Editor’s Letter: Places to Unplug

It’s rough out there. If things going on around the world have you feeling a sense of ambient dread, I’m right there with you. But for our annual issue dedicated to outdoor spaces, please indulge us in a little escapism. Without going into clichés about nature and mental health, each of the stories in this issue shows a different type of design connected to the outdoors: places to pause, free yourself from your feeds, and take a deep breath.

In our cover story, a concrete house on the beach in Oaxaca was commissioned by a group of friends looking to share a coastal escape. Architect Ludwig Godefroy designed a series of concrete pavilions that connect private suites with shared spaces using a dramatic combination of stripped down shapes and raw materiality. Yes. I also recommend that they install handrails and a pool fence, but I’m a big fan of how they built something that feels both formidable and at ease. On the other end of the material spectrum, architect Max Núñez gave his family’s greenhouse-inspired home on a lot in Santiago a sense of lightness, but also practical privacy, with twin vaults over translucent glass-block walls.

To help you unplug, we also put together a roundup of newly available furniture, lighting, and home accessories that will turn your backyard—or a patch of the nearest public park—into a phone-free retreat. Everything we selected is adamantly analog, or at least mercifully free from the internet.

In other stories, we celebrate the delightfully unnecessary. First, with a profile of Mark Cline, the artist preserving the production of monumental fiberglass figures that dot Route 66. The famed American highway turns 100 this year, and while I’m not a fan of car culture more broadly, making an itinerary of spotting the giants in the wild could plot the course for a great road trip. They are joyful pieces of Americana, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to hold them up as defiantly fun foils to a more dangerous kind of American kitsch. (The proposed National Garden of American Heroes is just one example.) We also highlight a few contemporary architectural follies, garden structures designed for diversion rather than function.

I always want Dwell to cover design in a way that’s rooted in real issues related to housing. We shouldn’t turn our backs on the realities of contemporary life—especially if we’re privileged enough that they don’t immediately threaten our own homes and security—but I also hope the outdoor spaces featured here give you a much-needed break and some useful ideas for creating your own place to find some leafy calm.

Top photo by Fernando Marroquin

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