Table of contents for February 2014 in Dwell

This issue is a tribute to possibility through thoughtful design choices. As we searched for modern renovation projects to highlight, we decided early on that we would give the most consideration to those that came with a crucial element—the “before” shot. Usually taken quickly and in the thick of demolition, the before shot is always difficult to integrate into a layout due to its comparatively low quality and lack of composition. But it is such an important ingredient—much like a floor plan—that without it, the reader is left with less than a full presentation of an architectural story. Simply put, there is nothing quite so satisfying as a good “before and after” moment. For that reason we made every effort to integrate as many of these glimpses as possible. Renovation…

Architect Michael Cobb prefers using natural building materials—like straw bales and rammed earth—in his structures; however, he often finds them to be cost prohibitive due to the extra fortifications needed to meet California’s seismic requirements. “Things that have the virtue of being simple have become some of the most complicated forms of construction,” he says. Then Cobb discovered Agriboard, a structural insulated panel made from oriented strand board and a compressed agricultural fiber core, which he used to construct a weekend house for a young family in Healdsburg, California. “It represents an affordable way to build with relatively unprocessed materials,” he says. Architect Michael Cobb used Douglas fir harvested from the site throughout the house, such as on a sliding door outfitted with Swiss Rod SS hardware from the Real…

When Hugo Day hired architect David Sheppard to create a traditional home on his family’s 600-acre estate along the River Erme in Devon County, England, the original plan was to demolish a small stone outbuilding on the property. However, once Sheppard learned the provenance of the turn-of-the-19th-century building—it formerly housed the local postman, who delivered the mail by pony and trap—he revised the plan. To incorporate the existing cottage into the new home’s layout, Sheppard situated the addition so that the new structure grows outward from this central point. “Our idea was to radiate [the design] out, anchoring and composing a linear, organic form and capturing light through an expressive fan-shaped roof,” says Sheppard. “We wanted to complement and enhance the humble dwelling.” Thanks to a disused local quarry, the…

1 Modex by Blanco, $1,750 Rising only three inches above the countertop, the Red Dot Award–winning Modex features an integrated drainboard. The engineered material, which is 80 percent granite, is scratch-and stain-resistant. blancoamerica.com 2 Drawer Microwave by Wolf, $1,825 Available in 24-and 30-inch sizes, the microwave has ten power levels and its spacious drawer can accommodate nine-by 13-inch casseroles. subzero-wolf.com 3 800 Plus Series Dishwasher by Bosch, $1,299 A recessed handle helps the stainless-steel appliance maintain a low profile, while three internal racks offer more cleaning capacity. At 42 decibels when running, the 800 series is also among the quietest dishwashers around. bosch-home.com 4 Signature Series 24-Inch Dual-Zone Wine Reserve by Perlick, $3,399–$3,749 The Milwaukee-made stainless-steel chiller features two separate temperature zones and can hold 46 bottles of wine. It’s…

1 Inside Story table runner by CB2, $100 A graduate student in New Delhi designed the vibrant, ombré runner made from rolled paper tubes which are then hand-knotted by Indian artisans. cb2.com 2 Bat Trang vases by Arian Brekveld for Imperfect Design, $68–$223 A Dutch designer’s trip to Vietnam to learn local craft yielded a series of trim vases made of colored clay. imperfectdesign.nl 3 Everett loveseat by West Elm, $899 The mass-market retailer gets Lynchian with its apartment-size, quick-ship, velvet-upholstered sofa in deep, inky blue. westelm.com 4 Wave wallpaper in Evening by Flat Vernacular, $175 per roll The Brooklyn boutique wall covering studio takes a tactile yet practical approach with its washable, strippable paper on satin background. flatvernacular.com 5 Traffic armchair by Konstantin Grcic for Magis, $3,339 Grcic updates…

After 16 years in a nondescript bungalow, Brad Lynch was tired of being the architect who hid his own house. The Brininstool + Lynch founding principal demurred requests from high-end residential clients who wanted to see his home in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood. In a rare concession, he drove one persistent client past the house. As Lynch puts it: “After seeing the outside, he did not want to see the inside.” “I kept promising my wife that we would renovate,” Lynch says. But when he got down to designing, Lynch realized that the plans he’d drawn up—which he describes as “a deconstruction of the bungalow form”— would cost more to realize than a brand-new building. So he decided to tear down his cozy, if commonplace, house and build anew onsite.…

Amid the miniature Tuscan villas and Mediterranean mansions that jockey for prime ocean frontage on the Strand in Manhattan Beach, California, stands a house in a class all its own. With a curving facade of steel, concrete, and glass, the 5,200-square-foot volume rises from its south-facing corner lot like an ocean liner ready to set sail. Passersby may be surprised to learn its architect was the seminal Southern California modernist Ray Kappe, whose wood-and-glass dwellings have long explored the intersection of indoors and out. Designed as a weekend retreat in the mid-1980s for animation producer Lou Scheimer and his wife, Jay, the house features a two-story atrium and a rooftop deck, complete with lap pool and widow’s walk. When it came on the market for the first time in 2010,…

25 Modern World Alvaro Catalán de Ocóan CATALANDEOCON.COM Appliances by Miele mieleusa.com Architect Ryan Jang 415-722-2814 Espresso machine by Rocket Espresso Milano rocket-espresso.it Cabinet pulls by Tydix tydix.com Hinges by Blum blum.com Kitchen sink and Semi-Professional faucet by Blanco blancoamerica.com Over-cabinet dimmable fluorescent lights by Bartco bartcolighting.com Under-cabinet dimmable LED strip lights by Energy Savings Technology LLC. est-es2.com Reza Feiz, Phase Design phasedesignonline.com Khodi Feiz, Feiz Design Studio feizdesign.com Air-Chairs by Jasper Morrison for Magis store.hermanmiller.com Wishbone dining chairs by Hans Wegner for Carl Hansen & Søn carlhansen.com Bombo bar stools by Magis magisdesign.com Pendant lamps by Bestlite bestlite.org.uk Kitchen system by Pronorm pronorm.de 54 Backstory Brininstool + Lynch brininstool-lynch.com Red brick masonry and custom limestone sills and parapets by Yankee Hill Brick yankeehillbrick.com Venezia chairs by Paolo Favaretto favarettoandpartners.com…

I have had mixed reactions to Dwell for years, but the City Living issue is a real winner. What a fun photo of Jack Lenor Larsen (In the Modern World, October 2013), right down to his two-colored pair of socks—two tones working together, of course. It would be exceptional and fantastic if Mr. Larsen would give permission to photograph some more of his house, both inside and out. He has been cutting-edge since before there was an edge, and he still is on top of his game. Thanks for doing this article. Lenore Cymes Palo Alto, California Editor’s Note: Spy a few extra images in our slideshow at dwell.com/jack-lenorlarsen. We highly recommend visiting LongHouse, Larsen’s East Hampton estate longhouse.org. My husband just treated me to a renewed subscription to Dwell,…

TEXT BY Shonquis Moreno PHOTOS BY Elizabeth Weinberg Designers Khodi Feiz and Reza Feiz live and work in two far-flung cities—a great distance from their birthplace in Tehran. Khodi’s Feiz Design Studio in Amsterdam and Reza’s studio, Phase Design in Los Angeles, make different brands of graphical, minimalist furniture, lighting, and objects. What the designers have in common are simplicity and clarity—two difficult qualities to achieve. First consider the brothers’ fraught early history: In December 1978, on the eve of the Iranian Revolution, Khodi, 14, and Reza, 9, fled their home country to Bethesda, Maryland, along with their sister. The three joined their mother, a former director of international relations at Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, and she filed for political asylum. Reza has not returned to Iran since, and it…

1 Fluid Collection by Marco Piva for Cielo, from $427 Fluid’s curvaceous pieces live up to the moniker with a line of ceramic freestanding, wall-hung, and sink-top washbasins, as well as traditional and wall-mounted toilets and bidets. ceramicacielo.com 2 Tombolo Bath Caddy by Victoria + Albert, $480 Keep bath essentials within arm’s reach with this undulating bath caddymade from walnut or light oak laminate. vandabaths.com 3 Halo BluStone Freestanding bathtub b Michael Gottschalk for Blu Bathworks, from $6,700 Made from injection-molded BluStone—a durable quartzite that’s nonporous, antimicrobial, and stain-and scratch-resistant—the tub is available in a glossy ormatte finish. blubathworks.com 4 Starck Organic Faucet by Philippe Starck for Axor, $520 Chrome is given a softer look in this streamlined fixture, which integrates handles into the faucet body. hansgrohe-usa.com 5 815 Washbasin…

1 Board by Pietro Arosio for Snaidero, from $10,000 The Italian-made kitchen system is available in 100 color and finish options, like the Oil Blue high-gloss lacquer shown here. To encourage entertaining and offer space to dine, an island-like Corian unit cantilevers from the cabinets. snaidero-usa.com 2 Professional Series Six-Burner Gas Range by Bertazzoni, $5,199 Six gas burners and a 4.4-cubic-foot oven with a gas broiler mean you can cook for an army. Ten color options are available, including a new citrusy orange. us.bertazzoni.com 3 Breakfast Collection Kettle by Panasonic, $160 Boil water quickly and efficiently in Panasonic’s 1.4-liter kettle made from stainless steel. Features an ergonomic handle, pop-open spout, detachable filter for brewing loose-leaf tea, and automatic shutoff. shop.panasonic.com 4 City Living Collection Freestanding Range by BlueStar, $3,800 At…

In the Hebrides, an archipelago off Scotland’s northwest coast, longhouses—narrow single-room dwellings—have been part of the regional vernacular for more than 1,000 years. Historically, builders used what was available from the land—namely stone, turf, and thatch—to craft the pitched-roof structures. Dualchas Architects, a local firm with offices in Glasgow and on the Isle of Skye, drew from this no-nonsense typology when they designed a modern home for writer, London Business School professor, and practicing Buddhist Dominic Houlder. “Part of our firm’s ambition is to promote the value of our architectural heritage and to reinforce confidence in our culture,” says principal architect Neil Stephen. Houlder inherited a plot of land in the township of Borreraig from his mother and sought to carve out a simple, elegant home that would foster meditation…

“The house had an interesting and straightforward quality to it that we wanted to honor. The renovation was very ‘surgical’—we leveraged small gestures to yield big results.”—Architect Jeff Jordan Steven and Tata Citron wanted a weekend retreat. Unlike many New Yorkers, the couple was happily ensconced on the 35th floor of an Upper East Side Manhattan high-rise and rarely left town for end-of-the-week getaways. But years of 12-hour workdays at the business the Citrons own and run began to take a toll, so the pair decided to find their “great escape” from the fast-paced and high-stress urban environment. They took to the Internet, searching for appealing houses within easy driving distance. A midcentury dwelling in Newburgh, New York, a town in the Hudson Valley, about 60 miles north of the…

The midcentury cognoscenti in Austin, Texas, know where to spot the houses designed by a man named Arthur Dallas Stenger: dotted throughout a couple of neighborhoods south of the Colorado river, mainly on two streets in the hilly enclave of Rollingwood and another cluster in next-door Barton Hills. Their front elevations include a few hallmarks, like riverstone walls and clerestory windows that rise to meet canted or lightly gabled rooflines, and carports incorporated into the overall plan. Some even call A.D. Stenger the “Eichler of Austin.” The designerbuilder’s 1964 house on Ridgewood Drive, however, has something extra going for it. Its roof is an undulating affair that rests lightly on its glass-and-steel frame, and the transparent central volume is bookended by symmetrical wings, fronted by riverstone walls, and all set…

To ease into slumber, some people count sheep—but what if you could gaze up into the great firmament and search for constellations instead? That was the vision of architect John Senhauser’s clients, a lawyer and his wife who wanted to sleep outdoors. They batted around ideas of a retractable roof but ultimately opted for a low-tech—and more budget-friendly—option: a metal track to steer a custom-built bed through a bank of folding glass doors onto a terrace. Guided by a pin that slots into the track, the bed (designed by Jane Keller) pivots 90 degrees as it’s wheeled to the terrace. As it approaches the NanaWall threshold, the sleeping platform slides out from the wood frame. Senhauser describes the mechanism—a necessary adaptation since the NanaWall and bed tracks aren’t compatible—as being…

February 2014 Chris Bentley A freelance writer, photographer, and editor living in Chicago, Illinois, Chris Bentley covers the Midwest for the Architect’s Newspaper and writes an environmental blog for Chicago’s local NPR station. He thought his 1904 Logan Square apartment was light-f lled, but that was before he visited architect Brad Lynch’s home (Backstory, p. 54). Arlene Hirst Former director of design at Metropolitan Home magazine, Arlene Hirst is now a freelance journalist. Her byline appears frequently in the New York Times Magazine as well as Surface, Modern, Interior Design, and Elle Decor Italia magazines. “I loved writing about the Citrons’ house (“Hudson River Cool,” p. 62) and their beautifully thought-out renovation, but I was really fascinated by the house’s two master bedrooms, which weren’t part of the before-after story,”…

Michael Lewin braced himself for rejection when he approached architect Staffan Svenson about building a home for himself and his wife, Silvia Vera, on their wooded lot in central Atlanta. It was an understandable reflex; after all, he’d already been turned down—and even laughed at by one architect’s assistant—when he’d announced their tight construction budget. But even though he was working simultaneously on a $4 million house (complete with shooting range and aviary), Svenson, of Dencity, embraced the challenge of building a “simple but nice and modern house” at $150 per square foot. Svenson zeroed in on three materials: steel for the cantilever and entrance bridge; local cypress for the deck; and red-painted, fiber-reinforced concrete panels for the cladding. He also enlisted Lewin to source affordable interior finishes and to…

Expert Opinion Bathrooms are among the most problematic areas in the home according to Karen Braitmayer, a Seattle-based architect specializing in accessibility. Now, more than ever, it’s easy to create an appealing modern space that accommodates a wide range of ages and abilities. “That’s part of the definition of universal design,” Braitmayer says. “It doesn’t have to look different.” Today’s manufacturers are making products more people can use over longer periods of time without the need for specialized tools or devices. “My clients often think that if you want an accessible sink or toilet you have to look for one with a label on it, but I don’t believe that’s true,” she says. “You need to look for a product that’s comfortable and easy for you to use.” 1 Counterpoint…

At first glance, the renovated kitchen in a house on San Francisco’s Potrero Hill looks like it belongs in a showroom. But behind the tall white cabinets lies a slew of professional features that allows the residents, two culinary hobbyists, to whip up gourmet meals for large groups of friends. “The residents wanted a functional kitchen with clean lines and a contemporary appearance,” says architect Ryan Jang. Before the renovation, the kitchen looked off-the-shelf: stained wood cabinets, a white tile backsplash, and a stone counter. The residents felt the space was lacking a modern sensibility, wasn’t durable, and was poorly laid out for their cooking style. “A lot of kitchens you see in publications and online look good but don’t seem very functional,” says Jang. This was a unique challenge…

Turning the manufacturer-as-patron model on its head, Madrid’s Alvaro Catalán de Ocón is his own best client. The designer, who trained at London’s acclaimed Central Saint Martins College, is committed to the process of selfproduction—at a rate of one project per year. “In the recent past, there’s been an excess of products in the market which didn’t respond to a real demand from the public,” he says. “Manufacturers have taken advantage of this. They come to you with a brief that creates a necessity we don’t need. I am not interested in this model.” In 2011, Catalán de Ocón traveled to Colombia on holiday with his partner. He had arranged to meet Hélène Le Drogou, a psychologist and activist concerned with the plastic waste that contaminates the Colombian Amazon. Upon…

There was no long-term plan—no master vision— in play when Alex Gil and Claudia DeSimio rented a 500-square-foot railroad apartment on the third floor of an old tenement building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2004. Gil, an architect, and DeSimio, who works in finance, were motivated by pure pragmatism: They needed to flee an apartment in a bland midtown Manhattan high-rise that simply cost too much. But it wasn’t long before the couple started getting ideas. What if they bought the apartment, they wondered? They daydreamed about installing a Murphy bed as well as a couch and a dining table, all of which would fold into the walls to create an experience that, in Gil’s imagination, would be like “living on a ship.” One of the two landlords wasn’t willing to…

The product-packed Modern Market section of Dwell just got even better with a fresh look and an innovative crop of new modern designs. In this highly shoppable section, you are guaranteed to discover that one unique item or special gift that makes you feel at home in the modern world! For more products and services, visit us online at dwell.com! modernmarket.com WONK Built in Brooklyn Wonk’s clean, contemporary designs are perfect for the space-conscious consumer. Each piece of furniture is handmade to order in our Brooklyn wood-shop, using environmentally friendly materials and finishes. You choose the finish from a wide array of wood, bamboo, and lacquer options. All designs are customizable. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, call us and we can collaborate on the perfect, one-of-a-kind design.…