineered precision work of the box, we wanted something soft and delicate on the inside of the lining’, says Hays. ‘We decided to let the wood come through a little bit in the radius corners, to keep the line running through the inside of the box.’ An inlaid mirror with a bevelled edge adorns the interior of the lid.

A late-stage addition came in the form of a pocket, crafted from the same suede. ‘It occurred to me, as the project evolved, to create this pocket for a precious item – a lucky charm or a piece of jewellery – that deserves extra protection,’ says Capp. Hays imagines the user detaching the pocket from the box, together with its contents, and slipping it directly into her handbag. RDAI devised a concertina mechanism that allows the pocket to maintain an elegant form while allowing easy access to its contents. From a manufacturing perspective, it meant minute folds, bends and stitching that required exceptional skill.

Due to tight time frames, communication between RDAI and Lanserring was strictly digital throughout the production process, save for a few material samples and a full mock-up in resin sent from Riegersburg to Paris. ‘We had many video conferences, calls and emails with Julia and Jacques-Elie (Ribeyron, the project designer at RDAI and Wallpaper* Handmade alumnus),’ remembers Hays. ‘But Julia and I didn’t meet until we were both in Milan for the Handmade exhibition, where, funnily enough, we found out that we had gone to the same architecture school in Australia.’

Both parties are immensely satisfied with their collaboration, so much that the box is now being developed for retail on WallpaperSTORE*. It certainly bodes well for Lanserring’s launch, which is due to take place in both Riegersburg and London this autumn. Capp, for one, is looking forward to it. ‘I would be very happy to work with them on other, even bigger projects in the future.’

As originally featured in the August 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*221)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the RDAI website and the Lanserring website

Paul Helbers likes to make daily dressing effortless. He has a fascination with everyday workwear and his eponymous label, launched in January 2016, mixes athleisure and tailored pieces in luxurious fabrics. Now our Handmade brief has allowed the Dutch designer, who has headed up menswear at Maison Margiela and Louis Vuitton, to take his passion further. His see-through closet allows you to take in your wardrobe at a glance, without even opening it, helping you select the perfect outfit every morning.

‘The wardrobe is built on a pedestal and puts your clothes on display, like in a museum,’ says Helbers. Crafted by the British cabinetmaker Smallbone using oxidised English oak and featuring transparent doors in clear polished acrylic, the design subverts the concept of concealed domestic storage, bringing a vision of everyday clothing to the forefront. ‘I like to think of it as a treasure reservoir,’ he adds. ‘The wardrobe’s transparency and serene appearance guides you calmly through your clothing options. Whether your clothes are colourful or minimal, dark or baroque, its simple shape will articulate their display.’

Helbers is used to working with a host of skilled artisans to produce the materials in his own collections, so his collaboration with the West Country-based Smallbone was a pleasing match. Founded in 1978 and now owned by London-based company Canburg, the brand is a leader in fitted British furniture, its joiners working by hand in the small market town of Devizes, where they devoted more than 500 hours to the construction of the wardrobe. ‘Paul’s grasp of the practicalities and challenges of manufacturing was evident,’ says Iain O’Mahony, director of special projects at Canburg.

From mélange wool to pebble-grain leather, fabrics in Helbers’ current, A/W17 collection have a well-worn patina. The oak used to create the wardrobe’s frame has a similar weathered quality, evoking the colours of driftwood. ‘The palette was set by Paul, to capture his fascination with the honesty of driftwood,’ O’Mahony says. ‘The oxidising treatment is a hand-applied process that we developed to capture his aesthetic intent.’

Adds Helbers, ‘Throughout the design, the grain of the wood is assembled in different directions. It evokes a fabric-like quality.’ The transparent, polished acrylic panels that make up the wardrobe’s doors, along with the linear door handles and shoe-bars crafted in satin-finished stainless steel, offer a smooth contrast to the open-grained frame. ‘We looked to the film industry for guidance on how to use acrylic as a construction material,’ says O’Mahony.

Clean lines were paramount in the wardrobe’s construction. The doors were made using discreet tenons (joints) and a concealed hinge, sourced from Japan. Their mounted acrylic panels were fixed using brushed stainless-steel captures. ‘The doors hold the only element of embellishment, inspired by post-war brutalist church architecture, where mouldings were created in unconventional materials,’ Helbers says.

The wardrobe’s interior is just as considered. Clothing is hung on custom-made timber coat hangers, and accessory boxes come in a combination of dovetailed oak and precision-mitred acrylic, with minimalist rebated lids. A lighting extrusion, developed by Smallbone, sits discreetly within the design and casts tuneable LED lighting back into the piece, illuminating its contents. ‘The concept can be extended, simplified or elaborated,’ Helbers says. ‘But the real remaining question is, are your clothes ready to be exhibited?’

As originally featured in the August 2017 issue of Wallpaper* (W*221)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Helbers and Smallbone websites

This year, Finnish design firm Artek turns 80, and the brand is celebrating in style, adding vibrant new upholstery colourways to its classic 'Domus' chair, and relocating to a spacious new flagship in Helsinki. Longstanding collaborators Iittala have got in on the anniversary action, adding a commemorative grey-scale edition to its time-honoured 'Alvar Aalto' vase collection. Artek even took time out of its busy birthday year to co-create some nifty nesting trays for Hotel Wallpaper*.

If that wasn't enough, Artek are set to launch a range of new finishes for the iconic 'L-leg' chairs – from leathers to lacquers and linoleum. As they riff on a classic, we look back on the chair's conception, in 1933, when Artek was but a fledgling idea in the mind of a group of Finnish idealists. It's our small way of raising a glass to 80 years of exemplary design.

The 'L-leg' came into being thanks to Alvar Aalto's adventures in wood bending techniques, which were a new phenomena in the 1930s. With the help of furniture manufacturer Otto Korhonen, Aalto developed a combination of cutting and steaming local Birch wood in order for it to become malleable.

Since then, the technique has remained pretty much the same: after being soaked in water, multiple vertical saw cuts are made in the end of a piece of wood a few millimeters apart – the deeper the cut, the bigger the bend. Then, thin strips of veneer are inserted into these slits and glued, increasing the stability of the finished component.

Aalto had an inkling he was on to a good thing with the 'L-leg' – early on he referred to it as 'the little sister of the architectural column'. Originally designed for 'Stool 60', it soon established itself as an anchor for the wider Artek collection. The beauty of the thing is its versatility – the 'L-leg' can be used as the basis for any number of seats, stools and tables. It has quite literally propped up hundreds of variations since it was patented in the 1930s. The technique has also spawned bending experiments in other materials, like steel, as we saw last year in Artek's 'Kaari' (or 'arch') collaboration with the Bouroullecs.

Aesthetically, these curves have become a defining feature of Artek's designs – flicking through a 2016 catalogue, the memory of Aalto's early bending experiments can be seen in every contemporary curve. But the 'L-leg' also represents Artek's ethos: fusing emerging technologies with art, in order to be true ambassadors and pioneers of Nordic design.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Artek website

Photography courtesy Artek

Found on the edge of Copenhagen’s coastline is a creative art studio consciously choosing to disregard the notion of limits as it pertains to form and material. Designer Pernille Snedker Hansen first made her mark on the industry with the creation of her marbleised patterns, which she boldly parlayed onto parquet floors (leaving nearly everyone halted in their tracks). The demand for her fiercely hued designs spread like wildfire, and Hansen swiftly made the transition to works on paper where she wowed again with loose interpretations of psychedelic tree rings and other abstracts. Now, Snedker Studios is set to debut a highly anticipated furniture collection, and because one line of furnishings simply wouldn’t be enough, Hansen created distinct surfaces conveyed on two entirely different furniture frames.

Let’s start with the 'Never the Same' collection: within this series Hansen’s marbleised motif blankets the surface of naked blonde wood tables. Each piece is finished with soft round edges courtesy of Danish carpenter Karsten Lauritzen, who Hansen enlisted for the project. Due to the nature of this process no two tables are exactly alike – hence the name. 'My works on wood are inspired by the natural patterns inherent in the grain,' notes the Dutch designer. 'I want to celebrate its beauty and make each piece stand out independently.'

Then there’s the 'Transition Tables' that lure the modern-minded enthusiast. 'I wanted their frame to starkly contrast the wood,' explains Hansen. 'The crisp white lines exude a sleek and tight simplicity against the vibrating complexity of the printed wood.' With nature as her constant muse, Hansen retains wood as her canvas, but here she experiments with a more modern shape met by a vividly pigmented wave-like print atop.

'Interiors are places where we feel most comfortable expressing who we are,' states Hansen. 'Furniture design is a way of entering into this world and making a mark on it – I hope my work helps people find beauty in their everyday.' Leaving her marbleised fingerprint on yet another medium, Hansen continues to prove that surface design knows no boundaries. 'I think these days there is no need to fit into one category,' she says. 'My works are rare and exclusive because of my limited production and time-consuming, hands-on methods.'

Designer Pernille Snedker Hansen made her mark on the industry with the creation of her marbleised patterns, which she boldly parlayed onto parquet floors. 

The demand for her fiercely hued designs spread like wildfire, and Hansen swiftly made the transition to works on paper where she wowed again with loose interpretations of psychedelic tree rings and other abstracts.

The ’Transition Tables’ (pictured) lure the modern-minded aesthete. ’I wanted their frame to starkly contrast the wood,’ explains Hansen. ’The crisp white lines exude a sleek and tight simplicity against the vibrating complexity of the printed wood’.

’Interiors are places where we feel most comfortable expressing who we are,’ states Hansen. ’Furniture design is a way of entering into this world and making a mark on it – I hope my work helps people find beauty in their everyday’.

Leaving her marbleised fingerprint on yet another medium, Hansen continues to prove that surface design knows no boundaries.

INFORMATION

For more information, visist Snedker Studios website

Photography courtesy Snedker Studios

Snøhetta, the internationally renowned practice of architecture, plus landscape, interior and brand design, has collaborated with Aesop on the design of one of their Germany-based stores, located in Düsseldorf’s Grabenstraße. This is Aesop’s first store opening in Düsseldorf, and the second store in Germany to be designed by Snøhetta, preceded by Aesop Fasanenstraße in Berlin.

Designed to be an implicit extension of the plaza where the store is located, which is often host to a variety of markets and fairs, the minimal design of the retail space successfully highlights Aesop’s products. 

Blonde-hued Douglas fir shelving curves over the walls, creating a crescent that envelops the customer, whilst embedded downlights from the ceiling follow the same pattern. A monolithic concrete sink, reminiscent of Düsseldorf’s local fountains, has been centrally located in order for customers to wash their hands, test products and follow demonstrations, amplifying the subtle blur between interiors and exteriors. 

Two timber benches fitted with planter boxes further extend this interior-exterior relationship, as they have been placed just beyond the store’s stone facade, inviting visitors to sit and linger in the shade outside.

After the recent opening of Aesop’s retail space in Berlin, Düsseldorf becomes the fifth collaboration between the Australian skincare brand and Snøhetta.

INFORMATION

For more information on the project, visit Snøhetta’s website

Photography: Snøhetta

ADDRESS

12 Dusseldorf, Kasernenstraße 10, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany

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Meditation, everyone knows, happens in the mind, and how we furnish that ’space’ is entirely up to us. But how would that – the physical manifestation of that experience – translate into a physical environment? Architecture duo Oyler Wu has taken on the challenge to create the Headspace Meditation Pods. 

Credited with taking the benefits and practice of meditation to the masses, Headspace has amassed over 5 million active users since launching in 2010. ’We’re continually striving to create the most compelling invitation for people to practice meditation,’ explains the app’s co-founder Rich Pierson of this latest collaboration. ’Part of the challenge is how you make meditation, which is an intangible exercise, tangible? The pods are an innovative way to do this and will hopefully encourage people to reevaluate how they look at meditation.’

Crafted from multiple layers of machine-cut wood set over a steel frame structure, the inspiration for Oyler Wu’s pods – natural geological formations – is clear to see. The sleek, curvilinear seating position invites users to sit comfortably in a soothing environment where an internal screen (hidden from the view of other spectators) allows users access to the entire Headspace library of guided meditations. 

This isn’t the first collaboration for the meditation experts; their ’No Noise’ campaign touched down at London’s Selfridges in 2013 and carries on in the sky with Virgin Atlantic’s inflight Headspace channel. The state-of-the-art pods have been unveiled this week in Los Angeles and have a full global launch slated for later this year. Mindfulness, it seems, is here to spread. 

INFORMATION

For more information on Headspace, visit the website

When Chisenhale primary school in East London had to grow in population without growing in size, it was faced with a problem: where would all the new children play? The task was made more challenging still given that there was no real budget to speak of.

The answer lay in a non-traditional double-decker playground and inspiring people and companies to give time, funds, materials and expertise. Asif Khan, who designed the playground, has two kids at the school and offered his services pro bono while the American Hardwood Export Company (AHEC) donated all the timber for free. The Parent Teachers association, among others, helped to raise funds.

Khan sought inspiration from projects in Sweden and Japan. Before embarking on the design he consulted the children for several months asking them to produce drawings of what they wanted to see done with the space. One child wanted a rollercoaster with lights and a trapeze; another a pond with a laser and an air cannon; another still a playground featuring barbed wire, a rainbow slide and a unicorn. 

Though refreshingly whacky and rather too ambitious for the lean budget and space at their disposal, the plethora of unbridled ideas and enthusiasm led Khan to realize that his structure had to be pared back as much as possible so it could be a 'blank canvas' that led to different types of play. 

He therefore created a raised timber longhouse (made of thermally modified and highly durable vertical tulipwood slats that will turn an elegant silver as they age), with a hill and an undercroft below covered in recycled tyre mulch to create a soft and hospitable landscape. The structure offers six ways up and down, two slides, three nets and a variety of grips and ropes for climbing. 'It's a piece of architecture in a sense but the real programme comes from the kids,' says Khan. 

And the children are using the playground in unexpected ways says Khan. The hill is especially popular. 'Some children lie on it and sunbathe because it warms up with the sun," he says. "Another group of kids just likes to hang out really deep underneath the structure. It's a comfortable and cosy space but they are high up so they can also survey the playground.'

The structure can easily be added to and there is a plan to extend it to join the nearby bike shed roof. 'The roof could be planted as a garden and the shed could become an outdoor classroom,' says Khan. 'There's a definite feeling that this thing can grow.'

INFORMATION

For more information on Asif Khan visit the website

Italian artist Roberto Almagno returns to London for his second UK solo show, ‘Suspended in Space’, bringing with him a new brood of gravity-defying sculptures. Opening today at Rosenfeld Porcini gallery in Fitzrovia, the show focuses on recent sculptures, including a handful of earlier works.

Born in Aquino in 1941, the artist trained under sculptors Giuseppe Mazzullo and Pericle Fazzini at various fine art institutions. Almagno has long been interested in wood, sourcing raw materials from the forests surrounding Rome, where he is based. The artist is known for his dark timber sculptures that are often mistaken for metal.

Last year marked a significant turn in Almagno’s practice, when he produced a gargantuan installation that mimicked painted string. ‘I realised that art was, above all, humility,’ Almagno once explained of his sculptures. ‘I want to make sculptures which seem to rise into the sky with force yet remain full of harmony; works that express the prayer and sacrifice of men when faced with time and infinite space.’

To wit, the Rosenfeld Porcini exhibition explores the contrast between his past and present works. On the one hand, his older sculptures command the space with their boldness, on the other hand, his newer pieces are looser and freer, as though the artist has drawn in mid-air. At their core however, these two threads of work are tied by Almagno’s continuing interest with lightness; it’s a breath of fresh of air to see an artist embracing creative duality with such finesse.

INFORMATION 

‘Suspended in Space’ runs until 13 February 2016. For more information, visit the Rosenfeld Porcini website

ADDRESS

37 Rathbone Street
London W1T 1N

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After Milan's architectural expo came to a close at the end of last month, just a handful of the many grandstanding designs have managed to etch lasting impressions in our memories. One of which is France's fluid, wooden lattice structure that was conjured by Anouk Legendre of Studio X-TU in collaboration with Atelien Architecture.

Designed to ‘portray the geographic diversity of France’s regions, its unique agricultural offerings and culinary traditions’, the lightweight pavilion consisted of an interlocking, reusable framework of curvy glulam girders and pillars made from French spruce and larch that recall the hills and valleys of its landscape. The pavilion's low energy consumption was aided by a natural cooling and air circulation system while a series of arching entranceways of various sizes ushered visitors within the cavernous space.

Inside, the exhibition's theme, 'Feeding the Planet - Energy for Life', was addressed in the form of a 3,592 sq m covered market conceived by exhibition designer Adeline Rispal. Here, the impressive computer modelled structure became a trellis for climbing plants with edible produce displayed within its recesses. A mezzanine level housed the pavilion's offices and VIP event rooms, while upstairs a full-service restaurant called Café des Chefs served up vegetables grown onsite using hydroponics and seasoned using aromatic herbs from the terrace.

After drawing more than 2.2 million visitors and receiving a prize for best architecture and landscape by the Bureau International des Expositions, the pavilion has served its purpose, but its life is by no means over. Due to the fact that X-TU made the design fully reusable, we will be eagerly awaiting the announcement of its next incarnation in the not-so-distant future.

INFORMATION

For more information visit the French Pavilion website

Lovers of all things timber need look no further - the ultimate selection of this year's best of the best in wood design has been revealed, in the form of the 2015 Wood Awards. The annual accolades celebrate outstanding craftsmanship and design in the use of the beloved natural material and this year, as ever, competition was fierce. 

The winner of winners was The Fishing Hut by Niall McLaughlin Architects, taking away the coveted Arnold Laver Gold Award - as well as being top in the awards' Private category. Acting as a place for storing boats and fishing gear, as well as a meeting place and shelter for anglers, the hut wowed the judges with its oak timber cladding and structure. 

Other champions included the Constellations bar by Howard Miller Design in Liverpool (Commercial & Leisure category); the Arcadia nursery by Maclolm Fraser Architects in Edinburgh (Education and Public sector category); the studio by Bradley van der Straeten Architects in London (Existing Building category); Bryanston School in Dorset by Hopkins Architects (Interiors category); the Observatory, Study and Workshop by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios in various locations across the UK (Small Projects); and the Canary Wharf Crossrail station by Foster & Partners in London (Structural).  

A Special Award was given to the BSkyB Believe in Better Building education facility by Arup Associates, which reflects its company's sustainable aspirations; while furniture, bespoke installations and product winners span new and established names, such as the Endgrain project by Raw Edges, Ves-el by Gareth Neal in collaboration with Zaha Hadid, End Grain Stationary by student Simin Qui and Slatted Chair by student Emma Leslie. 

Announced during a ceremony in the sublimely crafted main event room of the Carpenter's Hall in London and hosted by broadcaster and architectural historian, Tom Dyckhoff, this year's Wood Awards - the 44th of their kind - are here to whet our appetite for true timber excellence.

INFORMATION

For more information on the Wood Awards visit the organisation’s website

Sustainable forests in the mountainous region surrounding Lake Lucerne cater for Switzerland’s thriving wood processing industry. Tucked in the southwestern corner, the Swiss Commune of Alpnach is home to the production plant of Walter Küng AG. The carpentry firm developed a system in which prefabricated wall, roof and floor elements are assembled from 100 per cent untreated timber and connected by wooden dowels, requiring a factory extension to commence production.

The Wooden Hall (or Factory 3 as it is often referred to) by Lucerne based Seilerlinhart Architects, is designed to reflect the factory's sustainability agenda. The 2,535 sq m single storey production facility is constructed almost exclusively in locally sourced spruce and fir, showcasing the versatility of timber as a renewable material. Clad in large format spruce shingles and topped with a rhythmically slatted cantilevering fascia, the elongated hall is a celebration of timber construction techniques, scooping the 2015 Prix Lignum regional Swiss wood award for its efforts.

The vast shed, supported by an impressive glulam frame and lined in spruce and pine, capitalizes on fresh air and daylight with three northern skylights and large areas of glazing. The green buck doesn’t stop there; electricity is generated from photovoltaics on the pitched roof, and heat is provided by a central wood chip boiler. With the increasing importance of renewable materials, this is a factory that practices what it preaches.

INFORMATION

For more information on Seilerlinhart Architects, visit their website

It's officially autumn so I am falling for these tactile treasures for the table or desk,  all formed in warm, wondrous wood.

The WallpaperSTORE* edit, selected from all over the globe, has been carved and crafted from solid walnut, oak and mahogany plus the rather more exotic sounding samak and Japanese kalopanax, before being hand-waxed or oiled for your pleasure.

Find out more about Michael Verheyden’s Lighthouse candlesticks here

This weeks picks to please the eyes, caress the hands and transform your spaces include Finn Juhl’s 1956 Turning Tray by Architectmade; Philipp Mainzer’s Pen tray and paperweight plus Mark Braun’s Turn fruit bowl by E15; Giulio Iacchetti’s Itri candleholder and Emmanuel Zonta’s Parè toy fish, both by Internoitaliano; Kihachi Kobo’s turned bowls by Japanese design company Metrocs; and if the scent of wood was not already good enough, Serra & Fonseca’s solid perfume comes wrapped in a mahogany case.

Find out more about Produzione Privata’s ’Bisonte’ stool here

Our very own creative market place for design, stocks, wraps and dispatches our pick of the finely formed and forward thinking from around the world

Nick Vinson, also known as Picky Nicky, has been an editor at Wallpaper* since 2012, curates the selection for WallpaperSTORE*, where he is general merchandising manager and also pens the monthly ’Vinson View’ column in Wallpaper*

INFORMATION

Shop Picky Nicky’s edit now at Wallpaper*STORE

For its latest installation, Atalaya, the New York design gallery Chamber turned to the Chilean architect and carpenter Nicolás Aracena Müller to produce a seating collection—and, in a theatrical twist, to construct the pieces in the gallery’s space itself. Over a ten-day stint, Müller set up (work)shop in Chamber’s front window, first building a tool wall to organize his instruments and then a stool on which to do his work, all before getting to the main event: producing a collection of nine objets d’art that serve as functional seating.

Chamber, which is tucked under the High Line’s busy 23rd Street entrance in Chelsea, remained open during the process, allowing passersby to observe and interact with Müller as he went about his work. “Most people came in thinking the gallery was under construction,” he laughed.

Unlike the noble material palettes used in most design collections, Atalaya is comprised entirely of reclaimed wood that Müller scavenged on a van tour of New York City. Müller filled the back of the gallery with a trove of debris, transforming each, piece by piece, into unique works of functional art. He limited himself to using only a few hand tools, piecing together each part with glued dowel joinery and other carpentry joints. “That took me two days just to cut,” he said, pointing to the collection’s biggest piece, made with beams almost 40 cm thick.

The collection is part of Chamber’s ‘Capsule’ series, temporary installations set amidst its longer-running ‘Collection’ series, the next iteration of which, set to open this fall, will be guest-curated by photographer Andrew Zuckerman.  

ADDRESS

Atalaya is on view until 12th September at Chamber
515 West 23rd Street

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Chinese mega retailer Fapai is dipping its toe into luxury with the launch of a new menswear label, Atelier by Fapai, and the opening of an exclusive appointment-only concept store in Wenzhou. If successful, the new showroom will serve as a blueprint for 300 new stores across China to be rolled out over the next two years.

'The design is inspired by an artist's atelier, a bit rough, imperfect and built with affordable improvised solutions,'  says Karin An Rijlaarsdam, creative director of Cloud-9 Interior Design, who were tasked with designing the space. 'We taught the construction team how to paint in an imperfect way, "damaged" parts of the brick wall and "repaired" it with plaster and paint.'

Purposefully left raw, the white-washed brick walls, exposed metal beam structure, worn concrete floor and metal ceiling access hatch, evoke the atmosphere of a well-used workshop. Two large central worktables that double as display cases for accessories provide a place for customers to sit and discuss their style or custom made order together with a stylist or the tailor.

To combat the lack of natural light in the space (the store is located within a shopping mall) the designers installed a series of backlit white-painted glass panels around the perimeter of the space to mimic clerestory windows, while carefully positioned mirrors at ground level reflect and amplify the light within the space. Modular furniture and fixtures with hand painted surfaces and hand tied leather straps are all custom made using reclaimed materials; display ladders made from scrap wood sit alongside display systems made from metal and bamboo rods.

'There is so much old wood available in China,' says Rijlaarsdam. 'In Chinese history wood has been the main building material: buildings, furniture and ships built entirely out of wood were standard until recently.' Now largely replaced by synthetic materials, Cloud-9 sourced the wood for the project from derelict buildings and local markets.  'The cabinets and entrance door are built from a mix of ship wood and railway sleepers,' recalls Rijlaarsdam. 'The floor is made out of floor planks of bygone Shanghai houses, the work tables are constructed out of large historical entrance doors originating from central China and giant beams out of Chinese buildings in Northern China.'

ADDRESS

Atelier by Fapai
768 Mingzhu Rd
Wenzhou, China

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The international appeal of artists represented by White Cube meant the gallery's expansion into São Paolo and Hong Kong was a given. Glyndebourne, home of the summer opera festival and idyll for rosé picnics? Not so obvious. Nonetheless when Glyndebourne heir and chair Gus Christie sought to expand the programme into visual art, White Cube signed on for a three-year partnership.

Eighteen months later and the 2015 season is upon us, opening this week with 'Poliuto' by Donizetti in the opera house and artist Georg Baselitz at the new White Cube Glyndebourne, designed by London architects Carmody Groarke.

It is not a pop-up, I'm advised, but a flexible temporary structure that will be disassembled in autumn (to dodge inclement weather and planning restrictions), then reassembled each spring through 2017. For the right blend of raw, contemporary style and compassion for the landscaping, Christie went to the go-to practice for show pavilions. David Chipperfield protégés Kevin Carmody and Andy Groarke had caught his eye with their temporary Studio East restaurant, built 35m above the London Olympics site, and three consecutive pavilions for the Frieze Art Fair.

The 10x8m not-quite-white cube sits on the natural promenade from the car park to the theatre - a robust, engineered-timber frame sheathed in layers of polycarbonate cladding recalling the Frieze quarters. Raised on a podium of railway sleepers, it allows deep sightlines through a break in the hedges from the front entrance and views to the lake from the back. Groarke, who attended the recent hanging of Baselitz's gilt-framed works, says he envisioned 'a building within a building', with a deep, canopied terrace and ramp providing 'an interstitial space, with no abrupt transition between inside and out'.

Originally it was squat and flat-roofed, but ultimately the architects lifted the roof and tipped it against the dip in the earth, 'as a gestural uplift to the hills beyond'. A uniform series of neon-tube lights climb the peak on the inside - a touch of White Cube pizzazz in a building that, says Groarke, 'doesn't pretend to blend in'.

Yet nor is it meant to be provocative - though visitors, asked to share their picnic space with this experimental new occupant - may have other thoughts.

ADDRESS

Glyndebourne
Lewes
East Sussex
BN8 5UU

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In a first for the Milanese fashion brand, Prada has enlisted an outside collaborator to mastermind its store window concept, also marking the inaugural fashion collaboration for Italian designer Martino Gamper. The joint debut, unveiled in Milan, will be rolled out to Prada's 300-plus family of stores worldwide.

Entitled 'Corners', the windows are designed as a celebration of the humble corner, while Gamper's work is part sculptural installation, part practical solution that draws viewers into the space forming a magnetic display for the collection and a dramatic sight for passers-by.

Since developing an in-depth study of corners during his time at the Royal College of Art, and dedicating his dissertation to the fruits of his research, many of Gamper's furniture pieces have been developed with the corner in mind. His wide-reaching portfolio includes the aptly titled 'Corner Shelf', 'Corner Speaker', 'Corner Lights', 'Corner Bench', plus several other items devoted to filling an angular space.

The windows' design riff on the boxy shapes and geometric detailing of Prada's S/S 2015 offering. And given the somewhat deconstructed nature of the collection, Gamper feels like a natural choice for the brand this season, with his raw finishes a beautiful complement to the clothes.

'The main idea was to play with perspective and geometry,' explains Gamper, whose brief included working with wood and creating a nature-inspired concept with a simplicity that would enhance the clothes, while displaying the complexity of the wood.

He selected oak, maple and ebony and combined them with marquetry techniques to convey the perception of the corner. The result is a flexible concept that can adapt to the full range of the brand's global displays, and that combines Prada's fashion sensitivity with Gamper's intellectual design language.

When the Seattle-based firm Olson Kundig Architects were invited to create the Collectors Lounge for the tenth edition of Design Miami, they knew they wanted to bring a taste of their hometown across the country with them.

Nestled in an inviting corner of the Design Miami tent, the practice has created a dynamic haven, made from huge reclaimed wood beams, for collectors to take a load off and revive themselves with Perrier-Jouët champagne (of course). The lounge also serves as the backdrop for an anniversary portrait project by photographer Gesi Schilling commissioned for the fair.

See the portraits from Gesi Schilling's pop-up photobooth

'It had to look, taste and feel just like the Pacific Northwest,' explains Olson Kundig Architects partner Alan Maskin. 'The concept is based on these historic images of Seattle lumber yards from a hundred years ago, and the way they would stack the wood to dry it. We were really taken with the concept of stacking. And with the massiveness of them, we knew it would feel different from most things in Miami.'

The installation is titled '38 Beams' in reference to the number of vintage timber beams that the practice used to create its 15ft high pavilion. Originating from Douglas fir forests in the Northwest and most probably milled in the 1950s in Oregon, each beam was originally 30ft long and salvaged from a commercial building in Los Angeles that was recently torn down. The beams were sanded, cleaned up and given burnt edges for a rich finish.

Olson Kundig Architects played with cantilevering the beams to create the open latticework that forms the space. Maskin says, 'We wanted everything about it to be a respite from the dialogue and chaos that happens out there. We wanted it to be calm and welcoming.'

Inspired by the origins of the Aqua Art Miami fair, which initially comprised galleries from the Pacific Northwest and the West Coast before it was sold and became an international event, the firm wanted to bring some fellow Northwesterners with them to continue the cross-country dialogue.

In addition to the staff's custom-designed uniforms from cult boutique Totokaelo and music by artists signed to independent Seattle label Sub Pop Records, the space features a floating neon tube chandelier by artists Etta Lilienthal and Ben Zamora, three adjustable steel-armed light fixtures by Olson Kundig designer Jamie Slagel and furniture designed by its founders Jim Olson and Tom Kundig. Olson's 'Longbranch' chairs were first designed for his captivating cabin in Longbranch, Washington - which is showcased in-depth in the pages of our upcoming January issue (on sale 11 December).

At the end of the exhibition, all the beams will be donated to the University of Kansas' design-build teaching program that creates affordable buildings in communities of need.

The Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft by Adam Richards Architects has walked away with the flagship award at this year's UK national Wood Awards. Presented in the suitably wood-clad spectacle that is the main banqueting room at Carpenters' Hall, the Arnold Laver Gold Award went to Adam Richards for its 'mix of new-build and restoration, of ancient techniques co-existing happily with the high technology of today,' said Hugh Pearman, Sunday Times architecture critic and one of the judges. 'It adroitly uses a mixed palette of materials that suits its context admirably - and is designed in such a way as to waste practically nothing.'

Winners in other categories included the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, by McCurdy & Co, in the category of Commercial & Public Access; House No 7 in Tiree, Scotland, by Denizen Works in the Private category; the Alfriston School Swimming Pool in Beaconsfield by Duggan Morris Architects in the Structural category; and a studio in Oxford by James Wyman Architects in the Small Project category.

Makers' Eye won the Bespoke Furniture Award for its 200-piece oak furniture collection, and Fowler & Company's 'Hat Tree' took the Production Made Furniture Award. Two Judges' Special Awards went to London firm dRMM for its 'Endless Stair' installation, created for the 2013 London Design Festival, and to Jack Badger joiners for its pair of hand-carved Gothic oak doors. Here, we take you on a tour of this year's winning designs.

In their latest furniture-design effort, Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay of design studio Raw-Edges continue their examination of colour's potential, taking their ongoing research to a new level.

The studio now presents 'Endgrain', which explores natural wood patterns through vibrant hues. 'Endgrain' launched at the Brussels design gallery Senne, on the occasion of the city's design week.

The inspiration for the collection comes from nature itself. The designers used their understanding of how water and nutrients travel through the woodgrain to feed a tree to imagine how colour would affect the grain of the wood. They stained the wood by adding different pigments to the grain from the inside out, 'just like those fake blue roses', they explain.

'Endgrain' is essentially a materials project: the duo used coloured timber blocks as a starting point, which became the building blocks for a larger design collection. They created benches, tables, stools and shelves by combining blocks of different colours and shapes. The new visual language merges a strong graphic sensibility with more random elements that appear when the wood is cutting and sculpted into shape.

The designers' playful approach comes through in the wild colours, which emerge from the otherwise simple forms. The collection sets a new bar for experimentation with colour and form, so we're curious to see where the pair take us next.

ADDRESS

Senne
19 rue de la Senne
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The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) has long forged inspired design collaborations, from last year’s Escher-esque installation with London firm dRMM, to more recently at the Salone del Mobile, where it teamed up with architect Carl Turner to create a juice bar for the fifth edition of Wallpaper* Handmade. Now its forays continue with a small but perfectly formed collection of hardwood furniture, created in collaboration with London-based design collective Okay Studio for this year’s Clerkenwell Design Week.

The project, dubbed ‘Five’, brings together a crop of designers from the collective, including designers Peter Marigold, Andrew Haythornthwaite, Hunting & Narud, Mathias Hahn, Ed Swan and Liliana Ovalle for an exhibition at The Scin Gallery. The designers were originally presented with a variety of timbers – American ash, cherry, hard maple, red oak and tulipwood – and tasked with creating pieces inspired by these woods and the number five, to mark the London festival’s half-decade milestone. Sculptor and fabricator Adam Kershaw helped bring the pieces to life in his Kent studio.
    
Taking pride of place in the front window of The Scin Gallery was Peter Marigold and Andrew Haythornthwaite’s playful kinetic installation, comprising triangular curved tulipwood parts painted in bright pops of yellow and green. The pieces – strung together by tensile wire – are designed to gently sway and bob in the breeze. Hunting & Narud's offering, meanwhile, is an unusual series of side tables comprising hardwood cones encased in glass vessels.

Mexico City-born designer Liliana Ovalle has created a pair of lightweight benches crafted from American tulipwood. Entitled ‘Claroscuro’, the pieces explore the contrast between shade, light and form through its battens, machined in different thicknesses to create a subtle visual effect of changing density and perception.

Ed Swan took the brief more literally, with a collection of stacking pentagonal seating in five of the different hardwoods. Meanwhile, honing in on kitchen products and their origins, Mathias Hahn dished up a tidy suite of versatile utensils, named ‘Runcible’, that represent familiar archetypes but can used for different applications.

The Bishop Edward King Chapel by Niall McLaughlin Architects has been named the Gold Award winner at the 2013 Wood Awards, announced tonight in a ceremony held at the Worshipful Company of Carpenters in London. In addition to this, the project - also shortlisted for the RIBA Stirling Prize earlier this year - was selected for the Structural category prize of the awards.

The shortlist included several projects of different scales and typologies over seven key categories: Bespoke Furniture, Commercial & Public Access, Private, Production-made Furniture, Repair & Adaptive Reuse, Small Project and Structural.

See the projects that made the 2013 Wood Awards shortlist

The other categories winners included the Colyer-Fergusson Building in Kent by Tim Ronalds Architects (Commercial & Public Access Award), Church Walk in London by David Mikhail Architects (Private Award), Magheralin Parish Church in Northern Ireland by Waddington-McClure Architects (Repair & Adaptive Reuse Award), and the RoominaRoom in London by Atmos Studio (Small Project Award). Winners of the furniture categories included Pengelly Design's 'Theo Chair' (Production Made Furniture Award).

The Wood Awards - sponsored by the American Hardwood Export Council, Canada Wood, Carpenters' Company, TRADA, Wood for Good, American Softwoods, BRE and the Forestry Commission - is the industry's annual celebration of the best creations out of timber, spanning design and architecture.

All legends were once follies. Nothing so well describes conceptual artist Piero Golia's latest venture. Hidden amid Hollywood Boulevard's storefronts hawking exotic costumes, tourist tchotchkes and overpriced luxury nightclubs, the Chalet is a creative meeting place where unforgettable nights unfold for a whole year.

Opened in September, the Chalet's guests have thus far included a former Beverly Hills ambassador; the women of LA Ladies Choir, who nourish successful careers in art, fashion, literature and theatre; and choreographer and creative consultant (to the Rolling Stones, among others) Stephen Galloway. 'I've always dreamed of a place where you can invite artists, actors, scientists - where they all meet and everything is free and beautiful,' says the Naples-born Golia of his utopian project, which took three years and two bankruptcies to get off the ground.

Golia worked with architect Edwin Chan (previously of Gehry Partners for over 25 years) on the design of the gesamtkunstwerk, repurposing an abandoned storage area and transforming it into a low-lit, intimate space for invited members that blends the aesthetics of cabaret and a European mountain getaway.

One-armed leather seats topped with copper-accented throws by LA fashion label Libertine are interspersed with low-slung lamps that give off a soft light. And Chalet members can share their favourite refreshments with their guests from their own drinks cabinet, custom-designed by Chan. Everything about the space invites you to linger and see where the moment takes you, because all too soon the night will only be a memory.

In the tradition of Craftsman architecture, every piece in the ephemeral space tells a story. The lighting, wall installations and furnishings are made of eight-by-eight white oak beams, specially milled from a forest in Pennsylvania purchased by Golia especially for the project. In the amphitheater, a Mark Grotjahn painting faces a piano, handed down through generations at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and lent by artist Christopher Williams. Meanwhile, next door - visible through a cutout in the wall - is the lounge where Pierre Huyghe's aquarium dominates, creating a natural centre for social interaction and conversation. Even the hallway boasts a major Jeff Wall photograph from 2000. With such an array of artwork it's no wonder that Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) is arranging monthly tours of the Chalet.

We caught up with Piero Golia - whose work has been shown everywhere from the Gagosian Gallery and Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, to Amsterdam's Stedelijk and Rome's Maxxi museums - to find out more about his new creative venture.

How did you conceive of the idea for the Chalet?
Three years ago, for the first time in my life, I made some money. I thought I should spend it in a wise way. At the time, I wanted to open a place where I could invite all my friends. Los Angeles has been built for people not to meet in reality, but I think meeting is always a good idea. I wanted a place for special people to meet hoping great things will happen.

What was behind the name 'Chalet'?
The name came courtesy of a museum in Paris called Palais de Tokyo. It used to do a group show abroad called Chalet de Tokyo. Marc-Olivier Wahler asked me to collaborate and we spoke a lot, but unfortunately they were never able to fund-raise for this. I kept the name Chalet because it fits the spirit of that home in the mountain. It's a place where you invite your friend and your friend's friend and your friend's friend's friend, hoping that they will be very happy.

What role does architecture play in the Chalet?
Architecture is very important to create something exciting. I've known Edwin Chan for a long time and have always been a fan of the way his architecture develops around the scope of it. I asked Edwin for what I call the 'Frank Lloyd Wright package', which means the architect comes in and designs everything, from the doormat to the chandeliers. He completely took me at my word, understanding and amplifying the idea I had of what the Chalet would be.

How do the furnishings complement your vision for the space?
The modular white oak furnishings guide you through the Chalet but leave you enough freedom to establish your own situation in the space. Everything has been designed for a reason. An extruded piece, for example, can be used as a table or a throne, but it's also a way to prevent people from banging into the painting.

How did you choose the artworks that appear in the Chalet?
I dreamed the Chalet would become a monument for people in Los Angeles and I felt I should include very important artworks. For this I have to thank the generosity of the artists. I have always loved Mark Grotjahn's paintings; I believe they are amazing. And I am obsessed with Pierre Huyghe's aquarium. Christopher Williams' piano is an important historical piece, coming from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Somebody told me Joseph Beuys himself once played on it. The photograph in the hallway is by Jeff Wall. It depicts a sapling supported by a post. I think it summarises perfectly the idea behind the Chalet: the youngest growing strong with the support of the older. It's about learning.

What was the most difficult part of this project?
There were many difficulties, but first and foremost was money. We had to stop construction twice because of cash flow. But in the end I was really lucky. I have many friends who have helped me and now we're open.

Getting to the Chalet on the right night is also part of the challenge. We heard about the special coins that you created for the Chalet, which act like Willy Wonka's Golden Tickets. Can you tell us about them?
Lots of friends really helped build [the Chalet]. I couldn't pay them for what they're worth, but I could pay them in solid silver. The idea is you can keep the silver coin or you can decide to come to the Chalet one night and it'll cost you your coin. There is a choice between the object and the experience.

What is your barometer for success at the Chalet?
I dream for the Chalet to be a legend in LA, celebrated in the tourist guides, because that would truly make it public art. I dream that people will love the Chalet and they will remember it forever.

Even though it'll disappear after just one year?
Do you remember your first love? It's like that. There are things in life you never forget.

Golia has created a limited-edition silver coin for the Chalet, which grants access like a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket. 'The idea is you can keep the silver coin or you can decide to come to the Chalet one night and it'll cost you your coin,' says the artist, who has handed some to friends who collaborated on the project as a thank you. 'There is a choice between the object and the experience'

We've always been partial to the humble building material of timber, whether it is applied with traditional, craft-based techniques or emphatically modern innovations, and the UK's annual Wood Awards is an excellent showcase of the practices putting it to best use.

The shortlist, announced this week, spans different scales and typologies, and seven key categories: Bespoke Furniture, Commercial & Public Access, Private, Production-made Furniture, Repair & Adaptive Reuse, Small Project and Structural.

Nominations range from well-known new public buildings - such as the Mary Rose Museum by Wilkinson Eyre and the Bishop Edward King Chapel by Niall McLaughlin (also on the shortlist for the RIBA Stirling Prize) - to smaller projects, such as the RoominaRoom in London by Atmos Studio, and private, bespoke commissions such as the Tay Bench by Angus Ross. The 30-strong list encompasses everything from architecture to product design, and from traditional design to the cutting edge. 

The awards are sponsored by a consortium of brands, including the American Hardwood Export Council, Canada Wood, Carpenters' Company, TRADA, Wood for Good, American Softwoods, BRE and the Forestry Commission. The winners, which will be picked for their design excellence and quality in the use of wood by a jury led by Michael Morrison of Purcell UK and Sean Sutcliffe of Benchmark Furniture, will be announced on the 19 November in a ceremony held at the Worshipful Company of Carpenters in London.

As Cape Town prepares to succeed Helsinki in 2014 as the World Design Capital, the international design community are already locking down sunny soirées in their calendars. For many, though, this won’t be their first pilgrimage to the city: Design Indaba has been pulling in devotees for the past 18 years.   

The expo is more an international TED-style talking shop than product showcase and this year’s conference was a graphic, design-centric affair. A double billing of heavyweight husband-and-wife teams - Seymour Chwast and Paula Scher as well as Steven Heller and Louise Fili - headlined a programme that included the likes of David Adjaye, John Maeda and Alex Atala.

Trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort curated a key exhibition at the fair, ‘Totemism: Memphis meets Africa’, exploring the aesthetic overlaps between the Italian pop-coloured counterblast to dour modernism and contemporary South African design. Edelkoort tapped 53 local designers to run with the idea, among them established names like Porky Hefer, Ardmore Ceramics, Dokter & Misses and Liam Mooney alongside up-and-comers such as Isabeau Joubert, Werner Venter and Warno Rüde.

The main hub at Design Indaba may have hosted the lion’s share of big names, but the rest of the city was equally beset by design fever – most noticeably in Woodstock, which pulses as the undisputed creative heart of Cape Town. The Woodstock Foundry, a mix of stores, galleries, restaurants and workshops, was the venue for some of the most interesting offsite events. 'Heavy Metal', for example, was curated by the excellent Southern Guild gallery and featured the work of many Edelkoort recruits.

Down the road lies the latest creative complex to open in the area. The Woodstock Exchange has been developed by the team behind the nearby Old Biscuit Mill and houses a similar mix of independent retailers and restaurants. Anchored by the Superette café, it's also home to Lise du Plessis’ bags-to-furniture Dark Horse; design duo Pedersen and Lennard; and Saks Corner’s mix of vintage and contemporary design.

The Old Biscuit Mill has gotten a shake-up with the arrival of The Pot Luck Club & Gallery, an eatery perched atop the new Cape Town Creative Academy. There is more development to the west of Woodstock in The Fringe, Cape Town’s self-styled ‘innovation district’. Fanning out from Buitenkant Street, the Fringe has been designated ground zero for next year’s World Design Capital events.

It can seem almost too perfect in this pocket of world-class flat whites, design workshops and artisan chocolatiers, but Woodstock is still a little rough around the edges and home to real factories and manufacturers making real things. That contrast makes it one of the world’s more fascinating and vibrant creative quarters.

Fans of Vivienne Westwood’s avant-garde take on the British tradition can now dress their walls in some of her signature prints. The doyenne of British fashion has teamed up with Cole & Son, another, less rebellious, icon of the British creative scene, to create an extensive range of wallpapers designed by Westwood, inspired by some of her most recognized fashion collections.

See Vivienne Westwood’s range of papers for Cole & Son

Fashion designers renowned for their prints have jumped from the catwalk to the wall before Westwood, mistakenly assuming that a flat surface is just as good a canvas as a body for their art. Westwood’s range, for all the rebellious attitude of her fashion collections, is surprisingly demure and the majority of her prints translate beautifully from body to wall.

Notable highlights are the ones she’s drawn herself: ‘Vivienne’s Lace’, from her S/S 07 ‘I am Expensiv’ collection; the ‘Trompe l’oeil Drape’, from the A/W 94 ‘Anglomania’ collection; and her hand-drawn dogtooth particularly. And though you’d have to be a bit braver to commit a wall of your home to her Squiggles or Tartan, seeing each of the designs in a 2-dimensional form makes you appreciate that punk-inspired rebellion is only part of Dame Vivienne’s repertoire - she’s an exceptional print designer too.