Architects and Artisans

Kristina de Corpo and Nicole Chiala share an art school background, a vision for sustainability and a relatively new and successful design business. The two mid-‘90s graduates of the Art Academy of San Francisco decided in 2004 that they wanted to join forces and create products for the home. “We spend a lot of time [...]

A rare temple to the zeitgeist of 120 years of American attitudes about athletics and race stands empty today near Princeton University – staring into the abyss of demolition. Over the years the little Romanesque building at 86 Olden Street has been known as Osborn Clubhouse, the Third World Center and the Carl A. Fields [...]

With a circulation of 350,000 for its print edition, and monthly online page views tallying 3.3 million, Dwell magazine could be considered the journalistic Mecca for aspiring residential architects. Its monthly “Houses We Love” feature alone may be the most coveted single page in the entire architecture press. So when Dwell’s editors began to think [...]

The clients wanted plenty of land for their children to grow up with, all of it within the crowded city of Los Angeles. The architects set out to help them find that property, meet those needs and satisfy a desire for inside/outside living. Four acres in Glassell Park, between Mount Washington and Silver Lake, did [...]

Bounded by the Potomac River on the north and the Rappahannock to the south, the Northern Neck of Virginia is a peninsula defined by constant shifts in sands, tides and shadows. It’s a place where, if you don’t like the weather one minute, you need only wait for the next. The entire complement of land, [...]

In Ireland, they chase churches from steeple to steeple, over brush, timber and countryside. In Louisville, they rip around a flat track at Churchill Downs in a frenzied spectacle for the benefit of 150,000 fans sipping iced mint juleps beneath two sparkling 19th-century slate-clad spires. But in Chicago, come Saturday, April 17, pairs of two-footed [...]

It’s more than a litle ironic that Ellen Blakeley’s highly expressive works in glass would be fueled by bursts of vandalism in 1994 San Francisco. “There were teenage boys there shooting out the bus shelters, just because they liked watching them blow up,” she said. “So there’d be these piles of beautiful glass lying there [...]

Edgar Blazona is a self-described minimalist whose designs are known for simple lines and clean profiles. He gets his inspiration from American modernists like Donald Judd, Ray and Charles Eames and Heywood-Wakefield. He calls his work approachable design at a reasonable price. “My items are within reach for most Americans,” he said. “We design and [...]

Mike McDonald is a builder who thinks like a movie producer. In Oakland, his Margarido House is built into a steep slope so the five-bedroom, 4,700 square foot home overlooks the Bay Bridge and San Francisco. “I treat building projects like a producer creates films,” he said. “I have to get everybody pointed in the [...]

Not by a long shot. The three Philadelphia partners in MODA botanica derive their pleasure and inspiration from art, from architecture, from the auto supply store and from Home Depot. In the case of the Philadelphia International Flower Show, where they’ve just racked up five major awards – including Best in Show – they stacked [...]