Berlin Designs, Inc. Blog: Design Rituals

... a passionate revelation of my design rituals ...
a passionate account from a South Florida award-wining interior designer who is blessed to celebrate her 20th year anniversary of designing "interiors that lift your spirit™"
Welcome! The search is finally over. That perfect marriage of understanding without words:one look, one image, a breathtaking view... Someone who will know how to interpret her client's wishes by listening to all the unsaid words, seeing the cues, perceiving the feelings with a simple gaze.
I am the lucky designer who will get to go into the personal spaces in your life, your office or home. That place you call your own, where you can be you. Your surroundings matter to me, my passion is to let the best of you shine through the space you occupy. No antiseptic rooms, catalog photo-shoot ready, rather the elegant comfort of a back porch at sunset is the feeling I want in the interior of your private spaces. The sink-down comfort of being in your OWN space.
Let your smile shine as you enjoy learning about my passion for design. Then, you will see why we say: experience Interiors that lift your spirit™.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Industrial Chic: get in gear

Rooms already dressed in mid-century furniture seem the most receptive to these elements, which require the balancing effect of more masculine silhouettes, heftier textures.

When high-tech entrepreneur Matthew Hill designed his condo in Lansing, Mich., he wanted decor to reflect his personality and "pretty wild lifestyle."

California-based Motoart had what he was after. They buy up junked aircraft -- everything from WWII fighter planes to modern jet parts -- and transform them into furniture: desks, tables, even sofas. Hill opted for a coffee table devised from a section of a C-119 cargo plane.

"I wanted something with a real edge that spoke to the influence of ultra-lounge atmosphere, as well as pure modernism," says Hill, who founded a company called Liquid Web.

Call it industrial chic. Furniture and accessories this year are flaunting their rivets, welds and obvious mechanical origins.

Interior designers are making liberal use of vintage components. While many pieces are sleek, almost aerodynamic, others emphasize the drama of scale -- think gigantic kleig-like floor fixtures, factory work tables or Hill's coffee table.

Industrial-style furnishings aren't new. Marcel Breuer and other Modernists in the early 20th century embraced the idea that man and machine could coexist. Mass production techniques and new materials excited these designers, who sought innovative ways to adapt them for the home. It was a marriage of purpose and aesthetics.

The retro trend is advancing throughout the home furnishings marketplace. A wave of commercial-grade trash bins, bread boxes, toasters and other kitchen accouterments has come ashore, at pricepoints high and low.

No comments: