An Origami Game Inspires New Seating by MUT Design and Ames

Whether you call it a fortune teller, a cootie catcher, or, in Latin America, a comecocos, you would no doubt recognize the origami finger game children have been playing since time immemorial. The paper toy’s familiar shape is the latest everyday object to inspire Spanish studio MUT Design, which collaborated with German-Colombian furniture company Ames on Coco, seating that references the game’s folding pyramidal forms. A seam-free acrylic textile woven on horizontal handlooms in the Bolivar region covers the foam-core armchair and ottoman. The upholstery colors appear solid but, up close, reveal variegation, with yarn threads in contrasting and tonal hues giving the impres­sion the chair is ever-changing.

Surf Pro Kassia Meador Collaborates on Ethereal Wallpaper

Art and Nature Take Center Stage in This Aspen Residence

CCY Architects does not typically design a long entry sequence for houses in Aspen, Colorado, which gets over 12 feet of snow a year. But for a mountainside residence overlooking the Roaring Fork Vall­ey, the firm built a 90-foot path between the parking area and the front door. By local standards, “That’s a long, long walk,” says CCY principal Alex Klumb. But the clients, an art-collecting couple, sought to highlight a recent acquisition: a reflective PVD-coated stainless-steel head by the Swiss artist Not Vital. CCY placed the sculpture at the end of an allée of aspens leading to the entrance. “It frames nature, draws you to the door, and slows everybody down before releasing to an incredible view,” Klumb explains. It also establishes the home’s focus on art and the outdoors.

Besides the Not Vital sculpture, the clients hadn’t earmarked specific pieces for the house, so they worked with Kleinberg to see which fit best: a Calder over a guest-room bed, a James Rosenquist at the top of the stairs. In the dining room, a David Hockney drawing echoes the moun­tains outside the window. It hangs above three square oak tables that can be joined or separated depending on the size of the group—the sort of practical touch that makes the home livable. The paintings and views may be spectacular, Kleinberg says, “but the interiors have to hold their own.” The result is as layered as a work of art.

A Mountainside Vacation Home Designed by CCY Architects

through galerie carole decombe: mirror (entry)

apparatus studio: con­sole

11 ravens: custom billiards table (rec room)

adam otlewski: side table

soane britain: chairs (dining room)

minotti: pendant fixtures

focus fireplaces: fireplace (guest sitting room)

perennials fabrics: sectional fabric

through 1stdibs: lamp, coffee table, chair

cassina: armchair

romo fabrics: armchair fabric

scott group studio: rugs (guest sitting room, living room)

colorado pool designs: custom pool, spa (terrace)

zachary a. design: tables

knoll: sofas, lounges, chaises

a.r.s.antiqua: custom wood cocktail tables (living room)

fernando mastrangelo studio: custom square side tables

blanche jelly: round side table

through valerie goodman gallery: custom floor lamp

cowtan & tout; edelman leather: sectional fabrics

glant textiles: lounge chair fabric

wud furniture: nightstand (bedroom)

bourgeois boheme: custom sconce

dune: custom bed

nobilis paris: headboard fabric

through twentieth gallery: bench (hall)

Roll & Hill: pendant fixture (study)

warp & weft: custom rug

nada debs: side table

charles h. beckley: daybed cushions

mark alexander fabrics: cushion fabric

Design Within Reach: chairs

token: barstools (rec room)

arabel fabrics: sectional fabric

adam otlewski: side tables

arrigoni woods: wood flooring

ergon engineered stone: tile flooring

grabill windows and doors: windows, doors

lift studio: land­scape architect

ls group: lighting design

kl&a engineers: structural engineer

woody creek engineering: civil engineer

anthony lawrence-belfair: custom furniture work­shop

structural associates: general contractor

The Invisible Collection Reveals Pieces IRL

The Townhouse is the New York showroom where design aficionados can see IRL the latest pieces from The Invisible Collection, which began in 2016 as an online retailer, when cofounders Isabelle Dubern-Mallevays and Anna Zaoui realized that thousands of site-specific pieces are created for private projects without ever being offered to the public. The company makes some of these heretofore hidden pieces accessible. New in is a cloudlike series by Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance: 21 limited-edition pieces crafted between 2017 and 2022. Seating includes the Mousse sofa, “its flat walnut or oak base like a temple door,” the designer says; Whisper, an armchair or sofa reminiscent of a snowy mountaintop; and the Perros armchair inspired by the prehistoric standing stones found in the Brittany region of Duchaufour-Lawrance’s native France. On the other side of the materials spectrum yet similarly curvaceous are two tables sculpted from Verde Serpa marble: Mineral Flower and the tripartite Soft Rock.

SheltonMindel Designs a Miami Home Fit for Beach Days

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

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

A Miami Abode Designed to Spotlight Art and Color

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

through galerie kreo studio: cocktail table (living area)

through friedman benda: chair

Chilewich: floor mat

bitossi: vase

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

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

artek: stools (balcony)

molteni&c: cabinetry (kitchen)

marc krusin: table (dining area)

cappellini: stools

venini: glass artwork

galerie jacques lacoste: panels (main bedroom)

miniera: floor lamp (main bedroom)

pierre marie giraud: table lamps (bedrooms, foyer)

Tom Dixon: stools (bedroom)

Jouin Manku’s Debut Super Yacht Sets Sail

Designer Patrick Jouin and architect Sanjit Manku both have sharp early memories linked to boats. For Interior Design Hall of Fame member Jouin, one of his grandfathers was a welder at the Saint-Nazaire shipyard in western France and worked on the construction of the legendary luxury liner, Le Normandie, in the 1930’s. As for Manku, in his early 20’s, he built a skiff so large that he had trouble storing it. “My dad had to cut it in half to get it from the backyard to the front,” he remembers. “It didn’t end well.”

Since founding their Paris-based firm, Jouin Manku, in 2006, the co-CEOs and copartners have completed numerous restaurants for Michelin-starred chef Alain Ducasse, six boutiques for Van Cleef & Arpels, a spectacular residence in Kuala Lumpur, and a multitude of hotels. Yet, they had never been asked to work on the interior of a private yacht before. “We couldn’t understand why,” Jouin states. “We were so sure we were made to design one.”

Jouin Manku Designs the Interior of a Private Yacht

When the call finally came, it was well worth the wait. Built in the Admiral shipyard in Italy’s Marina di Carrara with sleek mint-green exteriors conceived in tandem by Azure Yacht Design and German architecture firm Archineers. Berlin, Kenshō, as the yacht is named, measures 246 feet in length and can accommodate up to 12 guests and a crew of 23. Its owner—a self-made European businessman—sounds both visionary and quite particular. Prior to commissioning the vessel, he’d checked out numerous other boats armed with a laser measure and noted down the exact dimensions of rooms he liked. He was also looking to create something different. “He’s always wondering whether things could be done better,” Manku notes.

The client insisted on having ceilings just under 9 feet and shunned the need for walkways on both sides of each deck. “He said, ‘People like symmetry, but having two walkways eats up valuable space,’” Manku continues. Most importantly, he questioned the common assumption that the navigation bridge has to be located at the front of the uppermost deck. Why should the crew, rather than guests, get the best view? Instead, a 915-square-foot sitting room was placed up there, with the wheelhouse tucked on the floor below.

The Kenshō Yacht Interiors Are Designed for a Peaceful Journey

Jouin Manku had distinct ideas of the atmosphere the team was looking to conjure. “Mega yachts are glamorous and powerful. At the same time, what intrigued us was, Could they still be intimate?” Manku asks. “Could they be something peaceful?”— indeed a challenge with a project that has four levels (plus one for staff) and six bedrooms. He and Jouin were helped by their client’s request to integrate Asian influences (Kenshō is the Japanese term for enlightenment). They adopted a soft color palette and favored the use of wood (specifically teak), silk, and leather. The latter lines the walls of corridors, where it has been sculpted by British artist Helen Amy Murray. The designers also opted for a more Asian approach to the lighting, installing backlit walls and ceilings. “The idea is that the light kind of hugs and surrounds you,” Jouin says.

Far East Motifs Include Silk Printed Patterns

Most striking are the motifs drawn from the Far East: the guest cabin bedheads upholstered in a silk printed with a gingko pattern, the custom Chinoiserie-style wallpaper in the main dressing room featuring monkeys and flying cranes, and the doors into the main bedroom, which are decorated with an abstract landscape evocative of clouds and mountains. Created from patinated brass by French metalworker Steaven Richard, it recalls the work of mythical Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. Elsewhere, inspirations are nautical. The patterns of the rugs and ceilingscapes are drawn from hydrographic maps, and jellyfish and sailboats are among the subjects painted by Axel Samson onto the wood paneling the four powder rooms.

Modularity was also worked into Jouin Manku’s scheme. Asymmetric nightstands were devised to look equally at place on either side of a double bed or grouped together between two twin berths. Several pieces of furniture were fixed onto rails, which allow their component elements to be either joined or separated. A prime example is the expansive two-piece table in the dining room, which presented the team with a particular challenge. For much of the time, it could potentially be something of a dead space. “You only eat there on a bad day,” Manku says. “Otherwise, you’re out on a deck.” To enliven it, he and Jouin installed floor-to-ceiling glass cabinets filled with a collection of the owners’ nautical-themed curios.

A Marble Tub Makes for Ultimate Luxury

Finding the right marble for the tub in the main bathroom proved one of the most complicated tasks. Jouin and Manku traveled to stone yards around the world before realizing the solution was practically under their noses. The Admiral shipyard is located close to the famous Carrara quarries, where they came across two slabs with “calligraphy-like” veins and had them sculpted into an exquisitely rounded tub. “We created its curves not just for the eye, but, first and foremost, for the hand,” Jouin says. “The touch of the marble really is something else.” Call the experience enlightening.

Inside the Kenshō Yacht

Jouin Manku: bénédicte bonnefoi; dimitri malko; julien lizé; fanny peurou; axel de clermont tonnerre; vincent dechelette; bruno pimpanini; aurélien gauducheau; néhemy goguely

azure yacht design: yacht exterior

archineers.berlin: design, engineering consultant

trappmann consulting slu: interior design consultant

atelier 27; ébénisterie générale; tisg: custom furniture workshops

voyons voir: lighting designer

aude planterose: art consultant

admiral (italian sea group): shipyard

stuart king architecture: owner technical representative, surveyor

manutti: table (main deck)

sunbrella: sofa fabric, carpet (stair)

pedrali: games chairs (living room)

starset: games table

pierre frey: sofa, chair fabric (salon, sitting room)

Holly Hunt: chair (main suite)

delisle: custom lamp

de Gournay: custom wallpaper (main bedroom)

crystal caviar: custom chandelier (dining room)

pilot’ ag: custom table

galerie diurne: custom carpet

preciosa: custom lighting

miscimasci: custom silk

Channel ’80’s Pool Vibes With This New Outdoor Collection

Clap Studio’s Aster-Inspired Clinic Wows in Valencia, Spain

Since its founding in 2017, Spanish firm Clap Studio has accumulated international awards for its playful interiors. A recent project, Septiembre, a 1,300-square-foot dermatological clinic in Valencia, shows why. Inspired by the name, which is the Spanish word for September, the aster became a centerpiece of the concept, as the perennial blooms that same month. “Everything revolves around relaxation,” Clap cofounder and creative director Jordi Iranzo says. Nature and calm are perhaps best seen in the light, bright waiting room. Wrap­ping its perimeter are wooden bleachers, some surfaces fitted with cushions for seating, most dotted with hundreds of small white pedestals ranging from 2 to 25 inches tall—Clap’s abstract nod to a wildflower field. Actual flowers, albeit preserved, are clustered in corners. Cerulean ceramic tile fronting the reception desk recalls blue sky; a yellow acrylic “sun” behind it dips gracefully toward the horizon. Farther in, the consultation room proclaims “Wake up your skin” in custom neon signage. It and the treatment rooms are rounded, entered through archways that can be cordoned off with curtains the color of goldenrod.

India Mahdavi Brings Vibrancy to One High Line’s Residences

As if One High Line’s creative team wasn’t already star-studded enough. The two-tower residential complex, which occupies a full New York City block and contains 236 condominiums, has architecture by Bjarke Ingels Group and interiors by Gabellini Sheppard Associates and Gilles & Boissier. Recently, Interior Design Hall of Fame member India Mahdavi joined the team, designing a 3,500-square-foot model apartment on the 27th floor. “India’s use of color is authoritative and engaging,” says Alex Witkoff, principal at Witkoff Group, the developer, along with Access Industries. Mahdavi drew inspiration from Gotham’s energy. “I put these combinations together so they vibrate, so they bring a certain level of happiness,” she explains. Perhaps the buzziest is the bedroom Mahdavi converted into a tangerine dream of an office. The frequency is high in the living room, too, where she harmonizes emerald greens with regal purples. The vibe chills in the main bedroom suite, wrapped in soothing buttercup. Throughout are Mahdavi’s pretty and pleasing furniture pieces, available domestically through Ralph Pucci International and internationally at india-mahdavi.com.

Inside the One High Line Residence by India Mahdavi

6 Must-Visit Getaways Designed to Reflect Their Locales

Designers play with dichotomy and difference in creating getaways informed by their locales—from the Costa Rican jungle to Ontario’s lake country.

Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica by Formafatal

Size: 1 bedroom; 1,000 square feet (per villa)

Dagmar Štěpánová of the sustainably minded Czech firm dreamt up and developed twin rental villas that cantilever out from a steep jungle slope toward Pacific Ocean views. They’re built of rammed earth (using clay excavated from the site) sandwiched between concrete-slab ceilings and floors, the latter coated with nonslip cement screed—a different color in each villa. Furniture custom designed by the studio is mostly concrete, save for the teak bed surrounded by a linen mosquito net…a must with an infinity-edge pool just beyond the frameless glass sliders.

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Milford Bay, Ontario, Canada by Reigo & Bauer

Size: 6 bedrooms; 6,760 square feet

For repeat clients, firm copartners Merike Bauer and Stephen Bauer rehabbed a century-old shingled cottage sited on a waterfront former resort in Ontario’s lake country, preserving and restoring its western red cedar–clad interior and then playing against type by juxtaposing spirited modern features: sculptural furni­ture, bold accent colors, perception-warping outsize lighting, and an impressive collection of Pop Art, including works by Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol.

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Noto, Italy by Studio Gum

Size: 4 bedrooms; 2,800 square feet

Skillfully interlocked dry-stack sandstone blocks—Sicilian and yellow-toned, like the earth on which the villa stands—form exterior walls in a stylized square-and-triangle pattern, including on a belvedere that partially shades a swimming pool and offers a privileged prospect of the sea and surrounding olive and almond trees. Inside, firm founders Valentina Giampiccolo and Giuseppe Minaldi devised a long black-and-white cement-tile hallway that pierces the south and north elevations to maintain a suggestive glimpse through an enfilade of trees—the spark for the entire project, nicknamed Casa Carlita.

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Ragusa, Italy by Studio Gum

Size: 3 bedrooms; 1,280 square feet

In another project by the Sicilian architecture firm, Giampiccolo and Minaldi transformed a small, aging apartment into a vacation pad meets tourist digs. The team preserved as much of the external envelope as pos­sible, including retaining the patina of original plasterwork, but revealed the interior’s (and the terrace kitchen’s) young soul by deploying a poly­chromic play as vibrant as the homeowners.

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North Salem, New York by Worrell Yeung

Size: 6 bedrooms; 7,000 square feet

In renovating and expanding an existing residence, copartners Jejon Yeung and Max Worrell riffed on the agrarian vernacular via a play of similarity and switching it up. The main house, a converted dairy barn, boasts moss green–stained cypress outside and Douglas fir inside, most notably in the form of exposed rafters in the peak-ceilinged great room. That species repeats as plywood wall cladding inside the new photography studio/garage, its volume likewise lofty, while lighter weathered-gray cypress sheathes the half-gable spa shed.

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Cañada de Alféres, Mexico by Ludwig Godefroy

Size: 2 bedrooms; 1,600 square feet

The verticality of this Brutalist bunker, a week­end retreat for Mexico City dwellers, is a direct response to the program, reconciling conflicting aims to maxi­mize verdant views of pine trees while ensuring security in the remote area. (The small footprint also abetted foundation work on the sloped site.) The cast-concrete walls are mostly solid on the ground level but punctured with larger picture windows higher up, while the skylight-capped double-height volume with mezzanine overlooks makes the entire house feel like a breezy interior courtyard.

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