Miele Elevates Experiential Branding To The Next Level

The power of ‘branding’ and ‘experiential spaces’—two buzzy words in today’s lexicon—were exemplified by Miele in an event elevating both to the next level. The fourth-generation, family-owned German manufacturer of domestic appliances invited a select group of 47 architects, designers, journalists, and construction folk to mingle and meet the team in the rarified, yet down-to-earth setting of SingleThread Farm. Located in Sonoma’s Healdsburg, the multi-faceted enterprise starts with a 24-acre, machinery-free, biodiverse farm (open to nearby chefs, the surrounding community, and school kids alike) with a test kitchen and Farm Shop.

Steps away, agriculture segues to the private residence of married founders chef Kyle and farmer Katina Connaughton. Designed by Sander Architects of Marina del Rey, the striking shou sugi ban-finished structure was conceived to meet myriad personal and professional needs. Arguably most important is scale. It accommodates both intimate family life for the couple and their two grown daughters when visiting, plus large-party hosting figuring into their hospitality playbook. Of course, the single-story interior centers on the kitchen—fully fit for commercial capabilities, including a sophisticated lighting scheme for high-production value filming. Regardless, it still reads homey, inviting the Connaughtons to whip up a casual dinner for two.

Miele Hosts An Iconic Event At SingleThread Farm

With this as prologue, the tour-de-force follows in the town’s center. The so-named, Michelin three-star restaurant is a showplace for the Connaughtons and AvroKO’s consummate melding of serene Asian and NorCal sensibilities. The approach was particularly appropriate. Part of the chef’s impressive CV (including stints at Los Angeles’s Spago, Luques, AOC, Hama Sushi, and the dining room at The Ritz-Carlton) entailed living and cooking in Japan from where he transported cooking techniques stateside. In a phrase, the environment is warm and welcoming.  It’s devoid of an iota of pretension. Miele, collaborator in the SingleThread Farm event, supplied an extensive panoply of appliances. The fact, however, registered almost subconsciously to us so subtle were the presentation and sotto voce mention.

Speaking of presentations, more came with roundtable and breakout sessions providing dual-focus, give-and-take education to the two-day experience. Miele teased guests with product previews including the enviable 36” induction range (prompting converts of us all), the Master Cool Silo, and upcoming finishes including pearl beige and obsidian black. Piquing curiosity, Generation 8000 promises the most sophisticated appliances yet in terms of energy efficiency, integrated AI initiatives, and an all-encompassing app come the slated 2027 launch.

Miele’s Product Previews Pique Curiosity

For its part, Miele received designer feedback on favored finishes and materials mixes through experiments with sample boards. Conversation led to input on what end-user clients want. More technology or less? Sleek minimalistic palettes or pops of color? Open great rooms or closed-off spaces? Everything was open to discussion in a convivial group avid to embrace the future. The big take-away? Like SingleThread Farm with its consistent narrative, a through line of personal connections, and subtle tie-ins worked wonders in brand enhancement. Yes, that and correct pronunciation of its name.

Catch Snaps From The Miele Event

Designer Olle Lundberg Dies At 71

Given San Francisco’s foodie culture, Lundberg may be best known for his association with the late chef Charles Phan and The Slanted Door. Originally a humble restaurant in The Mission on Valencia Street, the paean to Vietnamese cuisine earned high-profile, high-visibility status, and national acclaim with a move to the Ferry Building where multiple design elements in the new venue came courtesy of the Lundberg shop.  Shuttered by Covid, the restaurant, via Lundberg Design, is currently headed back to its roots. Flour+Water and Flour+Water Pizzeria are other local favorites as is South, the lobby-adjacent eatery in the SF Jazz Center.

Residences enrich the city’s landscape, further extending to the Monterrey Peninsula, Napa, Hawaii, and the island of Salt Spring in Canada. Surely the jewel in the crown is the former Pacific Heights home of Lawrence Ellison (See Interior Design, October 1997). On par with the heart-stopping views of the San Francisco Bay and exquisite internal checkerboard garden is the 10,000-pound granite boulder that Lundberg Studio ingeniously fabricated into a suspended fountain.

Back in the city, denizens and visitors alike experience public transportation in thoughtful style thanks to SFMTA bus shelters. Ecologically designed, the 14,000 structures provide a pop of visual identity thanks to their scarlet ribbon-like canopies embedded with photovoltaic film.

Accolades, including several Interior Design Best of Year Awards citations, and published projects loom large. Meanwhile, the studio intends to continue its founder’s groundbreaking work. Olle Lundberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and sculpture from Washington+Lee University, and an M.Arch degree from the University of Virginia, which awarded him the Distinguished Alumni Award, 2023. Mere days before his sudden October 31 passing, he launched his book. Olle Lundberg: An Architecture of Craft, with a forward by his friend and collaborator, artist Andy Goldsworthy, is published by Princeton Architectural Press/Chronicle Books, and Lundberg had been planning a series of book talks and events to celebrate. For those inclined, please consider a donation to Redwood Coast Humane Society.

Sip Tea Among the Clouds In This Nature-Forward Pavilion

Perhaps nothing is more intrinsic to Chinese culture than the tea ceremony. The ancient ritual symbolizing hospitality, respect, and harmony is believed to have begun during the seventh century. Today, Beijing-based Plat Asia has infused that tradition with a contemporary twist at the Cloud Tea Room, an amenity within the Huzhou Nature Valley Resort, a 33-acre destination surrounded by bamboo forests, tea fields, and mountains; about an hour west of Shanghai, Huzhou is said to be the origin of tea culture.

Compact at 100 square feet, the pavilionlike structure has an ethereal profile. Glass wraps the perimeter, tatami mats top the self-leveling concrete flooring, and white-painted steel panels form the roof. The latter is supported by a series of steel poles that begin in the tearoom supporting the roof, then meander out to the fields suggesting pathways for visitors to follow.

Of the 170 total poles, 100 of them are capped by a spray mechanism that produces a fog phenomenon that’s activated during tea ceremonies. “The architecture gradually disappears as the fog rolls in,” Plat Asia cofounder Jung Donghyun says, “severing all visual connection between our project and the outside world, creating a realm where only people and tea exist”—taking visitors on a temporary voyage to a simpler, centuries-ago experience.

Timeless In Toronto: Where Clean Lines Meet Contemporary Living

The elegant, white stucco residence with Tudor inspired gables and distinctive arches in Toronto’s posh Glenrose area may not look 100 years old, but that’s what the homeowners avowed upon initial meeting with Bahar Zaeem and Shima Radfar. That’s not all the design partners, who co-founded RZ Interiors eight years ago after meeting at Toronto Metropolitan University, learned. Early meetings, back in 2022, revealed a couple, now with two young daughters, who knew exactly what they wanted. “They came full of notes for a modern, clean aesthetic,” Zaeem introduces their interiors wish list for the two-story, 2,500-square-foot property. In fact, she continues, “they had a pdf categorizing every space.” Radfar adds that the brief also stipulated “high-end, good quality materials.” In short, a far cry from the existing situation of compartmentalized, constrained spaces.

The designers opted for a gut renovation. “Here in Toronto, nobody likes to keep things,” Zaeem laughs. The only exception was the sun room, which they incorporated into the main space with bi-fold doors to count in the square footage. Per usual, both participated—one led as project manager, the other focused on ideation. This time around, Radfar assumed the former role, Zaeem the latter. The approach, they explain, facilitates communication between the design team and clients, contractors, and vendors.

RZ Interiors Crafts A Modern Home With Effortless Style

Enter and voilà, the designers’ contemporary vision instantly comes to life. It starts off at the welcoming corridor, distinguished by a soffit subtly aglow with LED’s and a hefty, curvaceous plaster partition backdropping a moss sculpture. Note, this is a partition not a wall. Key to RZ Interior’s newly designed floor plan is the lack of walls. Nothing to impinge upon the interflowing, yet carefully articulated spaces. Nothing to obstruct a sight line from inside to out.

Here’s how organization works. On the backside of that entry partition stands the kitchen. It caps the clients’ desiderata as the generous hub of the house. At street-side a built-in bench cum storage signals a cozy breakfast nook. At the other end, a triple-sided fireplace marks transition to the living zone where pride of place goes to a piano, its player the elder six-year-old. Straight ahead is the sun room; the dining area is situated behind the salon.

A Contemporary Vision Come To Life

Interiors are enviable for their copious storage cabinetry, somewhat of an RZ Interiors signature and wish number two. Comprising pale greige AGT laminate cladding, metallic laminate for sparkly detailing, and counters of Cosentino’s Silestone, elements have smooth radius edges and are all of a piece. Which brings us to the palette, monotonal in muted colors, minimal in materials. Pale engineered wood flooring runs throughout. Black painted steel adds pop to fenestration framing and lighting tracks within the slightly lowered ceiling. That’s it. Not a single baseboard interrupts the clean-line flow.

Of course, there’s a stairway. Radfar and Zaeem repositioned it to make room for a front powder room, another client request. Simultaneously angular and curving, “the stair turns like a ribbon,” notes Zaeem. With its integrated LED strips, it leads to a mezzanine and the second floor where the designers built a bona fide primary suite. Though compact, the bedroom now boasts everything needed including ample closet and built-in, illuminated headboard with nightstands thoughtfully attached.

As part of their no-nonsense process, succinctly expressed on the firm’s web site, the designers asked the owners what furnishings they wanted to keep. No heavy-handed out with the old, in with the new. Ergo the pared-down mix includes an existing marble-topped dining table, its chairs, and a coffee table paired with the living room’s new sofa and rug.

RZ Interior’s work extended sub-grade, making the basement a fully used extension. Along with play space for the kids are a bathroom, laundry, and gym facilities. Within the overall compact space, “we worked within inches, to make everything fit,” Radfar sums up the scope. All in a manner as timeless as the house’s origins.

RZ Interiors Reimagines A Tudor Home For The Modern Era

10 Questions With…Tom Parker Of Fettle

Tom Parker Explores A Maximalist Approach To Hospitality

Interior Design: Our first question is obvious. Why the name Fettle and what does it mean?

Tom Parker: Fettle is an old English term meaning hand crafting or refining something. In our context, it relates to a bespoke and hand’s-on approach of designing spaces or objects from concept through completion.

ID: Nothing in your early exposure said design. What was the draw?

TP: Actually, it was drawing. Sketching, too. But, I realized I wasn’t good enough for this to be the primary focus of studies. Especially after seeing a girl do an incredible portrait in my art class at 12. Luckily, I enjoyed the overlap of art with, what we in the U.K. call, design and technology. I loved looking at exploded diagrams of cars and laptops so it was a good balance between fine art and the small scale or product end of the design spectrum. The balance is reflected in our work today. For example, we’re simultaneously working on embroidery designs for uniforms at the Sundance Mountain Resort while also collaborating with architects on space planning for a large beach resort.

ID: Speaking again of draw, why did you settle in Los Angeles?

TP: Between living in London and New York for more than a decade, I was ready for a change. When launching the company, opportunities popped up on the West Coast with the Draycott in Los Angeles and The Hoxton hotel in Portland. Access to beaches and nature was a huge plus. We often head to Joshua Tree or Big Sur for a long weekend. The ability to be remote is hard to beat.

ID: We view bars and restaurants as the new social currency cutting across generations. What’s a checklist of must haves for these hospitality venues as they entice folks to part with their hard-earned funds?

TP: We see a number of key items across projects in the U.S. and internationally. First, comes the food concept and its quality. Second, is an element of immersivity within the experience. A level of escapism and adventure is within a lot of current restaurant design. This is particularly important as habits between generations are changing. Younger people are consuming less alcohol, thus putting more emphasis on the experiential nature of food and interiors. We’re focusing on this for a Big Sky restaurant operated by Alinea, a Michelin three-star restaurant in Chicago.

ID: Two recently completed restaurants are roughly 3,000 miles apart: Bar Issi in the Thompson Hotel, Palm Springs, and Sirrah, a French restaurant in New York’s meatpacking district. Walk us through some of their standouts. How does design tie to branding and sense of place?

TP: Bar Issi is essentially about being on vacation and a feeling of escapism. Our initial narrative was based around the social scene of Palm Springs in the 60’s and ‘70’s. Also, the Italian coastline. In order to achieve a sense of frivolity and exuberance, we used a lot of patterns, such as the dancing crocodile wallpaper and texture such as the mohair velvet acoustic ceiling treatment. The final space feels bright, vibrant, and bold. So far, it’s very popular.

Although Sirrah, which recently opened, is similarly layered and relatively colorful, it’s a darker, moodier, and somehow naughtier supper club concept. The idea was to create a great restaurant turned late-night venue, which can act as a sequence of individual smaller rooms or be combined into one dramatic space. The palette is still heavily patterned but the colors more serious and grown up. Vast draped backlit ceilings create the stage for Murano blown-glass chandeliers. Meanwhile, acoustically, it performs at a high level for a custom Macintosh speaker system.

ID: Let’s look at the Fettle touch in some other recent projects. Le Jardin de Verre opened earlier this summer in Paris. Cicchetti, Knightsbridge, follows successes in Picadilly and Covent Garden. The Hoxton, for which you designed the public spaces, promises a Roman holiday in the posh Parioli neighborhood.

TP: Le Jardin de Verre, in the 6th arrondissement, is an incredible property made up of two 1570 Parisian townhouses combined with a Victorian-era factory behind them. We used them to create unique spaces on varying scales. For example, bar and restaurant occupy the greenhouse-like space, formerly the factory, while reception and cocktail bar are in the more intimate older buildings. For us, it’s a cleaner more contemporary aesthetic in line with the younger clientele.

With Cicchetti, we have a great relationship with the San Carlo restaurant team. The Knightsbridge version draws on the rich materials palette associated with the water taxis and luxury yachts of Venice.

Hoxton in Rome plays into the history of mid-century architectural details of its 1950’s building and those of the painstakingly well-maintained old buildings in the neighborhood. Furnishings are a mixture of custom designs and vintage Italian pieces. Theatrical elements include the main bar, a curvaceous coffee bar, and brass and smoked glass lighting fixtures running through the lobby.

ID: What is your secret sauce—on both personal and professional levels?

TP: What fascinates me is people. I think of how they use spaces in a ritual manner and in terms of who are clients are and what they are trying to achieve. The variety in our client teams is exhilarating. We just completed our first Las Vegas restaurant, Caramella, with the Tao Group—while also starting a very small coffee shop here in Venice Beach as a husband and wife on their first voyage into owning a venue. The differences in scale and approach are vast, but the dedication and thought from all teams are shockingly similar. Hospitality is constantly evolving and growing. It’s really more about people than design.

ID: What are your sources of inspiration, from within the design community and beyond?

TP: With regards to design-based inspiration, I travel a lot and see great projects by other companies. I see where we fit in as a design firm, how our clients’ ambitions fit, and what key references are. On a recent trip to New York, for example, I stayed at the relatively newly opened Chelsea Hotel and had dinner at the stunning Post Company-designed Café Zaffri. Seeing the two properties in person was different from what I imagined. Outside of work, California’s natural beauty offers its own form of inspiration. Our family’s love of driving (four times cross country) combines nature and a litany of reference material from obscure American towns for potential projects.

ID: If you hadn’t been a designer, you’d have been?

TP: If I were 300 percent better at art, I love to think I would have been a painter. In reality, having done Capoeira [Afro-Brazilian martial arts] since I was a kid, I would likely be a Capoeira teacher.

ID: We end with a look at the horizon. And with anniversary wishes.

TP: One of my personal focuses is the soon-to-be-completed inn at the Sundance Mountain Resort created by the late Robert Redford. For the past five years, we’ve been working with the client team on various projects at Sundance. This will be our most ambitious and complex work to date. Different from all our current work, it has a rural aesthetic inspired by 1970’s mountain cabins.

A Brooklyn Heights Co-Op Renovation Driven by Scandinavian Simplicity

Lucky were the longtime owners of a Brooklyn Heights co-op to find the adjacent unit for sale. Luckier still, perhaps, were the couple to meet Christine Stucker and James Veal, cofounders of Stewart-Schäfer. The designers convinced the homeowners that conjoining the two apartments was not only feasible but also financially viable. The merge would enhance both real estate value and quality of life for the family, a couple in the film industry with two pre-teen children.  

Straightforward and easy enough—at least, that’s how the endeavor first seemed. The newly purchased apartment resembled a disheveled college dorm, complete with a stage and an elevated level change. Stucker and Veal, who are married, intended to raze dividing walls and create a seamless segue between the clients’ long-time home and the addition, which was to be transformed into a luxurious master suite. Or so they thought.  

Stewart-Schäfer Enhances This Brooklyn Heights Co-Op

The eight-story landmark structure with 72 residences was built in 1899. “You can only imagine what we found opening up walls,” says Veal with a laugh. This required a gut renovation for the addition and extensive refurbishing for the main space. “We had to resurface everything,” Stucker adds.

While the designers maintained the basic organization with living areas up front and children’s bedrooms in the back, they seized the opportunity to expand and completely redesign the kitchen and give it a generous pantry.

Tour This Kitchen With a Generous Pantry

Ceilings received a structural change, too. In the original apartment’s footprint, the designers lowered the ceiling from 19 to 17 feet and covered the soffits for a clean plane. They also cleaned up the 10-foot-high expanse in the new space. All told, they designed a plan for 3,000 square feet comprising four bedrooms and four baths. 

Neutral Tones & Natural Materials Give This Home A Clean Feeling

The designers embraced two guidelines for furnishings in the new expanded unit. One was a Scandinavian aesthetic favored by the clients, “easy and trusting,” as described by Stucker. “We kept things simple and clean, understated with a premium feeling,” Veal notes. Neutral tones and natural materials, primarily rift-cut white oak, dominate.

The second guideline was storage space—and plenty of it. “I was a New Yorker for 20 years,” says Stucker, who previously lived in Brooklyn and now is in Easton, Connecticut. “I dreamed of closets.”

The result was copious millwork, a hallmark of a Stewart-Schäfer design. They incorporated storage for the kitchen in cabinets beneath a 17-foot-long Taj Mahal marble-topped counter and the pantry. As for the living area, it received a display wall with shelving and cabinets. In the primary suite, two massive blocks for built-in closets flank the bed, and an integrally lit display wall at its entry—which also happens to be the connecting point of the old and new spaces—shows books, objects, and ceramics. There’s a similar wall in the son’s room for his Lego creations and action figures. Even the stairway has built-in cabinets at its base, à la tansu steps.

Storage Space Is the Name of the Game

For freestanding pieces, Stucker and Veal got lucky at Design Within Reach. They scored the dining table, its mid-century Danish 39 chairs, bar stool, and Warren Platner coffee table. Mario Bellini’s Le Bambole armchair in a creamy bouclé follows in a similar classic vein, while the bedroom chair by Børge Mogensen is a vintage find.

The Stewart-Schäfer commission extended to curating the owners’ art collection, to which Stucker added a piece of her own, an oil painting created for the large open wall in the living room. It’s nameless, as are all her paintings.

Stewart-Schäfer Nods to Scandinavian Design in This Home

Bringing L.A. Flair to a Finance Company’s Corporate HQ

Gensler has a history with this global investment manager. Almost two decades worth. That’s when the studio first created the finance company’s corporate headquarters in Los Angeles. Its recent move down the street to a 1964 concrete structure entails 206,000 square feet across eight floors for 860 people, its concept, by Gensler L.A., led by principal and design director Lee Pasteris, centered on connectivity and transparency.

Pasteris began with cues from the base building, exposing intrinsic elements and selecting refined materials as complements. Next, she and her team cut immense holes through floor plates to accommodate two stacked stairways, one connecting levels three through six, the other 10 to 14. Each stair landing adjoins a unique lounge reflecting an L.A. archetype: The art gallery, for example, has pedestals displaying vessels by California artist Nick Schwartz; Alex Fernández Camps’s cloudlike Mediterrània pendant fixtures hang over a beachy white outdoor Scacco sofa by Ludovica Serafini + Roberto Palomba in coastal; and the terrace has cabanalike booths and a focal wall in the client’s corporate cobalt.

Ascent and descent are quite a trip. Backdropped by a towering expanse of preserved moss by Garden on the Wall, the lower stairway skews earthy, while the upper boasts commissioned Windy Chien pieces, four of the office’s 70 artworks. The workplace proper comprises a 70/30 open-closed ratio. Offices have glass fronts and, compared from previous quarters, are all uniformly sized. “We’re moving toward a future-focused design driving solutions,” Pasteris cites the overarching goal. “With every company, we’re searching for the secret sauce.”

DENISE ZACKY-POPOCH; KARIN NELSON; LEE PASTERIS; JULIA PARK; COLIN THOMPSON; CINYA WEN; GRETCHEN BUSTILLOS.

A First Look At LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presented a first look of its new David Geffen Galleries to the press and museum members at the end of June. As designed by Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partners with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill collaborating, the addition to the museum’s 20-acre campus culminates five years of construction to say nothing of the design process beginning with the Swiss Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s commission in 2009. Bold, audacious, controversial. That’s been the consistent talk surrounding the project. Indeed, the swooping, curvilinear wing, encompassing 347,500 total square feet with 110,00 square feet dedicated to exhibition space is just that. Most striking of all is its elevated position crossing Wilshire Boulevard, one of Los Angeles’s primary east-west corridors stretching from the sea to Downtown L.A.

Named for the entertainment mogul’s $150 million donation, the wing is supported by seven pavilions. At the ground level they house the following: the inevitable gift shop; a theater with outdoor seating; Ray’s and Stark bar; a café with outdoor seating; and the W.M. Keck Foundation Education Center comprising an art gallery, art studio, and, yes, more outdoor space for learning opportunities. Surrounding it all is the W.M. Keck Foundation Plaza, an open-air events space.

Tour Around LACMA’s Newest Addition

The horizontal wing itself, accessed by two exterior staircases or an elevator, is of concrete, steel, and glass construction. That’s it. Ergo, the city itself with panoramic views is meant to be a protagonist in the museum-going experience. Speaking of which, Zumthor deviated from the norm. Instead of a linear path, circulation through the space is created to be meandering and non-hierarchical. Distinct entry and exit points are non-existent. In recent conversation with LACMA CEO Michael Govan at Basel’s Fondation Beyeler for opening of the fair, Zumthor remarked he wanted “to break some traditional rules and find a new way to experience art. One of them being: always connect to contemporary life.”

For now, the building is all about architecture and design. Artworks are slated for April 2026 installation, and we’re marking our calendars for a return visit.

Get Ready For LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries

Patricia Urquiola Puts Her Stamp On Milan’s Casa Brera Hotel

Indisputably, Milan is a crossroads of all things cultural: architecture and design, music and art, fashion and food—a storied past and a pulsating present. Add the ubiquitous presence of la Milano bene—the city’s stylish upper crust—and you get a snapshot of a place that may at first seem formal and formidable but quickly turns warm and welcoming once you breach its polished surface.

That’s much like one of its newest hotels: Casa Brera, a Marriott Luxury Collection property in a former office building transformed by Interior Design Hall of Fame member Patricia Urquiola, who describes herself as “100 percent architect or 100 percent designer, depending on the moment and time of day.” Both areas of her professional expertise came into play on the project, which challenged the Spanish-born Urquiola to “rebuild and rethink everything, focusing on what we had,” because of the original structure’s significance to her adopted city, where roots run deep. “Milan obliges you to put these thoughts together,” adds the designer, whose installation “The Other Side of the Hill” is currently on view at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia.

Experience Luxury At The Casa Brera Designed By Patricia Urquiola

Located in the hotel’s namesake artsy district and just a short walk from the fabled Teatro alla Scala opera house, the building was completed by notable architect Pietro Lingeri in 1958. Named La Centrale for the financial company it first housed, the structure comprises an eight-story block flanked by a pair of four-story wings. Its pink-granite facade—a strictly rectilinear composition of aluminum-framed windows—exemplifies the severe geometry characteristic of the Italian rationalist movement. Vacant since 2016, when its last occupant was Boston Consulting Group, the mid-century workplace had no connection to the hospitality realm. The founder and creative director of Studio Urquiola not only had to respectfully execute its transformation into a five-star hotel but also, as she notes, “research and open a new narrative about contemporary luxury. It’s all about creating a sensation.”

A sense of welcome begins on the street, where Urquiola and her team have used the building’s setback to insert a two-level café terrace, festooned with umbrellas and greenery. To one side, the main entry leads to the ground-floor lobby, public spaces, and amenities, all of which consistently reference the envelope’s architecture, particularly its rectangular geometries. These are expressed through a materials palette that favors stone and marble, and a recurrent grid motif— together forming a kind of narrative thread, or what Urquiola, following her teacher and mentor Achille Castiglioni, calls “the fundamental element”: the foundation upon which she based her design process.

A Warm Welcome Into Casa Brera

Reception introduces the scheme with gutsy blocks of Rosso Levanto and Verde Alpi marble forming the sculptural check-in desk, surrounded by walls paneled in walnut ribbing and slabs of Verde Antigua. The same stones—joined by Breccia Damascata and Grigio Trambiserra—compose the floor’s grandly scaled matrix pattern, which extends into the lobby lounge, a magnetic space outfitted with a massive Verde Alpi bar, its front punctuated with rows of circular indentations. For those in the know—or cinephiles—it’s a nod to another Italian rationalist and green-marble enthusiast, Piero Portaluppi, whose nearby Villa Necchi Campiglio memorably appeared in the movie I Am Love. Since Urquiola couldn’t raise the lounge ceiling, she created the illusion of height with a reflective overhead expanse of mirror-chrome panels edged in black, while furnishing the room with low-slung pieces she’s authored for various blue-chip brands. Presiding over it all is Le Ballerine, a commissioned photograph by Tim Walker that evokes the dynamism of dance performances at the neighboring opera house.

In outfitting Odachi, the reception-adjacent restaurant serving Japanese-inspired cuisine, Urquiola eschewed overt visual connections to the country. “It’s personal, my ideas of Japan,” she acknowledges. That translates to simple, clean-lined tables with marble or back-painted glass tops accompanied by her Oru chairs in graphic black; paper-lanternlike custom ceiling fixtures; and custom fabric with an abstract floral pattern covering some walls. Fine Milanese fare awaits at the 70-seat Scena, tucked behind the lounge and accessed via a broad corridor and an impressively appointed entry vestibule—walnut-paneled walls and ceiling, pale marble flooring and host stand, and the occasional piece of gallery-worthy art.

Custom Fixtures + Floral Fabric Ooze Warmth

But nothing matches the panoramic vista—everything from the Duomo and Castello Sforzesco to Zaha Hadid’s Generali Tower—enjoyed from the rooftop Etereo, which includes both indoor and outdoor dining spaces. Inside, a dramatically gridded backlit-fabric ceiling presides over a commanding pink-marble bar and Pierre Jeanneret’s oak-and-cane Capitol Complex chairs set around custom tables. Outside, the pavilionlike terrace—newly built out atop the roof—is a particular point of pride for Urquiola. “It gives a vertical dimension to the project,” she observes, “and another way to see the city.”

The 116-room property offers 11 guest-room typologies, including 15 suites. “They’re not large,” notes Urquiola, whose interpretation of luxury isn’t based on size but on material richness and spatial character. She brings the quietly sumptuous palette of the public zones into the private ones: Walnut paneling clads many walls, marble is used lavishly in the bathrooms, checkerboard wool rugs soften floors, fine artworks abound, and custom furnishings by top-tier Italian manufacturers—like the brass-and-leather headboards—appear throughout. This last was particularly vital. “Through craftsmanship and industrialization, these companies represent the culture of Milan,” Urquiola concludes. “They represent the culture I come from.”

Walk Through The Casa Brera Hotel

It’s All About Creating A Relaxing Sensation

POLIFORM: CUSTOM FF&E, CUSTOM ARCHITECTURAL FINISHES.

FROM FRONT ALI YIKIN GLASS ART STUDIO: CONCAVE MIRROR (SUITE). TATO: PENDANT FIXTURES. PAOLA PARONETTO: CERAMICFRAME MIRRORS. MODULARTE: CUSTOM PLANTER. CASSINA: CHAIRS, TABLE (SUITE), BLACK ARMCHAIRS, SOFA, LOW TABLE (LOUNGE), PARASOLS (PATIO), CHAIRS (ETEREO), CHAISE LOUNGES, LANTERNS (POOL). MOROSO: GREEN ARMCHAIRS, ORANGE ARMCHAIRS (LOUNGE). LUXURY CARPET STUDIO: RUGS (LOUNGE), CARPET TILE (HALL). ANDREU WORLD: BARSTOOLS (LOUNGE), CHAIRS (ODACHI). OFFICINA CIANI: CUSTOM CHAIRS (PATIO). DEDAR: UPHOLSTERY FABRIC. GLAS ITALIA: CONSOLE (VESTIBULE), MIRROR (DARK BATHROOM). SANTA & COLE: FLOOR LAMP (GUEST ROOM 1), PAPER PENDANT FIXTURE (ODACHI). CAPORALI GROUP: FABRIC LOUVRES (ODACHI). FLOS: TABLE LAMPS (ODACHI, ETEREO). ALLIED MAKER: PENDANT FIXTURE (DARK BATHROOM). AGAPE: SINK (DARK BATHROOM), TUB (SUITE BATHROOM). VERY WOOD: ARMCHAIR (GUEST ROOM 1 & 3). BERSAGLIO: CUSTOM UMBRELLAS (POOL). MARAZZI: WALL TILE, POOL TILE. THROUGHOUT STEPEVI: CUSTOM GUEST-ROOM RUGS. VIAMANCINELLI: CUSTOM TABLE LAMPS, CUSTOM PENDANT FIXTURES. KVADRAT; VESCOM: CURTAIN FABRIC.

Embrace Biophilia At This Vegan Eatery In Brentwood

To experience the ICrave–PLANTA playbook in a different key from their PLANTA Cocina location, head some 10 miles northeast of Marina del Rey to the site of their latest collaboration for the company’s single-name sub-brand. PLANTA Brentwood caters to a slightly hippie, see-and-be-seen crowd. That’s why creative director Greg Merkel and team found the storefront location on San Vicente Boulevard—the casually tony neighborhood’s main thoroughfare—ideal. Though small at just 2,400 square feet, with seating for 112 inside and 20 on the sidewalk, the space had the right bones. “Amazing wooden rafters!” Merkel notes, before mentioning the skylight and all-glass street facade. The latter was partially boarded over, but as the designer predicted, the timber panels were easily removed, making the place “woody, airy, and light throughout, with all the right vibes.” The only structural intervention required was conjoining the building to a small space next door. This was a clear case of doing less is more.

Still, ICrave adhered to established planning tenets. There’s a central bar and a semiprivate dining area enclosed by a banquette, its back crowned with a beadwork screen. A similar screen forms the bar back, separating café-style seating at the front of house from more formal table-and-booth dining in the rear. Special treatments nod to biophilia or feature artisan-inspired detailing. Porcelain tile cladding the floor and billboard-scale logo wall outside suggest oversize terrazzo, while blown-glass pendant fixtures also serve as aerial planters. And a lacy wall medallion, comprising layers of CNC-machined wood panels, is something of a Rorschach test: See it as a mandala or a veiny leaf. Either way, it connotes life.

Inside The Cozy PLANTA Brentwood By ICrave

FROM FRONT FIRECLAY TILE: BAR-FRONT TILE. SUITE 22: CHAIRS (BAR, SIDEWALK). CERAMICA PARLA: STOOLS (BAR), CHAIRS (DINING AREA). LESLIE ANN WIGON ART & DESIGN: CUSTOM BEADWORK (BANQUETTE AREA). CARNEGIE: WALLCOVERING. KLDN: PENDANT FIXTURES. ALLIED MAKER: SCONCE. THROUGHOUT SIMPLY TABLES: CUSTOM TABLES. SANT’AGOSTINO: TILE.