One of the key factors that sets Mongolian cashmere apart from other types of cashmere is the skill of the traditional herders who have been raising cashmere goats for centuries. These herders have an intimate knowledge of their animals and the environment in which they live, allowing them to produce high-quality cashmere that is both sustainable and environmentally friendly. Under the watchful herder’s eye, the goats are allowed to roam freely and graze on the natural vegetation of the region, producing a wool that is free from harsh chemicals and additives.

Their continued practice in their herding methods and meticulous craftsmanship ensures the creation of a truly unique and luxurious product. The cashmere fibers are finer and longer than those from other regions, giving the wool a uniquely soft and silky feel. In addition to being exceptionally soft, the material provides lightweight warmth and high durability. It has incredible insulating qualities and durable nature as a result of their adaptation to the harsh winter conditions in northern Mongolia.

While part of our decision to use this highly-coveted material is to produce original pieces of exceptional quality, our choice in Mongolian cashmere also reflects our values of sustainability and social responsibility throughout our production process. We think of cashmere as a double investment; an investment piece for our clients to cherish for years to come, as well as an investment into the local economy of these traditional herding communities of Mongolia. As we share with you the journey of our coat-making process, we hope that you will appreciate the culture of craftsmanship embodied in each of our pieces.

Happy Thursday! We have created our part two of local businesses to support within the Marina-Cow Hollow neighborhood. Spread the love and show support to our local businesses by sharing this guide amongst your loved ones! We hope to see you soon :) 

(No Website for Tibetan Golden Lotus)

Kicking off the second week of winter with another outfit; this time, the hero piece is a Scandi-inspired oversized coat. It’s safe to say I’ve really been feeling the cold of late, and am relishing the chance to properly start pulling out my winter coats.

Wearing Sheep Inc. merino sweater; Madewell skinny jeans (love this version too); Witchery belt; Mute by JL coat; Everlane heels; Linjer bag (review here); Mejuri chain necklace; Muru Jewellery sun pendant; Boden earrings; Fedoma Jewellery ring

If my last few style posts haven’t been an obvious clue, I’ve fallen into a habit of wearing knitwear with skinny jeans. I’m lucky if I have five minutes for a quick shower in the morning right now, so easy, comfortable dressing in a uniform style has been essential.

While the coat is clearly the star of the show, I want to run through the details underneath, starting off with the merino knit sweater (gifted). This is from a new-to-me brand – Sheep Inc. – which I discovered during one of my endless Instagram scrolling sessions. I proceeded to spend a good 15 minutes trawling through their feed, reading the endless information about the brand, their ethos, manufacturing, purpose and vision. Needless to say, it struck a chord with me. The wool is ethically sourced from sheep stations in New Zealand (who use non-mulesing practices), and a small yellow tag allows you to track the life of the sweater from sheep, to finished product (down to who made it). It’s a unique initiative I’ve not seen other brands use, and a fascinating way to get more insight into where our clothing has come from.

I’m wearing the medium knit in a size 2; it’s a unisex style, and I based my choice off their sizing chart. I wanted to sleeves to envelop my hands, and for the fit to be slouchy, but not look too oversized (IYKWIM). The quality is exceptional. Wool can be itchy, but this is soft and doesn’t feel irritating at all. It arrived with a soapy, lanolin scent, which was an added treat. It’s been such a winner with me (and my husband, who tried it on), that I’m going to be placing an order come pay day for an additional two for Luke.

Next up are the jeans. These are from Madewell, and have been a pair I’ve reached for frequently, as they’re so darn comfortable. I’m wearing these in a 25 so would say the fit runs slightly on the larger side. I’m usually more of a skinny jean kind of gal, but these feel more like a slim/skinny cigarette jean, as they don’t hug the ankle. I also like that there’s some minor distressing at the hem. It’s not too torn up, but adds some extra detail.

Finally, the coat. The hero piece of this outfit. This one is from Mute by JL, who reached out to me to ask if I’d like to pick out a coat from their latest collection. If you’ve been following me a while, then you’ll know I have a couple other coats from them, one of my favourites being a belted camel coat which I wore virtually the entire winter of 2018. The Grace Coat appealed to me because of the rich navy colour, and the unique sleeve detail. It has silver poppers which open to reveal a faux leather panel. This gives the most incredible volume to the sleeves, and is the definition of a basic with a twist. As with the other coats I own, the quality is beautiful. The fabric is a merino wool and cashmere blend, so it has a soft, felted texture to it. It’s only partially lined through the cuffs and around the upper back/arm holes, which I find is ideal for our milder Sydney winters. Additionally, the arm holes are quite generous, which is perfect for slipping on over my chunkier knit sweaters.

This blog was originally published in Jamie-Lee's official website. https://www.mademois-elle.com/ 

Jamie is an Australian fashion professional and fashion&beauty enthusiast with great experience in the fashion industry. We’ve been partnering with Jamie for three plus years. We want to share this beautiful work Jamie has put together with all Mute’s family.
 

You might be surprised to discover that rather than business or design, Mark Adams, managing director of Vitsoe, studied zoology. “Biology excites me,” he says. “At a detailed level, it’s all about how an organism works, but at the macro level, you have to look at entire ecosystems. That’s what makes me tick.” Even more intriguingly, Adams does not view Vitsoe as a furniture company. “We are a service business that just happens to make some products,” he explains. When you put these two pieces of information together, Vitsoe starts to make a lot more sense. “What you have inside here,” he tells me as we walk around the company’s Camden HQ, “is an ecosystem; a place where multiple details are constantly interacting.”

Vitsoe makes and sells furniture designed exclusively by Dieter Rams, offering just three products; the 606 Universal Shelving System, the 620 Chair Programme, and the 621 Side Table. Although widely considered design classics (the 606 Universal Shelving System is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the 620 Chair Programme is in the collections of both the V&A and the Design Museum), no two orders ever look quite the same. The emphasis at Vitsoe is on adaptability and longevity, not just outward appearances. The Vitsoe logo – the company’s name in simple sans serif majuscule with a final ligature ‘Œ’ – is a rare sight at the Camden warehouse and office complex, and the product itself is deliberately anonymous. Adams likes to think of it as invisible furniture. “That’s why people want it,” he says, “because it is so self effacing. It provides a blank canvas against which your life can change and transform.”

Adams recounts the story of a recent order received from a couple in New York. Both had been married before, and were about to move in together. Realising they both owned the off-white 606 Universal Shelving System, they got back in touch with Vitsoe, who were able to easily merge the two systems to fit their new apartment. “This type of request happens all the time,” he says, “few of us realise how much our lives are going to change.” The system is designed to be “one of those increasingly rare things in your life that you can rely on for the rest of your life.” The Vitsoe customer, according to Adams, is someone who “thinks beyond the end of their nose.”

Vitsoe abides by Dieter Rams’s 10 principles of good design, namely, that their products must be innovative, useful, aesthetically pleasing, understandable, unobtrusive, honest, long lasting, thorough, environmentally friendly, and have as little ‘design’ as possible. The 606 Universal Shelving System consists of an aluminium E track, from which shelving, cabinets, and tables can be suspended. It is available in a limited number of sizes and colours, all depending on the needs of the customer. No tools are needed to assemble it, and the simplicity of the system means that the individual components can be rearranged and interchanged easily. The 620 Chair Programme, a surprisingly comfortable, boxy leather chair, designed by Rams in 1962, also has flexibility and a long lifespan at its core. It swivels, connects up with others of its kind to make a sofa, and is easily reupholstered, when the time comes. The 621 Side Table, dating from the same year, is simplicity itself; a discreet, injection moulded plastic side table, available in two colours and two sizes.

Dieter Rams and Niels Vitsoe met in 1957, when Rams was just 27 years old. The pair founded Vitsoe two years later in Frankfurt, with Rams continuing to work for electrical giant Braun, where he held the position of head of design from 1961 until 1995. In the early 1980s, a young Mark Adams made the decision to bail out of a well paid London headhunting job, going directly against his father’s advice to keep furniture as a hobby. He became a shop assistant at a small West End design shop where he had first seen a Dieter Rams simple black shelving unit. Shortly after, the shop owners went bankrupt, and Adams, still in his early 20s, found himself looking around the wreckage, wondering what he could salvage. He decided to fly to Frankfurt for the weekend to introduce himself to Niels Vitsoe, to whom he had only previously spoken on the phone, and returned from Germany with an agreement to import and sell Vitsoe furniture in the UK, where it was little known. Over the next seven years, he watched the company – still headed by an ageing Niels Vitsoe – falter. By 1993, it was in financial trouble, and Adams was invited to take a 51 per cent stake in the business. Despite significant efforts, it was forced to close. Refusing to give up on the company, Adams shifted its entire manufacturing base to his home shores across the English Channel in 1995.

Since then, he has worked hard to streamline the business and make the design the best it can be. Every component is sourced from within the UK, and if something can be reused, it is. Even the cardboard packaging is cut to a specific size so that it can be returned to the warehouse and sent out again. The same goes for the product. Although the appearance of the shelving unit hasn’t deviated from Rams’s original, Adams tells me that it has undergone at least 90 changes since 1995. Today, every single order goes out worldwide directly from the Camden headquarters. “In many ways, we’re becoming a small automotive business,” Adams says, “buying in the best components from the best suppliers and then putting them together. They just happen to come out as furniture, rather than as a car.” The company has an international team of planners who act as consultants and advisors to customers, as well as stores in London, New York City, Los Angeles, and Munich. Vitsoe furniture is not available to buy anywhere else, other than online, where they make the bulk of their sales. This direct approach has been integral to the regeneration of the company. “Our margins are under half the industry norm,” Adams tells me. “The best way of being able to design well is to keep an intimacy with the customer. The minute you put in a middleman, all that honesty and integrity within the relationship breaks down.”

Next year, Vitsoe are moving out of their increasingly cramped north London headquarters into a larger space in Leamington Spa in the West Midlands. The location has been carefully selected for its strong history of manufacturing and its close proximity to the UK’s main rail freight terminal. Containers will be transported straight from trains to the port, and then onto ships bound for destinations across the world. The new building has been designed over many years with a quintessentially Vitsoe mindset; the system that lies behind it has been the priority. Conceived as a living experiment, it is also where Adams’s long term goal of taking the business entirely into employee ownership will be realised.

In a world where short life cycles and inbuilt obsolescence have become the norm, Vitsoe is a reactionary force extending beyond furniture. “Vitsoe’s purpose,” Adams points out, “is to allow more people to live better, with less, that lasts longer. It’s not about furniture or Rams. What Dieter and I talk about most of all is how Vitsoe moves beyond Dieter Rams and, possibly, beyond furniture completely.” I ask if Vitsoe is more an ethos. “Absolutely” Adams replies. “There is a huge opportunity for us to change people’s way of living and way of thinking. I think we are in a period of massive change, and the whole beauty of Vitsoe is that it will accommodate whatever the future throws at it.” Adams’s final words sum up not only this iconic brand, but also his relationship to it succinctly: “At Vitsoe, rather than guessing what the future holds, we just make sure we can adapt to change.”

• WORDS: Lily Le Brun
• PHOTOS: Rich Stapleton
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

According to Axel Vervoordt, revered Belgian designer and antique collector, decoration is about more than just decorating. “My taste is dominated by a sense of proportion. I want to achieve a feeling of harmony between architecture, furnishings, works of art, and antiques.” His organic approach, characterised by a commitment to fusing objects with their surroundings, respecting existing environments, and acknowledging the passage of time, has cemented Vervoordt’s place in the firmament of design pioneers. He began working as an art and antiques dealer in the late 1960s, and one of his earliest projects was the painstaking restoration of 16 Renaissance houses in the Vlaeykensgang in Antwerp. A portion of this space was transformed into his home, and also the place from where he sold his treasures. He and his wife May travelled to antiques fairs across the world, first investing in collectables, and then expanding their shared passion into an interior and furniture design business, fuelled by a belief that each room has its own intrinsic character. Demand for their sofas and club chairs quickly mushroomed, and these items have remained staples of the Axel Verwoordt Home Collection ever since. His most iconic work remains residential, with a portfolio including Robert de Niro’s Tribeca penthouse, and the homes of rockstars and royalty.

Despite an appreciation for beauty going back to his childhood, Vervoordt is adamant that his work isn’t rooted in aestheticism, but rather in a more traditional search for simplicity, inspiration, and humility. “At the end of the day, the people living in the house must be able to find more of themselves than of my intervention there. The role of that intervention is to be a permanent source of inspiration for the future.”

Verwoordt was drawn to eastern philosophical traditions at a very young age. The inspiration he tapped into on his travels in Asia has stayed with him to this day, and is evident in much of his work. Respect for nature, the art of simplicity and harmony, the beauty found in humble objects, and the power of silence have woven their way into his designs, as has his personal interpretation of wabi, an enlightened Japanese philosophy that values the beauty of imperfection, and the simplicity of things in their most natural state. As a result, intriguing contrasts between Asian and European styles, archaeology, and contemporary art are forged. “I’m inspired by art from all genres,” he says, “from all parts of the world and from all sorts of periods. I like everything that is honest and real. Arte povera, for instance, the unsophisticated art of shepherds and monks from the mountains, was born from a great respect for nature. They were already making the most beautiful minimalistic objects hundreds of years ago. At the other end of the spectrum, the extreme sophistication of baroque might be chosen for effect, craftsmanship, or exuberance – but never to simply display riches.”

One of Vervoordt’s most significant works is the Kanaal Project in Antwerp, inspired by a desire to create an authentic cultural and residential island amid a wealth of art and nature. This former distillery and malting complex is being developed to be ‘a city in the country’, featuring apartments, lofts, and shops, as well as a home for the museum of the Axel & May Vervoordt Foundation. The original character of the historical site is being brought back to life in a striking example of Vervoordt’s acknowledgment of time. “The 20th century was synonymous with production, consumption, and disposal,” he says, “but now we are running low, both on places to dump waste and on forests to raid. In the 21st century, recuperation is playing a major role. In this way, the old becomes current again. We appreciate old walls, furniture that has not been restored, everything that in its original state has been transformed by time, the greatest sculptor of all. Time gives these materials a second skin. It’s a gesture of love, a product of nature as transformed by human beings and the cosmos, which, over the years, has come to accept and integrate new forms. We must accept what nature and time have wrought.”

• WORDS: Lucy Brook
• PHOTOS: Rich Stapleton
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

Kenya Hara is a rare man, and his rhetoric is as exquisitely formed as his designs. His ethos at Muji, where he has been art director since 2002, is to render an object beautiful by pruning away anything extraneous or unnecessary. It’s a concept that also governs his speech, so that when he answers a question about an egg or a spoon, he discards the obvious or dull, and becomes a metaphysical poet rather than a designer. He uses phrases like “providence of nature,” and “emptiness is richer than fullness,” and “peace of the senses” with a calm, assured composure. If Kenya Hara were an object, he’d be a Muji notebook: full of purpose, integrity, and restraint, and brimming with promise.

Muji products are instantly recognisable – no mean feat when the name itself means ‘no brand’. It is a shortened version of the original Mujirushi Ryōhin or ‘no brand quality goods’. The company avoids advertising and marketing, its designers remain anonymous, and packaging is kept to a minimum. I visited a Muji store this morning, still seeking a precise answer as to why it’s so successful. I was charmed by the sight of a middle aged man standing by a row of plain, white aroma diffusers, which, when plugged in, pour out a sinuous, misty fog of scent. The man walked back and forth, cupping his hands around the perfumed vapour trickling from each cylinder, and greedily scooped it into his nose, smiling all the while. It seemed to me that he encapsulated perfectly the effect of Muji: its philosophy insinuates itself to the point that buyers don’t so much make a financial transaction as a spiritual one. They really do inhale the mist.

Kenya Hara is revered in Japan, and his schedule seems oddly hectic for a man wedded to simplicity. Our conversation was conducted back and forth between Oxford and Tokyo. I wrote to him in English, he replied to me in Japanese. I was mesmerised by his beautiful, serpentine script that was both impenetrable and captivating. Like the man inhaling the perfume in the Muji store, I tried to imbibe meaning from the beautiful Japanese characters (don’t panic – once I’d got over my fixation, I relied on a translator). I’ve noticed that over the years, Kenya Hara has returned endlessly to the concept of emptiness. In many cultures, emptiness is a pejorative term, but not to him: “Emptiness – irrespective of who uses it and how – is the pursuit of ultimate freedom. When an object is empty, it is ready to receive any image or use. Take two knives. One is a Henckels knife from Germany. The other is a Japanese yanagiba sushi knife. The Henckels knife is ergonomically designed, so that when you hold the handle, your thumb naturally finds its place. It’s very easy to hold and use. Meanwhile, the handle of the yanagiba is a wooden rod, simple and plain. The handle doesn’t instruct you where to hold it, so you can hold it anywhere, and in any way you wish. This simple and plain handle receives all the incredible technique of the Japanese sushi chef. The Henckels knife is simple, but the yanagiba is empty. They are both wonderful, but there is a difference.”

There’s no expectation that Muji’s customers should be aware of any of the philosophy behind the design process, but as they chop their way through chunks of tuna and salmon, they may start to notice that the ‘empty’ object is affecting the way they cut. At this point, notes Kenya Hara, “they have reached a profound understanding.” Not bad for a simple knife with a rod for a handle.

For a man so fixated on design, it would be easy to assume that Kenya Hara is prescriptive in his tastes. There is, however, a touching, sentimental side to him, too. As he says, when it comes to ‘perfect’ objects, “I don’t think we could ever beat a wonky piece of pottery made by a child. More than any other, that object has the receptiveness to hold all the emotions and ideas poured into it. The power of design is the receptiveness that can contain the diversity of human ideas.” It is, of course, another version of his love affair with emptiness.

It seems that he may be moving towards his own form of emptiness, the concept that concerns him so much. When I asked him if good taste has any role to play in design choices, he suggested that nothingness is the only goal to aim for in the end. “First of all, designers need to know what kind of taste they have themselves. If they don’t nail their colours to the mast for themselves first, neither they nor the world will know who they are as a creator. Personally, from when I was young, I had many chances to employ my creativity by making things. But with time and experience, that has shifted to minimal and empty objects. I think the colours on my mast are becoming white with nothing written on them.”

One of Kenya Hara’s more contentious views concerns culture. Globalisation is so familiar to us now that to many people, it’s become a kind of default. Not to Kenya Hara: “Culture is a local thing. There is no such thing as ‘global culture’. Culture is about the wonderful things that flourish in the place where we happen to be born. When I first became responsible for Muji, I thought about it this way: if the idea for Muji had been born in Germany, what kind of Muji would have been born? Or how about China? Or Poland? That sort of imagining is beneficial to the natural development of Muji, I think, because Muji isn’t bound by Japan’s special traditions, not does it actually embody those traditional forms and styles. Having said that, the concept of simplicity being able to surpass luxury (or, to put it another way, emptiness being richer than fullness because it is able to receive more) comes from Japan’s traditional aesthetics. Muji tries to improve on that, and present it in a global context … The world is a rich place precisely because different cultures with their own different colours shine, clash with each other, and sound off each other. I don’t think you can call it progress when Chinese people eat the same quality peperoncino as Italians, or Australians use Northern European saunas. Tradition isn’t just old things; it is a country or region’s great resource for the future.”

The future clearly concerns him. He confesses that artificial intelligence worries him, and he believes that humanity is entering an alarming new phase of what he calls “pre-history” in which “we cannot see what will happen next.” We live in anxious times, when much of what concerns us seems far removed from the world of art, design, and branding. I was curious to know how Kenya Hara could reconcile his focus on how things look with some of the existential crises of the moment: terrorism, alienation, climate change, migration, pollution. Far from dismissing design to the sidelines, however, he believes that it has a central role to play. “Design is an intellectual exercise that upholds values one might call ‘the peace of the senses’. Even when economic systems or cultures are different, I believe that as humans, we share something we all experience, which you can call ‘surface’. If we can remind humanity of this shared surface, which we call experience, maybe the world can be as one. The role of design is not to surprise, or draw people’s attention with novelty. It is to give humanity a chance to notice the wisdom accumulated over the ages that is hidden in all sorts of things … I believe that the act of noticing that is to touch the shared surface of humanity, and leads to understanding, or a peace of the senses.”

So much of Kenya Hara’s design ethos seems to focus on the idea of receptiveness, of wanting to listen, of being brandless. Yet, he also likes to educate and guide. I asked him if design isn’t always prescriptive in the end, and, if that’s the case, how can any design truly be ‘empty’? His answer was, as I had come to expect, delightfully unexpected: “A city is not made by commissioning wonderfully talented architects. Instead, a city results from the competing desires of a large number of people … When people stop dropping litter, or spitting on the street, the city moves forward a step. When graffiti disappears, broken streetlights aren’t left unfixed, and public toilets start to stay clean by themselves, the city has moved one step closer to sophistication. Design can educate people’s desires and help cities grow in that way. This is not a dogma. Rather it is the ability to help people notice something special: like the instant when they use an unpatterned towel made from a material with a pleasant feel.”

The capacity to define our shared ‘surface’ via a fluffy towel is a classic piece of Kenya Hara rhetoric: bring meaning to the general by reference to the specific and vice versa. In that context, I wanted to know which single object or design brings him the greatest contentment. His answer? An onigiri or rice ball. “It’s made by steaming rice, gently patting it into shape, and including a sour or piquant ingredient called gu in the centre, such as pickled plum or salted salmon … Whenever I hold an onigiri, without fail, it makes me happy.” How can you not love the restraint of a man who could have chosen a Le Corbusier chair, or the Guggenheim Museum, or Concorde, but chose a small ball of rice instead?

• WORDS: Charlie Lee Potter
• PHOTOS: Brooke Holm
• STYLING: Marsha Golemac
• PRODUCTS: Muji
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

here is a line between art and craft. Often bridged or traversed, the decision is left, at times, to the gaze of the beholder. One is left to wonder what elevates this work above the other. When does a chair, for instance, surpass mere function and strive for something more? For a life beyond wood.

John Baker and his wife Juli have contemplated these very questions. Inspired by their travels in Scandinavia and Japan, the couple established Mjölk: a gallery and furniture shop in Toronto, Canada. Mjölk brings together the seemingly unlikely bedfellows of Japanese and Scandinavian craft and design in a beautifully serene environment.

‘We realised there was something interconnected between these places…they are both cultures that celebrate things that are functional and modest. We try and find universal qualities and translate them to a western audience.’

Baker shares that the shop is a gallery first and retail space second.

‘The store allows us to do the creative things we want; we can fly in an artist and hold an exhibition. We’ve earned the right to do this after some real challenges.’

Mjölk recently held a four week exhibition on the work of celebrated architect and furniture maker, George Nakashima.

‘We emptied our store to host the exhibit, even though it meant not making any money, because it was simply such an honour to show his work. [George] has done shows at MOMA and the MET, and to be able to exhibit his work was an incredible experience.’

Baker reflects and remarks on the furniture and craft objects in his gallery with a gentle reverence, and explains that his customers are not eccentric millionaires, but rather, young, curious and creative types.

‘Buying a piece from us is something that is not taken lightly by our clients. When they buy, it is often a huge struggle for them. Sometimes it takes a year. But the great quality of the furniture we stock is in its liveability. The place for all this furniture is not here, but in someone else’s home, to be put to daily use. We are selling authentic things, in an inauthentic time.’

This mantra of authenticity has extended beyond the store to a small publishing enterprise. Mjölk magazine is currently on its second volume and is distributed worldwide. Meticulously produced by the husband and wife team, the matte paper bursts forth in its quiet way, showcasing a world of furniture makers and designers that evokes a different mode of living.

The couple are now looking at involving Canadian artisans, as well as pairing established Japanese and Scandinavian designers with up and coming locals to produce small scale pieces to help foster fresh creativity and a new generation of talent.

‘Almost anyone can create a store that is high end and sell beautiful objects, or retail very cheap items, but for me, it’s interesting to sell and show something meditative, something subdued, something you have to study. We live above the shop, and we put more than we should of ourselves into this business, but it is our world.’

• WORDS : John Connell
• PHOTOS: Titus Chan
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

The image is instantly familiar; the house, all dramatic angles, concrete, steel and glass, perched indelibly above Los Angeles, with Hollywood’s lights resembling a circuit board below it. Inside, two women sit, stylish and relaxed, talking casually behind the monumental floor to ceiling glass walls. One of the world’s most iconic photographs, Julius Schulman’s Case Study 22 beautifully captures the optimism of 1950s Los Angeles, and the striking beauty of architect Pierre Koenig’s masterpiece, Stahl House. The classic L shaped pavilion, cantilevered above Hollywood on Woods Drive, was built in 1959 after being adopted into the Case Study Program, an experimental residential design initiative that commissioned architects to create model homes in the wake of the 1950s housing boom. Stahl House, also known as No. 22, was the wild one, conjured up by the man who purchased the plot of land at 1635 Woods Drive in 1954 for 13,500 USD and sealed the deal with a handshake. C H ‘Buck’ Stahl was a dreamer, who, along with his wife Carlotta, set about finding the right person to bring his vision for an innovative and thoroughly modern home to life.

Buck was a former professional footballer who worked as a graphic designer and sign painter. He spent his first few years as a landowner hauling broken blocks of concrete to the site in attempt to improve its precarious foundation. He and Carlotta ferried their finds, load by load, back to Woods Drive in the back of Buck’s Cadillac, hopeful the reinforcements would prevent the land from sliding. Buck’s dreams for the house began to take shape over the following two years, and eventually, he made a model of the future Stahl House. His grand designs, however, were promptly rejected by several notable architects.

“[They] looked at the lot and said it’s just impossible to do,” Buck told Taschen in 2001, “Even my father said I was crazy.”

Carlotta recalled Buck continually telling prospective architects “I don’t care how you do it, there’s not going to be any walls in this wing.” Until they hired Pierre Koenig in 1957, an ambitious young architect determined to build on a site nobody would touch, it seemed unlikely the house would ever exist. Pierre described the process of building Stahl House as “trying to solve a problem – the client had champagne tastes and a beer budget.” He was interested in working with steel, and despite being warned away from it by his architecture instructors, possessed great aptitude for it. He’d experimented with a number of exposed glass and steel homes before he created Case Study 21, or The Bailey House in 1958 and 1959, and his skill for designing functional spaces with simplicity of form, abundant natural light, and elegant lines would eventually make him a master of modernism. Stahl House, completed in 13 months and costing 37,500 USD, further demonstrated Pierre’s flair for working with industrial materials, particularly steel, glass, and concrete. The project put him on the map as an architect with an incredible eye for balance, symmetry, and restraint. The 2,040 m² house was, as Buck insisted, built without walls in the main wing to allow for sweeping 270º views. Three sides of the building were made of plate glass, unheard of in the late 1950s, and deemed dangerous by engineers and architects. This design feature required Pierre to source the largest pieces of glass available for residential use at the time. With two bedrooms, two bathrooms, polished concrete floors, and a very famous swimming pool (a fixture in countless films and fashion editorials) Stahl House was an immediate mid century icon.

Although there has been some dispute over Buck’s influence on the design in the years since he died in 2005 and Pierre Koenig’s death in 2004, some experts who have seen Buck’s original model agree that his concept informed the direction the Stahl House would finally take.

“I dismissed it as typical owner hubris at the time,” architect and writer Joseph Giovannini told the Los Angeles Times in 2009. “The gesture of the house cantilevering over the side of the hill into the distant view is clearly here in this model. But it is Pierre’s skill that elevated the idea into a masterpiece. This is one of the rare cases it seems that there is a shared authorship.”

Today, Stahl House is still owned by the Stahl family. Though it remains a magnet for film crews and photographers the world over, for Bruce Stahl, Buck and Carlotta’s son, who grew up there with his siblings, it was simply part of a typical, happy childhood. “We were a blue collar family living in a white collar house,” he said. “Nobody famous ever lived here.”

• WORDS: Lucy Brook
• PHOTOS: Rick Poon
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

The necklace doubles as a ring holder, perfect for situations when you don’t want to lose track of that shiny rock clinging onto your finger for dear life. When might you need this product, you ask? Let’s say you’re working out (new year, new you, after all.) That means you’re up in the gym working on your fitness with a Fergie-esque ambition. Rather than your rings slip and sliding off your toned fingers in the weight room, rest assured with having them held safely around your neck. Or perhaps you’re a jet-setter, traveling the globe with nothing but a chic carry-on bag. Not the time and place for heavy jewelry getting tangled and lost in the abyss of airplane seats. Slip on your Emily C. necklace and travel sans stress.

• WORDS: ISABELLA WELCH
• ORIGINAL POST: BOB CUT

Perched on a quartz topped column, beneath the crumbling, paint peeled dome of an 18th Century palazzo in Milan, Alex Mustonen is thinking about his legacy. Or rather, the legacy of his design firm, Snarkitecture, whose 2018 has been a banner year. They’ve celebrated their 10 year anniversary, published their first monograph with Phaidon, and have plans to mount a career spanning retrospective at Washington DC’s National Building Museum, opening this Fourth of July. “Ten years feels like a very long time,” says Mustonen of the busy practice’s milestone, “but it feels as though we’re now really starting to hit our stride.”

The moody Italian palace doesn’t just serve as a dramatic backdrop for ponderous self reflection. The trio, Mustonen, Daniel Arsham, and Benjamin Porto, have just installed their latest Salone del Mobile project there, a collaboration with quartz manufacturer Caesarstone, that explores water in its various states. It takes the shape of an ethereal amphitheatre circling a terraced fountain of quartz. On top, planetary spheres of ice drift and creak, melting into the running water only to rise again as steam. It’s the latest in a sprawling roster of projects — 75 of which are detailed in the book — that Snarkitecture have dreamed into life during their decade-long tenure. They’ve morphed museums into massive, giggling ball pits (The Beach, ongoing), choreographed a ballet of over sized balloons during a gala at the New Museum (Life, 2013), and filled the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York entirely with pure white styrofoam, which they then invited viewers to watch as they excavated it with chisels and icepicks (Dig, 2011).

It’s often said the core genius of Snarkitecture’s projects are their simplicity. For a union that formed in the cerebral confines of New York’s Cooper Union (Mustonen, in architecture and Arsham, art, attended at the same time, while Porto joined the firm later on), their installations and interiors strike straight to the heart of what brings us the purest kinds of joy. There’s an unabashedly innocent jubilation involved in doing a cannonball into a ball pit, marvelling at pirouetting balloons, or digging an endless hole to nowhere. In conceiving their much celebrated work, Snarkitecture are like children, having been gifted with the most expensive and high-tech of toys, instead choosing to make a fort from the box. Or, in their case, the packing foam.

Cereal sat down with partner Alex Mustonen to talk about the past ten years, plans for the future, and what’s inspiring them now.

Cereal: Part of Snarkitecture’s mission statement is to the explore the territory between art and architecture, something that was certainly less common to see 10 years ago. How did you initially envision the practice?

AM: We envisioned a practice that could be architecturally influenced and architecturally driven, but also informed by the looseness of an art practice. It gave us a lot of creative freedom and a lot of flexibility to play the two sides off of one another. It lets us make things that are architectural in scale — or an actual structure or actual interiors — but have elements within those projects that seamlessly blend towards an art experience.

Cereal: How did you know that was going to work when you first began?

AM: We didn’t, it was definitely an experiment in the truest sense. We thought about it, and spent significant time discussing and planning. We were both self taught when it came to being entrepreneurs and starting our own practices, so there wasn’t an effective business plan. But we had a mission statement, and a very clear sense of the areas we wanted to be exploring. I think because of that, we had a very strong foundational core that we could stay true to throughout a range of different projects. To that end, when different things started coming in that maybe seemed unrelated or disparate, we were able to forge a single path through those projects. But honestly, it was something that I didn’t know if I’d still be doing it in six months time. But then six months goes by, and you say, maybe I’ll see what happens in a year. And at a certain point, it grew to a place where it felt like it had stability and legs, and we were able to start planning ahead a bit more.

Cereal: How does a does a Snarkitecture project come to life?

AM: Everything starts with actual paper on pencil sketching and a conversation between the three partners. We sit at a table in the studio, talk about the project, the site – if there is a brief that we might or might not respond to – constraints. But first and foremost, the discussion is: What does it feel like? What will the experience of the person visiting the project be? What are they seeing or touching or hearing or smelling? All of these experiential qualities. Not only from the first moment they walk in, but going through the threshold. Thinking about all the different moments within the space and how those things relate directly to a person – what they’re feeling and what they’re able to engage with.

Cereal: Where does Snarkitecture turn to for inspiration?

AM: For us, it’s thinking about the every day. I spend a lot of time walking. I really enjoy walking in the city, whether it’s in New York or somewhere that I’m visiting, and finding these strange architectural moments — like around the sidewalk or on the street. Discovering how unexpected materials or unexpected conditions combine to create something magical or weird. For Snarkitecture, we work with the everyday, objects that you might consider banal or simple. Either through repetition, scaling, manipulation or reimagining. We want to present those things in a way that’s elevated and unexpected — to present them in a new light. There are also older references as well. I spent last year going on a lot of house tours. I went to Abiquiu, New Mexico and saw Georgia O’Keeffe’s house. I spent time in Columbus, Indiana, because we did a project there, and visited the Miller House by Eero Saarinen. There’s something about the 50’s and 60’s that I really like. The land art and conceptual artist from that time, as well, is very inspiring to me on a personal level. Their approach to reduction, doing a lot with a very simple palette or minimal materials resonates with Snarkitecture.

Cereal: What are your goals for the future? What do you want to have accomplished in the next 10 years?

AM: I think one of the primary goals is – as these things are evolving and as the studio is growing and changing – to maintain the interest in having architecture perform the unexpected and staying true to what we’ve been doing. So in that sense, we’re not looking to change the mission of the practice or start a totally different type of research, but we are interested in finding new areas to operate in.

Cereal: A lot of young firms use what Snarkitecture has done in the past 10 years as a road map, how do you feel about having created that path?

AM: I think anything we’ve done to inspire younger designers is great. Artists, architects, creatives, designers, etc. We are trying to engage as many people into the conversation as possible and add to the general public’s understanding of why architecture and art are important, and how they impact our daily lives. On another level, that I think is more superficial, we see people engaged in creating spaces that are dedicated to social media or Instagram, and I think that, for us, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing. For us, it’s about making sure we’re still executing at the highest level of quality and creating spaces that don’t necessarily just look good in images, but also have a visceral, tactile feel.

Cereal: What do you want people to take away from your projects?

AM: A Snarkitecture project is about opening up the possibility, leaving things as open questions for people that are coming to visit it. There’s not necessarily any prescribed meaning — to say it’s about this or about that — but hopefully, it allows you to wonder.

• WORDS: Laura May Todd
• PHOTOS: Matthew Johnson
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

Have to warn you, I’m terrible at explaining myself,” says Michael Wall as he settles into a cushy sofa with a coffee in a Central London cafe. “I’ll just go off on tangents, so you’ll have to reign me in.”

He does, occasionally, go on tangents, but, for an artist wary of defining his process too thoroughly, these are often the most illuminating. And, despite his protestations that he’s “rubbish with words”, Wall, a newcomer to London’s art scene whose bold hued, abstract paintings have cemented his status as one to watch, speaks with an articulateness and candour about his work, and why he thinks it resonates.

“The whole point of the work is how other people interact with it,” he says, suggesting it’s similar to a song which may have wildly different meanings to each listener, depending on their circumstances.

“People see completely different things [in my paintings] to what I see, but that’s the beauty of it. I don’t like being at the forefront of the work. The more people know about me, the more I get imposed on the work.”

Wall’s paintings balance minimal shapes and lines with swaths of saturated colour. His palette – primary blues, reds and yellows, and a particular shade of nearly-nude pink – has evolved from his background in technical illustration, the confines of which he sought to escape by painting, and his “simple” childhood on England’s Norfolk coast. As a kid, he was always drawing, but in an entirely different way to how he paints now.

“My dad was an engineer and one of the best figurative drawers I know, so he used to draw stuff and I would colour it in,” he says.

“I grew up drawing photographically and you’re always trying to show how good you are at art by how close to reality you can get. It used to be my thing when I was growing up – in school, I’d show off how good I was at drawing.”

This led to a career as an illustrator, which was brief-based and meant Wall was forever contextualising his work. When he took six months out to simply make art for himself, he initially found it a struggle.

“It was hard to make work without a brief, and I was very confused about what to do,” he says.

“Eventually I started off with the painting, with work that was just a complete expression of me, and it’s evolved into these works that are really for the viewer, for other people. Nothing in my work has been forced. I guess I went as far away from technical illustration as possible.”

His shapes – simple but masterfully balanced with one another – also come naturally to him, and though he’s not one to plumb his work for hidden meanings, he cites objects he encounters in his daily life as potential inspiration.

“It’s not a figurative thing, I haven’t been inspired by something directly, but sometimes I might see something in my day to day life, something that sits a certain way. It’s nothing in the scheme of things, but it might have an effect on me visually,” he says.

“For a while, I got so interested in why we look at things a certain way and how society interacts with them. But the work isn’t meant to be deep, it’s meant to be approachable. I want it to be simple and for people to not be intimidated by it. The shapes come from that idea.”

He dislikes pretentiousness in art, and seems touched when I suggest that his are pieces I could imagine buying purely for the impact they make on a space, and for joy they bring to the viewer.

“In the art world, decorative is a dirty word,” he says.

“I don’t take offense to it though. Maybe coming from illustration, I wasn’t ashamed of wanting to make simple work that’s really visual. I think people miss a point in art when they put a price on something looking good, assuming it’s no good because it’s visually striking.”

He pauses for a sip of coffee.

“Art is not less important because you feel you could just hang it somewhere and enjoy it.”

• WORDS: Lucy Brook
• PHOTOS: Ash James
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

erkstätte Carl Auböck is still located in the townhouse in Vienna’s Seventh District where the family run metal business was founded more than a century ago.

Carl Auböck II took over the workshop from his father in the 1920s, having studied at the Bauhaus. Over the next couple of decades, he developed a distinctively Modernist style that marked a departure from the Art Deco wiener Bronzen that were his father’s speciality.

Principally working with brass, he gave his handcrafted accessories and household objects a simplified, gently humorous aesthetic that showed his understanding of the material. Aided by his friendships with designers such as Walter Gropius and Charles Eames, Auböck’s work became internationally popular after WWII. Today, the workshop is run by his grandson, Carl Auböck IV, continuing both its traditions of craftsmanship, and executing original design.

• WORDS: Lily Le Brun
• PHOTOS: Jonathan Gregson
• ART DIRECTION: Rich Stapleton
• OBJECTS: Sigmar London
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

Ask og Eng, also known as Kine Ask Stenersen, Kristoffer Eng and their team, design and build pristine, pared back kitchens and furniture by hand. The brand has a happy congruence at its core. Kine’s background is in environmental geography and climate change and Kristoffer’s is in architecture. The bottom line for their business, sustainability, also occasions their design aesthetic, with bamboo their chosen material. Their collections include custom made kitchens, and, temptingly, doors ready made to fit IKEA units. The list of colours reads like a Zen poem – stone, soil, coal and snow to name a few. They set up their studio in Drammen, Norway, about a year ago, in an airy, industrial space with crooked floors and large windows, which they love for its atmosphere and sense of potential.

Kine, your studio was founded in 2016 – how’s it going as a new business?
We must admit it’s not as we expected. We love it more than we hoped and it’s more work than we imagined. But there is a special joy and privilege in making something that is special to you. We value that so much.

What prompted you to set up the studio?
We decided to build our own kitchen because we had such difficulty finding beautiful, functional products that were also environmentally responsible. So it began as the desire to make something special, different, and sustainable for our own home. One day we started talking about making bamboo kitchens and furniture for others, and once that seed was planted there was no going back. We were so intrigued and excited, we had to give it a try. I suppose we were a little naïve going into it, but I think that helped us to take the risk.

Why do you use bamboo?
We love bamboo because it is so beautiful, and is one of the fastest growing plants in the world; the stem matures in 4-6 years, compared to over 50 years for other trees. We think it’s the perfect alternative for making sustainable furniture and kitchens.

How do you approach design?
It is very important to us to understand how our clients live and use their kitchens, and that they remain involved throughout the whole process. We bring a project together holistically, giving careful consideration to space, function and aesthetics. When designing we think about functionality and material efficiency, and often end up stripping away all unnecessary details.

Is there a Japanese influence in your approach to design?
For sure! We love the organic quality of Japanese design and carpentry, and Kristoffer’s favorite movie is You Only Live Twice. We are strongly influenced by the Japanese aesthetic of many modern Scandinavian classics.

What else influences you?
Bamboo itself is very interesting to investigate, and that influences us a great deal. It’s extremely versatile because the grain can have a classic line structure, or another entirely different pattern. Developing the color variations has been a challenge, but after much trial and error we have found a way to underline the material’s natural qualities. Nature, organic shapes and minimal schools of thought influence us too. But we also sense what is right for us, and go with that feeling.

You make other furniture too. Is this a natural progression from what you were already doing?
It’s fun to make something new, but it also comes from wanting to use as much as we can of the bamboo panels. We try to think about sustainability in every step of the process, and throwing away as little as possible is a key part of that. Later this year we will officially launch a new set of shelves and dining room tables, which is going to be really exciting.

• WORDS: Ruth Ainsworth
• PHOTOS: Claus Troelsgaard
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

It was within the meditative rotation of the potter’s wheel where Sarah Van Raden grounded herself. In an exploration of greater creative freedom, she took an evening class in pottery and found herself instantly enraptured by the tactile quality of ceramics. Her decade long career as a photo stylist slipped to the wayside in pursuit of her passion, which, after time and practice, bloomed into Notary Ceramics. She soon donned the potter’s apron permanently, and devoted herself to the creation of ceramics. Nurtured by rural Oregon, Van Raden began using clays sourced in the Pacific Northwest.

Slurry-streaked hands gently coax clay into shape, beckoning forms into existence. Crafted in shades from white to black, Van Raden balances gravity and lightness, rawness and refinement, to achieve a purity within each piece. Dainty stems protrude from ikebana vases; meals entice on a cool background of matte grey plates; steam swirls soothingly from satin white mugs.

• WORDS: Libby Borton
• PHOTOS: Ellie Baygulov
• STYLING: Sarah Van Raden
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

A Bernard Leach pot is as much a political statement as an object to admire: its reassuring heft, muted colours, tactile surface, its repetitive scored lines, the areas deliberately left unglazed to show the qualities and provenance of the fired clay, and, above all, the quiet insistence that it must be put to use.

Leach spent the first three years of his life in Japan and his connection to the country never left him. As a teenager, he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London under the notoriously judgmental eye of tutor Henry Tonks, who advised him not to become an artist. Leach was nothing if not confident and, in 1909, he returned to Japan with the intention of working as an artist and teaching the art of etching. But it was his chance invitation to a party that crystallised his artistic vision. The guests were there to drink tea and learn the art of raku; the painting, and then low-temperature firing of earthenware pots. Along with the other guests, Leach picked up the strange, unfamiliar brushes and, a little clumsily, decorated two pots that were then fired in a small, portable kiln. He watched as the heat transformed them, peering in through the kiln’s spy-hole as the glaze became ‘melted and glossy’. The covers were removed, and the glowing pieces taken out one by one and placed on tiles. As the shimmer from the heat slowly faded, the true colours came out. ‘Another five minutes passed,’Leach recalled, ‘and we could gingerly handle our pots painted only one hour before.’ In the space of that hour, his artistic ambition changed just as alchemically as the glaze on his pots. Bernard Leach’s subsequent meeting with the celebrated Japanese potter Shōji Hamada was at least as serendipitous as the raku party. The two men became great friends and, in 1920, Hamada returned to St Ives with Leach to help him create his pottery there.

In the early days, Leach’s work followed two paths; there were the coveted, collectable and extremely expensive flasks and bottles that drew on the traditions and aesthetic of Sung Dynasty pots, and alongside them, more affordable domestic stoneware that could be made in greater volume. Ultimately, it was the fusion of these two paths that produced the combustible mix, resulting in what Leach called his ‘standard-ware’, which is still the defining force of Leach pottery today. As the ceramicist Edmund de Waal so shrewdly observed in his intelligent but sometimes critical book about Leach, the phrase ‘standard-ware’ was a powerful one, ‘resonant not only of work being commonly available and having continuity, of being ordinary, but also of his standards: propriety, integrity, authority.’

Leach was also an indefatigable polemicist and pamphleteer, often devoting more time to defining his potter’s manifesto than making pottery itself. In the 1928 pamphlet A Potter’s Outlook, he defined his ideas about affordability, usability and the importance of function as well as form. In particular, he decried the kind of factory-made crockery that was available to all simply because it was ‘cheap, standardised, thin, white, hard and waterproof.’ The shapes were ‘wretched’ he said, ‘the colours sharp and harsh, the decoration banal, the quality absent.’ Above all, he said, the pots were ‘still-born: they have not had the breath of reality in them: it has been a game.’

The roll-call of potters and artists who studied with Leach or worked at the Leach Pottery in St Ives is as long as it is distinguished: Bernard Leach’s sons David and Michael; his potter grandsons Simon, Philip, Jeremy and John; Richard Batterham, Nora Braden, Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie, William Marshall, abstract artist Patrick Heron, Janet Darnell (who became his third wife) and Michael Cardew. Many of them, in different ways, absorbed aspects of Leach’s vision: the flat, cut sides of Batterham’s harmonious bowls, the reassuring curves, muted tones and durable honesty of John Leach’s Muchelney pottery, the fluted lines of David Leach’s bowls. Bernard Leach once said that it was his sense of having been born in an ‘old culture’ that defined his artistic vision. ‘The sap still flows from a tap root deep in the soil of the past’, he said, ‘giving the sense of form, pattern and colour below the level of intellectualisation.’ Some would argue with that definition; it seems to exclude the idea of future innovation, as well as to suggest that without a sense of history there can be no artistic integrity. Perhaps the vision of the tap root could be deployed more usefully as a representation of Bernard Leach’s own influence. From his epiphany at a Japanese raku party at the beginning of the 20th century sprang a new form of studio pottery, producing work that was, and still is, restrained, useful, harmonious and democratically available. The tap root still flourishes today.

• WORDS:  Charlie Lee-Potter
• PHOTO: Finn Beales
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

Norm Architects is more than simply an architecture studio; aside from an impressive portfolio of residential architecture work, the firm frequently engages in commercial interiors, industrial design, photography, graphics, and art direction. Cofounders Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen and Kasper Rønn do not consider these varied channels as hindrances to a uniform vision, however; rather, they see the advantages of functioning as a multidisciplinary design brand. “We gain a lot from engaging in such a wide range of disciplines,” says Jonas. “When we are designing, for example, we think very much like architects, and we are very analytical. And because we also do interiors, the way we think about architectural landscapes is different from our colleagues; we think about the smaller details.”

When Norm Architects was formally established in 2008, Jonas and Kasper had already been working together for over a decade in Copenhagen. These high school friends, had been working at a petrol station and an institution for the differently abled people, before ending up at the office of Danish designer Ole Palsby. “Kasper was there for five years; I was there for eight,” says Jonas. “And that was where we got our informal education as designers.”

Nods to Danish designers such as Palsby and Poul Kjærholm permeate the firm’s distinct and highly acclaimed work. A prominent feature is Jonas and Kasper’s use of geometric purity. “In all of our work, we start off with basic geometry – squares, circles, triangles. It’s universally grounded, so the products that come out in the end are simple yet appeal to everyone regardless of their cultural influence,” says Jonas. The architects also spend countless hours conceptualising the way light moves and feels within a space. “The amount of daylight that comes into a space can create the right mood, and bring nature inside,” says Jonas. “Our aim every time we begin a project is to create a space that feels warm, welcoming, and human, even before a single piece of furniture goes in. This is achieved through the way it’s constructed, and how the materials feel.”

Simplicity, clarity, and timelessness are values that resonate deeply. “When we started the company, we chose the name ‘Norm’ to go against what was in vogue. We wanted to do something that was based on established norms and standards that have been refined for millennia,” Jonas explains, “something that can stand the test of time, something we can be proud of in 10 or 20 years.” In the digital age, where ideas and aesthetics are shared seamlessly and instantaneously, Jonas and Kasper strive toward universality, incorporating influences from across the globe. “Even though we are very influenced by traditional Japanese architecture, neither one of us has ever been to Japan,” says Jonas. “Style and a sense of aesthetics are no longer connected to a specific region. It’s not about being in a physical place anymore. Inspiration travels easily, so it’s much more about taking ideas from all parts of the world.”

The duo is working extensively with Scandinavian furniture and accessories brand Menu as designers and lead advisors. “Menu was one of the first companies we did design work for when we started in 2008,” says Jonas of the partnership between the two firms. “We developed one product for them that became a huge success, and we continued to work with them until they approached us and asked if we wanted to be design directors.” Upon accepting the position, Jonas and Kasper travelled the world in search of new collaborators, including both established design studios and young and emerging talent, who shared the same aesthetic vision for the direction for Menu’s future trajectory. “In a relatively short time span, we have completely rebranded the company and made a powerful statement in terms of Scandinavian design,” says Jonas.

Paradoxically, the remarkable success of Norm Architects has prompted the company to downsize. While Norm once boasted 10 full time employees, the company now consists of only the two founding partners and Linda Korndal, head of architectural and interior projects. “There was a point when Kasper and I were only in meetings, writing e-mails, and taking care of employees, and we looked forward to getting the weekends off,” says Jonas. “So we made a quick decision and decided to take on less, but do it ourselves and wake up every morning loving our jobs.” The pair is now personally invested in each of the studio’s projects, with consistency across all their diverse undertakings. Jonas’s home, having undergone multiple renovations whilst experimenting with new materials and techniques, is a testament to how his work a joy and a hobby. “My home is a laboratory for new ideas. I need to look at things for a time and ask, ‘Is this still interesting after seeing it for a couple of months?’” says Jonas. “In order to do a really good job, I need to do something I love.”

• WORDS:  Justin H. Min
• PHOTO:  Line Klein
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

And she’s letting you take risks — designer Nazy Fotoohi takes great pride in creating for the modern woman.

Reinterpreting styles from the Italian architect Andrea Branzi’s “1969 Mies chair,” Nazy has designed her second collection to speak to the modern and well-minded woman is all the more fearless. Attributing to his role in the “Italian Radical Architecture Movement,” Nazy took key notes of his feats and applied to her line that has radically shifted since launch. Even more chic than before.

Born from Persian decent and raised in South Florida, Nazy’s foray into design was sparked while she was searching for a special piece of jewelry to gift a cousin on her wedding day. She decided to transform a brooch and family heirloom, giving it new life. From there, Nazy - who’s grandmother Kamryn had amassed a collection she adored as a child- began tinkering, re-vamping, and studying the craft of jewelry design. Now with the launch of Spring 2017, she has found her voice and method, having already gained fans including TV Personality Maria Menounos, and Tales of Endearment’s founder Natalie Joos.

And best yet, everything designed under brand is made exclusively in the states. Her commitment to local is admirable. 

Get to know the newest collection — It’s hella beautiful and we want it all.

• WORDS: ANTHONY ROGERS
• PHOTOS: BOBCUT
• ORIGINAL POST: BOBCUT

There’s a powerful synergy to Refettorio Felix: the energy and drive of chef Massimo Bottura, the empathy of designer Ilse Crawford, and the tireless conviction of The Felix Project. But, as with most powerful ideas, the end result adds up to even more than its individual components. As Bottura puts it: “London is a city full of challenges and inequalities. Food waste is rampant. There are growing concerns about food poverty and social isolation. Refettorio Felix is not just a place where people come to eat a meal. It is a place for inclusion, engagement, and sharing, where everyone can feel welcomed and be inspired.”

Bottura’s idea to serve food to those in need using surplus ingredients is one of those accidents which turned into a powerful doctrine for life. In 2015, the celebrated Italian chef put his three Michelin stars to radical use by opening a temporary soup kitchen in Milan called Refettorio Ambrosiano. The idea was to highlight food surplus and waste, while feeding the vulnerable. The only thing that’s changed about the project’s mantra is that it’s no longer temporary, and it has taken off worldwide. Bottura says that the moment he realised that he’d created something unstoppable was when one of his chef friends visited the Refettorio Ambrosiano. “René Rezdepi came to cook in Milan, and he said: ‘You know Massimo, this is for life.’ And yes, he was right.” Bottura and his wife Lara founded Food for Soul with the aim of taking their vision of good food, cooked well, and set about fighting food waste and feeding the hungry anywhere in the world that wanted their help. “In 2016, we built Refettorio Gastromotiva in Rio de Janeiro during the Olympics. Soup kitchens were closed to hide the so-called ‘ugly’ side of the city from the spotlight of such an important occasion. So, we decided to open our community kitchen.” It’s a typical Bottura gesture – those in charge wanted to hide poverty and deprivation, he wanted to highlight it.

Refettorio Felix opened at St Cuthbert’s in Kensington, London this year, serving lunch to around 100 people a day. First, the space had to be transformed from what had been a functional, slightly dismal community space. This is where designer and creative director Ilse Crawford of Studioilse came in. She worked pro bono, and persuaded furniture and design companies to donate their chairs, tables, furnishings, cutlery, and glasses. St Cuthbert’s now has that uncanny air of a place that looks familiar, yet entirely different. The walls are a darker, more calming shade, the lighting more soothing, the plants plentiful.

Crawford, revered by many in her profession, doesn’t talk like any designer I’ve ever met. In her opinion, it isn’t about how a design looks, but rather about what it does. “Design is not an aesthetic,” she argues. “It’s a methodology that allows you to find the right answer. Staying the same is never the right answer.” It’s a powerful mantra, and one which fits Bottura’s vision entirely. As Crawford says: “If you have the energy of Massimo and our team, it’s like a kind of magic. Our interest is to make spaces that make people happy.” Crawford, who’s also head of the Man and Wellbeing design course at Eindhoven University, has created a mind map of provocative words for her students, which uses phrases such as ‘the fight to be human’, ‘things that last’, ‘make the normal special’, ‘together through food’, and ‘we are the system’, all of which, perhaps not surprisingly, suit Refettorio Felix perfectly. She also, against expectations, likes the idea that people might appropriate her ideas. “You have to be prepared to be copied if you want to make an impact,” she says. “We have to let go of the idea that we are the only people that can do it. It’s about creating the framework. We often try to do too much, but if you create a frame, people can fill it. There’s no shortage of people who want to help, if the system is there. I’m optimistic and pragmatic. Someone has to do it, start it – Massimo has started the thing. He’s doing it in a viral way, and he wants
people to copy him.”

The third, vital part of Refettorio Felix is, of course, Felix himself. Felix Byam Shaw was only 14 years old when he died suddenly from meningitis in 2014. He was a remarkable boy whom his friends and family adored. Ask anyone who knew him, and they all say the same thing: he was full of kindness and compassion for others. The Felix Project was founded to celebrate those qualities, and now a fleet of Felix vans, driven by volunteers, collects surplus food from supermarkets each morning and delivers it to centres for the homeless and vulnerable. Refettorio Felix is one of those places.

If there’s one gesture that embodies everything that Bottura, Crawford, and The Felix Project try to do, it’s that those who eat at Refettorio Felix have their food brought to them at the table. Bottura puts it like this: “Our guests include both the homeless, and individuals and families in situations of food poverty, food insecurity, and social vulnerability. By using quality tableware and restaurant style service, we want to make each guest feel valued and bring a sense of dignity back to the table.” His conviction that people should not have to queue for their food, but rather be served, came to him when he opened the original refettorio in Milan. “I still remember the very first nights there, when people were silently sitting at the table and eating their meals. A couple of guests barely spoke to each other. But a few weeks later, every night was a huge party; guests, volunteers, and chefs were sharing the same table and the same meal. We knew each other by name. Hospitality can lead to social inclusion through the simple gesture of serving meals at the table and saying, ‘Hi, how was the soup?’”

On the day that Refettorio Felix opened, Bottura himself cooked, and fittingly, began with soup. “It was a great responsibility. We served a soup that I called ‘Soup of Everything’, because it was the result of many different vegetables enriched with a broth made from Parmigiano Reggiano cheese rinds. Then we served pasta with pesto sauce, made with humble breadcrumbs instead of pine nuts; and finally, we served an Earl-Grey-tea-and-biscuits ice cream to honour the wonderful food culture of the UK. But this meal is only one example among many others created by the chefs and the resident kitchen team following the same principles — it is healthy and nutritious; it is seasonal, thanks to the products that The Felix Project delivers to our door every morning; it is made by recovering food surplus; it is genuine and heart warming; and it is delicious.” In many ways, that first meal sums up this remarkable venture by bringing together passionate volunteers who are trying to make things better for others, whilst honouring the legacy of a boy everyone loved. It really is a ‘Soup of Everything’.

• WORDS:  Charlie Lee-Potter
• PHOTO:  Rory Gardiner
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal

Michaela d’Artois is the founder of the online publication Vérité Published, and the online shopping experience Shop Vérité.

The Canadian born, Californian transplant strives to unite women, and spread the message of empowerment from body to brain, and started Vérité as an online platform to do just that. Her personal style is strongly influenced by each destination of her travels, and the celebration of being a woman! Michaela's Motif edit was inspired by the California light, minimal gold jewels, and skin. She was entranced by the life this light takes on when it hits the dainty angles of her Motif picks, reflecting on to it's wearers skin.

These little moments of otherworldly jewelry are exactly what you need to welcome spring.

— Michaela d'Artois

These bobbles of magic are purely otherworldly, reminding us the beauty of minimal designs, and luxe details. Each piece adds understated glamour to your outfit whether you layer them, or wear them on their own. The collection is up on their site for a limited time so you need to snag them before they're gone.

Photography by Allister Ann

It all started with petite gold structures — each piece ethereal in weight and size, bringing just a flicker of light along with the wearers every move.

— Michaela d'Artois

• WORDS: ANTHONY ROGERS
• PHOTOS: BOBCUT
• ORIGINAL POST: BOBCUT

"DO WHAT YOU LOVE. KNOW YOUR OWN BONE; GNAW AT IT, BURY IT, UNEARTH IT AND GNAW IT STILL." - HENRY DAVID THOREAU

ARBEL’S GREATEST FACILITY LIES WITHIN AN INTUITIVE UNDERSTANDING OF RAW MATERIALS AND AN INHERENT ABILITY TO CREATE TACTILE EPHEMERA. THE PRACTICE, NOW IN ITS 11TH YEAR, CONTINUES TO FIND SUCCESS WITH WHAT ARBEL DESCRIBES AS MATERIAL EXPLORATIONS.

should be clear right off the bat. I don’t really answer lifestyle questions,” Omer Arbel says to me. “I only speak about my work.” I’m set at ease by his candour. As the founder of his eponymous practice, Omer Arbel Office, and creative director of contemporary design and manufacturing company, Bocci, there is much to discuss.

Trained as an architect, Arbel’s greatest facility lies within an intuitive understanding of raw materials and an inherent ability to create tactile ephemera. The practice, now in its 11th year, continues to find success with what Arbel describes as material explorations. “All along, there have been these experiments, which began as a personal hobby, then evolved into a professional endeavour,” he explains. “A lot of them are just speculative, with no end purpose in mind – no mission statement or brief, just these free fall semiconscious explorations of materials.”

While the results of these experiments are varied with no overt use or purpose at the onset, Arbel is equipped with a wealth of empirical findings and a vault of artefacts. “At best, they’re interesting, at worst, garbage,” he says, breaking into a laugh. It’s a modest statement when you consider that many of these explorations have led to full scale installations. One of his pieces, 44, for instance, currently hangs in the lobby of the famed Barbican Centre in London. “One out of 10 explorations turns into something that people can use in the world,” he states. Of these, perhaps the most widely recognised is 28 – named, like all his products, in chronological order of when they were discovered. 28 is a collection of hand blown glass spheres that command a multitude of applications, including hanging clusters, stand alone table lamps, and wall mounted fixtures.

When asked about his preferred experiment of the moment, Arbel immediately rises to grab a prototype. “This began its life as a machine bolt,” he says, holding a hefty piece of metal that resembles sea coral. “You can see the hexagonal head of the bolt in there.” Wrapped in copper cable, the figure is submerged in a chemical solution with emulsified nickel and pulsed with a tremendous amount of voltage. Listening to Arbel articulate this process, you can sense that there is a profound understanding of the technical approach. This comes as little surprise since his first degree is a Bachelor of Science. “Because of the copper cable, there’s an electromagnetic field that forms around the bolt. When the bolt is dipped in and out of the solution thousands of times, at every iteration, the nickel molecules are drawn out to the edges and this piece is essentially grown over three months.” Eventually strung as an intricate garland inside the Dimore Gallery in Milan, and named 71, it is but a singular example of “a series of almost chance occurrences that have found its way to a perfect result.”

With an established presence in Berlin – via Bocci 79: showroom and archive – and no shortage of resource or opportunity, I ask why he chose Vancouver as the home for his business. “I think Vancouver’s fantastic,” he proclaims. “I don’t know why people would ever want to leave. It’s easy to say, ‘Vancouver’s not cool, there’s not enough going on,’ but that’s missing the point entirely.” He explains:

“Vancouver is a vibrant, optimistic, youthful city where so many things are possible; things that can be completely out of reach in cities with a lot more cultural inertia. The spirit of this place is quite amazing, it’s open to new things. Compare this to say, Berlin, a city with thousands of years of history, some of it extremely difficult, and you can see how the two cities diverge. There’s a fantastic exposure to ideas here, an amazing community – both completely inspiring. It’s a place where a different kind of reality exists.”

Further extrapolating his connection to Vancouver, Arbel shares: “I always take stock of my surroundings when the plane is about to take off from, or land, in YVR. And I find that when I’m leaving Vancouver, I’m super happy, but also equally so when I’m landing; I’m elated to leave, and elated to return. I feel that this isn’t something you often say about a place. Most people are either happy to leave, or happy to return, but it’s rarely both. Except in my case, with Vancouver.”

* All of the photographs were taken at Bocci 79: Showroom + Archive, in Berlin.
bocci.ca

• WORDS:  Sheila Lam
• PHOTO: Rich Stapleton
• ORIGINAL POST: Readcereal