Hasta La Ideas

Vintage beach chairs repurposed as modern indoor lanterns

More than just bringing the outdoors in, French design studio Colonel recreates a bygone era of carefree beach bumming and camping that’s infinitely more subtle than the theme-party decor such a notion might conjure. Founders Isabelle Gilles and Yann Poncelet reference vintage outdoor gear throughout their collections, from the umbrella-like Faced floor lamps to the oversized, vibrantly printed canvas and metal chair called Caracas.

The retro beach vibe shines through in the cheerful Suzie collection of suspension and floor lanterns for inside the home. Made from the plastic bands of ’60s-era American camping chairs which are hand-sewn over metal frames, each of the lights comprises a unique combination of colors and geometric patterns. While the repurposed lounger parts are recognizable at close glance, their overall effect makes for a thoroughly clean and modern accent in an interior scheme, whether it’s waterfront or not.

Suzie lamps and pieces from other Colonel collections are available to order through their website.

A new online shop celebrating the tradition of Moroccan craftsmanship

Famous for colorful souks where artisans peddle handmade goods, Morocco hasn’t been spared the effects of Westernization. To help keep the craftsmanship heritage alive, Aimee Bianca and her Moroccan husband Chafiq Ennaoui came up with Beldi, a country-specific online shop highlighting select housewares and accessories. Explaining they noticed “more and more cheap plastic stuff from China in peoples’ homes” when visiting Morocco, the pair not only expose the country’s finely crafted objects to the world, they also give online shoppers a fresh destination for items that are often difficult to source.

Spanning classic Moroccan rugs to bathwares and leather accessories, Bianca says because Ennaoui grew up in the medina of Marrakech, “almost everything we have is from people Chafiq knows personally, some of the artisans he originally knew through his grandfather or since he was a child.” Future inventory will include items from different areas around the country, tapping each region’s distinct artistry.

Similar to stores such as Kiosk, RS Too and even Opening Ceremony, part of Beldi’s appeal comes from finding artisans who would not otherwise be able to sell beyond their geographical border, bringing their skills into the limelight. But because of the way Moroccans conduct business—”everything’s done by bargaining, and can be a long process of meeting multiple times, drinking tea and finally coming to an agreement”—Bianca and Ennaoui also serve as gateway to a buying process the average tourist wouldn’t always experience.

With aspirations to one day be as all-encompassing as Lisbon’s famed A Vida Portuguesa boutique, Beldi is already starting off as a beautiful celebration of a culture with a long history of handmade goods and artisinal craftsmanship. Keep an eye out for more to come from the many regions around Morocco.

An opulent box designed to store life’s most precious memories

by Adele Chan

Presented in Asia two years ago, the first-ever Saporiti Design Award Exhibition showcased the works of nine promising Singaporean designers who were tasked with creatively conceiving luxury towers that would hold, store or display opulent objects.

The Italian furniture brand awarded the prestigious trophy to Ministry Of Design, a studio whose illustrious works include the the recently opened Club Hotel in Singapore and the branding, landscape and interiors of an emerging boutique hotel in Penang called The Macalister Mansion.

MOD’s Director of Design, Colin Seah was inspired by Shakespeare’s poem “All the World’s a Stage,” and interpreted the idea of luxurious commodities as life’s precious memories. The agency set about designing six separate containers meant to represent a different stage in life, with each container finished in a material symbolizing that particular stage. “Infant” is crafted from raw pinewood, “Schoolboy” is covered with monochromatic plaid printed on leather, “Lover” is made out of etched smoke mirror, “Soldier” is built from brushed steel, “Judge” has a polished gold-plated finish, and “Pantaloon” is produced in polished petrified timber.

When pieced together on a metal frame, the containers form one holistic sculpture called the “Luxury Towers.” A specially-designed cover can be placed over to seal the containers in place creating a sturdy object measuring nearly two feet high.

Saporiti recently completed an remarkable prototype of MOD’s winning entry, and are talking with manufacturers about production. As its name implies, one can expect top-notch workmanship and high quality materials. The lavish boxes make for a beautiful way to stow equally valuable mementos and sentimental belongings.

Handpicked Americana style for the home now available online

ByKenyan‘s Kenyan Lewis has more than an exceptional eye for antiques. Together with his partner Grace Kelsey, the two live and breathe the Americana lifestyle—from their beautifully rustic home and interior design projects to prop styling and selection of collector’s items discerningly sourced from around the U.S. For those looking for a dose of their style, you no longer have to be a ByKenyan client to achieve it. An assortment of these one-off rare finds now sell online from Gargyle, along with a forthcoming video series featuring the handsome twosome as they “shop for the goods.”

Products currently up for purchase span a 1920s oil field workers’ tape-measure divided into 10ths, glass apothecary vessels, a Russian “Amepnka” (America) letterpress stamp and 1940s Marx dump trucks—which you maybe have seen on display at our ByKenyan-designed holiday pop-up shop for the Gap last year.

The Gargyle selection will rotate monthly, but for those who don’t want to wait to see what’s up next, ByKenyan also offers a personalized furniture shopping and home merchandising services. To see where Kenyan and Grace find some of their classic decor, tune into the upcoming episode of HGTV’s “My Favorite Place” which will air 30 July 2011 at 6pm.

Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz marries comfort and beauty in interior design

Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz’ personality is so effervescent it seemed to trail behind him recently when, dressed in floral Doc Martens and a straw hat, he led a group of journalists on a detailed tour of the Mondrian SoHo, his latest and third installment for the luxury hotel brand. Greeting each hotel employee he came across with a genuine smile, Noriega-Ortiz’ warmth and generosity spills over, coming through in the interiors he designs as well. In the case of the NYC location, the industry vet took a more whimsical approach than the sober-hued Los Angeles and Scottsdale properties. Rooms splashed in blue paint and fantastical furniture inspired by John Cocteau’s highly-visual film “La Belle et Le Bête” give the high rise’s interiors a sense of enchantment.

To lend even more magic to the atmosphere, Noriega Ortiz also custom designed over 60 pieces of furniture. In part because furniture provenance bores him, the designer (who holds Masters degrees in both architecture and urban design) prefers to design his own whenever he can.

Treating his own home as a place for experimentation, when it comes to clients Noriega-Ortiz bases his decisions on intuition and years of experience, studying the location to start generating ideas about what the experience should be like. “I develop a storyline that guides the design,” he explains. “It’s kind of like a script for a movie.” Once he’s settled on plot, color comes next to set the mood.

While the Puerto Rican-born designer feels color is extremely important in making a space feel theatrical—such as the Mondrian Soho’s seductive French blue—sometimes the absence of color elevates interiors into “living works of art.” Treating each space as a painting, Noriega-Ortiz says he creates “backgrounds for life to flourish in” and they are not the star, but that “the entire environment, which includes the user, is art.”

Whether designing Lenny Kravitz’s downtown pad or swanky Parisian boutiques, Noriega-Ortiz prefers to work within a compact urban environment, and tends to leave his signature touch in the form of feathers. Passing by one of his feather lamps on the tour with a giggle, he later offered, “I love the way they move with the air as you walk by, it makes me smile. I use them almost exclusively with lighting because light travels so smoothly through the material.”

The feathers are also a spot-on metaphor for Noriega-Ortiz; calm and breezy, functional yet playful, he continues to surprise clients and guests with his surreal environments. His real talent could be simply summarized in his explanation of his design background, “In architecture you learn to create and design an object; in urban design you create and design a space (the void) and the textures around it. That is why the combination of the two really becomes interior design.”