Uncover Historic References in Arte’s Latest Wallcoverings

The ancient city of Babylon inspired Arte’s latest line of textile wallcoverings. It draws on cuneiform script, the pictographic writing that Mesopotamians carved into clay tablets. Likewise, Babylon’s four patterns were initially carved into clay, creating three-dimensional molds that Arte’s team converted into metal stamps. Using heat stamping, they transfer the designs onto a textile surface with a thin layer of foam and nonwoven backing. The resulting acoustical wall tiles, each in four colorways, resemble plasterwork: Terracotta recalls decorative earthenware, Medjoul depicts date palms, and Adobe mixes squares and triangles in an irregular composition. arte-international.com

This London Apartment for a Famous Singer Nods to Idol, David Bowie

When a famous British singer bought a pad in a Foster + Partners multi-tower apartment complex on the banks of London’s River Thames, a duet of desires played in his mind. First, he longed to transform its undoubtedly luxurious but standard-issue interiors into one of the city’s great party spots. And second, a beloved portrait of his idol David Bowie had to take pride of place.

After a few scrolls on Instagram, he found his players: Simone Gordon and Sophie van Winden of Owl Design. The pair had met in an interior architecture course at Ravensbourne University London, rebelling against the school’s partiality toward glass-box minimalism. By 2014, a few years after graduating, they’d founded their own firm, lending their signature blend of fluid shapes and bold colors to hospitality and office projects across the country. The pandemic moved them mainly into residential spaces, freshening up homes with a touch of post-Memphis here, post-Modernism there. With Owl remixing the 2,000-square-foot three-bedroom apartment, the singer knew he’d have a hit.

Gordon and van Winden’s top-to-bottom redesign is indeed off the charts. The pair addressed the challenges of the building’s distinctive curved walls—lovely on the outside but hard to work with in the rooms themselves—with a Memphis-inflected preference for clear geometric forms. The living area walls boast built-in bookshelves that trace the curves, divided into snappy triangular compartments for the client’s collectables.

Owl did put a lot of work into the elevations of each room. “The living room walls are covered in Venetian plaster,” Gordon continues. “That was a real challenge, getting all the nooks and crannies.” Hallways are coated in high-gloss paint to amplify the abundant daylight. And the spare bedrooms boast eye-catching wallcoverings: a blue faux–grass cloth for one, and an op-art repeating pill pattern for the other (the client’s manager’s favorite place to crash).

While guests inevitably dash into the dining area to check out the blockbuster views, the true VIP spots are the hallway in which the Bowie portrait holds court and, unexpectedly, the nearby WC. Its walls are clad in sequin homages to Aladdin Sane’s famed lightning-bolt face paint, and a secreted stereo greets each partier with a timeless hit and timely exhortation to party: “Let’s Dance.”

gubi through chaplins: chaise longue (dining area)

utu soulful lighting through do shop: floor light, ceiling pendant

noom: chairs

zieta through monologue: mirror

viero: wall plaster (living area)

maman rugs: custom rug

amy somerville: sofa fabric

through jane richards interiors: armchair

the conran shop: side table

massproductions through clippings: coffee table

doozie light studio: chandelier

Sella Concept: stools (kitchen)

shimmerwalls: custom wallcovering (wc)

mirror balls: mirror ball

phillip jeffries: wallpaper (guest bedroom)

Jonathan Adler: cushions

holloways of ludlow: table lamp

&tradition through clippings: side table

warwick: sofa fabric (snug)

hung up: custom cushions

gp & j baker: cushion fabric

cto lighting: wall light

the conran shop: side table

Arte: wallpaper (second guest bedroom)

warwick, kirkby design, larsen: headboard fabrics/bed upholstery

natural bed company: side table

oyoy: lamp

moustache through nunido: chair

lydia hardwick: vase

craft gallery: framed print

hung up: curtain fabrication (primary bedroom)

métaphores: curtain fabric

warwick, nobilis, dedar: headboard fabrics

utu soulful lighting through do shop: wall light

Arte: wallcovering

carpenter & carpenter: custom bedside table

forbo flooring systems: custom flooring

hux: custom millwork (living room, snug); custom table (dining room)

the cotswold bed company: custom beds (bedrooms)

fixup: general contractor

On the Move: Recent Promotions and Hires

Take a look at the latest promotions and hires across the A&D industry.

Arte

The Belgium-based wallcovering company Arte has named Eric Edgar as area manager, east for Arte USA. He will serve as a brand ambassador for the Eastern half of the US. Edgar joins Arte USA from Koroseal Interior Products, where he most recently worked as regional sales manager for the Southeastern region. Previously he held roles at Eykon and Milliken & Company. He will work alongside Jim Scheurer, area manager, west, for Arte USA, and report to Bill Calhoun, president of Arte USA. 

MandiCasa

Dario Snaidero recently launched the new brand MandiCasa offering a curated selection of made-in-Italy designs, including kitchens, bathrooms, closets, and interior doors. The launch is the result of two years of dedicated research and relationship building across Italy, along with Dario Snaidero family’s 45+ years of experience bringing top-quality Italian designs to the North American market.

Additionally, Nelson has formed a partnership with the branding consultancy firm Tate + Hansen. Their collaboration will be recognized as THNW. Together, the firms will share their global presence, services, knowledge, and relationships to amplify the voices of underrepresented minority groups in the industry.

HOK

HOK has made a number of promotions and hires. Kristina Kamenar has been promoted from senior project interior designer to director of design, interiors in Toronto. Dina Lamanna has been promoted from senior project interior designer to director of hospitality interior design. Based in New York, she will lead hospitality interior design projects worldwide. Sherri King Parente has been promoted from project manager to director of interiors in Philadelphia. Tara Roscoe joins HOK as director of design, interiors in New York. She was a corporate design leader at her previous firm. 

CRTKL

The global architecture, design, and strategy firm CRTKL has expanded its research division with two new additions: Dr. Helia Taheri and Amy Keller Frye. Dr. Taheri joins as a human-centric researcher, sustainability specialist, and an architect with eight years of experience in architecture firms and research centers across the globe. Frye takes on her role with fifteen years of research, strategy, and evidence-based design experience in the field. She has worked with notable clients including Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and the Center for Health Design.

Olson Kundig

Olson Kundig has opened a new office space in New York City, located in a 100-year-old building in Midtown Manhattan. The office is anchored by a signature gathering and event space known as the Living Room, which revolves around an oversized, 144-square-foot table designed by Tom Kundig and fabricated by Spearhead Timberworks. 

Kneedler Fauchère Group

Two new shareholders, Gina DeWitt and Quinn Tran, have joined chairman and creative director George Massar and CEO and president Doug Kinzley on the executive management team at Kneedler Fauchère. Gina DeWitt, now the COO of showrooms and strategic partnerships, will oversee the operations of all three Kneedler Fauchère showrooms. Quinn Tran, now CFO, will lead the team in an expanded role of legal and financial duties for the company. She has been with Kneedler Fauchère for 24 years. 

Ware Malcomb

Ware Malcomb has announced three promotions in the Irvine office. Jinger Tapia has been promoted to vice president, design; Maureen Bissonnette has been promoted to principal, marketing; and Maria Rodgers has been promoted to PR & communications manager. Jinger Tapia began her architectural career at Ware Malcomb in 1996 and re-joined in 2002. Maureen Bissonnette joined Ware Malcomb 1998 as a marketing assistant. Rodgers joined Ware Malcomb in 2014 as marketing coordinator and in 2018, she took on responsibility for the firm’s public relations program.

Premier

Paul Morrell has joined Premier Project Management as the company’s new chief operating officer. Before joining Premier, Morrell held executive leadership positions overseeing operations, supply chain, human resources, IT, capital management, and real estate divisions. The interior design, architecture, procurement, project management, engineering, and contract teams will report directly to Morrell in this new role.

ZAS Architects + Interiors

Commercial interior designer Leigh Collyer is now officially a principal at ZAS Architects + Interiors. Collyer has nearly 20 years of design and project management experience, servicing numerous long-time clients from Canada’s leading financial institutions and as successfully won long-term contracts with clients including HSBC, Bank of Montreal, and other credit unions.

Harrison

Dallas-based, award-winning architecture and design firm Harrison announced today it has promoted Whitney Ford to vice president of architecture and associate director. Ford enters this newly created role with over 15 years of experience in the design and architecture industry, having joined the Harrison team in 2018. Her roster of clients includes HMS Host, Mellow Mushroom, Velvet Taco, Savory Fund, Fogo de Chao and many more high-profile brands.

Gabellini Sheppard

Chardonnay Pickard-Fares has joined Gabellini Sheppard Associates as marketing and business development director. She will be responsible for communications and business development strategy in collaboration with Kimberly Sheppard and Michael Gabellini and will work closely with Lindsey Whitlock, Gabellini Sheppard Associates’ recently promoted marketing manager. Pickard-Fares has worked as a consultant and in-house with a variety of the industry’s leading architects and interior designers and with institutions like 92Y on events and programming.

Perkins&Will 

Dan Thomas has joined Perkins & Will to serve as the new health principal, working out of the Dallas studio. Thomas brings over 28 years of experience in healthcare design and planning to the position. He has strong interests in behavioral health, children’s health, and population health.

HGA

HGA announced its new National Interior Design Leadership Team. The collaborative model—with three leaders at the helm—was formed to support the accelerated growth of the firm’s award-winning national interior design practice. The team leaders will be Paula Storsteen, national interior design practice leader; Lisa Macaluso, national interior design business development leader; and Haley Nelson, national interior design expertise leader.

Native Trails

The artisan-crafted kitchen and bathroom brand Native Trails has announced the hiring of Lauren Rademacher as the company’s new Eastern regional manager. Rademacher brings a wealth of industry knowledge, adding 12 years of highly impactful experience to the Native Trails roster, having previously worked with Gerhard’s, Delta Faucet Company, NCS Corporation, and others. Additionally, Stan Artman has been promoted from director of sales, East, to vice president of sales. Artman has 30-plus years of sales experience and has been with Native Trails since 2014.

Pophouse Captures the Collaborative Spirit of Rock Ventures for its Detroit Headquarters

2022 Best of Year Winner for Medium Corporate Office

The infill of an office building in a downtown Detroit complex had just been completed when Pophouse decided to blast an enormous hole through two floors of it. The firm was planning the new headquarters of Rock Ventures and the Rock Family of Companies, and the designers envisioned a monumental spiral staircase at the point where angled sides of the complex meet. The staircase, the central feature of the project, would not only connect the lower and upper levels of the 50,000- square-foot office but also unite the multiple teams housed there, creating serendipitous opportunities for employees who don’t normally work together to come into contact while going up and down the stairs, fostering a sense of being part of a larger enterprise. But, of course, demolishing brand-new construction would be expensive and disruptive.

Another client would almost certainly have said no. But Jennifer Gilbert, the founder and creative director of Pophouse, had the ear of her client, Dan Gilbert, founder and chairman of Rock Ventures, Rock FOC, and Rocket Companies, to whom she has long been married. And as his wife and partner in many ventures, she is part boss, too, and was thus able to call the shots much more than is usually the case on the commercial projects the studio works on—with stunning results. “Wearing the creative director hat and some of the owner hat was great,” she recalls.

Not that she was doing the work alone. Just as her husband’s business has grown—it began with his founding of what would become Quicken Loans in 1985, and the Rock Family of Companies now includes a portfolio of more than 100 diverse entities including Rocket Companies, 100 Thieves, Stock X, Dictionary.com, and the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers—so, too, has Pophouse. The firm, which is also part of the Rock FOC, prides itself on a data-driven approach to design that incorporates the latest findings on things like biophilia. So when Rock Ventures and the Rock FOC were ready to move from cramped former quarters elsewhere in the complex to a roomier, more sophisticated space, Pophouse was up to the job.

Chrissy Fehan, the firm’s design director, and her colleagues fleshed out a scheme that incorporates multiple circular spaces, not the least being the spiral stair in its airy atrium, based in part on research suggesting that such spaces spur creativity. The first is in reception, on the lower floor. Here, under backlit stretched fabric, a terrazzo floor is modeled on Detroit’s hub-and-spoke street grid. The waiting-area gallery just beyond is circular, too. Where circles were not possible, Pophouse rounded the corners of private offices and installed curvy furniture through­out, notably plump Pierre Paulin chairs in reception, a long and winding sofa by Koz Susani Design in a lounge, and an impressive 16-foot-diameter conference table in the boardroom, which itself is round in shape.

Also key to the office’s concept is lively artwork, on which Pophouse collaborated with Library Street Collective, a downtown Detroit gallery that focuses on artists, both local and not, who push boundaries. One standout piece, by Faile, anchors the grand staircase: It spirals down to a colorful round of inlaid mosaic tile incorporating such words as “heart,” “hope,” and “dream.” “It embodies all the great work happening in our city,” says Fehan, who came to Detroit for college and then stayed. Pophouse surrounded the installation with a C-shape bench made of modular sections that can be removed so the area can be used for events. The inclusion of works by local artists Jason Revok and the late Charles McGee underscore the Detroit-proud theme.

Then there are the basketball-related installations. A wall in Dan Gilbert’s office is devoted to a Tyrrell Winston assemblage comprised of dozens of deflated basketballs, including, of course, a couple from the Cavaliers. Outside his office, a room-size walk-in closet has a shelf with autographed balls plus, hanging from clothing rods, various team jerseys from which a lucky visitor might get to make a selection to take home. “We used to have all the Cavs things stuffed in a storage closet,” Jennifer Gilbert says. “Why not celebrate it?”

She and her team also paid homage to her husband’s “isms”—sayings such as “yes before no” and “simplicity is genius”—in the auditorium, where Cody Hudson rendered them on acoustical wall panels; rift-cut white-oak millwork here and throughout the headquarters further dampen sound. For the auditorium’s seating, the designers used sleight of hand: a benching system that incorporates Eames Molded Plywood Dining Chairs, minus their chrome legs.

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Equally inventive is a wall of preserved moss near a part of the office devoted to the Rocket Community Fund and the Gilbert Family Foundation, the philanthropic organizations the couple run that are devoted to growing opportunity and equity in Detroit as well as other national and international causes. The moss maps out Detroit’s municipal districts in varying shades of yellow and green. Small wooden boards that slide in and out of sleeves embedded in the plant matter are laser-engraved with stories about the work being done by their organizations.

If it’s not already clear, Dan Gilbert is a Detroit native, his wife grew up in one of its suburbs, and together they are dedicated to revitalizing the Motor City. A dozen years ago, Dan Gilbert relocated Rock Ventures and the Rock FOC to the then-languishing downtown, and, in the years since, Bedrock, a real estate company he controls, has been redeveloping properties in the area. Last year, the couple announced a $500 million pledge to build opportunity and equity for all Detroit residents who have faced systemic barriers to economic and social mobility. The city’s comeback and the Gilberts appear to be inextricably entwined.

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Pophouse: jordan wills; sarah davis; allen largin; monica pace; lauren burnheimer; nicole pelton; brandon bartel; makyle welke; alessandro pagura

ghafari associates: architect of record.

library street collective: art consultant

abd engineering & design: acoustician

bluewater technologies group: audiovisual

mod interiors: woodwork

whiting-turner: general contractor

m cohen and sons: stair fabrication (atrium)

nienkamper: sofa (gallery)

Kvadrat Maharam: sofa upholstery

ligne roset: chairs (gallery, reception), tables (boardroom lounge)

massproductions: tables (lounge)

noom home: chairs

kvadrat: chair fabric

urban electric co.: sconces

axis lighting: linear fixtures

vogue furniture: custom desk (reception)

artisan tile inc.: custom terrazzo

bernhardt design: ottoman (reception), guest chairs, table (office), chairs, ottomans, table (breakout

herman miller: task chair (reception), workstations (work area)

Cumberland Furniture: sofa (boardroom lounge)

artifort: chairs

grand rapids chair company: chair (phone room)

matter made: lamp

Arte: wallcovering

planterra conservatory: moss wall (philanthropy gallery)

halcon furniture: casegoods (office)

fiandre: floor tile (auditorium, boardroom)

acoufelt: acoustical baffles (office area)

Tom Dixon: ceiling fixtures (closet)

Coalesse: chairs (boardroom)

carlisle wide plank floors: engineered flooring

fusion lighting; luminii; prudential lighting company; usai lighting: lighting

barrisol: stretched ceiling

armstrong: acoustical ceiling

Add tag via side panel:

certainteed; navy island: acoustical paneling

Benjamin Moore & Co.; Dunn-Edwards; Farrow & Ball; Sherwin-Williams Company: 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.