Table of contents for URBIS_93_201608 in Urbis

Everyone needs a sanctuary after personal calamity. In Kristine Crabb’s case, a breakup 18 months ago demanded an exit from her Kingsland home: a “hard-out do-up’’ with a history as an ad-hoc punk venue. Maybe it was her urgent need for a pleasant space for her and her three children, but she lucked upon a Ponsonby villa that transported her back to her own happy childhood and the wonderful nana who lived just over the fence. Nana Crabb was unique, possibly the one true bohemian in Matamata; she was a singer, motorcyclist, chain smoker, prohibitionist and pilot who crossed the Tasman only months after Jean Batten did. Outsiders who didn’t quite mesh with your standard rural mores flocked to her, including her granddaughter, who would jump the fence to pick…

Does your work in production, costume and interior design merge, or do you see them as separate entities? CATHERINE MARTIN (CM): I see both costume and production design as aids to telling stories. My job is to help the director and the actors tell the exact story they want to. Production design illustrates and makes both the environment and the context in which they want to set their stories clear. Costumes work to express the character that both the director and the actor are making. The techniques you apply to make them are different, but they are one in the same as they are both a means of translating ideas into visual narrative. This is partly what I do when I am designing for interiors as well; I start my…

DEBORAH SAUNT AND DAVID HILLS spent a considerable amount of time looking for the perfect location to build their family home. The couple, founding directors at London-based multi-disciplinary architecture studio DSDHA, finally found it in a backland site in Clapham Old Town, three kilometres from the capital’s West End. Hidden from street view behind a row of terraces, the block boasts mature trees and lush gardens, and is about as quiet and secluded as it can get, this close to London’s historic centre. Yet with the idyllic pastoral setting and desired sense of privacy came strict planning restrictions. Rather than be deterred by unavoidable Conservation Area regulations, Saunt and Hills remained philosophical during the lengthy approvals process. “David and I weren’t only able to interrogate the idea of the ‘domestic’…

The wonder of this apartment begins before you’ve even opened the front door. Emerging from the lift, guests are welcomed by a dazzling mural – all criss-crossing angles and bold colourblocks in bottle green, maroon and yellow offset by the palest ice blue, mint green and dusty pink. The artist responsible is Esther Stewart, based in Daylesford in regional Victoria. Fresh from a menswear collaboration with fashion house Valentino, Stewart delivers here a stunning modernist prelude to the extraordinary apartment within. Occupying a whole floor in a 1968 building, the apartment overlooks the blue waters and even bluer skies of Sydney Harbour. Downsizing from their family house to a 160m2 apartment, the clients enlisted the services of architects Tony Chenchow and Stephanie Little of Sydney practice Chenchow Little to deliver…

IT’S THE FIRST RULE of Vancouver: don’t talk about the rain. Canada’s third-largest city averages around 175 days of rain a year, which could explain why its nicknames include Wet Coast and Brollywood (a nod also to its role as the second-busiest film location in North America). But all that precipitation means Vancouver really rolls out the green carpet: it’s a city of 250 green spaces, including Stanley Park, which boasts the world’s longest, uninterrupted waterfront path and is, as the locals never tire of telling visitors, larger than New York’s Central Park. Accordingly, there’s no shortage of outdoorsy, sporty types flinging themselves around this city on foot, by bike or skis (Whistler, the nearest ski-field, is 125km away). Vancouver hosts more than 1,500 yoga classes a week too –…

The Wolseley, London The Wolseley, in the heart of Piccadilly, has one of the best small bars in London. The menu is classic British cuisine and I usually have the lemon sole. The experience is amplified by the room: a perennial favourite and the perfect spot to shake off jet lag and rest weary feet. Apollo, Sydney This is Sydney dining at its very best. Dreamy Greek food perfectly cooked, served with precision in an always-bustling space. The lamb shoulder is divine, as is the saganaki cheese. I top that off with a sneaky walk up the road to Messina Gelato for a palate-cleansing sorbet. Osteria, Florence I went here for a post-Pitti (leading menswear event) dinner with a group of rowdy Italians and it was one of the best…

What is it about the luggage project that convinced you to join forces with Louis Vuitton? MARC NEWSON (MN): I suppose what tempted me was the challenge of designing a great piece – and, consequently, a range – but primarily a great piece of luggage. Like so many people, I travel a lot, and I feel that I am in many ways uniquely placed to be able to do that as a consumer – even more than as a designer, actually. How do you approach a brief like this and what is your design process? MN: The brief for the project was fairly open: it was to design, or redesign, primarily carry-on luggage in a way that was meaningful to the contemporary traveller. It wasn’t meant to speak only to…

OVERLOOKING LE MOULIN DE LA GALETTE, the historic windmill in Montmartre, Paris, this 1970s’ loft apartment is set out like a gallery space housing the inhabitants’ collection of contemporary art and furniture. Initially, the homeowners – Caroline Wiart and Patrice Galiana – lived next door, but when the apartment came up for sale, they knew it was ideal as a larger space to house their (then) young family, and collections (Wiart studied art history before specialising in contemporary art and furniture; her partner is an art collector). The apartment was gloomy and dark when the couple first purchased it. “But as it had windows on three sides, it had potential,” says Wiart. The couple opened out the space, removing all internal doors aside from the one that leads to their…

A FRESH START CAN OFTEN prove to be a liberating and rewarding experience. This was certainly true for fashion designer Kenzo Takada when he sold his former Paris home in the Place de la Bastille, auctioned many of its contents, and began the process of creating a completely new space for himself in Saint-Germain-de-Prés. The result is a serene, calm and sophisticated top-floor apartment within a 19th-century, Baron Haussmann-era building where old meets new and east meets west. “This was the first apartment that I saw,” says Takada. “I went on looking and went to see 10 others but I came back to this one because my dream was to have a view of the Eiffel Tower and to be close to Saint-Germain; so, this is it. In fact, the…

TESLA’S MOVE MAINSTREAM LEADS ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGE Tesla Model 3 HOW LONG DOES it take to establish a car brand from scratch? Judging by the efforts of premium Chinese brand Qoros, whose design department is led by ex-Mini chief designer Gert Hildebrand, only about five years and $1.6 billion. Its factory is capable of producing up to 350,000 units per year, although you have probably never seen one. By comparison, US electric car maker Tesla has enjoyed a slightly longer gestation period and if you live in a large Australasian city, I’ll wager you have already passed a Tesla on the road. Soon, you can expect to see one most days, as Tesla prepares to unleash the Model 3, its first mass-market car. The newcomer has already brought more kudos…

Urbis brought together four creatives with interests in fashion, interiors, design, music and good drink – (pictured above, from left) I Love Ugly’s main man Valentin Ozich, his business partner Barnaby Marshall, Thomson Whisky’s founder Mat Thomson and Urbis editor Federico Monsalve – for a game of pool and cocktails at ILU’s headquarters. It began as a chat about creative businesses and their uncertainties (which Thomson summarised by saying: “Clearly, none of us has taken the easiest route to make a living!”) and also the process of fine-tuning ideas. Ozich: “You need a good filtering system… you have to constantly be thinking which opportunities are worth pursuing, which have to be put aside. You have to make sure those ideas are completely aligned with your goal and constantly ask yourself…

Who needs a television when you’ve got ‘The Tree’? This particular tree is of the cherry variety, one that makes up in cheer for what it lacks in cherries, and it dominates the view from Beth Ellery and Sam Hartnett’s lounge. Both visual artists (she a fashion designer, he a photographer specialising in art and architecture), its seasonal changes have become an engagingly meta-plot-line for the couple to obsess over. It’s also a fair representation of what they hoped to gain from abandoning apartment living. They had already signed up for another property when they heard that the owner, a friend and art conservator, was leaving for England. Would they like to move in? You bet. If you’re an Auckland garden fiend you’ll know it as the house that looks…

THE THRILL OF STANDING in I.M. Pei’s glass and metal pyramid – immersed in the tectonics of its modernist construction as he gazed out at the grandeur of the Louvre Palace – turned a 14-year-old Joseph Hampton on to the spatial wonders of architecture. Many a teenager would have dawdled grumpily after their parents on a wide-ranging tour of Europe’s greatest buildings – but Hampton was inspired. “I’ll never forget the way being in St Peter’s Basilica made me feel, or the impact of the beautiful Neuschwanstein Castle so strong within the mountainous terrain of Bavaria.” Until then, it’s fair to say, the closest Hampton came to an interest in architecture was building free-form with his Lego blocks. But sketching an elevation of his aunt and uncle’s Trengrove-designed farmstead –…

SURROUNDED BY WOODLAND, just outside Udine in north-eastern Italy, is the family home of Patrizia Moroso, creative director of her family’s eponymous company and one of the most influential names in contemporary furniture. Known for her warm relationships with top international designers, Moroso’s closest collaborator (and friend) is Spanish architect-designer Patricia Urquiola – and that’s who Moroso called upon to design her home. “I already liked her product design,” Moroso explains, “and as women, I thought we would have an understanding during the process; I felt I could easily talk to Patricia about my ideas.” The aspects and delineations of close connections – personal and professional; public and private; home and business; interior and exterior – are at play throughout the home. While largely the result of Moroso and Urquiola’s…

BEHIND ITS MUTED TONES IS AN IMPRESSIVE NARRATIVE THAT MAKES THIS HOME A THING OF SUBTLE DEPTH... IT HAS A QUIET CONFIDENCE THAT EXUDES ELEGANCE AND PEDIGREE. THERE ARE TWO ROUND leather chairs in the living room of this Roman apartment that, although basic in construction, possess a strangely alluring persona. They are nothing more than a steel circumference supported by an unadorned structure onto which leather straps are wrapped – stretched and slacked in places. From a distance, they could easily be confused with the Acapulco Chair’s posh, polo-playing cousins, yet on close inspection they are entirely better-crafted thrones. The FDC1 chairs were created in the ’50s by the irreverent Brazilian architect and artist Flavio de Carvalho. According to reports, their design might have been influenced by an African…