If two realms of work can be said to occupy opposite sides of the spectrum, they might be the industrial factory and the A.I. company. Standout examples of both types of workplace are featured in our May/June 2024 issue. WXY’s and Body Lawson’s The Peninsula bakes the factory typology into a new affordable housing community in Hunts Point, New York, where food processing is the literal bread and butter of the local economy. While the Bronx neighbourhood has long been a significant commercial zone, over the past several decades, its residents have suffered higher-than-average rates of poverty ..read more

RADICAL REUSE When the building is a relic, a ruin, a shell of its former self, an adaptation that links past and future can be just as audacious as it is sustainable and functional. Case Study 1: Domino Sugar Refinery, New York The Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn was once the largest such operation in the world. Today, it accommodates 15 storeys of office, retail and event spaces — all inside a glass volume inserted within the original facade. This new structure culminates in a stunning barrel vault roof that recalls the American round-arch style of the building’s windows. In adapti ..read more

It wasn’t that long ago that co-working spaces were riding what seemed like a massive wave that would never break. New brands were launching every few months (East Room in Canada, Second Home in Europe and NeueHouse in the U.S. were just some of the more interesting iterations from a design perspective), while established co-working companies like WeWork were opening spaces at warp speed. Then WeWork started to teeter and eventually collapsed in the face of insurmountable debt and crippling losses, COVID-19 reared its disruptive head, and much of the planet was ordered to work from home. Sudde ..read more

A tumultuous history of development has characterized Hunts Point Peninsula over the past century. Located along the southeastern edge of the Bronx and bounded by New York City’s East River, Bronx River and the Bruckner Expressway, the largely industrial neighbourhood was once a retreat for Manhattan’s elite — the likes of which included members of the Tiffany & Co. family — lined with sprawling estates and waterfront mansions. After the First World War, its ample space and strategic rail access to the tri-state area spurred a flurry of commercial and industrial activity, paving the way fo ..read more

Make the workspace a landscape. That was the essential brief that Nvidia put forward to Hood Design Studio, best known as the firm behind the landscape architecture at Crosstown Memphis, the new de Young Museum in San Francisco and the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. The A.I. giant (currently valued at over two trillion dollars) selected HDS, led by Walter Hood, in an invited competition to create new office spaces for its Santa Clara headquarters — outdoors. Being able to take your laptop outside might be a year-round perk in perpetually sunny and mild Cal ..read more

Textiles are one of the most under-used and underappreciated tools in the designer’s tool kit. They soften the hard edges of modern materials and interiors to add comfort, intimacy, acoustic buffering and pure sensual pleasure. And every January, Frankfurt’s giant Heimtextil exposition asserts itself as one of the world’s most important bazaars for this most tactile of design elements. Along its hundreds of fabric-lined corridors, the seduction is relentless and palpable. In one section, you feel like you’re strolling through some ethereal Moroccan souk, and then, in the next hall, a jungle of ..read more

Beautiful, solid, comfortable. When Simone Ferkul met ATTIC co-founders Melissa Gobeil and Susan Shaw, she asked them to choose three words that define their custom, ethically sourced gold jewellery and engagement rings. “Those are the three words they gave me, and they turned out to be very layered ideas about their brand, and who they are as makers and creators as well,” Ferkul says. These words served as the raw material — the diamond in the rough — from which Ferkul reimagined ATTIC’s multi-functional headquarters in a historic building in downtown Toronto. Equal parts office, workshop and ..read more

1 Brady Dining Table by Minotti Designed for Minotti, the pared-back and rational geometry of Rodolfo Dordoni’s Brady dining table puts the emphasis on the richly veined marble top (variants include Grigio Orobico, Calacatta, Marron Damasco and Nero Marquina), which is placed within a lenticular-shaped frame (in matte Moka scratchproof lacquer), similar to a precious jewel within a ring setting. Combined with the hefty yet handsome metal cylindrical base with decorative ferrule (in satin finish bronze or matte Moka), Brady makes an undeniably striking impression. 2 Palatine Dining Table by ..read more

1 Bridge by Tonone As with the piece of infrastructure that inspired it, the Bridge light by Tonone founder and designer Anton de Groof features multiple evenly distributed supports that maintain balance along the linear design. The dimmable LED is sandwiched between two lengths of transparent recycled Plexiglas — in Fog White, Toxic Green or Lava Orange (shown) — and the power is conducted by the steel-cable suspension for an ultra-clean look. The pendant is available in spans of 110, 150, 180 and 220 centimetres. 2 Echo by COR Munich-based emerging designer Lukas Heintschel describes h ..read more

Montreal is a city of outdoor stairs. While the Quebec metropolis is among the coldest major cities on the continent, its urban fabric is characterized by the romantic — though often icy — swoops, stoops and spirals of innumerable escaliers. Today, they are an iconic part of the city’s architectural heritage, and a fixture of whimsical postcard views. Their origins, however, are decidedly more prosaic. During the city’s late 19th century population boom, the municipal building code mandated a modest setback for new residential buildings. A reflection of the era’s prevailing urban philosophies ..read more