Explore An East Harlem Townhouse Shaped By Color And Collaboration

Color takes the lead in measured ways inside an East Harlem townhouse owned by Gordon Espinet, a longtime creative force at MAC Cosmetics, and his partner Jonathan Ledoux. Saturated hues are layered through finishes and forms; a deep blue gloss anchors the dining room, tile accents enliven the guest rooms, and sunlight threads through the length of the home, linking each space with a warm, intuitive rhythm. The design was spearheaded by Melissa Miller and Helen Lazic of LAMILL Design, whose creative history with Espinet traces back to their shared backgrounds in the beauty industry—Miller’s at Estée Lauder, and Lazic’s alongside Espinet at MAC—where a collective visual shorthand was cultivated over years of collaboration.

“Gordon and Helen both worked at MAC for many years,” says Miller. “Gordon was the SVP of make-up artistry and training, and Helen was the VP of the store design department. As they were both under the same creative umbrella, their aesthetic sensibilities inevitably meshed.” Miller, who was VP of retail store development at Estée Lauder, collaborated with Lazic on the development of all freestanding stores and their openings for close to 18 years.

Creating A Tranquil Yet Playful East Harlem Townhouse

From the outset, the design process was built on trust and familiarity. “The clients had very clear ideas of what they wanted their space to feel like,” says Miller. “They leaned towards having a tranquil and playful space with simple, clean details, and open and lit spaces.” The couple also wanted a home that could support entertaining, showcase artwork and collected furniture from their travels, and feel connected yet layered. Color played a defining role, with Espinet leading its placement throughout. Drawing from his years in makeup artistry, he introduced vibrant accents in thoughtful doses—balanced against wood, neutral finishes, and natural light.

Before the renovation, the house was portioned into small, light-starved rooms. “We wanted to open up the spaces so that they were linked by the light coming from the front and back of the house so that the new spaces would feel united and lend to the feeling of a single-family home,” Miller explains. The narrow footprint limited the number of partitions, so transitions between rooms were defined instead by texture, material, and color—soft lighting and wood in the kitchen, high-gloss paint surrounding a full-width sliding door in the dining room.

Glimpse Interiors Defined By Texture + Color

Upstairs, the approach was similarly calibrated. Each room carries its own mood, tailored to different levels of privacy and use. The guest rooms are more open and expressive, with lively tile accents and visual connections to the hallways. The back library and primary suite feel more introspective—designed as retreat spaces with quieter, more focused energy.

Lighting, too, was deeply intentional. “The owners were very specific about the lighting,” says Miller. “We went with a very low number of recessed lights and focused on the strategic placement of the decorative pendant fixtures and task lighting.” She adds: “They wanted it to be complementary and background to the finishes and architecture.” With entertaining in mind, the team also established a series of zones throughout the home—each suited to gatherings of different scales, but still unified by natural light flowing in from the north and south ends. The home is at once open and attuned—shaped by history, filtered through light, and expressed in color.

Inside An East Harlem Gem Transformed By Creative Synergy

5 High-Concept Apartments Across The Globe

High-concept apartments across the globe, from an eras-mixing Paris aerie to a food-themed Prague two-bedroom, are truly transporting.

Be Transported To These Design-Forward Apartments Around The World

Apartment by Beef Architekti

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Repeating a handful of elements netted a cohesive scheme in a Nidau, Switzerland, apartment for a young family. Vertically slatted paneling—most of it painted a dusky rose that’s sweet but not saccharine—distinguishes the kitchen, bath, and custom built-ins, with recessed pulls whose X-shape recurs as wall art. Oak millwork is another constant, most prominently an oversize porthole that provides a sight line from the entry into the living area and doubles as bench seating for the dining table.

Duplex by Architects Office

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Clever interventions and a dose of Brazilian modernism tether this renovated Recife, Brazil, duplex to its beachside locale. The staircase was relocated from a tucked-away corner to a more central spot, where it forms a fluid sculptural element that’s neatly echoed in sinuous furnishings including Jader Almeida sofas and a carved-marble cocktail table by Estúdio Bola. A bathroom vanity floated in front of the window wall allows daily ablutions to be performed with an uninterrupted view of the liminal boundary between ocean and sky.

Pied-À-Terre by Da Bureau

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The local firm crafted a sprawling three-bedroom pied-à-terre in St. Petersburg, Russia, with the flexibility to host everything from activities of daily life to intimate gatherings and rambunctious parties (there’s even a DJ station). The largely open plan is cleverly divvied into discrete zones via strategically placed partitions and roundabout circulation paths rather than doors. As for materiality, stark raw concrete walls meet refined stainless-steel details and built-in, fire engine–red storage.

Apartment by Atelier Leymarie x Studio Weiss

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Architect Chloé Leymarie and curator/artist François Weiss revived a 17th-century apartment in Paris—nestled on an island in the middle of the Seine, a stone’s throw from the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris—to its former Grand Siècle glory. The warm tone of recreated oak boiserie extends into the bedrooms and private areas in the form of fabric-covered walls, while vintage furnishings like 1940’s modernist gems and an art deco dining set speak to other eras, creating the sense the property has been in the same hands for generations.

Apartment by Iva Hájková Studio

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Located in a building that once housed butcheries, this two-bedroom apartment in Prague is, at first glance, the picture of sober elegance. But it hides playful Easter eggs for those in the know: Chrome and stainless-steel accents bring a soft-gray sheen reminiscent of meat-shop knives and metal counters, tubular pinkish-brown pendant shades evoke sausage links, the kitchen’s terrazzo backsplash recalls chunky country pâté, and condiments like barbecue sauce and mustard inspired the accent colors of soft furnishings.

Catch The Waves At This Airy La Jolla Coastal Escape

It started as solely a kitchen renovation. A surf-loving couple and their three grown children needed better flow within the double galley layout at their La Jolla, California, vacation home. Goil Amornvivat and Thomas Morbitzer of New York-based AMMOR Architecture, which the clients knew from working with the firm on their Manhattan pied-à-terre, were called in to help. As the project began, however, other design snafus throughout the three-story, 2,200-square-foot residence became apparent, and AMMOR’s scope expanded to a gut renovation.

The beach house is on a corner lot, but, because of a corridor preserved to maintain unobstructed Pacific Ocean views, it’s exceptionally narrow. Attempts to wedge conventional furniture into the living areas and bedrooms left them cramped and awkward. So, AMMOR formulated a series of multipurpose built-ins that allow each space to expand and contract in both occupancy and use. “Everything is like a Swiss army knife,” says Bangkok-born Amornvivat, who looked to traditional Chinese daybeds to inspire con­vertible seating-cum-beds for two such rooms, high traffic zones in the daytime due to their bathroom access; else­where, benches and stairways incorporate drawers. In general, the architects kept the new bleached-walnut mill­work “long, linear, and pulled toward the edges of the house,” he adds, like in the living room, where an expanded gas fireplace now meets a hearth with integrated cabinetry, including a hidden charging station for devices.

Surf’s Up At This La Jolla Beach Home by AMMOR Architecture

The seaside location also contributed to how Amornvivat and Morbitzer determined the material palette. To avoid corrosion via salt spray through the terrace doors and picture windows, wood, as opposed to metal, builds most of the furnishings, down to handles and pulls. In fact, durability is a focus for the interiors overall—flooring, for example, ranges from porcelain tile to rugs in nylon, polyamide, or wool—due to both the environment and the family’s active lifestyle; a large surf shower for changing out of wetsuits conveniently adjoins the laundry area. Throughout, the architects kept fabric colors neutral, including the entry’s reupholstered Rodolfo Dordoni settee, to showcase the ocean vistas.

“This is where family members come to chill out, it couldn’t be too formal,” Morbitzer notes. “They’re not necessarily hosting dinner parties, but they’ll have a lot of people over for dinner.” If those visits turn into sleepovers, visitors can stay between a top-floor loft and the three guest bedrooms, which sleep a total of nine. Storage is cleverly built to the exact dimensions of their carry-on luggage.

Enjoy The Views At This Beach Escape By AMMOR Architecture

FROM FRONT BURKE DECOR: TABLE, CHAIRS (KITCHEN), CHAIR (GUEST BEDROOM). MIELE: APPLIANCES (KITCHEN). DEKTON: SOLID SURFACING. BRIZO: SINK FITTINGS (KITCHEN, BATHROOM). MOOOI: RUG (LIVING ROOM). PHILLIP JEFFRIES: GRASS CLOTH. SPARK: FIREPLACE. CONCRETE COLLABORATIVE: FIREPLACE TILE. SAMSUNG: TV. CB2: WHITE TABLES. THIBAUT: BENCH FABRIC (SITTING ROOM, BATHROOM). RBW: SCONCE (SITTING ROOM). MAHARAM: SETTEE FABRIC, PILLOW FABRIC (ENTRY). MARK ALEXANDER: HEADBOARD FABRIC (MAIN BEDROOM). DWR: RUG, SCONCE. LARSEN: HEADBOARD FABRIC (GUEST BEDROOM). JUNIPER: SCONCES (GUEST BEDROOM, MAIN BATHROOM). VISUAL COMFORT: CEILING FIXTURE (LOFT). LG: APPLIANCES (LAUNDRY). RUGGABLE: RUG. THROUGHOUT ROCA: FLOOR TILE. FLOR: CARPET TILE. KNOLL; ZINC: PILLOW FABRICS. BENJAMIN MOORE & CO.: PAINT. HIGHLINE CONSTRUCTION & RENOVATION: GENERAL CONTRACTOR. 

Ghislaine Viñas Transforms A 1980s Home Into A Joyful Retreat

Who doesn’t appreciate a healthy dose of happiness? Design-wise, nobody brings it on like Ghislaine Viñas. That special talent is what’s kept one repeat client coming back for more, first hiring her to design their Manhattan loft, then their Palm Beach, Florida, condominium, and now a five-bedroom residence in Pound Ridge, an hour’s drive north of New York City. Third time’s a charm—and, to riff on the proverb, charming, too.

The property certainly didn’t start out that way. The 1980’s-built home, set on a wooded 5 ½-acre site, was generously sized, at 6,000 square feet spread across three levels, one below grade. But it was nondescript to the point of drab, with pervasive dark-wood flooring. “It did not exude joy,” Viñas summarizes. So she devised a dynamic overhaul that would marry her signature pop with the family’s love of mid-century design—particularly the wife, whose taste was honed by growing up amid vaunted masterworks. “My methodology is to extract what I can from myself and combine it with what the client wants,” Viñas explains. Here, the shared vision entailed establishing a crisp envelope, with whitewashed walls and Scandinavian-style pale-oak flooring, to offset the jolts of blue, green, and orange the homeowners favored.

Ghislaine Viñas’s Bold Design Brings Joy To This 1980s Home

Although Viñas preserved the existing floor plan and eschewed structural work—“no need for wasteful changes”—she did tweak some details. Out went traditional molding and baseboards, in came strong vertical banding via wall paneling and hand-painted stripes. She also introduced the clients to her pal Alan Barlis, principal of BarlisWedlick Architects, who executed additional interventions with firm associate Jessie Goldvarg. “Our work was at the edges and the outdoors,” Barlis says, describing a scope that included extensive landscaping and hardscaping, some 2,500 square feet of decks and patios, and new interior/exterior connections. The BWA team also transformed a 550-square-foot erstwhile garage into a bright, Scandi-inspired guest barn. 

Viñas studiously avoided mid-century-mod clichés by comingling recherché vintage items with custom creations from her own drawing board. In the living room, for instance, a bespoke white-oak coffee table—with the delightful surprise of colorful inset boxes—sits comfortably alongside Joseph D’Urso chairs, a Warren Platner ottoman, and a lamp by Dutch outfit Atelier Van Lieshout (Viñas is Dutch and grew up in South Africa). Fellow Netherlander Piet Hein Eek’s 11-foot chandelier, composed of mismatched glass shades, anchors the main stairway, now graced with a more fluid railing. On the landing, an Eero Saarinen settee faces off with a Richard Woods art credenza. Meanwhile, Viñas tamed the large scale of the main bedroom with a double headboard—the front layer upholstered, the back one wood-paneled. 

Fusing Color With Timeless Style

Surprisingly, Viñas’s favorite moments fall in the house’s lower level, starting with the moody green-and-blue board-and-batten staircase that leads down to the bottom floor. “It’s like a tunnel to happiness,” Viñas comments. This level, now with 16-foot sliding doors that connect to a new pool terrace by way of a garden, contains game and media rooms as well as the husband’s office. For a work break, nothing beats gazing at Robert Rauschenberg’s Platter from the incomparable comfort of a Charles and Ray Eames lounge.

Tour This New York Home by Ghislaine Viñas + BarlisWedlick Architects

Explore The Home’s Lower Level Inviting Moments Of Joy

FROM FRONT KNOLL: SETTEE (LANDING), SWIVEL CHAIRS, LOUNGE CHAIR, OTTOMAN (LIVING ROOM), SOFA (BARN). HBF TEXTILES: SOFA FABRIC (LANDING, MEDIA ROOM, BARN). EMISSARY: CURVED TABLE (LANDING). CHRISTIAN HAAS: TALL TABLE. JONATHAN ADLER: RUG. ARONSON’S FLOOR COVERING: RUGS (LIVING ROOM, BEDROOM). HOLLAND & SHERRY: SWIVEL CHAIR FABRIC (LIVING ROOM). MOOOI: FLOOR LAMP. WORKSTEAD: SCONCES. THE RUG COMPANY: CUSTOM RUG (MEDIA ROOM). NAULA DESIGN: CUSTOM OTTOMAN (MEDIA ROOM), CUSTOM BED (BEDROOM), CUSTOM OTTOMAN (BARN). MAHARAM: OTTOMAN FABRIC (MEDIA ROOM). SUITE NY: SOFA. PASTOE: CABINETS (MEDIA ROOM, BARN). RICHARD WOODS: CREDENZA (LANDING). THE FUTURE PERFECT: PENDANT FIXTURES (LANDING, KITCHEN). RBW: SCONCES (BASEMENT STAIRCASE, MUDROOM). FLAVOR PAPER: WALLPAPER (MUDROOM, BEDROOM). COLLECTOR NYC: CUSTOM CABINET FABRICATION (MUDROOM). INDUSTRY WEST: STOOLS (KITCHEN). 57 ST. DESIGN: NIGHTSTAND (BEDROOM). ISAMU NOGUCHI: TABLE LAMP. DESIGNTEX: BED FRAME FABRIC. CONTARDI USA: READING LIGHT. ANOTHER COUNTRY: TABLE (BARN). DESIGN WITHIN REACH: CHAIRS. ZERO LIGHTING: PENDANT FIXTURES. ARTISTIC TILE: BACKSPLASH TILE. LUCY TUPU: CUSTOM RUG. SVENSKT TENN: OTTOMAN FABRIC. HERMAN MILLER: LOUNGE CHAIR (OFFICE). ARTEK: STOOL. KASTHALL: RUG. PIERRE PAULIN: ARMCHAIRS. ROMO: ARMCHAIR FABRIC.  LA CHANCE X NOTE DESIGN STUDIO: STOOL. RS BARCELONA: PING-PONG TABLE. THROUGHOUT SHERWIN-WILLIAMS COMPANY: PAINT. ACARA CONSTRUCTION: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

Reflective Surfaces Add Intrigue To A Fashionable Dublin Home

Dublin’s southern suburbs have an enviable stock of handsome semidetached houses—pairs of single-family dwellings that share a common wall. A couple living in one of these two-story homes bought its neighbor a few years ago, hoping to combine them someday. Now, with two teenage children and a steady stream of guests, that time had come.

“They’re a hospitable family who loves hosting dinners and having people stay,” begins designer Róisín Lafferty, founder and creative director of her eponymous firm, which collaborated with Ambient Architecture on merging the two properties—but not necessarily permanently. As Ambient’s founder and principal Stefan Hoeckenreiner explains, “The idea was that it could convert back into two separate houses to accommodate different family configurations or even be passed on to the children.” With that in mind, each half retained its entrance and staircase, while openings in the dividing wall were kept to a minimum and made reversible. An existing one-story extension at the back of the original home was matched by an addition to the new one, “creating a central courtyard that opens up the view to the rear garden,” Hoeckenreiner continues.

How Róisín Lafferty and Ambient Architecture Transform A Dublin Home

For Lafferty, the challenge was achieving “a seamless blend of the two properties” while retaining “a lot of the proportions of the existing houses,” which could have meant “a lot of rooms and a lot of doors,” she says with a laugh. So the designer banished traditional portals, moldings, and baseboards, instead specifying a series of plain floor-to-ceiling doors that integrate seamlessly with the surrounding walls whether open or closed. This, Lafferty confirms, “was one of the biggest investments of the entire project,” but essential for the sense of “free flow” she was adamant the interiors possess. The former front parlors, now connected by a full-height doorway, illustrate the strategy. The back wall of both spaces—dubbed the reading and music rooms, respectively—features a continuous, blue-painted bookcase, making them feel like a single volume when the door is open. And since the oversize panel is the same color as the shelving, it appears to be part of the built-in millwork when sitting flush against it.

Along with the two front rooms and stair halls, the residence includes a sitting room, dining area, kitchen, and media room on the ground floor, plus four bedrooms, a homework room, and an office upstairs—4,400 square feet in all.

Garden Views Balance The Home’s Neutral Palette

Another priority was “maximizing views of the garden from the main living spaces,” Lafferty continues. What might have ended up a narrow corridor at the rear was ingeniously turned into the airy sitting room. A deep book-lined recess, outfitted with a built-in sofa, faces an imposing marble fireplace, flanked by glass walls framing the verdant backyard vista. “We knew it was premium real estate for looking at the garden,” the designer observes. “But it was also the point of connection between the houses, and we wanted to celebrate that.” This included cladding the room’s upper walls and ceiling with bronze-tinted mirror—an unexpected choice that creates a feeling of height, space, and, by reflecting the outdoor greenery, being in nature. Lafferty admits the clients weren’t convinced at first, fearing “mirror would be too glitzy,” but she persuaded them to stay the course. “For me, mirror is magic,” she says, and in fact uses it throughout to enlarge rooms or bring in natural light. “It’s not a decorative finish but very much part of how you experience the spaces.”

The base palette is fairly neutral: floors of polished concrete or limed oak, also found on some walls; subtle greens, blues, and taupes, especially in the main bedroom suite, which Lafferty describes as “an oasis of calm.” But in many areas, the chromatic intensity is deliberately turned up. “I was looking to capture the family’s energy and sense of fun with additions of saturation,” she acknowledges. Primary colors and vivid tones appear throughout, sometimes in small flourishes, like the crimson dining table, and sometimes much bigger ones, like a whole room painted a single shade. “I’m very impressed they allowed me to make the office bright red,” she says of the second-floor workspace, a true study in scarlet. In the main bathroom, however, hues and textures are layered: The swirling reds, browns, and coppers of the Brazilian quartzite sink and floor are complemented by ochre-toned polished-plaster walls and patinated-brass cabinetry.

Artworks enliven several spaces, not least the music room, where a large print by British artist Elsbeth Shaw is a commanding presence. A pixelated image of a model in a catwalk show, its symmetry, palette, and style consciousness all spoke to Lafferty. “I think art, fashion, and interiors are all super connected,” she says. “Fashion is about color combinations and sculptural forms, but also about contrasts and playfulness, which informs my work.” She concedes that the ethos of couture is reflected in how the project’s details and finishing touches are as carefully considered as its larger, more architectural elements. The combined layout shows rock-solid planning, but the splashes of levity, novelty, and boldness are never an afterthought.

Tour This Dublin Residence by Róisín Lafferty + Ambient Architecture

RÓISÍN LAFFERTY: AOIFE SHINE; IMAD HUSAR. O’GORMAN JOINERY: MILLWORK. P.D. MARLOW: PLASTERWORK. MILLER BROTHERS: STONEWORK. M.J. DUNCAN & SONS: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

FROM FRONT NINE: SIDE TABLE (MUSIC ROOM). SAZERAC STITCHES: SCONCE. RUGVISTA: RUGS (MUSIC ROOM, READING ROOM). THROUGH ACQUIRED: CHAIRS (MUSIC ROOM, READING ROOM), TABLE LAMPS (MUSIC ROOM, SITTING ROOM), CHAIRS, RED VASE (DINING AREA), ARMCHAIR (SITTING ROOM). ROCHE BOBOIS: CONSOLE (ENTRY). LIGHT COOKIE: SCONCE. ROCK HILL: VASE (ENTRY), CHAIR (OFFICE). HAY: PENDANT FIXTURE (ENTRY, DAUGHTER’S ROOM). ANOUR: LINEAR PENDANT FIXTURE (KITCHEN). RÓISÍN LAFFERTY ESSENTIALS: VESSELS (KITCHEN), PLINTHS (MEDIA ROOM, DAUGHTER’S ROOM). DAVIDE GROPPI: PENDANT FIXTURE (DINING AREA). LOFTLIGHT: PENDANT FIXTURE (READING ROOM). AUDO COPENHAGEN: PENDANT FIXTURE (MAIN BEDROOM). MOROSO: ARMCHAIR (MEDIA ROOM). KAVE HOME: COFFEE TABLES. CC TAPIS: RUG. EDRA: SOFA. RANSOM AND DUNN: LAMP. NEMO LIGHTING: SCONCE (OFFICE). PULPO: GLASS SIDE TABLE (SITTING ROOM). EERO AARNIO ORIGINALS: WOOD SIDE TABLE. SERAX: VASE (DAUGHTER’S ROOM). SIMONE & MARCEL: SCONCES. SWEDISH NINJA: SCONCE (SON’S ROOM). ETHNICRAFT: SCULPTURE. GHIDINI 1849: SCONCES (POWDER ROOM). GRANLUSSO: TUB (BATHROOM). HOTBATH: TUB FITTINGS, SINK FITTINGS. TATO ITALIA THROUGH 1STDIBS: PENDANT FIXTURE. KAIA: SCONCES. THROUGHOUT TRUNK FLOOR: OAK FLOORING, OAK PANELING. STONE SEAL: CONCRETE FLOORING. FLEETWOOD PAINTS: PAINT.

This Home Serves As A Peaceful Sanctuary In The Czech Republic

Looking for a home to renovate outside of Prague, architect Jan Žaloudek and his wife, Jolanta Trojak, an art historian and writer, stumbled upon an exceptional plot of land where they could build one instead. The culturally protected parcel, located in Kamenná Lhota, Czech Republic, a tiny village about an hour’s drive southeast of the city, was once the garden of the neighboring baroque château, where famed violinist Oskar Nedbal composed his operetta Polska Krev in 1913. They immediately fell in love with the site. “We were captivated by the centuries-old trees, the crumbling stone border wall, the countryside views, and the favorable orientation,” Žaloudek recalls.

In dreaming up the creative couple’s longed-for refuge, Žaloudek abided by his philosophy that a home should be a temple for living. Accordingly, the structure, nicknamed Oskar House, was inspired by chapels. “My goal,” he explains, “was to create a space with a sacred atmosphere that could vary according to the mood of the moment—a space in which it’s possible to gaze into the landscape one minute, and, in the next, cocoon yourself in a closed, meditative environment animated by light and shadow play.”

Jan Žaloudek Dreams Up A Meditative Home In Czech Republic

The compact 1,660-square-foot two-bedroom is defined by its gabled form, drawn from the local vernacular, and its perforated facades. Circular and quatrefoil-shape punctures in the masonry structure and the ground-floor sun shutters invite ventilation and cast what Žaloudek describes as “lacelike shadows” on the concrete floors. Folding open the spruce-and-fir shutters, which line all four sides of the house, allows the interiors to switch between an open and closed posture; aluminum-framed glass sliders forge further connection to the elements.

The decor reflects the duo’s shared interest in fine art and a contemplative approach to living, with furniture and artwork thoughtfully curated to create spaces that feel at once ecclesiastical and gallerylike. The heart of the home is the double-height open-plan living/dining area, its gable marked by a 6 ½-foot-wide circular window. Here, contemporary furnishings pair with vintage objects, such as a Gabonese ceremonial mask and a 19th-century carved-wood Madonna. Echoing an altar, a vaulted niche backdrops the kitchen, with an island clad in Shivakashi granite from India. And in the main bedroom suite, also on the ground floor, an ash bed and black-granite nightstands by Žaloudek complement a 19th-century Japanese folding screen and a large-scale contemporary canvas by Czech painter Antonie Stanová.

Žaloudek conceived the second level as its own self-contained guest apartment. It’s an inward-facing contrast to the open lower level, a skylit retreat where sculptures by Vanda Hvízdalová rest on travertine pedestals. A staircase leads up from the sleeping area to a mezzanine study. “Each part of the house has a different purpose and atmosphere,” Žaloudek explains. “When you’re craving privacy, you can shut yourself away with a book in the study. Or, if you want to connect with the world, you open the downstairs shutters, and you’ll hardly know where the house ends and the landscape begins.”

Walk Through This Charming Home By Jan Žaloudek In The Countryside

PROJECT SOURCES FROM FRONT NORR11: TABLE, CHAIRS (DINING AREA), LARGE COCKTAIL TABLE (LIVING AREA), CHAIR (STUDY), STOOLS (KITCHEN). HAY: SOFA (LIVING AREA). CAPPELEN DIMYR: TAPESTRY. SYNESTÉ: SMALL COCKTAIL TABLE. MICHAL JANIGA: STOOL (LIVING AREA), TEA TABLE (MAIN BEDROOM). FERM LIVING: PENDANT FIXTURES (LIVING AREA), MIRROR (BATHROOM). BEGA: PENDANT FIX­TURES (KITCHEN, BATHROOM). TALKA DECOR: MARBLE PILLAR (GUEST BED­ROOM), SINK (BATHROOM). MARSET: SCONCES (MAIN BEDROOM). THROUGHOUT JOLANTA TROJAK: ART CONSULTANT. ATELIER ROUGE: LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. PROJEKTY S+S: CONSTRUCTION.

How A Multifamily Residence Honors Its Diverse Inhabitants

Although Richmond, British Columbia, is located in metro Vancouver, over half its citizens identify as Chinese, and nearly 75 percent hail from somewhere in Asia. That diversity is at the core of Hollybridge at River Green, an amenity-rich multifamily residence with interiors by CHIL. Culturally specific touches like wok kitchenettes, a tai chi garden, and a mah-jongg room cater to the lifestyle of the local populace, while the overarching concept borrows from the hospitality world.

Among the many amenities is a sunlit 25-meter lap pool lined with a black-and-white mosaic that continues onto the surrounding decking, a gym, anchored by a slatted walnut-veneered canopy/divider, and a kids’ playroom, where materials such as vinyl and plastic laminate are not only colorful but also durable and cleanable. Senior interior designer Diana Ellis drew inspiration from her experience living in Macau and Hong Kong, where she first recognized the timeless beauty of traditional English interiors and their influence. Detailing throughout Hollybridge evokes that, as evidenced by the central elevator bank, where honed Calacatta and Nero Marquina marble flooring joins refined walnut millwork. Multiculturalism is the project’s strength—just like the city it’s based in.

10 Questions With… Joaquín Millán Villamuelas Of OOIIO

How Joaquín Millán Villamuelas Tells Stories With Color

Interior Design: Tell us about your background as an architect. When did you become interested in the profession?

Joaquín Millán Villamuelas: I cannot tell you the story of a kid who was drawing constantly and looking forward to transform the world building amazing constructions. I am a passionate architect, but I never had an early calling to become one. I didn’t have any reference—a family or friend—near me to teach me what an architect does.

I was actually quite lost when I had to decide what to study at university. I grew up in a 10,000-person village in central Spain and the only thing I knew was that I wanted to study in Madrid. Maybe growing up in a centuries-old rural house, constantly under repairs and maintenance, helped me to make this great choice. Luckily, I wrote down architecture as a first choice on my application to the Polytechnic University of Madrid and my life changed forever. Once in school, I started to “unlearn” and rediscover the world with different eyes, and I got hooked on architecture!

ID: What was your path to starting OOIIO?

JMV: After university, I had the dream to learn from the best “architecture masters,” so I applied to Foster + Partners. I got a job there and moved to London for some years. After that, I decided to change and learn from Rem Koolhaas and worked in his studio, OMA, in Rotterdam. Those years were like a dream for me: I learned a lot not only from the two masters and their vision, but also from their largely different approaches. From my very talented colleagues to the organization of these two studios, every day was a masterclass during that time for me!

One day, while I was still working at OMA, during a trip back to my village for Christmas to visit family, one of my childhood friends asked me to design his house because he was planning to get married that year and was looking to build his family home. I ended up leaving OMA and moving back to Spain, exchanging the fancy “first class architecture” and those inspiring, amazing buildings designed for the Gulf Sheikhs, for a low-cost family house designed for a friend in the outskirts of a village in central Spain. My decision to leave a secure job in a large and motivating studio to start a new path towards the unknown was purely instinctual. That was the beginning of OOIIO, but I didn’t know it at that time. There was no plan. [It was simply]: Let’s do this house and see what happens.

ID: You founded OOIIO during the financial crisis. I know that has had an impact on the studio; can you tell us about that?

JMV: OOIIO’s first commission was around 2010—during the first years of the big economic crisis that deeply affected Southern Europe. In Spain, the construction market was demolished with hundreds of destroyed companies and no projects to build. Trying to establish an architecture company in such a time was madness; everything was pointing in the opposite direction that I was trying to move.

But, each small commission—renovations, house extensions, changing the roof of a warehouse, small apartments— was like a precious treasure to be looked after. It didn’t matter how inconsequential or unattractive the work was. I tried to give each project as much interest as possible through creativity, by looking for unexpected solutions.

Though some projects were stopped for economic reasons, which was frustrating, the objective for me was always to build. It was a lost battle if the project did not go ahead, which is why I fought and pushed hard for the success of each commission; I have learned a lot by getting my shoes dirty on site. I also had to be very precise about the budgets. If it was not affordable, or if I made any mistake calculating the budget, it was never going to be built. I learned how to achieve a lot with a little.

These principles that made OOIIO survive during those difficult years somehow remained engraved in the studio’s DNA and we continue to apply them today—even though the context has changed completely. In the past six years, we have been growing quite consistently from a small three to four-person micro company to the 10 to 15-person team that we have today, dealing with many more projects at one time and more complex projects. Again, a new challenge!

ID: What kind of projects does the studio work on today?

JMV: At the studio, we have designed a wide variety of projects like public spaces, horse riding arenas, offices, and even a dog hotel. This comes from that initial attitude of seeing every project as an opportunity. Our first commission was a family home, and since then, has been a project type on our work table. House after house, we became specialized in designing tailor-made homes for our clients. I like this typology because it is very emotional, plus you get close to the final user and can actually design having that person at the center of the project.

Currently, we have quite a few adaptive reuse projects. Working on rethinking what already exists to give it a new life is something I really like; these are beautiful projects. It is much more sustainable to reuse than to demolish and rebuild. At OOIIO, we work on projects in a holistic way, that is, not only the architecture, but we also do all the interior design, the landscaping of the gardens, we calculate all the installations, structures, we get the construction permits… everything.

ID: You describe OOIIO as a handmade architecture studio. What does that mean?

JMV: It means two things: One, that we make custom projects, like a tailor who studies your body and makes the perfect suit for you. And that we still work with our hands—we draw with pencil and paper, make physical models, and sketch in notebooks—like craftsmen, as it was done before, taking care and dedicating quality, human time to the processes. These are techniques are what we now call old—they are less and less used—but, I still believe in the quality that a human mind brings to a careful and artisanal process. For me, in that way, things taste better.

ID: The use of bold color is a through line running through OOIIO’s work. Why?

JMV: Yes, we do like to play with color in our projects. There are other constants that also appear repeatedly. For example, the importance of form, the richness in the use of materials and textures, and the poetic links with which we often draw inspiration from non-architectural things to design our buildings, opening paths to the creative process, such as making our building look like a rock [Villafranca House], or a windmill [Albania House], for example.

All of these are resources that we use in our projects, but we do it instinctively because it comes out that way. There was never a founding manifesto that defined the work philosophy of OOIIO in which we set some bases that would be repeated. If we use color, it is because the architecture instinctively asks us.

Nature is full of color, and colors are extremely powerful in defining a space. The same room looks radically different if it is red, white, or black. We are committed to personalization and daring in the use of color. Projects always gain in expressiveness and freshness with colors, together with textures and materials.

ID: OOIIO has defined itself by making a big impact in spaces despite size and budget. What are some of your top tools for making that work?

JMV: This brings us back to the beginnings of the studio in the middle of the great economic crisis of the 2010s, where if something was not designed affordably and within budget, it would not be built. Since then, this austerity has remained in the DNA of the studio. It is not necessary to spend a lot to achieve a lot. Architecture is not a question of budget, but of using the right resources intelligently to achieve the greatest possible impact.

This can be seen in many of our initial projects. For example, in a business incubator office project in Madridejos, Toledo: By using simple brick, we managed to create a ventilated façade that controls the building temperature, without the need to use energy, through building lattices.

Another example was in our transformation of a closed haberdashery into a home, where we crafted a small rectangular space of just under 600-square feet with a tight budget. Our solution for this space was to create, together with our carpenter, an “L” of cupboards that contained everything necessary to equip the small space as a contemporary home: kitchen, wardrobe, television, and storage for objects. Even the bathroom entrance is inside one of these cupboards. This “L” solves practically all the project functionality. Then, we added some engineered wood slats lacquered in gold, to open or close the bedroom to the rest of the space. As always, we played with colors and materials to give the space appeal and quality.

ID: To date, what are your favorite projects and why?

JMV: Over time, you look back and discover how there are projects that suddenly open a line of research within the studio. For example, we started using ceramics after working to reinterpret the local craftsmanship in the public spaces of Talavera [in Central Spain]. Now, we continue to apply in a very dominant way in projects such as TUR House.

Also, when there is chemistry with the clients—they trust you and let you work—good projects emerge. For example, in LLO House, the clients told us that we could do whatever we wanted, as long as their house was special. In the conversion of an old barn into a home, we also had a great rapport with the clients, and the project was able to take a step forward thanks to this. These are projects that are a pleasure to work on, in which you learn and open paths. Small obsessions, which then reappear in other designs without you realizing it, thus creating your own architectural world.

ID: What’s next?

JMV: We are currently designing several radical transformations of single-family homes. They are houses built in the ’70s and ’80s that new families have bought and want to personalize, revalue and adapt to their way of life. We are getting very surprising results; one never imagines at the beginning of the process what can happen when our work is finished.

In this line of adaptive reuse, we have several co-living projects in industrial buildings in the design-construction phase and, above all, a project to recycle an old kitchen factory into a parking lot, workshop and car dealership. It is a building about 100,000 square feet. It is opening a new scale of projects at OOIIO; until now, our projects had been always smaller and mostly residential. That said, we have also continued to design and work on small-scale projects for apartment renovations or new single-family homes, as we have always done at OOIIO.

What I see on our trajectory is that our projects are becoming more radical and complex year after year. I think it is a natural evolution for a studio like ours, which was formed from the construction site, building a lot of what we designed. We know more and more about construction and this team know-how is daring us to execute bigger and more difficult projects.

ID: What are some sources of inspiration that you turn to for your projects?

JMV: Inspiration comes from everywhere. As Pablo Picasso once said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to catch you working.” There are many things that, a priori, have nothing to do with architecture that end up inspiring you when designing a building. You learn from the design of an object you have in your hands. By analyzing it, you try to discover why it works and what decisions have led the manufacturer to make it that way and not another, and suddenly you discover yourself applying similar ideas when imagining a building.

I try to keep my eyes wide open so I can design better. I am very observant when it comes to analyzing the aesthetics and composition of things. When I watch a film, for example, I am struck by the composition of the photograph, the colors that the director has chosen, how each character appears at each moment, and their position in the scene. It’s a bit exhausting, but my mind works like that!

I am also aware of the architecture that other colleagues do. I read magazines, architectural essays, follow blogs, and go to exhibitions. Ultimately, I believe that to do contemporary architecture, one must understand the world in which one lives, and thus give a better response to the commissions that come to your studio. My reality will always be different from the reality of an architect in Kabul or San Francisco. The world is multifaceted, and these nuances make it much more interesting and rich.

Shake It Up At This Bold Apartment Complex In The Bronx

Set alongside the Harlem River in the Bronx, CetraRuddy’s 27-story apartment building Maven stands out for its boldly canted facades, their dynamic stance a reference to the neighborhood, Mott Haven, as the birthplace of hip-hop. Interiors are just as alluring—and just as firmly rooted in place. The open lobby has a building-length gallery wall with color-rich pieces by New York City–based creatives, including graffiti artists Cope2 and CRASH/John Matos and Libby Schoettle, her Shake it Up, a pop art–inflected collage, featuring her cool-kid alter ego PhoebeNewYork. The phrase “life is beautiful,” by Mr Brainwash, sprawls across the faceted reception desk, and the adjacent gallery engages directly with the surrounding neighborhood via the glass curtain wall opposite. Weaving biophilia into the circulation, the rear of the lobby opens to a landscaped garden courtyard, which residents pass by to access elevators. Other perks of the building include a coworking space with sound-attenuated private workstations, a chef’s kitchen with connected screening room, a roof deck with grilling stations, and a pet spa. In all, that’s more than 20,000 square feet of amenities for the 200 units, 60 of which are rent-stabilized.

Design Reads: Aspen Through The Lens Of Rowland+Broughton

In the late 1800’s, when silver was discovered in the mountains around Aspen, Colorado, the town experienced a boom—followed by an equally spectacular bust when the market collapsed only a decade later. But in the intervening century, Aspen has used those mountains as a new source of prosperity, reinventing itself as one of the world’s foremost ski destinations. Local architecture and interior design firm Rowland+Broughton, founded in 2003, has had a hand in shaping the area’s distinct Rocky Mountain personality, and compiled in this book, Designing Aspen: The Houses of Rowland+Broughton (Architectural Press) by John Rowland and Sarah Broughton, are 10 houses emblematic of that style.

A through line of these structures is the way they work with the landscape, making the most of the area’s natural beauty with large picture windows that frame views. Case in point is the Ridge House, its minimalist dark cladding also avoiding competing with nature. Some seem fully immersed in the terrain, like the Barn Studio, which looks like a rocky outcropping but is in fact a newly built structure of irregularly shaped stones. And inside, these residences are worlds unto themselves, replete with blue-chip artworks and gems of contemporary furniture design. As Interior Design Hall of Fame member Tom Kundig notes in the book’s foreword, “R+B’s contextual approach is humble yet bold, continuously adding layers in the evolution of the firm’s built identity to carry forward and complement the Aspen Idea—a convergence of mind, body, and spirit.”