Inside The Striking Redesign Of Nashville International Airport

As one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S., the country-music capital needed to modernize and expand its airport. Corgan developed a phase program to achieve this at Nashville International Airport, with the third stage focused on renovating the terminal lobby and constructing an international arrivals facility—a 4.4 million-square-foot project completed in collaboration with Fentress Architects. By replacing common friction points with open spaces, double-height volumes, and ample natural light, the transformed hub offers travelers a more comfortable and efficient experience. A 50-foot-high glass box creates a dramatic “front door” to the airy lobby, where a wood-slat ceiling, punctuated by narrow skylights, evokes the frets of the city of Tennessee’s trademark: the guitar. A large central oculus suggests a sound hole, completing the musical allusion while illuminating a suspended sculptural installation by Jacob Hashimoto. The cascading assemblage of 9,000 washi paper kites references local iconography, architecture, and natural features, further grounding Nashville International Airport in its regional identity.

UFO or Winery? This Contemporary Structure Stuns In Hungary

How do you create an attention-grabbing modern building that integrates seamlessly with its timeless rural setting as though it has always belonged there? This conundrum faced Bord Architectural Studio and Tihany Design when they collaborated on Sauska Tokaj, a new hilltop winery and restaurant complex near Rátka, in Hungary’s UNESCO World Heritage-listed Tokaj-Hegyalja wine region. The resulting structure—a pair of limestone-clad saucers—is both strange and familiar, like a UFO that’s just touched down or is emerging, chrysalislike, from the earth. It’s almost as if the Hungarian countryside itself is giving birth to the next wave in contemporary architecture.

“Normally, you couldn’t build anything here because it’s a protected area,” says Péter Bordás, principal of Bord Architectural Studio. “But somehow this particular hill isn’t part of it.” Searching for a building typology that minimized site impact yet realized the client’s vision of a brand-enhancing, destination-worthy landmark, the architect rejected working in the vernacular as “fake.” Instead, he turned to the sphere as a structural form that requires minimal contact with the ground or can even seem to float above it. He cut off the sphere’s top and bottom caps and placed them on the ridge. Slightly overlapping, the steel-framed, limestone-clad bowls, each 118 feet in diameter, are gently tilted to follow the slope of the hillside, from which they survey the landscape like a pair of benevolent eyes.

Behind the Design of Sauska Tokaj, a Hilltop Winery

The architecturally iconoclastic, two-level winery breaks regional precedent in other ways, too. “We had to accommodate hospitality functions—a restaurant and bar—which have never really existed in this area,” Bordás continues. Nor has the kind of large-scale industrial production the facility supports. “You don’t see any ‘factories’ here because, traditionally, the region’s winemakers dig small cellars and put the aging barrels there.” Following that artisanal model, the architect has buried all the viticulture works and equipment either directly beneath the bowls or in the hillside behind them. Only the fermentation areas, with tall stainless-steel tanks encircling rows of oak wine casks, are visible through the glazed gap between the building’s spherical undersides and the ground.

The twin bowls house the restaurant, bar, and dining terraces. Together with the reception area and a tasting room—about a quarter of the 63,000-square-foot winery—they were outfitted by Tihany Design. The client, familiar with the firm’s work in Hungary and elsewhere, approached now-retired founder and Interior Design Hall of Fame member Adam D. Tihany, who initiated the project and remained involved throughout, working closely with new owner and principal Alessia Genova. She’s the first to admit that the intersecting cup shapes of the two major volumes with their sloping walls presented a challenge. “We needed to be respectful of Peter’s unique architectural vision,” she says, “creating an interior that complements the exterior while also providing a warm restaurant ambience.”

How Biophilic Elements Inform Sauska Tokaj

One issue was that the entry and reception area are located at the rear, so arriving patrons don’t see the structure’s sculptural form, which is mostly hidden by the crest of the hill. It’s not until they pass through a skylit tunnel and reach the restaurant itself that they get to experience the building’s complex curves, though the sweeping arc of the forecourt canopy hints at things to come. So does the custom oak reception desk, a massive biomorphic form that not only echoes the architecture but also recalls, as Genova notes, “the hills of Tokaj as well as the wood barrels and other organic elements that go into winemaking.” Behind the desk, a glass-enclosed, sunken garden brings in natural light and offers a view into the tasting room beyond, one of the few orthogonal spaces in the hospitality area. At the end of the restaurant tunnel, immediately before the maître d’ station, a curving staircase leads down to the fermentation areas, the only section of the winemaking facilities that is accessible to the public.

The dining area spills across both bowls, each boasting a large hemispherical terrace for eating, lounging, and taking in the vineyard-dotted panorama. Near the entrance, the wine bar exemplifies Genova’s response to the spaces’ curvilinear geometrics. A marble-topped horseshoe faced in oak, the stool-lined counter curls beneath an illuminated tubular ceiling fixture with an integrated stainless-steel wineglass rack. This striking element not only anchors the bar but also acts as a node from which deep track-lighting grooves radiate like a sunburst—a dynamic feature that, the designer observes, “creates the same dramatic effect you get on the outside of the building on the inside, while putting a focus on the glasses and the bar, attracting people to it.”

An open kitchen—similar to the bar in form, materials, and space-orchestrating function—dominates the second dining area. Walnut fluting encases the steel structural columns, introducing a note that harmonizes classical refinement with rustic warmth. The same wood, which Genova describes as “soft to the touch, velvety,” is used throughout for millwork and furniture. The plaster-finished walls share an equivalent silky tactility and are rendered in the palest green, a delicate hue echoed in the napkins and other details. By contrast, the custom bronze-and-alabaster sconces punctuating the rooms are anything but reticent. Resembling tiny flying saucers, the captivating fixtures could almost be the offspring of the mother ship that shelters them.

This Winery by Tihany Design Looks Straight Out of a Sci-Fi Dream

Sauska Tokaj Glows After Dark

BORD ARCHITECTURAL STUDIO: CSILLA KRACKER; ROBERT GYÖRGY BENKE; FRUZSINA DAMÁSDI; RÓBERT GULYÁS; ÁGOTA MELINDA KERESZTESI-ANGI; ANDRÁS KÉKI; BALÁZS MÓSER; GYÖRGYI PÜSPÖKI; TAMÁS TOLVAJ; KATA ZIH. TIHANY DESIGN: ADAM D. TIHANY; MARCO BARONE. CRISTINA MENOTTI: GRAPHICS/BRANDING CONSULTANT. JVL STUDIO: LIGHTING CONSULTANT. HYDRASTAT: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. BORD HVAC ENGINEERING: MEP. ARTDOT: MILLWORK.

ERTL BÚTOR: CUSTOM DESK (RECEPTION). ARTISAN: STOOLS (RESTAURANT, BAR), CHAIRS (RESTAURANT). PORADA: CUSTOM TABLES (RESTAURANT). VERY WOOD: HIGH TABLE (RESTAURANT), CHAIRS (TASTING ROOM). UNOPIÙ: CHAIRS, TABLES (TERRACES). VERASCHIN: CIRCULAR SOFAS. CASAMANCE: SEATING UPHOLSTERY. TUUCI: UMBRELLAS. ATELIER VIERKANT: PLANTERS. APPARATUS: SCONCES (TASTING ROOM). THROUGHOUT FOGLIZZO 1921; MOORE & GILES: LEATHER UPHOLSTERY. GC: PAINT.

Modular ‘Boxes’ Define This German Corporate Office

2024 Best of Year Winner for Large Corporate Office

The Hanover, Germany, corporate headquarters for automotive-components giant Continental accommodates 2,400 employees in two clusters of interlinked, steel-and-glass buildings connected by a road-spanning bridge by architecture studio Henn. Work areas, cafeterias, and a restaurant—162,000 square feet in all—were assigned to Ippolito Fleitz, which developed a proprietary modular, room-in-room system that responds flexibly to the requirements of the individual departments and facilities. These “boxes” come in a variety of sizes, configurations, and specifications, from telephone booths to large conference rooms, as well as alcoves, seating niches, arenas, and lounges. Each area’s modules, workstations, and furnishings are arranged as a unique landscape tailored to the needs and preferences of its occupants, whether for work or downtime.

PROJECT TEAM: CHRISTIAN BECHTLE; WOLFRAM SCHNEIDER (HENN); ARSEN ALIVERDIIEV; MICHAEL BERTRAM; KERSTIN EL-KHAWAD; GUNTER FLEITZ; LISA HOLLER; LETICIA HUTCHINGS; PETER IPPOLITO; CHRISTIANE KLINNER; SUSANN KREPLIN; FRANK LAKMANN; TIM LESSMANN; ELEONORA MANNISI; THOMAS MURA; MARIA CRISTINA ORIZZONTE; EVA PEREZ; JANA STUMPE; BRADLEY WHEELER; ELISABED ZAUTASHVILI (IPPOLITO FLEITZ GROUP).

Discover A Grand Budapest Hotel Imbued With Modern Ambience

2024 Best of Year Winner for Large Hotel Transformation

The 216-key Dorothea Hotel in Budapest, Hungary, spans three adjacent buildings of varying dates and styles—1873 Neo-Renaissance, 1913 Art Nouveau, and 1937 Modernist. The project team restored the historic facades and also created a unified 355,000-square-foot interior that harmoniously blends heritage and modern elements, including a new glass-enclosed penthouse floor. The public spaces in the oldest building exemplify Lissoni Casal Ribeiro’s approach, preserving the grandeur of the volumes while imbuing them with a distinctly 21st-century and, at times, ironic ambience. This is achieved through witty touches like juxtaposing the entry’s monumental Doric columns with a series of contemporary photographic portraits by Zoltán Tombor that playfully reinterpret traditional styles and customs.

PROJECT TEAM: PIERO LISSONI; MIGUEL CASAL RIBEIRO; MATTIA SUSANI; RICARDO HERNANDEZ; FRANCESCO DE MATTEIS; FRANCESCO SCHIAVARIELLO; TANIA ZANEBONI; RODRIGO TELLEZ ACOSTA; ROBERTO BERTICELLI; GRETA ANDREONI; ALEJANDRA CORREDOR; RICCARDO ACCETTA; ILIA D’EMILIO; MARCO GOTTARDI; DAVID POULIOT; ALESSANDRO MASSI MAURI; ALBERTO MASSI MAURI; ALESSANDRO GRASSO; MATTEO CANDIANI; LORENZO VOLPATO.

This Design Duo’s Lisbon Apartment Is A Study In Ceramics

“It’s about materiality, too,” Garcé continues, “using marble, stone, wood, and ceramic.” The last is particularly important, appearing as massive sculptural legs on the Mimi coffee table, for example, or as wall tiles with a painterly glaze—developed with artist-potter Lígia Guedes—in the kitchen. Similar tiles in a larger format are used as baseboards in the dining room. The clay is locally sourced, as is the chest­nut that tops the coffee table, composes the chunky Hélios sofa, or panels a wall in the study. Local design and art includes a Studio Haos aluminum dining table and several Pedro Batista paintings, while Korean American talent Minjae Kim, a frequent collaborator, is represented by characterful chairs, tables, and lighting that epitomize the apartment-gallery’s creatively eclectic spirit. 

Ceramic Details Abound In Olivier Garcé and Clio Dimofski’s Lisbon Home

Embrace Streamline Moderne Architecture In This Sydney Home

Battered by the Great Depression, the 1930’s public escaped into the sleekly glamorous, white-telephone world of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals. Those and similarly art-directed American movies helped popularize Streamline Moderne architecture globally, and the aspirational style’s rounded edges, smooth surfaces, and curvilinear forms were often seen in residential and commercial properties from Beirut to Buenos Aires. In Sydney, too, where designer Greg Natale recently got to revamp a house dating from the swing era, a two-story structure with a contoured stucco exterior that still retains a feeling of creamy swellegance.

In fact, this was Natale’s second bite at the apple. A dozen years ago, his eponymous firm completed a major redesign of what was then a two-apartment building on a compact site in Bellevue Hill, a leafy suburb, transforming it into a 3,600-square-foot, single-family home. This required structural changes, including the creation of a sunken living room and the addition of several Juliet balconies, each accessed by multipane French doors. Taking cues from the original terra-cotta roof, for the interior, Natale channeled another, slightly later movie-inspired aesthetic: Hollywood Regency. “It was all black and white with pops of color,” he reports, referring to such style signifiers as checkerboard marble flooring, Chippendale-Chinoiserie dining chairs lacquered red, and blue-and-white dragon-patterned vases. “There was a lot of painted wood paneling and crown moldings, too,” he adds, noting that the spaces were above all rectilinear. Much published, the eye-catching project became an exemplar of Natale’s signature style.

Greg Natale Channels Hollywood Regency In This Sydney Residence

In 2020, socialite Eleni Taylor bought the house for herself and her two teenage children. “The property checked a lot of boxes for her,” Natale says. “Not too big, in the right location, and it had a swimming pool.” However, while the new homeowner loved the high ceilings and overall feel of the interior, she sought a softer, more feminine look that would bring the curves of the exterior indoors. Taylor, who has Greek heritage, envisioned the kind of pared-down, seamlessly fluid spaces found in Cycladic architecture. “Even though I hadn’t done a project like that before, Eleni got in touch with me,” Natale continues. “After meeting our team, she felt confident we could achieve what she had in mind, so she hired us.”

Once again, Natale gutted the place and started from scratch, which was a first for him. “I’ve gone back to projects to add rooms or layers to what we’ve already done,” he explains. “But here was a great chance to reinvent myself as a designer.” Apart from reconfiguring and slightly extending the second floor, which now comprises four bedrooms and three bathrooms, there were few structural changes (the garden-level kitchen and living, dining, and media rooms were not relocated). Outside, the balconies’ painted-ironwork balustrades are new, as are the simplified single-pane French doors and some other fenestration, including four glass-block windows on the ground floor. However, the interior envelope is all but unrecognizable: Its moldings, paneling, and ornamentation are gone, its straight edges and angular corners replaced with sinuous lines, swelling forms, and arching portals. Finished throughout with a natural-clay plaster that gives the walls and ceilings a silky tactility, the lofty living spaces are at once organic and pristine, suggesting a light-filled, soigné version of Ali Baba’s cave.

Spotlight On A Star-Worthy Home

In something of an “open sesame” moment, entering the custom bronze front door reveals a new showstopping sculptural staircase that ascends in a flowing arc to the private family quarters. Adding to the effect, the entry hall is paved with slabs of Patagonia Verde quartzite, a Brazilian stone awash with bold sea-green and smoke-gray swirls. “The colors remind Eleni of the beach,” Natale says of the flooring, which sets the stage for another of the home’s signature elements: the extensive use of marble in a variety of dramatic patterns and hues, enlivening the otherwise muted palette. “The client likes color, but she loves marble,” the designer discloses. “From day one, we knew it was going to be full-slab bathrooms.” These include moody, emerald-tone Verdi Alpi in the powder room, and jadelike Arcadia that wraps one of the bathrooms upstairs. Taylor was so enamored of Breccia Capraia, a Carrara marble with veins of delicate pink, inky purple, and charcoal gray splashed across a white background, that she imported a wealth of the striking stone from Italy. Now it not only clads the kitchen countertops, island, backsplash, and vent hood but also appears in the main bathroom: on the floor, lining the long, windowed shower cubicle, and as a backdrop wall for the custom vanity, a massive double-sink unit made of the same material.

Along with marble and plaster, the principal material is American oak. The blond wood is used for the chevron-patterned flooring throughout, as well as the minimalist kitchen cabinetry and the handsome millwork in the two kids’ bedrooms, including a built-in desk with round travertine drawer pulls in the son’s study area. Gio Ponti’s 1931 Bilia table lamp sits on the work surface, which is served by Grant and Mary Featherston’s circa 1960 Scape chair—two pieces created 30 years apart but sharing the spirit of 20th-century modernism that pervades the house. Other furnishings, which range from mid-century classics like Warren Platner’s steel-rod lounge chair and Vladimir Kagan’s slinky Serpentine sofa in the living room to contemporary pieces like Lara Bohinc’s space-age Orbit chairs and Marco Pagnoncelli’s flying-saucer Masai pendant fixtures in the dining room, also exude the aura of eternal youth epitomized by Fred and Ginger and their streamlined world.

Inside A Showstopping Home By Greg Natale

GREG NATALE: VICTOR WONG; GEORGA GOODWIN. UNITEX: CEMENT WORK. LUSSO VENETIAN FINISHES: PLASTERWORK. CLEVER BUILT CONSTRUCTIONS: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

FROM FRONTKNOLL: LOUNGE CHAIR (LIVING ROOM). SEM: COCKTAIL TABLE. BAXTER: SIDE TABLE. ARTILLERIET: EASY CHAIR. CHRISTOPHERBOOTS: SMALL PENDANT FIX­TURES (LIVING ROOM, POWDER ROOM). APPARATUS: SCONCE (LIVING ROOM), PENDANT FIXTURE (KITCHEN). DIMOREMILANO: MULTILEG SIDE TABLE (LIVING ROOM), ARMCHAIR (MAIN BEDROOM). THROUGH 1STDIBS: VINTAGE SOFA, MIRROR (LIVING ROOM), VINTAGE GLASS TABLE (KITCHEN), VINTAGE TABLE (DINING ROOM). ICONE LUCE: PENDANT FIX­TURES (LIVING ROOM, DINING ROOM, MAIN BEDROOM). TANIKA JELLIS: CERAMIC SIDE TABLE (LIVING ROOM, SECOND BATHROOM). ANNA CHARLESWORTH: PENDANT FIXTURE (ENTRY). BOHINC STUDIO: CHAIRS (ENTRY, DINING ROOM). ESSENTIAL HOME: BARSTOOLS (KITCHEN). INSTYLE: STOOL LEATHER. ALIAS DESIGN: ARMCHAIR. LO & CO INTERIORS: CABINETRY HARDWARE (KITCHEN, SON’S BEDROOM). VISUAL COMFORT & CO.: SCONCES (SECOND BATH­ROOM, HALLWAY). GLASS BRICK COMPANY: GLASS BLOCK (DINING ROOM). MEEK BATH­WARE: TUB (MAIN BATHROOM). ARTÌCOLO STUDIOS: PENDANT FIXTURE. GRAZIA & CO: CHAIR (SON’S BEDROOM). FONTANAARTE: TABLE LAMP. GREG NATALE: MARBLE VASES. B&B ITALIA: BED (MAIN BEDROOM). KANTTARI: NIGHTSTANDS. THROUGH CONLEY & CO: VIN­TAGE TABLE LAMPS. GIOBAGNARA: SIDE TABLE. KELLY WEARSTLER: RUG. THROUGHOUTASTRA WALKER: BATHROOM SINKS, TUB, SHOWER FITTINGS. DESIGNER RUGS: CUSTOM RUGS. TONGUE & GROOVE: ENGINEERED OAK FLOORING. DULUX: PAINT.

How Charlotte Culot Reimagines Rugs As Abstract Masterpieces

Charlotte Culot’s Rugs Capture the Essence of Southern France

Interior Design: After years of collage painting, what led you to start designing rugs?

Charlotte Culot: Back in 2017, at a Tadao Ando–designed art pavilion near Aix-en-Provence, I saw a tapestry by Le Corbusier on a wall and thought, Wow! So, I started making tapestries. In 2022, my business partner Hannah Vagedes and I founded Maison Rhizomes in Berlin as a studio for hand-knotted art rugs. We collaborate with skillful work­shops in Nepal and India, using Tibetan wool and Chinese silk that are hand-dyed on-site. Each rug is produced in a limited edition of 22.

ID: You call them ‘rugs,’ but wouldn’t it be more accurate to say you’re using a knotted-rug technique to achieve a tapestry effect?

CC: Yes, that’s why I often refer to them as ‘art rugs’ or ‘tapestries.’ Early on, our customers decided to hang them on the wall like paintings rather than put them on the floor. They start as micro-size collages, about 11 by 13 inches. Sometimes one of these hits the eye as a fantastic rug pattern, one that works no matter which way you turn it. (As one of my favorite artists, Nicolas de Staël, noted, a good painting should work just as well hung upside down.) So that acts as our maquette, and we recreate the layered, textured collage effect with different heights of pile—you can touch them and feel the difference.

ID: Why the name Maison Rhizomes?

CC: A rhizome is a plant stem that grows horizontally underground, generating new shoots and roots. It’s a symbol that perfectly embodies our connection to nature. By adding ‘maison,’ we’re signaling our commitment to offering artists a nurturing space to translate their paintings into a new medium.

ID: It’s quite noticeable that the rugs are very painterly. Who are the artists you admire and how have they influenced you?

CC: When I started painting, I really liked Matisse, particularly the way he framed his compositions because I was also interested in photography. I’ve used gouache since I was a child, so I was mesmer­ized by his cutouts and the way the cutting makes the medium jazzy. Acrylics and oils don’t interest me nearly as much. Following Matisse, I began painting white wallpaper with gouache, tearing it into pieces—déchirer, as we say—enjoying the energy of the moment.

ID: That’s an interesting difference from Matisse, who used scissors.

CC: I like irregularity and accidents, a bit of craziness. I’m also drawn to American color field painters like Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, and Joan Mitchell, who’s probably my favorite. And then there are Russian-born French artists like de Staël, Sonia Delaunay, and Serge Poliakoff—I feel I really understand what they try to express. 

ID: You split your time between Brittany and Provence. Many of the rugs seem to embody the sunny essence of Southern France, like the paintings of Pierre Bonnard.

CC: Bonnard is probably not as well-known as he should be, but if I had to choose one French painter, it would definitely be him—he’s really my chouchou. He allowed me to assemble colors that normally don’t work together, turquoise with pink with yellow with orange and so on. Color is really energy. If you scuba dive, you’re always surprised by what you meet. With colors, it’s the same: endless, infinite. Like Bonnard, you can spend a lifetime assembling them. 

ID: You’re also a serious equestrian who keeps horses. How does that relate to your artwork?

CC: Nature is my soul, my base. I couldn’t do what I’m doing creatively if I wasn’t connected to nature. I spend a lot of time in my head, so I need to ground myself. My horses help me do that—it’s all part of the journey, I would say. 

Fulfill A Sweet Tooth With Studio Yellowdot’s Creations

Studio Yellowdot On Their Deliciously Sweet Ceramics, Furnishings, and More 

Interior Design: What are your individual perspectives on design, and how do you combine them?

Bodin Hon: I’m more technical, asking if something is feasible. And I like to invent things, so there’s technology as well. I look at new materials and mechanisms to create different types of surprises.

Dilara Kan Hon: Coming from an art background, I’m interested in spontaneity and being aware of what I’m feeling: I feel like this is the right color, I feel like this is the form we should use. From the start, Bodin would say, “Prove it,” something nobody had really demanded of me before. It was a big challenge, but it taught us both how to discuss our ideas, how to put them together.

BH: We start with sketches or some material, followed by plenty of back-and-forth critiquing until we’re both happy. In the beginning, we did many self-driven projects that could sit around for months until we found the right solution. With clients, we have to be quicker.

ID: An early piece, the Jelly table lamp, is like a cake stand serving up a treat. How did that evolve?

DKH: One day we were making jello and realized we could use the same silicone mold for resin, which we’d been experimenting with. We ended up with solid “jellies” that we needed to find a use for. A lamp was the answer. When you touch the metal base, the light dims.

ID: You also use resin with recycled eggshells for the Hatch pendant fixture. Tell us about that.

BH: We discovered that used eggshells, washed and set in resin, form a thin, strong, lightweight matrix. The material is translucent, which gave us the idea of developing it into a pendant light. It takes three or four hours to handcraft the circular diffuser, putting the right size eggshells in piece by piece, kind of like baking a pizza.

ID: Eggs of another sort inspired the cylindrical Ova Pink cabinet, right?

DKH: I wanted to create something that symbolized my origins, the seeds from which I grew. There’s a traditional handwoven fabric called kutnu from Gaziantep, a town I used to visit as a child. Then, in a Hong Kong park, I saw the bright-pink egg clusters of an apple snail, and I merged them with my cultural seeds in the cabinet, which is covered with 540 handsewn kutnu balls. It’s about 67 inches tall—bigger than me!

ID: How did you come up with the Checkered bench’s attention-grabbing pattern?

BH: The American Hardwood Export Council commissioned “future heirlooms” from seven emerging Turkish designers. There were three woods to choose from; we took cherry and maple. Games like backgammon and chess are very popular here, so we turned a checkerboard into a piece of furniture assembled from CNC-cut solid-wood blocks. There’s a custom set of chessmen, too, so people can enjoy impromptu matches.

ID: Where did the idea for your Patisserie tile for Gorbon Ceramics come from?

DKH: The brief was to present a new collection at Maison&Objet. It was our first time working with ceramic, so visiting the factory with its giant kilns, clay mixing machines, and racks of hot ceramics was special. It was like being in a big bakery where everything looked colorful and yummy. Right there we thought, Why not treat the project as making baked goods for a pastry shop in Paris? In the end, we created a whole confectionery store, all from ceramic.

ID: What’s next?

DKH: We’re working more with eggshell and developing some furniture pieces. Also, we’re designing our wonderful new apartment in a beautiful historic area of Istanbul.

This Sydney Home Offers An Innovative Solution To The Local Climate

Living in Sydney means waking most mornings to a harbor city bathed in brilliant sunshine under cloudless blue skies. As glorious as the daylight is, it can also be intense and unrelenting—a natural phenomenon to be savored and managed, both a gift and a challenge. A recent project by New Zealand architects Fearon Hay—a 10,800-square-foot, three-level residence on Sydney Harbour’s Rose Bay—balances these needs with virtuosic ease, celebrating the outdoor lifestyle while offering sheltered relief from harsher environmental realities.

“The brief was to replace an existing house on a sloped site crowded by neighbors,” says firm director Jeff Fearon, who along with codirector Tim Hay, led the project. “We retained a lot of established trees and heavy vegetation, especially around the perimeter, so that the new house sits in a mature garden.” That effort provides privacy from adjoining properties while creating a lushly planted, gently descending pathway from the street to the dwelling, which nestles discreetly amidst the greenery as if it has always been there.

Comprising two stories above an expansive basement, the substantial post-tensioned concrete and steel-beam structure pairs a reassuring sense of solidity with a disarming feeling of lightness. This effect is largely due to a series of rain screens that sheathe three sides of the house. “Early on, we thought about how to make the skin robust but with a delicacy to it,” Hay explains. A solution suggested itself on-site when a sample of stone cladding, held up to the tree-dappled light, turned translucent, giving the material a subtle, layered, yet dynamic quality the architects knew they could use. Hence the gridded screens, thin panels of onyx mounted in frames of blackened stainless steel, that cover the back and sides of the building, transforming the fiercest sunlight into a warm, soft glow illuminating the interior.

The clients, a couple in the hospitality industry with adolescent children, needed a flexible residence that functioned as an intimate family home but could also accommodate large, diverse gatherings of 100 people or more. “The process of understanding the extent of those variations of occupation were quite critical in the planning,” Hay acknowledges. On the ground floor, where most of the living and entertaining takes place, Fearon Hay eschewed a completely open plan. But rather than defining the main spaces—formal sitting and dining rooms plus a media lounge and a social kitchen—as individual cells with doorways, the architects used materials, glazing, and other contained elements to demarcate specific areas.

A large, sequestered courtyard bifurcates the east-facing rear of the house, bringing light and greenery into the center of the plan. “Getting morning sunbeams in the kitchen was critical,” Fearon notes. Balancing the garden side’s sense of serene remove, a broad open terrace runs the full length of the west facade, providing outdoor living space along with a gobsmacking panorama of the city and harbor. Newly excavated in the sandstone bedrock, the basement contains a guest apartment, wine room, gym, utility spaces, and garage, while four bedrooms and an office occupy the top floor. A spiral staircase and an elevator connect the three levels.

Light animates the onyx panels that shield the house, but another type of stone—Ceppo di Gré, a bluish-gray sedimentary rock with a terrazzolike pattern—paves the courtyard, terrace, and most of the ground floor, instilling a mood of monumental calm while further connecting indoors and out. Designer Penny Hay, whose eponymous studio oversaw the interiors (her second project with the clients), used the same stone to clad the kitchen island and several architecturally scaled elements throughout the house. “In choosing materials,” she says, “we really consider how they make people feel special and inspired, how they help navigate the spaces, and how they elevate the day-to-day experience of living in the home.”

To counter the hardness of the glass, steel, and stone, she introduced a number of softer, more tactile elements, including velvet-upholstered sofas and daybeds in the sitting room; a curvy velvet-covered banquette in the breakfast area; and a set of plush chairs on the dining terrace. Not to mention the custom grand piano, a sculptural form in striking honey-colored oak that, unexpectedly, sits next to the kitchen island. “It took a lot of back and forth with the suppliers to get the wood right,” reports Hay, who is Tim Hay’s sister. “It certainly wasn’t a piece meant to be locked away in a room somewhere.”

Stained oak-plank flooring replaces stone to help define three ground-level spaces—the sitting, dining, and media rooms—complemented by plaster ceilings that are darker than those in the surrounding areas, producing a subtle change in mood. There are theatrical touches, too, such as a gleaming polished-bronze light sculpture by Niamh Barry above the custom dining table, a slab of Blue Roma marble with distinctive veining that echoes the mottled onyx panels shading the fully glazed side wall. A similar wall fronts one end of the high-ceilinged powder room, which is outfitted with a massive Ceppo sink and a free-form bronze-framed mirror. “The space has a beautiful quality, even though it has no view,” Fearon notes. “While you don’t see the street and trees outside, the diffused light creates a sense of movement behind the onyx, giving a kind of layering and depth to the interior.” Which sums up the project’s multifaceted program nicely.

Walk Through This Modern Home in Sydney Designed by Fearon Hay

PROJECT TEAM

PIERS KAY; VANESSA MORRISON; GORDON GALLAGHER: FEARON HAY. VANESSA McNAUGHT: PENNY HAY. STUDIO CD: ART CONSULTANT. PAUL BANGAY: LANDSCAPE CONSULTANT. ELECTROLIGHT: LIGHTING CONSULTANT. ARCADIS; VAN DER MEER; WSP: STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS. BUILDCOM AUSTRALIA: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

PRODUCT SOURCES

FROM FRONT MOLTENI&C: SOFAS (SITTING ROOM). MINOTTI: DAYBEDS. ROOMS STUDIO: TRIPLE BENCH (ENTRY GALLERY). STAUER: CUSTOM PIANO. BOFFI: CABINETRY (KITCHEN). PAOLA LENTI: DINING TABLE, CHAIRS (TERRACE). FLEXFORM: SOFAS (TERRACE, MEDIA LOUNGE). MICHAEL ANASTASSIADES: FLOOR LAMP (MEDIA LOUNGE). NIAMH BARRY: PENDANT FIXTURE (DINING ROOM). GIORGETTI: CHAIRS. WITTMANN: BANQUETTE (BREAKFAST AREA). POLTRONA FRAU: CHAIRS. HENRY WILSON: TABLE LAMP. LINEN SOCIETY: BEDDING (BEDROOM). THROUGH CARPENTERS WORKSHOP GALLERY: MIRROR (POWDER ROOM). THROUGHOUT FABINOX: CUSTOM FACADE SCREENS. EURO NATURAL STONE: ONYX. ECO OUTDOOR: CEPPO DI GRÉ STONE.

Hotel Style Meets Workplace Smarts At Hyatt’s Zurich HQ

Hotel style meets workplace smarts in Hyatt at the Circle, the hotelier’s corporate office at Zurich Airport by Studio Alexander Fehre. Housed in the largest LEED Platinum–certified complex in Europe, by Pritzker Architecture Prize–winner Riken Yamamoto, that includes two Hyatt hotels, the 16,150-square-foot, ninth-floor project offers its 80 employees a business environment infused with hospitality aesthetics and amenities, via single offices, open collaborative spaces, contemplative retreat areas, and a large open kitchen. Enclosed with curved glass walls, meeting rooms have thick curtains for privacy when needed, while circulation zones are minimized by adding seating nooks, enlivening otherwise dead spots with real functionality.

The materials and color palettes reinforce the five-star vibe. Augmented by swaths of carpet, blond oak parquet in a polygonal pattern covers the floor, creating a warm glow underfoot that’s echoed by paneling and cabinetry in the same wood. Velvety fabrics in inky blues and purples upholster seating alcoves, offsetting the pale timber, as do the sunset hues of DUM stools or the metallic gleam of Graypants pendant fixtures—a mix of playfulness and elegance that, as Alexander Fehre notes, “brings that special hotel flair to the office.”

Tour This Hyatt Office With Five-Star Vibes