David Sokol
If there was a rite of passage for product designers, it would be the act of creating a chair. Wilso nart, the Temple, Texas–based manufacturer of decorative engineered surfaces, has helped young talents cross this professional threshold with its annual Wilsonart Challenges Student Chair Design Competition. Now in its 12th year, it is the longest-running student…
Architects and designers across the globe are rethinking the creative potential of shade for a new e nvironmental era.
From a select gathering of modernist decorative arts galleries, Design Miami/ has become second only to Art Basel Miami Beach as the must-attend event of Miami Art Week. The design fair’s tent has grown in vision, as well, as corporate sponsors, young gallerists, students, and others now take a place alongside the original exhibitors. Design…
At Architizer, we find it interesting that some of the best-known companies in commercial wallcoveri ngs and textiles are family-owned or operated. Recently, we asked Carnegie Fabrics president Cliff Goldman why that is. “This side of the industry requires an entrepreneurial approach, one that is often best suited to people and organizations that are quick on…
Earlier this year, West Elm, already an arbiter of affordable home style, expanded its influence. We st Elm Workspace comprises six collections of contract-grade furniture for the modern office. Comprising more than 75 pieces, the sub-brand’s lines were designed entirely in-house and produced in collaboration with North American manufacturer Inscape, with high-performance fabrics by Designtex. Architizer…
The lighting brand Ilex Architectural Lighting was founded on a made-in-America premise “in order to maintain our company’s domestic manufacturing base,” says Ben Duggan, who is Vice President of Product Development of both Ilex and its parent company Norwell Lighting. Yet the East Taunton, Mass.-based executive also notes that Ilex had perhaps branded itself too…
IMAESTRI, as company founder and CEO Paolo Timoni describes it, is a “marketing and distribution pla tform for small leading-edge design companies.” The year-old business rigorously vets little-known Italian manufacturers and, if they pass muster, makes those producers accessible to designers and consumers via its members-only website — a hybrid destination in which e-commerce meets art…
Jim Toole is a FLOS frosh. In June 2014, he joined the Italian manufacturer as VP of its decade-old architectural lighting arm. Toole was trained as an industrial designer and says he made the leap (from Cooper Lighting) for FLOS’s product line — “they’re creating the most interesting designs and working on the most interesting…
Sourcing BuzziSpace products is like filling an office with clouds. The Antwerp- and High Point, N.C .-based manufacturer’s BuzziBlox Penta interior panels absorb different wavelengths of sound into a thick layer of foam. Its felt-like BuzziBooth serves as a silent, freestanding retreat from the open interior. And the suspended BuzziGrid buffers noise from above. In addition…