Hannah Martin

Ones To Watch: Three rising star architecture firms lean into Indian vernacular traditions In Ladakh, India, an erstwhile stop on the Silk Road high in the Himalayas, humble materials have long served as building blocks for structures capable of withstanding extreme weather. Today, a new generation of architects is mining that tradition to both preserve the past and design for a greener future. Meet three emerging firms bringing global attention to local wisdom.… Field Architects It was a quest…

Paavo Tynell is often called “the man who illuminated Finland.” And while that may sound like an exaggeration, take a stroll through Helsinki and you’ll see the designer’s distinctive fixtures all around town—chandeliers in the Central Railway Station; sconces, table lamps, and more in the Original Sokos Hotel Vaakuna. But it was only when Tynell came to New York City, in 1948, that he and his lights began to plot world domination. Tynell, a trained metalsmith who cofounded the lighting manufac…

Madina Visconti di Modrone warmed her home in a converted 17th-century convent with bold patterns and vintage treasures Several years ago, jewelry designer Madina Visconti di Modrone was walking around Milan’s Cinque Vie neighborhood with her mother when they glimpsed a courtyard past an unassuming façade. “I would love to live in a palazzo like this one,” Visconti di Modrone recalls remarking. At mom’s urging, she asked the doorman if there were any units for sale in the building, a converted…

When the Austrian designer Martin Eisler fled Nazi-occupied Vienna for Buenos Aires in 1938, Latin America was transforming. Immigration, an economic boom, and industrialization would give rise to a new global elite. And they needed furniture. So Eisler teamed with Carlo Hauner, an Italian furniture manufacturer living in Brazil, to establish Forma, a brand that could meet the demand. In just a few years’ time, they created a range of wares that, R & Company’s Zesty Meyers explains, “basically h…

Architecture: In Detroit, a onetime church is reborn as the architectural heart of a new arts district Detroit is often called a city of churches, its neighborhoods punctuated by spires and steeples. Just take East Village, a once-thriving residential area that, like so much of the city’s landscape, fell into decline during the post-industrial era. Sitting among the vacant lots is a 1912 Romanesque Revival house of worship that most recently served as a nucleus for the Good Shepherd Catholic Chu…

The first rugs made by mankind were likely woven natural fiber rugs—grasses or reeds braided into textiles that could warm earthen floors. And for a millennium, the practice has continued across the globe. In the Middle Ages, woven rush–sometimes called medieval matting—covered dirt grounds, preventing them from turning to mud when it rained. In the Tudor court paintings, similar rugs can be spotted underfoot. And for centuries in Japan, tightly woven rush tatami mats laid the ground in the home…

The in-demand actor worked with Soho Home to decorate her first apartment “I’ve peaked,” Maude Apatow deadpans, before letting off a friendly laugh. “Like, now what?” It’s late December, and the 26-year-old screen star, best known as Lexi Howard on the hit HBO show Euphoria, is finishing up a big year. “If a younger version of me saw this, she would be freaking out. It’s been my dream since I was like, five.” By “this,” Apatow means her current reality: living in New York, acting in a musical (e…

Sometime around 1950, kids began hacking their then ubiquitous scooter crates. By ripping the boxy handlebars off, they arrived at a hands-free design that promised infinitely more fun. Enter: the first skateboards. The originals were somewhat primitive, ad hoc objects, but by the end of the decade, California manufacturers were producing them, attaching metal roller skate wheels to painted wooden boards. “The Roller Derby came first,” says Jonathan Olivares, a designer, skater, and senior vice…

Tastemaker Aerin Lauder has teamed up with Pottery Barn Kids to bring her classic, pretty-prep style to a new age group. Spanning wallpaper, bedding, toys, and furnishings, the line features wicker touches, scalloped edges, and sweet flora and fauna motifs—ensuring playthings chic enough for the most discerning parents. “There is nothing I love more than being a mother to my two boys, which made this process especially enjoyable,” Lauder told AD of the AERIN and Pottery Barn kids collection. “Ha…

Old meets new in a Manhattan apartment dramatically revamped by Food Architects and AD100 designers Charlap Hyman & Herrero The software engineer who lives in this SoHo apartment with his fiancé, a financial controller, never pictured himself here: seated on a skirted Biedermeier chair at a terrazzo dining table, 18th-century Piranesi etchings hanging on the glass wall behind him. Nevertheless, he’s in his element pouring wine, laying out charcuterie, decanting honey made by his beehive upstate…