Deputy director of design at Metropolitan Home magazine until it closed in 2009, Arlene Hirst is now a freelance journalist. Her byline appears frequently in New York Times Magazine as well as Surface, Modern, and Interior Design magazines and Elle Decor Italia.

Olson Kundig is a full-service design firm whose work includes residences (often for art collectors), museums and exhibition design, hospitality projects, commercial design, academic buildings, interior design, visual identities, and places of worship. The firm is led by five owners—Jim Olson, Tom Kundig, Kirsten R. Murray, Alan Maskin, and Kevin Kudo-King—who are supported by eleven principals, twenty-four associates, and a staff of approximately 165 in the historic Pioneer Square neighborhood of downtown Seattle. The firm opened a workspace in New York in 2014 to better serve its expanding roster of East Coast and international clients. The in-house interiors studio, founded in 2000, provides a full range of services, including material selection, custom furniture design, and purchasing capabilities. The firm began its creative existence in 1966 with the architect Jim Olson, whose work at that time centered on explorations of the relationship between dwellings and the landscapes in which they inhabit. Olson started the firm based on the essential ideas that buildings can serve as a bridge between nature, culture, histories, and people, and that inspiring surroundings have a positive effect on people’s lives. Among the firm’s accolades are the 2009 National AIA Architecture Firm Award (as Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects), national and regional design awards from the American Institute of Architects, Jim Olson’s 2007 Seattle Medal of Honor and Tom Kundig’s National Design Award from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt and his Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Books on the firm’s work include Tom Kundig: Works (Princeton Architectural Press); Jim Olson: Art and Architecture (August Editions, 2013); Tom Kundig Houses 2 (Princeton Architectural Press, 2011); Jim Olson Houses (The Monacelli Press, 2009); and Tom Kundig: Houses (Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.) www.olsonkundig.com

Lilian H. Weinreich Architects is a boutique full-service, multi-disciplinary architectural & interior design firm based in New York and Philadelphia with roots in Australia. Founded in 2009, projects include high-end duplex and apartment combinations. The firm is known for its creative signature design, resulting in projects that are original, creative, functional, and responsive to client goals. Call for a free consultation!

Tiffany Orvet is a writer and documentary producer based in San Francisco, and couldn't be happier than when seeing good design in action. In 2009, she turned her passion for Scandinavian design into a business and launched From Sthlm, a shop and blog dedicated to bringing independent Swedish design to the US. When she's not exploring new ways to get close to the water or on an airplane to Stockholm, you can find Tiffany typing away on her trusty laptop and be sure in the knowledge that a new From Sthlm update is on the way. Tiffany's blog is at fromsthlm.com/blog.

Cerno, established in 2009, is an industrial design and manufacturing company innovating modern LED lighting fixtures and furniture in Southern California. Their mission is to fuse quality, performance, and resource efficiency with modern design.

Workstead is a design firm founded in 2009 by Stefanie Brechbuehler and Robert Andrew Highsmith. They were joined by Ryan Mahoney, also a graduate of the RISD Architecture program, in 2010. They focus on architectural and interior design, lighting, furniture, and exhibitions. Workstead’s aim is to design responsible works that create a sense of place for both the objects they contain and the people that experience them. Their palette is strong and rich, yet simple and efficient.

Native Union was founded in 2009 to provide solutions to the challenges of the digital age. They work with a pool of creative designers and engineering talent from all over the world who are passionate to deliver only the best in design and innovation.

Linda Taalman co-directs Taalman Koch Architecture with her partner Alan Koch in Los Angeles, which has completed a number of award-winning projects including the itHouse (AIA LA Merit Award 2008, Sunset Western Home Awards 2009: Best Small Space). Taalman explores architecture through investigations into building technologies and systems, integrating sustainability, practicality and ingenuity. Taalman is an Assistant Professor of Architecture focusing on Building Technology at Woodbury University.

Steven Holl is an American architect, perhaps best known for the 2003 Simmons Hall at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the 2007 Bloch Building addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and the 2009 Linked Hybrid mixed-use complex in Beijing, China. The design for the Daeyang Gallery and house won Holl the 2012 Design Review Award.

Dave Weinstein is a freelance writer who penned the "Modern Real Estate 101" article that appeared in the October 2009 issue. He spends his spare time walking his spaniel through architecturally interesting neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area and is an active preservationist, most notably for his hometown's art deco jewel, the Cerrito Theater.

Drew Himmelstein is a writer living in San Francisco who reports frequently about religion. To learn about modern design in Unitarian Universalist churches for the November 2009 issue, she spoke to clergy, architects, and historians about the challenges and opportunities involved in creating sacred spaces. She also concluded that Unitarians might just be the nicest flock around.

Anderssen & Voll was established in the fall of 2009 and have received several awards for their work, including the Wallpaper Award, IF Award, and the Honorary Award for Best Design in Norway. Design at A & V means being receptive to cultural and market trends, and applying this knowledge in forward-thinking ways to generate groundbreaking and desirable products for their clients. Anderssen & Voll work within various fields of design but focus on the domestic objects.

SHIFT is a Philadelphia-based manufacturer of objects and furniture that extend living beyond walls. Since 2009, SHIFT has been designing modern interpretations of utilitarian objects. The products are rooted in a playful minimalism that maintains function while inviting interaction. What began with a stainless steel raintank, has expanded to a line of outdoor products that celebrate outdoor living. All SHIFT products are made in the USA to ensure quality, reduce environmental impact, and stimulate local manufacturing. SHIFT aims to create long-lasting, thoughtfully-designed products. We've been featured by Sunset Magazine, Design Milk, Martha Stewart Home, Apartment Therapy and Gizmodo among other publications.

PETITE FRITURE, design editor created in 2009, was born with the will to promote young talents, and to develop with them a catalogue of objects, lighting and small furniture that creates a vibration. The result is elegant and accessible objects that in a simple and uninhibited manner tell a story; objects that understand our daily life and invite us to savour it.

ATIPROJECT is an Italy/Serbia-based practice born in 2009. Our success is based on project integration and its implementation following the principles of sustainable construction with special attention to its financial aspects. Today, ATIproject is a growing reality in the field of integrated design, with three offices and a growing international presence. The practice bases its success on a multidisciplinar team of professionals, offering a comprehensive package of services, hence the name of the practice “Architecture, Technology, Integrated project”.

During childhood years in Cote d’Ivoire and summers in coastal Maine, Brendan Ravenhill fell in love with the functional beauty of working tools and wooden boats. His father curated a show called the Art of the Personal Object at the Smithsonian when he was a kid. Brendan received a Sculpture degree from Oberlin College in 2001 and a Masters in Industrial Design from RISD in 2009. He loves taking tours of factories and the smell of cedar shavings.

Adam Hayes is an illustrator from Stoke-on-Trent, England. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2006 and continues to live and work in London. He frequently contributes to the UK Guardian, creating drawings for its travel section’s “Streets Ahead” series. For the July/August 2009 issue, he illustrated the green technologies used at Jim Austin’s Rimrock Ranch (“Off the Grid”).