INDUSTRIAL STYLE RENOVATION / PAOLA NAVONE

A 200-year-old, abandoned tobacco-drying factory in Umbria is transformed into an inviting home by designer Paola Navone. It is 500m² of open-plan floor area with 9m high ceiling. All the functions have been housed in one room, with an exception of the kitchen which has been closed off, but with a window wall.

//Visitors pass by a sentry wall of lamps on their way to the airy living-dining room with its 52 windows. Beyond, a gauzy wall of Indian cotton curtains leads to the bath. A balcony runs the perimeter of the living-dining room, a solution Navone came up with to deal with existing structural beams, which would have been too costly to remove. The walkway, or passerelle, is about four feet wide. Here, an Ergofocus hanging fireplace is flanked by two Navone-designed leather armchairs for Baxter. Farther along are a library and office. The massive dining table—12 mlong, made of kauri wood thousands of years old, and designed by Mario Botta—sits on a carpet of tile. “I didn’t want to have this old wood sitting on top of parquet,” says Navone. A motley assortment of chairs completes the vignette. “The table is so big, so important,” explains the architect. “You can’t make a statement with a chair.” The overscaled, slipcovered white sofa, a Navone design for Linteloo, is set parallel to the dining area, flanked by two armchairs. An old printer’s trolley, found at a flea market, serves as a coffee table. The rest of the living space is filled with an assortment of objects the couple has amassed over the years. The loft’s bed and bath areas are equally compelling. Andrea bought an old iron-framed bed at a flea market after texting photos to Navone for approval; the bed now takes pride of place in the room, swaddled mostly in white Indian cotton. The bathroom is a classic Navone tour de force. She created the bathroom sink, her own design for Ceramica Flaminia, and the stand is custom made from old discarded wood. The floor and the shower are tiled with more Navone-designed Moroccan tiles from Carocim. A freestanding tub from the Water Monopoly, an English company that specializes in antique tubs as well as reproductions, is installed by the white linen–curtained window.//

[ Dwell ]

WATERGATE HOTEL RENOVATION / BAHRAM KAMALI

// Show me the way 
To the next whisky bar 
Oh, don't ask why 
Oh, don't ask why 

For if we don't find 
The next whisky bar 
I tell you we must die 
I tell you we must die 
I tell you, I tell you 
I tell you we must die //

[ Condé Nast Traveller, Washington Post ]

DOOR 19 / PH.D ARCHITECTS

Situated in an yet uninhabited loft on the top floor of ArtHouse, a new residential building designed by Russian architect Sergey Skuratov, the pop-up club Door 19 is in one a restaurant, modern art gallery and a pre-party bar. Open from 25th September to 31st October 2014, the club, in it's concept and setup, merged together high-class and counter culture. The interior design for Door 19 is the work of of PH.D architects, also Russian based. They left the brick, concrete and pluming exposed and used scaffolding construction to form the bar and gallery above it, creating an atmosphere of a work in progress and accentuating in that way the temporary character of the place and the very concept of pop-up. The rough, metal, industrial, functional was combined with expensive and elaborate details, with wood, soft, color. The best street artists from Moscow and beyond have been invited to leave their mark on the space in the form of paintings, murals and sculptures. The experience was rounded off with best quality of food and drinks prepared by Michelin-starred chefs and top mixologists and bartenders, uniforms were specially designed for the occasion by Vardoui Nazarian and Main in Main took care of the sound.

Usually these kind of temporary venues appear in unused and often most unexpected places - old factories, abandoned tunnels, private homes, and are guided by a child like DIY spirit that asks "Wouldn't it be great if ...?", and is not afraid to answer that question and just go for it. By utilizing unused facilities, these then become places of experiment where urbanism, architecture, team work, events, products can be tested. In it's core anarchic, the idea of interacting with space in way is liberating and exciting, and the factor of temporal calls for immediate action because what is here now, will be gone tomorrow and so waiting or postponing is not an option.

According to professor Ali Madanipour, there are two key regards of pop-ups: //One is that they can be a positive way of making more intensive use of urban space// and, on the other hand, //they can be an aid to consumerism in which brands create a stage setting, adding color and texture to the general mall atmosphere that is the backdrop to many of our urban spaces. Pop-up businesses support shopping – they bring a festival atmosphere to shopping.//

Door 19 was being used as a sails catalyst, introducing the visitors not only to the apartments in ArtHouse but also to the potential of ArtKvartal - a government supported project of urban regeneration of a 500ha area in Moscow. //The project is still at the design stage and is expected to take between 10 and 15 years to realize, with a model of gentrification that will fan outwards from ArtHouse, taking into its fold other upmarket art clusters such as ArtPlay and Winzavod. Once it is completed, anyone working in the creative industries, from fashion or film, will have the opportunity to rent a place to live or work in.//

In general, //Pop-up environments bring the realm of the expected into spaces where it doesn’t belong, and better, where its viewers think they don’t belong. It creates an opening not only for artwork to rediscover itself through engagement with an unusual site, and for the viewer who, through their experience of the site itself, finds vacation from normal life and thought patterns.//

[trendland, the guardian, psfk]

ANAHI / MAUD BURY

//Anahi is a cozy haunt whose original lively Argentinian bistro aura has been tamed to welcome Paris’ well-heeled foodies, but whose roots, despite its chic new interiors, remain very much in place. Address: 49 rue Volta, 75003 Paris, France. Open every evening for dinner only.// published in: Restaurants/Bars By Rooksana Hossenally, 18 November 2014

The interior design of this new restaurant, a former charcuterie founded over thirty years ago by the Argentinean sisters Carmina and Pilar, is the work of Barcelona-based designer Maud Bury. She played with the original features of space and used its existing condition in a clever way that resembles somewhat of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken porcelain with gold. Her overall intervention was gentle but had a strong impact, kept the old charcuterie's strong soul and identity but giving it a glamorous bling. Like salt and honey, she made an unusual combination you'd think won't work but turns out to bring out the best from each other. The little things mean quite a lot.

[ Sources: Trendland, Yatzer, LaJeuneRue, Anahi ]

 

THE COMMISSARY / SEAN KNIBB

The Commissary is a restaurant located on the second-floor roof deck of The Line Hotel. The interior design for both the hotel and this greenhouse restaurant was done by Venice based Sean Knibb.

//There’s no shortage of greenery or sunlight up at Commissary, the poolside café. Housed in a glass structure, it’s essentially a greenhouse complete with lighting affixed to eucalyptus branches and a long pine-topped table fashioned after an Edwin Lutyens design. Food offerings focus on fruit and vegetables, garden-fresh naturally.//

[ Sources: Interior Design, Trendland, Knibb Design, Home Adore ]

THE LINE HOTEL / SEAN KNIBB

Situated in Los Angeles, California, the Wilshire Radisson Hotel, a high-rise built in 1964, was recently completely renovated by LA designer Sean Knibb.

// “It was going to be human-scaled,” he says of his guest-room proposal. “Nothing to do with the movie business or celebrity.” He drew inspiration instead from the beach, the mountains, and the city. “A true California hotel with a mix of surfing, skateboarding, Spanish colonial style, Latino cultures.” And let’s not forget  mid-century modernism. His 15-foot-wide presentation panel nailed the job.//

// "We started with the concept of repurpose—use as much of the existing structure as possible, and take materials that would not usually be considered luxurious and elevate them through substitution," says Knibb. Towards that end, he photographed the structure's exposed concrete and then had it turned into wallpaper, which is actually what lines the walls of the rooms. It was custom made by Astek in LA. Each room also has a chair upholstered in a vintage Mexican serape, a painted coffee table with a "cityscape" built from books, and a photo collage by Kevin Hanley of LA's Acme gallery. Knibb Design created the rakish lamp. //

[ Sources: Interior Design, Remodelista, Knibb Design, Home Adore, i am koream ]