Photo: RI Home Show photography by Elaine Fredrick
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ASID NEW ENGLAND CHAPTER 4 Lan Drive, Suite 310 Westford, MA 01886 T: (978) 674-6210 F: (617) 261-7591 administrator@ne.asid.org www. asidne.org
EDITORIAL STAFF Editor Lani Smith, Industry Partner Member for Moen, Communications Director Writers Jeff Arcari Heather Bourgeois Nicole Handzel Jennifer Sarabia Designer Rousseline Rodene
CHAPTER ADMINISTRATOR Andrew Cronin Finn, MSc, MBA Email: administrator@ne.asid.org
Design Community magazine is published quarterly for the ASID New England Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers by DSA Publishing & Design, Inc. Editorial content and the Design Community magazine are controlled and owned by the New England Chapter of ASID. Reproduction of this publication in whole, in part, in any form is strictly prohibited without the written permission of the New England Chapter of ASID.
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CONTENTS
Vintage Trend.........................................................................................03
RI Design Community...................................................................... 07-14 RI Home Show................................................................................... 08-10 Interview with Sophia Shibles of SCS Design - Interiors.................... 11-13 The Tile Shop.......................................................................................... 14 Student Spotlight...................................................................................15 Learning From Students.......................................................................17 Universal Design...................................................................................22 2017 ASID NE Awards GALA................................................................24
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Vintage Trend Vintage is in…
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verywhere you look people are buying vintage; vinyl records instead of cd’s, furniture from the flea market instead of from a catalogue. Secondhand stores have rebranded to become “vintage boutiques,” and people are eating it up. It is comfortable to buy something that’s already been broken in, something with patina that has a little extra meaning. Not only does vintage have aesthetic appeal, but it has an
environmental one too. In a day and age where green carries the day, you can feel good about upcycling an item rather than purchasing new. In the rug business, vintage has always been in. Rug dealers have long scoured antique shops and flea markets for gems of the past to restore and bring back to life. However, today’s market has widened the scope of what consumers are willing to purchase. A worn ←3→
rug that might have previously been considered unfit for sale now has a happy home among vintage-loving customers. So what exactly is a vintage rug? In the rug market, vintage is categorized by two criteria; age and condition. Any piece produced before 1930 is considered an antique, while anything produced in the past decade or so is considered new. Anything made in between that time (1940-
1990’s generally) is what we call vintage. Vintage can also be code for worn rugs, a trend so popular that rug producers are distressing new rugs to simulate the look! Vintage pieces come from all across the rug making world and the category is quite broad; stylistically speaking, a shaggy tribal rug falls into the same category as a worn, formal one. At Landry & Arcari, we’ve been beefing up our ←4→
selection of price friendly vintage rug offerings, which now covers a lot of ground. Some of our favorites include our extensive collection of Moroccan and Turkish rugs and kilims, sourced directly from villages where these rugs were produced decades ago. Characterized by thick piles, bold geometric designs, and attention-grabbing color palettes, these pieces exude a causal hipness while tipping their hats to the timeless
aesthetic of a tribal rug. We’ve also focused on curating a collection of distressed and overdyed Persian rugs. Often found with more formal designs, these rugs tow a line between classic and contemporary. They can simultaneously evoke elegance and comfort in any room. They may range in style and look, but these vintage rugs are tied together by the unique feeling they bring to a home. A feeling that the space has a past, a story. A feeling that you can only get from true vintage, not from imitations at the big box stores or online discounters. So please contact me if I can help you find the perfect vintage rug for your client. Best, Jeff Arcari For more info, visit: www.landryandarcari.com/antiqued ←5→
Great Partners…. Photographer: Eric Roth; Designer: Leslie Fine; Art Consultant: Jacqui Becker
….Great Projects 17 Wolcott Ct Boston, MA 02136 ←6→
www.fbnconstruction.com
RI Design Community
The Rhode Island Design Community is a section of the New England Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers, made up of the interior designers and industry partners who live and work in the beautiful state of Rhode Island. Our goals are to:
Promote education through CEU programming and educational presentations.
Conduct community outreach and advocate for the value of interior design and ASID membership.
Provide a local platform for networking among designers and industry partners.
Educate homeowners about the value of working with interior designers and ASID members.
Upcoming Rhode Island Design Community events can be found on the ASID New England calendar at www.ne.asid.org and in the chapter’s weekly News at Noon blasts. If you have any questions about becoming more active in the Rhode Island Design Community, or attending any upcoming events, please contact Ally Maloney at ally@maloneyinteriors.com.
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Design Community
RI Home Show photography by Elaine Fredrick
Rhode Island Design Community Contributes to Another Successful Rhode Island Home Show This year’s Rhode Island Home Show took place during the first weekend in April at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence. The show attracts homeowners from across Rhode Island and Southern Massachusetts who are seeking out home improvement ideas and the professionals to carry out the work. The show’s largest feature was the fifteen-room designer show house, which included ten interior designers and four kitchen and bath companies. This year’s show house theme was ‘The Gracious Gardener’s Home’, decided on after the Home Show acquired the Rhode Island Spring Garden & Flower Show. Among the ten participating interior designers were three ASID members—Laurie Seubert, Janelle Photopoulos & Ally Maloney. Laurie Seubert of Blackbird Design Studio collaborated with Arnold Lumber on the build out of the show house’s two pantries. Laurie describes one of her rooms as " a generous pantry space that provides workspaces on either side of a stainless farmhouse sink, giving the homeowner plenty of room to cultivate seedlings, arrange fresh-cut flowers, or engage in a variety of craft or art projects. Shelves above the countertop allow for storage of decorative pottery, vases and reference books, while cabinet, pullout baskets and drawers help to keep tools and materials well
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Design Community
organized, perhaps with enough space for a seed library to share the fruits of the harvest with friends and family.” When asked how she arrived at her design she says “Drawing on the show house's theme of ‘The Gracious Gardener’, I envisioned the gardener as an artist who needs a dedicated studio space: a tranquil yet fertile ground in which ideas can grow and flourish. To achieve a sense of calm, I echoed the bluish gray of the cabinets (Diamond Cabinets' Juniper Berry finish) in the decorative elements and textiles of the space, using natural materials as accents for the monochromatic color palette.” Janelle Blakley Photopoulos of Blakely Interior Design designed the living room. “Our sophisticated living room combines an unexpected mix of classic and modern, suffused with powerful dashes of blue and green, as well as subtler hues of blush pink. A hand-painted mural, mimicking the view into an Asian garden beyond created a focal point for the room, while layers of texture and materials were carefully curated to create interest and depth” says Photopoulos. When asked how she arrived at her design she said “The design was inspired by classic Asian dragon motifs and floral wallpapers. Our goal was to bring the Home Show’s garden theme into the design in an unexpected way that created interest while satisfying our love of color and texture.”
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Ally Maloney of Maloney Interiors curated the designer show house and designed the foyer and front hallway. “Organizing the designer show house was a big task, it required a full year of planning and a talented team to pull off! But I am happy to have had the opportunity to invite so many of Rhode Island’s talented designers to participate in the event with me” says Ally. When faced with the challenge of turning the entry way into a show house worthy design she didn’t fall short. “I am a huge fan of wallpaper and thought that adding color and pattern to the walls in both the foyer and front hallway would be a great way to give the room character and add some punch. I opted to create the illusion of wallpaper by stenciling the walls; luckily I had Jason Sawtelle, an ASID Industry Partner and talented artist, to help me execute the work! We used a cheetah pattern in the foyer and stenciled black on white. We used an Ikat pattern in the front hallway and stenciled a Robin’s Egg Blue over a vibrant green which created a soft watercolor effect, a nice contrast to the stark black and white cheetah in the next room.” Industry Partner Jason Sawtelle played a big roll in the show house, working with both Ally Maloney & Laurie Seubert. “As an artist, my inspiration comes from within – but in my business offering custom murals and decorative painting, collaborating with designers and clients is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding aspects of what I do. Working with Ally Maloney and Laurie Seubert on their show-house rooms was no exception! In working with Ally Maloney, she had a clear and exciting vision for her rooms before I arrived, but we began brainstorming as soon as we started working together. Through this collaboration, we came up with the best layout and application of the patterns for her stenciled walls as well as mixing just the right shade of green for her second room. By combining Ally’s fantastic design sense and my experience with decorative painting we created a final product we were both thrilled with! Working with Laurie Suebert, she wanted to incorporate my fine art into her beautiful space. To create the best final result, Laurie shared details of the finishes, colors and overall vision of her room and asked for my suggestions of which of my paintings would work best. This gave me what I needed to show Laurie a collection of 3 paintings that I thought would fit both the look and the mood of the room. Again, the result was something we were both proud to display!”
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Design Community
Interview With Sophia Shibles of SCS Design - Interiors Providence, RI http://scsdesign.net/ By Heather Bourgeois, ASID Industry Partner for Sherwin-Williams Sophia Shibles was “stupid enough not to be fearful.” As bold as she is witty, she is a strategic and skilled Interior Designer, jumping in head first to follow through on expectations and grow her business as a sole proprietor. I recently had the chance to learn more about what makes this member of the Rhode Island Design Community of ASID New England tick over a cup of coffee. As part of a worldly upbringing, Sophia was born in Lima, Peru. She lived in Jamaica and a few other locales before finally ending up in Providence for high school. Her family is from New York, New York, but she considers herself a Rhode Islander at heart. This is where her family and roots are. She is high energy, from self-management through distance running to chasing two sons. She has had her design business in Rhode Island for over ten years, five plus of them involved with ASID. She is selective about her clients, trying to insure they are a good match for each other before embarking upon a project. First and foremost, her clients must understand and respect the value and process of design in solving a problem. She offers full service design from the earliest phases of programming straight through to installation. Shibles has a Masters degree in Journalism from NYU and went to Tufts University for her undergraduate degree. Design and the decorative arts run deep in her family tree. Her mother went to the New York High School for the Performing Arts, her grandmother was an antiques dealer and her great grandfather built boats and homes for a hobby. She says, “The push and pull of the two sides of my brain-analytical and creative -leaves me trying to find a happy medium. I am not satisfied using just one or the other.” So it was only natural that design became her profession. She formally began her design practice here in RI after taking freelance jobs and classes at RISD’s continuing education program in interior design.
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Design Community
When asked about a gratifying or challenging space to design, Shibles said “Small spaces tend to be more challenging than big. One of the most challenging was the renovation of a home with less than 8’ ceilings and an internal windowless kitchen that was adjacent to an addition yet cut off from the rest of the first level. The oversized addition was sunken because of the slope of the land and didn’t fit with to the rest of the home. The client was considering moving and had 3 young children, but had family nearby.” So Shibles extended the kitchen into this awkward addition despite the fact that they were on different levels. She worked around the limitations to create a bright and functional space that was both gratifying for her and the client. After the project was completed, the client told her, “I was doing dishes and enjoying the sun on my face. I realized that I was in MY kitchen
Rhode Island
and the sun was streaming in.” It meant that I had changed life for her for the better through good design. It was a difficult project, but it came out great and everyone was happy. The client and her family now enjoy their home like never before.” Needless to say, the family did not end up moving. She went on to explain how being an ASID Member had impacted her business, and what it meant to her. “As a small business owner you are constantly taxed on time and have few opportunities for sounding boards. By being a part of ASID you are a part of a community of like-minded people. Vendors, sales people, people connected to my world.” Shibles mentions thriving on change, not liking things to stay the same. She values the lobbying efforts of ASID and contract references, as well as the impact of the organization on design in the United States as a whole.
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Design Community
When asked about her goals for the next few years Shibles replied “I would like to hire and train another full time designer. I would like to invest enough time in that person so that they can come to understand our standards, design preferences and emphasis on client service so that they can become a part of my business and my brand. I’d like to work closely with that designer so he or she can understand who I am and what I expect from myself and my business. So essentially I’d like to grow my business but not change its essence. In so doing I could take on a few more large, high detail full service jobs per year.” Part of imparting that wisdom on a future employee is being introspective. When asked what advice she would give to her younger self Shibles said “Don’t listen to the doubts. I would hear my voice louder and allow myself permission to pursue what I loved sooner. I would push myself to study and practice what I love instead of listening to everyone else. At the end of the day, you’re going to end up doing what you love anyway, it just might take a little longer to get there.” Following our chat, we left Shibles with a few fun questions: Favorite season of the year, and why? “Spring. I love being outside. The blooming of the flowers, trees and the long days. I physically feel more relaxed. It charges my batteries creatively and I crawl out of the winter doldrums.” If you could have lunch with any fictional/non fictional person dead or alive who would it be? “Kelly Wearstler- because she pushes limits. I’d love to pick her brain.” Why did you choose Rhode Island to live and work? “My family brought me back here. (Providence) is a livable city with tons of creative people. The city is small yet there is so much at your fingertips… And you can usually find a parking spot ;)”
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Design Community
The Tile Shop
Thanks to Todd Swanson, manager of The Tile Shop in Warwick, RI, for hosting an event for the ASID RI Design Community in March. Pictured here is Peter Raleigh, Eastern Regional Sales Manager from Rohl, who presented a CEU on Universal Design for the Bath. Many ASID members were in attendance, as well as several interior design students.
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Design Community
ASID NE Student Spotlight Nicole Handzel
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icole Handzel is a senior at Mount Ida College of Design, currently enrolled in the 4 + 1 program, allowing her to graduate with a bachelor’s degree this May and a master’s degree next spring. What are some personal outside interests? I play softball for Mount Ida College, I am a pitching coach for NWS Elite, I did a study
abroad program in Barcelona this past summer for a week, and I love volunteering for Special Olympics when I am home. What has been your greatest challenge so far in your studies? My greatest challenge has been juggling many different things at a time including school, work, softball, I am the president of Interior Design ← 15 →
Celebrating exceptional up-and-coming talent from our local design institutions.
Society and I am the president of my senior class. I have definitely gained a time management skill from being so busy. What is your design aesthetic? My design aesthetic is a clean, natural look. My favorite design is a beachy feel. Tell me about someone or something that has influenced you to choose a career in design? My grandmother and mother have always been really good at decorating and design. I have also done a lot of projects with them when I was younger with repurposing furniture and I just fell in love with it so I decided to try out the profession and then loved it in school as well. As a student, what sort of design trends do you see that make you excited? I love Universal design and trying to solve problems during projects. I am designing 3 prototype tiny homes for my thesis and I have researched a lot about lack of affordable housing and I like the idea of trying to find a solution to this pressing issue especially in the Boston area. What are your plans after graduation; do you plan on practicing in New England? My plans for after graduation are to stay at my job now at Olympia Marble & Granite in Needham. After I graduate with my masters I am open to moving anywhere and starting my career in the design field. What is your dream job? My dream job is to eventually own my own business and be able to choose the projects I want to design.
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Learning From Students
Third Model below investigated the synthesis of these two concepts
How to Promote Creativity in Professional Practice Author: Jennifer Sarabia
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s a design student it was easy for me to develop strong creative and conceptual ideas for my school projects. When I left school and become a professional, one who now manages a firm, coordinates projects, works with clients, cares for my family and tries to have a personal life – shorter periods of time are available for me to develop conceptual ideas. I believe there are other designers like me, who search
for creative inspiration and who develop their own strategies to evoke creativity. As a professor of interior design and a design practitioner, I am always trying new techniques to yield strong creativity from my students and for my own professional practice. I wrote this article to share some successful methods for exploring conceptual opportunities and strategies for promoting creativity for both the pragmatic and the conceptual ← 17 →
designer alike. Last Spring, I taught a pre-thesis class and many of my students’ design proposals lacked a clear conceptual design investigation. The following semester I began the thesis course incorporating a modeling exercise as a remediation for the lack of poetic ideas. The results of this exercise became a resourceful tool that strengthened my students’ thesis projects. I recently began to think about how this creative assignment might be applied to a design practitioner’s creative thinking and promoting an exploration of ideas that are both objective and subjective. I found this wonderful quote from Stephen Holl that captured this idea of exploring creative thinking from varied perspectives. “You cannot find out anything about things that you don’t know, if you just think in a pragmatic, objective way. You have to let the dream occur – you have to have a dream intersecting. So it is critical that the subjective has to penetrate the objective thinking” (Stephen Holl, edited by Meyers and Gerstman). I created a three-part modeling exercise to assist students in closing a synthesis gap, or the void between a completed program and a design for a thesis. The main goal was to get students to think about their projects from several viewpoints or perspectives, allowing them to produce innovative ideas and generate concepts to assist their design explorations. The results offered students information that helped them develop spatial, material and conceptual strategies, and created a stronger dialogue with the building and site itself. The first model was an inspection or analysis into a specific component of the student’s building or site lending an opportunity for a deeper understanding of the physical opportunities and limitations. The second conceptual model investigation, one that directly related to challenging an assumption or design principle, phenomenology, exploration of materiality, or any creative topic that interested the student. ← 18 →
Students were asked to make a third model, one that represented a convergent synthesis of their first two model explorations. Part one began with a physical component investigation into the building or on site of the student’s project. This investigation was a premeditated investigation and students were told that this model could identify an interesting spatial idea, an anomaly or problematic element from their building and/ or site. Students were told that if the specific component selected was not easily perceived, that they must figure out how to best represent it physically within a model. Students were told to carefully consider this selected investigation, and asked to choose a component that would benefit an interior design project. This exercise was an easy one for the pragmatic or logical designer and was more objective than it was subjective. As a design practitioner, the idea of analyzing and studying the building and site to properly identify strengths and weaknesses is crucial to developing a successful design proposal. I have been practicing for a long time and I now have an appreciation for imperfections or problems with a building or site. Truth be told all buildings and interiors have inherent issues and identifying them upfront is that hallmark of a good designer. I learned from Norman Foster, in How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? that the biggest problem one has with their building can actually assist in facilitating the solution. This idea of the problem becoming the solution fascinated me, and resulted in my ability to think in ways that I was not able to think as a student. As students, often we hide what we think is flawed, incorrect or bad. The idea of celebrating a problem or deficiency opened my eyes to novel way of approaching a design problem. Artists often expose societal imperfections and make them beautiful and appreciated. Should we do this as interior designers?
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Part two of the exercise was a conceptual model that offered an opportunity to investigate a creative or conceptual idea. Students were asked to model a concept that related to their thesis or offered an opportunity to pursue a special interest– even if it did not relate to their thesis. This exercise was much more subjective and could even be viewed as unviable or even impractical but it was the most powerful because it exposed a unique design for almost every student. These subjective ideas were expressed through photography, collages, sculpture and modeling. Students represented fog; the power of music to bring people together; what it might feel like to have Autism; stress; the degeneration of nerves in a patient that has muscular dystrophy; what it is like to live in cohousing as an introvert or extrovert; etc. On many occasions the uniqueness of the students’ work illustrated elevated understanding of the either phenomenology. In many cases it let to a much deeper understanding of the user. Professionals often look beyond interior design for creative inspiration and that often includes fashion, art, history, materiality or social issues. I think professionals are challenged in finding time to investigate inspiration. While students have an advantage because they are given time and are asked to come up with a conceptual idea. This second part of the exercise asks students to create an abstract idea in a physical form and it became a fantastic opportunity to create a design that embodied an intellectual idea. I think we get better at representing our ethereal ideas as we mature as designers. However, we take on complex projects and have a hard time justifying the time needed to conceptualize. Part three substantiated how the two models can be connected conceptually, intellectually and ← 20 →
physically into a strong synthesis. The synthesis of the logical or pragmatic ideas coupled with the innovative ideas allowed for powerful creativity. Creating a synthesis is easy for the design practitioner but arguably harder for the design student. With experience, we gain an understanding of how to combine our ideas together to create strong design solutions. We also understand the power of editing and often the design student has difficulty editing and creating a hierarchy of solutions. However, their design naiveté and their ability to offer purely subjective ideas gives them a creative. The ability to create a synthesis takes both objectivity and subjectivity, and using both creates better design solutions. We can learn from students in trying not to be only pragmatic and to attempt to inject more subjectivity into our creative ideas. As students we are given time to be creative but as professionals we should advocate for “creative” compensation, allowing time for exploration. To become a great designer, one must challenge themselves to be both objective and subjective, realistic and idealistic. I would also propose that we should allow ourselves to be impractical at times, and more student-like in order to be more creative designers.
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Universal Design
Symposium at Mount Ida
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n March 24th and 25th, Mount Ida College’s Interior Architecture + Design Department hosted a Universal Design Symposium bringing together individuals with disabilities, caretakers, students, faculty, design professionals, and other community members to learn more about the importance of universal design while also developing new ideas and prototypes relating to the topic. The event kicked
off with keynote speaker Cynthia Leibrock, author, lecturer and universal design expert. She took the audience on an in-depth virtual tour of her universally-designed home in Colorado, sharing the importance of making a commitment to design for all and removing the stigma of assistive design features. The next two days progressed with the multi-disciplinary teams brainstorming and developing ← 22 →
design solutions related to challenges revealed to them during disability simulation exercises and grom the user/experts (individuals with disabilities) from both United Cerebral Palsy of Metro Boston and the Institute for Human Centered Design who participated on each team. Influenced by their team member who is legally blind, Team 3 who won the Judges’ Choice Award designed Shop with Me, an app to connect individuals in need of assistance with volunteers to help them with shopping, as well as to assist all users with navigation of shopping trips. Other solutions proposed in the final presentations included a redesigned electronic wallet, assistive device for opening small food containers, and an app that helps locate accessible entries. The event, sponsored by ASID New England, as well as United Cerebral Palsy of Metro Boston, AllSteel, Trip Advisor, Haworth, Eone, and Mount Ida College, has proven to be an excellent learning and collaboration experience for all who are involved.
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2017 Awards GALA
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Thank You to Our GALA Sponsors!
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