How to organize the end of your bed

Today’s large master suites offer plenty of room for armoires, dressers and even chairs. But what do you do with that cavernous space at the end of your bed?

 

The answer is plenty. From a design perspective, the end of the bed begs to be softened with additional pieces. This is not only true with beds that are open on the end, but ones with footboards as well. It creates a visual barrier that disrupts the flow of the room.

 

Softening it doesn’t have to be an expensive undertaking either. With a little creativity, even the simplest things can do wonders in this area of your bedroom.

 

Here are some ideas that work particularly well:

 

TV cabinet. This is a newest “thing” to have for the bedroom. By day, it’s an ordinary bench. At night, you click a remote control and a flat-screen TV pops up so you can watch Letterman before slipping off to dreamland.

 

A table. A small round or oblong table will fit the space nicely. Pick out a tablecloth for it that is floor length and which complements the décor of the room. If you have a little extra space, add a small bistro style chair to complete the look. Don’t use a square table. It just extends the edge of the bed visually and does nothing to soften the space.

 

A bench. Benches are great for storing extra blankets, pillows or seasonal items. It’s also a great place to get dressed in the morning. You can put your socks and shoes on without waking anyone else up. You can go with a traditional wood bench or a large upholstered bench in a complementary fabric.

 

 

Loveseat. This is a terrific solution and so useful too. Be sure to select a loveseat that fits the size of bed you have. You don’t want to be tripping over the edge of it if you need to get up in the middle of the night. Add a reading light and a cozy comforter for a nice retreat at the end of the day.

 

Pair of chairs. If you have a king sized bed, two chairs work well at the end of the bed. You can add a small reading lamp and an ottoman to create a cozy place to read. It’s almost like adding a new living space to your existing square footage if done well. Remember to select chairs that are scaled appropriately for the smaller area.

 

Writing Desk. While people aren’t writing with pen and ink the way they used to, a small writing desk or secretary is a great place to store your laptop and catch up on your email before you go to sleep. Plus it’s a tidy place to put your cell phone, keys, wallet and other personal items so you always know where they are. If you don’t have a wireless network, you can run the connection under the bed and up to the back of the desk so it is virtually invisible.

 

A low dresser. There never seems to be enough storage in homes these days. A low dresser offers you additional space to store your clothing, particularly seasonal ware or intimate apparel. You can also consider a trunk or a wood chest as a good alternative. These provide the additional space you need while adding character to the room.

 

 

Wicker or iron furniture. Wicker and iron can create a nice visual contrast to the wood furniture in your room. You can even use it to create a small vignette. Add candles to the table, place a throw over one of the chairs and finish the scene with a fine porcelain cup and saucer, as if someone had just been enjoying a cup of tea to welcome the morning.

 

Bookshelf. If you’re an avid reader or just in love with the idea of reading, a bookshelf can be a nice addition to the end of your bed. Classics, leather bound editions and collectible works help dress up the room and soften the edge of your bed.

 

And there you have it – great ways to add visual interest to your room while softening the space that signals the end of your sleep space and the rest of the bedroom. It’s the ideal place to exercise your creativity and let your imagination run wild while adding some new features to your room that make it more romantic and more welcoming.

TRENDS

The consumer goods industry – particularly the areas of tableware and kitchenware – is extremely competitive these days. It’s hard for designers to come up with products that address a new function. After all, there are only so many gadgets you can need to crush garlic or open a bottle of wine.

 

To differentiate themselves in the marketplace, savvy designers know that new designs are always in demand, even for such seemingly mundane tools as bowls and toasters.

 

But good design is rarely enough. In order to sell, the products need to communicate as well, whether it’s a new way of enjoying a meal or new ideas for saving time, space or money.

 

One of the main driving forces these days is globalization. As it continues to take hold, new forms are evolving, particularly in the area of tableware. Infusions of other cultures are changing the look of traditional plates and flatware. No longer are plates just round. Rather, they are made to fit the type of dish or meal being served. These include new categories of dishes made specifically for sauces and sides.

 

This exposure to global tastes also influences how we eat. New designs allow families to move away from the traditional dinner table and out into other living spaces in the home and even outdoors.

 

This change in eating venues has also created designs that are more organic, where form follows function in new and exciting ways. While traditional fine china holds onto the geometric classics such as round, oval or even square, informal tableware is being made in exciting new shapes and styles, something to match not only every occasion, but also every style of food imaginable.
 

But the trends don’t end with shape. New colors are coming on the scene as well, fueled in part by fashion, but also by new manufacturing techniques globalization brings to the table.

 

Bright new colors such as apple green and lemon yellow have come on the scene, and a new shade, lagoon blue, is beginning to gain favor. The entire spectrum of berry colors is very popular right now, as is pink. Black and white are always classic choices, but look for them to be accented with bold colors to create contrast.

 

Cutlery is also experiencing change. The auto industry has perfected new methods of producing finishes on steel and housewares designers were quick to seize on these ideas. The result: cutlery with black surfaces instead of the traditional silver finish.

 

Though families have strayed from the dining room in recent years, the kitchen is increasingly being brought into the living room and other eating areas. Many new cooking appliances such as Rechauds, which can be used as a wok, a grill or a fondue, allow the meal preparation to be moved away from the kitchen and into the living area. This is a direct influence of the Asian culture.

 

Finally, new materials are beginning to make their mark on the kitchen. Silicone is finding its way into cookware in new and exciting ways. Because silicone has high heat resistance, good insulating qualities and noise suppression capabilities, it is well suited to a variety of cooking situations. For example, a silicone ring that has different-sized vents inside the lid. The lid can then be adjusted to four different sized openings and there’s no clunking when the lid is placed on the pot.

KMP Modern Furniture

Suzanne Martinson

Suzanne Martinson could be described as part of the “New Urbanism” movement, prevalent in Miami, Florida and ‘damaged districts’, such as New Orleans. She believes that building according to appropriate design standards can actually help cure wounded cities and towns while heading off further degradation of the countryside.

 

Having received her Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami and her Masters from Columbia University, Martinson’s design principles are thoroughly grounded in an understanding of how towns were made historically.

 

“New Urbanists have learned to take the best examples of great places from the past: Savannah, Charleston, Annapolis, Alexandria, and Key West, and the unconquered pieces of thousands of other old towns, and combine them with planning for transit systems, appropriately placed parking, streets scaled for both pedestrians and drivers, redesigned shopping malls, and other modern standards”, explains Martinson.

 

“Within the history, you can observe how such districts maintained their vitality for hundreds of years, using careful planning, a mix of building types and uses, defining neighborhoods with well-located public space, and enough character to make people willing to fight for their preservation”.

 

One good example is a cooperative planning effort in South Miami Heights’

 

Caribbean School neighborhood, led by Martinson, which included a neighborhood full-service school, affordable and market-rate housing, a senior citizens’ home, daycare, special needs facilities, and public park and infrastructure improvements.

 

Martinson established her own firm in 1985, and among several private residential projects, she has recently been highly acclaimed for her participation in the “Seaside”, redevelopment of Allison Island, Miami Beach. Elite architects were chosen to manage separate projects on the island, with Martinson receiving one of the largest residential buildings; townhouses for “Aqua”.

 

 

The $7.7 million dollar building at 36 feet wide inspired Martinson to created full outdoor rooms as large as their indoor counterparts.  The developer revised her original drawings, however Martinson stood her ground, sending off a letter explaining that her Modernist house should not have “neoclassical spaces”. She prevailed, and her living rooms—with two-story ceiling heights and expansive views of the water—are some of the more stunning interiors at Aqua.

 

“I was striving for a modern space with an open plan and I think I succeeded. My house had the 36-foot lot. My idea was to go with the grand gesture and try to get the spaces correct: the open porch, an outdoor living room. It occurred to me to make a big facade. When you look at the combination … you can set up those double doors and you can use it as a living room and you get this nice tropical room. It’s romantic living in the tropics. The idea is: Are you outside or inside? Then you have another roof terrace.”

 

Martinson outs a huge emphasis on the interiors of her buildings, with large free-flowing space and majestic height a key part of her concepts. “Ultimately this whole thing is about making your environment more livable, more in context with human beings. We have to learn to live better”, she says of her style.

 

In addition to her architecture and planning work, Martinson designs furniture and accessories varying from simple desks and candlesticks, to sofas and chairs. Her furniture and objects are modernist in design, yet very individual, depending on the environment for which they are bound.

 

Martinson has won five Awards of Excellence from the Florida Association of the American Institute of Architects, and four Honor Awards for private residence projects including “Shoar” – a waterfront house featuring elegant, functional solutions to the demands of the tropical climate. The house is oriented to the southern water views, organized in to layers. The interior spaces,

like many of Martinsons’ designs are continuous and open with classic modern furniture, white walls, and a terra cotta floor reinforcing the feeling of uncluttered comfort. 

Similarly, another project honored by the AIA, Pinecrest Elementary School, Florida incorporates the same modern, tropical features with the functionality to house such features as a kindergarten reading room and media centre.

A further 3 National
 Design Awards have been earned from the Institute for Business Design for her commercial designs for Southeast Banking Corporation, Elaine Shops and Diamond Sales Offices.

 

In addition to her architecture and planning work, Martinson is a guest critic for university departments of architecture and her work has featured in numerous books and national and international journals.  

 

Steven Holl Architects

“The soul has greater need of the ideal than of the real.” Thoughtful words inscribed in the limestone facade of the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. The author, Victor Hugo, French playwright, novelist, essayist. The reader, Steven Holl of Steven Holl architects.  It is with this sentiment that Holl, a highly-respected architect from Bremerton Washington, engaged the process for what would in the end be the finest, seamless addition to an elite center of art. The New Yorker tagged the new Block addition; “One of the best museums of the last generation.” Such glorious reviews are birthed not from the complexity of the structure, but rather its simplicity, brave simplicity. It is one thing for an architect to design simple works when more creative options are not within his gifting. It is quite another to ignore the more complex, creative options at ones talent disposal, and instead settle for the sophistication of less.

 

Steven Holl, is an architect difficult to define. To reduce his work to a style or its influence to a time period would be flirting with simple-mindedness. Instead, the casual and the informed observer must reach for the most blatant of contradictions. Holl may be best described as spontaneously-static, or maybe even a feeling-pragmatist. He is an architect in total command of the inherent metrics required to create elite, permanent structures. Yet, he balances the technical envelope so well he seems to ignore it. His skyline creations seem to join hands with the clouds rather than compete against them. Much anticipated is the High Line Hybrid Tower connected to the High Line Park in New York City. This project will be Holl’s first large-scale project in New York. The tower design will, in Holls words, “enable interaction with the public sphere vertically as well as street level.” His design philosophy is to create what nature would create on its own if given a protractor and pencil.

 

 As with many architects, the most covert design element is patience. Such was the case while penciling one of the 650 drafts in preparation for the Atkins Block design competition. One of the static requirements distributed among the invited

 

 architectural firms was that the addition would face north. Holl, working in conjunction with his partner Chris McVoy, felt that the best solution was to instead create a structure that would fuse the facade with the landscape and move the structure eastward. Holl recalls his anxiety going into the committee meeting to present this new idea. At risk were the many months and hours spent on a drawing that fundamentally violated the basic design requirement.

     “I apologize for breaking the rules” Holl’s opening statement would read. With regret out of the way, he pushed forward uncovering what strengths were submerged in the surrounding natural landscape, and how these strengths should be highlighted. The result was a unanimous vote to approve his design. A very discerning architectural board saw the wisdom of this unorthodoxy for the benefit of current visitors and the thousands to come.

     It is this style of people management that allows for Holl to succeed domestically as well as internationally. His most ambitious project to date is in Beijing China where he has opened a new office. The spider like project is geo-thermally heated and cooled with 660 geo-thermal wells, 8 towers standing 22 stories tall, and 750 apartments. The towers are connected with bridges with pools inside of them. In brief, the structures combine high-end apartment residences with connecting, highway-like bridges leading to market places, and other centers of international commerce. Such aggressive designs are par for the course when hiring Steven Holl architects. The hiring committee for this Beijing project commented that the Holl design was far above what they had budgeted for this project, their response, the budget was increased.

     Holls’ success doesn’t come without controversy as seen in his infamous MIT Simmons dormitory design completed in 2002. Simmons Hall was in many ways made to be difficult. The conflict of hiring a creative architect to build a student residence has its inherent challenges. Add to that, a campus light on artistic tendencies and the conflicts become so obvious they go unnoticed.

 

As tendency would have it, the project was one of Holls most difficult in terms of client cooperation. Simmons Hall is known infamously as the sponge. The dorm resembles an overused kitchen-cleaning pad, the type no one seems to know when to throw away. There are long tales of irrational decisions made while designing Simmons. It is widely rumored that the inspiration for the hall came about while Holl was in the bathtub washing with a sponge. To this day, many student critics continue to re-fuel the bathtub metaphor and how it is indicative of the entire dormitory debacle. They claim Holl ignored most, if not all design concerns given him, and moved forward in a solo bathtub experience way, indulging only himself.

 

Whether one subscribes to this account in whole or in part, it is vital to understand that Holl is not the average commercial architect who follows the rules for no other reason than social compliance. Instead, he is a partner of the environment. A partner who prefers to listen to the beat of his vision. In all, his fans seem to outnumber his critics. One just need view the list of his awards that include: The Sustainable Design Award for Linked Hybrid, RIBA International Award (UK) for The New Residence at The Swiss Embassy, or the AIA/COTE Top Ten Green Project Award for the Whitney Water Purification Facility and Park. The Whitney Purification Facility in Connecticut is an arresting structure. It gradually emerges from a piece of property with no real pre-requisite to its existence. Yet, it does not interfere with the natural flow of the land. The water facility gives one the impression that something has landed, although it isn’t clear exactly what. The very existence of the Whitney again shows the ingenuous balancing act of Holl. The design board who approved the structure was made up of mostly stoic Yale professors who live and work in the area. Proving once again that sometimes the greatest successes make a mockery out of traditional expectations.

 

KMP Modern Furniture

 

Rodolfo Dordoni

Rodolfo Dordoni became a prominent architect and designer from the legendary stable of the “Milan Elite” which include Antonio Citterio, Castiglioni, and Marco Zanuso.

Originally pursuing architecture and industrial design upon graduating from the Politecnico University in 1979, Dordoni has since discovered a broad spectrum covering architecture, art direction, interior design and product design. In whichever form, Dordoni’s design is famed for its formal stringency, elegance, essentiality, and innovative details. His personal signature is unmistakable.

 

He creates lamps and furniture, storage systems, kitchens, bathroom accessories, objects, carpets and electrical switches, collaborating with Italian and overseas firms that include

 

 Arteluce, Bros, DeSede, Flos, Foscarini, Moroso, and Vistosi. As art director, he has coordinated the company images for Cappellini and Mondo Foscarini, Bros, Imel, Schopenhauer and Minotti. Perhaps, most famously, he is responsible for the interior design and styling of shops, corners, showrooms and residential spaces for Dolce & Gabbana.

 

A true product of his Milanese roots, Dordoni has a deep and traditional approach to his design methods, which has resulted in many famous Italian designs carrying his signature.

“My approach to the process of design and production is broad and includes the development of image strategies, product concepts, design and the development of product marketing” explains Dordoni.

 

This is evident in an array of piece designed for Cappellini for whom he worked with throughout the 1980’s.  The vast collection of chairs, tables, shelving systems, lounge arrangements, office furniture and even textiles such as carpets, rugs and bed throws are still considered ‘modern’ today, and is testament to the forward vision of Dordoni during the initial years of his career. 

For example, the Cuba fixed sofa series is comprised of a grand collection of two-seat by two-seat wide and three-seat by three-seat wide sofas and sofa beds, designed with elegance and comfort in mind.

Similarly, the Lipsia Chair is considered one of his biggest achievements and the Colombia is a series of elegant storage units with classic styling.

 

His approach to industrial design embraces not only the project, but also image strategy and marketing. This makes for simplicity with slight ‘surprises’ within Dordoni’s traditional designs.

An exceptional example of this is evident in the design of the Boboli tables.  Rigorously geometrical and imaginative in their structure, the table-tops are clean-cut and uncluttered, in glass, marble or wood, but the support feature represents a metal cage with festoons of aluminum that are folded with a slight twist on the vertical axis.

One of his most revered pieces of earlier years is the Lumiere table light, manufactured by Foscarini, which displays his simplistic beautiful style and gives off a radiant glow. A remarkably simple and understated lamp that even when colored on the outside, gives a beautiful white light due to the glass shade being ‘white lined’.

 

For Dordoni, product development starts with the basic idea, with the “search for the message that the objects should convey”, and comprises everything, right through to developing suitable marketing measures.

 

In addition to a vast array of products for several high profile companies, Dordoni’s work has included taking responsibility for the entire image of such companies, including Mondo, Capellini and Foscarini as well as exhibitions, museums and showroom projects.

 

This work has heralded from his architectural background, which has an emphasis on structure, proportion and elegant functionality.

 In particular, Dordoni has been collaborating with Dolce & Gabbana since 1995, projecting the new headquarters in Milan and then show rooms and boutiques all over the world. He designed the Milan boutique to offer an open and modern environment that perfectly highlights the clothes and accessories of D&G. The 3,000 square foot store with its white walls and clean sharp lines creates an atmosphere of ultimate modernity, with glass front cabinets and smooth, bright surfaces that provide the ideal frame for colorful products and accessories.

His architectural prowess has been utilized by Dolce and Gabbana, Panasonic and Beierdorf as well as several residential villas.