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The Ruby Street Multipurpose Community Space Gets a Major Redesign
Ruby Street in Highland Park, Los Angeles, used to be a Suffragette House, a Civil Rights meeting place and a Progressive church. In 2016, the building came under Lourdes Hernandez and her husband Zach Leigh and – with an astute eye for interior design and contemporary furniture and objects – the couple transformed it to a stunning venue.
In the four years since, Ruby Street has played host to countless private events, performances, dinner parties, and over 200 weddings. This year, Zack and Lourdes have joined hands with interior designer Francesca ‘Kiki’ De La Fuente and creative partners Working Holiday Studio to re-open the space as a creative hub with regular cultural programming to build in a wider community of creatives.
To really bring in people to make use of the space for what it is, the team is expanding its programming to include dinners, music performances, film screenings, creative workshops, and artist residencies. There will also be workshops on wellness, community work sessions, and career development.
The newly reopened Ruby Street features an updated color palette, new oak floors, a mural by LA-based artist Dakota Solt of Form Plus Color, and objects from BluDot, Another Human, Owl, Entler, Nima Abili, Menu, and Bend Goods. All the furniture throughout the space is also for sale.
Photos by Cándida Wohlgemuth.
Balance for Bang & Olufsen Is a Sculptural Object for the Home
The Beosound Balance speaker designed by Benjamin Hubert of London creative agency LAYER for luxury Danish consumer electronics brand Bang & Olufsen embodies the notion an audio speaker should be appreciatively seen as much as heard. With a sculptural silhouette intended to draw a tactile interaction toward its surface, the Beosound Balance strikes out to court the ears with a septet of speaker drivers while its vase-like surface evokes the comfortable textures of home.
The compact textile-covered cylindrical speaker dimensions permit the Balance to feel equally at home on either the floor or situated upon a credenza or shelf. Utilizing a division of thirds, Hubert’s speaker’s top two-thirds are wrapped in Kvadrat textile in reference to upholstery, while the Balance’s bottom third hints of furniture with a FSC-approved solid timber base housing the bass speaker. In sum the speaker presents an audio solution derived from the design language of “domestic objects rather than high-tech products”.
The Beosound Balance features the characteristic Bang & Olufsen sound, with the capability to be used within a multi-room environment using Google Chromecast, Apple AirPlay 2, and Spotify Connect. If the touch controls featured across the top of the Beosound Balance are out of reach, the speaker can equally be operated with the assistance of Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant for all basic operations and to evoke queries.
With BALANCE for Bang & Olufsen, we wanted to create a sculptural interior object for the home, while still offering the performance of high-end audio equipment. The pure, geometric volumes are driven by the acoustic performance of the speaker, visually describing how the audio functions. This approach delivers a product that is intuitive to use and easily fits into the domestic environment without compromising on sound quality.
– Benjamin Hubert, Founder of LAYER
The Beosound Balance is slated for release this week to coincide with an officially planned launch at Milan Design Week, but with the announcement of a postponement for Salone del Mobile until June, we may have to wait just a little longer for this sculptural acoustic expression of sound priced at $2,250.
For more B&O products, check out their featured collection here.
Anchal Project Makes Modern Geometric Textiles While Empowering Women
Anchal Project launched as a nonprofit social enterprise by the Clines sisters offering modern, one-of-a-kind textiles with innovative geometric patterns made using traditional methods. Combining eco-friendly low-impact dyes, vintage fabrics, and GOTS certified organic cotton, their handmade textiles model the brand’s ethos which honors their commitment to making positive social changes by empowering women around the world. They work with women who’ve left the commercial sex trade by training them and setting them up with the tools needed to sustain a job as one of their artisans. By offering them full-time employment, they’re able to break the cycle, contribute to society, and take care of their families. They’re making 30-50% more money than they would as a sex worker, plus they’re learning skills to not only keep these traditional crafts alive, but they’re ensuring long-term employment for themselves. Anchal’s commitment to making a difference is something we wholeheartedly can get behind, and the fact that their products are beautiful, makes it a win-win in our book. Take a look at some of our favorite Anchal Project quilts, throws, bedding, pillows, and tabletop items below!
>> The Anchal Project’s collection of modern bedding, throws, pillows, and tabletop are available for purchase here. <<
A House Hidden in the Landscape / Bender Freiberg Arquitectos
- architects: Bender Freiberg Arquitectos
- Location: Spilimbergo, Córdoba, Argentina
- Project Year: 2018
- Photography: Gonzalo Viramonte
- Area: 300.0 m2
Modernica Announces the Case Study Furniture® Solid Wood Pet Daybed
For the last 30 years, family-owned Modernica has been crafting mid-century inspired home furnishings at their five-acre spread in Los Angeles. Commonly associated with their fiberglass chairs and ceramic + wood planters, the company’s catalog goes well beyond that with furniture and lighting to outfit your entire home. And now that scope includes your pets! The brand just announced the launch of the Case Study® Solid Wood Pet Daybed, which easily complements the Modernica aesthetic with its hand oiled Teak hardwood structure and mid-century lines. The daybeds, inspired by their love of pets, can work indoors or out with removable Sunbrella upholstered cushions in your choice of fabrics. Available in small or large, the daybeds will ensure happy, comfortable pets along with happy adults who favor well-designed products in their homes.
Friday Five with Elliott Maltby of thread collective
Founding partner of thread collective, Urban Landscape Design Director Elliott Maltby believes that art and design can improve the sustainability and vitality of the urban environment. Her vast knowledge of landscape elements shows in every project she lays hands on – including how plants can make for fantastic design elements. Elliott is also skilled in sensory experiences and cultural narratives while providing ecosystem services.
In her research Elliott explores the influence ecological conditions have on the current built and cultural environment. Most recently it’s taken her on a journey to explore the history of Collect Pond in Lower Manhattan, identifying its influence on the city that ranges from the municipal water supply to the founding of Chase Manhattan Bank. In addition to working with architects, Elliott has also collaborated with artists and scientists to creatively address urban design, climate change, and resiliency. She’s currently an Adjunct Associate Professor of Graduate Architecture and Urban Design at the Pratt Institute. Today Elliott is joining us for Friday Five and sharing some important influences in her life.
A vertical garden at the Quay Branly Museum [left] and third century Gallo-Roman baths next to the contemporary facade of the Musée de Cluny [right]
1. Urban WanderingI love wandering through cities, following what intrigues me in the moment. Material juxtapositions, changing light, vernacular signs, and unexpected plantings create a shifting and personal geography. On the other hand, we often use historic maps to provide a different kind of insight into a city, understanding the spatial, cultural, and ecological history of a place through the symbolic order of a two dimensional drawing. I recently visited Paris with my husband Mark, who is also one of the other partners at thread collective. The exploration and photographs from this trip frame and illustrate my five things.
View onto the courtyard at Villa Savoye
2. Integration of Architecture and Landscape
One of the major tenets of our design practice is the integration of architecture and landscape. Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye is a classic early modernist example of this, with the living spaces organized around an internal courtyard and the primary circulation leading to a habitable roof. The spatial overlap of inside and outside spaces is reinforced by large glass sliders, and ribbon windows frame the views of the landscape beyond.
Rows of trees create outdoor rooms throughout parks in Paris, France
3. Outdoor rooms
Paris’s historic parks are exercises in large scale spectacle, minimalist plant palettes, and daring – and sometimes eccentric – geometries. Trees are sculpted into pristine cones, organized into long allées, and pollarded into distinctive rectangular forms. Landscape becomes architecture, creating grand passageways, outdoor rooms, and intimate gathering spaces. Trees and shrubs functions as walls and ceilings, creating discrete zones as well as a sense of drama and surprise.
Un îlot végétale in Canal Saint-Martin in Paris
4. Ecological Experiments
We came across this ecological experiment on the first day of our trip. Canal Saint-Martin once provided drinking water to the city, now its low concrete walls are draped with Parisians of all stripes, relaxing and drinking with friends. This small “island of vegetation,” funded by participatory budgeting, introduces habitat and biodiversity, along with a sense of humor, into everyday urban life. Collaborations between artists and scientists, such as those supported by City as Living Lab, are particularly exciting, creating innovative solutions that engage people and spark the imagination.
Artichoke plants in Versailles’ kitchen garden
5. Urban Agriculture
Small and very lush gardens enliven every corner of Paris, balancing the more restrained geometries of the large formal parks. Sometimes I’d notice some edibles tucked among the flowers, other times we’d discover a vineyard dating from the middle ages. A new permaculture garden, La Ferme, is currently being installed in a beautiful stone-walled courtyard, a space that formerly stored water for the elaborate fountains at Versailles. Wendall Berry noted that growing your own food is a solution that begets solutions. In addition to providing freshly grown produce to the community, urban agriculture addresses a variety of ecological and social issues. Urban farms and community gardens can help foster inter-community relationships, manage stormwater, and combat the urban heat island effect, among other critical benefits for our expanding urban habitat.
Photos by Elliott Maltby.
Canaux’s Circular Shade House / WAO
- architects: WAO
- Location: 6 Quai de la Seine 19e, 75019 Paris, France
- Project Year: 2019
- Photographs: Aurelien Chen
- Area: 175.0 m2
Lycée Français Théodore Monod / Segond-Guyon Architectes
- architects: Segond-Guyon Architectes
- Location: Rue de la Région Île-de-France، Nouakchott, Mauritania
- Project Year: 2018
- Photographs: Studio Erick Saillet
- Area: 7000.0 m2
These Digital Collages are a Playful Take on Vilanova Artigas' Projects
digital collages with soft colors, still images or moving GIFs, Kim shows a ludic look over these buildings that are more than 5 decades old.
ÖSB Housing / Scott Rasmusson Källander
- architects: Scott Rasmusson Källander
- Location: Uppsala, Sweden
- Project Year: 2017
- Photographs: Scott Rasmusson Källander
- Area: 6000.0 m2
LOM Architecture and Design Creates Santander’s New Digital Hub in England
Expected to open in autumn 2022, construction works began on Santander’s landmark new workplace in Milton Keynes. The campus entitled Unity Place, designed by LOM architecture and design, is a hub for digital banking innovation, bringing together, in one space, the 6,000 employees of Santander.
How Did the Evolution of Women's Role in Society Change the Built Environment?
In theory and practice, in the modern era, the idea of spatial separation between home and work was related to the traditional sexual division of men and women, and of their role in life. Going back to the earliest feminist thinking in architecture, in western industrialized communities, we are elaborating in this article on women’s changing role in the 20th century and its impact on the space we experience today.
Mutan Gallery Shop / APOLLO Architects & Associates
- architects: APOLLO Architects & Associates
- Location: Komatsu, Ishikawa, Japan
- Project Year: 2019
- Photographs: Masao Nishikawa
- Area: 63.0 m2
Vincent Hecht Reveals Latest Photographs of Nearly Completed Frank Gehry's Tower in South of France
Atelier Vincent Hecht has released a series of recent photographs that document the construction status of Frank Gehry's Luma Arles Tower in the south of France. The twisting tower opening this spring will include artist studios, workshops, seminar rooms, and research facilities.
TUT House / webe design lab
- architects: webe design lab
- Location: Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu, India
- Project Year: 2019
- Photographs: Hey!cheese photography
- Area: 6800.0 ft2
15 Spaces Structured by Furniture
As walls and slabs, furniture may delimit and define a space. However, opposite to constructive elements, which distinguish the rooms in a more permanent way, furniture may create useful boundaries between one space and another in an easily adaptable way.
Archipélia Social Center / SEPTEMBRE
- architects: SEPTEMBRE
- Location: Paris, France
- Project Year: 2019
- Photographs: Schnepp Renou
- Area: 680.0 m2
Campo House / Jose Costa
Nanjing Foreign Language School, Fangshan Campus / GLA Design
- architects: GLA
- Location: No. 3600 Hongjing Avenue, Jiangning District, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
- Project Year: 2018
- Photographs: Yao Li
- Area: 164406.0 m2
Toy as Architecture, Architecture as Toy / Groundwork Architects & Associates
- architects: Groundwork Architects & Associates
- Location: Shenzhen, Provincia de Cantón, China
- Photographs: Fiona Bao