Collection by Sara Ost
Modern Kitchens We Love
This collection of kitchens all share successful kitchen designs that are warm, family oriented, and fresh. Modern kitchens are the center of most homes, they feel best when they illustrate the homeowner's own ideas.
How a highly productive collaboration among a trio of creative Angelenas—and a good dose of Barragán—turned a dark and beleaguered midcentury house into a family home for the ages. The resulting design acquired its own flow, full of colorful narrative, spirited counterpoint, and anecdote. Now, in place of dark, disconnected spaces, outdoor rooms echo luminous indoor ones, and experimental filmmaker Laura Purdy and her family’s eclectic collections of art and personal artifacts share space with flashes of pattern and interior planes of saffron and pink stucco.
The budget was nearly as tight as the space in this cheerful renovation of a 516-square-foot flat in Bratislava. The centerpiece of Lukáš Kordík’s new kitchen is the cabinetry surrounding the sink, a feat he managed by altering the facing and pulls of an off-the-rack Ikea system. The laminate offers a good punch of blue, and in modernist fashion, Kordík forwent door handles in favor of cutouts. “I wanted the kitchen to be one simple block of color without any additional design,” he says.
Kids’ Lit
To display the children’s artwork in a fun and flexible way, John designed a four-foot-high lightbox, custom-built by Geron, and installed it above the staircase. The front panel is non-glare acrylic held in place with magnetic strips; low-voltage LED strips provide the backlighting. “We’ll change out the art at least at every holiday and birthday,” says John.
geron.ca
Omer Arbel, the creative director at industrial design firm Bocci, was given three parameters when he began designing a home for his colleague Randy Bishop: Create a “profound” connection between the internal and external spaces; build only one level; and, most crucially, utilize a wealth of 100-year-old beams salvaged from a series of warehouses owned by Bishop’s ancestors.
The kitchen was the only room to get a full renovation, so Dine invested in a sleek Bulthaup b3 kitchen system designed by Chris Tosdevin of Bulthaup’s Santa Monica, California, showroom. The stainless-steel workspace and slate-gray laminate countertop and cabinets jibe with the house’s minimalist aesthetic while affording a nice contrast with the overriding whiteness. Perhaps more importantly, though, the hardworking dark surfaces hide dirt and wear far better than lighter hues.
In the Spotlight“I’m a huge proponent of lighting as architecture,” says Nix, who suggests illuminating objects instead of empty space. “Light on an object creates ambiance.” In their apartment, they’ve trained track lights from the Polish company LightArt on the Cube, as well as on the handmade cabinetry. The fixtures, which Novak-Zemplinski describes as “good quality and inexpensive in comparison to more well-known brands,” are also installed at the MoMA in New York.
lightart.pl
Practical DecorationOne of the secrets to living neatly in a small apartment, says Nix, is lots of storage space. To that end, the couple built big cabinets along the walls. To create a sense of visual unity throughout the eclectic but compact space, the couple hand-carved the tree pattern from the kitchen into these cabinet doors (from a template) using an electric router. It’s more than ornament: The cutouts eliminate the need for jutting cabinet pulls.
biolinia.com
A couple takes a minimalist approach to their Brooklyn apartment, focusing on supple materials, subtle gradations of color, and custom finishes by local craftsmen. The Mandayam–Vohra family gathers under one of Workstead’s signature three-arm chandeliers, shown here in its horizontal configuration. Bartenschlager designed the white cabinets and is responsible for the walnut counters both on the kitchen island and near the stove.
The freestanding staircase was built three times before Gregory deemed it structurally sound—a tribute to the architect’s tenacity. The high-tech end result was achieved using small custom-made plastic reinforcing fibers. The galley-style kitchen with its bold use of color was Caryn’s choice. She fell in love with the name of a paint swatch called Canary Yellow and then left it to Gregory to fine-tune the exact hue.