• Featured,  Form

    Creative forces look to illuminate and inspire

    Luminaut, an architecture and design firm headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, believes in the illuminated experience. Built on a culture of collaboration and celebration, the firm is backed by a team of architects, designers, and creative professionals dedicated to creating inspired spaces for clients across a number of sectors. Recognized for its expertise in hospitality, senior living, and university campus-based Greek…

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    SmithGroup expands Great Lakes presence

    Recently, SmithGroup, an award-winning, global, integrated design firm, expanded its geographic footprint in the Great Lakes region with the opening of a new office location in Cleveland, Ohio. The expansion is intended to build upon its legacy of work in the Great Lakes region, joining a network of operations in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Detroit, Madison, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh, and to…

  • Design Spotlight,  Featured,  Print Edition

    The Euclid model

    The Great Lakes ecoregion has stood witness to the passage of time as marsh, dune, and forest habitats expanded and contracted, economic engines of industry rose and fell, and the growth of city populations surged and declined in cyclic fashion. While stalwart, its composition of freshwater sand dunes, sandstone cliffs, pebble beaches, limestone bedrock, and wetland basins have felt that…

  • Creative Endeavors,  Featured,  Form

    Empathy in industry

    A reusable epinephrine auto-injector; a minimalist household composter; an eco-friendly and contemporary ceramic and glass toaster: there’s no lack of innovation within University of Cincinnati alum Mary Friedl’s expanding portfolio. The industrial designer graduated from the university’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning last May 2020 and promptly won a competition for designing an eco-friendly toaster as a part…

  • Creative Endeavors,  Featured,  Form

    Exploration in organic

    Elegantly minimal and a composition of precise and savory intersection of wood and metal, the growing, ready-made collection within the Edgework Creative furniture portfolio are versatile and accessible in nature. The creative fabrication studio based in Columbus, Ohio, embraces a mission to make quality, handcrafted furniture a part of everyday life, bringing functional and beautiful furnishings to modern residential and…

  • Edgework Creative: Verite Welcome Desk, photo by Marshall Evan Photography
    Creative Endeavors,  Featured

    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…

  • Featured,  Travel

    Sculpted experience

    Museums tucked within nature, sculpture gardens offer unique experiences for those with a love of the outdoors and for the discerning art and design enthusiast that are increasingly appealing in a currently deepening digital reality. The Midwest is home to a variety of sculpture gardens of varying sizes, whether independently owned and operated, or a result of rich, decades-long collaboration…

  • Creative Endeavors,  Featured,  Print Edition

    Six-string attitude

    The stage is set: a hush settles over the crowd, smoke curls languidly on the floor, and lights draw eyes and ears to the platform. There is an avid anticipation—a collective intake of breath—as the crowd watches both guitarist and the iconic silhouette held before in an extension and expression of its player. It is an instrument that has defined…

  • Featured,  Form

    Tower work 

    When heading south along the eastern banks of the Scioto Greenways trail toward the Scioto Mile Promenade in downtown Columbus, a structure clad in Imperial Red granite and bronze-tone glass comes into view set back from the Scioto River’s edge. Nestled into the built landscape, the 1984-built, approximately one-million-square-foot building soars about 512 feet into the air and is visually…