Architects and Artisans

First came Spago in Beverly Hills, then Lucky Strike Lanes, followed by the Century Plaza Hotel and Spa. Now Southern California architect Stephen Francis Jones has designed a restaurant for the oceanfront town he calls home: Manhattan Beach. MB Post is located on the site of the original 1950s Manhattan Beach post office, closed in the [...]

Designing a training facility for the A-Rod is one thing, but solving the homeless puzzle in Haiti is something else altogether. Still, the partners at NC-Office have tackled both.  And it only took the four 30-somethings about three weeks to arrive at a cost-effective and relatively simple concept to address housing for Haiti’s earthquake-ravaged topography. The sophisticated, if tiny, Miami-based architecture [...]

For 30 years, Lisa TeviaClark has been experimenting with clay and the alchemy of heat, salt, ash, minerals, and glazes. In 2003 she and her husband James Clark established Bella Vista Tile in the mountains of western North Carolina, setting up a limited production studio and laboratory. A careful study of ancient Chinese wood ash [...]

Susan Tunick creates ceramic art informed by architectural ornament. Her site-specific sculptures, mosaic murals and individual bricks and tiles reveal a penchant for scale and surface.  They’re intricately laced, lush in both texture and color, with a heightened awareness of edges, shadows and context. On a 600-acre Vermont farm full of wildflowers, grasses, and pear, [...]

We are fortunate not only that North Carolina-based artist-turned-architect Frank Harmon made his first pilgrimage to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin recently, but also chose to put pen to paper - in more ways than one – while he was there.  His impressions follow: Taliesin was built and rebuilt three times from 1910 to 1959. And for Frank Lloyd [...]

If there were a shining symbol of 21st century hope last night at the 2011 awards program by the AIA Triangle Section of North Carolina, the Anacostia Public Libary in Washington D.C. certainly made a fine case for it. The honor award was designed by the Freelon Group of Durham, N.C., in association with R.McGhee & Associates of Washington, D.C.  It’s to serve one of the toughest sections [...]

San Diego architect Heather Johnston believes in the transformative, the evolving solution and the revelation that defies pre-ordination. “The best results always exhibit something that reveals itself, that hasn’t been named until that moment,” she said.  “You have to leave things open for answers to arise where they wouldn’t have if you’d made your decisions [...]

The path to designs in ceramics has been a circuitous one for painter and printmaker Justyn Livingston.  She started in the mid-‘80s designing bedding for ESPRIT, the youth-oriented lifestyle brand, then freelanced designs for carpet and dinnerware for Pottery Barn.  Later she worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development and its Aid to Artisans [...]

With Success by Design, author Jenn Kennedy offers lessons learned from 29 of California’s most enduring practitioners, for architects ready to set up their own firms. “I wanted to show all the different paths to success,” the West Coast writer said.  “It’s really about the entrepreneurial aspects of architecture – about the ways to grow [...]

“It was a personal – I needed furniture for my house that had color and would give me some excitement.” Cleto Munari, self-described poet, artist, designer and sculptor, recently outlined the motives for his new furnishings collection .  “I wanted a collection that was very colorful – that in 100 or 200 years would continue [...]