Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2021 i Dwell

Should we get a task chair? It was a debate in my household as it was in many last year when aesthetics and ergonomics battled for primacy in our interiors. Not that a task chair can’t be beautiful. They just tend to bring a cubicle vibe wherever they go. We ultimately decided that style wasn’t worth chronic back pain. No matter where you stand on the issue, many of us have started taking our home office setups more seriously. And while I hope the new vaccines have us collaborating in person again soon, the normalization of remote work will be a lasting effect of the pandemic and bring about enduring changes in how we design our homes. With that in mind, for this issue’s Modern World section (p. 25), we’ve…

2020 DWELL DESIGN AWARDS JUDGES Dwellings WINNER CASA COSMOS On a rustic strip of coastline near Puerto Escondido, Mexico, S-AR designed a beach getaway with an open concrete grid that frames its natural surroundings. RUNNER-UP COCKPIT IN WILD PLANTS Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP created a sunken retreat in Karuizawa, Japan. Its glass lookout allows the residents to study wildflowers blanketing the forest floor. To honor the most outstanding projects we published last year, we enlisted our readers and an expert panel of judges to select the most creative, context-driven designs across eight categories for the Dwell Design Awards. Our judges’ selections, which appear on these pages, display imagination in their form, consideration in their materiality, connection to their environments, and innovation in how they frame a way of living. “It’s…

1 SKYVIEW VIRTUAL SKYLIGHT If your work-from-home setup is more cubbyhole than corner office, consider installing this 4K UHD simulated skylight to brighten your space and boost your mood. We see you raising your eyebrow, but its eight-hour playlist of serene, cloud-filled views is genuinely soothing. Just don’t expect it to deliver vitamin D. 2 IQAIR ATEM DESK Swiss IQAir’s reputation was built on designing medical-grade air purifiers. Now the company has miniaturized its tech to create a portable, desk-friendly version that’s capable of filtering more than 99 percent of particles with whisper-quiet operation. 3 APPLE WATCH Like Crocs, Apple Watches straddle the line between practicality and nerdom. But even if you’ve managed to resist buying one, it might be time to think again, thanks to its latest suite of…

More at Dwell.com/Shop Otrio Inventor’s Edition Enjoy Sweden & Finland’s Family Game of the Year beautifully finished in solid walnut with anodized aluminum rings. otrio.com Sonoma Forge Sonoma Forge Exposed Showers Nothing has the iconic look and feel of Sonoma Forge more than our WaterBridge Exposed showers. They’re turning-up everywhere, indoors and outdoors, in lush homes and at luxury resorts around the world. These are the thermostatic, set-it-and-forget-it, wall-mount models, also available as floor-mount. There are corresponding pressure-balanced models for a total of 16 to choose from. To make your shower perfect for you, there are options for the shower head, the handles, and the foot wash. Choose from Rustic Nickel (shown) Satin Nickel, Rustic Copper, Oil-Rubbed Bronze, and our new Matte Black. Forged in America. www.sonomaforge.com info@sonomaforge.com (800) 330-5553…

A few months after moving from Salt Lake City to the east side of Austin, Texas, Creede Fitch and his wife decided to transition from renting a house to settling in and building a home. They soon found a lot they loved—5,837 square feet with a beautiful pecan tree at the center. However, the tree had protected status, which is not uncommon in Austin, and couldn’t be moved. “It was actually a saving grace,” says Creede. “We were able to get the lot cheaply, and we knew we could make it work.” After meeting with several Austin architects, the couple found their perfect match in Thomas Bercy of Bercy Chen Studio. Bercy was able to marry Creede’s taste for midcentury and Mexican modern design with his wife’s affinity for Mediterranean…

Alicia Hylton-Daniel’s epiphany arrived in the aftermath of a 2002 house fire in Durham, North Carolina. Although an artist at heart, she had chosen the more practical path of working as a paralegal and studying for her LSAT exams. Then came a bang on her door in the middle of the night and a shout that her house was in flames. As she watched it burn, she suddenly realized she had no passion for the law. “The fire gave me a moment to reflect on how very unhappy I was at the time,” she says. Later, working with her insurance company’s contractors, whom she describes as a “good ol’ boys” network, proved exasperating. But she became immersed in the building process, and a lightbulb went on. “It was like, ‘Can…

Christopher James vividly recalls when he and his wife, Kristin Beinner James, first laid eyes on the pink and maroon house in L.A.’s Los Feliz neighborhood in 2000. Divided into upstairs and downstairs apartments, the house was a wreck, and the three bungalows out back weren’t much better. “The sewer in the main house was disconnected, there was no heat, and rain streamed in through broken windows,” says Chris. Built between 1906 and 1926, the structures, which locals say were once used to accommodate out-of-town talent for a nearby movie studio, had obviously seen better days. But the property offered the live/rent opportunity the couple, both artists, were looking for, and they saw the potential to create a place to both work and raise a family. After purchasing it, they…

22 Screen Time Bercy Chen Studio LP Thomas Bercy, Calvin Chen, Daniel Arellano, Dan Loe, and Sasha Doo bcarc.com JM Structures jmartin@jmstructural.com Interior design by McCray & Co. mccray-co.com Cabinetry by Modern Union themodernunion.com 22 Tan rug, pink rugs, and white chairs from IKEA ikea.com 23 Log table by Julien Renault for Hem us.hem.com; Navy chairs by Emeco emeco.net; Coventry stool by Studio Dunn studiodunn.com 44 Class Act Works Office of Brian O’Brian Architect worksoffice.com McLean Contracting mclean-contracting.ca Kieffer Structural Engineering kieffer.ca Interior design by Works Office of Brian O’Brian Architect & Laura Fremont Design laurafremontdesign.com Fischer Custom Cabinets fischercustomcabinets.com 44 Shou sugi ban siding by South Parry Lumber southparrylumber.ca; windows by Tiltco tiltco.com 46-47 Sirocco Safari Chairs by Arne Norell, vintage; coffee table and rug from Elte elte.com; Cantante…

A dedicated office is now an essential component of many of our homes, but a lot of us have been making do with ad hoc, hastily set up spaces. It’s time to give your office a more intentional upgrade, but that doesn’t mean you have to make it look like the one you used to commute to. We’ve gathered an assortment of new work-from-home items that are as attractive as they are functional. And for design inspiration, we spoke with a few people at the forefront of home workplace R&D. ELGATO KEY LIGHT AIR Lighting is everything when you want to look your best on camera. Elgato’s new compact LED lamp illuminates features evenly for video conferencing—but not so intensely that you feel like you’re staring into the sun. It’s…

To start the next chapter in their lives, Ben Sykes and Erin Connor went back to school. The couple wanted a place in the country, and they had their eyes on rolling, rural Grey County, two hours northwest of their home in Toronto. While searching for property there, they came upon an unexpected building for sale: a one-room schoolhouse with thick stone walls that was built nearly a century and a half ago. “I have to admit, we hadn’t looked at any schools before,” Ben, a partner at a commercial real estate firm, says with a laugh, “but we were willing to renovate, and we wanted something where we could mix old and new.” The structure, which had served kids from two townships, was last used in the 1960s, but…

In 2011, through an act of what Lizz Wasserman calls “real estate divination,” she and her husband, Isaac Resnikoff, found a plot of unbuilt land in the Highland Park section of Los Angeles. To them, it was the perfect place to build a house and raise a family: a clean slate on the side of a hill, overlooking a sea of palm trees that recedes into the San Gabriel Mountains. To their Milwaukee-based architects—Lizz’s parents, Louis Wasserman and Caren Connolly—the site was less than ideal. If certain areas “had been one percent steeper, it would’ve been unbuildable,” Louis says, taking in the view behind the couple’s recently finished, three-bedroom, net-zero house. Today, Louis, Lizz, Isaac, and baby Esphyr Rain Superbloom are in the outdoor living room, a space where the…

On a recent evening in Denton, Texas, Anthony Marks and his partner placed a projector and screen in front of the new 672-square-foot guesthouse in their backyard. A dozen or so people spread around the adjacent pool deck and watched Young Frankenstein against the backdrop of the boxy, broad-roofed structure. It wasn’t the large unveiling party the couple had planned prior to the pandemic, but the accessory dwelling unit (ADU) was indeed designed with company in mind. Anthony and his partner live in a modern limestone and redwood house built in the late 1940s by local design luminaries Ray Gough and Roland Laney. But since the house has only two bedrooms—one of which is used as an office—their frequent weekend guests were often subjected to an air mattress. “At first,…

When I think about technologies, I think about ingenuity, creativity, and invention. I try to understand the minds of the humans who made them and the consequences of their creations. These little stone blades that I keep on my desk are forms of technology from 12,000 years ago. I found my first one in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico, where I lived as a teenager. Over the years, I’ve acquired a collection of these stone tools, some as gifts from friends. Although there’s an aspect of the unknown to them, I believe you can detect some element of the person who made them in the differences between each one. That’s why I find them so fascinating. Despite their apparent simplicity, to their maker they were as wondrous, useful, and…