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James Coombes and Dominique Gonfard see the bright side in a depressing marketplace. The two met in a restaurant four years ago, married last November and officially launched Lerival just a month before their wedding. It was a love match with the market, too: the New York-based company, which produces furniture designed by architects, has already expanded into European distribution.   MORE >>

"When I was doing my masters in architecture, I began to notice that a lot of firms were doing interesting furniture work, as a custom piece or to test a material or fabrication process," Gonfard, 28, says of her student days at Parsons. "But the pieces weren’t getting the attention they deserved." In these less-harried times, 27-year-old Coombes adds, "Architects have more time to consider alternative ventures that come their way."

Sometimes acting on a tip about designs gathering dust, or simply recognizing that an oeuvre could work nicely writ small, Coombes and Gonfard introduced local and international firms Della Valle Bernheimer, Incorporated, Moorhead & Moorhead, nARCHITECTS and Carl Fredrik Svenstedt to their alternative venture, and enrolled them to supply the firm's first series of products. "All the talents possess unique and singular approaches to their work, yet have a sharp attention to details and materials in common," says Gonfard, "as well as an ability to work consistently and meticulously across varying scales."

The results largely straddle scale with modularity. In the Plate Shelf by nARCHITECTS, reconfigurable aluminum plates slip in and out of slotted white-oak volumes, and the Hex Table by Incorporated grows and shrinks according to the number of stainless-steel pods arranged within a single footprint. It's similar in principle to Incorporated's Endless Sofa, in which five-inch-wide segments of leather-wrapped foam are zippered together.

Honestly conveying the relationships between material and fabrication, the Moorhead & Moorhead-designed Felt Stool is a sheet of industrial felt folded and riveted into a three-dimensional form that is simultaneously structure and upholstery. And by CNC-routing concentric hoops from two sheets of furniture-grade plywood, Svenstedt created the undulating Infinity Bench. "We pride ourselves on maintaining intimate relationships with the designers and the fabricators, and we’re really trying to involve both in the development process," says Gonfard.

Looking ahead, the couple mentions that some of the greatest examples of modernist furniture were the work of architects. For this spring's ICFF, they'll spotlight Della Valle Bernheimer's Jack table, which features—surprise—modular linking legs and a topographical desktop whose mass-customized indentations accommodate the user's size and organizational preferences. They're also developing new pieces with Los Angeles architect Elena Manferdini and other Mies in the makings. And Gonfard promises that the innovation of these pieces will not only make a splash in the design world, but also "influence the overall way we do business." lerival.com   << LESS

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"I've always considered myself a designer rather than an artist," explains Kenzo Minami. "Each time I am given creative freedom, I tend to impose restrictions and logic, because without it, there is no backbone to what I create."   MORE >>

"I've always considered myself a designer rather than an artist," explains Kenzo Minami. "Each time I am given creative freedom, I tend to impose restrictions and logic, because without it, there is no backbone to what I create."
 
Moving to New York to study industrial design at Parsons in 1994, Minami began his career building sets for film and television before turning to graphic design. "I realized everything I was making in 3-D was being seen two-dimensionally on a TV screen anyway," Minami says. Since then, he's designed limited-edition sneakers for Reebok and Vans, invitations for Raf Simons and a toy for Kidrobot, which MoMA adopted into its Architecture and Design collection. Perhaps most indicative of Minami's sphere of influence, Mercedes-Benz chose him to represent the present day in its 2007 Famous Cars Famous People show. His intricate "Synchronization" print melded automotive and musical imagery and was exhibited alongside pieces by Robert Longo, David Hockney and Andy Warhol.
 
Minami’s garment line—that features the same meticulous graphics and ideological allusions peppered through his work—is now in its 13th season, and this fall saw the launch of his design for Microsoft's Zune HD media player, compositions for Dell's laptop Design Studio and "Remakes," a solo show at Manhattan's Soho Grand Hotel.
As the title suggests, the new pieces explore the notion that history repeats itself. "Humanity’s cultural function is all about narrative," argues Minami. "We've been telling the same stories since the Greek tragedies, so we can't ignore the inevitability of remaking things." Printed canvases such as "Elemental" and "5 to Midnight" show Minami repeating motifs—some lifted from earlier works—to create patterns that shy away from compositional focal points.
 
However, Minami's work isn’t simply ornamental. He flits between references to Kierkegaard, Camus and Reality Bites and believes that "with graphics, nothing has to be anything, so elements have nothing but a metaphysical function." His aesthetic finds its center in a fascination with logic, an obsession that has its foundation in Minami's upbringing. Raised in Hyogo, Japan, around die-cast metal factories where his family still works, he questioned utility from a young age. "I was surrounded by industrial components rather than finished products so, although the objects were purely functional, you couldn’t always tell what that function was." This year's show is yet another example of Minami's philosophical approach to making work. Neither championing nor contesting the worth of remaking, "Remakes" suggests originality may not be as pioneering as we think. "When you’re young, you're obsessed with being original, but as you get older, you realize that everything has already been done," says Minami. "There's a truth in old-fashioned clichés, and I'm okay to admit that now." kenzominami.com   << LESS

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Before opening Voos in March, the Turkish-born Serap Demirag had been yearning for a change. After working at the modular furniture company Techline for 10 years and giving birth to her son, Maxime, the borough-centric furniture shop and gallery provided just that. Her new mission became clear when she spotted a table by Palo Samko, who worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. "Sometimes you see an object, and it just gives you some emotion," Demirag says. "It’s like art, going to see a painting. This was the kind of reaction I felt."   MORE >>

Before opening Voos in March, the Turkish-born Serap Demirag had been yearning for a change. After working at the modular furniture company Techline for 10 years and giving birth to her son, Maxime, the borough-centric furniture shop and gallery provided just that. Her new mission became clear when she spotted a table by Palo Samko, who worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. "Sometimes you see an object, and it just gives you some emotion," Demirag says. “It’s like art, going to see a painting. This was the kind of reaction I felt."
 
After networking with designers, scouring the web and going to trade shows such as the annual Bklyn Designs, "one-by-one I learned that there are so many designers making everything locally. I felt I could be the person to introduce them to the city of New York." So Demirag established Voos in Williamsburg, her neighborhood for the past decade. She then partnered with Deger Cengiz, who as an architect and furniture-maker has masterminded an array of modular, prefab houses and the sleek penthouse of NYC's Marmara-Manhattan Hotel. Their narrow but packed shop, boasting rough-hewn wooden columns and a polished concrete floor, is located in a century-old tobacco and spice warehouse that the pair remodeled themselves.
 
Voos initially featured work by 29 Brooklyn designers—with Cengiz being the only contributing Manhattanite—but the store now represents an additional 30, including three from Queens and two from Staten Island. Among them are Takeshi Miyakawa, whose plywood, fiberglass and resin pieces would look at home in a Kubrick film; Avram Rusu, who turns planes of colored glass and aluminum into lighting; and Uhuru, fellow Surface Avant Guardians.
 
The "locally grown produce" rotates six times a year, says Demirag, and she and Cengiz host meet-the-designer events once a month. And if you’re wondering what Voos means, "I made it up," Demirag says. "I wanted it to sound very ambiguous, like it could be any language—Spanish, Dutch, Turkish." Appropriate for one of most polyglot towns on earth. voosfurniture.com   << LESS

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As the days get shorter, good lighting becomes increasingly essential, some may even say, therapeutic. Here, Avant Guardian photographer Patrick Bradley sliced and diced a few of our favorites. Trained as an architect, Bradley scoured Manhattan's showrooms for the most photogenic.   MORE >>

As the days get shorter, good lighting becomes increasingly essential, some may even say, therapeutic. Here, Avant Guardian photographer Patrick Bradley sliced and diced a few of our favorites. Trained as an architect, Bradley scoured Manhattan's showrooms for the most photogenic.
 
The Tatì by Ferruccio Laviani for Kartell (this page) lets out a low nostalgic cry for the days of Art Deco with a rectangular shape and an unadorned silhouette. With adjustable light intensity, the transparent polycarbonate table lamp flaunts different moods with an internal diffuser, either in a pleated fabric or in solid black or white.
Meanwhile, old flames have returned to the fold. A result of a collaboration between Franco Albini, Franca Helg and Antonio Piva in 1969, the mushroom-shaped blown-glass AM1N table light (opposite) is being released for the first time in the US this fall by Nemo, Cassina’s lighting division.
 
And at less than half the size of its beloved 1987 predecessor, the Micro Tolomeo desk lamp (previous page) by Michele de Lucchi for Artemide—available in five colors with a stamped-aluminum base—adds metallic brilliance to sedate workspaces. Its fully adjustable arm, stainless-steel cables and die-cast control knobs continue to set this model apart. kartell.it, nemo.cassina.it, artemide.it    << LESS

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If last spring you caught a glimpse of Jason Miller’s latest furniture and lighting at ICFF, you may have noticed a change of direction from the Brooklyn-based designer's earlier work. In years past, he brought us the Messy Couch with cushions askew, the Duct Tape armchair—the patches are actually leather—and the maple Dusty Tables, finished to appear permanently unclean. Miller's new 1970s-style furniture, which includes the Spiral Lounge daybed, bison-hide Woolly Chair and Tints maple-frame tables—whose colored tops are inspired by the lenses of aviator sunglasses—are decidedly more polished. "These pieces are meant to be sexy," he says.   MORE >>

If last spring you caught a glimpse of Jason Miller's latest furniture and lighting at ICFF, you may have noticed a change of direction from the Brooklyn-based designer's earlier work. In years past, he brought us the Messy Couch with cushions askew, the Duct Tape armchair—the patches are actually leather—and the maple Dusty Tables, finished to appear permanently unclean. Miller’s new 1970s-style furniture, which includes the Spiral Lounge daybed, bison-hide Woolly Chair and Tints maple-frame tables—whose colored tops are inspired by the lenses of aviator sunglasses—are decidedly more polished. "These pieces are meant to be sexy," he says.
 
Miller, an émigré from Darien, Connecticut, studied art and art history at Indiana University and received an MFA from the New York Academy of Art. In 2001, after working for Jeff Koons and Karim Rashid, he founded Jason Miller Studio from a live/work space in a former factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He set off nothing short of a stampede for lodge-chic decor in 2003, when he introduced the now-iconic porcelain Antler Lamps. Always drawn to mistakes, the designer is also known for his Second Dinnerware, a series of dishes with off-center patterns and decals, which are now in the permanent collection at the Museum of Arts and Design.
 
Just because Miller's recent pieces are more refined doesn't mean they completely lack his favored stamp of imperfection. "Things that are slightly off are interesting," he attests. That's why, in the case of the daybed, he convinced the upholsterer to leave some wrinkles in the vinyl instead of pulling it taut. "There are ways to be subtle about it."
 
His latest lighting, like the well-known Antler Lamp, purposefully have "a clear conceptual reference," he admits. "Americans tend to be thematic when they think about interior design," says Miller, who is in talks about doing the interiors of a hotel in South America. His Rigger pendant lamp, constructed of aluminum, acrylic and wire, has a nautical bent; the spoke-and-hub Modo chandelier is distinctively mid-century modern. 
 
Next year, Miller will introduce dishes, a mirror and a stacked-cushion stool for Italian firm Skitsch as well as products for Urban Outfitters, including variations of his Duct Tape Chair. This month, he's softly launching a high-end lighting company with product lines by leading designers from around the world. Time will tell if the lighting, which will be mostly manufactured in the States, will exhibit the designer’s purposeful missteps. But if his past work is any example, it will probably look just right. millerstudio.us   << LESS