/Get Inspired/Toronto Design Week
Best of IDS, Day 1: A Digital Quilt, Magical Lights & Altered States
For surfacing great Caesarstone, design and architecture powerhouse studio Snarkitecture produced a triptyque of sculptures made from the composite surfacing material. A filtration system links the three, moving the melt from compacted ice to the flowing water to finally this mist-emitting piece. Stunning and responsible: a dollar was donated to a water fund each time a hash-tagged photo was uploaded to Instagram.
How Bright is Our Future by Design Workshop Architects. This prototype utilizes an illuminated conductive paper to ask showgoers how they feel about emerging technologies, taking the crowd's emotional temperature on the connected home, drone and more, by asking whether these concepts create feelings of fear or hopefulness and lowering and raising light levels accordingly. It was a totally unexpected and truly innovative feature that pulled you right out of the tradeshow and into a much more cerebral place.
Hollis + Morris booth. Hollis + Morris created an illuminated house frame for their IDS booth as a celebration of the brand's new hometown showroom and when we dropped by the booth towards the end of the day, a designer was clamouring to buy the frame for a project he had in the works. He was really excited by how it was all coming together and it made us realize, the entire booth needed to be tagged. The Lantern lights are stellar, as are the new tabletop accessories, and the three new coffee tables shown.
1925Workbench booth. Just look at this set of blackened oak doors with elegant and openable windows, all sliding as one unit on on solid brass barn door track, each component made here in Toronto by dynamic duo Rock and My.
Mila by Matthew McCormick. Matthew was interviewed for a profile piece in the Jan/Feb issue of Azure, and Mila, his newest light is one that really stands out to us. The simplicity of the form - a glowing orb cradled in a metal loop - makes it so versatile. It's likely a favorite of Matthew's as well - it's named after his infant daughter.
T406 by Kastella. Love the compact footprint of this walnut leaning desk and the combination of the impeccable traditional craftsmenship with the subtle digital world disruption of the metal eyelet for cords and cables. A perfect perch for a laptop, or it would make a great console table.
High Wire Lights by Anony. We love how these individually weighted, jewel-like, suspended luminaires add architecture to an empty space. Framing each individual fixture with light adds a unique character to both the pendants and the space as well.
Future of Canadian Living Treehouse by Aya Kitchens, Weston Premium Woods and U31 Design. The concept treehouse booth designed in collaboration by Aya Kitchens, Cleaf by Weston Premium Woods and local interior design studio U31 Design featured a rarity in today’s condo market – a truly covetable kitchen. Maxing out functionality and style in tight quarters, the idealized kitchen featured a clean-lined aesthetic thanks to hardware-free cabinetry topped by a ¼”-thick counter (both made from durable laminate with a surprising subtle texture), sleek strip lighting and an eye-catching mural artwork that injected a hit of urban edge.
Outdoor kitchens by Urban Bonfire. The Montreal-based manufacturer Urban Bonfire has perfected backyard living with their fully customizable outdoor kitchens. The cabinets are all-weather stainless steel and can be configured in a multitude of arrangements to suite any space, from teeny city plots to more sprawling rural retreats. Accessories from pizza ovens, smokers and hybrid grills to planter boxes for growing herbs and vegetables let one create their ideal cooking space.
Seen at this year’s Prototype competition, the Ka Tsi Ka Ta and Ta Ka Tis Ka side tables and Ayê lamp are the work of local designer Hanae Baruchel. Sidelined from her former career by a brain injury in 2016, Baruchel began making and manipulating materials as a form of recovery and therapy. Particularly drawn to concrete, she transforms the industrial mainstay into near wafer-thin lamps and cute, three-legged side tables, among other pieces for her recently founded studio Lalaya Design.
Precis by Blanco. The perfect addition to an aging-in-place kitchen, Blanco’s new Precis sinks have a shallow basin that can be installed as an undermount or drop-in, with both applications allowing for wheelchair accessibility. It will be available in the brand’s proprietary granite composite, Silgranit, in Anthracite, Cinder and Metallic Gray, and also as a stainless steel version.
Atelier Bussiere shelf. In town from Quebec City, designer Jean-Francois Bussiere is a pro at making heavy raw material look polished, light and warm. We love his shelves made from granite and marble with walnut pegs. Beautiful.
Jackson Lounge by Monte Design. Ralph Montemurro is a local designer and manufacturer that began his company, Monte, with stylish family-appropriate rocking chairs and gliders. Congratulations to him for introducing at the show a wide range of furnishings, including this armchair and ottoman with copper plated-chrome tube base.
Star by Amala Carpets. What a delight to run our hands over this six by nine-foot Zee silk area rug handmade in Thailand. We love the sensuous feel of the long threads and the way the light catches on the pink and yellow material.
Wolfgang by Huppe. Here we have a raspberry pink armchair and matching ottoman that is so comfortable you’ll want to hug it back. Designed by international Italian star Luca Nichetto.
Ilya Pendant by EQ3. We love the combination of the Ilya pendant’s industrial style with soft curves and even softer powder-coated finish. A stunning and adjustable fixture for over the island or dining table.
Chatfield by Matthew Kroeker. We fell in love with this stylish and ergonomic walking tool, a cool find spotted in the Canadian by Nature section of the show. Its sneaker-inspired shoe of the walnut cane is made of thermoplastic rubber with a terrain-gripping tread while its silicone-covered aluminum handle conforms to the shape of your hand and dampens vibrations as you walk.
The Rebel Quilt by Libs Elliott. Also displayed in the Canadian by Nature section of the show, was this naughty and nice double-sided blanket by Libs Elliott. A master at both quilting and digital design, Elliott’s piece features black and white pieces sewn together with a wicked spider-webbing of stitches on one side and gothic vixens and bright yellow edging on the other. So cool.
Sand + Draft by Stacklab x Azure. Our sister publication, Azure, called upon one of Toronto’s most recognized design and fabrication studios, Stacklab, to produce this year’s IDS installation. Utilizing the oft-overlooked mould-making material – compacted foundry sand – the studio produced three massive sculptures, their industrial patterns reminiscent of historic metal castings.
From January 15 to 21, we’re awarding 100 Designlines Loves tags to the most beautiful, most innovative, and flat-out wackiest stuff we encounter. Keep track of everything we tagged in our master list and share your stories with us using the hashtag: #DLLoves18. Happy trails!
We teamed up with a handful of editors from Azure, our sister magazine, to take in the sights at the Interior Design Show (IDS). We tagged the latest and greatest products for every corner of the home, including the spherical Mila lights by Matthew McCormick and a copper-plated armchair by Monte Design – both Canadian designs. In that vein, EQ3 impressed us with their no-fuss pendant lights and breezy booth encircled by white curtains. The
Caesarstone‘s collaboration with Snarkitecture earned two tags from our star-struck editors, who loved the architecture firm’s creative take on kitchen islands. The resulting installations fused water in three states – ice, water and steam – with cascading stacks of marble slabs, creating an elemental topography for the centre of the trade show.
