Design Brooklyn

Design Brooklyn is a bimonthly blog that explores current interior, architectural, and industrial designs, from the spectacular to the everyday, throughout the borough. Writer Anne Hellman and photographer Michel Arnaud start the conversation with tours of recent townhouse renovations, restaurant and bar build-outs, garden designs, and public structures, as well as visits to studios of designers making high-end furniture, lighting, and textiles. The book, Design Brooklyn: Renovation, Restoration, Innovation, Industry, was published by ABRAMS/Stewart, Tabori & Chang in October 2013.

[design-brooklyn]

Design Borough: Two Fairs in Brooklyn

Elodie Blanchard’s installation at WantedDesign Brooklyn in Industry City.

What used to be a New York “design week” has evolved into NYCxDESIGN, a full, two-week stretch of design exhibitions throughout the city, in all of its boroughs. Brooklyn stands out as the destination for not one but two prominent fairs, WantedDesign Brooklyn (May 7-17) and BKLYN Designs (May 6-8), both of which have been up and running for a number of years and helped to put Brooklyn on the design map in the first place.

BKLYN Designs at the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint.

WantedDesign, conceived six years ago by Odile Hainaut and Claire Pijoulat, continues to grow its fair in Manhattan (May 13-16) while also enriching its Brooklyn edition with exciting, in-depth programming each year. BKLYN Designs began in 2003 (it was one of the first design fairs to focus on Brooklyn) and since 2015 it has taken up residence in an airy, glass-walled space in Greenpoint, the Brooklyn Expo Center, which provides a professional hall for showcasing rising design talent.

Each year at WantedDesign, I am impressed by how fearlessly Hainaut and Pijoulat take the next step in shaping a comprehensive yet seriously thoughtful, of-the-moment exhibition. 2016’s WantedDesign Brooklyn includes a show titled “Transatlantic Creative Exchange,” curated by the fair’s founders, in which ten French-American pairings of designers and manufacturers produce prototypes for new design pieces over the course of 2016 and 2017. The results are breathtaking and all the more meaningful for being the fruit of cross-cultural partnerships.

“Vol de Nuit,” a community seating concept created by New York designer Marc Thorpe in collaboration with Ligne Roset, based in Lyon, France.

“Ice and Glass,” a collection of blown-glass pieces using a variety of frozen and ice-carved molds, designed by Steven Haulenbeek of Chicago and realized by the renown Meisenthal International Glass Art Center (CIAV) based in Meisenthal, France.

From this show, I stepped directly into another probing, eye-opening exhibit, “Outside the Box”—a second-year collaboration between WantedDesign and the Toronto Design Offsite Festival—which assembles a selection of design work from ten cities throughout the United States and Canada: Houston, Chicago, Edmonton, Halifax, Los Angeles, Montreal, Ottawa, Portland, Seattle, and New York. Design correspondents were assigned to each city to select emerging work from the different destinations. The genius of the show is that it presents the locations all together, with the designs displayed on individual yet identical white tables, revealing the diversity across states and countries and at the same time, just how many connections there are between them.

The greatest strength of WantedDesign, in both Manhattan and Brooklyn, is its ability to draw out connections and collaborations between different parts of the world through design. This sets off so many possible relationships for the future, and it is a necessary way of conceptualizing design in the twenty-first century. More offerings along these lines include a collection of craft-community works from Western North Carolina (WNC) in a traveling exhibit titled “Made in Western North Carolina”; textiles from design schools in Japan, Europe, the United States, and others; and a show of wood works titled “We Trust in Wood,” a collaboration between French designer Matali Crasset and the rural arts center Vent des Forets in Meuse, France.

Interwoven throughout the fair are presentations of student work from Parsons, SVA, and ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, heralding the coming wave of new design talents, many of whom will surely set up studio in Brooklyn.

“My Plants, 2016” by Ayano Kumagai, a student at the Tokyo Zokei Univeristy School of Art & Design.

At BKLYN Designs, the vibe was less curatorial and more like a mini ICFF (the Brooklyn Expo Center is appealing in a miniaturist way, complete with an auditorium, food court, and lounge). I was immediately taken by how many new designers have made a footprint in the last few years alongside those, like Uhuru and Fort Standard, who have stood the test of nearly a decade.

The Uhuru Lounge at BKLYN Designs.

Caribbeing offers totes, tea towels, and other items, as well as a mobile location.

Walking through, I couldn’t help but be drawn to the Caribbeing table, where founder Shelley Vidia Worrell filled me in on what she has been up to in the last year. Having conceived of the phrase “I am Caribbeing” a number of years ago, she has grown her design brand into products such as tote bags, tea towels, and postcards, as well as a mobile location called Caribbeing House, constructed out of a shipping container complete with floor-to-ceiling windows and a built-out interior. Normally parked at the Flatbush Caton Market, the House was on display at BKLYN Designs (outside, beyond the mini food court) and hosts art shows, film screenings, book readings, and cultural performances and experiences. Like the curators of WantedDesign, Worrell understands that design is inextricable from culture and vice versa. Design utterly depends on one culture’s curiosity in and understanding of another.

An elegant dining bench as well as chairs by designer Kate Casey of Peg Woodworking, and furniture by Robert Sukrachand, were on display at BKLYN Designs.

The Brooklyn-based architecture firm Assembly Line offered simple desk lamps made with leftover marble scraps from home renovation sites.

WaxRax showed an inventively circular record rack at its BKLYN Designs booth.

Cam Crockford Design

Evan Z. Crane

CBR Studio

Furniture makers Cam Crockford, Evan Z. Crane, and Carter Read of CBR Studio all exhibited visually stimulating material ideas in their work.

Sawkill Lumber Co. salvages wood from all over the state to bring architects, designers, fine woodworkers, and contractors an enormously diverse range of materials to use in construction. Designer Louis Lim called upon Sawkill for wood to make his Rocking PacMan sofa.

American Design Club’s pop-up shop at BKLYN Designs offered products for purchase showing the full range of designers the organization represents.

 Post by Anne Hellman

Photographs by Michel Arnaud and Anne Hellman

[design-brooklyn]

Wanted Design: How Two French New Yorkers Gave the City What It Really Wanted

Odile Hainaut and Claire Pijoulat, founders of the WantedDesign fair, at Industry City.

Five years ago, a rumor spread through the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) at the Javits Center in Manhattan that there was “another design fair,” a smaller one (some said “cooler”), just down the street in the Chelsea Terminal Stores. Many made it, many did not. But what all attendees of the first WantedDesign fair in Manhattan found was a refreshingly different kind of design event. With just thirty exhibitors, WantedDesign exuded a handpicked, emerging-designer vibe that was nowhere to be found in the city at the time, except at select galleries or shops. This was an entirely new form of tradeshow.

“The concept of WantedDesign was to create a platform that was a combination of commercial and cultural,” explains co-founder Odile Hainaut, who came to New York from Paris sixteen years ago. “The idea was to have established brands and up-and-coming designers and studios, to have not just product showcase but also programming. More like a design forum, a place for conversation. A nice environment, and a place where people could really talk and meet.”

WantedDesign Manhattan in 2015.

Hainaut came to New York with her husband’s branding company, for which she spearheaded communications and special events, and cofounded Gallery R’Pure in 1997. She had a number of design connections in New York and many more in Europe, and in 2010 she was introduced through a friend to Claire Pijoulat, also a “French New Yorker” originally from Annecy. Pijoulat’s parents had owned a design store in France when she was growing up. When Hainaut and Pijoulat met, they quickly realized that they had the same vision for the future of design in the city.

As Hainaut remembers, “We spent an afternoon in conversation talking about the design scene in New York, what we felt was missing at that time, which was a real design week with a larger proposition in terms of events and satellite events. We both had started to think about creating a new platform.” They had complementary backgrounds in the design field, Odile in communications and curatorial and Claire in business and marketing. They decided to combine forces.

WantedDesign Manhattan’s opening night, 2015.

After coming to New York with experience of design fairs in Europe, Hainaut and Pijoulat found their new home to be lacking. They are perpetual enthusiasts for the vibrant, international culture the city projects more than any other place in the world, and both admitted that the design scene did not embody this. The more they spoke to designers and others the more they were convinced the city wanted, and really needed, a true design week, where local and international designers, design schools and museums, residents and tourists could come together to tell their stories.

“People were expecting something to happen, they were waiting for it,” recalls Pijoulat. “And they really wanted this new thing. A lot of designers told us, ‘We’ve been waiting for that for years now. Nothing ever happens.’”

Pijoulat had a connection at the Chelsea Terminal Stores and in May 2011, only a year after the two met, the first WantedDesign fair opened, with more than 800 people attending opening night.

“You can imagine that we had no idea, nothing,” laughs Hainaut. Somehow, word of the fair had caught on like wildfire. Cooper-Hewitt was an early champion and helped spread the word. Antoine Roset, Giulio Capellini, as well as Allan Chochinov of SVA were also among the first supporters. All of these people Hainaut and Pijoulat approached to see if they would take part and all of them said yes. “Our idea was to be really honest in what we do, not pretending,” she says. “We really were very humble, and I think year after year we have been able to add on a year because it was the right foundation.”

From the beginning, the concept was to warm up the design space and make it more interactive.

“It would be a tradeshow—since companies come to tradeshows to do business—but in a nice way,” explains Pijoulat. “We wanted a welcoming, human environment. When we started, this was super important to us. It’s like welcoming people into your home. You want them to feel comfortable. And it’s still true to this day.”

The effect has been mind-blowing. With 120 exhibitors in its Manhattan fair today and an exciting second location in Brooklyn’s Industry City, WantedDesign is a mainstay of NYCxDESIGN, the design week that has finally come to fruition each May and which Hainaut and Pijoulat helped to establish.

Hainaut and Pijoulat in the shop space for IC Store, by WantedDesign, the design store they are opening on the ground floor of Industry City’s Building 2.

With their offices now in Industry City (formerly Bush Terminal, New York’s largest warehousing complex in the early twentieth century), in Sunset Park, WantedDesign has played a key role in the revitalization of the area as a place for local manufacturing and business development. In October, Hainaut and Pijoulat will open IC Store, by WantedDesign, a design store on the ground floor of Industry City’s Building 2, to provide a permanent place where local and international designers can show their work, and where visitors and tenants can shop.

The idea formed after Wanted installed a pop-up shop during NYCxDESIGN last May, showcasing local designers and one-of-a-kind designs. It was so successful, they decided to make a permanent store where people could come physically to browse and shop and return to again and again.

“[The store] will help us discover new designers, because we are always researching,” says Odile. They embarked on a U.S. tour in September to Seattle, Portland, and Detroit, and will bring new work from those cities as well. “The idea is to have a permanent collection of products that we really like and that we feel people will want to buy, and they know they can come into our store to find them.”

Industry City’s Building 2 in Sunset Park.

They plan to feature a different country each month, with jewelry, books, children’s items, and much more. It will also be a space where they can hold casual events like breakfasts and book signings. Soon, a restaurant will open up across the hall.

“It’s the same idea as Wanted, which is to bring people together versus just selling a product,” says Claire. “Some of the tenants’ designs will be sold at the store, so we can show what’s made here.” The store has been carved out of the industrial space, with concrete floors and walls of steel-trimmed windows looking onto the eclectic furnishings in the new tenants’ lounge.

Now that Hainaut and Pijoulat have a Brooklyn location, they can use it to grow the fair’s programming, rather than expanding in Manhattan. WantedDesign at Industry City will provide a forum for design educators and students, with multidisciplinary programming, installations, and workshops. Pratt, Parsons, Pasadena College of Design, SCAD, and many other schools across the U.S. and abroad have participated in the Brooklyn space, and the lineup continues to grow.

“Brooklyn is a brand,” says Hainaut. “On an international level, in Europe, Brooklyn is so interesting, it says something. We’ve never had anyone come in here and be disappointed. They are excited.”

WantedDesign Brooklyn, 2015.

The Design Schools Workshop program brings educators and students together from around the world.

One trait that distinguished the WantedDesign fair from the very beginning was its emphasis on storytelling and on the maker behind each design.

“The main thing we are trained to do is to create a conversation,” Hainaut states. “WantedDesign is a place to talk about the product, what is behind it, the story—it could be the story of the making, the story of the designer, the story of the collaboration, the story of a country. More and more we’re in conversation with new countries that come to us because they need a place where they can promote their industry and their designers, but they also need a place to explain why this is something special, why this is unique.”

“We are creating an international network,” adds Pijoulat. The cultural-commercial intersection WantedDesign has instigated is truly unique and one that better represents New York City’s cultural diversity. This is why people come to New York, they point out. In October the two will divide their time between the WestEdge Design Fair in Los Angeles and Design Week Mexico, both partners. They have also expanded their network to Toronto, Paris, and plan to extend further into South America for future fairs. All the while, they keep a focus on cities across the U.S.

“At the end of the day we started this to do something we liked,” explains Pijoulat. “It’s not like starting a company where you want to make this amount of money in two years and then sell it and go on to the next adventure. It’s very personal in that way; when we collaborate or when we find new partnerships, it’s always based on the people. I think that’s also why it’s growing. We never say no, we always keep the door open and see if it works. Sometimes it doesn’t work and it’s fine, but we are always curious.”

Now with an ever-expanding New York design event, sincerely representative of the city in which it was born, with vast student participation and a gem of a design store, WantedDesign has come into its own. The trick is to make it fun.

“We work so much, we have to enjoy what we do,” Hainaut adds with a smile. “It is bon sens.”

Opening October 17: Industry City Store by WantedDesign

220 36th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232 Wednesday-Sunday, 11:00am-6pm Tel [phone]

WantedDesign 

Photographs by Michel Arnaud

Post by Anne Hellman

[design-brooklyn]

An Interview with Designer/Maker Evan Z. Crane

AH: Where in Brooklyn did you grow up?

EC: I grew up on 13th Street between 3rd & 4th Avenue. It is the borderline between Park Slope and Gowanus. It has all the colorful aspects of a neighborhood where residential meets industrial. When I was a kid, if you parked your car on the lower third of the block it was almost guaranteed you would get your tires stolen. It was, and still is sometimes, referred to as South Slope. The Daily News once called it “The Frayed Edges of Park Slope.” That is by far my favorite moniker.

AH: When did you know you wanted to be a designer? How did you get started?

EC: I don’t think I ever specifically said to myself, I want to be a designer. I came at design through the Fine Arts. I went to college for painting at the School for Visual Arts in Manhattan. From a young age I had a love of building, cultivated by working on my parents’ old row house in Brooklyn. I found myself gravitating towards sculpture because of it. Design always seemed like a natural part of the process to making any three-dimensional object, regardless of function. Everything I make comes from a hand drawing first, and that drawing is generated from an idea or vision. It is exactly the same method I used to make paintings and sculpture.

AH: Were you always interested in furniture design? What drew you to it?

EC: I wasn’t always interested in furniture design. Toward the end of college I was doing large wooden carvings made from recycled New York City timbers. They were the biggest pieces of wood I could get at the time for dirt cheap. The timbers would come with mortises and tenons cut in them, evidence of decades-old woodworking. A friend gave me a book about Japanese joinery and I dove into the subject. The complex joints really blew my mind—they were functional sculpture. I started to make simple furniture and it was a totally different experience. I was using all the same principles of art—form, proportion, composition, materials—but they directly related to a physical human experience. I think realizing the connection that people could have with furniture is what sealed the deal for me. The daily physical contact could make the user’s experience intimate and powerful. Like a relic or artifact that is activated by touch.

AH: The newer designs give animalistic qualities to different furniture pieces. How did you come to this combination?

EC: I’m always striving to imbue personality into my work, or draw it out of a form I’m developing. In 2014, I started experimenting with hides and pelts. I made a captain’s chair with shearling and leather. There was a tuft of the shearling that hadn’t been sheared totally. I was amazed at what just that little patch did for the piece. It gave it such a shot of personality that I had to explore the concept more. Naturally, I finally landed on the wildest thing I could get my hands on. I always want my pieces to look as if they can walk out of the room under their own power. The sheep’s pelt combined so well with the other materials that it actually happened. I always feel grateful when a piece I make can live on its own after all the initial hard work.

AH: The sheep’s wool pieces seem perfect for a winter home. How do they fit here in Brooklyn, do you think?

EC: I fell in love with the raw material itself and its essence. I think that the creature credenza and the fuzzy captain have a real place in Brooklyn and not just because it can get pretty frosty in the winter. I think that they are different and interesting pieces, anything but part of the norm. Brooklyn has rapidly become a place that celebrates that as a virtue more than any other in New York City. Honestly, I wasn’t thinking one bit about if the pieces would work or not, or if anyone would buy them (literally and figuratively). I even encountered a good bit of negativity when they came out. I didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter. The ideas just came to me and I had to stay true to them, and that’s pretty Brooklyn right there.

AH: How long have you had your studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard? Do you have people working for you or do you make everything yourself?

EC: I have been working in the Navy Yard for about six years, I do have people work for me on occasion but it’s mostly a one-man show. I could definitely shop out some of the stuff I’ve designed but I still want to connect to each piece before it goes to someone. I think it’s important for smaller, independent designer/makers to be personally connected to what they are producing. It is what separates us from bigger-name manufacturers. Those differences should be embraced and not seen as a small-scale problem.

AH: What do you think about the redevelopment of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in recent years? What about in Brooklyn in general?

EC: I think the changes to the Navy Yard are much like the changes to Brooklyn in general: overcrowding. I could be upset about “gentrification” like other natives, but realistically people just need places to live and work. New York’s population has gotten so much bigger, even in just the last five years. All of these people can’t live in Manhattan, so Brooklyn is the next logical location. The real issue in the Yard is the shift from manufacturing to Tech, Fashion, Design, the Arts—all good things to have around you except when it comes to your rent. Manufacturing requires longer leases and lower square footage prices, two things that don’t jive with the new Brooklyn. There are more people trying to get in and rent less space for more money. This pushes out manufacturers, the very people the Navy Yard is supposed to be specifically for. Luckily, it is still moving slower there than in the rest of Brooklyn. You have got to be thankful for any little leg up you get these days. 

I’ll be in the Yard for as long as I can. There is a great community of makers there. It’s like nowhere else in Brooklyn, the last bastion of centralized manufacturing. When it goes, Brooklyn will never be the same for makers.

AH: What kinds of designs are you thinking about for the future?

EC: I’ve been moving more and more towards big, comfortable pieces. I usually don’t have it all worked out until later in the season. I know for sure a bed, a club chair, and a couch, to name a few. I can’t wait to keep exploring the creature credenza concept. There are so many possibilities with that particular piece, it’s an endless source of fun.

Evan Z. Crane

Post by Anne Hellman

Photographs by Michel Arnaud

[design-brooklyn]

Life Inside: A Passive House in Carroll Gardens

Laura Mackall and Robert Manley did not set out to build a passive house when they embarked upon the renovation of their 1860s townhouse in Carroll Gardens. The building required a near gut renovation, so when they inquired for bids, Laura on a whim included a contractor with experience in passive construction. Surprisingly, the bids came back with a relatively small difference in cost. They decided to take the plunge.

Laura’s father, Louis Mackall, a Connecticut-based architect who trained at the Yale School of Architecture (he was also part of the Prickly Mountain group in Vermont in the 1960s), took on the design, his second Brooklyn townhouse project and his first passive one. Louis embraced the passive-house concept in masterminding and building out his vision. In many cases, the strict requirements of passive architecture—such as the mandatory 8 inches of insulation on all outside walls; triple-paned glass in all window openings; and insertions of in-take and out-take vents for the air-exchange system—lent themselves to Louis’ unique aesthetic. Gowanus-based contractor Build with Prospect, led by Jeremy Shannon, AIA, executed all functional aspects of the construction.

A passive house lives entirely within itself, retaining heat and cool air as needed and relying on the plethora of energy sources within a modern-day home—the refrigerator, lights, oven, stove, computers—to generate heat in the winter. The perimeter of the house acts like a thick skin, sealing in this self-generated energy. With extra insulation and airtight openings, a passive home does not need a gas or oil heating system. Fresh air is brought in through an energy recovery ventilator, or ERV, which requires very little energy to operate. The ERV pulls in fresh air while pushing out the old, converting the new air to the same temperature as it exchanges them. While the ERV keeps the air fresh, there is also a Mitsubishi system in place that runs on electricity to heat and cool the house—if needed.

“We didn’t turn the heat on all winter,” Laura admits incredulously, since New York experienced record-low temperatures in February. “It hovered right around 70. Our biggest fear going into [a passive build] was, are we going to freeze in winter? And we did not. Of course, the idea wasn’t to not turn our heat on, but to not have to use it as much.” They ended up not needing it anyway.

Because the perimeter walls have to be unusually thick in order to contain the insulation, certain design decisions and adjustments had to be made. For one, a thicker wall creates thicker windowsills. When Laura took her father to see a passive house in Park Slope, he thought the window trims looked too jail-like. Louis’ solution was to chamfer the windowsills so that they radiate out from the panes at a 45-degree angle.

“Passive construction requires deep walls,” Louis explains. “In Laura and Robert’s house, the total exterior wall thickness was 21 inches. By angling the interior window trims, we eliminated the ‘tunnel’ effect, and greatly increased the amount of light coming in to each room.” The angled trims offered a surface on which to add traditional detail as well as lighting. Louis designed the paneling on the sills to incorporate inset LED strips that make the windows glitter at night.

Laura and Robert traveled to Copenhagen to source furnishings and lighting fixtures. In the parlor, a Finn Juhl Chieftain Chair sits with a Hans Wegner coffee table and Mama Bear Chair, reupholstered and paired with a matching ottoman in Hella Jongerius fabric. They chose oak over rosewood and teak for its meatiness and less-polished look. The light fixture was designed by Vilhelm Lauritzen. The vintage Moroccan rug is from Breuckelen Berber.

From left to right, the room includes artwork by Wolfgang Tillmans, David Altmejd, Günther Uecker, and Carl Andre.

“My dad’s style tends toward the traditional,” says Laura. At the same time, the windows and other elements of the design are pure inventions. “When we saw the house, it had a lot of original detail, which is why we wanted it. So it was this push-pull between wanting it to still feel old and the function.” Louis designed the moldings throughout based on what he was seeing in the house already—the original detailing and feel of the interior—to communicate the period. The ceiling decoration is original, with parts of it replicated in the parlor and in the entry hall by Absolute Plastering in Brooklyn. 

The floors on the parlor level are heart pine, reclaimed and milled by the Hudson Company. At one point, Hudson called to say they had leftover wood from the new Whitney Museum, and did they want it? Laura was thrilled. With 20-foot planks, there are hardly any breaks. The stair treads are the original soft pine.

Louis inserted two archways on the parlor level, dividing the parlor from the kitchen and the kitchen from the dining room, and designed custom arched pocket doors for the parlor opening. As with most of his specialized projects, the doors were built by his woodworking shop, Breakfast Woodworks.

The curved line is one of Louis’ favorite design motifs and it reappears throughout the house. “I like curves because they are more interesting than straight lines. Now, with CNC technology and computers, making curves is simple,” he explains.

“[My dad] talks about the circle,” adds Laura. “He says, ‘You look at a circle and you just get happy.’ He’s very passionate about it. I grew up with a lot of circles.”

The slight bend at the top of the cabinetry in the kitchen carries the motif, giving the room a nautical feel (Louis is a born-again rower). Laura and Robert decided to balance painted and raw wood in the kitchen, since in their previous home they found that painted wood chipped with use. They selected quartzite countertops for a light but not-too-precious surface. As with the parlor window trims, Louis incorporated lighting into the kitchen woodwork, installing lights in the uppermost cabinets to give off a glow. Where the dining room fireplace used to be, he placed the oven and inserted the original marble mantelpiece above the stove. Cabinetmaker James Schriber built out the room. 

The couple found the glazed tiling for the backsplash at Mosaic House.

Beyond the kitchen, a spacious, sunbathed dining room stretches the full width of the house. Laura and Robert wanted natural light, and sourced the largest open-glass doors possible in a passive house. The glass wall allows southern light to illuminate the entire parlor floor and, since it is triple paned and air-sealed, the light even provides heat in the wintertime. They were also happy to find an old dogwood tree planted in the backyard, which will shade the back of the house during the summer months.

Laura picked fabric for the dining room drapes from Cowtan and Tout. The dining chairs and table are by Hans Wegner. Ole Wanscher designed the sideboard, above which hangs a painting by José Lerma. Louis crafted an aluminum deck off the dining room to allow for maximum light to penetrate the garden, and with a softened surface to make it easy to walk on. All of the pieces were prefabricated by Breakfast Woodworks and assembled onsite.

“I feel row houses are so well designed for the passive model, because the sides are already insulated,” says Laura. “The back of our house faces south so in the winter the sun heats up the dining room. Then in the summer there will be leaves on the trees so the room will be shaded. We may also do an awning at some point.”

Louis designed an oval-shaped cove ceiling in the dining room and installed an utterly unique light fixture within it. He fixed a hanging chandelier to a moveable wooden beam fitted with rubber wheels that run along tracks. When the couple wishes to extend the dining table, they can easily center the chandelier overhead by guiding the beam with two broomsticks.

Like most of the dwellings on their block, Laura and Robert’s house has a ten-foot extension on the first, or parlor, level. During construction, they decided to extend the second floor by 10 feet and the top floor by 3 feet (they had already removed the roof). The second-floor master suite could then encompass a full bath, a laundry room, and two walk-in closets.

Louis incorporated curved walls on the second floor to make the entrances to the front and back bedrooms more gracious. The second-floor hallway, the master bedroom, and the daughter’s bedroom are interconnected circles rather than the typical square spaces, which would have you entering at the corners.

“In the master, we enter on an axis which connects the centers of both circles—hall and bedroom,” Louis explains. “Without the curves, one would enter into the corner of each room, which is just plain awkward.” He built concave shelving into the left curved wall of the master bedroom, and both rooms have curved entryways and doors. The door to Laura and Robert’s room is especially tricky, as it is a double door and yet curved to follow the new line of the hallway.

Louis designed shelving for the master bath.

The remaining levels include a third floor for the couple’s respective offices. Since they both work in the art world and are collectors in their own right, artwork abounds throughout, and had to be taken into account when designing the interior walls. They added extra height to the third floor to accommodate the insulation but also to give the rooms a more loft-like feel.

Here in Laura’s office (as well as in the parlor) the couple installed Ecosmart fireplace inserts that meet passive standards. A metal container holds ethanol, which burns up to four hours, giving off heat and a pleasing flickering flame. Above hangs a work by Assume Vivid Astro Focus.

The guest kitchen (above) and bedroom on the garden level.

Likewise, underneath the garden-level guest apartment (complete with a sitting area and kitchen), Laura and Robert dug out the cellar by two feet to convert the basement into a playroom. In this way, a room that once housed the oil heating system and boiler can be put to better use, with rainbow carpet tiles from Flor adding warmth and liveliness. A final step will be to have the house certified as passive, which requires passing a “blower door” test and official approval of the building procedures.

Beyond the initial design and build of a passive house, life inside carries on much as it would in any other home, perhaps just more meaningfully. Everything participates in giving its high-tech skin purpose. As Louis says, “The non-fake is an important, if elusive, requirement akin to art, which is in turn akin to heart. As with a good book, the experience of a good house is transformative.” The passive model just might change how we participate in any house, anywhere.

The “powder room moment” with Pierre Frey wallpaper and floor tiles from Mosaic House.

Architect: Louis Mackall  

Contractor: Build with Prospect

Photographs by Michel Arnaud

Post by Anne Hellman

[design-brooklyn]

A Sunny Design-Build Comes to Crown Heights

Palmer Thompson-Moss and Dane Risch purchased what appeared to be a tear-down on Bergen Street and Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights in 2013 and transformed it into King Tai, a sun-filled neighborhood bar that they designed and contracted for themselves.

“The building itself brought a lot to the table, kind of ironically,” recalls Thompson-Moss. “Everyone said, ‘What are you going to do with that thing?’ It had a dirt floor; the metal cornice was falling down. It really looked like it needed to be torn down. But we felt that the proportions of it and the fact that it was adjacent to a garden gave it a nice feel. It felt unique to us.”

The Chinese-American restaurant that preceded it (and named King Tai) had long been abandoned. The process of building the watering hole required restructuring the entire roof and bringing in all new plumbing and electric. Thompson-Moss, who went to Pratt for architecture and now operates his own design-build firm out of Brooklyn called Grant Davis Thompson, loved the fact that he and Risch could control all of the details from start to finish—as owners, designers, and overseers of the construction. With Risch’s many years’ experience managing bars in New York, the partners’ work backgrounds are complementary, and on top of that, they’re good friends.

With a nearly perfect 900-square-foot layout, King Tai offers a buoyant, breezy interior, which will open onto the extra-wide sidewalk during warmer months for even more seating. Because the one-story structure only attaches to a neighboring building on its northwest corner, Thompson-Moss and Risch were able to design in windows on all four sides, drawing more sunlight than most bar interiors ever get. King Tai is also lucky enough to be situated next to the 1100 Bergen Street Community Garden, providing sunshine and greenery through a large east-facing window.

“We wanted to create a bar space that looks good in the daytime as well as at night,” explains Risch. The interior exudes Caribbean warmth, with a pastel color palette that plays nicely off the rich mahogany wood tones of the bar and table tops. The shine of the chrome bar stools adds to the 1940s Caribbean vibe, as do the white ceiling fans and pale-pink chairs. Thompson-Moss and Risch hunted down the flooring they wanted, white oak in 1½-inch strips, in keeping with the light touch and feel of the space.

The mahogany bar and shelving were designed by Thompson-Moss and Risch and built by Thompson-Moss’s friend and collaborator, master woodworker Jeff Ford.

One of the first design ideas for the interior was to create a curved soffit that would house the heating and cooling systems and at the same time provide a more intimate ceiling over the bar area and circular banquette, which Risch laughingly calls the “VIP area.” They fittingly upholstered the banquette in tropical teal-blue.

The Grant Davis Thompson crew built the circular banquette and other cabinetry.

Risch and his wife, Alison Kelly, designed and painted the mural on the soffit, playfully referencing beachside and underwater themes in a subtle Art Deco style. The pastel tones and silver outlines glow day and night. The hanging light fixtures, each designating a different area of the bar, were culled from different sources yet share the same mid-1930s design.

Thompson-Moss’s wife, Isobel Herbold Moss, a landscape designer by trade, gathered the wall pockets and succulents for the hanging display near the front windows.

King Tai is infectiously inviting, with a consistent, carefree beauty. When we visited mid-winter, photographer Michel Arnaud and I didn’t feel far at all from sand and surf, even sun. The bar opens to the public on Friday, March 6.

King Tai Bar, 1095 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216, 718-513-1025

Grant Davis Thompson

Photographs by Michel Arnaud

Post by Anne Hellman

[design-brooklyn]

Skillful Design on a Doable Budget: Park Slope

When interior designer Nora Calderwood and architect Adam Darter bought their 650-square-foot one-bedroom apartment in Park Slope, they knew they would need to renovate in a major way but on a scaled-down budget. A year later, the result is not only airy and light, it smartly blends original details with the owners’ forward-thinking design ideas.

The apartment had endured some wear and tear, and had been divided up into four small rooms. But the couple realized what could be found underneath the surface. “We were able to look beyond the tattered conditions of the apartment and realized that, with nine-and-a-half-foot ceilings and six south-facing windows, it had potential,” says Adam.

By removing the walls in the main area, Nora and Adam created a loft-like living room, open to the inventive kitchen and dining area. To maximize space and minimize visual clutter (which are musts in a small apartment), Adam designed a kitchen island unit that can be used as both an eat-at island and as a dining table that pulls out into the room for larger dinner parties.

“Our challenge was accommodating our style in a small space,” Nora explains. “We love eat-at islands for when it’s just us, but we like to entertain for our friends and wanted a larger dining table. At the same time, we didn’t want to clutter the space between the kitchen and living area with both an island and a table.” The solution offers options while maintaining a certain level of visual spaciousness.

The fixed cabinets that form the kitchen island provide a serving space when the table is pulled out, seating ten, a rarity in smaller dwellings. Both the cabinets and table are made of solid American walnut, to keep the look cohesive. Blackleathercounter stools from Blu Dot and yellow Tabouret bar stools complete the setting.

The kitchen itself needed a full upgrade, which the couple masterminded as a place where warm wood meets a welcoming blue for the cabinets and a pleasing square subway tile for the backsplash. With one of the six large windows bathing the kitchen with light, even on a cloudy day, the simple palette comes to life and yet remains calm and sophisticated.  

An original Womb chair from Knoll creates a serene reading nook by the windows, paired with a tray table from Aero Studio.

Built in the 1920s, the apartment still possessed some of its original details, such as window trims, wall decoration, and parquet floors. By preserving these graceful elements, the couple could find the right moments in which to insert both modern touches as well as handmade ones. Along one wall, they installed a floating credenza of their own design, wrapped in walnut. A Lindsey Adelman do-it-yourself light fixture hangs in the kitchen. In the living room they designed shelving using metal plumbing pipe from Home Depot and oak planks from Nora’s family farm in Maine—a nod to both the past and the present.

To cut down on costs, the owners decided to work with the original tiling in the bathroom, incorporating the coral-pink trim tiles in the design and glazing the coral-pink tub white. They replaced the toilet and sink (by Lacava).

Adam carefully stripped layer upon layer of paint from the window trims to preserve the wood detailing. A Noguchi ceiling pendant and bedside wall lamps by Artemide Tolomeo illuminate the bedroom at night. Adam made the headboard using Kravet linen.

Achieving an affordable renovation in New York City is no small feat, especially now in Brooklyn. With a gentle touch and smart design, this couple transformed their new home without gutting it or breaking the bank.

Photographs by Michel Arnaud

Post by Anne Hellman

[design-brooklyn]

A Theatre Fit for Kings

The historic Kings Theatre in Flatbush opened its doors on February 3 to a new generation of audiences. The lead act—the incomparable Diana Ross—was not the night’s only focus of attention; the theatre itself performed for the first time in decades. Built in 1929 as one of five Loews “Wonder Theatres,” the landmark has been painstakingly restored by the Kings Theatre Redevelopment Company—a consortium of ACE Theatrical Group, the Goldman Sachs Urban Group, and the National Development Council.

When the architecture firm Rapp & Rapp planned the original theatre, it echoed elements of the Palace of Versailles and the Paris Opera House in its design to create a supremely luxurious entertainment environment for films and Vaudeville acts. In this era, an evening out at the “movies” was a fully immersive affair. With a seating capacity of 3,000 and totaling 83,000 square feet, the theatre’s soaring, arched ceilings, intricately ornamented plaster walls and wood paneling, gold-leaf detailing, crystal chandeliers, and pink marble accents provided a marvel for audiences drawing from near and far.

All of this fell into disrepair after the theatre closed in 1977. The City of New York purchased the building in 1983 to perform structural repairs, and then in 2008, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) began its competitive search for an entity to restore the theatre and bring fresh cultural and economic opportunity to the area.

“The renovation and reopening of the Kings Theatre defines the renaissance that Brooklyn is celebrating. The Kings Theatre will present the greatest entertainment for children, families, and adults and act as a catalyst of the rebirth of Flatbush Avenue as a premiere shopping and dining attraction for residents and visitors alike,” said Marty Markowitz, former borough president and Vice President of Borough Promotion and Engagement for NYC & Company.

The massive restoration project was led by Martinez+Johnson Architecture, with contracting by Gilbane Building Company. The team faithfully restored the original structure and details—recreating the marquee with new lighting fixtures; refabricating 2,354 square feet of carpeting as well as 7 chandeliers; re-roofing the entire building; and reinstating the glazed terracotta façade—while also bringing the space into the 21st century with up-to-date multipurpose performance features. This includes a 10,000-square-foot expansion of the backstage area to accommodate technical requirements for live performance. 

Diana Ross’s sold out show on February 3 kicks off the theatre’s plan to bring 200 diverse performances annually to Flatbush, sparking renewed interest in the area and revitalizing it through shops, restaurants, and residential opportunities. The theatre alone brings hundreds of new jobs to local residents.

Walking in for the first time on January 23, my jaw dropped before the enormous interior, with its rippling sea of red seats, lush carpeting, and endless jewel-like ornamentation—plaster moldings, etched mirrors, crystal-laced chandeliers. The theatre dome is truly awe-inspiring, worthy of more than a few moments of reflection on how much we have lost in the move between centuries, and how grateful we are for those who undertake these miraculous restorations of our past.

Kings Theatre, 1027 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

Martinez+Johnson Architecture 

Photographs courtesy Matt Lambros

Post by Anne Hellman

[design-brooklyn]

Hiroko Takeda: Weaving the New in with the Old

Hiroko Takeda’s textile designs stretch the boundaries of what a textile is and what design is, simultaneously. As a weaver, designer, artist, and maker creating in her downtown Brooklyn studio for many years, Takeda has mastered handcrafted work that exemplifies a rare intersection of old technique and new vision.

Takeda studied textile design in Japan, at a school that embraced the philosophy of the Mingei Undou, the Japanese Arts and Crafts Movement. Core members of the movement had taught at the same school, including the Yanagi family and the great textile artist Keisuke Serizawa. “Mingei Undou emphasizes that with careful attention to material and craft, utility can enhance beauty and vice versa,” Takeda explains. “It was a good foundation for me.”

She worked at one of Japan’s oldest textile firms, both in Kyoto and Tokyo, after graduating. When it came time to move on, she traveled to London to study at the Royal College of Art. She apprenticed with Jack Larsen from there and ultimately became independent, establishing herself finally in New York, in Brooklyn.

When I asked Takeda why she became interested in weaving, she said that it must have been a cross between the influences of both her mother, who taught dressmaking, and her father, who was an architect. She grew up surrounded by fabric and blueprints.

“Weaving is a kind of architecture or construction with thread,” she states. “In my work as an artist and as a designer, I have been experimenting with and accentuating this architectonic aspect.”

This is especially apparent in her new work, now on display at Colony, a new design collective in lower Manhattan. Her textiles behave like fabric but they also behave like constructions that can be hung on the wall, like a painting, or woven seamlessly into architectural and interior designs, such as seating or wall coverings.

“Growing up (and still now), I loved making things with my hands,” she says. “I had a lot of friends who were interested in majoring in product design (such as designing cars) and graphic design, which were trends at that time in Japan. But I couldn’t associate or feel passionate about those fields. I wanted to do something more hands-on and also that had an application to everyday life. One night, I snuck with some friends into the studios of an art school. We found ourselves in the textile studio and saw some student work on the loom. I was fascinated by seeing the reality of thread becoming fabric.”

In her studio, Takeda has installed large mechanical looms, which she uses for art pieces because of their sturdiness, as well as a smaller computerized loom for experimenting with different woven structures. She pulls a full array of different materials into her creations and is particularly drawn to contrasts.

“I like combining and blending materials and elements to achieve rhythm and a harmony of contrasts,” she explains. “The combinations are endless: dry/shine, dark/light, rough/smooth, thick/sinuous, recycled/invented, synthetic/organic. The choice of materials also depends on the mood I’m trying to convey and the needs of the composition.”

Takeda’s location in downtown Brooklyn, on the top floor of a nine-story industrial building from 1906 (one of the few survivors next to the Fulton Mall) is particularly fascinating these days, as more and more of the older architecture is gobbled up by soaring glass sky-rises. “I have been watching this from my studio window and I feel it when the building shakes,” she told me. “I see the clear contrast of old and new.”

She likes to absorb her surroundings as much as possible. From that same studio window, she looks out on the façade of the Macy’s parking garage, an enormous concrete structure where text art has been painted in giant block letters. “[They are] statements that make you think about what’s important in life in this transitional time of massive development,” says Takeda. “‘Life is a fight for life’ is one of my favorites. I hope this public art survives. It has some power and gives some integrity to the area. I think being in that old building fits what I am doing in a way—the intersection of old and new.”

Hiroko Takeda

Colony

Photographs by Michel Arnaud and Hiroko Takeda

Post by Anne Hellman

[design-brooklyn]

Living Design: Boerum House & Home

With its expansive front room and triple-height glass-paned façade, Boerum House & Home on Atlantic Avenue offers a boutique retail experience that is impossible to find in New York. The building, which previously housed a gallery on the ground floor and frame shop above, has been repurposed by Flank, an interdisciplinary design and development firm, as a home-design store and showroom for its 71 Smith Street project around the corner.

Boerum showcases more than 130 design makers working in Brooklyn, throughout the states, and around the world. Flank collaborated with Partners & Spade on branding and interior design, masterminding a store environment that not only acquaints local residents and potential homebuyers with emerging designers but also demonstrates how these creations relate to the spaces they live in.

“It’s a great way to interact with the community and introduce potential buyers of the new condos to makers and vendors that they may not be familiar with, as well as open their eyes to custom options,” says store manager Jesse Johnson. “It’s all about customizing your space and building it.”

Partners & Spade spent several months sourcing every item in the store. The designers inserted a raised platform in the large front area to create a sample living room, delineated by hanging “windows” and furnished with a custom sofa and stools by Uhuru in Brooklyn, rugs sourced from Morocco, and vintage pieces such as Børge Mogensen chairs. “All of our homes show this quality,” Johnson contends. “Not hand-me-downs per se but a mix of vintage pieces, new designers, and items from all around the world.”

Local designer Patrick Townsend custom designed the large brass and wire chandelier for the soaring space, which in the late-1920s began as the display floor for the National Cash Register Association. The Art Deco façade, patterned stone flooring, and balcony railing have all been retained from the building’s inception, and helped to inspire cool tie-ins among the designs.

For example, the striking, multi-paned façade inspired a custom print designed by Partners & Spade that appears on store tissue paper. The same pattern adorns the Fredericks & Mae kites that hang from the ceiling, leather catch-alls by Los Angeles designer Claire Vivier, and ceramic pieces by Pilar Wiley. In this way, rather than bringing together a large quantity of disconnected home objects to sell, Boerum asked designers to participate in the creation of the store itself. The result shows how good design doesn’t exist in a vacuum but instead communicates constantly with its environment.

Visitors will meander from the living room to the “kitchen,” which models appliances and cooking ware as well as innovative designs coming out of the maker movement. Handmade vessels by Suzanne Sullivan and High Gloss (both based in Brooklyn) inhabit kitchen shelves. A second custom fixture by Patrick Townsend—a highly functional chandelier-pot rack combination—offers shoppers an idea they can take back to their own dwellings.

Suzanne Sullivan 

The ceramics on top are by High Gloss. Visitors who spend time in Boerum will begin to notice special tie-ins throughout, such as Emily Johnson illustrations of Brooklyn landmarks that appear on ceramics by Helen Levi as well as on a wall in the children’s room.

Each “room” in Boerum demonstrates what fine, customized craftsmanship can do to transform a box into a home. All of the millwork in the shop was completed onsite. The bathroom displays custom tile work and countertops that a potential condo buyer might select for her residence. Bath products by local companies such as Prospector Co. complete the experience of stepping into one’s future home environment. The children’s room beyond houses a bunk bed by Oeuf, with bedding by Safe House.

Pilar Wiley

As Johnson says, Boerum is really a first of its kind in retail. In its furnishing of rooms within one retail space, the store could be compared to Ikea. But rather than promoting one Ikea brand, Boerum champions a multitude of independent designers working side by side. It’s this aspect of many different parts fitting together that offers a glimpse into a burgeoning design community and provides an aesthetic that is difficult to say no to.

Chen Chen & Kai Williams made the metamorphic rock bookends that appear in the store, as well as key chains, "cold cut" coasters, and stacking vessels.

Boerum submerses potential buyers in the notion that design objects and furnishings can be built in and thought about in conjunction with the design of their homes. Even after the Flank sales room moves in, likely later this year, some portion will be retained for the Boerum House & Home shop items. This is the beauty of the living-organism retail environment: design and home become one.

Boerum House & Home, 314 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, 347-987-4267

Photographs by Michel Arnaud

Post by Anne Hellman

[design-brooklyn]

Intersecting Industrial with Intimate: Rosanne Pugliese’s Fine Jewelry Shop

Rarely does a shop on the garden level of a Brooklyn brownstone shine, but the interior of Rosanne Pugliese’s jewelry store delivers a surprising exception. Although the retail space is all of 500 square feet, there is ample room to take in the sparkling accents of gold and semi-precious stones as well as other carefully curated merchandise. Pugliese collaborated with her friend, interior designer Julia Mack, to convert what once was a very un-Brooklyn Heights massage parlor into a crisp and inviting backdrop for her handcrafted jewelry.

“The original inspiration for the jewelry, which is a combination of rough and raw mixed with an elegant, refined blend of those things, shows in the shop as well,” explains Pugliese. “I never try to be too precious.” When Pugliese and Mack began planning the interior they steered instinctively away from anything too feminine or delicate. Their main intent was to let the jewelry shine while remaining true to the original space.

Mack selected an industrial-blue paint color for the walls, a blue that would pair well with gold. “The color and material selections were based on balancing the industrial nature of the space with the delicate merchandise being manufactured and sold,” says Mack. “This was accomplished by incorporating a swirly wallpaper accent wall (which reminds me of Venetian bookbinding paper of Renaissance Italy) with an industrial blue-gray paint color for the remaining walls.”

The back of the shop consists of two surfaces: a curtain made of heavy strands of brass beads, which provides Pugliese and her assistants access to the office and workshop, and an accent wall papered in smoky blue and gold, from Calico. The wallpaper delineates the front desk area and gives a sought-after gracefulness that balances the raw pipes and brick walls. The curtain, made by Shimmer Screen, acts like jewelry itself, decorative yet functional.

Mack worked with the radiator pipes rather than attempting to disguise them. She kept the wall simple, painting it blue to blend with the skin, and fitted a mirror, shelves, and artwork. A seasonal line of lifestyle and gift items such as handbags, fine perfume, framed prints, vintage jewelry, and candles, keeps the merchandise fresh throughout the year.

The build-out began in the middle of winter and at first the looming radiator pipes seemed to dominate the room. “The jewelry looked really small next to it,” recalls Mack. “The ceiling also felt very low. We had some proportion issues to work through.” Neighbor and shop owner Brian Cousins, of Hollander and Lexer on Atlantic Avenue, suggested they use the pipes in some way. A try at hanging pieces of jewelry from them did not pan out, but it did get them thinking of how to notch in a wood-framed mirror as well as custom steel shelving in order to use the wall as a display area.

Wall-mounted display cases were custom made by metalsmith Andrew Hunt at Industry City.

The lighting also presented a key consideration. Pugliese worked with Perla Delson, of Delson or Sherman, to design the track lighting for the displays, and Mack applied her theory of light layers to the space. With the tracks illuminating from the ceiling, Mack positioned a hanging chandelier (from BoConcept) near the front window, which is left on at night, and placed table lamps throughout to provide the lower stratum. These carefully chosen light sources, along with furnishings brought from Pugliese’s own house nearby, completes a retail space that is nothing but intimate and homey while ever a serious shop for fine wares.

The true industry happens behind the brass-chain curtain in a back room that Pugliese has construed as a workshop. There, at a large wooden worktable (brought from her previous studio in Dumbo) and with just the right amount of equipment, Pugliese makes all of her jewelry by hand. She collaborates with an assistant to help intersect fine wires of gold with an endlessly stylish mix of tones and color: aquamarine, green garnet, moonstone, opal, amethyst, and smoky topaz, to name only a few.

These days in Brooklyn, it has become normal to find shops that have built-in workspaces, the way craftspeople around the world have worked for hundreds of years. “You could go to India fifty years ago and find a workman who was set up in a similar way,” laughs Pugliese. She certainly has discovered a fitting balance of traditional and new when it comes to operating a shop, creating what she sells onsite in an elegant and welcoming Brooklyn interior.

Rosanne Pugliese, 307 Henry Street, Brooklyn, 718-624-6546

Julia Mack Design 

Shimmer Screen

Photographs by Michel Arnaud

Post by Anne Hellman

[design-brooklyn]

Brooklyn Bridge Park: One Pier at a Time

Many New Yorkers have discovered Brooklyn Bridge Park. Many others have yet to explore the ever-growing park creations that unfold there almost every month. On May 22, Brooklyn Bridge Park celebrated the opening of its latest two additions: Pier 2 athletic facilities and the Pier 4 Beach, a total of six acres of recreation space.

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. has overseen the design and implementation of the self-sustaining green space. The beauty of these two new areas is that they are perfect examples of how city land can be repurposed for the greater good. The 650-foot-long, five-acre Pier 2 was originally built by the New York Dock Company in the 1950s for commercial shipping and warehousing. The architects retrofitted the original building frame with a new metal roof to provide shade and rain protection, inserting skylights as well as lights for nighttime play. The project included renovating and reusing the pier decks, cheek walls, the roof frame, and even the Pier 2 lettering.

Visitors can dive into a number of sports on the pier, which now comprises five full-sized basketball courts, including one with fully adjustable hoops; six handball courts; three shuffleboard courts; two full-sized Bocce courts; and a workout area. A half-acre of artificial grass has been installed for non-organized recreation, plus a play area with children’s swings.

Picnic tables, restrooms, lockers, bike racks, and water stations have all been incorporated. Moveable team benches and bleachers are available for both the basketball courts and what will soon be a full-size roller skating rink. The rink will open in late June to provide roller and in-line skating, hockey, and roller derby opportunities.

A thirty-foot-wide promenade encircles the pier, offering magnificent views of the New York Harbor and Statue of Liberty. Pier 2 Dock will also reopen this year to provide a launch for walk-up kayaking.

The concrete deck is supported by 2,500 timber piles. The 2/3 subway tunnels run under the pier. Recycled and salvaged materials were used as much as possible in the pier’s construction.

Following the sinuous walking, jogging, and biking paths that trail along the waterfront between Pier 6 and Pier 1, visitors will now happen upon a small sandy beach nestled between a rocky outcropping and the remnants of a railroad float transfer bridge. Pier 4 Beach is a groundbreaking culmination of riverside elements. A stabilized shoreline, 11,000 square feet of sand, and a boat ramp bordered with granite salvaged from the Willis Avenue Bridge project make up the structure.

What’s more exciting are two unique features. The old transfer bridge will become a nature preserve, called Bird Island. Soil stabilized at its edges with stone riprap will be planted with native species to encourage the growth of a diverse ecology, and an Osprey platform has been installed in the hopes of attracting large fishing birds. This is also part of the park plan to buffer the coastline against future storms and floods.

And, for the first time in the United States, 7 precast tide pools have been installed at the Pier 4 Beach to allow for marine-life study. Designed by ECOncrete, the pools consist of a special concrete mix that reduces CO2 emissions to attract sea life.

In November, BBP opened the Pier 3 Greenway Terrace, adding spacious lawns, a granite terrace, and the first of the park’s sound-attenuating hills (to block noise from the BQE). An installation by Dahn Vo titled “We the People,” a replica of the draped sleeve of the Statue of Liberty’s arm that holds the golden torch, echoes the sight of the real thing across the harbor.

As Brooklyn Bridge Park expands, the lush-green features installed in the last few years--the waterfront promenade; the grassy hill where summertime movies play; as well as fun details like the Pier 5 picnic tables and barbecue grills—will only continue to fill in and grow more complete.

Brooklyn Bridge Park

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

ECOncrete

Dahn Vo: We the People

Post by Anne Hellman

Photographs by Michel Arnaud

[design-brooklyn]

Book Signing

This Saturday, Michel Arnaud will be signing copies of Design Brooklyn from 3 to 5 pm at TK Home and Garden at 411 Warren Street in Hudson, New York. Hope to see you there. http://www.tkhomeandgarden.com/"

[design-brooklyn]

Focus on Brooklyn Designers: What’s New at ICFF 2014

The International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF)—one of the centerpiece events of New York City’s design week— opens to the public on Tuesday, May 20th at Jacob K. Javits Center in Manhattan.

Last Saturday, I visited the fair and caught up with some of the Brooklyn designers who are exhibiting and were featured in our book Design Brooklyn.

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Pelle, founded by Jean and Oliver Pelle, has a studio located in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Recently, they put together a new catalog of their design work including the Bubble Chandeliers and popular Soap Stones. Their booth at ICFF also showcased their large scale emerald green Klemens Mirror and their Tripp Pendants, Sconces and Table lamp.

    Tripp  Table Lamp

Tripp Sconce

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Designers, Katrina Vonnegut and Brian Kraft of Vonnegut/Kraft displayed the new Crescent Lounge—a modern daybed—made in ash and available in a variety of slipcovers. The pair recently moved their home and studio to Sunset Park.

   *******

Elodie Blanchard has incorporated drawings of animals into her textile work. One of her window treatment designs has a giraffe and hummingbird kissing applied to a thick felt material. Playful, imaginative, and whimsical, these pieces are fun anywhere and perfect  for a child’s room.

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The team of designers at Uhuru pitched in to construct their own stand at the fair. The company’s Essential collection of tables was presented in the center of the space. The sizes varied from table to table as did the finishes. The company is also planning a move from their Red Hook studio this summer.

  A new finish on a classic design

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Designer Takeshi Miyakawa was also visiting Katie Deedy’s Grow House Grow booth when I stopped by. I love the narrative back story of Katie’s wallpaper designs. Her new black wallpaper with white patterning was especially appealing.

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Hiroko Takeda had some of her most recent full-scale woven panels, as well as one of her three-dimensional pieces on display.  Hiroko will also be showing her work at Colony, a new designer’s co-op opening June 1st.

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Flavor Paper presents their Andy Warhol collection of wallpapers. In an agreement with the Andy Warhol Foundation, Flavor Paper selected images, such as the iconic portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, from the artist’s work to create these vibrant and unique papers. Jon Sherman also created a new designs for his newborn son, Cosmo’s nursery.            What a wonderful welcome!

  post by Michel Arnaud 

[design-brooklyn]

WantedDesign at Industry City, Sunset Park

Designer and artist Sebastian Errazuriz unveiled his latest work: a giant golden calf piñata, standing tall in the courtyard of Bldg 2. 

On May 8, NYCxDesign celebrated the opening of a new destination for Design Week enthusiasts: WantedDesign at Industry City. Since 2011, Wanted Design founders Claire Pijoulat and Odile Hainaut have curated groundbreaking satellite shows down the street from ICFF during this special time of the year. By locating a new, carefully curated design exhibition at Industry City, Brooklyn’s first industrial park, Pijoulat and Hainaut take advantage of a proximity to where designers produce work and shine a light on Brooklyn’s latest nexus of design and manufacturing.

Conceived in 1895, Industry City encompasses a 16-building, 30-acre, 6-million-square-foot complex on the Sunset Park waterfront and provided a major manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution center for New York in its heyday. “For the past thirty years, like other Brooklyn waterfront properties, this property languished as traditional manufacturing declined,” stated Industry City CEO Andrew Kimball at the show’s opening.

Tools for Working Wood, situated in Industry City.

In recent years, designers and small-scale manufacturers have begun to move back into these nearly abandoned buildings (here as well as in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Bushwick, and elsewhere), setting up studios, communal machine shops, and office spaces. At Industry City, the complex’s owners have been hard at work updating the facility’s systems so that it can be used by a diverse group of tenants, ranging from designers to technology visionaries to traditional manufacturers and artisans.

Theremins by Francois Chambard of UM Project. Theremin instruments are one example of what the innovation economy is all about.

The goal is to help the burgeoning “innovation economy” on its way to creating jobs in New York City. “The innovation economy is the broadband of making a physical, digital, and engineering product,” explained Kimball. “Those subsectors in New York City are growing faster than any other subsector.” Driving this growth are two trends developing simultaneously: new technology, which allows makers to do things in 500 square feet that used to require thousands of square feet, such as 3D printers and molding machines and, too, the explosion of the design sector. “New York City and particularly Brooklyn has become a hub for designers,” Kimball said.

A collaboration between WorkOf and 32 NYC-based designers, the WorkOf Apartment showcases locally designed and made furniture, lighting, and housewares. Wallpaper and pillowcases by Eskayel. Chandelier by Pelle.

With 11 days of programming from May 10 to 20, WantedDesign celebrates this explosion of design in Brooklyn by curating an onsite show of emerging design makers and thinkers working in a wide range of disciplines at Industry City and beyond. Design intersects with an astonishing number of different pursuits these days and Industry City epitomizes this. The exhibition’s presence here is a perfect example: it took the collaboration of private enterprise, city agencies, designers, design shows, and educational programs to bring part of Design Week to this location.

Designs by Avandi.

Pijoulat and Hainaut spoke about the unique setting Industry City provides. The opening took place on a cloudy morning but on clearer days the sunset beams through the buildings, offering beautiful light and views of the city and Statue of Liberty. “There’s a potential for vision [here],” concluded Pijoulat.

Sling Chair, by Eoj Tecuod. Beech wood and latex.

WantedDesign

**Sebastian Errazuriz’s “XX Century Capital” will be filled with dollar bills for the closing event of WantedDesign at Industry City on May 20. Attendees will strike the piñata with red bats to break it open. Check back here, at Design Brooklyn, for photos of the event.

Colson Patisserie makes its breads and pastries at Industry City, as do a number of other food tenants, including Blue Marble Ice Cream.

Strand Bookstore has set up a pop-up shop at Industry City. Design Brooklyn was nicely showcased in the window. Thank you, Strand!

Post by Anne Hellman

[design-brooklyn]

Mary Wallis at UrbanGlass: Sculpting in Neon

The Agnes Varis Art Center at UrbanGlass in Fort Greene has put forth a beautifully concise exhibit focused on the role glass plays in lighting. “Illuminate: Design in Light” features nine New York-based designers, including three featured in Design Brooklyn (Mary Wallis, Bec Brittain, and Jason Miller). The designers in the show have either created glass pieces in the UrbanGlass studio or have had elements of their designs fabricated there. For Mary Wallis, UrbanGlass was where she first learned how to bend neon.

“To show here is a way of coming home,” Wallis says. “It completes the circle between their educational program and the gallery space.”

“I like to subvert your expectation of a traditional chandelier.” Mary Wallis, “Neon Lantern,” hand-bent neon, glass, aluminum

Wallis, who like Bec Brittain apprenticed with Lindsey Adelman (whose work also shines in the show), has for some time turned her attention to the special properties of neon, its unique form and illumination. She implements elegant neon tubing either on its own, in the Neon Table Lamp, or as a wraparound element juxtaposed with white glass and aluminum, in the Neon Lantern.

“My aim with neon is to take it off the wall and use it in three-dimensional space. Neon is such a pure line of light. Why not draw in 3D?” she contends. 

Mary Wallis, “Neon Table Lamp,” hand-bent neon, aluminum

Both pieces in the exhibition subvert one’s notion of a traditional lamp or chandelier, yet the original forms are still very much present. By stretching the boundaries of what neon can do, Wallis fashions modern reinterpretations of classic forms. For the 2014 Milan Salone del Mobile, Wallpaper* Magazine commissioned Wallis and Suzanne Tick to create the neon piece “Entangled Light,” which will appear in the Wallpaper* Handmade show in New York in May.

Photographs by Lauren Coleman

“I think I am just beginning to explore the boundaries of neon,” says Wallis. “With each project we push further technically and aesthetically.”

Lindsey Adelman, “Knotty Bubble Pendant,” opal glass, halogen bulbs, natural rope

Bec Brittain, “Vise,” Miami fade glass, polished brass

Jason Miller, “Modo,” glass, aluminum

Mary Wallis

Urban Glass/Agnes Varis Art Center

Suzanne Tick

Photographs by Michel Arnaud and Lauren Coleman

Post by Anne Hellman

Help support Every Mother Counts and celebrate Mother's Day May 11.

[design-brooklyn]

Courtside in Gowanus: Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club

A little piece of coastal Florida now resides on Union Street in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. Ashley Albert and Jonathan Schnapp opened the doors of their self-envisioned Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club on February 19. Only six weeks later it has become a destination for Manhattanites on the weekends and a welcome addition to Brooklyn’s array of day- and nighttime activities.

Featuring 10 regulation-size shuffleboard courts in a beautifully appointed 17,000-square-foot expanse, the Royal Palms is that ideal meeting point of indoor and outdoor, just off a Brooklyn sidewalk.

Ashley and Jonathan first glimpsed the idea in December 2011, while earning their certification as barbeque judges (Ashley’s holiday gift to Jonathan). Ashley grew up in Miami, and Jonathan also visited family in South Beach, where he would often play shuffleboard. While in Florida, they found a place where they could play in St. Petersburg—at the largest shuffleboard club in the world. They fell in love not only with the game but also with the beautiful, city-owned park that housed the courts. St. Petersburg hipsters would flock to the club on Friday nights to play, and even a bookmobile and veggie-hotdog cart would show up. Ashley and Jonathan immediately thought, what if they created a shuffleboard destination back home in Brooklyn?

They came upon the perfect unused warehouse space in Gowanus as soon as March and serious planning began. Having made a number of new friends in the shuffleboard community since the initial idea formed (they both are now avid players: Ashley is the 68th-ranked shuffleboard female in the country, and Jonathan the 82nd-ranked male), the partners consulted with them about court dimensions and even received old equipment and homemade disk waxers.

They hired designers for part of the design process, but mostly they masterminded the space themselves based on their own visual memories of Florida shuffleboard clubs. They produced a computer rendering and gave it to New York-based Greenlight Construction Management to recreate. “It’s uncanny how much the space looks like the rendering,” says Ashley. “[Greenlight] just nailed it.”

In some ways, the inspiration for the look of Royal Palms did come from the world-renown St. Pete courts—the outdoor string lights that circumvent the center spaces pay homage to that spot—but really the aesthetic is a composite of Ashley’s memories of growing up in Miami, including deck chairs, black-and-white striped cabana awnings, and the pool-blue color she chose for the courts, which reflects off the white-washed ceilings much like a swimming pool would do. The feel is outdoor, poolside, while still being very much indoors, in Brooklyn.

A vintage shuffleboard table is placed in the center of the large space to provide a communal surface for all kinds of board games and general hanging out. The poolside chairs are lightweight enough to be moved about in different configurations, much like at a pool club. The division into two separate court areas, each with its own bar, also facilitates special events, so that one half can always be kept open to the public. A fireproof room with a cutout window onto the space provides a spot for food trucks to pull up and serve food.

Vintage biscuit baskets adorn wooden cubbies behind the reception desk. The baskets were donated by shuffleboard players around the country, but only after Ashley and Jonathan promised to replace them with new ones. Working with investors, the partners built replica baskets with the help of Makeville Studio in Gowanus (shown on the bottom shelf). Wicker lampshades above the bars and reception desk were found at Ikea. The counters are sided with cork and trimmed with black paint (picking up on the black accents of the ceiling fans, painted columns, and cabana awnings).

Ashley gathered Florida memorabilia for behind the bar, such as the classic orange and green printed juice glasses that to her simply ring of the state, as well as vintage Florida State pennants to decorate the walls.

The Pink Flamingo wallcovering in the bathrooms has been widely enthused about on Instagram. Ashley found it from a wallpaper company in England.

Before taking down the dropped drywall ceilings to uncover the intricate, intact crisscross of wood beams, which they brightened with whitewash, the partners could not be sure what the visual outcome of Royal Palms would be. As Ashley notes, “The space has warmth to it that was unanticipated. It doesn’t feel creepy to be in here with only four people playing shuffleboard.” What once was a deserted dye-cutting factory, originally erected in 1919, now exudes lively sociability.

Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club

Greenlight Construction Management

Makeville Studio 

Photographs by Michel Arnaud

Post by Anne Hellman

[design-brooklyn]

WALKING BUSHWICK

One of the pleasures of being a photographer is being able to take time to walk the city’s streets and witness the ever-changing scene. This is especially true in Bushwick where there are miles and miles of post-industrial buildings with empty walls, fences and other surfaces that are now being used as a vast canvas for Street Art which is constantly renewing itself.

Here is a selection from late autumn and early winter....