Industrial chic meets crafted elegance chez Arthur Hooper’s

Today’s travels take us just over London Bridge from The Idealist Towers to a stone’s throw from Borough Market to visit Arthur Hooper’s, a Victorian fruit sellers turned modern European restaurant with world-class interiors, beautiful food, and wine by the glass. 

Industrial chic and leather and crafted wood elegance meet in this beautiful new restaurant overlooking London’s Borough Market. Featuring lighting from Idealist Modern Hero Buster & Punch, furniture from Stellar Works Utility collection by Neri & Hu, an elegant grey and black interior and art from acclaimed artists Matt Small and Dan Hillier, this is a beautiful, urban setting for a modern European restaurant.

The Idealist were lucky enough to be invited to the restaurant opening and before we got to taste the fantastic food, we were blown away by the attention to detail in the interior design. We spotted elements of Massimo Minale’s trademark style (his studio is just around the corner) the moment we walked in the door.

 This project was very close to our hearts. Our design is a glimpse into future trends in London’s most interesting larder, in the city we love

As you can see from the photos, the space has a Victorian vibe, reflecting its setting overlooking one of London’s most historic city markets. The floor is in hexagonal concrete custom tiles, the cabinetry is in rich dark wood, and Buster & Punch’s lights are in crafted steel cages.  “This project was very close to our hearts. Our design is a glimpse into future trends, whilst embracing London’s most interesting larder, in the city we love” says Massimo Minale.

There’s a suggestion of cobbled pavements in the black tufted leather benches and the table tops are marbled, recalling the marble slabs and counters of old. Furniture is by acclaimed design studio Neri & Hu for Stellar Works and is a mix of leather and wood in beautiful finishes.

The name of the restaurant pays homage to Arthur Hooper, who in Victorian times sold fruit from the building. The new menu, designed by Chef Lale Oztek, keeps it local by sourcing ingredients from Neal’s Yard, Cannon & Cannon and Bread Ahead.

We tried a burrata, samphire and almond salad and a side of harissa butter beans and charred tenderstem broccoli (both were beautiful) and were pleased to see they’ll be offering a wide range of wines from Liberty Wines by the glass — we were there at lunchtime after all! Dishes range from £4 to £16 which, given the setting, is also good to see.

Get The Look

Neri & Hu’s Utility collection can be seen here.

Pieces from their home collections are available from Heal’s here.

Buster & Punch’s lighting is available here. 

John Lewis carries a limited range of pieces including their designer LED bulbs here.

To find out more

Visit Arthur Hooper’s at 8 Stoney Street London, SE1 9AA or book a reservation via  hello@arthurhoopers.co.uk (OPENING TIMES: Monday – Saturday: 11am- 11pm, Sunday: 11am – 5pm)

Photo images of Arthur Hooper’s are courtesy Moon Ray Studio. Other photos are from designers featured.

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from The Idealist https://www.theidealist.com/industrial-chic-chez-arthur-hoopers/

Modern Heroes: George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg

Get the Industrial Chic Look with 10 of the best furniture pieces

With so much of a buzz around industrial chic, we’ve been out shopping again to find our favourite pieces. Today’s shopper for furniture is Benjamin, who’s on the look out for furniture to kit out an open plan flat. 

About the Industrial Chic Look

Industrial chic is a look we love because it adds texture, authenticity and atmosphere even when used to decorate with very small details. It’s especially suitable for people who love travel and history, and things that aren’t finished to cookie cutter perfection. Industrial chic shows its edges, and they are all a bit jagged and wonky. That’s part of their charm. It also means that you can add industrial details and pieces to any style of room – traditional, contemporary, modernist, shabby chic – and they will work their magic, adding warmth and honesty without hogging all the attention.

To recognize the hallmarks of industrial chic style, think turn-of-the-last-century Industrial Revolution life in English towns and cities. Mass production was in its infancy, but the furnishings and tools of the factory or warehouse worker were preparing the way for new efficiencies. Today, the look is expressed by mixing solid hardwoods with iron, brass or copper detailing. Pure metal pieces may feature exposed rivets and rough seams; they’ll have very few decorative embellishments. The colours are rich, but natural; textures like rusting metal and the patina of flaking paint, anything that suggests wear, are coveted.

We’ve discovered some great furniture and accessories that speak to the industrial chic aesthetic in varying intensities. Mix and match these pieces freely, but keep an eye on proportions and the subtle layering of textures.

Industrial Chic Furniture

Big tables are pretty synonymous with the industrial chic aesthetic as they so often served as working surfaces in factories, mills and farms in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This version from Oli & Grace is constructed from hardwood blocks arranged in a herringbone pattern. Black iron legs are a de rigueur nod to smithing and ironmongery. Its scale and sophisticated shape make it perfect for an open plan dining room or eat-in kitchen. £995.

 

Take a seat

These chairs echo the basic wood and iron materials of the big table with the added comfort of a curved seat and upholstery (£175). These will soften the industrial edge and refine it for the dining room. We love the look of a bench on one side of a dining table and chairs on the other (it may feel slightly Dickensian but this setup is great for kids as well). Oli & Grace’s Toby bench, with its sand-casted legs and lacquered acacia wood seat, captures that spirit perfectly. £425

A lighter take on industrial chic

For a more delicate take on industrial chic, for the kitchen perhaps, check out this zinc-trimmed table from Loaf. It’s available in medium or large, so is a good fit for most rooms (from £745).  Surround it with these soaped oak Arts and Crafts style Natterbox chairs for a less aggressive nod to industry. £230/pair

Storage and sides

We also love this vintage sideboard from Oli & Grace. It could work anywhere bits and bobs need stowing, but especially in a kitchen or dining room where additional storage is always welcome for gadgets, table linens and utensils (£395). There is a matching 10-drawer tallboy version as well. £345. Nests of tables used to be the province of Abigail’s Party style 1970s interiors, but not in this version from Swoon Editions (£179).
In a living room, juxtapose industrial chic pieces against comfortable upholstered sofas and armchairs. This Loaf Gimme side table made from reclaimed elm is also a space-saver. On tripod metal legs, it tucks discreetly to the side for cuppas and newspapers. £195

For a more in your face take on the industrial aesthetic, consider the Liston coffee table set from Oli & Grace. These have the added bonus of being from the Made in England range, so you can firmly nod to the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution! Comprised of three tables that nest or separate as required, this striking set is made from lacquered steel (note the unpolished joinery) and Georgian wire glass. £425
Finally, we love this industrial style cabinet from Swoon Editions in steel, glass, brass and deep bronze (£599). It has the relatively unusual bonus of being a deep bronze colour which adds a Steam Punk vibe to proceedings and makes a change from black, wood and steel. We love that it’s shelving, but enclosed, so you can tidy your stuff away and focus on the furniture, not your pile of old copies of Men’s Health!

 You May Also Like

• Modern colour scheme: yellow and concrete in the dining room
• Industrial Chic – Our Top 10 Finds
• Our Top 5 from Loaf’s new Spring collection!
• Copper: Get the rich, warm look this season
• Modern Heroes: Oli & Grace

The post Get the Industrial Chic Look with 10 of the best furniture pieces appeared first on The Idealist.

from The Idealist https://www.theidealist.com/top-10-industrial-chic-furniture-finds/

A unique 3-storey renovation in Bethnal Green

Today’s featured home is in London’s Bethnal Green and is a three storey house that’s been imaginatively and sensitively renovated and restyled by Sarah Thomas Interiors. In an exclusive tour of the this distinctive home renovation, she shows us how she has mixed vintage elements with a modern, open plan feel by removing some internal walls and building a distinctive scheme around key architectural and design elements which reflect the style of the owners.

About Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green is a bustling area of East London well known for Columbia Road Flower Market, some great eateries and bars and a great deal of urban renewal. There’s a mix of Georgian houses nestled alongside loft-style conversions and flats and, originally the home of workers in the furniture trade, The Old Bethnal Green Road conservation area has a particularly diverse mix of houses, flats and studios.

Anyone lucky enough to have a 3-storey house here would do well to hang onto it, but this 1970s one presented some challenges to its new owners when they moved in.

Introducing the Renovation

IDEALIST: What was the house like when its owners called you in?

Sarah: Coincidentally I lived in a similar house style when I was growing up and since I’m a bit of a fan of 60’s houses, this project suited me perfectly. 

The house was in quite bad shape – the previous owners had filled it with faux Victorian trims and fittings that all needed to be ripped out. That gave us a blank canvas to really think about the space afresh.

The house was quite dark as it had been divided up into lots of small rooms, so my main advice was to start by knocking down a few walls and create a more ‘open plan’ style of living. There was also an interesting staircase to play with which I felt we could make one of the main features in the entrance of the renovated space.

IDEALIST What was the design brief?

Sarah: My clients were a couple with mixed aesthetics: the lady’s taste was more eclectic with a love of vintage and bright colours, with some South American and African influences, while her partner had more simple, modern tastes.  This made for an interesting mix and worked well in the space. 

They already had a few key pieces of distinctive furniture such as a dining table, sofa and some beautiful leather chairs, so we built on these and curated their artwork and knickknacks into appropriate areas.   A large open plan kitchen and dining room were designed with new sliding doors to bring in light and a view into the garden.

IDEALIST: Where did you start with the work?

Sarah: We had a great builder who had worked with my clients before. He was very thorough and organised which made the whole job much easier.  Our first key stages were to decide on  which walls we could knock down and to rip out the old Artex ceilings.

We knew we needed to upgrade the electrics and plumbing. This meant we had to have an idea about the bathrooms and a rough kitchen layout, so things could start being prepared.  We also had to start thinking about the flooring, as that’s a key element that sets the tone of any room.

The house was in quite bad shape – the previous owners had filled it with faux Victorian trims and fittings that all needed to be ripped out.

IDEALIST: How much of a role did the clients take in the project? Did you bring anyone else in?

Sarah: We used an architect to redesign the front of the house and extend an inset porch area to bring it out in alignment with the face of the house.  This created another few feet of space in the entrance room which was made a big difference.  The rest of the project was a bit more organic  My clients were very involved and we had weekly site meetings together with the builder.  In between times we had creative meetings and discussions to look at what we were going to do next. I created moodboards & 3d visuals to help us all decide on final looks. Things unfolded to a certain extent as we went along, rather than us having one master plan in the beginning.  Different projects work in different ways, but this way worked very well for this project as the clients were very engaged and committed. 

Getting the Look Right

IDEALIST: What was the look you were going for?

Sarah: The idea was always to be sympathetic to the original house but also to add a bit of eclectic character and personality to the house.  My clients had lots of ‘things’ so there was already a backdrop of colour and a range of accessories that needed to be considered in the space. In other schemes it can be the case of buying and adding those pieces in afterwards.  My client definitely wanted a bit of warmth from a Mexican or South American feel and also to mix in their African art with their Pop Art.  Colour was key, as it always is with me, and I wanted to make sure there were some earthy, warm colours to mix in with the primaries, to get a good balance and not be too loud.

IDEALIST: The flooring choices you made a quite unusual. How did that come about?

Sarah: My clients wanted a poured concrete floor in the downstairs area, and the builder offered to try this. It wasn’t something he’d done before, so there was a bit of trial and error but it really worked out well.  Upstairs we ended up using an industrial parquet flooring which is something I have used before, but doesn’t seem to be widely known about. Sometimes you see it used in galleries or public spaces. It’s very thick and hardwearing and economical. It comes in thin pieces of wood that vary in shades, so you really get a nice textured feel on the floor rather than just a flat colour. We used this on the top two floors of the house and it really looks great. 

IDEALIST: What other things did you introduce or change?

Sarah: Storage was a big issue for my clients. They loved the open plan approach, but of course losing walls meant storage had to be rethought. Because the entrance was so open plan, I wanted to use a nice rich material to create storage from, so i designed some birch ply storage cupboards that also house a bench seat and shoe storage.  This was very successful and is one of my clients favourite features. 

IDEALIST: You mentioned earlier that you wanted to make a feature of the staircase. How did that work out?

Sarah: The staircase was quite a challenge as it had been boxed in with Artex panels and heavily stained and varnished, so we weren’t quite sure what we would find when we started to work with it.

Originally we had plans to paint the stairs and banisters in graphic contrasting colours, but when we had the builders sand down a section, we found the wood to be a beautiful reddish pine that had some natural patina, so we decided to keep it in it’s natural form and add in some big brass screws and washers to make a feature of it.

IDEALIST: And how did you style the rooms?

Sarah: My client already had some key pieces of furniture including some beautiful tan leather chairs with contrast bright colour legs that she had bought on holiday in Texas. They really worked well in the entrance room alongside the warm textures of rugs, sheepskins, the birch ply and wooden staircase and of course all against the backdrop of the neutral concrete floor. 

We sourced some beautiful mid blue vintage chairs to go with their existing dark brown sofa, an amazing zigzag Missoni-style vintage rug, and we used their existing modern round white coffee table which coupled nicely with some string shelving units.

IDEALIST: What was the reaction of the client?

Sarah: My clients are really happy with their space – a lot of love was put into it by myself and them and it really shows.  Having a good, reliable builder was really key to this project, he was very flexible and willing to test things out for us and come up with solutions that suited the rest of the work.  My clients now spend a lot of time at home entertaining, either together or separately – with the house being on 3 floors, there’s enough space in to disappear into your own room for some peace and quiet or to do a bit of work or studying.  One of the main things for me, is that they actually enjoyed the process – especially the creative aspects –  always knowing there was a lot of design guidance and support from me.  The final stage is to now get the garden done!

Get The Look

• Tan leather chairs with bright coloured frame legs – Garza Marfa chairs
• Eames kitchen chairs & living room blue armchairs – Atomic Antiques
• Living room sofa – Chase & Sorensen
• Rainbow shelves – Goodhood

More information

To find out more about Sarah Thomas Interiors, visit their website at  http://www.sarahthomasinteriors.com/ or email sarah@sarahthomasinteriors.com.

The post A unique 3-storey renovation in Bethnal Green appeared first on The Idealist.

from The Idealist https://www.theidealist.com/3-storey-renovation-bethnal-green/

Summery Colour Scheme: Cornfields and country lanes

Inspired by the muted colours of the English countryside, this corn fields and country lanes colour scheme features yellowed neutral tones, such as straw flower, wheat, ochre and rust. This palette works with a wide variety of architectural styles, everything from Tudor style to cottage to modern industrial. This colour scheme is particularly well-suited to homes with a large, open floor plan and is reminiscent of hazy afternoons on country roads, the slow drone of an aeroplane overhead and maybe a wicker hamper full of picnic food in the boot of the car.

About the cornfields and country lanes look

The cornfields and country lanes colour scheme evokes the look of a rural path on a mid-summer’s day. Included in this palette are quiet, neutral colours with yellow hues as well as deeper tones that add warmth to the room. You can even include muted or summer green and pink tones in this palette.

When they are mixed well, these colours create a peaceful, cheerful look that brightens most any room. To create this look, use yellowed neutral colours like straw and cream on your walls. Brick walls and fireplaces are an excellent contrast to the pale walls as are sienna or terracotta floor tiles. If you don’t want to re-do your flooring and lack a brick wall, a large ochre area rug will achieve the same effect. Accent this back drop with gentle green upholstery, pillows and cupboards. Finish with peach or pale pink-hued art and accessories.

Decorative ideas using the cornfields and country lanes look

The cornfields and country lanes look works best with dark-coloured wooden or wrought-iron furniture and rooms with abundant natural light. Books in built-in or wooden bookcases are an ideal accompaniment to this look as are a few, well-chosen works of art and accessories.

Design pieces to use with this look

1. Classic table lamp.

This light-coloured table lamp from Maisons du Monde complements the cornfields and country lanes colour palette well and the classic lines evoke a traditional British country home style but with a touch of modern elegance from the grey washed-out colour. £53.99.

2. Houston trunk.

This dark leather trunk from Feather & Black works as a stylish coffee table as well as providing ample storage and evokes a laid-back poetry and boarding school vibe. £ 625.

3.Fawn-coloured cotton pillow.

This subtle peach hued pillow from Lombok is a perfect complement to today’s colour palette. £ 38.

4.Two seater sofa.

This classic French-style love seat from Swoon with soft green upholstery is the perfect foil for the cream walls and rust-coloured flooring of today’s scheme. A pared-back interpretation of French Rococo style, the hand-carved Lille armchair was the first piece Swoon ever produced and was so popular they’ve now made it into a gorgeous sofa. £ 679.

5.Ochre rug

This deep rust-coloured rug from Habitat would make an excellent addition to an entryway leading to your central living area. £ 70.

6. Off your trolley

There’s something wonderfully retro and relaxed about this industrial-style trolley also from Swoon. We can picture it loaded with cricket gear, old hardback books, or a collection of treasured objects. £ 349.

For a fresh, cheerful look that will look appropriate year-round paint your walls a neutral, yellow-hued colour, invest in ochre or rust flooring or rugs and accent your rooms with soft green, peach and pale upholstery and accent pieces. This take on summer country lanes is all about laid back, vintage hazy afternoons.

You may also like

• French Country Living Style
• Get the Look of Soft English Meadows this Spring!
• Rich blues and creams in an Easter Bedroom Makeover
• Vibrant colour scheme: Kahlo inspired Mexican colours

 

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from The Idealist https://www.theidealist.com/colour-scheme-cornfields-country-lanes/

Idealist City Guide: NEW YORK design shopping and style

New York City is one of the style capitals of the world. If you can’t find it in the “Big Apple,” it may just not exist. The largest city in the United States is also filled with stylish galleries, hotels, restaurants and attractions. Normally found on Cape Cod, Joan takes a trip down from MA to NYC to hunt out some great stores and places to see.

Style shopping New York

Gracious Home

Gracious Home has been outfitting New York City homes and apartments since 1963. They stock everything from sofas to pillows to door hardware. If it helps decorate your home, they probably carry it. We love their extensive selection of unique lamps and lighting fixtures.

DwellStudio

DwellStudio showcases colourful furniture and housewares from around the globe. The merchandise in the store is arranged in stylish vignettes that look something like a Pinterest board come to life. We particularly like DwellStudio’s varied collection of outdoor furniture.

Room and Board

Room and Board, located in Chelsea in the former Barney’s department store space, offers 38,000-square-feet of uncrowded furniture galleries and accessories. The focus here is on contemporary design. We love their selection of wool area rugs.

Nadeau Furniture

Tucked away in Greenwich Village, Nadeau Furniture is a quirky shop which stocks one-of-a-kind furniture and accessories, many of which have been recreated by the owners using pieces salvaged and re-purposed from garage and junk sales. Their tag line “furniture with a soul” is very apt. Make sure to explore their Asian-influenced furniture and accessories.

Tiffany & Co

The iconic Fifth Avenue store which is Tiffany and Co never gets stale. The three-level luxury jewelry and housewares emporium is most famous for its baubles, but it also offers an entire floor filled with glass, silver, china and other house accessories. Plus, the stylish mahogany counters and Art Deco elevator are worth the visit. Check out the cut crystal barware.

Staying Over

While New York City hotel rooms are generally not spacious, they can be stylish. For history and location, you can’t beat the Plaza, located at the south end of Central Park and Fifth Avenue. For a more modern, hip abode, try the new Hotel on Rivington, on the city’s Lower East Side near Chelsea galleries and shopping. Each of the 110 guest rooms here is equipped with a glass shower and a Japanese soaking tub.

New York’s best Galleries and Museums

If you only have time to visit one museum while you are in New York City, make it the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This art mecca is filled with paintings, sculpture, furniture, jewelry and other art objects from cultures and eras that range from ancient Egypt to the present-day. In addition, Rockefeller Center is a must for any fan of Art Deco design and architecture, and auction giant Sotheby’s, on New York’s Upper East Side, frequently has auction previews with fine art, jewelry, furniture and other high-end items. The New York Public Library (shown above) is also worth a visit for a wide range of exhibitions on such themes as Black Power, and Broadway.

Food New York style

As with shopping in New York City, you can find almost any type of ethnic food here. However, you won’t want to leave the city without sampling an authentic New York bagels (preferably with lox, cream cheese and onion), Manhattan clam chowder, eggs Benedict (the combination of poached eggs, Canadian bacon and hollandaise sauce that was invented at the Waldorf Hotel), and the ubiquitous (yet delicious) hot dogs that are sold from carts all over the city.

Must-See Things in Town

You could stay a month (or a year) in New York City and not be able to visit all of the exciting attractions in this “city that never sleeps.” However, if you only have a few days, be sure to visit Central Park, the beautiful landscaped oasis in the heart of the city; cruise around New York Harbour and view the skyline and the Statue of Liberty from this unique angle; and take in a Broadway play in one of the iconic theatres that surround Times Square.

How to Visit from London

It’s easy to get to New York City from London. A myriad of airlines offer non-stop flights between London’s two airports and New York City’s three air fields. These include British Airways, Air India, United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic. Airfares start at around £360.

New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport is about 45 minutes away from downtown Manhattan by taxi. There is also an affordable shuttle that connects the airport with Grand Central Station in the heart of Mid-town.

The post Idealist City Guide: NEW YORK design shopping and style appeared first on The Idealist.

from The Idealist https://www.theidealist.com/idealist-city-guide-new-york-design-shopping-style/

Idealist City Guide: MANCHESTER

Get the Look: Citrine and Olive in this Vitra-inspired living room

Some colour combinations are loaded: with meaning, with vitality, with nostalgia for a specific era in time. Such a combo is citrine and olive, the sunny golden yellow and rich deep green of the Mediterranean.

Citrine takes its name from the coloured quartz which can occur in a range of yellows. Olive, of course, is the deep rich green of the leaves and fruit of the olive tree. Together they create a perfect balance that we’ve seen put to good use by interior designers of the mid-century modern era, such as the Eames and George Nelson, for companies like Vitra.

Vitra is the Swiss family-owned company whose name is synonymous with streamlined and liveable design for residential and commercial interiors. Founded in 1950, Vitra began collaborating with great designers from the outset – early partnerships with Charles and Ray Eames and Nelson set the tone for years to come. Today Vitra is renowned for well-made furniture and its work with designers that reinterpret the values of the past in designs that are made for modern living.

A perfect example is the modular sofa designed by Vitra regular Jasper Morrison. It offers maximum comfort and flexibility – add seating and a chaise or ottoman as you wish.

The sleek, angular unit goes well with the strong round contours of this blonde wood Guéridon Bas coffee table designed by Jean Prouvé.

Over the years Vitra made full use of new technologies in moulded plastic and these occasional chairs by Jasper Morrison are a good example of the state of the art. They are reminiscent of a classic wooden chair, but are solidly indoor/outdoor and have a sophisticated built-in flex mechanism and a choice of two-tone colouring. And this handsome Hal Ply wood chair, also by Morrison, is a curvier iteration of the dining chair.

Vitra pieces are well-made, very attractive, and worth every penny. But you can also get a similar look on the high street with lower priced versions sourced elsewhere. We’ve discovered some great comparable pieces for a Vitra-inspired living room in shades of citrine and olive with pale wood accents.

Take this yellow fabric sofa from Habitat, for example. Sunny yellow, it features comfy cushions and a sleek profile, with a chaise extension on the left and wooden legs, £765. Habitat also carries a slightly more formal version – more formally tufted, this modular unit can be upholstered in either green or citrine (and a bunch of other colours).

When it comes to anchor pieces of furniture for your living room, it’s important to choose colours for your comfort level – you have to live with them after all. Select a more neutral tone with the odd citrine or deep green accent, or go for the boldest colour and temper it with other furnishings and accessories in more muted shades.

Either way the Vitra-inspired look we’re building from today features lots of pale wood – as in this oak coffee table from Choice. £195 Or go straight to the source for Vitra’s Noguchi classic coffee table in maple and glass, £1260. Chairs in the Vitra tradition, like these natural oak veneer ones from Habitat, are also an option. £60

We also suggest adding smaller accent pieces in natural materials like these pale beech wooden bowls, or even greenery in terra cotta pots relocated from the garden (these one are personalized too!), to add texture and dimension to the room. £15/£30 Textiles that pick up on the citrine and olive theme can easily be made into curtains or soft furnishings to pull the entire look together. This yardage is available at John Lewis; it has the requisite retro feel as well. £17.60/metre

The Vitra look is sophisticated and warm; aspiring to its streamlined and classic values will land you in a living room to be proud of.

You may also like

• The new House of Holland range brings it home with bursts of colour
• Keen as Mustard – Our Favourite Finds
• Modern colour scheme: yellow and concrete in the dining room

Vitra product images are (c) Vitra; all others courtesy of retailers featured.

The post Get the Look: Citrine and Olive in this Vitra-inspired living room appeared first on The Idealist.

from The Idealist https://www.theidealist.com/vitra-citrine-olive/

Concrete luxury in a beautiful Scandi renovation

When we wrote our city guide to Stockholm, one of the places we didn’t know about was At Six, in Stockholm’s Brunkebergstorg Square. Opening this month, it’s an amazing transformation of a brutalist 1970s high rise building that previously housed the HQ of Swedbank, although unlike the new Ned Hotel built within the former Midland Bank in London, it is at least a building that was originally designed as a hotel, but until now has never been used as one. Like most places, Stockholm suffered/enjoyed (depending on your viewpoint) the sweeping zeal for brutalism in the 1970s, which led to many belle époque squares being replaced by concrete.

The owners have approached the renovation with real imagination. They tell us it will house one of Europe’s most ambitious modern art collections (and mention the likes of Julian Opie, Sol Le Witt, and Tacita Dean) which will be curated by Sune Nordgren, formerly of Gateshead’s BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and the interior has been reimagined by London’s Universal Design Studio and features local and classic furniture, custom lighting and local wood. This was no simple makeover though – they also added three new floors to the building, a bunch of restaurants, a gym and a wellness centre.

The look throughout is sympathetic to brutalism, but has touches of luxury throughout: think sawn stone, blackened steel, polished granite and rich timber. Universal’s brief was to humanise the building: adding touches of luxury and elegance to what would otherwise be a stark building to reinvent the grand hotel of old for the modern age.

Get the Look at Home

We love the look that Universal have achieved in the At Six hotel. We also have a soft spot for concrete, brutalism and rich midcentury furniture, so we love that they’ve worked ‘with the grain’ by celebrating the building rather than hiding it. Here’s how to take inspiration from some of Universal’s ideas.

1. Don’t be scared of grey

The starting point of the redesign of the hotel was the architectural context of the city square it sits in and the béton brut of the building itself. Rather rather turning its back on the grey of concrete, they’ve embraced it. Grey can be a warm and rich-looking colour if used right. We’ve featured concrete shades of paint before and there’s even concrete-style wallpaper you can get hold of to add texture to a scheme too. We also love this faux fur throw from Feather & Black which gives elegant cosiness to a monochrome scheme. Don’t overdo it with grey: the trick in the hotel is to contrast grey with classic furniture, light colours and punchy art.

For some bright art prints that sit well with modern schemes, take a look here.

2. Add pieces that look luxury

Black, walnut, copper, brass and marble are all really in vogue right now and bring a rich luxury feel to any bedroom or living room scheme. We’ve featured Tom Dixon lighting in a number of our shopping guides and we’re big fans of Buster & Punch too. Whatever you do, make sure you tie it together well — gold, copper and brass for example all together work well but too many metals can look cheap.

3. Play with scale and mass

An interesting aspect of these high-end design schemes is the contrast between elegant, fine accessories with chunky, solid woods and marbles. We love the chunky smoked glass and metal accessories on this coffee table.

4. All white bathrooms are boring

There’s much more bathroom choice on the high street than there used to be both in colours, materials and finishes. You may not be able to stretch to a carved marble free-standing bath like here, but marble and marble effect tiles or deep grey floor tiles can add a spot of luxury to a regular bathroom. Remember the duplex makeover we saw with the Japanese bath? We love these Statuario tiles from Topps tiles made of pure white natural Italian marble.

Getting there

If you’d like to stay at the At Six hotel, take a look at their website. They have 343 (beautifully designed) rooms. Flights to Stockholm from London Stansted via Ryanair start at £42. Easyjet flies from Luton and British Airways from Heathrow.

You may also like

• Modern colour scheme: yellow and concrete in the dining room
• Tom Dixon x Bemz for IKEA
• Introducing a new concept in hotels for ‘tripsters’: Jo & Joe

All hotel photos from At Six are (c) and courtesy Andy Liffner.

The post Concrete luxury in a beautiful Scandi renovation appeared first on The Idealist.

from The Idealist https://www.theidealist.com/concrete-luxury-scandi-renovation/

Welcome to the Tripster Surf Hotel on the Côte d’Argent

When we featured new tripster hotel brand Jo & Joe, we were expecting the first hotels to be in sensible cities popular with travelling urbanites such as Paris or Barcelona. So we’re really excited to hear that they’ve taken the cool vibe up a notch further by teaming up with Quiksilver and Roxy by opening a surf hotel just up the coast from Biarritz on France’s Côte d’Argent.

Surf’s Up

We’re promised the vibe will be open bars, hammocks, surf boarding, water sports and local beer and food. Home to multiple surf schools, yachting and miles of Atlantic coastline, Hossegor is host to thousands of surfers every year and Jo & Joe has been designed to reflect the surfer vibe and accommodate groups and singles in shared sleeping spaces and individual rooms. This isn’t the place for quiet retreats and reflection, but they promise yoga and running, cooking and workshops alongside the focus on surfing.

Open Bars

The interiors from PENSON have been taken further with the Quiksilver and Roxy brands — think open bars, hammocks and a huge garden — and they’ve really thought about how to integrate surfing (the vibe and the practicalities: there’s storage for boards and lockers for stuff) and they tell us that surfing masterclasses from big name athletes will be on offer.

This isn’t what we imagined: we thought the surfers would be couch surfers and web surfers, so the focus on activity breaks and beers, beach and waves is a great twist. The interior finish is a great mix of bare wood, metal and bursts of technicolor and the design is bursting with funky artwork and eye-catching details. This is the PENSON trademark style to the max. We love it!

Getting there

The closest airport to Hossegor is Biarritz which is served by Ryanair from Stansted and Easyjet from Gatwick.  Prices to stay start from 19 euros per night in the shared areas and 59 euros in private rooms and can be booked at joandjoe.com

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The post Welcome to the Tripster Surf Hotel on the Côte d’Argent appeared first on The Idealist.

from The Idealist https://www.theidealist.com/welcome-tripster-surf-hotel-cote-dargent/

World-class elegance and liveability from Space Copenhagen

It’s not often you get to sit on chairs designed for the people behind Noma, voted for four years the world’s best restaurant. But with the new collection from Space Copenhagen, inspired by the chair they designed for Noma spin-off, Restaurant 108 in Copenhagen, you can have a slice of Noma for keeps.

Space Copenhagen

There’s a lounge chair, dining chair, side chair, dining table and coffee table all with that trademark beautiful finish redolent of relaxed high-end living. But these aren’t just furniture pieces to be admired from a distance. Design duo Signe Bindslev Henriksen and Peter Bundgaard Rützou are passionate about functional furniture, designed for comfort, living and fitting in with the realities of family life — this is elegance with liveability.

Introducing Slow

We caught up with Peter and Signe to find out more about them and the story behind their Slow Collection. Their inspiration is a mix of mid-century Danish and classic Japanese design. The collection is a tribute to heritage and craft, while remaining modern and comfortable. The wood is rich walnut and ash, and seating features thick leather to maximise comfort. The style throughout is understated luxury.

IDEALIST: Can you tell us about how you came to work on the Slow Collection that you’re launching today?

Signe: Peter and I have known each other for more than twenty years dating back to our time at the Danish Academy’s School of Architecture. Not long after finishing school we started our businesses and in a small city such as Copenhagen, we became each other’s best competitor very fast. So ten years ago we decided to join forces and here we are today. That’s a very short version of the past twenty years!

Peter: I think one of the things that stood out was that our focus was on something in Copenhagen and Scandinavia that nobody else really did. You had a lot of architecture companies but none of them were handling the intermediate scale between design and architecture. It was a very mutual passion of ours: the place where crafts, the detail, the presentation of the textures meet. It was something we had as a mutual interest and we bonded on that from the very beginning. It became the basis and the focus of our practice and I think we were about the first that really focused in this way and applied such thinking to hotels and restaurants. There was almost no competition at the time. And since we were friends as well it made sense to team up. We also appreciated each other’s opinions and the dynamics of the dialogue itself and I think we benefitted tremendously from the duality of being two sexes and you could say about our work that the aspect of contrast is very important.

IDEALIST: So, when we met downstairs just now, it was the first time you’d seen the new finished furniture collection together. Is that right?

Signe: Yes. But it’s very often like that. It’s a very exciting moment. We originally did these chairs for a restaurant in Copenhagen that opened last summer so this has been going on for a while. We started with the dining chair and that’s how many of our furniture products originate: from a project with a certain intention of a space or a collaboration with a client.

When you see the first prototype chairs, you then you need to go through all these different tests because one thing is the beauty of the details, but it is also about functionality. Given their slender form, we need to ensure they are sturdy enough to be sold in the market for commercial projects.

Peter: In the past, Milan was used to showcase prototypes, but increasingly designers are showing their finished work, so there is additional pressure to show pieces that are truly ready and not just aesthetically ready.

IDEALIST: And you were showing me downstairs how you have a range of different woods in a range of different colours. How do you decide the woods and stains to use and how does it all come together?  

Signe: It’s very much the way we’ve always worked. I think many of our projects look very different but there’s one consistent thread —  and that’s the passion for material. For as long as we can remember we’ve worked with different treatments, such as different types of woods and different stains, different smokes, different lacquers, different oils, different ways of actually showing the beauty of the wood. And that also goes for the metal. In the dining table, you saw how the metal is inserted into the table top: it’s a darkened metal in a certain colour and tone. All these kinds of things we’ve always been extremely fascinated about.

We feel there is a certain luxury in that slowness, that intimacy which is connected to the slowness of a wonderful meal or the slowness of a chair changing its character over the years.

Peter: We also tend to go quite soft in terms of colours. The Slow idea is translated into the materials and the way they appear is that they’re not aggressive. It should be that you don’t grow tired of the colours and design. There are a lot of colours used that are fashionable but will not endure. For that reason we very often go with natural colours, with the qualities that a certain wood has and then we then complement that with the darker finishes. When we go into the leathers, we have a tendency to go for the complementary blacks, the browns and the grays. A certain aspect of our look is being neutral and at the same time being fun. So, I think that’s something we tend to go back to over and over again. When you buy a piece like ours, our intention is you should actually keep it for a long time and it withstand the challenges of everyday life and the changing rooms and fashions, living a very long life.  

IDEALIST: So, everything is also very liveable?

Signe: One of the reasons why the collection is called Slow is because everything seems to go so fast around us in the modern world. We feel there is a certain luxury in that slowness, that intimacy which is connected to the slowness of a wonderful meal or the slowness of a chair changing its character over the years. In a market where everything is substituted very fast, we feel that there is a certain beauty in investing in something and keeping it for a long time, so the collection is also about celebrating slow in many ways.  

IDEALIST: It seems every season there’s a new Scandi word that we should live by. Last year it was hygge and now it’s lagom, we’re told. Is the vogue for these things just crazy to you, just silly?  

Peter: I don’t think we relate to that in particular. We’re quite aware that the world is certainly interested in Scandinavia at the moment but you have to remember growing up there is different because it has been our reality which means we don’t consciously enforce the values that become vogueish: they are just unavoidable for us. They’re part of our way of thinking. I think we just basically come in with our background and a certain upbringing and then apply it with the curiosity that has to do with everything else. I think it’s the infusion or the confrontation with different cultures into a very set and sturdy and heavy Scandinavian background. That’s where we get the work from: it’s that dialogue between different cultures from overseas and our home.

IDEALIST: Is there one designed object to see and think ‘I wish I’d made that’?

Signe: I think that’s probably a very difficult question to answer but I think the answer is that there’s a lot. I think we find that there’s so much beautiful especially actually historic pieces out there and we actually talk a lot about that when we look back at our Scandinavian heritage but also in general: there’s a lot of modern heritage furniture that was extremely daring.

There was something very playful about many of these iconic pieces but we are always relaxed about the origin of designs: we don’t see ourselves as Scandi, for instance. For us, coming from a small country we’ve always travelled abroad and all the pieces that you see now and also in our past are inspired by Africa or Japan or American industrial design, for example. We’ve always been influenced by different cultures and we still feel that’s a very important value: to take inspiration and curiosity instead of looking back at history. It’s about being open to the world and being constantly curious about what’s going on.

IDEALIST: You’re not going to name one favourite, are you?

Peter: No, but I think it’s because the whole idea of favourites is questionable. Even within your own range, your mood changes It’s not just about saying what I like, it’s just saying that the complexity is exactly what makes it worthwhile.

It also means that there’s a multitude of things that I might find fascinating but they do different things for me and I can’t compare them. There is something about Japanese design and architecture that works amazingly when you’re Scandinavian because there is a mirror effect but there is also that curiosity around difference. There is recognition somehow because we’ve seen it but then they do it so differently so there’s also that curiosity and that’s very interesting because you certainly find yourself into this kind of momentum where you’re both looking but you’re also thinking and that’s very stimulating.

IDEALIST:  Both traditions have a really strong respect for natural materials and craftsmanship.  

Signe: Yes, definitely and very often when we go to Japan we see they definitely have the feel and attraction to Danish design and they see that Danish furniture works very well within their very traditional buildings.  But the funny thing is that many Danish designers were originally inspired by everything in Japan, so there is a dialogue somehow which has become a part of our mutual history. And there is a certain slowness, a certain filtering of detailing and very subtle ornamenting. So we have that, we share that belief or passion in these two very different countries.  

Peter: What we hope for example with a chair is that once somebody acquires it it should be open for whatever happens to it and the life of the chair actually contributes to its beauty — that small dent that somebody makes, that stain that becomes part of it  — and all of a sudden out of thirty years that chair has not only survived, it has history and at that point something amazing happens. That’s also what we feel when we visit classic cities such as here in Italy. There is an abundance of life and history in Italy: cities that show the traces of time and all of the life that’s been lived within them and that’s just something beautiful you cannot beat.

To find out more

You can see Space Copenhagen’s range, from design and furniture to architecture and interiors here.

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Photos are (c) and courtesy Joachim Wichmann (portrait and restaurant 108) and Slow collection by Space Copenhagen for Stellar Works.

The post World-class elegance and liveability from Space Copenhagen appeared first on The Idealist.

from The Idealist https://www.theidealist.com/space-copenhagen/