Dezeen Showroom: designed by Italian architect Piero Lissoni, Lualdi‘s L7 Plus door system presents a minimalist room dividing solution that also makes an impact with its graphic design.
Designed by Lissoni in 2018, the L7 Plus door system is an extension of the L7 family, which is characterised by the visual lightness of its glass panels and aluminium frames.
The L7 Plus door system features a wide aluminium grid
With L7 Plus, the design is enhanced with a series of slender aluminium strips that crisscross through the frames like a grid, creating a bold yet clean aesthetic.
Lualdi describes L7 Plus as “an ethereal and elegant” door with “the ability to define residential settings and workspaces and make them communicate with each other”.
The doors are available in an array of glass and metal finishes
The L7 Plus system can be ordered in various configurations of fixed and sliding panels, and as with all of the L7 family, comes in a wide range of glass and metal finishes.
The glass can come coloured, textured, backpainted or patterned, while the aluminium is available in Matt White, Natural, Brushed Brill, Matt Black or Bronze.
Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
3D printing is one of those revolutionary technologies that truly changed the world even years after it became a hot topic. Whether you’re a lone hobbyist or a small company, these seemingly magical boxes are able to bring ideas and dreams to life or at least help jump-start the process of testing and refinement. Despite its amazing achievements, 3D printing technology is actually still at its puberty stage, with plenty of room for growth and, more importantly, experimentation. Fortunately, there are plenty of designers, engineers, and dreamers who are willing and eager to push the boundaries of what 3D printers are able to accomplish, whether it’s in manufacturing, food, or design. This experimental shoe, for example, makes you look like you’re wearing some sort of sci-fi wireframe footwear, and its complex structure really puts 3D printers to the test.
In the beginning, 3D printers naturally had very limited capabilities, able to build only closed forms or relatively simple shapes. The materials used would be variants of plastic that would be unsuitable for anything but the gentlest and driest applications. Over time, though, 3D printing has moved onto a wider variety of materials, like metal or even chocolate, and more complicated structures. EXPLR 02 builds on top of that to create a design that is one part made of geometric structures and another part inspired by nature.
The result is a pair of shoes that look like the wireframe that you’d see in 3D modeling software, though with an even higher resolution and number of empty spaces. The design, however, takes its inspiration not from those digital artifacts but from nature itself. Repeating patterns, organic forms, and an almost chaotic composition all come together to create footwear that is both beautiful and intriguing.
This kind of design also pushes the envelope of what can be produced by 3D printers, particularly because of structural and material requirements. The complex mesh structure of the shoes requires an agile and flexible 3D printer, while elasticity and durability would need to be provided by unconventional materials that might not yet be available on these printers.
Whether EXPLR 02 can be a useful and practical footwear design, however, is still an open question. The myriad holes on the shoe’s surface provide better ventilation but also has less protection for the foot inside it. The structural integrity of such a design can also be in question since the thin intersecting lines could make it less durable under rugged conditions. Once resolved, though, it could open the doors to usable 3D-printed footwear, which could, in turn, unleash the floodgates of creativity in coming up with fresh shoe designs.
Sightful’s Spacetop is a laptop with no screen, instead offering a massive virtual display via glasses.
Samsung Display, however, which is obviously in the business of making screens, is sticking to their physical display guns and developing technological innovations to make them attractive to designers. To that end, this week they unveiled their latest Rollable Display. To refresh your memory, last October they demonstrated this early version:
Competitor Lenovo wasn’t far behind, unveiling their stretchable smartphone and laptop screens the same month:
And here’s what Samsung showed this week:
It’s a pity they don’t show the thing in profile, so you can get a sense of the housing’s dimensions. I imagine that’d be a crucial bit of information for the product designers they’re hoping to inspire. What we do know is that the screen stretches from 2″ to 10″ in height (49mm to 254.4mm). The display is “rolled and unrolled on an O-shaped axis like a scroll,” Samsung writes.
For the moment, this is a technology without an application. So the question is, what could you as an industrial designer create that would make this technology useful? The only thing we’ve seen even attempted was this concept by ID consultancy Unichest:
In the Catskills, this hotel restaurant offers a sensorial tour of Upstate New York
Tucked into the hollow of a dead-end road, surrounded by hiking trails and nature on all sides, Eastwind Oliverea Valley is hotelier duo Bjorn Boyer and Julija Stoliarova’s newest property in the Catskills. Located about two-and-a-half hours from the city, the property continues the Scandinavian and A-frame design and ethos featured in the first Eastwind Hotel in Windham, but this time it expands offerings through attributes like the forage-to-table dining concept Dandelion. Led by food and beverage director Daniel Cipriani, the full-service restaurant makes use of the 40+ acre property, its abundance of wild nettles and proximity to the Esopus Creek. Here, in the cozy yet refined hotel, guests and locals converge to taste the beauty of the Catskills.
As a veteran restaurateur, Cipriani is no stranger to the farm-to-table or even sea-to-table concept, as his Brooklyn ventures—Sea Wolf, Gemelli and Urban Rustic—indicate. For Dandelion, it makes sense that Stoliarova and Boyer tapped the nature enthusiast to take point on the locally informed concept. “Originally, the thought was to do a small kitchen and a tiny hotel menu just for our guests, but in getting to know the neighbors in the area, I saw a real need for a finer dining restaurant,” Cipriani tells us. “When we did our first property, I just didn’t think there were enough people to support a restaurant of the caliber we’re doing now, but something about this area is special. It’s kind of a mecca for weirdos—and I mean that in the best of ways. It seems like there are a lot of creatives and artists. We’re getting such a great turnout of locals.”
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At present, about half of the restaurant’s clientele is made up of locals. This is due in part to how much of the area’s history and resources went into the property’s design and the menu of international comfort fare. Cipriani continues, “The natural beauty of the space and the abundance of produce and flowers that grow here, it’s my main base for the restaurant.”
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When it comes to sourcing ingredients, the team forages from the area as much as possible. One of the town’s residents helped Cipriani learn about what grows in the area (like ramps and morels). She even leads foraging walks for Eastwind Windham. The restaurant’s team also sources from local farms. For their signature dish, a take on Lohikeitto (a traditional Finnish Salmon soup), Cipriani partnered with Hudson Valley fish farms to supply steelhead trout for the light yet surprisingly hearty dish. “I wanted to use items that we can pick from here and develop relationships with farms around here to stick to the most sustainable practices we can,” he explains.
This also means the menu rotates seasonally based on what’s available, but year-round the menu emphasizes comfort, culture and a plethora of plants. “In the kitchen, we’ve got a lot of different cultures and everybody’s bringing their little familiar favorites,” says the director. “Josh Bettencourt [the executive chef] grew up in a family of Italians and Koreans, and I’ve got some Venezuelan guys that work in the kitchen with us. I’m letting everyone bring a little bit of their culture.” The result is always fresh and fun and offers locals something a little different.
This spring, the hotel’s offerings are slated to expand as Dandelion sets up an all-day menu and herb garden. He tells us, “We’re opening up the pool in June, July at the latest, and we’re going to launch a second menu of all-day lighter fare, kind of a pool-side menu starting off with smorgasbords.”
As the herb garden is planted and more flowers begin to bloom, the menu will also see more florals and seasonal ingredients including the restaurant’s namesake. “Dandelions are starting to explode all over the property. We’re [doing] some fun spring pastas with the dandelions we can harvest here—like dandelion and ramp pesto with homemade pasta,” says Cipriani. This also carries over to the cocktail menu where wild pansies, ferns and other blooms make an appearance.
With numerous hiking trails just steps away from the hotel, Dandelion offers a sensorial and physical tour of the Catskills. Its location within the design-forward, sauna-filled Eastwind turns the dining destination into an even more rejuvenating nature escape.
Images by Lawrence Braun, courtesy of Eastwind Hotels
A folded facade of galvanised steel and glass fronts the railway arches that house this beer hall in London by local studio Gundry + Ducker.
Located in Kentish Town in North London, the brewery was designed for beer company Camden Town Brewery within railway arches in a cobbled mews.
Gundry + Ducker has created the Camden Town Brewery
Its concertinaed frontage was designed by Gundry + Ducker to celebrate the arches while framing the new taproom and shop within.
“There was an opportunity to think about how we could connect the mews to the city, encourage public and community use and express the brand,” studio founder Christian Ducker told Dezeen.
It is located in Kentish Town
Retaining the spirit of being in a busy working brewery whilst creating a welcoming environment for guests was key to the project brief.
“We reimagined the mews as an industrial park where the huge stainless-steel tanks and brewing paraphernalia became blended with trees, lighting and seating to form a space used for a range of activities,” Ducker explained.
The brewery has a concertinaed facade
The two renovated railway arches act as an extension of the site. The arches are connected by the facade where they front onto the mews.
Formed of galvanised steel and glass, the folded frontage is intended to reflect the industrial nature of the site.
“We saw the existing railway architecture as including not just the arches, but all the associated pylons, platforms, [and] gantries,” Ducker told Dezeen. “These provided the materiality for our facade.”
The concertinaed form of the frontage creates oblique views out from the arches and defines circulation from the narrow mews into the interior.
Camden Town Brewery occupies railway arches
Inside Camden Town Brewery, the renovated arches house a taproom, tour meeting point, shop and meeting space. They are connected at their rear by a double-height corridor which services the chilled cellar, kitchen and other ancillary spaces.
Existing materials define the interiors, with exposed brick and heavily patinaed concrete floors of the arches retained and celebrated.
A bar stretches the length of the interior
A bar stretching the length of the railway arch acts as a focal point in the taproom.
The wall behind it is clad in white vitreous-enamel panels, with beer taps positioned below a contrasting graphic of Camden Town Brewery’s logo.
“[It is] intended to reflect the simple graphic language of the Camden brand and graphic materiality of the railway station above,” the studio said.
Although technology and progress have definitely made many aspects of our lives easier, we’re also bombarded with so many things that make those same lives stressful. From visual or sensory overload coming from computers and phones to the information overload that we have to juggle for work and personal life, our brains and even our bodies are sometimes screaming for a break at the end of the day. Fortunately, you don’t need to drop and abandon everything to go on a month-long retreat to recover your sanity. Even simple things can help you rediscover the joys of life, and here are five great gift ideas that will not only help you relax but also solve some of the problems of everyday life, thanks to some Japanese design creativity and ingenuity.
1. Miniature Bonfire Wood Diffuser Set
Different people have different preferences and tolerances for scents. While some might love the fragrance of vanilla, others might prefer the smell of different flowers instead. Still, others might have a fondness for the smell of the woods and the mountains, something that isn’t always offered by most essential oils and aroma diffusers. The Miniature Bonfire Wood Diffuser Set easily sets itself apart with a cute collection of mini wooden logs and a tiny pocket stove that recreates not only the smells but also the experience of a memorable outdoor campfire.
The miniature hardwood, collected from branches that would normally be thrown away, gives off a smoky scent when burnt on the stainless steel miniature stove. Add a few drops of essential oils extracted from Mt. Hakusan trees, and you’ve got an authentic outdoor scent that will bring your mind to the soothing embrace of nature. And with a piece of solid fuel, you can even use the same stove as an actual cooking or heating tool, completing the circle of an outdoor experience at home or in your backyard.
Aroma diffusers are a popular tool people use to relax, but some produce more stress than they relieve. Some overwhelm or irritate your nose with vapors, while others leave you praying for a good breeze to carry those calming scents to you. Rather than leave it up to chance, this beautiful Stress-Free Aroma Diffuser really lets you just sit back and relax, making sure you’re breathing in the perfect mix of aromatic blends to soothe your tired mind. It creates its own gentle breeze to softly disperse the aroma evenly, while a porcelain filter soaks up the oil for a longer-lasting experience. Cleaning that filter is equally stress-free since you only need to rinse it under the tap.
The diffuser’s polished metal base creates a beautiful contrast with the more organic-looking porcelain disc on top, forming an elegant decoration that looks just as appealing as it smells. And thanks to its built-in rechargeable battery, you can place it anywhere you want, and it will work just as well, not to mention standing beautifully on top of any desk or shelf design.
While our noses can give us a bit of a reprieve from hectic and stressful days, our eyes are the ones that probably need the most help in stepping back from visual information overload. We can’t always keep our eyes closed, of course, so the next best thing is to always have something pleasing to look at nearby or in places we often look at. Pictures of loved ones and pets will always bring a smile to our faces, but a minimalist yet beautiful flower arrangement can also keep us thinking beautiful thoughts, especially when they’re set on a vase as unique as these Modular Flower Tubes.
Instead of a single container for a large bunch of flowers and stems, this “modular” vase uses thin copper tubes of different heights placed on a circular wooden base. The size of the tubes limits how much they can hold, letting you be more creative in how you arrange different elements, including empty tubes, just for effect. These Modular Flower Tubes not only bring a one-of-a-kind vessel for plants and flowers, it also helps give your creativity an outlet to keep your mind off more stressful concerns.
One of the biggest sources of stress is when things don’t go according to plan or when things don’t work like they’re supposed to. The latter is especially applicable to gadgets, particularly computers and smartphones, that we often rely on to keep everything, including our notes. As they say, simple is best, and nothing gets simpler than pen and paper. Actually, that’s not entirely true because this Personal Whiteboard not only gets simpler but also removes some of the worries and concerns surrounding plain pen and paper.
Imagine the liberating experience of never running out of paper. With an A4-sized whiteboard that you can carry with you everywhere, that dream easily becomes reality. The Personal Whiteboard, however, brings those little extras that truly make life worry-free, like a cover that protects what you wrote but also acts as an eraser that is with you all the time. There’s even an innovative Mag Force system that is both a handle and a pen loop, so you never have to stress over losing that all-important whiteboard marker ever again.
There is probably nothing more stressful, frustrating, and dangerous than falling over while putting on your shoes when you’re already in a rush. While shoehorns try to make it easier to, well, shoehorn your foot into your footwear, they aren’t exactly the easiest to use nor the safest. They aren’t also the most attractive tools in your house, which is why they’re often hidden and then get lost when you need them the most.
The Invisible Shoehorn, in contrast, is something you’d proudly put on display precisely because it looks nothing like a shoehorn. The stainless steel tool combines with a clear acrylic handle to form a beautiful rod ornament that hides the shoehorn in plain sight. The shoehorn’s sturdy metal body and elongated shape also make it easy to put on a shoe without bending and breaking your back. Finally, you can have an ergonomic tool that’s also beautiful to behold, presuming you can even see the shoehorn masquerading as a unique piece of home decoration.
Dezeen Showroom: textile manufacturer Camira has launched Revolution, a range of fabrics in 10 colours that are all made from waste wool.
The Revolution collection is created by stripping discarded wool back to its fibre form before blending with virgin wool and weaving it into fabric.
It is designed as a closed-loop textile product, meaning it can also be recycled indefinitely, which Camira said marks “a new era in wool textile”.
The fabric collection is available in 10 colours
“Revolution is a powerful illustration of how lessons from the past can be used to innovate in the present, for the good of the future,” said the brand’s head of creative Lynn Kingdon.
“Revolution extends the lifespan of wool and enables this precious natural resource to be used all over again as fabric on furniture.”
The fabric range is aimed specifically for use in commercial interiors and is available in 10 different colours, each created using the colours of the base waste-wool fibres.
The textiles are made of recycled wool
“Each shade in the Revolution colour palette has been lovingly developed with the original colouration of the recycled woollen fibres as its base,” said Kingdon.
“This innovative method of colour curation eliminates the concept of dyeing, reducing the use of harmful chemicals.”
Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
Curated by Lesley Lokko, the theme of this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale was The Laboratory of the Future, and many of the national pavilions aimed to respond to this by focusing on issues of decolonisation and decarbonisation.
Here are 11 of the most interesting pavilions exhibiting this year:
Immediately impactful, the French pavilion was designed to “reawaken our desires for utopia”. It was designed by architecture studio Muoto and dominated by a reflective hemispherical stage that will host a series of performances over the course of the biennale.
“The idea of the theatre came because we wanted to create a collective space,” Muoto architect Yves Moreau told Dezeen.
“It was a way to respond to the theme of the biennale, The Laboratory of the Future,” he continued. “The theatre is a laboratory because you can do whatever you want. You can put on a hat, you put on makeup and you’re somebody else. It was really a place for expression and inclusivity.”
Curated by Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Taveres, the Brazilian pavilion was filled with earth, which gave it a calm feeling and an incredible aroma. The exhibition aimed to communicate how Brazil’s land has shaped understandings of heritage and identity
“The significance of land and earth is deeply rooted in the conception and narratives of the national formation and representation of Brazil,” De Matos and Taveres told Dezeen. “It encompasses the idealised and racialised vision of ‘tropical nature’ that has shaped the portrayal of Brazil’s national identity.”
Another pavilion that has a welcoming feeling was the Nordic pavilion, which was filled with a nomadic library containing 500 books on Indigenous Sámi architecture collected by architect Joar Nango.
The library was presented alongside artworks, film, materials and found objects in a display curated by Carlos Mínguez Carrasco and James Taylor-Foster.
“Girjegumpi is an inviting and playful series of spaces, installations, and details – and its dialogue with the pavilion itself is unique,” curators Taylor-Foster and Carrasco told Dezeen.
“There is an inherent warmth to the room that is built from conversation and collaborations that are much larger than the biennale,” they continued.
Curated by Jayden Ali, Meneesha Kellay, Joseph Henry and Sumitra Upham, the British pavilion aims to celebrate how global diasporic communities design space by featuring a selection of impactful artworks and a film within the formal halls of the pavilion.
The curators wanted the pavilion to showcase the “incredible diversity we experience in Britain every day” while turning the focus away from the usual traditions that define the built environment.
“Our ambition is for the pavilion to be a space of possibilities,” said Kellay.
“A space that shifts the gaze on which behaviours and traditions are prioritised in the built environment and to celebrate how diasporic communities design, organise and occupy space.”
“Our ambition is for the pavilion to be a space of possibilities,” said Kellay. “A space that shifts the gaze on which behaviours and traditions are prioritised in the built environment and to celebrate how diasporic communities design, organise and occupy space.”
Located outside of the main exhibition areas, the Estonian contribution was dramatically different to the majority of installations at the show. Set in a rental apartment, the installation curated by Aet Ader, Arvi Anderson and Mari Möldre features a live-in actor who will be performing daily rituals to explore the challenges of home ownership.
“In Estonia, around 80 per cent of people own their homes,” Ader told Dezeen.
“That means that we, the younger generation, are facing a lot of questions. With a very small rental market and a vast amount of homeownership, what do we do?”
Created with the aim of “complicating the history of tropical modernism”, the pavilion was curated by Christopher Turner, Nana Biamah-Ofosu and Bushra Mohamed.
The exhibition focuses on how the tropical modernist style of architecture was developed and how it moved from being a tool to support colonial rule in Africa to being adopted and adapted by independent African nations.
“The exhibition looks at the colonial origins of tropical modernism in British West Africa, and the survival of the style in the post-colonial period when it symbolised the independence and progressiveness of newly independent countries like Ghana, as well as the pan-African ambitions of its leader Kwame Nkrumah,” Turner told Dezeen.
One of the most aesthetically appealing pavilions at this year’s biennale, Australia’s contribution aimed to directly address the theme of decolonisation by “questioning the relics of the British Empire”.
The installation aimed to draw attention to the legacy of colonialism and extraction on several settlements in the country that were named Queenstown.
“The pavilion explores the concept of decolonisation, on both local and global scales,” the curators told Dezeen.
“It looks at what architects are doing and can do to actively decolonise places and spaces, while reflecting on the historical legacies of colonialism and extractivism. It aims to both evoke emotions and engage the intellect.”
The Swiss pavilion responded directly to Lokko’s push to reduce the environmental impact of the biennale by not transporting any materials to create its installation. Instead, curator Philip Ursprung removed a wall separating the Swiss pavilion from the neighbouring Venezuelan pavilion to demonstrate how boundaries can be dissolved.
“The Giardini is an environment where there’s one pavilion next to each other, neighbours,” explained Ursprung.
“At the same time, this fixation on national participation has narrowed our horizon for many years – it’s a relict of the past. The pavilions should look after each other, as should we as people.”
Another pavilion that focused on materials was the German pavilion, which was packed full of materials recovered from last year’s art biennale, which are now set to find new uses around Venice.
“The key word is maintenance,” said architect Petter Krag, who is one of eight members of the curatorial team. “We wanted to show how, for architects like myself, there are other ways of working with materials. We can develop new ways of reusing materials for repair work.”
An architectural supermarket that displays 506 “products” fills the pavilion of Latvia.
Each product is modelled on pavilions from the past 10 editions of the Biennale, with their titles used as comedic labels for what resemble tins of food and household products. They were designed by the curators with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
The pavilion aims to encourage visitors to examine the value and impact of previous editions of the Biennale.
Photo by Oleksandr Kurmaz
Ukraine pavilion
For the first time in 10 years, Ukraine is participating in this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. Its pavilion is split over the event’s two sites, with both exhibits intended to mimic “unusual structures that, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have become emblematic of feelings of safety for Ukrainian society”, the curators said.
At the Giardini is a maze of grass-covered mounds that nod to the Serpent’s Wall – a network of 10th-century forts in Kyiv that were reactivated when Russia first invaded.
Meanwhile, at the Arsenale, a lofty room has been converted into a small, dark space that echoes those where many Ukrainians find themselves today while taking shelter.
The Venice Architecture Biennale takes place from 20 May to 26 November 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for all the latest information you need to know to attend the event, as well as a list of other architecture and design events taking place around the world.
British hotel chain Birch has opened an outpost in south London, with grounds rewilded by designer Sebastian Cox and interiors conceived by local studios A-nrd and Sella Concept.
Birch Selsdon is housed in a 19th-century mansion in the borough of Croydon and accommodates 181 rooms alongside a wellness space and lido, co-working facilities and a medley of restaurants and bars.
Birch Selsdon takes over a 19th-century mansion
The building was first turned into a hotel in the 1920s, with slapdash extensions and modifications added over the following century.
Local studios A-nrd and Sella Concept took a “restorative approach” to the interior works, stripping back much of the existing fit-out to allow the building’s original architecture to come to the fore.
The building’s original stone walls and bas-relief ceilings can be seen in the lobby
Restoration was also the focus for Sebastian Cox, who developed a woodland management plan for the hotel’s grounds as well as a rewilding strategy for its 18-hole golf course.
This will involve introducing grazing pigs and ponies, which can naturally distribute seeds and shape growing vegetation. The former fairways of the golf course will become wetlands, while the sandy bunkers will eventually attract small reptiles and other animals.
Timber from the grounds was used to create the shingled reception desks
Cox has also turned trees harvested from the grounds into a series of furnishings for the hotel, creating affordable, locally produced products while providing ecosystem benefits for the woodland.
“Managed woodlands have higher biodiversity because when you harvest the trees, light gets onto the woodland floor and other vegetation can grow,” Cox explained during a recent episode of Dezeen’s Climate Salon podcast.
“So we can categorically say that our furniture actually makes a net contribution. It doesn’t just harvest materials, it actually contributes to the spaces that the materials come from.”
An arched nook discovered during the hotel’s renovation is now a dining space
Among Cox’s furniture contributions is a pair of shingled timber reception desks in the entrance lobby, backed by an ombre curtain that mirrors the shifting seasonal hues of the landscape around Birch Selsdon.
The lobby’s floral bas-relief ceiling was preserved alongside the original masonry walls, which peek out from behind the curtain.
Peach-coloured surfaces appear in Birch Selsdon’s Meadow Bar
Dotted throughout the space are moss-green velvet sofas as well as wicker armchairs, potted plants and vintage petal-shaped pendant lamps made from Murano glass.
When guests are hungry, they can head to the hotel’s all-day restaurant Vervain, which serves a farm-to-table menu.
The space is anchored by two huge, arched banquettes featuring seat cushions upholstered in an abstract camouflage print and sawn-timber backrests, which were also sourced from the hotel’s woodland.
Oversized rice paper lanterns hang from the ceiling overhead, which is painted a rich apricot shade to highlight the existing ornate bas-relief.
The hotel includes another bar called The Snug with wood-panelled walls
For drinks, guests can head to the hotel’s peachy-hued Meadow Bar or to the Snug, which has a slightly more grown-up aesthetic thanks to the dark, wood-panelled walls that are original to the building.
The space is dressed with vintage travertine coffee tables and an array of lounge chairs in sumptuous colours like ochre, olive green and damson purple.
Chequerboard flooring in The Orangery nods to the Victorian period
To one side of the room lies a curved seating nook that was uncovered during the renovation works. Its interior was rendered in blush pink to foster a warm, intimate dining ambience.
There’s also the option to relax in The Orangery, a light-filled space centred by a wiggly cobalt-blue sofa. Terracotta tiles are arranged in a traditional checkerboard pattern across the floor in a nod to the building’s Victorian past.
Bedrooms are filled with textural details like linen curtains and sisal rugs
The aesthetic of the hotel’s communal spaces is maintained in the guest bedrooms, which are finished with textural decorative elements like linen curtains and hand-blown glass lamps that cast dappled light across the limewashed walls.
Larger suites come complete with lounge areas, dressed with plump armchairs and sisal rugs.
Timber from the hotel’s woods was also used to produce 352 bedside tables for the rooms, all crafted in Cox’s Kent workshop.
The bedside tables are also made with timber from the hotel’s grounds
The launch of Birch Selsdon comes just three years after the opening of the inaugural Birch branch near Hertfordshire.
Local studio EBBA Architects has designed a store for eyewear brand Cubitts that preserves and draws on the original 1930s interior of the traditional F Cooke restaurant on London’s Broadway Market.
The restaurant, which sold cockney dishes such as jellied eel and pie and mash, had been located on the east London street since 1900 but was given a modernist update in the 1930s.
The Cubitts store on Broadway Market is located inside a former restaurant
EBBA Architects turned the space into a 145-square-metre Cubitts store but kept almost all the original interiors of the Grade II-listed restaurant, which had been unoccupied since 2019.
F Cooke’s marble tables were given new legs made from stained birch plywood and now hold eyewear display cases in a sunny hue that matches the original wall tiles.
Pale yellow tiles clad the walls
“The tables are original but we designed the legs to kind of make it feel like a new feature,” EBBA Architects founder Benni Allan told Dezeen.
“The table has just been scrubbed up,” he said. “Imagine how many nice pies have been eaten on that table.”
“I think what’s nice is that everything below [the tables] has had this quite warm treatment to bring in a nice texture and tone, and then everything above is much lighter.”
Different coloured material samples are displayed on wooden shelves
The studio also kept the original stained-glass windows and the counter that used to serve food, turning it into a point of sale, while a repair station for glasses fills the window facing the street.
Pale yellow tiles bordered by bands of contrasting blue and turquoise tiles decorate the walls. These are the original interior from 1930 and were cleaned using “loads of elbow grease”, Allan said.
The former food counter was turned into a point of sale
In the main showroom of the two-storey store, the studio also kept the restaurant’s mirrors, only removing one to create a display case and sales point.
“All the additions are kind of appendages or accoutrements on the base of the original structure,” Cubitts founder Tom Broughton told Dezeen.
An orange staircase leads to the lower floor
Downstairs, EBBA Architects made more interventions, as the space was dark and hadn’t been furnished to the same level as the main upstairs space.
“It was really quite dark and dingy down there, so the colours from upstairs informed this really bright orange in the staircase,” Allan said.
The studio used stained plywood to create a sliding wood screen with a square pattern based on the tiles in the main store, as well as creating a bright-coloured staff room with a “secret door”.
It also added tiled floors with a decorative pattern in a colour palette that references that of the restaurant.
“There’s that really beautiful intricate detailing upstairs, so we wanted to sort of mirror that down here with these different patterns in the floor,” Allan said.
EBBA Architects designed a sliding door for the eye-test room
Downstairs also holds the eyewear testing centre, which is located underneath the street above.
Broughton and Allan tried to keep as many of the original details from the restaurant as possible. The tank where the live eels were once kept before being boiled is left standing in an outdoor space downstairs and the restaurant’s sign remains above the front door.
The store has retained its original signage and one of the benches
One of the benches, on which people used to sit and eat, has been placed outside the store. And the Cooke family behind the restaurant chain – which still has two outposts – has lent Cubitts some of its original pie tins alongside the bowls used to serve jellied eels and a picture of founder Bob Cooke.
The Cubitts Broadway Market store is located in an area that has become increasingly gentrified over the past decade, with many local shops being taken over by chains.
Original stained-glass windows decorate the interior
Though some people have been nostalgic about the time when the store was a pie-and-mash shop, Allan and Broughton said there have also been positive reactions to the refurbishment
“People have actually been really chuffed that it stayed the same,” Allan said.
“Someone could come in here in a decade or two and actually put it back into a pie and mash shop. Even though [the changes] feel purposeful, it’s quite a light touch. If anything, we’ve kind of given it a new lease of life, because it was actually pretty grimy.”
“Ideally, [the store] already has this existing structure and framework that you can clean up and add a bit of product and a few fittings to,” he said.
“And that’s the really nice thing, right? If you can take something that’s already beautiful, give it a new lease of life and make it relevant to someone today, that’s really cool.”
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