Ippolito Fleitz Group Fills a Shanghai Apartment With Color

When Ippolito Fleitz Group was commissioned to transform the marble-clad interior of a five-bedroom, six-bathroom model apartment in a Shanghai high-rise, the addition of color was a certainty. After all, IFG, which was cofounded in Stuttgart, Germany, by Interior Design Hall of Fame members Peter Ippolito and Gunter Fleitz and today has additional studios in Berlin and Shanghai, is well-known for punchy interiors, whether residential or commercial. Further layered with varied textures, a fluid floor plan, and charming built-ins and architectural recesses, the 7,500-square-foot penthouse is as unique as the art collector family that quickly purchased it.

“We feel lucky to shape people’s lifestyles through design and let them live in that story,” Dogan adds. In the end, the residents—a married couple and their young son—moved their personal collection of art and heirlooms into the dedicated architectural spotlights and have begun creating their own storylines. They were so inspired by IFG’s concept that they bought the apartment turnkey—green paneled wall and all.

Inside a Colorful Model Apartment by Ippolito Fleitz Group

Tom Dixon: pendant fixtures (media room)

gabriel: navy headboard fabric (bedroom)

gt.deco: custom furniture workshop

adding plume lighting design co.: lighting designer

SheltonMindel Designs a Miami Home Fit for Beach Days

Every story has a backstory. The Florida condominium Interior Design Hall of Fame member Lee F. Mindel shares with his work/life partner, José Marty, is a tale of lucky strikes emerging from downbeat situations. The plot unspools as the SheltonMindel founder and architectural designer were awaiting takeoff from New York to Miami for a project meeting, when their client canceled last-minute. They flew south anyway, then were forced to quarantine there as COVID hit. The city was effectively dead, Mindel recalls. “It was doom and gloom.”

Given the Mindel’s art-world ties—he is a chairman of the Design Basel and Design Miami vetting committees and owns Galerie56 in TriBeCa—it’s no surprise the place hosts enviable pieces. Though precious price-wise, they portray a breezy insouciance. A neon “MIA” at entry might be taken for the city’s nickname but is really part of a 1940’s sign sourced in Helsinki. Furthering the upbeat vibe there is Kate Shepherd’s Endless Summer, in Miami Vice hot-pink tones. Hanging on the floor-to-ceiling oak divider separating living and guest areas, Gisela Colon’s dimensional acrylic sculpture resembles “something you might see under the sea,” Mindel says. A diminutive Josef Albers work rests oh-so-casually on the oak kitchen’s counter. Big and bold in the adjoining dining zone are Domingos Tótora’s pressed-paper circular construction and a piece by Seymour Fogel, and the beachy guest chamber displays Rupert Deese’s oil-on-plywood disc recalling raked sand. Even the main bathroom gets the art treatment: Nightshop’s round P.O.V. in resin, acrylic, and ink.

A Miami Abode Designed to Spotlight Art and Color

cassina: sofa (living area), sofas, table (balcony)

through galerie kreo studio: cocktail table (living area)

through friedman benda: chair

Chilewich: floor mat

bitossi: vase

kartell: stool (living area), side tables (main bedroom)

the future perfect: floor lamp (living area), stool (bathroom)

artek: stools (balcony)

molteni&c: cabinetry (kitchen)

marc krusin: table (dining area)

cappellini: stools

venini: glass artwork

galerie jacques lacoste: panels (main bedroom)

miniera: floor lamp (main bedroom)

pierre marie giraud: table lamps (bedrooms, foyer)

Tom Dixon: stools (bedroom)

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

RIOS Turns to Healing Elements for the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine in Los Angeles

If ever there were a multilayered hybrid collaboration, it is the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine. A long, narrow new-build oriented on a north-south axis not far from the University of Southern California’s campus, it encompasses 84,000 square feet across five floors, and includes 3,500 square feet of coveted outdoor space. HLW completed the structure’s core and shell architecture. RIOS, under the leadership of creative director and partner Sebastian Salvadó, handled the remainder of the project, which took three years to complete, just as COVID-19 hit the scene.

Primarily a cancer research initiative, the institute is led by founding director and CEO David Agus, a physician and researcher, and was spearheaded by Oracle Corporation cofounder and noted billionaire Larry Ellison’s $200 million donation. A place for both labs and clinical services, it is a healthcare facility, but it’s also a workplace requiring offices, conference rooms, lounges, and staff amenities. Adding to the hybrid designation is the project’s educational component, which consists of a gallery celebrating medicine’s history and advances and an event space for symposia, and a repertoire of blue-chip artwork, much of it coming from Ellison’s private collection.

“The program is broken into three types of spaces,” Salvadó begins. Solitary rooms are for focused work. Lounges encouraging collaboration are dubbed transitionary spaces. They adjoin public zones, which include conference rooms and a kitchen. Arriving at the concept was not only Salvadó and the RIOS team but also the doctor and the donor. “Sebastian was amazing in figuring out a way to include me in every decision,” Agus enthuses. “He made models so I could understand.” And Larry, who Agus first met while treating his nephew, was “involved in every decision, too.” To which Salvadó adds, “Our goal was to take Agus’s vision and translate it into a built space.” It’s a holistic vision, including wellness programs and nutrition counseling, that acknowledges nature as a healer, while also integrating AI, physics, biology, math, and engineering.

Labs hold the key to the project’s organization. They are visually open to everyone on all floors and on all sides of the building. It was an expensive move but worth every penny: It not only anchors internal neighborhoods but also guarantees interdependency and that user paths intersect. Circulation is anything but orthogonal and the scheme is quite a departure from standard silo situations. The predominant use of wood—in the white-oak exposed ceiling and beams, thermally modified ash-slat partitions, and brushed oak flooring—is unusual, too. The setting is warm and “reminiscent of old warehouses,” Salvadó notes, and also underscores the project’s nature-centered theme.

Set atop a two-story parking garage, the institute centers on a three-story atrium. A pair of stairways lined with live plants (as well as elevators) lead up to reception on the atrium’s second floor, where the gallery is also located. From there, a path proceeds to a lab fronted by a large glass expanse so that even visitors can see in. Nearby is the donor wall, its brass plaques arranged in the form of an olive branch, the ancient symbol of healing. Toward the back of this floor is Agus’s office, a bright aerie complete with a Charles and Ray Eames lounge chair upholstered in indigo corduroy, a slatted wood ceiling, and access to a landscaped terrace. It’s here that, among other work, Agus meets with donors, broadcasts lectures, and writes; his fourth book is a deep dive into nature, which he believes holds all the answers.

That’s in step with the large, Pacific Ocean–facing terrace off the building’s skylit top floor, half of which is devoted to office areas and staff amenities, including a combined gym and yoga studio and a librarylike lounge with shelves of books holding the entire sequencing of the human genome. The other half of the floor is dedicated to patient care. Although more clinical and white than the institute’s other areas, forms, such as the check-in desk, are rounded, and vertical surfaces are wrapped in grass cloth-esque wallcovering. A bridge spanning the atrium connects the two sides and adjoins the project’s experiential aspect: a grass and rock garden built on top of one of the labs. “It’s not Japanese but more West L.A,” Salvadó says. “The gravel looks like beach sand and the greenery is bright like what’s found in the Santa Monica Mountain canyons.”

Hope and love, also crucial to healing, are literally spelled out in Robert Indiana’s immense sculptures, both located in the atrium lobby. They’re joined by pieces elsewhere in the hospital by such bold-face names as Jim Dine, Keith Haring, and Ai Weiwei.

Le Corbusier famously said, “A house is a machine for living in.” Agus proffers his version. “RIOS made a building that enables us to work. The building is not separate from the work, it’s part of it.” He hopes it encourages the next generation to enter science and medicine to discover a cure.

Art Therapy

At L.A.’s Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine, concerns for health and wellness extend beyond research, labs, and treatment clinics. Art plays a part in healing, too—at least it does to the institute’s founder and CEO David Agus and establishing donor Larry Ellison, also known as the cofounder of Oracle. Together they conceived of a plan in which art would pervade—and elevate—the premises. Among the artists featured are Bunny Burson, Jim Dine, Donald Sultan, and Ai Weiwei.

“I had the privilege to work with Steve Jobs,” Agus says. “He implanted in my brain that every detail matters.” Jobs’s fellow tech titan Ellison donated many of the center’s pieces from his collection. So far, they number 35 and encompass a range of mediums, including a granite bust by Jaume Plensa. Some even allude to cancer, the institute’s primary research initiative. One is Jeff Koons’s 12-foot-tall magenta sculpture of an elephant; the animal has genetic mutations precluding it from developing the disease. Another is Jacob van der Bruegel’s mixed medium covering a wall on the building’s top floor. Its components resemble cancerous cells as seen under a microscope while searching for better treatment.

RIOS: clarissa lee; devin miyasaki; erin williams; haoran liu; laura kos; melanie freeland; misato hamazaki; nicole robinson; tom myers

Oculus Lighting: Lighting Consultant

Harold Jones Landscape: Landscaping Consultant

Risha Engineering: Structural Engineer

CRB Engineering: mep

Systems Source: furniture dealer

Andrea Feldman Falcione: art consultant

KBDA: gallery consultant

Sierra Pacific Constructors: general contractor

Tom Dixon: tables (lounge)

Bla Station: sofas

tech lighting: pendant fixtures

muuto: chairs (lounge), rug (library)

Design Within Reach: chairs (library)

Indo: table

Luminii: linear fixtures (gym)

Regupol: flooring

Kvadrat Maharam: curtain fabric

Louis Poulsen: pendant fixtures (lounge)

tacchini: white sofa, ottoman

bernhardt design: lounge chair

Hay: side chair

Pierre Augustin Rose: coffee table

Green Furn­iture Company: benches

MDC: wallcovering (hall, clinic reception)

Miller Knoll: chairs, ottoman (office)

Systems Source: custom desk

armstrong: ceiling

XAL: recessed ceiling fixture

bentley: carpet

Amerlux; Lucifer: lighting

Ariana Rugs: custom carpet

Thermory: wall slats, ash flooring

Galleher: custom oak floor planks

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

14 New Product Highlights from the London Design Festival 2021

Why have one design district when you can have 10, each with a different flavor? So thought the organizers of the 19th edition of the London Design Festival, which wrapped up last weekend. Despite some travel difficulties due to varying Covid-19 quarantine regulations, the U.K.’s biggest design event— organized to promote London as “the design capital of the world”—was jammed with product launches and installations and even welcomed visitors to new permanent destinations, such as a retail and dining initiative celebrating the best of Nordic and Japanese design and cuisine. From a chair with a frog eye-like back to a diagonal faucet in a new showroom with a criminal past to furnishings first seen in a new sushi restaurant, here are 14 of our favorite new products discovered at the London Design Festival 2021.

Afternoon Tea by Lara Bohinc for Bohinc Studio

Three floors of a London townhouse were decked out with the Afternoon Tea collection by Lara Bohinc for Bohinc Studio—a nine-piece line of curvy experimental furnishings. Described by the designer as “almost froglike,” the powder-coated steel Trevor dining chair has two round upholstered cushions—frog eye-like—forming its back.

Meanwhile, the Kipfel Marble desk boosts any working from home experience to another level with the sublime luxury of rosa portugalo marble in a form inspired by an Austrian pastry.

Stay by Nika Zupanc for Sé

In a textile flourish—suitable fireworks to introduce its new London showroom—furniture manufacturer Sé teamed up with French fabric house Lelièvre Paris. Shown here are the Stay dining chairs by Nika Zupanc for Sé, now upholstered in Lelièvre textile.

Rettangolo K by Gessi

On the ground floor of a former courthouse built in 1782, Casa Gessi is the new 5,400-square-foot flagship showroom space for tap manufacturer Gessi. Located in the heart of the Clerkenwell design district, the heritage building preserves the remnants of former holding cells.

Rettangolo K, a redesign of a best-selling model toasting the diagonal line, was among new taps featured.

Lounge by Max Lamb for Vaarnii

Wild-grown Scots Finnish pine is the material behind all 12 pieces in the first collection produced by freshly launched furniture brand Vaarnii, also hailing from Finland.

Scooping out convex recesses gave rise to the hardy Lounge chair by Max Lamb. The collection was featured in “Back + Forth,” an exhibition at Twentytwentyone gallery.

Iso by Jasper Morrison for Isokon Plus

The crumbling beauty of an 18th-century London mansion set the scene for designs from eight different furniture brands at design destination 14 Cavendish. Cantilevered plywood lounge chair Iso by Jasper Morrison for Isokon Plus demonstrates what experimentation with the orientation and thickness of veneer layers can achieve with a humble material.

N-SC01 by Norm Architects for Karimoku Case Study

The minds behind furniture brand Karimoku Case Study had the bright idea to debut furnishings incorporated into the interior of a new high-end sushi restaurant at Nordic and Japanese retail and dining venue Pantechnicon, also new.

The rounded form of the N-SC01 side chair by Norm Architects pays tribute to the distinctive architecture of Blue Bottle Coffee, a coffeeshop in Yokohama, Japan.

Hempcrete by Smarin Studio for Super Nature

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Hemp shiv, a waste product from the hemp fiber industry, is merged with hydrated lime to form sustainable material Hempcrete by Smarin Studio. In the exhibition “Hemp-Clay-Lime: Urban Seating” at the King’s Cross Design District, Smarin demonstrated the material as hexagonal outdoor seating, in collaboration with Super Nature, the King’s Cross sustainable initiative.

“Off Grid” by Custhom

To dramatically debut Wallpaper by You, its custom wallpaper service launching October 1, wallpaper manufacturer Custhom commandeered the entire second floor of London’s Building A2 by 6a Architects. There, a maze-like diamond grid showcased the brand’s 100 percent FSC-certified paper pulp wallpaper.

400 table and chairs by Mirrl

Resilient solid-surfacing material is applied to birch plywood to form the 400 table and chair by Mirrl, featured in the exhibition “The Future of Home,” highlighting 15 Scotland-based design studios. The table is topped with Fossil, the design studio’s most recent surface material.

Riverside by Juan Franco and Juan Sierra

The cherry wood Riverside bench by Juan Franco and Juan Sierra provides multifunctional opportunities with built-in trays, dividers, and containers. The bench is featured in “Discovered,” an exhibition highlighting wood furnishings by young designers on view through October 10 at the Design Museum. Each designer was allowed to choose from one of four sustainable U.S. hardwoods: red oak, cherry, hard maple, or soft maple. The exhibition is presented by Wallpaper* magazine and the American Hardwood Export Council.

”Medusa” by Tin Drum

Jutting out from the ceiling, floors, and walls, virtual installation “Medusa,” by Tin Drum was presented in the Raphael Court of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

To see the digital visualization, a Landmark project presented by the London Design Festival and produced in collaboration with Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, visitors peered through transparent display devices.

Vima by Bert Frank

The geometric shapes and detailing of the Art Deco period converge with modern day technology in the brass, acid-etched glass, and alabaster Vima collection by Bert Frank. The collection consists of two pendant lights, a wall light, and floor and table lamps. 

Press by Tom Dixon

Thick ribbed glass—think vintage buoys—embodies the geometric shapes of the Press light collection by Tom Dixon. To create the forms, sturdy enough for outdoor use, molten glass is pressed in iron molds.

Butter Stool by Marco Campardo

Manafesting the artisanal capabilities of plastic, the Butter stool by Marco Campardo is made of hot polyurethane resin poured into molds. It was presented in the exhibition “Joy” at gallery Seeds.