D E S G NI

The difference between minimalism and simplicity

Ten Minute Interview: Renzo Piano

Meeting Dieter Rams

And more about Smatphone Home-Controlled products.

INDex

1 An American Ex-Pat Renovates a Tiny London Apartment on her own terms

2-3 The difference between minimalism and sim-plicity

4-5 Six Smartphone-controlled Home Products 6 Wireless Speake that Levitates

7-8 Ten Minute Interview: Renzo Piano

9 Potted Plants Delivered to your door

10-11 Cliff Young Ltd.

12-13 Meeting Dieter Rams

This magazine has always been special to me.I hope that if you read it, you can feel the design throught your veins as much as I do whenever I

write about it. I forever thank the support of everyone involved

with helping me make this dream of mine happen.Thank you.

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Johanna Molineus doesn’t initially come across as the poster girl for rule-breaking. But the Washington, D.C.–born architect’s 678-square-foot central London apartment is a testament to how bending, breaking, and even burning the rule book is sometimes the best way to create a remarkable home.

The first rule that Molineus tossed aside was the bedrock assumption in the oversubscribed Lon-don property market that two bedrooms are al-ways better than one. As her real estate–minded friends scratched their heads and tutted in that oh-so-British manner, Molineus set about recasting what she saw as an impossibly small two-bedroom apartment into a one-bedroom living space that, in spite of its tiny footprint, is made for entertaining.

Not many London houses boast enough space for a din-ing table for eight, to say nothing of a top-floor apart-ment that overlooks one of the English capital’s old-est and finest garden squares and some of its most expensive real estate. But space to cook, dine, and even dance was a must for Molineus, who heads up Johan-na Molineus Architects as well as Walking Architecture, which organizes custom tours of major European cities.

“The most important thing for me was to be able to entertain and have guests,” she says. “My family moved around often, due to my father’s position [in the World Bank]. We enter-tained three or four times a week. We consistently had dinner parties or cocktail parties, so you kind of get used to that.”

An American Ex-Pat Renovates a Tiny London Apartment on Her Own Terms

The difference between minimalism and simplicity.

From Apple’s iOS, Google’s material design to Microsoft’s Modern UI, min-imalism is one of the most influential, if not the most, in design aesthetics today. Most modern hardware design and user interfaces use minimalism in varying degrees or form. But min-imalism is not a new phenomenon.Less is MoreMinimalism is less of an art style and more of a principle that has endured for almost a century. “Less is more” is the widely-adopted guiding principle of minimalism. It was coined by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe referring to his to r duce buildings and their components into their simplest forms.

The dictionary definition of minimalism goes as follows:n.1. A school of abstract painting and sculpture that empha-sizes extreme simplification of form, as by the use of basic shapes and monochromatic palettes of primary colors, objectivity, and anonymity of style. Also called ABC art, minimal art, reductivism, rejective art.2. Use of the fewest and barest essentials or elements, as in the arts, literature, or design.3. A style of music marked by extreme simplification of rhythms, patterns, and harmonies, prolonged chordal or melodic repetitions, and often a trancelike effect.

Admittedly, I was a bit stumped myself when I was brainstorming on this ques-tion. If you think about it, there isn’t really much of a difference between the two. There are nuances however that are considerable points of distinction.

Consider the two photographs of houses above. If I ask you to point out which one is “sim-ple”, you would probably choose the photograph on the right. The house on the right is barely decorated, standing on a raised platform with an equally plain chair. The house on the left has an elaborate design, two stories high with a terrace and fancy turrets.In a sense, we speak of something simple as a contrast to com-plexity. In simple terms (heh), it is a a reduction of complexity.Compare the red house to the previous photograph of the Datar house. The red house now be-comes the “complex” one and the Datar house the “simple” one and undoubtedly minimalistic. What makes the Datar house minimalist is the reduction of its elements to just the essential parts—the necessary components that makes it a house. In a sense, minimalism is a reduction in quantity.What I’m trying to say is, “minimal” can be simplistic, but simple is not always minimal.

But how different exactly is minimalism to simplicity?

Essentially, minimalism is stripping off the necessary until the core parts remain. Imagine the fanciest house that you can think of, your dream house, say a three-story house with an elaborate brick design facade, four bedrooms, a decorated lawn and a swimming pool in its rooftop. But what makes a house a house?Walls. A door. A window. A roof.An extremely minimalist house would look like this, cour-tesy of Datar Architecture.

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Our homes are getting more and more intelligent thanks to the little computers in our pockets—our smart-phones. Companies are creating products that communicate with your iPhone or Android handset, letting you control and manage them with a few taps on the screen. You can get everything from a door lock to lights to an air conditioner to connect to your phone. Soon enough, we’ll be living in robo-houses that will do every-thing for us.

1 August Smart Lock Yves Behar, re-nowned designer of Fuseproject, has dipped his hands in the smart home space with the August Smart Lock. It’s an electronic lock that recognizes when you’re at the door, thanks to a Bluetooth connection with your phone, and unlocks. You can manage digi-tal keys for friends and family, and track who is entering and leaving your house. The lock also has an auto-lock feature, so you never have to worry about accidentally leaving you home open to unwanted guests.

2 Philips Hue Ambiance lighting will never be the same after you try the Philips Hue light-ing system. Using a companion app, you can tell the lights to turn on or off at certain times, set them to specific colors, and manage them remotely. Philips even offers “Light Recipes,” preset lighting settings for various purpos-es like relaxing, reading, and concentrating.

3 Samsung Smart Care Washer If you’re the kind of person who forgets to start a load of laundry and only realize after leaving the house, Samsung’s Smart Care Washer might be a good fit. It features an app that lets you remotely turn on the ap-pliance and track its progress. And when you’re home, you interact with the wash-er through an LCD touchscreen, access-ing plenty of washing options and settings.

4 Belkin WeMo Belkin is in the midst of creating a smart home ecosystem with its WeMo lineup. It already includes a light switch, switch and plug, motion detector, and baby monitor—all of which you control through an iPhone or Android mo-bile app. You can program lights and the heater to turn on as soon as you walk through the door. Or make sure your coffee machine turns off after you’ve left the house. The WeMo line is modular, so you can set it up to do a number of different tasks.

5 Friedrich Kuhl In hot summer months, the air conditioner is a savior. Imagine if you could turn your air conditioning unit on 20 min-utes before you get home, so your house is cool as soon as your arrive. With FriedrichLink, you can. Talk to your air conditioner through the app and you can turn it on and off from away, set all of the temperature controls and put together a customized weekly schedule.

6 Nest There is not other smartphone-con-trolled device as successful as the Nest thermo-stat. It is as the forefront of a new smart home industry, and looks amazing while at it. For more on the nest, read Dwell’s previous cover-age and check out how readers like you nest.

6 Smartphone-Controlled Home Products

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Wireless speakers are everywhere now, and it takes a lot to stand out from the Jambox by Jawbone and all the speakers trying to beat the Jambox. Most of them sound decent enough, particularly for low-fidelity streaming audio files, so novelty can make a product remarkable. That’s the idea behind the OM/ONE, a speaker housed inside a 3.5-inch diameter levitating ball.Opposing magnets keep the 3/4-pound black sphere floating above the base, and the speaker unit housed inside is rechargeable—pull it from the float-ing base and plug it in, and a full charge gets 15 hours of playback.At three watts and an 1100-decibel output, it’s plenty loud—for comparison, a Jambox puts out 85 dBs—but its main appeal is in the presentation. The charging method is slightly inelegant, but at $199 for a pre-order, it’s priced competitively, especially when you consider it has speakerphone functionality.

Wireless Speaker that Levitates

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10 Minute Interview: Renzo Piano

I met with Italian architect and Pritzker Prize winner Renzo Piano one week before the official opening of his latest museum project, an addition to the historic Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston, whose original building (nicknamed “the palace”) opened in 1903. We chatted in the Living Room, an airy meeting place on the ground floor of the new wing, which is decorated in mid-century furniture upholstered in vibrant reds and oranges, grounded by a brick wall covered in suspension shelves, and accented by real, live chirping birds.

Piano had a hand in designing everything in the Gardner’s contemporary wing, from the furniture to the elec-tronic poster boards with museum signage to the acoustic marvel that is the new concert hall. He is exacting, as an architect of his stature is inclined to be, requesting that the blinds of the Living Room be pulled up before we began, to ensure maximum bliss-out the space. As rumored, Piano is charming, enthusiastic, and forthcoming about his work. Here’s what he had to say about updating the grande dame of Boston culture for contemporary usage:

How familiar were you with the Gardner before getting hired to work on this commission?

I had probably been two times but it felt like I had been 50 times! Before I got this job... as an Italian, you find it to be very funny. A lady trying to make a piece of Venice in Boston, it’s very funny. It’s extravagant but she was very good, she got the good things. And had enough money to do it prop-erly, so she escaped from kitsch. The collection is fantastic!

What are your favorite parts of the existing building?

It is funny but very well done--with strength, with intensity, and with beauty. Fragility is part of the building, too, especially in the courtyard. You feel it when you look at the Raffaello and the Tiziano [Ed: Titian] and Giorgione and Piero della Francesca. You feel proud. Of course, people are also familiar with the fa-mous theft in the 1990s, so that makes it even more romantic!

What other architecture inspired the new wing?

What is great about architecture is that for every project you start a new adventure. If you want to stay away from a terrible thing called ‘style,’ which means you are trapped in a golden cage in which you’ll never survive, then you have to be free enough to have a new inspiration for a place. The inspiration here is the palace, not the whole building, but the fragility, the lightness, and transparency of the courtyard. It’s a masterpiece,

What about its programmatic functions?

This is a new study--it’s not the beginning of the 20th centu-ry, it’s the 21st century. So we have a legacy…And we got to apply this concept of transparency to open the building to the city.

The function of the new museum, fundamentally, is that it’s flying above the ground. The hall, the gallery, the curator’s office, the activity is mainly up there. And then we give back

How did you choose the materials for the extension?The material choices were made in mind of the levitation of the volume and to welcome the public with informal activ-ities. Like the greenhouse--there is nothing more informal than a greenhouse! But it’s part of this institution; this lady [Ed: Gardner] used to have a greenhouse, moving flowers to the palace courtyard and back again. The lobby is funny, it’s almost all a greenhouse. Then you have a living room, and a dining room [Ed: Cafe G] and a place for children to come for bookshelves. Then you have a link to the palace.

You talk about transparency but the building is punctuated by a lot of strong color statements. I’m curious about the green cladding, and the red performance hall.

You have to be very respectful to the past but you have to be yourself, a contemporary person. So you are looking for functional aspects that don’t take away from the palace’s life, but you are looking for something to tell a different story. So you use a different language: contemporaneity. So instead of a brick exterior, we used copper (which is also quite Boston!). There’s a color but it’s not from paint, it’s from oxidation. There’s a pleated skin which makes the color more vibrant. It plays with the passage so you see, there is a constant game of shade and light and reflection.Yes, so the color is punctuated, it’s almost Impressionist. Color is part of a joyful attitude--joy is not necessarily stupid! I mean, you need enjoyment. It’s part of being in a city and making the city a better place to live, a joyful place.

And this is red [picking at the sofa] because I love red! And the concert hall is red because red is a concert hall. It makes sense.

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Potted Plants Delivered to Your Door

The Sill, dedicated to providing houseplants and plant consultation ser-vices, would be easy to mock if their plants and pots weren’t so attractive. Plus, options to handwrite messages and deliver as gifts make this a more sustainable option over delivering bouquets. With clients like Kate Spade Saturday, Vine, Warby Parker, and Twitter, The Sill is au courant, if limited to New Yorkers only.Party prep with a batch of bright potted succulents and cacti. Buy a pack of 25, 50, or 100. From $300. Courtesy of The Sill. The Hyde Collection comes in six color ways and are meant to fill up a windowsill with light-loving plants. $175. Courtesy of The Sill.

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Cliff Young Ltd. has been designing one of a kind interiors and award winning furniture for over 46 years. One-stop shopping for designers, architects, and home-owners alike, the company offers a versatile range of design ser-vices, from turn-key solutions of entire home renovations to custom furniture design and built-ins. Great design can transform any space, and they inspire their clients to realize the full potential of their space with drawings and 3D renderings of each room. Cliff Young helps their clients create their dream home, from site measurement through install with space planning, complete drawings and 3D renderings, custom product development and engineering, and project management through pro-duction and delivery.

Cliff Young Ltd. was founded in 1968 by Alberto Azzolina, a young Italian musician recently returned from the army. Talented, with an open mind and keen business sense, he started working in the New York furniture industry and soon saw what very few people realized at the time — furniture and design business can only truly succeed by tuning into its client’s needs and giving them a furniture piece that fits their lifestyle. His show business background prompted him to change his name into Cliff Young — little did he know of the advent of Italian style in furniture in the coming decades.

Cliff Young ltd.Backed by an extraordinarily tal-ented team, he perfected the art of developing pieces of furniture for his clients and with his clients, that were the best possible match for their interiors and lifestyle. He also learned firsthand the challenges of creating unique, custom designs, and the amount of work, talent, engineering, effort ,and persistence required behind each successful design. Cliff Young’s daughter, Leslie Young, followed his footsteps as a child and learned the skills of listening and translating a client’s vision and needs for the home into unique furniture designs. She joined the firm in 1988 and soon

The Cliff Young collections are constantly evolving, keeping in tune with the modern aesthetic and sensibility of the way we live today, all with an eye to the future.

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I had the rare pleasure Fri-day of meeting and interviewing German industrial design legend Dieter Rams. Rams is in town for the opening of the exhibit Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams at the San Francisco Muse-um of Modern Art. We spoke in the morning for some time about his work at Braun, his ten principles of good design, and his sense of the contemporary design scene. He was cheerful one moment, forceful the next, but perpetually engaged and insightful. More to come on Deiter from Dwell, but enjoy these photos taken of him by our Art Director Alejandro Chavetta.Given Rams’ outsized presence in the design world, I was curious to see if I could glean anything of the man’s personal taste through what he was wearing. The chinos and black double-breasted blazer suggested a well-turned out, if serious, com-portment. As did his sober glasses and black loafers. Two bits of char-acter did shine through, though.

He was wearing a small pin in his buttonhole: a kind of lifetime achieve-ment award from the German government. And he was carrying a terribly handsome cane. He told me that he got the wenge cane many years ago from its maker Nanna Ditzel, the great Danish furniture designer. He said that he never thought he’d have to use it, but a recent knee operation made it necessary. He regarded the thing for a moment, taking clear pleasure in the clarity of its de-sign. Then he considered the rubber stopper at the end. “I don’t like this part,” he said, “but the original had nothing at the end. Just wood.” Function seems to have won out over pure form. He finished the anecdote by telling me that he had the cane at an interview with British television and that they showed the cane. He says it’s going back into production based on interest from the interview.

Meeting Dieter Rams