Shed Hits a Hole in One with an Eye-Popping Crazy Golf Center in London

Mini-golf fans who love to putter around kitsch lighthouse-and-monster-strewn courses at holiday destinations and gaming complexes will likely have their minds blown when they take a turn at the new Birdies Crazy Golf at the Angel venue in north London. U.K. design firm Shed’s first shot at a Birdies was a winner in Battersea, but the second one is true 5,400-square-foot champion.

“When designing their new venue, each strategic design choice, from materiality to lighting and game play, had to not only support the brand identity, but was the brand identity,” explains Shed partner Dave Dalziel. That identity? Illuminance chaos, which Dalziel describes as a series of lighting concepts at each hole, from tracks to spots to feature suspensions, which can vary in hue, speed, and pulses—delighting, and bedeviling, game players. 

Adding to the fun are interventions, including vast walls of yellow and black polka dots, a tunnel in reflect chevron, bunkers, and even a jungle of palm trees. Shed’s concepts are winners as far as Birdies is concerned: Nick Frow, co-founder of Birdies Angel, says the space is the first of an expansion plan that will include five more in London and 20 through the country, all in the next few years. “We can’t wait to get out new North London visitors in the doors,” he says, “and show them what all the fuss is about.”

For those longing to celebrate a win or gamely wallow in defeat after swinging their clubs—or for those whose idea of club culture is more like a cocktail lounge—the new location offers a buzzy, neon pink bar “Especially in the world of competitive socializing,” Dalziel says, “design gives the element of surprise to the experience and creates an illusion of another world that envelopes people the minute the walk through the doors.” Sometimes it takes them out of this world altogether. 

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.

“The principal bedroom was a really difficult shape as well,” Gordon notes. A bed takes up most of the room’s footprint, so the designers framed a custom headboard directly against the wall. “Its curve mirrors the shape of the room, as do the bedside tables.” Both are a rich, deep red. “Monochrome always brings a room together,” she adds.

The burgundy-ish tone pops up in ceramic side tables throughout the space, brightening a shadowy media room dominated by a beckoning, oversize green-velvet-upholstered custom sofa and plush carpet right out of a 70’s conversation pit. Bigger crowds can gather at the custom dining table while perched on Noom’s groovy Gropius chairs in eye-popping orange wool, quaffing drinks shaken up at the full-height built-in bar cabinet nearby, its interior lacquered a zesty tomato hue. Both rest on linoleum floors in a custom pattern meant to recall terrazzo—albeit supersized.

“The flooring was a completely bespoke design, and installing it was quite nerve-racking,” Gordon reports. “But it ended up looking amazing.” Owl didn’t touch the kitchen much, apart from spraying the cabinets a snappy mint green to match the walls and installing a tidy grid of backsplash tiles. (“It’s mostly a place for caterers to cook in,” Gordon notes with a laugh.)

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.”

For TikTok’s New York Office, Gensler Captures the Soul of the City

When TikTok touched down on American shores, i.e. Los Angeles, in 2019, it laid claim to the world’s most downloaded app. The same holds true this year, which is also when the company expanded to Manhattan, staking out 150,000 square feet for 1,000 employees across the five top floors of the 58-story H&M tower—fittingly steps from Broadway and its myriad dance numbers. Now, as then, the Gensler project was led by design director and senior associate Chris Mitchell, who translated some of the West Coast tropes to suit the soul of the city.

For the TikTok New York office, the play of the neon elevator lobbies of L.A. have been re-envisioned with LED panels in colors and images representing pizza, yellow cabs, and the Statue of Liberty. In the café, LED tubes abstract the subway map, while, behind the servery counter, climbing ropes reference “Spider Man successfully scaling tall buildings,” Mitchell says, adding that, “The boardroom is a circular space in a square building,” its otherworldly oculus subtly recalling James Turrell’s work. And everywhere, including from multiple balconies, are views stretching from the Empire State Building to the Freedom Tower.

Hay Launches Brightly-Colored Furniture and Accessory Collection

Contemporary furniture design studio Muller Van Severen was founded in 2011 by Belgian photographer Fien Muller and sculptor Hannes Van Severen. This summer, cult Danish housewares brand Hay produces Two-Color tables, inspired by the pair’s early investigations into bright colors and synthetic materials. “We wanted a collaboration that would allow us to reach a younger audience through more accessible products,” Muller says of the zeitgeisty partnership. Steel-tube legs meet tabletops in varying shapes and sizes crafted from dyed Valchromat, a through-color wood-fiber composite with a water-resistant surface. As an accompaniment, the couple introduce Arcs, shades that can be used for pendant fixtures or as table lamps, their scalloped silhouettes fabricated from colored or mirror-polished steel. There’s also a similarly shaped Arcs candleholder, in zinc alloy, which comes in two heights and a host of hues.