Journey Through A Memorable Maze Of Visionary Design

Environmentalism, inclusivity, saturated color, sport—all and more made for exceptional art and design in 2024.

Explore Breathtaking Designs From Top Projects

Commissioned for last February’s Desert X AlUla, an outdoor biennial in the Saudi Arabian desert, To Breathe, South Korean artist Kimsooja’s site-responsive spiral, was made of 42 9-foot-tall glass panels coated in iridescent, diffraction-grating film.

---

In the family room of a 5,600-square-foot duplex penthouse in New York by NICOLEHOLLIS, a grid of Donald Judd woodcuts oversees a Groundpiece sectional by Antonio Citterio, coffee and side tables by Ini Archibong and Gary Magakis, and a custom oak media console. Read more about this New York penthouse here.

---

2030, a nude Venus lost in a sea of detritus, is part of “To Step Beyond” at Lévy Gorvy Dayan gallery in New York, a survey of 91-year-old artist Michelangelo Pistoletto’s work that includes six decades of sculptures, silkscreens, and paintings, on view through March 29, 2025.

---

Last year, for the 100th anniversary of Cini Boeri’s birth, product designer Elena Salmistaro created a 12½-inch-tall enameled statuette of the late architect that combines her physical attributes with signature patterns from her textile designs, part of the Most Illustrious series for Bosa that already includes figurines of other Italian icons: Michele De Lucchi, Achille Castiglioni, Riccardo Dalisi, and Alessandro Mendini. Read more about these stauettes here.

---

In the restrooms at Escá Cueva, a restaurant in Cairo designed by Badie Architects, colored LEDs highlight the organic forms made from a steel infrastructure covered in a cement-polymer mix that’s found throughout. Discover more about this fiery restaurant here.

---

In Tokyo, at the entrance to the Ginza flagship store of Ya-Man, design studio I IN lined a column with LEDs that mirror the ones found in the Japanese beauty brand’s red light–therapy products.

---

Sustainability drove Milan firm Peter Pichler Architecture’s design of the Bologna, Italy, headquarters for Bonfiglioli, a manufacturer of gearmotors, drive systems, and industrial inverters, including the facade clad in pleated aluminum mesh that filters direct sun and the sloping roof that incorporates six south-facing terraces and results in an enlarged north facade for increased indirect daylight to the 67,000-square-foot interiors.

---

Sticks of hand-painted driftwood suspended in an aluminum mesh explored the tension between natural and man-made in Roots, part of “The New Transcendence,” a group show including Andrea Branzi at Friedman Benda gallery in New York last January.

---

Andrea Pisano, the 14th-century sculptor and architect, was the master builder of the Duomo di Orvieto, its banded white travertine and black basalt facade similar to other Gothic cathedrals built in central Italy around that time (and the inspiration for the interiors of the nearby Palazzo Petrvs, a boutique hotel by Giuliano Andrea dell’Uva Architetti which was featured in our March 2024 issue).

---

The 1938 photograph of Austrian-American architect Frederick John Kiesler’s Mobile Home Library Hinge appeared in “Frederick Kiesler: Vision Machines” at the Jewish Museum in New York last April.

---

Referencing a Marcel Duchamp self-portrait, the graphic designer Milton Glaser’s poster accompanied the 1966 release of “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits” and was featured in “Art of Noise” at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art last summer.

---

Known for her “art pools,” which feature vibrant murals painted onto a pool’s bottom, Alex Proba elevates her signature style with a puzzlelike arrangement of hand-glazed ceramic tiles from Cerámica Suro in Guadalajara, Mexico, into an abstraction of coral reefs for a private home in Miami.

---

Occupying the four exterior Jewel Box vitrines earlier this winter at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, was “Multifaceted,”  Italian illustrator Olimpia Zagnoli’s site-specific vinyl artworks, all 8½ by 10 feet. Dive into these vinyl artworks here.

---

Local artists Adriana Meunié and Jaume Roig crafted a mural of natural materials for the pine-beamed yoga studio at Son Blanc Farmhouse Menorca, a boutique hotel in Spain that had been a dormant, late 1800’s Spanish home and barn until a recent renovation by Atelier du Pont. Read more about the Menorca renovation here.

---

The nearly 6-foot-tall Warren by Porky Hefer appeared last summer in “no bats, no chocolate” at Galerie56 in New York, it and the solo show’s eight other sculptures of animals, all representative of “weird talents” that benefit the planet, handmade of locally sourced materials in collaboration with fellow South African studios Ronel Jordaan, Wellington Moyo, and Leather Walls. Play around with these sustainable sculptures here.

---

A custom banquette with artfully clashing upholstery patterns distinguishes the lobby of the Wayback, a 134-key boutique hotel, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, by Nashville architecture and design firm Dryden Studio. Get retro with the Wayback hotel here.

---

Multidisciplinary artist Orsi Orban and Christopher Duffy collaborated on Spirits, a limited-edition sculpture series inspired by bone formations, coral, and animal scales that combines Orban’s surface-design creation methods with Duffy’s work with CAD and AI, with the former ultimately constructing the works from hundreds of pieces of laser-cut cherry laminate paired with polyester foil. Catch this biomorphic sculpture series here.

---

The 1971 image by Ghanaian photographer James Barnor of a shop assistant posing in front of the United Trading Company headquarters in Accra was included in “Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence” at London’s V&A South Kensington last summer.

---

For accounting-software company Tipalti, abacus-inspired installations by M Moser Associates, including these 1-foot-tall ceramic beads by TAV Ceramics, in corporate branding colors, inform its 24,000-square-foot office in Vancouver, Canada. Tour around this Vancouver office here.

---

Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum feted its 30th anniversary last year with “KAWS + Warhol,” which featured the painted bronze, nearly 6-foot-tall GONE from 2018 by Brian Donnelly, aka KAWS.

---

Last July at Tokyo’s Roppongi Museum, “Miss Dior: Stories of a Miss” was a 9,150-square-foot exhibition by OMA that surveyed the 77-year history of the House of Dior scent, the dominant color derived from the pinks found in iterations of the perfume’s tinted formula and bottle designs. Capture the essence of Miss Dior here.

---

Also last July, Unreal, the Argentine artist Andrés Reisinger’s three-day pop-up installation in New York, cloaked a NoLIta storefront in 850 yards of polyester to celebrate the launch of a liquid blush product of the same name by cosmetics brand Hourglass. Explore this dreamy installation in New York here.

---

29-year-old Lithuanian Barbora Žilinskaite’s anthropomorphic, 10-piece solo exhibition “Chairs Don’t Cry” at Friedman Benda Los Angeles last winter included the 6-foot-long Sunbather bench and 3-foot-tall Mr. Judgy mirror, both in pigmented reclaimed sawdust.

---

Whimsical apertures, butter-yellow tile, and graphic accents welcome spontaneity at Lanwuu Imagine, a studio designed by Aurora Design in Kunming, China, that specializes in wedding and portrait photography through a surrealistic lens. Discover this photo studio capturing the imagination.

---

Occupying the 9,000-square-foot mezzanine level at The National Gallery Prague is ATLAS—the acronym for Creative Studio and Laboratory of Associative Dreaming in Czech—a public art gallery by No Architects absconding with traditional museum bounds in favor of a reductive Mondrian palette, yoga platforms, movable seating, and touchable art. Pique curiosity at ATLAS inside the National Gallery Prague.

---

Toasting its 20th anniversary, Toronto’s famed Lee Restaurant redesigned by Bent Gable Design and Future Studio relocated to the city’s 1932 art deco Waterworks building, where its 6,000 square feet feature walnut walls bisected by velvet patchwork banners in retro hues.

---

Paying homage to Yeun Long, Hong Kong’s agricultural roots, Shun Fook Barn by ARK reimagines the humble farmhouse as a 30,000-square-foot shopping mall with indoor/outdoor appeal, from living green walls, earthy hues, and a massive woodlike tree sculpture in the atrium.

---

Celebrating the Carpathian landscape, Hay Boutique and Spa by Edem Family in Polyanytsya, Ukraine, and designed by YOD Group, has dried grapevines appointed to thermos-spruce paneled walls in its Vinotheque restaurant, where local industrial designer Andrey Galushka’s pressed-hay pendant fixtures illuminate rustic tables and Emilio Nanni’s Croissant chairs. Find solace in this tranquil mountain escape.

---

The first solo show since Fernando Campana’s untimely passing in 2022, and the first with older brother Humberto as sole principal designer, “On the Road,” by Estúdio Campana last spring at Friedman Benda in New York, included their 2017 cast-bronze Branches sofa.

---

Celebrating late Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez, Brazilian studio Pascali Semerdjian Arquitetos curated “Chromatic Inductions” last fall at Simões de Assis gallery in São Paulo, where large PVC sheets hung from the ceiling creating an interactive mazelike experience.

---

The 47th iteration of architect Emmanuelle Moreaux’s 100 Colors series, Timeline is also her first permanent one in Paris, occupying the eight-story atrium of Le Lumière office complex, with 3,200 steel, color-graded numbers suspended in rows, each denoting a year. Unlock the magic of numbers in this captivating installation.

---

Debuted during Art Basel Miami Beach, the city’s first-ever floating and transportable padel ball court by Yntegra Group, moored just off Fisher Island in Biscayne Bay, was constructed of recycled steel sourced from old shipyard materials, surrounded by glass walls, and clocked in at 84 tons.

This Award-Winning Beach House Surprises in More Ways Than One

2023 Best of Year Winner for Large Beach House

At the hands of Interior Design Hall of Fame members Steven Harris and Lucien Rees Roberts, this project is way more than the sum of its parts. The 13,800-square-foot, glass-and-brick residence, perched on a lushly landscaped property in Bridgehampton, New York, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, is all clean lines and rectilinear forms in the tradition of mid-century modernism the clients admire. But the addition of a knife-edge pool and its sculpted-plaster pavilion—capped by a reflecting-pool roof in the shape of a boomerang, another mid-century reference—nails the composition. Inside the main house, sculptural forms meet sweeping green and blue vistas, and high art blends with everyday life. Curving furniture and a spiral staircase soften the hard edges of its angular architecture and harmonize with that of the organic pavilion. Flooring of textured Grigio Olivo stone unites the courtyard, interior, and pavilion deck, creating the impression of a continuous beachlike expanse underfoot.

steven harris architects: steven harris; abir ahmad; andrea leung.

rees roberts & partners: lucien rees roberts; deborah hancock; jaclyn cirasola; jane jacobs; david kelly; regina cassorla.

Workshop/APD Creates a Luxurious Penthouse in New York

2023 Best of Year Winner for Large Apartment

For repeat clients, Workshop/APD elevated a developer-delivered penthouse duplex in New York by instating luxury and shapeliness via an envelope of serene neutrals, sinuous elements, and top-notch materials. Take the gently curved burled-wood staircase and Venetian plaster finishes in the living room, and the main bedroom’s wall of antiqued mirror. Furnishings include enviable classics such as seating by Vladimir Kagan, José Zanine Caldas, and Eero Saarinen. Art curated by Barbara Cartategui gives pride of place to Jaume Plensa’s stairwell-adjacent sculpture. While light and airiness pervade the 5,800-square-foot dwelling, which boasts sweeping downtown views, more saturated exceptions appear. One is the moody charcoal-gray media room, a stage for cozy evenings of at-home movies.

World-Class Art Meets Luxurious Living in This Toronto Home

2023 Best of Year Winner for Large City House and Residential Staircase

At 25,000 square feet, the house in Toronto, Canada belonging to a philanthropic couple is certainly expansive. That’s partly because it has to serve not only as a family home but also as the setting for large charity events. Hence these grand spaces designed by Burdifilek and warmed with ultra-luxurious materials and contemporary artwork. In the great room, for instance, walls are clad in cashmere, and multiple seating areas are anchored by a custom silk rug. Another gathering area is the airy solarium, its leafy potted trees capped by a glass ceiling allowing for additional verdant views of an exterior vine-covered wall. Green turns to creamy white at the three-story limestone staircase, which spirals around a custom 30-foot-long pendant fixture made of molded-glass cabochons.

diego burdi; paul filek; tom yip; michael del priore; john seo; anna nomerovsky; anna jurkiewicz; daniel mei.

A Must-See Country House in Muskoka, Canada

2023 Best of Year Winner for Small Country House

Located near Georgian Bay in a rocky landscape that has inspired many Canadian painters, this two-level, 2,200-square-foot retreat in Lake Rosseau, Muskoka, is deliberately simple—a pitched roof above an upper-level great room with bedrooms below—so as not to compete with the natural setting. The ruggedness outside is reflected in Studio Paolo Ferrari‘s extensive use of granite inside for carved sinks in a bathroom, the double-sided fireplace in the living area, and a large unfinished block that serves as the kitchen island. The other dominant interior material is Douglas fir, either whitewashed or limed, which covers the ceilings, walls, and floors. The Toronto-based studio also uses the blond timber for all the custom millwork and built-in furniture, including the principal bed—a stack of chunky slabs that combines the headboard, nightstands, and mattress platform into a single sculptural unit.

10 Questions With… Jessica Helgerson

ID: You have a studio in Portland, Oregon, and recently opened one in Paris, too. What prompted that?

JH: My mother was French, and I grew up spending the school years in California and the summers with my family in France. I’ve had a life-long yearning for a ‘real’ reason to be in France and finding a way to work here felt like a fun way to do that. Two years ago, I spent a semester in Paris with my daughter, and during that time reconnected with French designer Mathieu Bonnard, who had been a beloved intern in our Portland office nearly a decade ago. Over dinner, he mentioned wanting to come back to work for JHID. Just a few days later I was walking through the Marais in Paris and saw the perfect spot for rent. All the pieces seemed to sort of be falling into place, and so we took the leap!

ID: What inspired your first lighting collection with Roll & Hill and what can people expect?

JH: In the same way that I have a foot in both in France and in the U.S., the first Roll & Hill collection was actually two collections. I grew up on Del Playa Street, across the street from the ocean in Santa Barbara, in the 1970s. I spent my summers in France and have fond memories of my grandparents’ fancy apartment in Lyon, on Rue Sala. The two lines, named after those two streets, came from my childhood memories of those two places: Californian driftwood and earthy ceramics versus French bronze and cut crystal. The two worlds morphed in my mind into the two lighting lines. Rue Sala and Del Playa are also basically two manifestations of one shape—a line that plays with going very thin and then flaring back out. It’s a shape I’ve long admired in furniture legs, architectural components, and decorative objects but that I hadn’t ever seen in lighting. The two designs have a lot in common formally (basically they are just assemblages of a linear material that is turned) but they go in very different directions aesthetically because of the different materials they are made from, namely wood or metal.

ID: You specialize in bringing historic homes back to life. What advice do you have for that process?

JH: Listen to the house and be true to it with all that you do. What does that mean? It means to study it and remodel it in a way that is thoughtful to its essence. What is beautiful about it? What are its distinctive design features? What sort of floor plan makes sense for it? Can you visit other houses from the same place, same vintage, same style, same architect, before you begin? Older houses (before the mid-century) have distinct ‘rooms’ that allow for crown molding to wrap around cleanly, for paint colors to change from room to room, for wallpapers to circle around on four walls. There is a modern tendency to want to ‘open things up,’ which I totally agree with but creating very wide openings vs. removing walls (particularly corners) entirely, allows for much better redesign of older houses. In general, in residential design, our office tries, with all the more permanent, built-in things, to stay true to the house and its era (within reason of course). 

ID: Can you describe some of your key projects?

JH: Our recent projects have been mostly residential, and they seem to fall into two categories—great bones that needs to be respected and their style followed, or a tear down that we can absolutely re-invent from scratch. Two of these are our LA French Eclectic which falls into the former category, and our French Quarter Brooklyn which falls into the latter. For the Los Angeles residence, we followed the existing bones of the house (thick plaster walls, flattened Gothic arches, a simple high-contrast color palette). For the Brooklyn project, the ‘before’ house was a run-down duplex and even the neighborhood was an ‘anything goes’ place where the architecture is recent and varies tremendously from house to house. This allowed us creative freedom, and the ability to create our own design vocabulary for the house. These clients had travelled a lot together in France, were deep Francophiles, and wanted a French influence on the project. France felt a little too far afield for us, so we settled on the design style of the French Quarter in New Orleans and let that guide the style we created for the house, with very significant moldings, large gracious arches, limestone floors, and a soft color palette.

ID: You have a strong commitment to social justice. What are some actions you take in this realm?

JH: When I was a teenager, I remember my father jokingly accusing me of being a ‘reverse snob’—a term I’ve thought of (and laughed about) many times. I’ve always cared about social justice. As the years have gone by, I’ve learned more and more about inequality and how the systems we operate within are designed to keep some people down while raising others up. Our Portland office, though in a beautiful old building, is in one of the neighborhoods in which our American crisis of homelessness is most apparent. Sometimes I feel like I’m at the epicenter of discrepancy in our office, designing the most beautiful details for someone’s second or third home, while just outside people are pitching their tents on the sidewalk. In a tiny way, I’m trying to work to rectify that imbalance in our own business, making sure that we offer very livable wages, excellent benefits, generous vacation time, etc. I’m proud that most of our staff own their homes. We offer paid sabbatical leaves. We’ve supported many designers though their parental leaves. It’s strange to me that these are decisions that one employer can make and another not, honestly. I’m not sure why they aren’t just things that we decide as a society matter, and that everyone deserves. 

Several years ago, our office did a pro bono project for a Portland organization called Path Home. In working for them I realized the meaningful change they were bringing to the lives of families experiencing homelessness, and how far their small operating budget was able to go. I started researching other non-profits in our area, and each one I spoke to was similarly doing excellent and important work on a pretty small budget. I thought perhaps we could help support them by sharing some of our profits, and also thought what a truly immense aid we could bring to them if others in the design and home industry joined us. With that in mind, I founded the 1% project. Though we have been able to offer quite a bit of help to a number of wonderful non-profits, it hasn’t had the larger viral impact I’d hoped for. Perhaps I’ll be able to motivate more firms to join us in the future.

ID: Whose work do you admire?

JH: I think Pamela Shamshiri does beautiful work; her recent Maison de la Luz in New Orleans is probably my favorite project of hers, though I’ve been a fan of her work back to the Commune days. I also very much admire Ilse Crawford and the integrity and authenticity she brings to everything she does. And then Roman and Williams, for loving old houses, buildings, and historic details as much as we do, and advocating for their preservation and celebration.

ID: What are some favorite vendors?

JH: One of our favorite things to do is to collaborate with local glass artists, ceramic artists, decorative hand-painters, woodworkers, and more. These collaborations have been a wonderful way to y anchor our projects to place, and to involve the local community in our work. In addition, BDDW makes the most beautiful furniture and objects. Tyler Hayes is a creative genius. More recently I can also call him a friend, and now know that he’s a lovely human as well. Sawkille is also creating a lot of beautiful American furniture. I love the earthy, organic, odd, and beautiful furniture of Pierre Yovanovitch. I appreciate the breadth of contemporary design represented by The Future Perfect. In France I love shopping at the flea markets. The best and biggest is Saint Ouen in Paris, and Isle Sur la Sorgue which is an entire town of antiques. But there are also smaller ones all over the country, and professional ones just for dealers that are unbelievable treasure troves. In the U.S. I appreciate the huge offering of 1st Dibs for that. Additionally, I deeply appreciate Etsy for connecting us to small makers all over the globe. I’ve found rugs from Tibet and Turkey, ceramics from Morocco, hand-embroidered fabrics from India: an entire world of craft in one place. It doesn’t have a reputation for being the fanciest place, but I have found wonderful things there and am a big fan.

ID: What’s next for you?

JH: I am so excited to have opened our Paris office and look forward to growing that side of JHID. I suspect that helping American clients find, restore, and furnish homes in Europe will be the essence of our practice. I have also been developing several product lines in conjunction with Mira Eng-Goetz, who has been at JHID for over a dozen years and who is a brilliant creative force. We are developing a line of playful, colorful flat-weave rugs, a line of table lamps, and more.

DesignLed Creates a Theatrical Interior for a Dublin Home

After spending the early part of her career as a documentary film director, Dublin resident Lisa Marconi pivoted a decade ago to become a self-taught interior designer. As principal of DesignLed, she has cultivated a practice informed by her visual-arts background but with a strong focus on client collaboration and input. Due, perhaps, to her outsider’s perspective, Marconi’s approach to each project is especially accommodating. As she says, “I’m not someone who has very strict rules about what you can and cannot, should and should not do.”

No surprise, then, that Marconi enthusiastically accepted the challenge when a couple came to her with a residential project full of highly specific requests—dark teal walls, among them—as well as some fundamentally contradictory ones. The clients were tearing down a 1970’s house to build something more modern yet modeled after the Irish capital’s famed Georgian architecture. U-shape in plan, the 4,500-square-foot home would span two stories and include formal and casual living areas along with five bedrooms, all connected by broad corridors, yet it needed to feel cozy for a family with small children. DesignLed’s brief was to make the interior as striking, even showstopping, as possible while still being friendly and welcoming to the guests the family frequently entertains. The spaces Marconi and her team created address those issues by embracing eclecticism and playing with color, scale, and detail.

How This Home Interior Reflects Dublin’s Georgian Architecture  

A key element in the designer’s overall strategy is something so subtle it’s hardly noticeable at first, despite the fact that it begins the moment you walk in the front door: the use of custom wall paneling to visually bridge the gap between the residence’s late 18th century–style facade and its contemporary interior. Vertical panels, inset with pale tonal wallpaper depicting herons, backdrop the twin staircases on either side of the double-height entry hall, where a giant bubble chandelier and oak parquet de Versailles flooring add to the immediate wow factor.

In the formal sitting room, the molding is more pronounced and traditional, despite the fact that the walls are color-blocked in aqua and the requested teal, the paintings are modernist-inflected acrylics by the contemporary Irish artist John Redmond, and the furniture is, as Marconi observes, “a motley crew of uber-modern and vintage” that includes such up-to-the-minute pieces as a maroon Terje Ekstrøm chair and a purple Sacha Lakic sofa juxtaposed with a pair of 1960’s oak armchairs the clients already owned. “We really liked that contrast,” she notes. The molding also performs another traditional function, which is to camouflage a cabinet bar set into the wall and a door to the adjacent study.

One Design Detail: Hidden Doorways

While Marconi takes plenty of stylistic risks, she acknowledges she was spurred on by her adventurous clients. “They weren’t looking to play it safe,” she reports, noting that the couple found DesignLed through Instagram and specifically approached the firm because of its fearlessness. “Our designs are dramatic,” Marconi admits, “though I wouldn’t describe what we do as ‘out there’ or ‘wacky’—it’s just about making an impact. Playing with shapes and colors or putting something into a room that’s theoretically too big for it but somehow works, that’s our brand.” Showstopping indeed.

Patterns and Bold Colors Make This Home Design Pop 

designled: sarah drumm.

varier: maroon chair (sitting room).

e15: side table.

sovet: coffee table.

rockett st george: sconces.

roche bobois: gold chair, sofa (sitting room), throw (main bedroom).

floor story: rugs (sitting room, study, main bedroom).

through april and the bear: vases (sitting room), lamp (entry hall), pendant fixture (bedroom).

ca design: chair (study).

through acquired: desk (study), nightstands (main bedroom), sideboard (entry hall). hay: stools (kitchen).

rothfels: pendant fixture.

jonathan williams kitchens: custom cabinetry.

tecnografica: wallpaper (entry hall).

doherty flooring: parquet.

zoffany: chaise lounge fabric.

&tradition: side table.

mullan lighting: chandelier.

hartô: pendant fixture (main bedroom).

through vinterior: vanity.

oliver bonas: mirror.

marks & spencer: stool.

through etsy: shelves.

linwood fabric company: bed fabric (bedrooms).

fossil stone specialist: wall tile (powder room).

dusk lighting: sconces (bathrooms).

lusso stone: vanities.

drench: sink fittings.

italian tile & stone: floor tile.

feathr: wallpaper (dressing room).

love your home: bed (bedroom).

west elm: nightstand.

cc-tapis: rug.

farrow & ball; fired earth: paint.

Houston’s Brava Tower Blends Newspaper History with Modern Luxury

Residential high-rises tend to look similar. Step into a gleaming white-stone lobby, and you could be anywhere from Philadelphia to Phoenix. But Brava, a 46-story building in downtown Houston, by MaRS Culture and Munoz + Albin Architecture & Planning, bucks the trend. It has something most contemporary towers lack: a sense of place.

Kelie Mayfield, MaRS principal and the interiors lead, believes that a concept only resonates if there’s a story behind it. “It has to do with the site, the context, and the nature of the location,” she says. “If it doesn’t have a soul or purpose, then it’s just a pretty space.” Mayfield starts each project by creating a narrative that informs all design decisions. For Brava, she and her team focused on the history of the location, which was once owned by The Houston Chronicle, thus formulated interiors that tip a hat to both the physical newspaper and the stories within it.

Located in the heart of the arts district, Brava stands out with its shape, a slim rectangle diagonal to the street. Munoz + Albin, the building architect, rotated the structure 45 degrees to maximize views for the 373 rental units and gave it a dynamic exterior. The developer, Hines, has its headquarters across the street, so Brava had to be a showpiece with distinctive offerings. On the podium, housing retail and parking, a white aluminum frame projects in front of a dark perforated screen, mimicking a proscenium in a theater. Above it, Munoz + Albin devoted level 10 to such amenities as an outdoor pool, entertaining kitchen, a fitness room, and coworking space, and installed a sky lounge with a terrace on the 46th floor.

Designing a Residential High-Rise That Reflects Its Surroundings 

“We made some innovative moves,” principal Jorge Munoz notes. “It’s a unique assembly of pieces that resulted from the geometry of the site.” The confines of the parcel required Munoz and co-principal Enrique Albin to round off the corners of the rectangle, resulting in a boatlike shape. They also created a curtain wall with a bowed vertical edge that resembles a glass sail. The mix of curved and straight lines continues inside. “The interior and exterior work together well,” Albin adds. “When you walk into the building, it feels like a whole composition.”

Read All About It: How Newspapers Shaped the Interior Design 

MaRS, which was responsible for the two model apartments and all public areas, totaling 20,00 square feet, aimed to make the interiors feel fluid. This was a challenge given the unusual geometry and hulking structural columns. The designers embedded the latter in undulating plaster walls inspired by the folds of a newspaper. “This helped us integrate the structure while creating something seamless,” Mayfield explains. The folds also draw you through and impart a sense of movement, which she thinks of as a kind of choreography that references the dancers that perform in the neighborhood’s surrounding theaters.

Columns that remain visible are still on theme: They’re embossed with front-page headlines from the Chronicle dating to 1908. The earliest headlines are in the lobby and more recent ones appear upstairs on the amenity floor; they range from “Thousands Out to Greet President Taft in Houston” (1909) to “Thousands Jam the Streets to Celebrate With Astros” (2017). A local muralist applied the text on hand-troweled concrete using a custom stencil.

Local Art Enlivens Public Spaces in the Luxury Building 

Inside The Brava Tower in Houston 

munoz + albin architecture & planning: erick ragni; rachel grady; daniela gonzalez; linnea wingo; zoe pittman; alisha gaubert: mars culture. jeff schmidt; taylor currell; richard rodgers; michael cox.

kirksey: architect of record.

tbg partners: landscape architect.

kpk lighting design: lighting consultant.

weingarten art group: art consultant.

natural graphics: custom graphics.

magnusson klemencic associates: structural engineer.

schmidt and stacy: mep.

2stone designer concrete: concretework.

harvey cleary: general contractor.

meyda lighting: custom light fixture (lobby).

arhaus: chairs.

four hands: bench (lobby), chairs (resident kitchen).

rove concepts: chairs (leasing lounge).

abbey: custom rug.

echo-wood: paneling (elevator lobby).

minotti: sectional (resident lounge).

rh: cocktail table.

through branch: custom rug.

thorntree slate: island top (resident kitchen).

neri&hu: pendant fixture.

innovations: wallcovering (nook, penthouse lounge).

sunpan: table (nook).

ledge: chaise lounges, side tables (pool).

mitchell gold + bob williams: chair (pool lounge).

jaime young co.: table lamp (bedroom).

area environments: wallcovering (hall).

protec: flooring (gym).

astek: wallcovering.

dcw editions: pendant fixtures (penthouse lounge).

living divani: sofa.

porcelanosa: floor tile.

ppg paints: paint.

This Home Sits on an Exclusive São Paolo Golf Course

The 3,000-acre upscale community of Fazenda Boa Vista is in Porto Feliz, about an hour from São Paulo, but a world away from the megacity’s relentless bustle. Envisioned by JHSF, developers of Brazil’s most exclusive shopping enclaves as well as its luxurious Fasano hotel group, the resort has become a favorite escape for well-heeled Paulistanos who prefer a weekend in bucolic horse country over the beach. A quarter of the site’s rolling green hillsides are preserved as pristine native forests and shimmering lakes. But the real attraction for weekenders-at-play are its abundant amenities and activities: two 18-hole golf courses, an equestrian center, a spa, tennis center, hiking and cycling trails, even a working farm and a kids’ club with an indoor skating rink.

This ambitious country idyll, its name translating roughly to beautiful view farm, has tapped some of Brazil’s best talents for its architecture. Isay Weinfeld conceived the Fasano hotel on the property, the equestrian center, and several neighborhoods of Fasano-branded residences. Other districts feature houses by Marcio Kogan and Uruguayan architect Carolina Proto. Add to the list of South American design luminaries Interior Design Hall of Fame member Arthur Casas, who designed a weekend villa for a São Paulo family overlooking the green expanses of one of Fazenda Boa Vista’s golf courses. Coincidentally, Studio Arthur Casas also did the home next door. Maintaining privacy–and aesthetic distinctions–between the two structures was key for the architect.

Inside a Weekend Retreat by Studio Arthur Casas

“I wanted this house to have its own identity,” Casas begins. The boxy, linear three-story home brings to life many of the signature elements of Casas’s work, especially dramatic spaces that smoothly integrate indoors and out by opening themselves completely to the surrounding landscape. In this house, a sprawling 14,000 square feet, the public rooms open onto a terrace extending the length of the swimming pool, then stepping down to a wooden deck, and finally a lush lawn bordering a golf course sand trap. The terrace, finished in large-format ceramic tiles, is a unifying element as well as a dividing line between the natural and architectural worlds.

Starkly different facade materials distinguish the base of the structure from the upper floor. The lower levels, which contain entertaining spaces, the main bedroom suite, a home office, gym, and a subgrade sauna with lounge, is finished in a rustic material typical of this region of the countryside. Hefts of granitelike Brazilian Moledo were cut on-site from larger pieces and set into a sandy mortar with wide gaps between the stones.

The upper level is clad entirely–from its pitched roof to the exterior walls–in horizontal slats of autoclaved pine that’s been injection-dyed to a carbonized finish. The same slatting finishes the flat roof of the ground-level living room and wraps onto the room’s angled interior ceiling. Window shutters on the five upstairs bedrooms pivot open to shade small balconies, creating privacy while letting in fresh air. When closed, the shutters blend with the exterior siding to render the upper floor a seamless wood-shrouded box, a favorite detail of Casas. “They merge with the facade so they’re practically imperceptible,” he explains. A metal arm locks each shutter, which is fitted with a counterweight for easy maneuvering, at fixed angles of 90, 45, and 30 degrees.

How the Home Design Reflects Architectural Traditions

Throughout the house, Casas hewed to materials and finishes that “highlight the rusticity of a country house,” as the architect describes it. Suede, leather, cotton and linen fabrics, and natural-fiber and kilim rugs complement architectural surfaces in pine, porcelain, and ceramic. Furnishings are a mix of contemporary and vintage, mostly from Brazil. Casas’s own Jaky dining table joins his Três Toras table, which resembles a bundle of polished wood logs atop an andironlike curved metal base, in the living room, where there are also sculptural armchairs by Ricardo Fasanello, José Zanine Caldas, and Sergio Rodrigues. Collections of artisanal objects in the main bedroom and displays of rough-hewn ceramics reinforce the rustic-chic vibe. For Casas, such details—along with natural finishes and materials and a soft, neutral interior palette—are as much a part of the home’s sensitivity to the landscape as the building. As Casas puts it, “It’s an architecture that is respectful of its environment.”

Explore the Indoor-Outdoor Vacation Home

studio arthur casas: nara telles; rafael palombo; fabíola andrade; marcos retzer; raimundo borges; diogo mondini; fernanda altemari; ana beatriz braga; luis lourenço; ana maria pedreschi; susana brolhani; claire dayan; julia sampaio; vinicius fadel; giovana micheloni; amanda tamburus; augusto godoi.

om studio: lighting consultant.

dedicatto: custom furniture work­shop, woodwork.

epson: general contractor.

lattoog: woven chair (terrace).

micasa: sofa (living room), desk (office).

etel design: chair, otto­man (main bedroom).

through dpot objeto; through espasso: furniture.

pedra moledo: stone walls.

manufatti: brise-soleil.

exbra: ceramic coatings.

A Landmarked Sydney Cottage Gets a Nature-Inspired Addition

Sydney glories in one of the world’s largest and most beautiful natural harbors. Carved out of sandstone bedrock, the 21-square-mile inlet has 150 miles of convoluted shoreline, providing the city with a wealth of enviable building sites, from imposing promontories and cliff-lined coves to rocky bays and sandy beaches. A recent project by Carter Williamson Architects—a 5,400-square-foot addition to a 2,150-square-foot, 19th-century cottage—responds with sensitive imagination to its harborside location, transforming the property into a sophisticated family residence as glamorous as its setting.

“The original cottage, which is heritage protected, was built in 1881, using sandstone quarried on the site,” principal Shaun Carter says of the pleasingly modest, two-stories-and-basement charmer. Various additions had been made to the rear of it during the 20th century, but they lacked cohesion. The homeowners—a media executive, his textile artist wife, and their three children—wanted the hodgepodge replaced with something better suited to entertaining a large extended family, as well as accommodating serious art and wine collections. “They’d liked a similar historic project of ours in the neighborhood and recognized we’d successfully navigated the approval process,” Carter continues. Little could be done to the cottage beyond its careful restoration, which included repointing the sandstone blockwork and replacing the slate roof. “We did turn the kitchen back into the bedroom it once was,” the architect notes, “and took out a basement wall to connect it to the new extension”—a structure that is, to say the least, as exuberant and expansive as its older companion is quiet and contained.

Designing a Considered Addition for a Historic Home 

Building the addition, which comprises a roof deck and three levels that cascade down the steep lot to a swimming pool terrace and small jetty, involved much more than demolishing the existing extension. “Working with a skilled excavator, we cut the bedrock down to within 7 feet of the waterline,” says architect and Carter Williamson design director Ben Peake. “The back of the cottage became a completely new site,” a gaping void now filled by the brick, cast-concrete, and stone structure. A canyonlike cleft runs deep into the middle of the building, splitting the front into a pair of wings that reach out toward the harbor. The wildly curvaceous facade is sheathed entirely in steel-and-glass window walls that, on the top level, are framed with projecting fins— “We call them the building’s eyelashes,” Peake reports—providing privacy for the pair of bedrooms behind them.

The extension’s undulating form is something of a Carter Williamson trademark. “We’re always playing with compound curves,” Carter observes, adding that the sinuous line coursing through Australian artist Brett Whiteley’s vast abstract paintings of Sydney Harbour is a constant source of inspiration. The organic curves found in nature—serpentine coastlines, sculptural rock formations, gnarled gum trees—are a subliminal influence, too. But perhaps it’s another of Australia’s natural wonders, the lyrebird, that best serves as a metaphor for the project. The way the extension erupts in a profusion of curvilinear shapes behind the neat-and-tidy cottage irresistibly suggests the bird’s tail feathers unfurling in graceful spirals from its little-brown-hen body.

Named Wurrungwuri—an Indigenous Australian word meaning the side of the river that honors the site’s original inhabitants—the house also weaves narrative threads from the past into its rich texture, sometimes by serendipity. Montagu Scott, a Victorian artist whose large canvas A Day’s Picnic on Clark Island, Sydney Harbor hangs in the State Library of New South Wales, once lived in the cottage. At a recent art fair, the current homeowners chanced on one of Scott’s works, which now hangs in the billiards room, the line of history coming full circle.

Explore the Design of This Australian Cottage 

carter williamson architects: tai danh lien.

studio cd: art consultant.

jane irwin landscape architecture: landscape architecture.

rebal engineering: structural engineer.

cwl group: mep.

sublime custom cabinetry: woodwork.

artechne: general contractors.

classicon: daybed (cabana).

viabizzuno: floor lamp.

zanotta: black table.

flos: table lamp.

henry timi: side chair.

armadillo: rug.

through gallery sally dan-cuthbert: cube table, wood coffee table, round table, sofa module, stool.

tacchini: chair, ottoman (gallery).

opt sudios: stool.

dimoremilano: side table.

usm: cabinet.

rachel donath: lamp.

the rug establishment: rug.

tecta: armchair (parlor).

toogood: chair (stair).

artek: rope chair (cabana).

edra: sofa.

merci maison: pendant fixture.

tom dixon: chandelier (dining area).

mattiazzi: stool (kitchen).

karakter: table (main bathroom).

lacividina: green chair (cabana).

senator pools: pool (terrace).

tait: chairs.

marlo lyda: side table (bedroom).

pierre frey: coverlet fabric.

brodware: sink fittings (cabana bathroom).

eco outdoor: travertine floor tile.

precision flooring: wood flooring.

petre’s curtains & blinds: custom curtains, custom blinds.

brh steel: custom windows, custom staircase.