Bergman Design House Revives a Collector’s London Home

In the Marylebone area of the British capital, Park Crescent Gardens, laid out by Buckingham Palace architect John Nash, has been transformed into a collection of refined residences befitting their royal pedigree. Nestled in the Grade I listed building, is a home for a British couple who enlisted Bergman Design House to bring warmth to the space and introduce a sense of hygge—a Scandinavian concept that describes a quality of coziness—as a nod to the Swedish origins of Albin Berglund, cofounder of the studio. 

“This home truly embraces the concept of the flâneur and marries wabi-sabi—the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete; the beauty of things unconventional,” says Marie Soliman, cofounder and creative director of Bergman Design House. 

This London Home Design Features Gallery-Worthy Art

Standout pieces include a colorful art installation by Zhuang Hong-yi in the main living area and the eccentric astronaut “The Thinker” by Joseph Klibansky, which acts as a conversation starter nestled by the staircase. 

“This home celebrates the owners’ collection and their love of discovering pieces and displaying them in style,” says Soliman. “It is subtly echoing the existing shapes and tones of the artworks, complementing but never detracting from their beauty. The design plays to the strengths of the architecture and treasured objects, ensuring the rooms exude a sense of balance and considered calm.”

Inside the London Home by Bergman Design House

7 Highlights from PAD London

Fourth-generation Parisian antique dealer Patrick Perrin brought his design and art fair, PAD, to London 15 years ago, and it continues to energize the city. The week-long show, which coincided with London’s international contemporary art fair, Frieze, featured 62 design and jewelry galleries from 13 countries spotlighting 20th-century and contemporary design. “PAD is a place where collectors, museum experts, interior specialists, design practitioners and the public alike feel at home,” Perrin told Interior Design. “It is a treasure trove for design where one can learn, discover and be inspired, a platform that celebrates and promotes cross-collecting and the combination of genres, which we see as a growing trend amongst collectors.”

The fair’s positioning as a market stable in London and abroad was evident during the event preview when international collectors, dealers, and design lovers roamed the aisles, perusing objects from mid-century Nordic furniture and art by Swedish gallery Modernity to a whimsical installation of objects and furniture presented by Milan’s powerhouse Nilufar Gallery. London’s own Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery occupied two booths, one dedicated to wearable pieces by contemporary art and fashion stars like Cindy Sherman, Michelle Lamy, and Rashid Johnson.

Between 41 returning and 21 first time participants, the fair had a foremost European program, reflected not only in the exhibitors’ original locales but also in the visitor-base, as well as the works on view. For its return after a two-year pandemic-enforced break, PAD also committed to reducing its paper waste through entirely digitized tickets, a catalogue, and press kits.

Award-winning designs up the buzz at PAD London

The excitement was elevated on the event’s second day when a black lacquer beech armchair by Jose Pleènik, dating to the early 1930s, at Patrick Fourtin’s booth won the the historical design prize. Meanwhile, the best booth accolade was shared between Jacques Lacoste and Wa Design galleries and the contemporary design award went to Francesco Perini for his oak, maple, and black marble table at Gallery Fumi.

Read Interior Design’s event highlights from PAD, which closed October 16 and will return to Paris on March 29, 2023.

Nilufar Gallery 

Although an establishment with global impact, Nilufar Gallery still reflects the genuine eye of its founder Nina Yashar, a tastemaker and collector with an avid fascination for elegant maximalism and alchemy of color and pattern. Fittingly, the gallery’s booth was a whimsical display of furniture that pulled fairgoers to a potpourri of colors and forms. Artist, designer, and style figure Bethan Laura Wood’s selfie-begging, romantically-decorated mirrors were steps away from Italian designer Osanna Visconti’s bronze table. Wood was also represented with her sculptural wooden cabinet, Meisen Caterpillar, which was a crowd-pleaser with its piled rounded teal shelves and painted wash of psychedelic patterns. The furniture’s mind-bending presence is not a coincidental given that Alice in Wonderland was the artist’s main inspiration for the piece.

Jousse Entreprise

French galleries expectedly have a large presence across the Parisian-born fair, such as Jousse Entreprise, which presented an ample selection of French and international designers, both contemporary and of the 20th century. In the heart of their booth was Charlotte Perriand’s geometric bookcase, Mexique, which the late architect and designer created in 1952 with enameled aluminum and wood in a geometric pattern of colors. Another head-turner was Roger Tallon’s Module 400 coat rack with its elegant polished tube, cast aluminum, and plastic body. 1965 being the work’s year of creation, the influence of Minimalist art is clear from its economic silhouette and use of industrial materials.

Modernity

Stockholm and London-based gallery Modernity received a wave of foot traffic thanks to its ambitious selection of international Nordic designers from the last century and a dramatically-design booth with wooden accents by architect Emilie Bonaventure. Paavo Tynell’s intriguing chandelier from 1940s was made with a brass frame and rolled tabletop place mats. In a corner, a vignette of art, furniture, and objects created a neat domestic setting: Ingebourd Lundin’s 1957-dated elegant glass vase The Apple was placed atop Mogens Lassen’s clean-cut wooden coffee table, The Egyptian Table from 1935; Finn Juhl’s two-seater teak sofa from 1945 and Sven Hansson’s 1982-dated oil on canvas geometric abstraction completed the juxtaposition.

Ceramics Now

Founded by Raphaella Riboud-Seydoux and Florian Daguet-Bresson in Paris, ceramic and glass gallery Ceramics Now filled their booth with a display of intriguing vessels by young designers who push the tradition with help from technology. Claire Linder’s neon-colored objects reflect her interest in underwater and unearthing nature’s own process of creation; Faye Hadfield’s colorful unabashedly flamboyant creations marry clay’s malleable softness with ceramic’s fragile firmness, adorned on their surfaces with explosive colors in dancing patterns. A surprise in the display is world-renowned conceptual artist, Lee Ufan, whose emphasis on the materials’ bare essences—whether with pigment and canvas, drypoint on paper or clay—found its reflection here through his gentle ceramic bowl.

Galerie Jallu

Among this year’s newcomers, Galerie Jallu from Paris made its first impact with Roberto Ruspoli’s romantic wall-covering drawing of bodies as a backdrop to a large selection of furniture. London-based designer Cox London’s polypore and glass chandelier mixed classical with experimentalism in material, with 7500 Venetian glass leaves held by polypore frames. Sitting on a pile of large discs made out of selenite, bleached sycamore and white gold leaf, gallery founders Sandra Scolnik-Jallu and Yann Jallu’s large scale Ring Table was a masterful amalgamation of materials and balance, with large chunks of discs in an energetic composition lifting a rounded surface. Clement cabinet, also designed by the couple, again merged materials—in this case black mica, pyrite and bog oak— in an elegant concert, outlining the surface with aa that radiated the impression of aa flowing down

Adrian Sassoon

London’s own Adrian Sassoon brought a large selection of designers from the gallery’s roster, showcased in a fashion similar to domestic displays in its townhouse location by Hyde Park. Danish designers Tobias Møhl’s blown glass vessels captured a veil-like thinness, while Dutch designer Bouke de Vries’s two playful creations, Delft Stack I and III, included toweresque piles of 18th century Dutch Delft porcelain segments at 38 feet heights. Silver was also represented with Japanese artist and designer Junko Mori’s Silver Organism; Garden Flowers, a flower-shaped creation of forged fine silver. 

Cristina Grajales Gallery

New York’s own Cristina Grajales Gallery made its PAD debut with a selection of designers offered at the gallery’s downtown Manhattan space. Colombian designer Alexandra Agudelo’s silver mirrors reflects an oozing sensation embodied through a contrast between the material’s history across cultures and her liquid visual lexicon. Glass found a similarly surreal and playful form in Randy Polumbo’s Sprout, which as its title suggests, captures an organic growth blended with a biomorphic sensation with a sheeny aluminum branch and glass pods glaring with help from LED lights.

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

This Eco-Friendly Apartment is a Peaceful Refuge in the Heart of London

For Tom Lawrence-Levy, founder of Natural Asthetik, this project located in the British capital was a challenge for many reasons. First, the designer had to learn more about feng shui principles. His client, a young married couple of Asian descent, felt strongly about reflecting feng shui rules throughout their home. Second, another part of the brief consisted in creating a living space of eco-friendly pieces free of any carcinogens. When Lawrence-Levy realized he couldn’t find furniture assembled and made using 100% non-toxic adhesives and sustainable materials, he decided to design them himself, fashioning many pieces as functional storage as well. “This way, we were able to create a space that was easy to keep clear of clutter and maintain the calmness,” he says. 

In this apartment inspired by a mix of Japanese and Scandinavian influences (described as Japandi style), the serene environment was achieved using a restrained, soft and natural color and material palette with wood, stone and natural fibers. “We incorporated organic shaped pieces and many curves to express the importance of keeping the energy of the rooms flowing,” Lawrence-Levy says. “This home is a moment of peace in the middle of the city.”

Architecture for London Creates a Low-Energy, High-Style House for its London Director

Architecture for London director Ben Ridley’s home in Muswell Hill, London is a textbook example of the simple elegance typical of the classic Edwardian terrace house. After a year’s refurbishment, it’s now also a textbook example of sustainable redesign. 

The original Edwardian façade was preserved, but the change came from within, where Ridley devised a continuous airtight layer and insulation for the envelope. “Careful detailing is required,” he notes. “Joist penetrations and places where different types of construction meet need particular attention.” Airtight tape and membranes are a must, as are natural materials like timbre for the frame and lime plaster, as opposed to cement-based products. He kept the original masonry nib walls as well, so as not to use energy-intensive steel box frames. Both the original house and a new rear extension achieved a Passivhaus standard U-value of 0.15 or better, and air is filtered and pre-heated thanks to an MCHR system.

Interiors of the 2,000-square-foot home are minimal and modern, with a material palette highlighting honed limestone. “The slight polish means that it gently reflects light,” Ridley says, “and the way that light reveals the fossils in the stone is lovely.” The material forms his favorite spot, where a kitchen island and window seat “are detailed to appear as a solid block of limestone.” The house might be low energy, but it’s certainly high-style. 

Accept & Proceed Uses 20,000 Upcycled Sneakers for a Playground in Belgrade, Serbia

Everyone knows that sneakers are for playing sports. But lesser known is that the materials composing them can be recycled into sport surfacing. Nike Grind, the company’s decades-old program contributing to its zero-waste goal, takes the rubber, foam, leather, textile, and plastic originating from manufacturing scrap, unsellable products, and worn-out athletic shoes and repurposes them—totaling 120 million pounds to date—into running tracks, turf fields, and basketball courts. That’s what happened at Blok 70, a formerly underused, decade-old park in Belgrade, Serbia, that’s been eye-catchingly and sustainably revamped by creative agency Accept & Proceed using sneakers upcycled by Nike, one of many projects the London-based certified B Corp has completed for the brand worldwide. A&P’s scope encompassed the graphic design, colorways, and refurbishment of Blok 70’s basketball court and its 13-foot-high chain-link fence, the fitness area, playground, and bleachers, and also extends to sneaker collection bins in the city’s squares and inside Nike stores. “We’re immensely proud,” A&P creative director Matthew Jones says, “to have a role in sowing the seeds for an active future and better tomorrow.”

10 Questions With… Mimi Shodeinde

Interior Design: Why did you study art? And why the move into furniture and interiors? 

Mimi Shodeinde: Art was the only subject I really enjoyed at school. I’ve always been very creative and art was my way of expressing myself and navigating through the world. I practically lived in the art block in school. Sometimes I would sleep there if I got the chance and had to be forced out by my teachers! Furniture and interiors, for me, is still a form of art so I guess it was a very natural transition. There’s always scope for new ideas in design. My creativity is always evolving and that’s the exciting part of being in this industry.

ID: How do ideas come to you? Do you do a lot of research online or in books or do they come to you while traveling?

MS: It might sound cliche but most of the time a spark or an idea for a project or design comes naturally to me. It depends on what I am researching or interested in at the time—there are so many rabbit holes that I find myself going down that inevitably give rise to ideas. I spend so much of my time reading, researching, and developing concepts that it feels sometimes that my mind is constantly bringing new ideas to the fore organically. 

ID: What is your work and design process? 

MS: My design process is really fluid and it changes all the time. I always try to get the idea from my head to paper as quickly as I can—ideas can be so fleeting that I find the discipline of writing a thought down can help me realize it. I then take it to CAD or create a model for scale, composition and communication. Depending on what it is I’m designing, I often work backwards, I conceptualize the object, develop it and then go back to materials and textures. I rarely think of function in my design process as I believe I work from more of an artistic perspective and I see my work as an artistic expression rather than designing something that is entirely for function. I’m inspired by what’s around me, and a lot of it works on instinct and how I’m feeling.

ID: You are only 27 and started your studio while still at university. Have you always been entrepreneurial? Where do you get this drive and ambition from, do you think?

MS: I would say I’ve always been entrepreneurial and very ambitious. My mother is a key figure in my life; she is extremely entrepreneurial and business-minded. I grew up watching her excel in all of her business ventures so I guess you could say I’m inspired by her and have sought to tread my own path with Miminat Designs whilst still embracing my creative side. My parents In general are very hard-working and I guess they passed that crazy work ethic down to me. I’m a perfectionist and I want to be the best at whatever it is I do. 

ID: What’s been one of the most professionally significant or influential episodes of your career so far? 

MS: Every ‘episode’ has been significant and so special. I feel that in some ways it is quite unique that I’m young-ish as these opportunities don’t usually happen so early in a designer’s career. That’s why every moment is a ‘pinch me’ moment. My latest “is this really happening” episodes were: showcasing a piece of my furniture at the Design Museum in 2021, being featured in Phaidon’s prestigious “Woman Made” book and winning an epic new project in Portugal. 

ID: What do you like about being based in London in terms of work and personal life? What does it offer?

MS: London for me is the most diverse city in the world so it suits me as a base because of the way I work and find inspiration. Although I am a London-based designer my inspiration is global due to my admiration and appreciation for different cultures and people in general. British craftsmen play a very important role in design and in British design, yet they are often overlooked because there is still this ‘notion’ that great design should originate from Italy or Scandinavia. The truth is, there are great craftsmen and designers all over the world and I want to work with them all.

ID: How are you influenced by your Nigerian heritage in your work? Do you go there often?

MS: My Nigerian heritage has definitely influenced my work. It appears for example in some of my furniture, the Omi table is named after the Yoruba word for “water.” I love to balance both European and African schools of design and the materials I use reference my heritage too—wood, bronze, exposed stone shapes, the boldness in scale and presence of my work is also a reference to African sculpture. I try to go to Nigeria every six to eight months as I have a lot of family there. I always find traveling plants the seeds of ideas and I love the unique landscapes of Nigeria—the heat is also unbeatable. Currently I am doing two projects in Lagos, and it’s incredible for me to be working in my hometown. Lagos is rapidly becoming an international city and there is a burgeoning art and design scene which makes it even more special. The projects are located on Banna Island (Lagos) and they’re designed to escape from the heat of the day. We are using lots of stone and smooth textures which contrast with the vibrancy of the surrounding nature. 

ID: What needs to change to bring more black designers into the industry in the U.K.? There are more than there used to be but the scene doesn’t reflect how multicultural London or the U.K. is.

MS: The lack of mentors and role models is definitely a barrier to encouraging aspiring Black designers to see architecture and interior design as a viable career path. A lot of young Black people are incredibly creatively minded but perhaps don’t see design as a valuable path because they haven’t seen many Black people or faces that have made it. They need to know the doors are open and they need to see how people who look like them that have made it, so representation is very important.

ID: Your Jude pendant light is very striking. How did you get the idea for it? What about the wall lamp version of the light?

MS: The idea was born out of a project for a dear client in Kuwait. She has an artistic eye and is a real supporter of great design. We redesigned the guest wing of her house and the Jude light was designed with that space in mind but also inspired by her character and taste. The piece is made out of polished brass and smoked polycarbonate glass—two materials which I feel work particularly well for sculptural lighting. The wall lamp version is also vast in scale; it’s designed to be a floating sculpture with dynamic engineering and I played with the same materials so the two pieces could be used within the same space or adjoining rooms. I think the wall lamp is a more accessible take on the series. 

ID: Tell me about the new furniture series you are designing that launches this spring. What were the sources of inspiration for it? 

For the Howard Series, the core material palette is travertine, wood and aluminium, materials that embody refined rawness whilst at the same time strength and stability. The source of inspiration was Howard Hughes, who was both a pilot and film director and lived some of his life as a recluse. Flight, movement and aviation has become a recurring motif in my work and it was something I wanted to explore a little further with this series of pieces. Each of the pieces in the series feature dynamic angles and volumes and the power of movement—the pieces also explore gravity, balance, and form. 

Wilkinson & Rivera Use Traditional Craft Techniques to Create Contemporary Furnishings

Partners in both life and work, Grant Wilkinson and Teresa Rivera of Wilkinson & Rivera reimagine English furniture while adhering to traditional woodworking practices, using locally sourced ash and walnut in their East London studio. Their Windsor chair skews from the classic with its squiggly stretchers. The tripod Penny Petal stool makes a feature of its rippled edges. Caned Sun, a playful take on the old-time milking stool, has a seat hand-caned in a six-way weave. “By weaving our work by hand,” Rivera says, “we preserve a technique pushed aside by modernization.”

Artist Lois O’Hara Rejuvenates a Pair of Tennis Courts in Bradford, U.K.

The Grand Slam season culminated with 18-year-old U.K. phenom Emma Raducanu winning the US Open women’s final. Fellow Brit Lois O’Hara is doing her part in inspiring the next generation of players with her recently completed tennis courts at Northcliffe Park in Bradford. The similarly young artist first made a name for herself in the public-space realm with the Brighton basketball court she painted in 2018 with wavy saturated blues and pinks and the word joy. “My signature style is based on the idea of using fluid lines and curves to encourage movement—whether that’s physically or imaginatively, in the mind,” the self-described sunset chaser says. “These colors are vibrant, so they stand out, but also carefully calibrated so the focus isn’t taken away from the ball as it’s hit across the court.” Meanwhile, the focus continues on O’Hara, who has projects underway for Newmor Wallcoverings, brands Estrella Damm and Fedrigoni, and London’s Battersea Power Station and Design District, a new coworking complex for creatives.

4 Creative Homes Designed With Panache and Personality

Itch Società d’Architettura

At an early-20th-century building in the heart of Milan, two tucked-away attic apartments and two duplexes with original wood-slat ceilings (crisscrossed with steel beams) play host to numerous clever interventions. Among them: a daylight-ushering glass rooftop extension that spills onto a balcony, and refined color blocking that animates understated interiors.

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Ubalt Architectes

A 1970s computer data center converted into a live-work unit on the outskirts of the trendy Marais district puts a fearless spin on the tropes of grayscale office space. See, for example, the vertical blinds, the fluorescent jolt of tinted Plexiglas cladding structural steel, and a staggered terrazzo jardiniere—accessed by a surrealist pool ladder—that brings the terrace greenery inside.

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Office S&M

The emerging London practice remodeled the lower level of a Victorian town house in Islington with joyous tropical colors, tinted mirrors that warp views, and playhouse-esque custom built-ins with peaks and arches that reference surrounding buildings. All materials have had a prior existence, from the countertops made of melted-down plastics to the pendant lights crafted from recycled crushed brick.

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Rowland+Broughton

A crisp composition of soap-finished larch, bleached oak, charred pine, and black steel forms this contemporary three-story family home adjacent to a meadow and situated among evergreens, spruce trees, and Gambel oaks. A sculptural spiral stair with LED-lit treads and a hand-carved Pele de Tigre marble fireplace designed with the Haas Brothers are the standout moves inside.

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