Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2021 i AZURE

Caesarstone has a knack for it — combining exceptional design savvy with market research and a prescient sense of what’s to come. The company is a quartz innovator par excellence, and routinely introduces surprising colours and finishes that are immediately embraced by the international design community, not to mention homeowners the world over. Case in point: the Dark Collection. Launched in 2020, Caesarstone’s instantly recognizable Dark Collection has become a touchstone for contemporary kitchen design. Comprising seven new quartz surfaces, it’s a striking counterpoint to the light — and all too often austere — finishes that have become nearly ubiquitous in modern homes. Drawing inspiration from natural stone, the surfaces feature subtle yet rich variations in dark tones to create a soothing, sophisticated setting. Consider 5810 Black Tempal: a complex…

The city of Bastia has been on a landscaping binge lately. In our May/June 2021 issue, we profiled the sinuous Aldilonda pathway introduced along the Corsican coast. But Bastia’s efforts to improve access to the water have not stopped there. Beneath the citadel that lies at the city’s heart, another new landscape now meets the Mediterranean. Smooth, symmetrical, and elegantly subdued, the Mantinum pathway introduces an accessible public link between land and sea. A path of stairways, ramps and belvederes winds through the structure, culminating at a majestic shoreline vista. Alongside the walkway, a slender (and slightly taller) formation discreetly houses an elevator. Designed by French firms Buzzo Spinelli Architecture and Antoine Dufour Architectes with landscape specialists Atelier GAMA, the pathway opens up a pedestrian passage to the citadel while improving…

COMFORT MOOD If Lido exudes a mid-century vibe, that’s because the design duo GamFratesi cast its gaze back to the 1950s for inspiration. The enveloping basket chair for Minotti is defined by the continuous curved line of its padded and upholstered body, available with a choice of two bases: a time-honoured four-legged option in solid wood and a bolder X-shape (shown) in ash-covered aluminum. A matching footstool completes the cozy scene. minotti.com FRESH HEIRLOOM Kata was created for the long haul. Longevity and environmental sustainability are at the heart of the slouchy seat, designed by Altherr Désile Park for Arper with FSC-certified wood (oak or black locust) and a 3D-knit cover. The upholstery is crafted with fibres derived from the recycled polyester of post-consumer plastic — a kilo of waste…

_Light Reach’s Mission _Perfect Pendants _Playful Table Lamps Behind every striking rock formation is a story about the slow, sculptural forces of the past. In the design of Vela, a new restaurant in Toronto’s King West neighbourhood, architecture studio Partisans has related the idea of weathering and erosion to a sense of timelessness to address the rich layers of the project’s setting, the 1904 Parisian Laundry Building. “We wanted to respect the residue of brick and timber but also to breathe in new life,” says firm partner Jonathan Friedman. Prior to its latest reinvention as a destination dining environment, Vela’s portion of the historic landmark most recently operated as an office. While the space provided attractive industrial character, its open ceiling’s cluttered ducts and pipes also posed the main obstacle to…

India Mahdavi Book by India Mahdavi (Chronicle Chroma) This long-awaited monograph does not disappoint. With art direction by Studio Achermann, the tactile, large-format tome elegantly traces 20-plus years of the Paris architect–designer’s career. Much more than a vanity project, it incorporates a thoughtfully curated treasure trove of drawings, sketches and models to unfold Mahdavi’s creative process, while an extensive interview charts the depths of her philosophy, from her embrace of genius loci to her own Iranian heritage. Whether it’s furniture or branding or iconic restaurant interiors — think Hôtel Le Cloître in Arles and London’s Sketch restaurant, where she practically invented millennial pink — there’s ample thought behind all that delicious colour, which makes the experience even sweeter. chroniclebooks.com Guest Crit Podcast by Failed Architecture (Twitch) Full of shit talk…

LUNAR ECLIPSE A competition-winning design now produced by Louis Poulsen, one of Denmark’s most hallowed brands, Anne Boysen’s Moonsetter was inspired by the light and shadows cast by the heavenly body over its many phases. The frame’s rounded inner edge is outlined with an LED strip, its glow reflected and diffused by the circle cut-out hinged at the centre. For now, the sculptural piece is available as a limited edition, cut from mirror-polished aluminum. louispoulsen.com GLACIAL GALAXIES Merging art and design, the oddly named and voluptuously upholstered Crowded Elevator was inspired by “a celestial body displaying signs of past life,” according to designer Andrés Reisinger, who presented it at Milan’s Nilufar Gallery. “The mountains look like large blocks of frozen water covered with snow, while the plains observed on the…

Morten Jensen is illuminating on many different levels. From calculating the amount of daylight an interior will receive to figuring out the technical intricacies required to brighten up tunnels or airports, the role of an architectural lighting designer is more involved than it may at first appear. Working with both public and private spaces — from urban areas and roads to offices, hotels and more — global firm Light Bureau, for which Jensen manages two offices, brings its expertise to the entire construction process. Unsurprisingly, it has worked on some pretty major projects, such as Bjarke Ingels Group’s The Twist in Norway and the Heatherwick Studio–designed Maggie’s Leeds. Azure caught up with Jensen to learn why architectural lighting shouldn’t be underestimated. Light is architecture’s 4th dimension Lighting designers are often brought…

In a house nestled in a labyrinth — the bucolic neighbourhood of a small village, sinuous and organic, teeming with green — the firm REDO architects has created a study in contrasts, one that echoes the uniqueness of these surroundings. Everything in this village near Colares (in Sintra, Portugal, just outside of Lisbon) is on a small scale, even if the views — street-corner glimpses of the Atlantic Ocean, blue and vigorous — hint at vastness. The home itself speaks of both the intimate and the grand. It belongs to the third and fourth generations of the family that gave the Puppeteers neighbourhood its name. As the family tells it, the patriarch was a puppet-maker who fell in love with a woman here and decided to stay. REDO redesigned the…

Home to stately weekend getaways back in the early 1900s, Mexico City’s Tacubaya later evolved into a working-class district as the area urbanized. A few years ago, its rich historic context and close proximity to the trendy La Condesa neighbourhood caught the attention of local property developer Reurbano, which specializes in exciting adaptive re-use projects. After spotting potential in a 19th-century courtyard house that had fallen into disrepair, the company enlisted local architecture studio Productora to transform the overlooked gem into something else entirely: a 17-unit apartment building punctuated by a bold new exterior staircase. Despite the dramatic transformation at hand, Productora was careful to honour the character of the protected heritage property that anchors the project. “From the beginning, our intention was to achieve continuity,” says firm partner Abel…

Systems and Storage 1 Vitrum Mimesis A convincing alternative to natural stone, Vitrum Mimesis recreates the look of marble through digital printing on durable glass. Patterns include Calacatta and Emperador Dark, as well as limited-edition shades of onyx like Peach, Zebra Stripes and more. Materials Digitally printed glass Manufacturer Valcucine, valcucine.com 2 Complete Kitchen System SpaceTheory’s easy-to-install customizable kitchens can include cabinets, sinks, countertops, back-splashes, soft-close drawers with or without modular organization and an Opencase vertical wall system with accessories such as hooks, trays and shelves. Materials Multiple materials and finishes Manufacturer Space Theory, spacetheory.com 3 Libera Architect Marco Merendi and industrial designer Diego Vencato reference modernist architectural construction materials with their Elmar system: made from Cementoskin (an eco-friendly material with a velvety texture) and steel, the units are suitable…

O’-SO-STYLISH Jackie O’s iconic sunglasses inspired the curves of Allure O’, Monica Armani’s shapely dining table for B&B Italia. It rests a bevelled square or rectangular top — in sizes accommodating up to eight people — above a truncatedpyramid base. These two elements can be specified in complementary colours, which accentuates the design’s vibrant personality. There are 18 glossy and matte hues to choose from (as well as light and black oak); the tops are also available in marble varieties. ​ bebitalia.com WE ARE FAMILY Colour is the key concept behind Thierry, a sweet side table collection by Piero Lissoni for Kartell. Featuring glass tops and metal legs, the jewel-like designs combine multiple gemstone tones (from Bordeaux to sea blue) within the same colour family. Each table can be assembled…

When Japanese architect Kengo Kuma was growing up, the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen were some of the first stories to spark his imagination. “I was so familiar with his tales — I felt close to them,” he says. Many decades later, his studio returned to these fables to design H.C. Andersen’s House, a fantastical new museum in the small Danish city of Odense. “I tried to express [Andersen’s] magic in the architecture,” says Yuki Ikeguchi, the partner in charge of the project, who led the design from the firm’s Paris office. “I wanted to take visitors to a different world.” In this case, most of that world lies deep below the ground, where the 5,600-square-metre museum eventually expands to reveal its full splendour. While largely a result of…

Whether renovations or new constructions, Fala Atelier’s projects are marked by their colourfulness, formal invention and humility. Since its founding in 2013, the studio has built an exemplary series of houses on small, often irregular sites in Porto and its surroundings, negotiating constrained conditions with aplomb. Curving walls that produce unexpected interior views, vibrant materials that confound expectations and mirrors that enlarge confined spaces: such are the devices that Fala Atelier uses to respond imaginatively to quotidian settings. In parallel, it has embraced architecture’s imagistic dimension, gaining renown for its digital collages that flatten its projects onto the screen or the page. In much of its work, Fala privileges spatial affect over demonstrative functionalism. This is clear in the Suspended House (2020), where a massive concrete column penetrates the building’s…

Recycled Alternatives 1 Honext Suitable as an interior cladding or surface finish, Honext panels comprise enzymes and cellulose from previously recycled paper that would ultimately end up in a landfill due to the shortness of its fibres. The non-toxic product can be customized for any space with additional varnishes and paints. ​honextmaterial.com 2 K-Briq Consisting of 90 per cent reclaimed construction waste, this module by Scottish start-up Kenoteq is a carbon-sensitive alternative to similar building blocks. In addition to its structural and thermal benefits — clay brick–strength with better insulation — it comes in any shade. kenoteq.com 3 Precious Plastic In addition to solid surfacing sheets for furnishings, open-source start-up Precious Plastic has designed an interlockable post-consumer recycled brick. Though successfully tested for structural capacity, it’s intended for non-load-bearing interior…