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Candy without the gloom, please.

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When the leaves, by thousands thinned,/A thousand times have whirled in the wind,
And the moon, with hollow cheek,/Staring from her hollow height,
Consolation seems to seek/From the dim, reechoing night;
And the fog-streaks dead and white/Lie like ghosts of lost delight
O'er highest earth and lowest sky;/Then, Autumn, work thy witchery!

May all your souls stay at rest tonight and keep the ancestors company (and not you).

Best wishes for a happy Halloween and a Dia de los Muertos.

Excerpt above from Incantation by George Parsons Lathrop


Garden Macho

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It's been called living sculpture, a giant stylized artichoke, the cousin to the aloe, new world native, and a vital component to both tequila and didgeridoos: The agave.

It thrives on neglect, needs no fertilizer, very little water, and can tolerate a variety of soils as long they're well drained. The perfect addition to the California garden.

Agave makes an excellent candidate for potting as it produces  sparse roots and tolerates crowding. It's also a good companion to the pool as it produces litter sparingly.

The agave's natural structure makes it an excellent sculptural accompaniment to soft grasses, wispy wildflowers, tufty salvias, and other fine-leafed gatherings. It not only provides the masculine element, it makes the feminine appear even more so.

It also makes for a striking emotional impact, its visual severity along with its spines and dagger-like projections can add drama to a any garden or country road.

Agaves are available in many color, sizes, and varieties including spineless.

Below, the sentries of the Sunnyland Gardens in Rancho Mirage, CA:

Beneath the pergola one agave stands like both king and jester at the terminus of this visual corridor: The general-in-arms and a floppy and spiky armed clown. If great gardens are like kaleidoscopic mixtures of beautiful contrasts then the agave, as one designer said, "is a great design opportunity."

The Domesticated Forest

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Traditionally, the mash up of plants and buildings was an exercise in poetic symbolism. To wit: At the Princeton Ivy Club the mortared walls are well rooted for posterity–literally–with clinging ivy and the shelter of trees.

In the contemporary version, there's a new urgency: Faced not only with the necessity of making the most of our diminishing space and resources, how can we create more public greenspace as our potential undeveloped lands are disappearing?

Here are some ideas for making the most of our finite leftovers.

Besides visually expanding greenspace, plantings on building walls and roofs offer other advantages. Plants act as insulation against heat and cold, absorb rainwater, create wildlife habitat, and on a larger scale help lower urban temperatures and mitigate the heat island effect (a phenomenon of hardscaped cities creating more heat than the surrounding rural space). Plus, the ability of living plants to act as carbon storage batteries in an era of global climate change may be vital.

Interiors can be green integrated too.

The potential of green building is on display in this shop of Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester in the Gangham district of Seoul. The architect was Korean architect Minsuuk Cho of the firm Mass Studies. The building features include a planted façade and a moss-lined internal stairway. For a more detailed vision of the project, see here.

Photos by Yong-Kwan Kim

This building, the brainchild of Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, has been touted for its innovative integration of plants and architecture in a location especially known for its high temperatures, heavy rain, and sometimes day-long power shortages. The plants provide privacy while allowing for ventilation and natural daylighting.

More on this house here.

Below, more Vo Trong Nghia and his work in Viet Nam.

Here, Vo Trong's Wind and Water Bar: Not exactly a construction of living material but material that is only recently departed.

This planted façade is from a mixed-use building in Odawara, Japan.

And this, a banana plantation–or the modern urban equivalent–in the middle of Paris:

The urban forest in Tokyo: Quite possibly the future everywhere.

Simple is not so simple

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It looks like you can write a minimalist piece without much bleeding. And you can. But not a good one. David Foster Wallace

The great deception of minimalism, or reductiveness––which may be more to the point here, is that simplicity is simple or does not come as the result of great labor to create that apparently effortless efficiency and flow. Even nature doesn't come to simplicity easily. Evolution is proof that tinkering can be an ongoing and long, long process.


Above, our recently completed interior for littlefork in Hollywood. (See more pics here.) One aspect to keeping things minimal is of course that it allows for more open space. The long parallel lines offer quietude and a kind of zen movement and dynamism. It offers energy to the user rather than absorbing it.

This "simple" design approach evolved long ago in the gardens of Asia, Japan especially. When you think about it, all design began somewhere as minimalism before it moved onto something else. Simple is the essence of all things.

It's the Vulcan of design: It's logical.

Below, more littlefork:

Nature tends to form itself into long lines and layers: Below, these natural abstract elements converge on the Barents Sea, Svalbard in Norway. (Photo by Stuart Thomson)

The deep space of Wirtz gardens:


Texture meets architecture meets the body

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We'd like to think that the garden is where it all began. Nature mentors us all and no one more so than the designer. (An unctuous writer once called designers the small god.) The DNA of nature is all over our human creations and we see its threads linking nature and fashion, art, landscape, furniture, architecture, and even graphic design if you get down to it. Imitating nature isn't limited to the yearnings of humanity, nature Herself does it constantly, AKA biomimicry. Biomimicry is also the name we give to the method of utilizing nature's wisdom and applying it to solve human problems—precisely what the designer does.

Above, the literal; below, the abstract––the Glove Dress (AKA the N4) from Sebastian Errazuriz: Chilean born, London raised artist and designer Errazuriz was a top emerging artist according to I.D. Magazine, had work auctioned off by Sotheby's at age 28, selected for the Compasso d'Oro and Chilean Designer of the Year. His work has been described as having an obsession with sex and death as well as incorporating a mix of genres, trades, and disciplines. And yet, his work is also steadfastly contemporary. But even Errazuriz doesn't get as raw as the completely plant-based costumery above. Below, under the glove dress, a newspaper one and below that pretensions of furry animals, crystals, and the meadow.

Where to go to get an eyeful whilst noshing

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So, that cool lifestyle and entertainment site Refinery 29 put together a list of 23 of the most "inspiring interiors and drop-dead gorgeous ambiance [to enjoy] whilst noshing."

And on that list? Well, one of ours. Check it out here.

Deep Space

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Everything in its place, and especially, nothing in its place. This is how scale and depth are created. By nothing I mean negative space: negative space being of the utmost importance. Not just space left unfilled or uncluttered but the space around objects. Negative space gives breathing room and enables a visual flow but also allows for the emphasis of certain elements over others. Whether the scale is a large field or a small room the rules are the same. Creating order, reducing noise, the use of long parallel lines and congruent shapes, these are the things that give the zen its Zen. It could be argued that this tradition began in the garden. Interior design—and arguably all of design—may simply be another kind of garden.

In smaller spaces the illusion of scale follows the same formula and the use of negative space becomes even more important. Negative space can also serve to emphasize certain elements over others and direct visual energy. And while the emphasis appears to be on negative space, even more important is the concept of using only what is needed and creating simplicity through the removal of non-essential components. As designer Deiter Rams said, "Less, but better."

White Flights

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White, like black, always works: Ever flexible, adaptable and always relevant whatever the circumstances or culture. As the universal symbol of opulence and purity it's both the Taj Mahal and the bride.

The quintessential Ferrari will always be red. But the Rolls Royce, it owns the white.

A white room is the picture of serenity, a place for serious and elegant contemplation, for deep breaths and clearing minds. One perhaps not best suited for ex-spouses or children.

An invitation to the sun: A nook for nourishing the soul as well as the body.

White represents not only the absence of hue but of noise. It's a visual silence. Its effect is both quiet and quieting.

White would come to represent humanity's highest aspirations. With the increase of the scale of the state so too the desire for architectural white. The great pyramids of Egypt were once encased in white limestone as were the temples of Greece in white stucco. And more recently, there's The White City of Tel Aviv. A more contemporary palace above, one probably not designed for communion with the gods though Aphrodite and Dionysus would surely be at home there. As would no doubt Telete (a spirit who presided over orgies; I Googled it) and a yard teeming with nymphs and satyrs.

A chair and table wrapped in an elastic white PVC covering by designer Jurgen Bey, part of the Krokon Furniture collection. See more here.

And the art: White sculpture by way of Louise Nevelson (White Vertical Water, 1972): The noise of the underlying structure is buffered under many coats of white paint;

White painting by Jasper Johns (White Flag, 1955): An icon whitewashed over and all that it implies;

Sol Lewitt (Four-sided Pyramid, 1997);

Agnes Martin (Morning, 1965: graphite pencil grid on white acrylic): Martin described the painting this way:

“I was painting about happiness and bliss and they are very simple states of mind, I guess. Morning is a wonderful dawn, soft and fresh.”

The hard part was knowing what to leave out, she would say.

Below, Kazmir Malevich (Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918) and the painting that was to be (one of the many) “the end of painting” paintings.

Robert Rauschenberg with White Painting, 1951: White house paint covering a series of stretched canvases, Rauschenberg too was accused of bringing a premature death to painting. His friend composer John Cage saw something else. He called the paintings “airports for shadows and for dust, but you could also say that they were mirrors of the air.” Cage, a committed practitioner of Zen Buddhism, found much appeal in the painting's “blankness” as a foundation for contemplation. Inspired by Rauschenberg, Cage went on to famously compose his own white canvas in "music" with 4:33, music as an interval of silence (the piece was as long as the title indicates). The composer spoke of wanting to create something with “the color and shape or fragrance of a flower,” a blank canvas for contemplation and experiencing the moment. (No doubt, most audiences heard only silence.)

His whiteness: The young Rauschenberg before his canvas. Interesting to note how the gallery chose to blacken the walls behind the piece, perhaps to louden up the silence some.


Nature as a mentor

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Shapes and forms matter. In the pattern-seeking modules of the human brain, shapes and forms communicate; what they communicate to you will be a product of the culture and territory in which you were formed. For some reason culture is particularly when shapes are combined into more complex configurations. The one exception is organic forms, especially plants. Their symbolism tends to be more universal as they are seen to be pleasing and comforting by all. To us, a plant's asymmetry conveys spontaneity. The history of plants being used in the sculptural forms and motifs of many traditions goes back eons. These motifs were seen as a way of expressing everything from long life, healing, renewal, to fertility, strength and longevity. Perhaps for their medicinal as well as poisonous characteristic––life giving and life ending––plants supernatural project supernatural qualities in traditional art like magic, prophecy, and all seeing also charge traditional plant symbolisms in art.

Organic forms can also have a transformative role in the context of a design. As in the Sebastian Errazuriz Tree Table below, the mix of the organic with the industrial in the material and shape of the branch table base has the effect of softening the industrial-ness of glass.

Korean designer Chul An Kwak's eschews the static. He found inspiration in the movement of a running horse but knew he wouldn't get there with straight planar legs and right angles. Through his use of sculpted wood, the designer wanted to convey not just dynamic motion but dynamic emotion. The table have feeling of unresolved tension, as if it trying to escape from the room,  a horse galloping to freedom.

Below, another Korean, artist MyeongBeom Kim takes the concept to the extreme, in the case of the carved out chair from the tree he plays with industrializing the chair's organic source material, and in the urinal piece below that, nature beautifully blooms from the abundance of human waste. Below Kim's work, nature—either as a single element or as a faux jungle—projects a sense of vigor and hope into a stark hardscape or an otherwise barren vista.

Below, Kim may be commenting on the diminishing natural environment, our profligate use of water, and unsustainable production of waste.

Above, the accidental forest; below, the domestic micro-jungle; and below next, an integration of the urban with what it replaced.

A forest appears to be grow from the model's head like Athena out of the forehead of Zeus. Below, nature manipulated by nature as if they were bespoke creations made to order. At bottom: The building's glass gives back some of the sky.

To be as good as spring itself...

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Photo: Baz Ratner/Reuters

A girl sitting on a bench in a buttercup plantation in Israel.

Above, a girl sitting on a bench in a buttercup plantation in Israel. (Thanks to @pourmecoffee for the heads up.)

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself. Ernest Hemingway

I must have flowers, always, and always. Claude Monet

Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.

Yoko Ono

Design Shopping Night - June 27

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We are pleased to be taking part in the Los Angeles Design Festival's "Design Shopping Night" event. On June 27th our showroom will be open in the evening from 6 - 9PM. Hit us up and see our latest furniture offerings, meet Sean and his architectural and design staff. We'll also be serving the locally handcrafted coffees of Ferndell and Ryan Yacura. Hope to see you there!

For more information on the event, check the LADF website here.

The Kabiljo Affair at the Fair

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The vibe is bacchanalia but the scale is Hydra-like. It's called the "biggest, brashest, most hysterical event in the international design year." (Well, of course, if put a bunch of designers in a room...) For those spying trends, Milan's Salone Del Mobile — or The Milan Furniture Fair in the English speaking world is furniture's Area 51 (the secrets are in there). As to what those upcoming trends are, the mediaratti suggest we be on the look out for more "natural materials, especially marble," a pervasive "raw, rationalist style," and utilitarianism leaning toward minimalism. Also, it may be the year of the pouf. Now you know.

Also pretty much sums up Sean's work for the last 10 years. Below, Milan under the big top.

Always up for a bacchanal,
Always up for a bacchanal, Sean and Team Knibb's design crew headed to Milan in May to join in the hysteria. When it was over, there were many memories and several highlights. Two of the most memorable: The Rossana Orlandi—AKA Italy's fairy godmother of designsoirée at the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, and a visit and spontaneous collaboration with Croatian-born, Vienna-based designer Dejana Kabiljo.
Always up for a bacchanal,
Always up for a bacchanal,
Always up for a bacchanal,
Although Dejana Kabiljo's work may qualify as functional design, it comes as loaded with pretext, subtext, and context as you'd expect from the best of high art. Her education was classical—architecture and post-graduate design—yet her approach is congenially iconoclastic. With an objective of doing "something not covered by industry," her work stands in defiance of mass production. This may explain the intimacy and intensity of her handcrafted and meticulously processed pieces. To Kabiljo, the problem with industrialization is that it doesn't properly serve the individual's "little fetishes, bad habits, and compulsive actions": In other words, she wants to create "simple things" to serve the complexness of our humanity. Something, she believes, that can only be achieved with hand craft.
Always up for a bacchanal,
To wit: The Fe/Au (above left in gold), and Occupy chairs (with red seat cushion at above right). The Fe/Au Chair (gold/iron) features 24K gold plating on "upcycled" Yugoslavian army spring mattresses. The chair's ingenious construction includes separate sections knitted together with coiled wired. The plating process used on the chair is so specialized that only one craftsmen and one shop in all of Europe can do it. (She found him in Belgrade.) The aspect of golden soldiers' mattresses reconfigured as a Chesterfield style armchair, like so many chairs set before televisions in living rooms the world over, is conceptually rich enough, but the gold itself tells yet another story. Kabiljo is fascinated with the story of how gold comes to be: As all matter in the universe begins in the crucible bellies of stars (with the exception of H and He), the creation of gold requires even more exceptional circumstances. Not only does it take a supernova—the explosive death of a massive star—to exist, but gold demands a star of particularly immense magnitude and density. The drama behind gold's glitter is one of birth and death repeated over untold eonic generations.
Always up for a bacchanal,
During his visit, Sean made  with Kabiljo arrangements to import her Fe/Au chairs stateside. Therefore, we are pleased to announce that our Venice showroom at 1522 Abbot Kinney will soon be the exclusive dealer of the Fe/Au Chair in the New World. (And as for the Old World, they can only be found in London.)
Always up for a bacchanal,
As a designer, Kabiljo has built an international reputation with personal exhibitions all over the world. (Google her and find discussions of her work in abundance.) Her furniture pieces marry extraordinary materials and traditional forms into exotic new imaginings . It's work that radiates an intense and intimate emotional power while balancing it with an approachable whimsy. Another example of how these forces come together can be seen in her hair-covered chairs and stool/pouf below.
Always up for a bacchanal,

Office Space

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It seems that offices have become the big sexy in design lately: with their starchitect designers, indoor playgrounds, colossal interactive areas, bright colors, and high style glimmer that's nothing like the beige industrial purgatories we may remember. As flamboyant images of adult playlands go viral (note the offices of Facebook, Red Bull, Google, etc), the era of the vapid cubicle farm may have finally come to an inglorious end. Recent studies have shown that "enriched work environments" can significantly effect productivity, increasing it as much as 15% to 30%. If the work habitat is inviting enough, the new thinking goes, employees will never want to go home.

So, should every office space now be remade into a playground?

The answer, according to studies like this one, is no. While the new paradigm suggests that an open office design can help create community, connect people, foster collaboration, and leverage uniqueness—"maximize the human capital" of a workforce—people also need a space of their own, free from distractions. The structure and flow of an office needs to include everyone, both openness for the extroverts and sanctuary for the introvert. (You never know where the shy lone geniuses may be lurking.)

MAL_Rendering_2

Mindful of both the art and the science, Knibb Design undertook a comprehensive design strategy for the offices of the renowned Media Arts Lab (MAL). As can be seen in the rendering above, fastidious attention was given to lighting, surface, material, and ambience. The objective was to create a beauty that was both subtle and unobtrusive, built on soft tones with punctuations of color. The surroundings needed to be alive enough to be aspirational yet quiet and undistracting for contemplation. A space balanced in a zen space of interactivity and retreat—part drawing room, part den.

Below, some of Sean's formative sketches as the concept developed.

MAL_dwgs_1

Below, a topographic site plan constructed to represent how our design would divide up the space dimensionally. Cigarette packs indicate various work areas. (On the left side between the unfiltered Camels and the red dots and below the yellow tape is where the lounge area in the rendering above is situated.) The yellow tape represents the movement flow lines for the space.

MAL_site_plan_cigarettes

The Dream Plant

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Artemisia-4

A member of the daisy family, Artemisia constitutes a large and diverse group of plants including mugwort, wormwood, and sagebrush. What they all have in common is a culture of hardiness, drought tolerance, a hunger for sunlight, and well-drained soil. What makes the plants special are their powerful essential oils and camphor-spice aroma, an adaptation to discourage animal foragers.  It is from these oils that we get Absinthe, vermouth, Polish vodka, tarragon, and the compound artemisinin which is used in treating malaria, intestinal parasites, repelling fleas and moths, and more recently has shown promise in treating cancers and leukemia.

Artemisia-8

Beyond the industrial uses, many species of Artemisia are used as ornamentals including Powis Castle, Silver Mound (resistant to deer, attractive to bees, butterflies, and birds), Silver Brocade (compact, does well as a container filler), Silver King (white sage, also used in flower arrangements), David's Choice (native to No. California beaches), arborescens (fast growing, dense, essential oil with skin care applications), and dracunculus (tarragon).

Artemisia-9_Powis-Castle

Powis Castle, seen above, has been called "the gardener's dream plant" and "insanely drought-tolerant once established" making it an excellent choice for dry gardens. It's light color, cloud-like shape, and lacey texture make it an excellent choice for creating contrast and interest. It reaches heights of three feet, mounds well, and is well-suited for layering.

Below, Artemisia arborescens (meaning woody or tree-like):  Native to the Mediterranean, this Artemisia is also hardy and drought-tolerant making it a great garden companion of the highest magnitude as well as a color and texture modulator. It's  particularly well-suited for modern designs.

Artemisia arborescens

Below, Artemisia Silver Mound: Its foliage is described as "aromatic... finely textured with silky pubescence." An interesting word pubescence, in botany it refers to the soft down or fine short hairs on leaves and stems.

Artemisia-11_Silver-Mound

Artemisia-6

Not all varieties of the plant are gray or silver in color, like the wan green of Powis Castle above and below. The plant is believed to have originated in the gardens of Powis Castle in Wales in 1972 as a hybrid of A. arboescens and A. absinthium. Once introduced into the gardening world its popularity soon took it by storm (it's also thought that a cutting was sneaked from the grounds and taken to the market by a cunning entrepreneur).

artemisia_2

Irving Gill: Daring to Be Simple

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Gill_Dodge-House-1

"If we, the architects of the West, wish to do great work we must dare to be simple, must have the courage to fling aside every device that distracts the eye from structural beauty, must break through convention and get down to fundamental truths."
Irving Gill

It may be the quintessential tale of Southern California architecture, what time and earthquakes don't destroy, ignorance often does. Such is the story of Irving Gill's Dodge House. Once considered "one of the most architecturally significant American houses of the 20th century." Completed in 1914, at a time when the Italianate, Queen Anne, Folk Victorian, and Eastlake/Stick styles were the rage. Styles that had emigrated from the East Coast which in turn was an attempt to create America into an image of a low budget Europe.

The Dodge House wanted to change all that, break with conventions and bring Southern California its own architectural legacy. To do that Gill went back to California's first colonial buildings, the missions: Unadorned, white, boxy, with Moorish details. (Not unlike the cubes of townhouses of Moorish Portugal, Olhão Terraces in Algrave.)

Gill_Dodge-House-X-4

Dodge House in West Hollywood

Gill was Bauhaus before there was Bauhaus (he died in 1936), one of the pioneers of Modernism. Gill had no formal architectural training and never attended college. His minimalist, boxy buildings—like the Dodge House above—proved to be highly influential to both his peers and the next generation of architects, many of whom were no slouches themselves: Schindler, Lloyd Wright, Neutra, Loos, Van Der Rohe. Critic and historian Henry-Russel Hitchcock, a contemporary of Gill's, said that Gill's buildings of the 1910s "approach rather closely the most advanced European houses of the next decade... The whole effect, in its clarity of form and simplicity of means, is certainly more premonitory of the next stage of modern architecture than any other American work of its period."

Other critics called his work "cubist." Tastes being what they are, would move on and leave Gill behind in his later years. After his death, his reputation faded quickly. A 1960 book, "Five California Architects" (still in print) did much to renew interest his work (and California architecture in general). Eventually, his reputation would grow to exceed even what it was in his lifetime.

bridge-gill

The Oceanside Museum of Art (OMA), Gill's 5,000 square foot original building on the left and Fredrick Fisher's three-level, 15,000 square foot expansion:

OMA from street

117623-004-07C9C137

The Timken House, demolished:

Gill_TimkenHouse-2

Gill_TimkenHouse

Raymond House (1918), still standing:

RaymondHouse_1918


Erectile Function: Sensevieria

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Sansevieria, more commonly known as Snake Plant AKA Mother-in-law's, Devil's, or Djinn's Tongue, is named for the blade-like shape of its leaves.

Sansevieria among the americanas in a Burle-Marx garden:

burlmarxgarden-03

The erect, up-growing leaves make an excellent sharp punctuation or dramatic contrast to billowing mounds of soft grasses, low growing succulents, etc. It also provides shape to pots and planters, sharp bed accent to the heroic agaves, or an assertive border.

When NASA was looking for plants best suited for purifying the air of long-term manned space missions, Sansevieria proved nearly ideal. Research proved it could absorb 107 different air pollutants including monoxides of carbon and nitrogen and formaldehyde.

Images for APPA 2011

This native plant of West Africa was used as a protective charm to ward of evil, bewitchment, and the effects of the evil eye. Sansevierias can easily be grown from cuttings or by dividing the rhizomes. Plants required well drained yet moist soil. Test the soil by inserting a bamboo shish kabob skewer into the soil and leaving it there. After a week pull skewer out. If it is dry down to the bottom one inch it's time to water it again. If it is still moist higher than one inch wait another day or two and check again. Water deeply and let go for 7-14 days between waterings. This will encourage roots to grow deeper and allow the plants better stability.

 

Sansevieria-573x278-custom

 

 

sansevieria-trifasciata-605x404

For those with a predisposition for flora abuse Sansevieria is nearly ideal again: It's drought and low light tolerant, durable, compatible with a variety of soil conditions, and handles neglect like a monk.

Because of the upwards growth of the leaves, it's also an optimal as a feng shui enhancer. This from the Wiki page:

Some believe that having Sansevieria near children (such as in the study room) helps reduce coarseness, while others recommend placing pots near the toilet tank to counter the drain-down vibrations.

 

Sansevieria-pots

 

Sansevieria comes in a variety of color variations including light and dark greens, with yellow "snaking," and bluish silver. Well suited for an exotic, tropical accent.

Sansevieria-trifasciata-Uganda-main

 

 

Waterworlds, Pt 1

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In his 18 years of DBA Knibb Design, Sean has built a deep portfolio of pools. What distinguishes Sean's work from mere pool building is the way in which he integrates their design into the garden and landscape; more than a hole with water, his pools are filled with poetry. The pool becomes an opportunity to bring grace and quiet to a space, a kind of visual yoga of discipline, energy, and peace.

Peruse Sean's portfolio and you'll see that diversity and eclecticism are key. He goes easily from the Modern to the pastoral, from East to West, from the sumptuous to the minimal. Sean has the experience and chops to take his work in whatever direction best serves the project and space at hand.

Knibb_pool_2

Above and below: The Bauhaus-like geometry of the pool deck features a series of long rectangles that merge with the softer edges of the garden. Above, the scene has the feeling of a giant concrete throw pillow with the garden providing the silken fringe. The design also integrates the language of a traditional Japanese garden—stone, water, long, clean lines, repetitions of rectangular forms, and layers to provide a balanced symmetry. Care was taken to configure a variety of views from different vantage points in the space.

As in all of Sean's work, there are some surprises too: Below, note the small punctuations of color, the heroic pots and other Mediterranean touches, the playfulness in the planting choices, and the juxtaposition of different types of stone, as exemplified in the fireplace. Even when working within traditions, Sean's style is anything but orthodox.

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Below, a garden reminiscent of the French style with an update: A formal cabana and pergola with the opulence of continuous stone planes accented by a passionate earthy palette.

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Below, the heritage look of an old Italian villa is enhanced with citrus, a limited palette, and the juxtaposition of both soft and bold textures to compliment the old world hardscape.

Knibb_pool_1

Below, clean modern lines meet a cozy garden-bordered hideaway and a cool-dip of paradise.

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The Luma Chair

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Last year we introduced our Luma wing chair in both indoor and outdoor versions. Both versions are upholstered in burlap with contrasting piping and exposed painted blue wood legs which are made of poplar* in the indoor version and teak✝ for the outdoor. (Burlap, a traditional industrial material, also gains character when left in the elements.)

Luma Chair Burlap

And now for 2013, as a special edition to be featured in the Line Hotel's three bay suite, we remade the Luma in red mohair velvet with an unfinished poplar frame and legs. Mohair, a combination of wool and the long silky hair of the angora goat, is extremely luxurious to the touch and renowned for its luster, softness, and strength. Touch this chair and be immediately surprised by this mohair's rich, downy surface—not at all like the velvet you were expecting. Mohair also makes the color more vivid than is typical of other red velvets.

Luma Chair Velvet

The result is a hue that is more of a passionate lipstick and less of a bloody red. Red velvet has a long been associated with royalty. Its the very image of aristocratic glamour and old world luxury and carries the legacy of everything from the Parisian opera house and old Hollywood to the Storyville brothel. It's that deep connection to both the high life and low pleasures that gives our Luma wing chair such rich decorating possibilities.

 

* Teak is a hardwood that is extremely durable, weathers well, and is well suited for outdoor applications (a traditional material used for boat decks). Teak's high oil content, high tensile strength, tight grain, and silica content make it highly resistant to warping, shrinkage, rot, fungi and mildew and requires very little maintenance.
White poplar is an extremely fast growing wood (it can grow up to 16 feet tall and 3 inches in diameter in a single season) that occupies a part of the ecosystem where other trees won't grow, qualities that help make it highly sustainable. Like harder woods, poplar won't shrink, swell, or warp.

The Kabiljo Affair at the Fair

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The vibe is bacchanalia but the scale is Hydra-like. It's called the "biggest, brashest, most hysterical event in the international design year." (Well, of course, if put a bunch of designers in a room...) For those spying trends, Milan's Salone Del Mobile — or The Milan Furniture Fair in the English speaking world is furniture's Area 51 (the secrets are in there). As to what those upcoming trends are, the mediaratti suggest we be on the look out for more "natural materials, especially marble," a pervasive "raw, rationalist style," and utilitarianism leaning toward minimalism. Also, it may be the year of the pouf. Now you know.

Also pretty much sums up Sean's work for the last 10 years. Below, Milan under the big top.

Always up for a bacchanal,
Always up for a bacchanal, Sean and Team Knibb's design crew headed to Milan in May to join in the hysteria. When it was over, there were many memories and several highlights. Two of the most memorable: The Rossana Orlandi—AKA Italy's fairy godmother of designsoirée at the Museo Bagatti Valsecchi, and a visit and spontaneous collaboration with Croatian-born, Vienna-based designer Dejana Kabiljo.
Always up for a bacchanal,
Always up for a bacchanal,
Always up for a bacchanal,
Although Dejana Kabiljo's work may qualify as functional design, it comes as loaded with pretext, subtext, and context as you'd expect from the best of high art. Her education was classical—architecture and post-graduate design—yet her approach is congenially iconoclastic. With an objective of doing "something not covered by industry," her work stands in defiance of mass production. This may explain the intimacy and intensity of her handcrafted and meticulously processed pieces. To Kabiljo, the problem with industrialization is that it doesn't properly serve the individual's "little fetishes, bad habits, and compulsive actions": In other words, she wants to create "simple things" to serve the complexness of our humanity. Something, she believes, that can only be achieved with hand craft.
Always up for a bacchanal,
To wit: The Fe/Au (above left in gold), and Occupy chairs (with red seat cushion at above right). The Fe/Au Chair (gold/iron) features 24K gold plating on "upcycled" Yugoslavian army spring mattresses. The chair's ingenious construction includes separate sections knitted together with coiled wired. The plating process used on the chair is so specialized that only one craftsmen and one shop in all of Europe can do it. (She found him in Belgrade.) The aspect of golden soldiers' mattresses reconfigured as a Chesterfield style armchair, like so many chairs set before televisions in living rooms the world over, is conceptually rich enough, but the gold itself tells yet another story. Kabiljo is fascinated with the story of how gold comes to be: As all matter in the universe begins in the crucible bellies of stars (with the exception of H and He), the creation of gold requires even more exceptional circumstances. Not only does it take a supernova—the explosive death of a massive star—to exist, but gold demands a star of particularly immense magnitude and density. The drama behind gold's glitter is one of birth and death repeated over untold eonic generations.
Always up for a bacchanal,
During his visit, Sean made  with Kabiljo arrangements to import her Fe/Au chairs stateside. Therefore, we are pleased to announce that our Venice showroom at 1522 Abbot Kinney will soon be the exclusive dealer of the Fe/Au Chair in the New World. (And as for the Old World, they can only be found in London.)
Always up for a bacchanal,
As a designer, Kabiljo has built an international reputation with personal exhibitions all over the world. (Google her and find discussions of her work in abundance.) Her furniture pieces marry extraordinary materials and traditional forms into exotic new imaginings . It's work that radiates an intense and intimate emotional power while balancing it with an approachable whimsy. Another example of how these forces come together can be seen in her hair-covered chairs and stool/pouf below.
Always up for a bacchanal,

Office Space

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It seems that offices have become the big sexy in design lately: with their starchitect designers, indoor playgrounds, colossal interactive areas, bright colors, and high style glimmer that's nothing like the beige industrial purgatories we may remember. As flamboyant images of adult playlands go viral (note the offices of Facebook, Red Bull, Google, etc), the era of the vapid cubicle farm may have finally come to an inglorious end. Recent studies have shown that "enriched work environments" can significantly effect productivity, increasing it as much as 15% to 30%. If the work habitat is inviting enough, the new thinking goes, employees will never want to go home.

So, should every office space now be remade into a playground?

The answer, according to studies like this one, is no. While the new paradigm suggests that an open office design can help create community, connect people, foster collaboration, and leverage uniqueness—"maximize the human capital" of a workforce—people also need a space of their own, free from distractions. The structure and flow of an office needs to include everyone, both openness for the extroverts and sanctuary for the introvert. (You never know where the shy lone geniuses may be lurking.)

MAL_Rendering_2

Mindful of both the art and the science, Knibb Design undertook a comprehensive design strategy for the offices of the renowned Media Arts Lab (MAL). As can be seen in the rendering above, fastidious attention was given to lighting, surface, material, and ambience. The objective was to create a beauty that was both subtle and unobtrusive, built on soft tones with punctuations of color. The surroundings needed to be alive enough to be aspirational yet quiet and undistracting for contemplation. A space balanced in a zen space of interactivity and retreat—part drawing room, part den.

Below, some of Sean's formative sketches as the concept developed.

MAL_dwgs_1

Below, a topographic site plan constructed to represent how our design would divide up the space dimensionally. Cigarette packs indicate various work areas. (On the left side between the unfiltered Camels and the red dots and below the yellow tape is where the lounge area in the rendering above is situated.) The yellow tape represents the movement flow lines for the space.

MAL_site_plan_cigarettes

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