Feeling Fresh

My mood today is definitely the colour green.

Hopeful and optimistic, with all the promise of Spring and warmer weather just down the road.

Cheers, Arren

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Riotous colour and barmy prints! Thank heavens for architect Josef Frank, whose textile and furniture designs for storied Swedish design retailer Svenskt Tenn are an antidote to a grey day, if ever I saw one.

His perfectly curvy and very on trend sofa 968 was actually designed in the late 1930’s, and that gobsmacking fabric? It’s Vegetable Tree, a print Frank designed in the 1950’s inspired by the classic Tree of Life motif.

If you’re looking for something just as stylish, if a little more contemporary, then the cool cats at Svenskt Tenn have collaborated with Swedish architecture firm TAF on their first ever non-Frank designed sofa. Just as curvy as the 968 but with a fresh perspective, the Famna 2020 looks as swish in Frank’s wild 1940’s Hawaii print as it does in plush persimmon velvet. See that stunner here.

Photo: sofa 968, Svenskt Tenn

Photo: Famna 2020 sofa and stool, TAF for Svenskt Tenn

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I love commitment to colour. So when I see the same minty-meets-chalky shade of green popping up in two entirely different rooms, in completely different styles, I’m sold. One, the creative home in Ghent of design duo Muller Van Severen (see more here). The other, a maisonette in Fulham by British interior designers Barlow & Barlow.

That green is a classic Muller Van Severen shade. Spot it in metal frames for lamps and furniture, as well as in Match, a line of Ikea kitchen cabinet doors made of waxily touchable polyethylene for Reform. Ever creative, there’s even a special Music for Kitchens playlist curated by the duo on Spotify.

Colour is key in this Barlow & Barlow interior too, adding oodles of style on a slim budget. For this peppy living room, Farrow & Ball’s Arsenic is the shade in question. The look is amped up further with a chair upholstered in Lasso by Pierre Frey. It’s a fave from their capsule collection with designer Vincent Darré. Yum!

Photo: Alex Profit

Photo: Barlow & Barlow

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Norwegian paint brand Jotun Lady is def where it’s at for modern colour and styling inspo. Exhale, one of their hot picks for 2020 is the soft and misty shade of green in this interior styled by Kråkvik/D'Orazio. And yes, that is a Muller Van Severen Standing Lamp No. 1 in the shot. Couldn’t you just slink right in and never leave?

Check out the rest of Jotun Lady’s totally on the money colour trends for 2020 here.

Photo: Line Klein

Drink it, sit on it

I'm a bit barmy for a good chair, and pretty much anything from Emeco makes the list fo' sho'. Love their story (the aluminum Navy Chair was first made for US submarines during WWII) and love how they've hooked up with big names like Starck, Gehry, Foster and Putman and now, errr, Coke. Stay with me here people. Emeco's latest just-launched-in-Milan chair is the 111 Navy Chair, made of 111 recycled PET plastic 20oz Coca-Cola bottles. The 111 is seriously gorgeous, ultra light, has a great green story - Emeco has the potential to recycle 3 million plastic bottles a year - and comes in six swish colours selected by Laura Guido-Clark. Oh, and the extra sweet part is it'll be about half the price of the original aluminum Navy Chair (which, btw, contains 80% recycled aluminum). Fancy getting hooked up? Then pop on over to DWR, since they'll have the exclusive.

Guest blog / Julia Black: Just for the (green) taste of it

Julia Black: Coca-Cola Classic cans might always be, well, classic but the iconic red and white striped pop could be going naked. The design team of Ryan Harc have created a green alternative to the can, albeit a chic silver kind of green. The guys behind Ryan Harc, Ryan Loon and Harc Lee, have designed Colorless, a monochromatic all-aluminum Coke can with a pressed, convex logo, all without any toxic paints and finishes. In forfeiting Coke's bold colours their proposed design will reduce air and water pollution, and takes out the secondary stage of removing the can's ubiquitous paint job once it's sent to be recycled, saving a whole bunch of energy in the process. Although the Colorless concept has yet to be picked up by the folks at Coca Cola, you can visit Harc Lee’s BehanceNetwork portfolio page here and click to give your seal of approval, and - who knows - we might just see the colorless cans on shelves sometime soon (in time for Earth Day?).

To read more posts from Julia click here, click here to check out her cool blog, and then you should really click here to check out Julia's Green Geek video post for HGTV.ca!

Guest blog / Julia Black: Follow that sign

Julia Black: Boris Bally has a talent for discovering a second life for one of the most mundane things that surround us at - ahem - every turn. Street signs. An extraordinary industrial designer and metalworker, he continually creates pieces that provoke conversation, and often times, a chuckle or two. His humorous yet sophisticated furniture, installations, jewellry and even flatware mashes up recycled street signs, scavenged weapon parts and found industrial materials in a process he calls humanfactured. I love how on-trend his pieces feel from both a green angle (Bally reckons he's upcycled close to 70 tons of signage in his career so far), as well as how they'd add a lovely jolt of colour and wit to a space. Click here to check out all the galleries that carry his work in the US, Canada and further afield. From the top: BroadWay Armchairs, Small Square Transit Tables, Transit Chairs.

To read more posts from Julia click here, and to check out her cool blog click here.

 

Julia Black: Staying in the closet

With New Year’s resolutions and must-do lists in mind, just the thought of tackling my closet gives me a headache. This January, not only do I need to clean mine, I also need to source an entirely new closet system that can smartly handle all my clothes and accessories, all while staying within a relatively thrifty, post-holiday budget. Thankfully, West Elm has once again managed to answer my prayers in efficiently chic home décor, this time with the Bergen Closet Collection. All the shelves, drawers and racks within the line are both stackable and portable, so I'll get that posh custom look and can always take it with me should I ever want to move! The icing on the cake: The collection (available in chocolate & white) is made with FSC-Certified wood veneers (which means it’s using material from sustainably managed forests), uses eco-friendly hardwood construction (so no MDF and therefore less glue and other icky stuff) and is finished with water-based stains and lead-free lacquer. If that isn't good news enough, most of the hardware is made from recycled materials. Love!

To read more posts from Julia click here, and to check out her cool blog click here.

Julia Black: Capturing Heidi Leverty

One of my favorite aspects of working on Pure Design is searching for local artists to feature in each episode. Several of us on the team would brainstorm and research that perfect creative type for each episode at hand, and with countless talented and passionate artists out there discovering them was such a memorable journey. One of my absolute faves this season was Heidi Leverty, an astounding photographer and enlightening artist. Her exceptional ability to convey, through her lens, the beauty in discarded objects is amazing. Within her four collections of photographs, Heidi shines a light on transformations, cycles, and lifespan, which causes us to reconsider and appreciate the value and beauty of all that is around us. Take a close look and you’ll see the ordinary material of our everyday routines becomes an extraordinary photograph. You can catch Heidi's inspired work on this week's episode of Pure Design on HGTV.

For even more of Julia's point of view check out her cool blog here.

Seeing the light

When I interviewed designer Christophe Delcourt recently for the National Post (click here to read it) he was talking passionately about craftsmanship and the beauty of handmade objects. His words popped into my head when I saw this fresh new line of lamps that Industrial Storm will be carrying by ceramicist Lesley Anton. Take a look below to get a feel for the collection, they have a sculptural rough and ready modern vibe to them that recalls mid-century studio pottery. I love 'em! And, as is currently de rigeur in lamps; they have personality for days as well as quite the eco cred (Lesley carefully reduces waste, saving clay and water as much as possible, and uses organic fabrics for the shades). To see Lesley at work throwing and slip casting the lamps, click here.

In other news - Yesterday was yet another bad day in magazine world - Canadian Home & Country sadly just announced that it will be closing it's doors.