I love the models I build as part of the design process, and this one in particular. It’s a dining room for a house in Chicago for a family originally from Detroit. The home was in a former orphanage and it had monumental rooms that were sort of institutional. We were going to commission the potter Matt Merkel Hess to take motifs from important milestones and elements from Detroit history and build an iconography around that through hand-painted tiles.¹ This project has actually stalled and is no longer happening, but I’ve kept the model out because I’m so interested in the idea, and it’s going to come back. We’re renovating my house right now and Matt is doing something like this. And we also incorporated it into a house in Connecticut. One room had this old Federal-style wallpaper and we took all the motifs from the wallpaper and turned them into tiles and re-wallpapered the room. It’s one of This story is from Kinfolk Issue Forty-Four Buy Now Related Stories Design Issue 42 My Favorite Thing The garden designer, Fernando Caruncho, shares the story behind a painting of his mother. Design Issue 39 My Favorite Thing Interior designer Pierre Yovanovitch tells the story behind his favorite piece of furniture. Design Issue 51 John Pawson From the king of minimalism: “I find the essential and get the design down to a point where you can’t add or subtract from it.” Design Interiors Issue 51 Axel Vervoordt Inside the world of Axel Vervoordt. Design Issue 51 Inga Sempé “Minimalism is boring as hell, and on top of that, it’s preachy.” Design Issue 51 Halleroed Meet the giants of Swedish retail design.
Design Issue 42 My Favorite Thing The garden designer, Fernando Caruncho, shares the story behind a painting of his mother.
Design Issue 39 My Favorite Thing Interior designer Pierre Yovanovitch tells the story behind his favorite piece of furniture.
Design Issue 51 John Pawson From the king of minimalism: “I find the essential and get the design down to a point where you can’t add or subtract from it.”
