Outdoor Living for a New York Master Suite

In Japan, the ritual of bathing is less about hygiene per se than it is about relaxation, with nature ideally playing a starring role—as it does at an Asian-influenced master suite in Pound Ridge, New York. Interior Design Hall of Fame members Calvin Tsao and Zack McKown describe their concept as “outside in and inside out,” which accounts for the 12-foot-wide picture window in place of a mirror above the bathroom vanity.

While some would have balked at that untraditional move, these particular homeowners—Philippines-born fashion designer Josie Natori and her Japanese-American financier husband, Ken—were an easy sway. Tsao & McKown Architects has designed two apartments for the couple over the past 20 years as well as office space, a showroom, and boutiques for Josie. “They’re more friends than clients,” Tsao admits. “We sometimes finish each other’s sentences.”

The couple’s master suite is a 900-square-foot open-plan volume that encompasses lounge and sleeping zones as well as a washing-up space that, courtesy of a height-adjustable daybed, doubles as a massage area. The aforementioned vanity is actually a 22-foot-long credenza concealing generous storage. Both it and the pair of sinks above are crafted of oak, which—like the house’s Douglas fir posts and beams—is specially fumed for waterproofing and to create a dark, teaklike hue. Flanking either end of the picture window are vertical slivers of mirror that dissolve spatial boundaries and serve reflection needs; however, “this is not a place where you’re rushing to put on your makeup,” Tsao notes.

Best of Kitchen & Bath: Bed / Bath

“They asked me for glamour,” Harry Heissmann says, “and I ran with it.” His namesake firm turned the entire second level of a Greenwich Village town house into a master suite. The three-room enfilade totals 1,200 square feet, a lavish single space when pocket doors slide away.

First up: the dressing room, boasting a Finnish mid-century chandelier and, instead of a vanity table, a limited-edition plywood desk by Jasper Morrison. The sidewalls are actually closet doors, glass panels covered in a giant circle motif rendered in glittering mica, gold leaf, and polychrome paint—call them verre églomisé. To sketch the patterns, Heissmann grabbed a fistful of felt-tip pens and sheets of Mylar.

Concentric circles reappear in the bathroom. “They’re like water hitting water,” he explains. Here, on panels fronting the shower and toilet, the circles take the more muted form of frosted glass detailed by a practitioner of the rare art of wheel-cutting. “I remember him with sandpaper, going like this,” Heissmann says, waving his hand back and forth to demonstrate. Other surfaces resemble a vast watercolor: They’re highly figured beige onyx that owes its cornflower-blue undertone to resin backing. In the bedroom, walls are Venetian plaster raked with a trowel into vertical grooves. Ceramic lamps that Heissmann designed with Christopher Spitzmiller flank the bed. Carpet, as in the dressing room at the opposite end of the enfilade, sports a spotted pattern developed for Brooke Astor, who kept a miniature donkey indoors and, Heissmann notes, “didn’t want the marks to show.” (He used to work for Astor’s decorator, Albert Hadley.)

Tacoma Art Museum Unveils Expansion by Olson Kundig Partners

Washington’s Tacoma Art Museum will open its newly-constructed Benaroya Wing to the public on January 19. The museum enlisted Olson Kundig design principals Tom Kundig and Kirsten R. Murray to execute the 6,595-square foot expansion. The wing adds an additional 4,800 square feet of gallery space to house 350 works of art that have been donated to the museum by the Benaroya family, along with a rotation of special exhibits.

A key feature of the expansion is the Vista Gallery, a 46-foot wide wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that project six feet past the building’s exterior. The Vista Gallery is adjacent to local trails and bike paths, visually engaging the surrounding community.

“With the new Benaroya Wing, the intimate scale inside the gallery is balanced against the external civic scale of the city of Tacoma,” said Tom Kundig, FAIA, RIBA. “The Vista Gallery with its window wall offers a lens into what’s happening inside the gallery, and outside to the urban experience of downtown Tacoma.”

The Vista Gallery also posed a challenge to Kundig and Murray. Sensitivity to scale, lighting, and protection of the art were key to the conception of the design strategies for the space.

“The Benaroya Wing is an evolution of the original museum design,” Murray said. “It is intended to be an extension of the larger museum building, but add a new level of transparency and viewability to continue the Tacoma Art Museum’s longstanding goal of deepening its engagement with the city.”

Although the Rebecca and Jack Benaroya Wing was officially completed in 2018, it will host its grand opening to the public on January 19.

A wrought-iron spiral staircase links the ground level to the observation platforms.

Canada’s foremost platform for designers and their projects and products returns to Toronto January 17-20 with the 21st annual IDS Toronto. Held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, IDS19’s theme is the Power of Design.

Few know that power better than SANDOW CEO Adam Sandow, who will deliver a keynote with author and musician Questlove about their new partnership, Creative House, an initiative to bring fresh collaborations between designers and inventors to market. Interior Design Hall of Fame members Neri & Hu know that power well, too; its founding partners Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu are not only IDS19’s Guests of Honour, but leaders in the blossoming field of Chinese design.

Other highlights include keynotes from urban experimenters Weiss Manfredi and Bangladesh-based architect Marina Tabassum. Tangible Interaction has devised Haven, a series of zippered inflatable clouds in which one can relax or meditate. Caesarstone will debut its collaboration with Marije Vogelzang, while Back Country Hut launches a series of modular Great Lakes Cabins, both ingenious and sustainable. And the new IDS Contract section is a world of its own, with a series of fireside chats and workshops open to the trade.

Stunning Spiral Staircases

If any architectural element knows how to make a statement, it’s this one. Check out these 11 stunning spiral staircases in houses, apartments, offices, and retail and hospitality projects around the globe.

The dramatic spiral staircase coils up a burnt-orange enclosure at one end of the lobby.

Qingdao Conference Center by Tengyuan Design

In the center’s ceramic-tiled lobby, fiberglass-reinforced gypsum board swirls upward to wrap the staircase enclosure, where porthole-like openings are fitted with transparent vinyl film.

Kunshan Residence by Atelier Zerebecky and Kos Architects