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Think Small, Live Big
Small urban spaces prompt designers,
materials manufacturers and furniture makers to
develop unique solutions.
By Anne Brooks Ranallo
 With
raw loft space commanding an average of $1,000
per foot in Manhattan, "small is beautiful"
has become a mantra to many city dwellers. The
upside, designers say, is that small living spaces
can be comforting in a turbulent world. If well
designed, they’re not cramped, they’re cocoon-like.
They’re also efficient and simplify a chaotic
lifestyle. To make more of less, designers use
versatile modular furnishings, limit accessories,
hide the electronics, use color with presence
and add movable dividers.
This approach can be extreme.
The New York Times quoted architect Winka
Dubbeldam about a loft building: "The only
thing the buyer will have to put in are dividing
walls. Or you could put in an amazing bed on wheels
and you’re done."
More typically, Dubbeldam
sees urban homes with "overlapping zones
of public and private space," in which movable
dividers and modular furniture allow those spaces
to open onto each other as needed at any moment.
She favors dividers made of translucent materials,
such as undulating glass or fiberglass, that change
appearance with the light or can be retrofitted
with lights to illuminate a whole room.
Hiro Isogai, a principal of the Atlanta-based
international design firm of Niles Bolton Associates,
theorizes that design should apply to spaces themselves,
as opposed to what goes into them. He too suggests
glass and translucent acrylic to divide small
living areas in a simple, flexible way.
"Glass cabinet doors
extend the room into the wall," he says.
"Movable acrylic panels can separate rooms
while acting as a window for a feeling of openness.
These panels also are being applied to walls to
reflect a different view of the space."
In a struggling economy,
Isogai finds that urban clients will settle for
less space, but with more character. One of his
most popular projects, Sobu Flats in Atlanta’s
Buckhead district, converted 1950s efficiency
apartments—each just 420 square feet—into
studio and one- and two- bedroom condominiums.
The renovation retained the original low ceilings,
but each unit features curved-wall accents and
Murphy beds disguised as sleek wall units. Unusual
color combinations add interest: lime and steel-blue,
eggplant and pale peach, marine blue and burnt
orange. The setting is ideal for pared-down furniture
in sleek materials—and a minimum of personal
accessories such as family photos and plants,
Isogai notes.
"An undefined area
allows creativity," he says, "but simplicity
makes the space more efficient. Everybody has
a different visual comfort level, but busy personal
items exercise the space."
Compressed space is good, Dan Noyes says, as long
as it balances open space. An architect who chairs
the interior design department at the Art Institutes
International Minnesota, Noyes redesigns small
homes in Minneapolis.
"The idea is to work
with smaller spaces rather than try to make them
bigger," he says. "One technique is
to paint the smaller rooms a darker color, including
the ceiling. This emphasizes the intimate feel.
Then put all of your storage and built-ins in
the smaller rooms. Ultimately, this accentuates
the compression and release of space. Your smaller
rooms will feel more intimate and your larger
rooms will feel comparatively much larger. The
same idea works within the choice of storage itself,
with smaller drawers and cubbies balancing larger
open shelves."
Noyes encourages his clients
to embrace the balance by walking them from an
imagined plane hanging low overhead at a doorway
into a larger space. Most can visualize and virtually
feel the compression, he says.
Compression is a virtue
for kitchens in small homes. Judy Gamble, a Senior
Designer with Water & Fire outside of Boston,
sees a trend toward smaller-proportioned appliances
for city spaces. European brands, with 24-inch
ovens and cooktops, are becoming popular again,
she says, in contrast to the massive stainless
steel of recent years.
"The large, commercial-style
appliances have never really fit into smaller
urban kitchens very well," she says. "Not
just from a size perspective, but also in scale
to the overall room. They overpower the space
and leave the impression that you’ve tried to
stuff a restaurant into a 9-foot galley. Open-plan
kitchens appear more pulled together if the fridge
and dishwasher have been paneled to integrate
into the room, so the cooking center can be the
focal point."
For multipurpose kitchen
storage, Gamble suggests pullouts, and not necessarily
behind cabinet doors. "One idea is to leave
the area below the cooktop open, with polished
chrome rollout shelves," Gamble says. "This
adds function and a focal point from hood to cooktop,
ending with gleaming cookware storage." She
also uses "backsplash systems" that
integrate shelves with task lighting and under-cabinet
lights with hanging gallery rails for cooking
tools. To optimize over-the-cabinet space, Gamble
installs a second, horizontal row of cabinets
with flip-up doors.
New York-based designer
Jeannine Williams also uses two rows of cabinets
in loft kitchens to take advantage of the high
ceilings, along with stainless steel countertops
with integrated sinks for a seamless look, and
banquettes to tuck a dining area comfortably into
a corner.
While urbanites want the convenience of today’s
high-tech "toys," they don’t want to
see them. Williams moves technology, a priority
for her clients, out of the way. High-speed Internet
connections, multifunction phone systems and plasma-screen
televisions should blend into small living areas
as easily as artwork or views. "Wireless
is the best way to go," she says. "It
allows one to move from desk to sofa to bedroom
without losing the connection and to place a printer
in a remote location, like a closet."
Technology has enabled simple
solutions to cramped situations. Plasma-screen
televisions are a necessity in small apartments,
Williams says. "I mount them on the wall
and store the DVD/VCR in a closet. Then an infrared
eye wired from the television to the closet relays
signals to the equipment, and the viewing area
isn’t crowded with an armoire. I love the simplicity
of it."
The bottom line? Theory
outpaces the challenges of cramped city lifestyle.
With a focus on creative design solutions and
technical innovation, small spaces can mean comfort.
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Space-economizing
design need not be tediously practical.
Modular, multifunctional furniture
has become stylish, witty and innovative.
New materials
are used in traditional shapes, and
vice versa, mimicking the postmodernism
and eclecticism seen in today’s city
skylines. The value of a piece derives
less from the intrinsic value of its
materials, and more from the ingenuity
and beauty of its design. A loveseat-sized
rocker made of a single fiberglass
form and covered in a nearly indestructible
sage-green polyester may not immediately
seem as valuable as a mahogany-and-leather
settee, but which is more imaginative,
eye-catching, useful, portable and
scaled for a sleek urban home?
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Douglas
Burton, owner, Apartment Zero
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Douglas Burton,
owner of Apartment Zero in Washington,
D.C., and affiliate member of AIA
and ASID, works with noted Dutch,
Scandinavian and American designers
to find furnishings that are streamlined
and brilliantly simple to suit mobile
condo dwellers.
"If a room
holds only a few pieces, they have
to be multipurpose and stimulating,"
he says. One example is an S-shaped
piece made of maple bentwood. Standing
upright, it’s a stand for a laptop
computer. Turned on its side, it’s
a short bench with an attached magazine
rack. A reversible tabletop has pine
fiber on one side, a lightweight material
that offers the look of wood but easily
flips over to reveal durable laminate
on the other side. Pine-and-aluminum
tables in three sizes work as dining
table, end table and television tray
but fold down to inch-deep flats that
slide out of sight behind a sofa or
refrigerator when not needed. A pair
of ottomans comes with a tabletop
that straddles both of them or sits
squarely atop one, or can be stored
in a closet. Another ottoman has a
removable top that flips over to reveal
a wooden serving tray.
Materials formerly
used in industry and recreation have
entered the home because they’re sleek,
low-maintenance and functional. A
yacht design firm, for example, now
makes furniture from brightly colored
rubberized paint, composite resins
and polyurethane wrapped around fiberglass
forms. One such piece is a seat with
attached footrest, designed to fit
into a mudroom or foyer where people
may change shoes. It makes color and
comfort the entrant’s first impression,
and the outdoorsy material bridges
the gap between exterior and interior.
Similarly, an
S-shaped length of florentined aluminum
is textural and sculptural enough
to look like wall art but becomes
a book-shelf when perpendicular brackets
are added. Wheeled storage units are
practical, but they’re made of bright
resins in sizes that also serve as
accent tables.
Clean lines,
smooth and lustrous materials, mobility,
bright color and an allusion to aspects
of life outside the home all add up
to furniture that fits into a complex
urban lifestyle.
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| Multifunctional
furniture, such as this
ottoman, can be used to
supplement existing furnishings
by providing additional
seating, a footrest or an
occasional table. |
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By
making furniture "convertible,"
today’s manufacturers ensure
greater functionality. This
table can alternate between
a laminate surface, which is
meant for everyday practicality,
and a rift-cut walnut surface
for dining elegance.
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Soaring downtown
office towers and sprawling suburban
campuses may look different outside,
but inside, they’re contemporary.
Location doesn’t
dictate design as it once did. City
dwellers reverse-commute, bringing
their urban aesthetics with them.
And as offices become smaller, clients
are learning the value of clean, modern
design.
"Clients
who have offices only in a
suburb tend to be more conservative,"
says Diana Horvat, IIDA, of Envision
Design, an architecture and interior
design firm based in Washington, D.C.,
whose clients range from Greenpeace
USA to furniture-maker B&B Italia
to the Interactive Digital Software
Association. "But suburban firms
with offices in other cities are more
cutting-edge. They see themselves
globally."
Still, Horvat
finds the current economy leading
even urban offices to look less quirky
and more quality-driven, with more
subdued colors and crisper details
than before the tech bust, to project
an image of seriousness and stability.
Larry Mufson’s
New York firm has designed offices
for Monster.com and Cigna. They tend
to own and customize their offices
freely, he says, while suburban design
can be more "landlord-driven,"
leading clients to take the space
as-is. Mufson sees city offices becoming
smaller and more modular. He recalls
a law firm that chose 100-square-foot
work spaces, each fitted with a work
surface running the length of the
space and a modular conference table,
storage and coat closet. A similar
firm in the suburbs, he says, may
have 225-foot work spaces with standard-sized
furniture.
It probably
wouldn’t be traditional furniture,
though. "I last did a traditional
office about five years ago,"
Mufson says. "We might use traditional
woods in new designs to allude to
tradition. But people are more aware
of design now and modernism."
"The traditional
look isn’t the right message,"
says Cory Hunnicut, interior architectural
design lead for Kling in Philadelphia.
"The message isn’t old money.
It’s frugality, not wasting the clients’
or shareholders’ money." The
modern, practical amenity that Hunnicut
sees now is the in-office cyber café,
complete with coffee bar, stools and
bistro tables, as ideal for staff
bonding.
Dallas designer
Pogir, who goes by one name in his
work with national furniture retailer
Cantoni, sees his clients defining
their image by their line of work,
not their location. Marketing agencies
still look hip, and accountants and
lawyers still look conservative, he
says.
All kinds of
clients, however, want maximum visual
impact. "Everyone wants dramatic
entrances, interesting views into
conference rooms, more glass and natural
light, and open floor plans,"
he says. "In so many of these
new offices, it’s a great experience
to walk through them."
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