“People find their own ways of using things regardless of how prescriptive it can be,” said Lee Fletcher, principal and co-founding partner of Fig40, an award-winning, multi-service, industrial design firm based in Toronto, Ontario. “We need to have a sensitivity to that.” This intention to the intrinsic human nature of design underscores the Fig40 portfolio, which Fletcher has been building…
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The Den
Since its establishment in 1980, the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa of Acme Township, Michigan has helped define northern Michigan hospitality, with its picturesque location near Grand Traverse Bay atop nearly 900 acres that host the fresh fairways of its three championship level golf courses, clubhouse, golf academy, and grille. The resort itself holds nearly 600 room suite ensembles, and…
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The new restful
The craft and curation of a restful, residential atmosphere is often a foundational priority for design professionals, and in many ways, it has become even more relevant with a global pandemic as new stressors on the body and mind arrive at home in lockdown. Along with a changing notion of home, one valuable resource—sleep—has changed as well. Interior design professionals…
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Gallery in the woods
A well-travelled summer destination in northern Michigan, the small but vibrant township of Glen Arbor rests in the crook of Lake Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Bay, offering walkable shoreline and sunsets second-to-none, and thick pockets of forested areas that cool active summer months. It is one of these areas a gem of revived architectural prowess sits. The Glen Arbor Arts Center,…
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Material craft
For the small team of artisans at Edgework Creative, a furniture, millwork, and metalwork studio in Columbus, Ohio, growth has been swift and fast ever since their DIY effort at creating a new kitchen table seven years ago erupted into requests for custom furnishings from their surrounding community. Their portfolio now includes hundreds of custom projects in the commercial and…
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Storied time
The history of the wristwatch is a storied one. Even before the creation of sundials in ancient civilizations across the globe—Egyptian, Chinese, Roman, Greek, and Islamic—when time was told through shadow-lengths, there has been gravitation toward associating time with memory, place, and people. The watch, as a tool, has played a vital role in the human experience, whether in organizing…
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Cook County Hospital(ity)
In the Illinois Medical District on Chicago’s West Side, Harrison Square, a new micro-neighborhood is being formed that will add residential, office, and retail and hotel space to the immediate surrounding area. One transformative project in the heart of the development oversaw the restoration of an eight-story iconic building with a distinctive Beaux-Arts façade that led to a 2020 Landmarks…
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OUI
Indigo Books & Music Inc. is a Toronto based company that doubles as a world cultural department store, filled with curated collections of books, music, art, and lifestyle products. Its fashion branch spans jewelry and sleepwear to backpacks; while its curated home goods branch includes décor, glassware, furnishings, and more. Recently, an exclusive new brand, called OUI, has joined Indigo’s…
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Foraged boathouse
In today’s post-industrial climate, literature on sustainability has become proliferated with language associated with policies, strategy, and new technologies to reduce embodied carbon, improve environmental and human health, and ultimately advance toward a more circular economy. While value-added and necessary as architects, researchers, civil engineers, and designers address what the future of the built environment may look like, there is…
