Japan’s capital is a compelling study in contrasts—sprawling yet full of intimate neighborhoods; ancient yet up-to-the-minute. Here’s how to navigate its riches.
Read excerpted article here
Architecture & Design
Elle Decor
Reviving a Victorian Home
Published in Elle Decor, Friday, January 1, 2010
A San Francisco home known for its appearances on the sitcom “Full House” becomes a child-friendly haven of high art and chic antiques.
Read excerpted article here.
Dwell
Net Assets
Published in Dwell, Friday, July 17, 2009
Gesturing at the wood-and-iron house he designed for his family three years ago, the Buenos Aires–based furniture designer and architect Alejandro Sticotti declares, “It was like putting in a UFO, like something from Mars.” True, with its clean lines, open floor plan, and raw finishes (Read More…)
Interior Design
Time for a Change
Published in Interior Design, Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Some people mark new phases of life with adventure experiences (skydiving, safaris) or shiny purchases (jewelry, sports cars). Others renovate. Such was the case with a retired widow who had lived in a two-bedroom on San Francisco’s tony Nob Hill since the ’80′s. (Read More…)
Topos
Mint Plaza in San Francisco
Published in Topos, Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Just three years ago, this stretch of Jessie Street in downtown San Francisco was a gritty back alley, populated by parked cars, pigeons, and the down-and-out. On one side of the street sat a Vietnamese sandwich shop and a budget SRO hotel; on the other hulked the granite and sandstone Old Mint, a Greek Revival building (Read More…)
The New York Times
Save or Splurge: San Francisco
Published in The New York Times, Sunday, June 14, 2009
ON $250/DAY
SLEEP Carved out of a 1920s hotel, the new Hotel Vertigo in Nob Hill (940 Sutter Street; 415-885-6800; www.hotelvertigosf.com) recently emerged from a cinematic makeover inspired (Read More…)
Elle Decor
Elle Decor Goes to Athens
Published in Elle Decor, Friday, May 15, 2009
Hip hotels, restaurant and museums are transforming the city of Socrates.
Read excerpted article here.
Dwell
Profile: Terunobu Fujimori
Published in Dwell, Thursday, April 16, 2009
A modern eccentric with an architectural sensibility drawn from ancient Japanese traditions, Terunobu Fujimori designs projects that are exercises in playful experimentation and sophisticated craft.
One of the first things you notice about the Japanese architect and architectural historian Terunobu Fujimori is his voracious appetite. His particular brand of hunger extends not only to food—which he devours swiftly and animatedly, crumbs flying Cookie Monster–style—but also to an ardent intellectual curiosity (Read More…)
Dwell
Site Unseen
Published in Dwell, Sunday, March 1, 2009
Few people would spend their life savings on a plot of land they’d never seen. Two exceptions are Adrienne Webb and Stefan Dunlop, who, while living in a loft in London, snapped up an acre of land in northeastern Australia, 10,000 miles away. (Read More…)
Town & Country
A San Francisco Treat
Published in Town & Country, Monday, February 9, 2009
Exploring the California Academy of Sciences, the greenest museum on earth.
The California Academy of Sciences, which reopened in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park this past fall, is now in a new building that resembles a high-style space station — all glass and recycled steel and capped with an undulating green roof (Read More…)
The New York Times
Foraging: Kuraya Japanese Antiques
Published in The New York Times, Sunday, October 26, 2008
Kuraya doesn’t look like much from the street — just a nondescript warehouse on the industrial fringe of the Mission District. But climb the loading-dock stairs, and you’ll find yourself surrounded by some real Japanese booty: hundreds of antique tansu chests from the mid-19th to the early 20th century, each built for a specific function, from tea preparation to kimono storage. (Read More…)
Dwell
Detour: Honolulu, Hawaii
Published in Dwell, Monday, October 6, 2008
Today, if you tallied the world’s design capitals, you’d be forgiven for overlooking Honolulu. But when it came to modern architecture in the 1950s and ’60s, all eyes were on Hawaii’s capital city. After World War II and prior to Hawaii’s statehood in 1959, an influx of young modernist architects poured (Read More…)
Town & Country Travel
Palm Springs Forward
Published in Town & Country Travel, Tuesday, July 1, 2008
A determined group of midcentury modern devotees is helping this kitschy desert city embrace its future while preserving its past.
“Modern architecture is like a black dress or a trench coat: it’s classic, and you can’t get tired of it,” declares Los Angeles fashion designer Trina Turk. We’re sitting in the living room of her 1936 weekend house in Palm Springs, California, known as the Ship of the Desert (Read More…)
The New York Times Style Magazine
Captain Kangaroo
Published in The New York Times Style Magazine, Sunday, May 18, 2008
Australia’s answer to the Galapagos Islands makes a giant leap forward.
“People always tell me, ‘Finally I feel like I’m in Australia,’ even if they’ve been in the country for weeks,” Craig Wickham said as we barreled down a red dirt road on Kangaroo Island. Wickham is tall and graceful, with tan skin and a salt-and-pepper buzz cut. He grew up on (Read More…)
Dwell
Rising Above It All
Published in Dwell, Saturday, December 1, 2007
Set atop a 1908 warehouse in the Courtenay Precinct of Wellington, New Zealand, the three apartments by Architecture Workshop glow like lanterns at dusk, signaling a new day for this once-derelict neighborhood.
Approaching downtown Wellington, New Zealand, from the airport, you curve around the city’s glittering bay and land in Courtenay Precinct, a stylish neighborhood chockablock with boutiques, bars, and sidewalk cafés. It’s hard to believe (Read More…)
Travel + Leisure
Prairie Home Abandon
Published in Travel + Leisure, Sunday, April 1, 2007
Minneapolis’s exuberant Chambers Hotel is taking Midwestern design to a whole new level. T+L pays a visit.
The Look
On the heels of Minneapolis’s remarkable architectural double-shot—Herzog & de Meuron’s Walker Art Center and Jean Nouvel’s Guthrie Theater—comes the David Rockwell-designed Chambers, which has enough art and theatricality to rival them both. (Read More…)
The New York Times Style Magazine
Portland’s Retro Fit Hotel
Published in The New York Times Style Magazine, Sunday, March 25, 2007
For Alex Calderwood, Wade Weigel, Doug Herrick and Jack Barron — whose 79-room Ace Hotel opened in Portland , Ore., last month — good design is about tapping into a city’s lifeblood. “We want guests to wake up in their rooms and feel immediately that they’re in Portland (Read More…)
The New York Times
Foraging: Berkeley, California: Jitensha Studio
Published in The New York Times, Sunday, June 11, 2006
Rare 1940′s and 50′s bike parts are displayed as artifacts behind glass. At the back of the shop are exquisite canvas-and-leather touring bags, woven willow baskets, handmade French tires and tiny brass bells from Japan.
Berkeley is big on bikes. The city is laced with well-used “bicycle boulevards” — streets modified for bike safety and convenience — and studded with overflowing bike racks. Stand in front of Jitensha Studio (jitensha is Japanese for bicycle) and you’re within a mile of (Read More…)
Surface
Happy Camper
Published in Surface, Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Spain’s outdoor-loving footwear brand makes tracks into eco-conscious hospitality.
Topos
Listening to the Land
Published in Topos, Monday, September 19, 2005
SWA Group is a landscape architecture, planning, and urban design firm with offices in California, Texas and Shanghai. The group emerged 1959 as the West Coast office of Sasaki, Walker and Associates. Now SWA has earned the ASLA 2005 (Read More…)