Ghislaine Viñas Co-Designs Andra Hem, an Atypical B&B

If you can survive the 2-hour line to get into Andra Hem, Philadelphia’s chicest new night spot, you’re in for a rather delicious cocktail. The recipe: An ounce of hotel, a teaspoon of art, a twist of bar, a shot of lounge. Shake vigorously! Pour over ice and garnish with honey from the rooftop bee farm. Who is the crafty mixologist behind this spirited typological concoction? Why, it’s New York designer Ghislaine Viñas, teaming with her longtime friend and client/muse, art collector and dealer Paige West. The creative partners in crime have collaborated on too-many-to-count endeavors over just as many years. “Paige and I have been working together forever,” Viñas happily affirms. “One day we’re gonna be little old ladies, still designing projects.”

Let’s hope so! Each joint effort gets more intriguing. This 7,700-square-foot, four-story property, for instance, encompasses an intimate bilevel bar and, above, two one-bedroom floor-through suites. Although Andra Hem is the pair’s first full-on hospitality venture, the typology is not entirely without precedent: West makes an art form of giving her houseguests the hotel treatment. “It’s how Paige hosts friends and family,” Viñas notes of the Philadelphia native. “There’s always a minibar in the guest bedroom, a signature cocktail, branded towels, and things like that. It’s what spins her wheels.”

Envisioning the Design of Andra Hem, a Bar With Guest Suites Above

Artful Accents and Custom Designs Create an Inviting Interior

That goes for the décor as well, starting with the artwork that hangs behind the ground-floor bar, an 1800’s portrait from West’s private collection that lacked provenance so had minimal market value. The two had the canvas doctored with a layer of painted-on iconography—a bee, flowers, stylized waves—by Mark Mulroney, another frequent collaborator. (His quirkily surrealist murals also embellish the bar’s restrooms.) That retro-meets-futurist mashup encapsulates the entire project. “We juxtaposed a very traditional Swedish architecture layer with these wacky elements that tie into the overall narrative,” Viñas explains. Firmly in the trad column is the custom wall paneling, a concentric-square relief pattern based on one they’d encountered in an ancient Stockholm restaurant. In the wacky column, meanwhile, is Kim Alsbrooks’s framed miniature portraits painted on crushed beer cans. Lying somewhere in between classic and wack-tastic are David Trubridge’s swirly bentwood pendant globe upstairs, which call to mind barber poles or maybe sinister hard candy. “I get butterflies when I see those lights,” Viñas says. “Something about them ties back to a childhood memory I can’t quite place. I have a very beautiful emotional connection to these.”

The two floors of the bar are a pas de deux of similarity and difference. Viñas used the same furniture, paneling, and floral wallpaper on both levels, but altered the color palette (peacock-blue downstairs, mustard-and-black upstairs). She performed the same sleight of hand in the stacked suites, which share an identical layout and furniture plan but feature different fabrics—all bowl-you-over botanicals by mid-century Swedish icon Josef Frank. The trippy DayGlo-toned linen tenting the fourth-floor suite’s bedroom is Viñas’s favorite. “I could just stare at it all day; it’s so vibrant and exquisite.”

The riot of color and pattern that unifies the petite property is both a constant in Vinas’s work yet something of a departure. “I love when things clash, especially in small rooms,” she says. “Here, I really pushed for things to live together that shouldn’t, which was hard for me to do, because my design is so much about control.” It was worth it, she adds. “I loved being pushed outside my comfort zone.” All in the interest of putting guests into theirs, of course.

A Closer Look at the Colorful Cocktail Bar

Inside the Guest Suites at Andra Hem

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Ghislaine Viñas: jenna pino; jaime viñas; lauren mercuri; ashika amarnath

Stokes Architecture + Design: architect of record

bold lighting: lighting design

west collection: art consultant

harmony contract furniture: custom furniture workshop

coil + drift: glass pendant fixtures (blue bar)

vescom: curtain fabric

flavor paper: wallpaper

schumacher: banquette fabric

collector: custom tables (bars)

joss & main: ottomans

amazon: table lamps (yellow/black bar)

contardi: fabric pendant fixtures (blue bar), bedside lamps (suites)

lumen 8: custom sconce (exterior)

signs visual industries: custom plaque

imagine tile: custom tile (bath­room)

grout 360: custom grout

kjartan oskarsson studio: custom mirrors

fantini: sink fittings

schoolhouse: cabinet hardware

p.e. guerin: sink fittings (restroom)

established & sons: yellow pendant fixtures (suite)

david trubridge: pendant globes (yellow/black bar)

Wolf Gordon: custom wallpaper (lobby)

georgia lacey interiors: custom desk (suite)

through 1stdibs: desk lamp

ligne roset: sofa

Blu Dot: coffee table

kardiel: ottomans

kasthall: custom rug

design public group: white pendant fixture

57st. design: custom nightstands, custom media console (suites)

svenskt tenn: wallcovering, ottoman fabric

benjamin moore & co.: paint

designtex; hbf textiles: seating fabric

beautiful bed company: beds

Belzberg Architects Designs a Multigenerational Jewish Community Facility With Ocean Views in Los Angeles

Amid the dive bars, fast-food joints, and tattoo stands populating a funky stretch of the famed Venice boardwalk stands a luminescent jewel: BAR Center at the Beach, a community facility that’s part of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Its bright-white, three-dimensional facade, the work of Belzberg Architects, is aglow day and night like a sculptural installation amid towering palm trees backdropped by the Pacific Ocean. Technically, the project is a renovation, since the building originated in 1927. But in the supremely talented hands of BA—specifically founding partner and Interior Design Hall of Fame member Hagy Belzberg and principals Lindsey Sherman Contento, Barry Gartin, and Kristofer Leese—it’s essentially a new-build.

Constructed first as a dance hall, the structure was expanded in the ’50’s with a second floor for housing, which, according to folklore, was utilized as a brothel. In 1964, the pendulum swung the other way with the building transitioning into the Israel Levin Senior Center, a haven for the area’s aging population, particularly its numerous Jews. In 1994, the Northridge earthquake severely damaged the second floor, necessitating its removal. Which is what ultimately brought the project to Belzberg and his team in 2013, leading to its recent completion this summer. “Part of the reason it took so long is that it was donor-funded,” Belzberg takes up the narrative, referring to contributors Bennett and Allison Rosenthal, the center’s namesakes. There were also the complexities resulting from the various “add-ons that created a Frankenstein’s Monster of a building,” Gartin recalls.

But any visitor walking by who steps inside the airy, light-filled volume would never know it. “It’s a jewel box,” Sherman Contento says of the center, which, among various other activities, offers yoga classes. “It’s a little building programmed to do a lot,” Belzberg continues. Community is the core mission. BAR is conceived as a multigenerational institution bringing together the old and the young through events and activities, both spiritual and physical. Its reach is projected to extend past Venice to greater L.A.’s Jewish community at large. In keeping with the neighborhood’s history, however, the doors are open to everyone, regardless of religion. “50 years ago, Venice was a rich cultural mosaic and a center of diversity when the rest of L.A. was segregated in an ugly fashion,” continues Belzberg, whose firm also designed an addition to the Holocaust Museum LA and the USC Shoah Foundation.

While retaining the same mandated footprint, BA rebuilt the center’s second story and added another level, bringing the now three-floor structure to 7,000 square feet. Reorganizing spatial configurations, reception, a spacious community room, and a commercial kitchen have been allocated to the ground floor. Classrooms, flex spaces, and a library are on two; they open to a new roof deck that the firm built on top of the community room and outfitted with an angular, chuppah-reminiscent trellis to provide shade from the SoCal sun. The top level is a three-bedroom apartment that provides free housing for recent college grads in exchange for them leading on-site activities between senior and younger Jews—a first for community centers within the federation.

Interior finishes are durable while evoking a beachy vibe. BA newly wrapped the brick envelope with white fiber-reinforced concrete mesh, except for swaths on all the elevations, which are now glazed. Flooring is pale wood-look vinyl planks or sand-colored porcelain tile. A slatted-oak screen forms an entry canopy around the reception desk, its surfacing a triangular pattern of laminates in graphic white, gray, and metallic. In the adjacent community room, the slatted wood transitions into an acoustical ceiling system of more triangles. The roof trellis is another composition of triangles. Clearly, the shape is integral to the project. Extrapolated from the Star of David, it is the firm’s subtle reference to Judaism. Sustainability was a factor, too. “Making use of its coastal ad­jacency,” Belzberg notes, BA installed operable windows for natural ventilation as well as energy-efficient appliances and fixtures.

Yet BAR’s undisputed standout is the facade—one that bravely sidesteps the Venice norm. “Typically, projects here integrate with the fabric. This does not,” Belzberg explains. “It’s meant to attract people and not disappear.” Its dimensional aspect comes from steel-framed panels of aluminum powder-coated white. Utilizing four software programs to devise the pattern, the six panel types are, again, triangular in form and mounted on a hexagonal base. They join a glass curtain wall patterned via a sandwiched laminate. The world being what it is today, the glass is ballistic, and the aluminum is treated with an anti-graffiti coating; should vandalism occur, panels can be removed and replaced. “We were posed with a paradox: How to make it open and community-based, yet secure,” Sherman Contento comments.

Combined, the elements form an abstracted Star of David in varying scales, as does the glazing pattern. At night, it’s all backlit by a system of color-changing LEDs. It’s not immediately identifiable, but, as Leese says, “If you look for it, you can see it.”

belzberg architects: jennifer wu; josh hanley; jessica hong

rsm design: custom graphics

nous engineering: structural engineer

novus design studio: mep

kimley-horn: civil engi­neer

pulp studios: glasswork

del amo: general contractor

allemuir: chairs (community room)

Steelcase: tables

koncept: pendant fixtures

Wilsonart: desk surfac­ing (reception)

vistosi: pendant fixtures

vib: floor tile (deck)

landscape forms: tables

studio tk: stools, chairs

Blu Dot: coffee table, lounge chairs, sofa (apartment)

source international: stools

pablo design: pendant fixtures

arktura: custom facade, custom windows

wow: facade tile

ceilings plus: ceiling systems, entry screen

sound-tec: vinyl floor tile

architectural surfaces: porcelain tile

premier steel structures; jea bim structural steel detailing: custom roof trellis

Jennifer Kolstad and Ghafari Associates Propel the Ford Experience Center in Michigan into the Future

2022 Best of Year Winner for Office Transformation

Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903 and today is one of the biggest car companies in the world. Despite its long history, Ford is focused squarely on the future, developing new technologies like smart infrastructure and self-driving vehicles. Yet for over 20 years, the main events facility at its headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, was a dark and uninviting concrete structure. Company executives sought to reimagine it as a cutting-edge “front door” to the 600-acre campus, which itself is being overhauled under a master plan by Snøhetta. They turned to Jennifer Kolstad, the in-house global design and brand director, and her 20-person team to renovate the 1998 building and transform it into the Ford Experience Center, or FXC.

Ford’s leaders envisioned the FXC as a dynamic hospitality-inspired hub for employees, car dealers, and major customers. It would have flexible event spaces, conference rooms, a café, and hot-desking, plus an on-site design lab where employees could work with clients like the City of Los Angeles to customize and prototype police vehicles. The FXC is also meant to reflect a new company-wide emphasis on innovation and collaboration. Positioned across the street from the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, the FXC symbolizes “Ford future facing Ford past,” Kolstad notes. Her design encompasses aspects of both.

Kolstad worked on the 95,000-square-foot project with Ghafari Associates, which served as the architect of record but also designed major elements of the interior and helped with the selection of furnishings. Together, the two teams completely transformed the existing two-story building, keeping only its structure and oval shape. “Even though the space is similar to what it was, an event center, we had to take it to the next level,” architect and Ghafari director of design Andrew Cottrell recalls. The goal was to create an environment that felt open and transparent. “Ford wishes to be the most trusted company in the world, and architecture can help that along,” Kolstad adds.

To start, the concrete walls were out. Ford and Ghafari re-skinned the facade with electrochromic glass that brings ample light to the interior but can also tint for shade. Kolstad, who was a principal at HKS before joining Ford in 2019, brought a focus on wellness and human-centered design to the project. She incorporated two green walls in the café, called the Hive, and ensured that even enclosed rooms have natural light and views of the surrounding lawns. She also integrated the building into the landscape: Terraces allow for events to flow outdoors, and the central corridor aligns with the front door of the Henry Ford Museum.

The FXC showcases the future of automobiles, but it’s grounded in Ford’s history. “The building speaks to the legacy of the company through its use of museum-quality materials,” Kolstad explains. “If the foundation is solid and well-executed, the brand can breathe and take on its own life.” In the central forum, polished white-terrazzo flooring and oak stadium seating form a timeless backdrop for what is in fact a high-tech, production-ready space. At the touch of a button, the lighting can change to suit a cocktail party, presentation, or launch event, and cars rotate on a turntable in the floor. Overhead, a sculpted white ceiling of acoustical plaster conceals lighting and mechanical systems, with cuts that mirror the lines in the terrazzo floor. “We had to coordinate myriad things to make the ceiling look seamless,” Cottrell says.

Like the building, the forum is the shape of the Ford logo: an oval. “You won’t see the logo anywhere, but you’re literally inside the Ford oval,” Kolstad says. “The space tells the company’s story in a subtle, sophisticated way.” Ovals appear in the symbol of the Hive, making the shape of a bee, and in custom lighting fixtures, while velvet in the brand’s deep blue upholsters the café’s banquettes. Covers of retro Ford Life magazines hang in phone booths, and broken ovals appear in the pattern of blue vinyl wallcovering. Kolstad’s team also deconstructed the oval to make a camouflagelike pattern for blue-and-white area rugs. All furnishings, materials, and finishes demonstrate a new palette that will be used in Ford showrooms and offices worldwide, including the nearby workplace by Snøhetta now under construction.

Though Kolstad describes the FXC as an “immersive brand experience,” you won’t find a Ford sign at reception. Instead, there’s a mirrored acrylic work by Detroit artist Tiff Massey, one of several in her team’s DEI-focused art program for the project. Inspired by traditional American quilts, it’s composed of seven designs—representing each of Ford’s company truths—laser-cut onto 90 tiles. An asymmetrical solid-walnut desk in front of it, designed by Ghafari, looks like a sculpture that alludes to movement. Elsewhere, three abstract artworks by Los Angeles artist Robert Moreland refer to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the French car race that Ford won in the late 1960’s. With the FXC, it’s leading again as a cool, tech-savvy company.

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ford environments: julia calabrese; rachael smith; chris small; don zvoch

ghafari associates: michael krebs; brittnee shaw; angela cwayna; joseph kim; delbert dee; justin finkbeiner; stephanie hrit; jennifer hatheway; katy rupp; steve lian; yuqi pan; bruce coburn; justine lim; karan panchal; ali zorkot; christopher olech; ryan raymond; cynthia harman-jones; kristina allder

illuminart: lighting consultant

farmboy: art consultant, custom wallcovering

denn-co construction; ganas; navy island: woodwork

devon industrial group: general contractor

tacchini: benches (forum)

viccarbe: benches (lounge)

dwr: chairs

bernhardt; designtex: banquette fabric (café)

Coalesse: tables (café), chair (phone booth)

geiger: chairs (café, innovation)

Stellar Works: sofas (break-out, collaboration, grand hall)

carnegie: wallcovering (break-out)

stua: coffee table

zauben: green wall (café)

preciosa: custom pendant fixtures

keilhauer: stools

Tarkett: carpet (phone booth)

Humanscale: lamp

Blu Dot: tables (innovation, grand hall)

restoration hardware: lamp (grand hall)

michielutti brothers: flooring

shaw contract: custom rugs

benjamin moore & co.: paint

Dufner Heighes Transforms a Historic House in Pelham, New York into a Modern Family Home

Flip back a page, please. Now, kick up your feet, relax—here, have a cocktail—and observe this intriguing wood-paneled room: the resolutely leafy view, that groovy triangular window, the serene quiet, the vintage-heavy furniture scheme. Bet you think this is the living room of some cozy ’70’s-mod cabin on a remote rural plot, right? Well, surprise! In fact, this is the second-floor sitting room of a painstakingly preserved century-old Edwardian-style manse within shouting distance (although please don’t; the baby’s sleeping) of the Bronx.

Dufner Heighes was the firm tasked with future-proofing the historic Pelham, New York, house for a growing family. The 7,100-square-foot dwelling has an intriguing back story. Previous owners include the island nation of Barbados, which used it as an embassy, and a Coca-Cola executive who frequently hosted President Eisenhower there back in the 1950s. Another head of state, George Washington, reportedly stayed on the property, too, in a structure that once stood on this abode’s exact footprint. That provenance piqued the interest of Erica Holborn, CEO of Sandow Design Group (Interior Design’s parent company) and a self-professed real-estate enthusiast. “I’m a house-with-a-story person,” she admits.

When Holborn and her husband, Andrew, first saw the property listing, they deemed the eight-bedroom too big for their needs. Fast forward a year later. Their Dufner Heighes–designed Sutton Place apartment was getting a bit too snug for their expanding family (especially with WFH in the mix), and their upstate getaway, a 1970’s A-frame designed by Frank Lloyd Wright protégés, was too far from the city for full-time residency. Plus, the Holborns got an offer on the latter that they couldn’t refuse. So when the price dropped on the Pelham place around the same time, they finally took a look—and were sold.

Among the structure’s many attributes was that it had been pristinely restored, from the oak millwork to the original hardware. “It was a perfect situation, because the previous owners had updated a few things, like the kitchen, but restored everything else—stripping layers of paint off moldings and all that stuff no one wants to deal with,” notes Daniel Heighes Wismer, firm copartner with Greg Dufner. In short, it was practically turnkey. Early site visits suggested the project would be primarily decorative and cosmetic: reupholstering some existing furnishings, buying new items to fill in a few gaps, replacing antique light fixtures with more modern designs, updating cabinetry, hanging artwork. Midway through planning the new kitchen, however, it became apparent the current footprint was underscaled for the size of the house and had an awkward, dinky island unsuited to cooking and dining. “During one of our meetings with the team from Bilotta, with whom we were designing the kitchen,” Wismer recalls, “someone questioned whether we could tear down a wall to annex the adjoining butler’s pantry—and that changed everything,” necessitating plumbing and electrical rerouting plus new structural steel. “My dream has always been to have a butler’s pantry,” Holborn sighs. “And then I finally buy a house with one—and promptly take it out!”

The monthslong renovation was well worth it. The new scheme is much brighter and airier, with a long Arabescato Corchia marble island that seats four, plus a window-wrapped breakfast nook. Dufner Heighes deployed two patterns of Artistic Tile terrazzo flooring, one incorporating marble chips, to create area rug–like accents that delineate spatial zones. Shaker-style cabinetry is simpatico with the period architecture yet modern enough to suit the décor. The same flooring and cabinetry also extend into an adjacent space, a former family room that now serves as a storage-packed mudroom.

The reinvention of a living space as service-oriented hub made sense, given the floorplan already offered a generous number of hangout areas, including the ground-floor salon and contiguous sunroom, a second-floor playroom for two-year-old Marlowe and baby Bodhi, a sitting room off the primary suite, and the family and game rooms that anchor the daylit basement level. “The challenge,” Dufner says, “was how to make each living space feel like it had a unique function and purpose.” Seating in particular was selected with specific activities and postures in mind. Thus the salon’s more upright Bob sectional, its firm, snakelike form perfect for perching with a glass of wine; the sunroom’s more lounge-y Bouroullec Brothers Ploum sofa, a holdover from the upstate house (albeit newly reupholstered); and the super deep, nap-conducive sofa in the family room, where TV viewing occurs.

Though the house has a traditional layout, with discrete rooms, they open graciously onto each other, and curating sight lines was particularly important. Many features were considered holistically so they would work together from room to room. On the first floor, for instance, “there are points where you can see the ceiling fixtures in the sunroom, living room, entry hall, and the dining room all at once,” Wismer explains. “So the lighting we specified all needed to work within their respective rooms and also as a cohesive group.” Furniture and other accents were chosen and placed similarly, he adds. “There was a balancing of where we could go a little wild and where something had to be toned down so it wouldn’t get too heavy or layered.”

Speaking of going a little wild, check out the dining room wallpaper. The pattern, a trippy graphic confection in riotous hues, tents the room, extending up from crisp wainscoting lacquered a mercurial green-gray color. The op art patterning is the perfect jazz riff on the abode’s 1914 bones. “The contrast between historic and modern is just so great,” says Wismer. A sentiment that summarizes the project top to bottom.

knoll: sofa

dunbar: side table

design for macha: ceiling fixture

through noguchi shop: floor lamp

garrett leather: armchair shearling

kvadrat: side chair fabric

blå station through scandinavian spaces: sofa

house of finn juhl: chairs

Gubi: coffee table

aronson’s: rug

bd barcelona through ddc: green side table.

Fredericia: daybed

lawson-fenning: vessels

bilotta: cabinetry

Artistic Tile: flooring

seungjin yang through the future perfect: pink stool

Blu Dot: yellow ottoman

through noguchi shop: pendant

Louis Poulsen: pendants

voutsa: wallpaper

e15 through stillfried wien: table

Carl Hansen & Son: chairs

iittala through fiskars group: glass birds

bd barcelona through ddc: credenza

aronson’s: rug

mitchell gold + bob williams: sofa

aronson’s: rug

Carl Hansen & Son: Lounge

Blu Dot: side table

through john derian: artwork

ligne roset: sofa

iacoli: coffee table

CB2: side table

Artistic Tile: flooring, counters

bilotta: cabinetry

Carl Hansen & Son: chairs, stools

e15 through stillfried wien: table

Louis Poulsen: pendants

casey johnson studio: custom table

Blu Dot: ottoman

through john derian: flowers

aj madison: appliances

lee jofa: wallpaper

through design within reach: rocking chair

dunbar: sofa

house of finn juhl: coffee table

floyd: shelving

stokke: crib

rejuvenation: ceiling fixture

nessen lighting: gold lamp

&tradition: coffee table, ottoman

Carl Hansen & Son: green lounge chair

mitchell gold + bob williams: sofa

aronson’s: rug

kvadrat: mama bear chair fabric

zak & fox: club chair fabric

design for macha: ceiling fixture

michael robbins: bench

lawson-fenning: bed

once milano: quilt

aronson’s: rug

flavor paper: wallpaper

Gubi: mirror

visual comfort through circa lighting: table lamps (sitting room, dining room, family room, bedroom); ceiling pendant (living room, dining room, foyer); floor lamps (living room, nursery); reading lamp (living room)

through furniture from scandinavia: items from fredericia, house of finn juhl, gubi, carl hansen & sØn, louis poulsen, and &tradition

BHDM Design Breathes New Life into the Novotel Miami Brickell Hotel

2021 Best of Year Winner for Budget Hotel

The lobby and lounges at this existing hotel had good bones—the ceilings were 19 feet, the windows floor-to-ceiling. But the 4,500 square feet of public spaces lacked “personality and a sense of narrative,” notes principal and creative director Dan Mazzarini of BHDM Design, who quickly, and inexpensively ($173 per square foot to be exact), made amends.

Conceiving of a “sun, sand, surf” theme, he and his team marshalled a peachy palette along with furnishings in rounded shapes that have a “work/live/play vibe.” Costs were kept down with off-the-shelf pieces from the likes of Arteriors, Blu Dot, Frontgate, and Restoration Hardware. Indoor/outdoor chairs resemble rattan but are made of sturdy powder-coated metal, polyamide, and acrylic.

Custom designs came into play, too, such as the cerused-oak bar screen that was inspired by South Beach lifeguard stands but functions as built-in shelving. Likewise, in the textile department, custom-printed ombre sheeting adds softness at windows and in a nook off a lobby entrance, while the underside of the rooftop lounge awning has been printed with a palm-leaf pattern. As for the lobby’s whimsical 12-foot trees mimicking local flora, they’re made of white canvas. Uplit at night, they cast dramatic frondlike shadows across the ceiling. By day, they require no watering—just an occasional dusting.

BHDM Design: Dan Mazzarini; Jennifer Rosenthal

Andrew Franz Elevates East Harlem’s Union Settlement

Rejecting the notion that a limited budget means limited design for the neighborhood with the second highest concentration of public housing in the country, Andrew Franz Architect has completely transformed the Washington Houses Community Center in Manhattan’s historic East Harlem.

Dating to 1895, Union Settlement is the oldest and largest social service organization in the neighborhood and occupies an 11,000-square-foot facility owned by the New York City Housing Authority. “The facility was in poor condition throughout, and not a welcoming environment,” Andrew Franz explains. “Now, modernized classrooms, welcoming offices, and bright, open public spaces are fitted out with brand-new infrastructure and lighting.” 

Franz decided to focus on creating a few select high-impact, design-first moments. “We removed the ceilings in select large open areas to introduce some volume and we replaced the broken windows and installed a large skylight to allow daylight to penetrate to almost every space,” Franz continues. “The neighborhood was incredibly supportive and while we were in a NYC Housing Authority urban renewal landscape, our project looks out on trees and green space in all directions, so it made it very rewarding to connect the interior spaces to the view and environment.” 

The renovations were made possible thanks to a grant of over $2 million though the Manhattan District Attorney’s Criminal Justice Investment Initiative, which seeks to enhance fairness in the city’s justice system in a variety of ways, including by investing available funding in community-based programs to help local youth. “The refurbished space at Washington Houses will provide East Harlem youth and seniors with a welcoming and safe place to come together as a community,” New York mayor Bill de Blasio adds.

Hariri & Hariri Architecture Transforms the New York Penthouse Headquarters of SIBA Corp/SIBA Residences into a Multifaceted Gem

Hariri & Hariri Architecture—the firm of Iranian sisters and Interior Design Hall of Fame members Gisue and Mojgan Hariri—began the renovation of the headquarters of SIBA Corp/SIBA Residences, a prominent gem dealer and real estate business in Manhattan’s Diamond District, in early 2020, just as COVID-19 was about to grip New York. The architects designed the 3,000-square-foot full floor during the transitional period when the SIBA office staff, like countless others across the country, started Zooming from home. Like anthro­pologists unexpectedly equipped with a telephoto lens into the lives of their subjects, the Hariris observed home environments that had become on-screen business backdrops.

COVID taught the architects what now seems obvious: People were in no rush to return to the office because they like the warmth, character, crafted touches, and creature comforts of their homes. Specialists in both residential and workplace, the sisters resolved to adapt domesticity to the penthouse site, balancing the amenities of home with office life in a building deep in Midtown’s thicket of high-rises. “Zoom confirmed what George Nelson advocated long ago,” Gisue Hariri notes: “‘The office should be a daytime living room.’”

The renovation initiated a new era and ethos for the four-generation family business. The third-generation patriarch, Sam Abram, had recently died, and his son Edward, now CEO, was relaunching the company. Three of SIBA’s separate divisions—diamond trading, real estate sales, and building management—shared the floor. Without looking like Fort Knox, the gem side of the business had to be secured away from the real estate and management spaces, which were themselves separate from each other. With multiple zones and numerous dedicated functions—reception and waiting areas, open workstations and offices, a conference room and a jewelry viewing lounge, kitchen and dining—the program presented the organizational challenge of piecing together an intricate puzzle. The existing office looked like a leftover period set from “The Honeymooners.” Cubicles and rooms were grafted onto each other higgledy-piggledy under harsh fluorescents set in a water-damaged dropped ceiling. A large safe was strapped down like an electric chair. The whole place required a gut renovation.

The unsalvageable maze, however, hid two assets. The space had good infrastructure—a wraparound terrace ringed the entire floor, which offered unobstructed, heart-of-the-city views. Then, in and around the principal office, the architects discovered numerous modernist prints and silkscreens that the company had quietly collected, hung up, and left in place for decades, as forgotten as old wallpaper. To their surprise, the Hariris were dealing with a portfolio that included works by Josef Albers, Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, and Louise Nevelson. New pieces, including ones by Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Alexander Calder, were added to the mix, and the trove became a vehicle that helped the two sisters infuse the project with color and character.

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Aiming for a daytime living-room effect, the Hariris avoided a systematic, gridded, modular layout. Instead, the floor is organized episodically along a circuit leading to an unfolding sequence of spaces, each highlighting art or special seating. The unique turns in the plan camouflaged the harsh fact that a corridor, for example, might function as a security lock bordered by bulletproof glass. The Hariri team included pockets as socializing zones for passing office chats and break-out moments. They sited the jewelry viewing lounge among the first rooms, beyond which lies a small open-plan pool of workstations for real estate management surrounded by a perimeter of private offices.

Improvements in technology over the last several decades facilitated domestication. Thanks to the computer, the architects could reduce the number of chilly, metal file cabinets to a minimum. A new ceiling system of parallel aluminum slats set wide enough apart to accommodate sprinklers let them raise the ceiling from 8 to nearly 10 feet. Compact HVAC equipment replaced large, antiquated units that colonized the outdoor terrace, allowing for an alfresco dining setup plus a meditation garden. Contemporary window frames gave each opening a clear view, turning the urban skyline into a sequence of spectacular pictures.

But beyond technology, the Hariris deployed architecture’s traditional tool-set—materials, scale, lighting, and simplicity—to make the HQ homelike. They covered metal access panels with rift-cut oak. Etched glass between perimeter offices and the open work area softly radiate natural light to the landlocked interior. They dimensionalized the floor with patterned carpet tile that creates the illusion of depth, its pile inviting staff to kick off their shoes. Overall, the spaces were kept intimate, with clean planes and edges that defer to the art. The walls, mostly painted white or gray, have the visual clarity of a gallery.

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At the beginning of the commission, the architects told their clients that the goal was to build the analogue of a jewel—“something light, airy, and tactile,” Gisue Hariri says, “something small, precious, and special, where every turn is unique.” She and her sister crafted that idea right at the front door by chamfering the reception desk like a precious cut stone—its faceted, sculptural quality a trademark of their work. “From early on, we’ve collected rocks and studied geological and crystal formations, fascinated by the abstract, geometric, asymmetrical forms derived from nature, which are also apparent in both Persian and modern Western architecture,” the architect adds. But even more than a built metaphor, the diamond at the door sets the stage for the multifaceted gem of an environment beyond.

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hariri & hariri architecture: bieinna ham; kyuhun kim; chris whiteside; maria digaetango-rodriguez

blondie’s treehouse: landscape consultant.

lighting workshop: lighting consultant.

robert silman associates structural engineers: structural engineer

skyline engineering: special inspection engineer.

ip group: mep

napoleon contracting corp.: woodwork.

icon interiors: general contractor.

Janus et Cie: chairs, table (terrace)

expert welding gates: custom railing

bendheim: etched glass panels (open work area)

knoll: workstations (open work area), lounge chair (office)

vibia: pendant fixtures (waiting area)

bernhardt design: table/chair (waiting area), sofa (jewelry lounge)

spinneybeck: sofa upholstery (jewelry lounge)

dwr: pillows

herman miller: executive chair, task chairs (office)

kohler co.: sink fittings (rest­room)

focal point: ceiling fixtures (kitchen)

JUlien: sink

kwc: sink fittings

wolf: cooktop

miele: oven

Blu Dot: credenza

mosa: floor tile

Interface: carpet tile

amerlux; coronet lighting: lighting

armstrong: acoustic ceiling panels

b+n industries: aluminum slats

c.r. laurence co.: door pulls

kilroy architectural windows: windows

evensonbest: furniture supplier

benjamin moore & co.: paint.

Studio BV Creates A Colorful New Headquarters for Advertising Powerhouse Fallon

The global advertising agency Fallon resided in Minneapolis’s distinctive AT&T Building, with its canted windows and expanses of vision and spandrel glass, for more than 25 years. But the team needed a change of scenery. First, the company and its sister agency Publicis Sapient looked to the hip North Loop neighborhood for a space, settling on a four-floor expanse in a former Western Container building. Then leadership turned to Studio BV to turn its 36,000 square feet into a home.

“We wanted to create a cozy and flexible space that was focused on coming together and making ideas,” says Studio BV CEO Betsy Vohs. “This meant shifting the space allocation from the past office, which had 50 percent of the space dedicated to private offices.” The change allowed for public spaces including a salon, dining and game rooms, and a library, placed across the various floors to inspire the 200 employees to utilize the entirety of their new headquarters. 

The crowning touch is the inviting conservatory and living space on the top floor, connected to ample outdoor space. “This is the space that really reflects the shift away from the old Fallon corporate offices,” Vohs says. “It’s a space that supports a casual and soft lifestyle, and is confident and comfortable.” It’s the new definition of working at home.

The Alila Marea Beach Resort Captures California’s Beauty

As a boy growing up in Cape Town, South Africa, Mark Zeff slipped out of the house one morning and took a train to the ocean. “My mother woke up and couldn’t find me,” the Interior Design Hall of Fame member and Markzeff principal recalls. “A friend and I had gone on a mission to collect sea creatures.” Armed with jam jars and formalin, they spent the day gathering specimens like anemones and brought them back home. “I was punished heavily, but my mother also encouraged me to do it again,” Zeff says. He’s gravitated to the sea ever since, scavenging, surfing, and scuba diving around the world.

In 2018, Zeff evoked this history in a pitch to design the Alila Marea Beach Resort—the locale of Interior Design‘s 2023 Giant Ideas conference—in Encinitas, a beach city in San Diego County. The dramatic site sits atop sandy bluffs facing the Pacific Ocean to the north and west, and the developers originally envisioned hiring a local who knew the coast. Though based in New York, Zeff proved that his firm belonged on the project. “We won the contract because I put together a visual essay of how I’ve been personally connected to the ocean all my life,” the designer says. As outsiders, he and Stacie Meador—Markzeff director of hospitality design and an avid diver herself—brought a fresh take on SoCal style, creating warm, pared-down interiors that channel the power of the sea.

Behind the Design of the Alila Marea Beach Resort

The 250,000-square-foot building, by Joseph Wong Design Associates, occupies a long 4-acre lot that slopes on both sides “like the back of an animal,” Zeff observes. The location necessitated an unusual layout. Most of the 20-plus hospitality properties the firm has completed, including Hotel Van Zandt in Austin, Texas, and Virgin Hotels Nashville, are towers with a vertical orientation; the three-story Alila Marea, however, has a horizontal plan similar to a cruise ship. Amenities are spread out to maximize views. The lobby, coffee bar, and spa are on the ground level; a central staircase leads to a ballroom and conference area, plus a gym, pool, and sun deck; and the 117-seat Vaga restaurant is on the third floor.

How the Encinitas Hotel Design Nods to the Ocean

With 21 luxury hotels across Asia and the U.S., the Hyatt-owned Alila brand aims to celebrate its locations with a natural, authentic aesthetic. For Zeff and Meador, that meant concrete floors, driftwood sculptures, custom oak furniture, and a palette of earthy neutrals—without a seashell in sight. “We weren’t literal with every thread,” Meador explains. “The way the ocean hits the coast there is so powerful that we really wanted that strength in the concept. But it’s also restrained because the ocean can be very quiet.” As divers, Zeff says, they experience a different side of the sea and know there’s only “a muffled and beautiful noise” beneath the crashing waves.

That submarine perspective informed the stillness of the dimly lit spa—with beige textured-vinyl wall coverings and a hemlock-wrapped sauna—and the illumination of the central staircase. “One of the most amazing things about diving is when the sun shines down through the volume of water—the staircase feels like that,” Zeff notes. There’s no skylight at the top, but LEDs shining up and down on each level form a glowing yellow cylinder; white painted-steel rods rise through the center of the stairwell like sun rays. Zeff, who hasn’t lost his boyhood fascination with marine life, says the rods also remind him of an urchin’s tendrils.

Markzeff Turns to Biophilic Design to Create Custom Accents 

Other aquatic references are similarly subtle. The 130 guest rooms echo the colors of the coast with driftwood-finished oak headboards and rope and rattan details. In the ballroom, chandeliers reminiscent of fishing nets hang above a custom Axminster carpet, its swirling lines alluding to kelp forests, the treelike algae found in waters nearby. The lobby’s patterned concrete floor riffs on scientific drawings of marine animals by Ernst Haeckel, a 19th-century German artist whose work Zeff collects. “He studied the symmetry and mathematics of sea creatures, and his work looks at their molecular structure,” Zeff explains. The designers created a giant stencil loosely based on Haeckel’s illustrations, laid it over the concrete, and applied a whitewash stain. “It looks integral to the concrete and has a nice depth to it,” Meador adds.

The beach theme is most evident at the Pocket, the poolside bar. Encinitas is the birthplace of the iconic Bing Surfboards and a mecca for the sport overall, so Markzeff teamed up with surfboard designer Brian Szymanski to craft fiberglass-and-walnut paneling for the space. “Brian went into his archive and found surfboard colors and patterns from Bing’s heyday, which was the early ’60’s,” Zeff says. Streaks of red, teal, and cream alternate with sapele mahogany, the wood giving the rounded room a mid-century air. Kilim ottomans pick up the striped look. With the mighty Pacific steps away, the setting is enough to make guests want to hit the waves—or just kick back with a Pocket Margarita and enjoy the view.

Walkthrough the Alila Marea Beach Resort in Encinitas by Markzeff

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Markzeff: francesca mcculloch; liang lin

joseph wong design associates: joseph wong; rick round; michael tria

neri landscape architecture: landscape consultant

ohm light: lighting consultant

dci engineers: structural engineer

emerald city engineers: mep

wb powell: woodwork

california sheet metal; m.a.s. iron company: metalwork

thunder jones contracting group: concretework

afm contract; biscayne hospitality: custom furniture workshops

suffolk: general contractor

edelman leather: bench upholstery (lobby)

CB2: tables

international treescapes: trees

restoration hardware: chairs (lobby), club chair (suite)

composition hospitality: custom chairs (reception)

david allen: custom desk

resysta: composite panels (facade)

10deka outdoor furniture: chaise longues (pool)

nanimarquina: ottomans (bar)

masaya & co.: chairs

Blu Dot: round table

atelier vierkant: planters

stark carpet: custom carpet (conference area)

gommaire: outdoor chairs

lulu & georgia: outdoor side table

rich brilliant willing: cabana pendant fixture (pool)

helo: wood supplier (sauna)

elitas: cushion upholstery (firepit)

american leather: custom sectional (suite)

noir trading: coffee table

j.a. casillas: custom bed

lostine: lamps

surfacing solutions: custom concrete floor

domingue architectural finishes: limewash paint.

Perkins&Will Turns to Geometry for a Coffee Shop at Emily Carr University of Art + Design

It could have posed an interior quandary. A pavilion in the public square serving Emily Carr University of Art + Design complex in Vancouver, BC, all by Perkins&Will, is round in plan, the structure consisting of 10 petals of CNC-cut laminated timber clad in cherry-hued shingles (thus its nickname, Red Pavilion). But after Nemesis Coffee leased the site, its third in the city, all in creative hubs, and contacted Perkins&Will via an Instagram direct message, the unusual container’s 2,000-square-foot interiors began to take shape. The space had “always wanted to be a coffee house,” senior associate Rufina Wu begins. But the fit-out required finesse. “With our strongly sculptural building, the inside had to reference the architecture—and also complement it.”

The Perkins&Will interiors team acknowledged the unusual geometry with a feature element on the ceiling. Starting with a central oculus, fins of white fabric stretch outward toward the perimeter. LED strips spill warm illumination through the fins, which are made from a textile used for dif­fusing light on film sets. The effect is both “organic,” Wu notes, and calming and echoes the exterior petals.

Perkins&Will selected a muted palette for the materials, the architect continues, to create a vibe that is welcoming, especially on Vancouver’s frequent gray days. The choices of glass, stainless steel, and pale woods were also affected by pandemic supply-chain hiccups. The firm relied on a hometown fabricator for the curved birch-plywood paneling and a circular high table, its center containing a leafy green tree.

In between all the swooshes is a highly functional eatery. A stainless-steel bar slices through the middle of the plan, dividing the seating from the kitchen and service areas. Above, a continuous glass divider modulates from clear (for display cases) to reflective (concealing restrooms). “It reveals exactly what should be revealed,” Wu says, “and hides the rest.” For those wanting to be seen, the café opens onto an outdoor patio furnished with recycled-plastic chairs.

Add tag via side panel: shingles (facade)

article: stools (café)

Andreu World: chairs

best film service: custom ceiling fins

tata: pendant fixtures

lumentruss: linear ceiling fixtures

systemalux: linear pendant fixtures

crl: display hardware

Blu Dot: seating (patio)

rempel bros: concrete flooring

thinkl lighting studio: lighting consultant

cft engineering: code consultant

p&b engineering: structural engineer

integral group: mep

uppercase architectural millwork and design: woodwork

goldray glass: glasswork

tetherstone construction: general contractor