[‘The Pad’ is a condo in downtown Boston that I am currently re-designing for my friends Eric and Holly. This series of blogposts chronicles its progress.]

After our previous meeting, I revised the design to address Eric and Holly’s comments: specifically I included more color, as E+H worry about a space seeming sterile if it’s too white. I entitled my next concept ‘Japanese / Medieval Modern’: stacked stone and tile mosaic and shoji screens, combining minimalism with more florid decoration. E+H liked the feeling of enclosure in the garden but wanted to move the fireplace there, so I included an open firepit (bio-ethanol, so as not to need venting) .  While there will still be a fair amount of real planted material in the garden area, I switched gears a bit on the vegetated walls – both from a design point of view and from the knowledge that neither owner has a particularly green thumb. Continue reading “‘The Pad’ 4 – Design Development”

[‘The Pad’ is a condo in downtown Boston that I am currently re-designing for my friends Eric and Holly. This series of blogposts chronicles its progress.]

Once we had come to an agreement about the general arrangement of the floorplans, it was time to start thinking about what the place might actually look like. I came up with two themes based on my knowledge of their interests: one based on their enjoyment of the outdoors, which I called ‘Adirondack Modern’, and another based on their liking for Japanese cartoons, which I termed ‘Anime Sophistique’.

‘Adirondack Modern’ begged for natural materials: blue slate floors, extensive wood paneling, rugged stone walls, and rustic furniture. The garden space is shown enclosed with stone planters, creating real separation between it and the living room and bar area. The ‘Anime Sophistique’ scheme is unapologetically contrived-looking: Continue reading “‘The Pad’ 3 – Schematic Design”