On a walk through Ligne Roset’s factory near Lyon, France, we track the multitude of steps, hands, and hours required to craft this very refined couch.
From the exterior, Ligne Roset’s complex in Briord, France, is little to look at, just workaday cement- and-metal factories near the base of the Alps. But once you step inside, the operation bursts into colorful life, with dozens of workers hefting gigantic bolts of fabric, manning robotic sewing machines, and operating (Read More…)
A Marmol Radziner–designed prefab house, trucked onto a remote Northern California site, takes the pain out of the construction process.
Bill and Abbie Burton have experienced their share of construction drama. The Solana Beach, California– based landscape architects have been working together for 25 years, overhauling landscapes and buildings alike. So when the time came to build a vacation house on the 330-acre oak-speckled woodland they purchased in Mendocino County (Read More…)
Architect Steve Bull designed a high-impact, low-maintenance home for a pair of intrepid clients in Alaska, but that was only the beginning of the adventure.
Working as ER doctors at a hospital in eastern Anchorage, Alaska, Tanya Leinicke and Rick Navitsky are accustomed to high-pressure situations, like ministering to the aftereffects of moose stompings and bear maulings. So when two stressful events intersected at the same moment in the couple’s life—a political revolution in Nepal jeopardized their adoption of a son just as the design and construction of their 2,100-square-foot house ramped up—they handled the situation with an uncommon measure of grace and perspective. Four years later, the couple told us how it all began—and how hiring the right architect made all the difference. (Read More…)
A Brooklyn architect shows what a little elbow grease, a healthy dose of naïveté, and a decade can accomplish.
Architect Jeff Sherman, of Delson or Sherman Architects, has more guts and gall than your average home renovator. In 2000, strapped by a “very finite budget,” he bought a wrecked row house in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, that had been used as an illegal breeding kennel. Over the next ten years, working as his own general contractor and builder, he transformed the scariest building on his block into a high-design home, all for about $100 per square foot. “I’m a little wary of the construction-on-a-dime myth trumpeted in the press,” says Sherman. “Construction is ridiculously expensive. But yeah, I wound up doing (Read More…)
The right workspace can transform your creative life. Dwell puts six desks to the test.
Now that you’re expected to work from almost anywhere—your sofa, an airplane, a rickshaw in Kathmandu—and your “desktop” fits in the palm of your hand, are actual desks still necessary? We thought it over, called in six of our favorites, and came away answering, emphatically, yes! (Read More…)
An experimental shop in Oaxaca, Mexico, is resuscitating the region’s ancient crafts traditions and bringing indigenous artisans’ designs into the 21st century.
In 2006, inspired by Oaxaca’s plethora of indigenous communities, who, says industrial designer Gustavo Fricke, “inherit craft traditions that are older than Columbus,” Fricke opened blackbox. To stock the shop, located in a colonial house in downtown Oaxaca city, Fricke and other designers collaborate with local artisans to create stylish, contemporary objects in time-honored ways. By spotlighting native talent—from city and village alike—Fricke and shop managers Roberto Vega and Rosario Martinez Llaguno hope to provide a sustainable livelihood for Oaxaca’s underemployed artists and craftspeople and, as Fricke says, “push their work forward.” (Read More…)
When the Fisher family’s 1960s Long Island beach bungalow started to crumble, they sought an architect who’d preserve the home’s humble roots and mellow vibe, while subtly bringing the place up to date.
In the summer of 2007, Charlie and Rebecca Fisher noticed something odd about their weekend house, a boxy 1960s cottage in Amagansett, Long Island: “When the washer was on the spin cycle, the whole place would shake,” says Rebecca. That’s when they knew they couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to renovate. (Read More…)
Monica Förster takes a hands-on approach to furniture design. In her Stockholm studio, she whips up a flurry of tiny paper models—“3-D sketches”—that rival their full-scale progeny for beauty and craftsmanship.
“The computer is a tool; I can’t do without it,” says Förster. “But the nice thing about making models is that in the process of doing, I’m more open to mistakes—maybe I put the tape in a way that I don’t intend, but it shows a new possibility. In a computer everything is perfect. When I make models, it’s intuitive and rough: I take a flat piece of paper, I cut it, I tape it. It’s very quick. I find it very refreshing.” (Read More…)
Setsumasa and Mami Kobayashi’s weekend retreat, two and a half hours northwest of Tokyo, is “an arresting concept,” photographer Dean Kaufman says, who documented the singular refuge in the Chichibu mountain range. “It’s finely balanced between rustic camping and feeling like the Farnsworth House.” Designed by Shin Ohori of General Design Co., the structure—Setsumasa bristles at the word “house,” since his desire was for something that (Read More…)
There are lots of handsome chairs out there, but sitting beauties that cost $250 or less are a rarer breed. Our picks run the gamut from traditional (the wooden, Shaker-inspired Salt or the Thonet-designed Era, the quintessential cafe chair) to the downright futuristic (we’re looking at you, oddly anthropomorphic Dr. Yes). We sat, swayed, shook, stacked; we hefted (Read More…)