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
On Wednesday I spent the day at EDIT. I toured the main floor exhibit “Prosperity for All” (curated by Bruce Mau) and the diverse installations that surrounded it, such as the “Letters to the Mayor/The Developer” (a Storefront for Art + Architecture initiative presented in Toronto by Partisans Architecture). I climbed to the second floor … Continue reading The Real Star of EDIT May Be Hiding in Plain View
This summer, an unexpected design installation arrived in my neighbourhood: a series of Bike Share Toronto stations were installed outside up and down the main thoroughfare, linking bike path corridors with community parks, with retail and commercial areas, with residences and schools, and with the western beaches of Lake Ontario. The bikes themselves have a … Continue reading What Comes After EDIT? An Editorial about Design Studies
Yesterday, the Art Gallery of Ontario posted “Designing a home fit for a monster” on their ‘Art Matters’ Blog. It is a teaser for the long-awaited opening of “Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters” and it got me thinking again about a favorite topic: exhibition design. Prior to studying interior design, I worked for … Continue reading Getting Ahead of Myself: Looking Forward to a Review of Exhibition Design for the AGO’s “Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters”
In the recent article “Taking on the World” (Canadian Interiors July/August 2017 vol. 54 No. 4), writer Leslie C. Smith provides a condensed interview with the three principals at DesignAgency: Anwar Mekhayech, Matt Davis and Allan Chan. DesignAgency is a renowned Canadian hospitality design firm currently earning international accolades. I have written about their recent … Continue reading Getting it Right: an Interview with DesignAgency in Canadian Interiors magazine
There are a lot of design events happening in Canada this Fall that have caught my eye. Here are three conferences/expos that I will be attending. The World Design Summit – to be held October 16-25 at the Palais des Congrès (1001 Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle) in downtown Montréal – is a multi-faceted series of design events … Continue reading The View from Here: Three Canadian Design Events worth Attending This Fall
Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Canadian furniture designer Robin Speke, of Speke|Klein, about the firm’s practice – especially their education at Parnham College in England, the evolution of Speke Klein’s business model, and the links between design, craft and manufacturing. This is an edited version of our conversation. Given that Parnham College’s … Continue reading From Parnham to Durham: Feature Interview with Canadian Furniture-maker Robin Speke of SPEKE|KLEIN
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
This month Canadian Interiors has published “One Arm Clapping” by Michael Totzke, a short feature about John Tong’s stool design for The Drake Commissary. (See an earlier version published in the Globe & Mail here: “Toronto’s latest Drake enterprise has a familiar theme”) While it is a great article, especially in that it features the … Continue reading Asking More Questions (About the One Arm Stool)
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