Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2021 i Dwell

For three years, we’ve been asking everyone featured in the Dwell 24, our annual roundup of exceptional emerging designers (p. 31), to reply to a Proust Questionnaire–style survey about their lives and work. And this year, for the first time, none of them chose the dictum “less is more” as a personal credo. San Francisco designer Viviana Matsuda went so far as to call out minimalism generally: “I think it’s very arrogant and has notes of classism.” I don’t wholly agree. Taken as a style signifying the privilege to have a fashionably empty space, it is certainly, well, hollow. But I believe subtraction has merits that transcend trends. That said, I like the provocation in Matsuda’s statement. It has echoes in the work of many of the designers in this…

How to cope with climate change without making the climate worse. @f28278 Sustainability and affordability. @myfordbox Social responsibility! Giving voice and opportunity to a diverse community. @larderlover Eliminating plastics. @teq.parts Sustainable fabrics and heat sources. @itsallwickedgood Bird-safe windows! @chrissol99 Wildfire smoke and rising temps. How to create creative cooling plans for homes. @jennshulllison Building codes that incorporate building science. @elainehigden Global warming in a real way—sustainable, affordable practice, not just fancy gadgetry. @sarah_blood The life cycle of the product. @p3tes Reducing embodied energy in construction/fabrication. @studiohagenhall Healthy materials. @blvv.j Access and usability for people with disabilities. @realtrueblue meandyou Lack of affordable housing. @dordeidre Materials and construction in response to new weather patterns. @james.g.lee Fair-trade manufacturing and sustainability. @michael_weksler Reducing the carbon footprint of manufacturing. @havanahyde Incorporating innovative, new, and locally…

@BRADTORCHIA In March, one year after California’s stay-at-home order first put a pause on live events, DJ Adam Cooper moved his show to the yard he shares with a small group of renters in Los Angeles’s El Sereno neighborhood. With a blue sky above and palms swaying in the background, he livestreamed a mix of Afro-Caribbean and amapiano tracks to his virtual audience. It was everything his landlord, architect Max Kuo, had hoped for when he transformed the rear structure of a rental property that he owns into a blank slate for future tenants’ personal and professional pursuits. “The project was always concerned with the question: How do you create a living space for different tenants to come together?”MAX KUO, ARCHITECT The cofounder of AllThatIsSolid, a practice based in the…

@LAHAUSER Half an hour from Paris, Marc Chaya’s house in Chailly-en-Bière is a world away. Its clean white curves and corners seem to float in a flat wooded park on the edge of the vast Fontainebleau forest. It gleams placidly, a world away, too, from the plowed-over fields down the road, where a few remnant heads of lettuce lie forlornly, like guillotined kings. It also bears no resemblance whatsoever to its neighbors, French McMansions of the faux-Norman style. The 3,068-square-foot home, with its windows framed in curving concrete, has more in common with Terminal 2 at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Indeed, some say the house is an early work of architect Paul Andreu, who oversaw the airport’s master plan and designed several concourses there, as well as the National Center…

@JAMIECHUNGSTUDIO I grew up in a Gustav Stickley Craftsman-style home, which was really beautiful but dark. The front porch, however, was really bright and light. We ate every dinner there in the summer, sitting around a table on a bunch of white director’s chairs, like the one I have now. Some of my best childhood memories are from sitting at that table. I don’t know exactly which chairs my parents had because so many people make these. I wanted to find the classic, most quintessential, most ubiquitous version. I Googled “director’s chairs,” and there’s a Wikipedia page, and it said who held the first design license, a company called Gold Medal. So I Googled that, and the Chair Store popped up—and they had it! It wasn’t complicated, right? It was…

Comments [Re “Out of the Office,” July/August]: Hunt does some amazing work, and this home office is such a great case study in simplicity and design clarity. ALNAAR, VIA DWELL.COM [Re “Years in the Making,” July/August]: This is a great home. Love the showcasing of the structural elements and overcoming living-space issues by building up within the existing footprint. New construction that retains the neighborhood’s design language is great! And while I’m not a huge fan of pine (it’s just so knotty), it works very well here, probably because it’s pine boards and not pine ply. What a great use of materials overall, especially the tile flooring and the green tile wall in the bathroom. This is a thoughtful, well-designed, and well-built home. Enjoy! REX MILLER, VIA DWELL.COM Instagram “It…

@MAXIMEBROUILLET Set in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Magdalen Islands are as far from terra firma as you can get within the province of Quebec. At their windswept shores, rolling meadows and sand dunes give way to red cliffs, which tumble like crinkled curtains to the sea. Time passes slowly on the archipelago, which is one of the reasons Vincent Morel and Jan-Nicolas Vanderveken built their vacation home there. Vincent, who spent childhood summers on the islands, knew this was a place where he could decompress, dive into the sea, and feel the sand under his feet. The couple purchased an empty plot on the western point of Havre Aubert Island, where the strong, constant wind means there are few trees—all the better for savoring views. “We’re on top…

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@MIGUELPORLAN THE DWELL 24 Take a seat and dig into this year’s roster of the most exciting new names in design. THE DESIGN LIFE How do our Dwell 24 designers see the world? We surveyed them to find out. The results—spread throughout the following pages—may surprise you. MY STUDIO IS… 87% A hive of productive clutter 13% A study in head-clearing minimalism IF I HAD TO CHOOSE ONE… 44% Brutalism 30% Memphis 26% Bauhaus CURITIBA, BRAZIL / @__ALEXROCCA Alex Rocca Alex Rocca’s career in cinema had a surprising plot twist. As an art director and scenographer, he cultivated a talent for conjuring locations through shape, color, and material, but he began to yearn for a more direct physical connection to his work. Two years ago, the Brazilian designer decided to…

@ALANJENSEN About 20 miles from Amsterdam, an old monastery stands amid a lively garden in the quiet town of Bennebroek. Franciscan sisters once lived in the imposing brick structure, built in the 19th century, but they departed late in the 20th, and a developer subsequently carved the bulk of the building into 18 apartments. That’s how Milla Novo and her husband, Nigel Nowotarski, came to live in the top of what was once a chapel. As you step into their apartment, large arched windows hint at its ecclesiastical past, but the couple’s eye-catching textiles and artworks—set against pristine white walls—make the biggest impression. Milla, who worked as a flight attendant before reinventing herself as a designer four years ago, creates large macraméesque wall hangings that incorporate symbols of the Mapuche people…