Furniture Complex: Roy McMakin Profile
Don’t call him a designer—intrepid artist Roy McMakin is scything out his own creative path. Read the full story here.
Profiles & Interviews
New Frontiers
An airy addition on the back of a historic house in Boise is a model of sensitive renovation, seamlessly melding new and old. After nine years spent renting apartments in Boston and Chicago, Dan and Dana Zuckerman moved to Boise, Idaho, Dan’s hometown, in 2008. Drawn by the prospect of purchasing a historic home where …
The Ultimate Napa Itinerary
California’s iconic Napa Valley remains the ultimate spot for travelers in search of rustic-luxe hotels, Michelin-starred restaurants, and cult wineries. Since 2005, Burgundy-born Gilles de Chambure, director of wine education at Napa’s Meadowood resort, has arranged vineyard visits and tastings for guests and nonguests alike. Arrive during the fall harvest or in early spring for …
An Epic Plot
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 …
New Prospects
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, …
Hecho en Oaxaca
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 …
Model Behavior
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 …
Profile: Thomas Phifer: Light on the Subject
Don’t be fooled by his mellow, self-effacing demeanor: Architect Thomas Phifer is a master of his craft, designing daylit, minimalist buildings that meld the ideals of classic modernism with 21st-century innovations. Thomas Phifer is one of the most subdued architects you’ll ever meet. Sitting in his all-white New York office in a navy suit, reclining …
Consumer Retorts
Chris Houston, the charmingly curmudgeonly owner of Modern Artifacts in San Francisco, is not your typical retailer. Though his shop is packed to the rafters with an eclectic and highly covetable range of vintage furniture, lighting, art, and craft, Houston takes a slow and thoughtful approach to retail and commerce. At his workshop in the …
My House: Startin’ Spartan
When Jay Atherton and Cy Keener met in grad school at the University of California, Berkeley, they discovered in each other a rare constellation of common interests: minimalist architecture, rock climbing, and “not talking.” After graduation, Atherton moved back to his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, and purchased a downtown lot. Wanting to build a house, …