- Grand room of 5,000 sq. ft. full-floor apartment. The loft style space has living, dining and study areas all in one large room with 13 ft ceilings. Previously featured on Modenus
French food can be a wonderful thing but it can also be a little too much. All those rich sauces, layer after layer of flavours and textures can be, well, a little heavy. Back in the seventies Michele Gerard came up with Cuisine Mincer, French food but lighter. You still got the flavours and the textures but without the stodge. And that’s what Jerry Jacobs seems to do. You get rich textures, fine furniture and wonderful textures, you get luxury, but you also get light and space. Continue Reading…
“You know how Justin Timberlake brought ‘sexy’ back to music? Well I want to bring ‘sexy and intimate’ back to interior design.” So says Jeffrey Brooks of Jeffrey Brooks Interior Design. And then he laughs. And throughout the interview we keep finding things to laugh and to smile about.
Jeffrey Brooks is a man who understands emotions and the role of art and, indeed, interior design in eliciting emotions. It is, perhaps, no surprise that Jeffrey is a practiced artist. He comes from an artsy family with a father who worked as a designer for an ornamental hardware company and an aunt who worked for Balenciaga and who would take the young Jeffrey to see, and appreciate, their fabric collections. He was happiest at school when he had the opportunity to use his hands to make something. Indeed as a child every empty box presented a challenge to transform into whatever his fertile imagination demanded. Continue Reading…
ReDesign of London, Ontario say that when they first set foot in the Markland House they half expected a machine gun wielding Tony Montana of Scarface fame to appear, yelling, “Say hello to my little friend!” And yes, there is more than a touch of 1980′s Miami to the before shots in this feature. No offense intended to Miami, of course, but we suspect you know what we mean.
We have featured ReDesign before and hope to feature them again before long. There are many very good things about this design group, not least their valiant crusade against waste. If something can be reused or re-purposed then that is what they do. The kitchen above is transformed despite keeping the existing cabinetry, installed five years ago, but adding new work surfaces, furniture, lighting, faucets.
Continue Reading…
We all know Patricia Urquiola for her amazing furniture and accessory design and the companies she’s lent her name and design skills to are the complete collection who is who in design, like Alessi, Boffi, B&B Italia, Cassina, Cappelini, Kartell and many more. So imagine my surprise when, while perusing the fabulous collections on Nilufar, I came across a piece of mixed media art, done by Patricia. The woman never ceases to amaze and this piece clearly deserves a spot on my coveted and slightly eccentric holiday wishlist.
Nilufar is an Italian gallery based in Milan who curate some of the world’s most amazing artifacts as well as vintage and antique pieces. One of my favorite has to be the Spirit House.
This Mid-20th Century piece is roughly 25″ in height, width and depth and made in Thailand. Spirit Houses were traditionally set outdoors to catch and house the local spirits that roam about in nature and are often quite weather worn but this one appears in excellent condition despite being about 50 years old.
There is something very distinctive about interiors designed by Donna Grace McAlear. It is instantly apparent but it took me a while to define. Her rooms have a remarkable confidence; the space is balanced, comfortable and functions well. In her own words, Donna “allows space to breathe”. It is as if the furniture is set out like art exhibits in a very well thought out, user friendly gallery. And that makes sense because, before she became a design consultant and opened a business as New Mood Design Donna was, indeed, a fine art museum curator. The picture above is the family room of the Peak 8 Ski House – 6,000 square feet on three levels designed by Breckenridge architect Michael F. Gallagher. Continue Reading…
Modenus’ kitchen design expert Darren Morgan reports from the grand opening of Scholtès Centre of Excellence in London. For more Scholtès products available in the US please click here.
The autumn sunshine pours down onto London’s Wigmore Street and if I was looking to buy a new kitchen I would certainly be in the right place! This area of London is regarded as the epicentre of cutting edge kitchen design in the UK. The street is lined with prestigious names and glamorous window displays each one showcasing the best that the industry has to offer.
Weaving my way through pedestrian traffic I finally reach my destination. The Scholtès Centre of Excellence is a new name on the golden mile of kitchen design and it is immediately evident by glancing through the window that this company has a forward thinking and dynamic approach to retail.
Upon entering the space I am immediately greeted by David Bigland the energetic and passionate Director of Scholtès UK. As we begin to talk I realise that this is a man who is determined to do things differently and that he is driven by a genuine love of design.
The physical space is certainly dramatic and it is only right that Scholtès have avoided calling their flagship store a showroom. This space can only be described as an emporium of functional perfection and a new leading light along the Wigmore Street strip! Continue Reading…
Lithos will be showing it’s Muri di Pietra modular collection of decorative self-supporting walls where stone is made visually fluid and lithe through piercing and intricate (and unexpected) texture. We’re huge fans of Litho’s work and this collection, now being shown at Beijing’s first international design triennial, is a definite Modenus favorite.
BlogTour 2011 at London Design Festival was a whirlwind of trade shows, design exhibits, media events and fabulous dinners. All wonderful and inspiring but when we had Sunday morning off, I suggested we veer away from the buzzing design venues of London and re-discover one of my favorite destinations in London, Columbia road flower market. I’ve written about this place before and always feel compelled to wax poetic about the juxtaposition of the old brick buildings and cobblestone roads on one hand and the ocean of color that washes over Columbia road on Sundays, during the flower market. Continue Reading…
In less than a month a group of some of the most influential and inspiring American interior design and life style bloggers will land in London for five frenzied days reporting back from London Design Festival. We call it BlogTour2011. Our previews feature a fraction of the work they will see. For the full story keep checking back both here and on the BlogTour site.
Andy Murray, a fine young designer from Edinburgh is, no doubt, sick of jokes referencing his namesake, the perennial potential British tennis champion. And a note here for American readers – when someone from North of the border is a successful sportsperson they are ‘British’, otherwise we refer to them as ‘Scottish’. Anyway, we will give Andy a break from the Wimbledon references and focus on his strikingly modern furniture which can be found at Tent London this year.
His Sea Defence shelves are part of a collection which he says brings together the sculptural, strong and iconic nature of sea defences, creating elegant, usable functional pieces of furniture. The free standing shelves are hand crafted in Scotland from carefully selected materials, layered birch is pressed to this sculptural shape and finished by hand. See you there Andy!
Follow the conversation on Twitter at #Blogtour2011 !
