Vantage Point: January Furniture + Architecture Pairing
Pivot has a tradition of creating a letterpress calendar for our clients and A+D partners each year. This year, we’re putting a twist on this tradition and creating a digital desktop calendar. Each monthly edition will feature great architects and the buildings that influence the practice, paired with furniture pieces curated to experience a new vantage point.
We chose to feature buildings designed around public encounters rather than workplace. We predict the line dividing these two uses will blur as the future of work will encourage development of spaces designed to support purposeful shared activities as well as visitor experience.
Large-scale architecture can be breathtaking, but sometimes a bit impersonal. Finding a place to sit helps you connect with the space and observe the details. Architecture draws you in and furniture enables engagement. This pairing forges a human-centered connection between person and place.
JANUARY PAIRING
For our first month, we were inspired by the serene winter landscape reflected in the polished panels of Louvre-Lens Museum designed by SANAA, the Pritzker Prize-winning architecture studio founded by Kazuyo Sejima and her partner Ryue Nishizawa.
Born in Japan, Kazuyo Sejima received a degree in architecture at the Japan Women's University. She started her career in the office of architect Toyo Ito, and in 1987, she opened her own studio. In 1995, Sejima asked Ryue Nishizawa to be her partner and they formed SANAA (Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates). Sejima was the first woman appointed director of architecture sector for the Venice Biennale, which she curated for the 12th Annual International Architecture Exhibition. In 2010, she was awarded the Pritzker Prize, together with Ryue Nishizawa.
SANAA won a worldwide design contest to design the Louvre-Lens in collaboration with Imrey Culbert, Catherine Mosbach, and Studio Adrien Gardère. The building was awarded the Prix d'Architecture de l'Equerre d'Argent for 2013.
“We try to create designs that offer a gentle transition with the environment, through transparency, reflections and direct connection with the outdoors. Our aim is usually to make it impossible to tell where the landscape ends and the building begins.”
Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa / S A N A A
Contrasting with SANAA’s use of white, light surfaces and highly polished materials, we have chosen the deeply saturated and textural Toof ottoman/tables by Vancouver-based Marrimor Objects. The organic nature of the Toof—either separated or together—flows within the large volumes of space. Contrasting with the strong, clean lines of the architecture, Toof’s warmth of shape and color creates a harmonious dichotomy between object and space. Sporadically placed throughout the space, they would form a connection the between the exterior landscape and the interior warmth of the building’s inhabitants.
Designed by Tanja Hinder and Lauren Bugliarisi, the two parts of Toof nestle together to offer a fun take on a rounded side table with an enticing mix of soft and hard materials. Pull them apart and an ottoman emerges while the table remains. Toof, available in 10 colorways, has a powder coated base paired with an upholstered ottoman available in a variety of fabrics such as alpaca, wool, linen, mohair, velvet and boucle.