Take a beautiful, historic interior setting, and add a new layer of ephemeral spectacle. The results are challenging, stimulating, and interesting. The recent “Inside Peek” piece posted online in Canadian Interiors features AURA Basilica, a Canadian project by multimedia entertainment studio Moment Factory. AURA is a “45-minute immersive sound, light and video projection-mapping experience” that … Continue reading New Life for Old Spatial Experiences
Almost three weeks have passed without a substantial post here at whitestudiolo, and too many of my comments about the connections between design, history, theory and everyday life are starting to pile up. It’s time to unload! During this time I have been reviewing my experiences at Toronto’s EDIT (Sept. 28- Oct. 8, 2017) and … Continue reading Opinion: Back to Design Writing in Today’s Messy World
In this series of posts that explore a critical reading of The Drake Commissary interiors, I have enjoyed returning to the site several times. For this final installment, my focus will be the dining area. The main dining area is positioned at the back of the space, at the end of a series of spatial … Continue reading Revisiting a Bountiful Interior
My recent visit to The Drake Commissary has started me thinking about design strategies visible in those interiors that occupy architectural shells already full of material memory. In this case, what comes to mind is the aspect of narrative that these interiors both support and inspire. As Graeme Brooker points out in his recent book … Continue reading A Job Well-Started is a Job Well-Done
To continue this serialized essay about how furniture functions as a key design element in DesignAgency’s interiors for The Broadveiw Hotel Café, let’s consider the balance of functional and symbolic design objectives that is achieved in the room’s main dining areas: the café chair dining range and the harvest table multi-use space. The dining areas … Continue reading Pull up a Chair and Join us!
Yesterday I wrote briefly about how furniture plays a key role in the success of the Broadview Hotel Café interior. I promised to expand on how the space’s interior zones are defined by furniture installations that express spatial and cultural meaning. Of the six interior zones identified – the circular stacked bar, the wingback entrance lounge, … Continue reading Tending to the Bar: Furniture at the Broadview Hotel Café
Patrick Baty’s new book The Anatomy of Color: The Story of Heritage Paints and Pigments (Thames & Hudson, 2017) just arrived at my summer studio. It is a glorious 350+ page tome filled with 1500+ images. Wide ranging analysis of the subject stems from Baty’s well-established practice as an Historian of architectural paint and colour … Continue reading What I’m reading: New Book about the Use of Paint and Colour within Buildings
One of my favorite on-line sources for critical writing about all sorts of design – from architecture and urbanism to product, fashion, graphics and beyond – is Edwin Heathcote’s “Reading Design” initiative. Heathcote and his team regularly post excerpts from a variety of contemporary and historical sources, mostly texts already published elsewhere. I especially appreciate it … Continue reading Michael Wolf’s photographs of ‘Hong Kong Informal Seating Arrangements’
whitestudiolo 