Jeremiah Brent Makes Hospitality Debut, Coil + Drift Moves Upstate, and More News

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From significant business changes to noteworthy product launches, there’s always something new happening in the world of design. In this biweekly roundup, AD PRO has everything you need to know.

Openings

Coil + Drift relocates upstate

The rural landscape of the Catskill Mountains informs John Sorensen-Jolink’s poetic furniture and lighting designs, so it’s only natural that the founder of Coil + Drift transplanted his Brooklyn studio some two and a half hours north to the quaint town of Jeffersonville. Along with a showroom that displays new additions, such as the mobile-reminiscent Atlas chandelier and a Yama floor lamp finished in tarnished nickel, the 3,000-square-foot space stars an in-house production facility. In tandem with its upstate venture, Coil + Drift has launched an e-commerce platform rich with imagery and videos to inspire designers.

Two shows put sinuous wood designs front and center

For his first solo museum exhibition, at the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art outside of LA, local furniture maker and sculptor Vince Skelly underscores the connections between prehistoric carvings and present-day architecture in “A Conversation with Trees” (through April 23). The seven forms on display—amorphous chairs, side tables, stools, totems, and monolithic sculptures—are all fashioned out of single blocks of sustainably-sourced native California wood, including 12-foot-long expanses of local salvaged redwood that nod to late artist JB Blunk’s affinity for found materials. In New York, wood is also the focus of Moroccan craftsman and sculptor Hamza Kadiri’s solo exhibition at Les Ateliers Courbet (through March 11). Among his six new pieces of tactile furniture are the shou-sugi-ban-charred Balthazar armoire, the black-stained ash B02 bench finished in beeswax, and the lacquered, hand-veneered royal ebony credenza.

Friedman Benda Los Angeles celebrates Estúdio Campana’s oeuvre

Groundbreaking furniture design has been a hallmark of the Brothers Campana since Humberto and Fernando Campana founded their São Paulo studio in 1984. As an homage to Fernando, who sadly passed away in late 2022, Friedman Benda’s LA gallery is highlighting 35 years of Estúdio Campana’s monumental output in “Cine São José” (through April 15). There are recent releases, like the Jalapão chair crafted out of reclaimed Thonet wicker seats, but several early creations, such as the blowtorched iron Yanomani chair from 1989 and the 1995 Plástico Bolha chair combining a steel frame with stacked sheets of industrially produced Bubble Wrap, exemplify the long-held Campana passion for experimentation and sustainability.

In the news

Soane Britain plans North American flagship in New York

On the heels of its 25th anniversary, Soane Britain is moving into a spacious New York showroom that will be unveiled September 12. A hub for designers, the Upper East flagship on Madison Avenue will bring together furniture, lighting, rattan, fabric, and wallpaper, all made by British craftspeople, in a residential setting arranged as an inviting sequence of rooms. As a result of the upgrade, both of Soane Britain’s current North American locations will soon shutter—San Francisco in March and midtown Manhattan in June.

Design happenings

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation reveals Designer in Residence renovation

Dating to 1695, the Nelson-Galt House is the oldest residence in Colonial Williamsburg—but you wouldn’t know it today. As the Williamsburg licensing brand’s second Designer in Residence, Birmingham, Alabama–based Heather Chadduck Hillegas has elegantly revived the historic dwelling’s interiors. Preserving the original woodwork and early period features, including a stone fireplace surround and yellow heart pine flooring, were top of mind, so Chadduck Hillegas enlivened each room with hues from the Benjamin Moore Williamsburg collection and wove in a mix of custom and antique furniture to dramatic effect. Past the hand-striped vestibule unfurls such memorable vignettes as the daybed nestled underneath a swag canopy in the hypnotic blue study, the porch-inspired scalloped bed hangings against the creamy backdrop of a guest bedroom, and Paul Montgomery’s tranquil landscape mural in conversation with the two-tiered sideboard in the dining room.

Leslie Nix exhibition pops up at Coup d’Etat in Los Angeles

Through materials as diverse as bronze, brass, and glass, Leslie Nix creates transporting, collectible works, including the richly colored oil-and-wax paintings composing “Encaustic Impressions of Mpumalanga” (through March 15), the local artist’s show at the recently opened LA outpost of San Francisco furniture showroom Coup d’Etat. A meditation on Nix’s travels to Africa and Thailand’s Andaman Sea, the works conjure sub-Saharan sunsets and dreamy underwater escapades.

Business

G. P. Schafer Architect to join forces with Buccellato Design

In September, New York studio G.P. Schafer Architect and South Bend, Indiana–based Buccellato Design, led by Aimee and Kevin Buccellato, will merge to form Schafer Buccellato & Partners. While AD100 talent Gil Schafer III is known for his gracious residences, Buccellato has an impressive background in civic and educational projects, including the Notre Dame Linked Experimental Ecosystem Facility. Both Buccellatos worked with Schafer during the early days of his practice (Aimee was his first employee more than 20 years ago), and a shared commitment to traditional, meaningful architecture has reunited them.

Awards

Architect Toshiko Mori to receive inaugural Philip Hanson Hiss Award

Philip Hanson Hiss III forever changed the material culture of South Florida’s Gulf Coast region with his ecologically sensitive modernist abodes. A leader of the Sarasota School of Architecture, he developed Lido Shores—where Paul Rudolph’s Umbrella House remains a well-preserved midcentury marvel—and his legacy will be honored on March 11, when Japanese-born, New York architect and AD100 Hall of Famer Toshiko Mori receives the first Philip Hanson Hiss Award. Mori, who has helmed such projects as the Brooklyn Public Library and the expansion of the Rudolph-designed Burkhardt-Cohen House, will be fêted at a ceremony and benefit gala following her conversation with Architecture Sarasota president Morris (Marty) Hylton III at the New College of Florida’s Mildred Sainer Pavilion.

Loewe Foundation to present the works of Craft Prize finalists at the Noguchi Museum

Thirty artists representing 16 different countries have been shortlisted for the 2023 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, and for this sixth edition, all finalists will partake in an exhibition at the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City. Held inside Isamu Noguchi’s concrete-walled studio (the first public show in the space) from May 17 until June 18, the exhibition will span the realms of ceramics, woodwork, textiles, furniture, paper, basketry, glass, metal, jewelry lacquer, and leather and bookbinding, exploring playful color schemes, trompe l’œil techniques, and the mesmerizing relationship between light and surface.

Projects

Jeremiah Brent brings modern French bistro vibes to LA with Juliet

Culver City newcomer Juliet (sister to the equally luxe and airy LA restaurants Margot and Norah) marks AD100 designer Jeremiah Brent’s hospitality debut. As an ode to contemporary French dining, Brent melded reclaimed herringbone floors with wicker-wrapped arches and embroidered light fixtures suspended over the marble bar. Guests settle into saffron-tinted velvet banquettes or ticking stripe-swathed chairs, some of them paired with darling scallop-edged tables. In true California fashion, a greenery-laden, 1,500-square-foot patio adorned with rattan awaits on the other side of striking floor-to-ceiling French doors.

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