07.30.24

Interiors

A San Francisco Penthouse That Pays Reverence to Art Deco Icons

The popularity of historic design styles naturally ebbs and flows, but some are so impactful and well-loved that they never really go away. Art Deco has remained a powerful player in shaping spaces and objects for a century now, its strict, layered geometries, stylized flourishes, and heavy volumes all continually cropping up in design. Today, the movement is having a particularly noticeable renaissance, particularly in interiors, albeit less in a pastiche way and more through formal nods — the space featured here being no exception. When it came to renovating a penthouse in a 1927 Art Deco building in San Francisco, local firm Studio Ahead leaned heavily into the era’s primary colors and shapes, while adding contemporary touches to keep the space relaxed and “forward-thinking.”

07.16.24

Interiors

This London Cafe Proves There’s No Color Butter Yellow Can’t Elevate

A new cafe at London's Somerset House, run by acclaimed chef Rishim Sachdeva and designed by the London- and Milan-based studio Duelle, seems to prove a rule that people keep forgetting: that any color or trend can feel fresh again depending on the context in which it's placed. Seeing Café Petiole's cafe tables and 1930s bentwood chairs doused in a layer of antique rose and set against a backdrop of butter yellow and blue, made me feel like I was seeing Millennial Pink for the first time all over again.

07.03.24

Interiors

A Tour Through the London Architectural Marvel The Cosmic House, Charles Jencks’s Postmodern Masterpiece

Located in London’s ultra-wealthy Holland Park, architect Charles Jencks's London home, The Cosmic House, doesn’t particularly stand out at first glance from the classic row of Victorian brick houses. But a closer look reveals unorthodox details, including circular windows and a metal gate that’s a collage of historical styles — telltale signs of Postmodernism. Adam Štěch revisits the 1983 masterpiece, now a museum and art foundation open to the public.

06.13.24

Interiors

Everyone’s Favorite Affordable Scandi Rug Brand Just Opened a (Giancarlo Valle–Designed) New York Outpost

When Liza Laserow and Fabian Berglund founded Nordic Knots back in 2016, alongside Fabian's brother Felix, it was with a clear mission in mind: to channel Sweden's design aesthetic and history, from the rug colors they launched with, which were inspired by building facades in Stockholm, to the historical Swedish architecture they shot their campaigns inside. But it was also with a clear intention to market their rugs to audiences outside their native country, and in the eight intervening years, they've cultivated a presence in the US that's grown to make up 70% of their sales. Once the trio unveiled their first physical showroom in Stockholm earlier this year, it only made sense to hang a shingle amidst their biggest fan base, with a flagship in NYC that opened this week.

05.08.24

Interiors

In San Sabino, New York Gets the Buttery Yellow Restaurant Interior It Needs

After butter yellow's long and winding ascent to the top, finally we get a restaurant interior with that hue as the star. And it was well worth the wait — San Sabino is the next-door sibling to Don Angie, the still-too-hot-for-a-reservation restaurant in the West Village also designed by GRT Architects. But where that space has extremely chic elevated trattoria vibes, San Sabino has elements that read almost like a diner, at least during the daylight hours. There are the round, leather-topped bar stools; the stainless steel accents like a ceiling "crown" and metal-trimmed booth seating; and oh, that laminate.

03.18.24

Interiors

In Her Debut Interior, Tabitha Organ Uses Texture To Create the Illusion of Time

In 2023, after a decade of working in the industry — most notably with that subject of eternal Sight Unseen fascination, Sella Concept — Tabitha Organ founded her own interior design studio, Tabitha Isobel. Its first residential project, a five-floor Victorian townhouse in London, predictably wows. A previous renovation left the space devoid of character, so the goal was to restore some of its former glory while speaking to the current moment and anticipating the future. The studio achieved this with a mix of vintage and new elements and a contrast throughout between hits of reflective, shiny chrome surfaces and the warmth and richness of wood.

02.09.24

Interiors

Home Studios’ Latest Restaurant Interior, All Rounded Corners and Soft Textures, Invites You to Literally Take the Edge Off

At Theodora, a new restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn’s Home Studios has perfected the cozy but airy welcoming interior. For Tomer Blechman’s (of Miss Ada and Nili) latest outing, Home Studios took their cues from Theodora’s Mediterranean-inspired menu and created a simple-looking yet highly thoughtful environment. Literally underscoring the idea that Theodora is a convivial place where you might relax and take the edge off, most of the surfaces here are rounded and curved, from the tabletops to the bar to the cutest sextet of ribbed-glass porthole windows.

02.01.24

Interiors

How Do You Make a Home Inside a Monument? Ask the Gachots, Who Just Spent Three Years Living in a Paul Rudolph Masterpiece

In 1976, the architect Paul Rudolph bought the 19th-century townhouse at 23 Beekman Place where he’d had an apartment since the early '60s. While keeping the existing building as residences, he constructed his now-landmarked, multi-level penthouse on top of it: a steel and cement work of art that is rigorous and spare in its lines yet dizzying in its scope and form. Inside, beams clad in reflective material support a light-filled space with few walls, delineated by platforms and catwalks and cantilevered, landscaped terraces with spectacular views out over FDR Drive and the East River. For Rudolph, it was a kind of creative laboratory — and it’s also not hard to imagine it as a site for glamorous, louche, late disco-era parties. But how about a family home? Enter designers John and Christine Gachot, of New York’s Gachot, known for the warm modernism they bring to their high-end interiors.

01.22.24

Interiors

Steal This Tip: Rich Velvet Curtains to Give Your Interior a Boudoir-Like Vibe

When it comes to curtains, the bigger the statement, the better. (See pretty much every photo shoot Sight Unseen has ever done.) Bold and heavy textiles might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they can undeniably make a space more dramatic, cozy, and welcoming. And at Locke am Platz, a newly opened aparthotel in Zurich, they’re everywhere: ruby red drapes framing the headboards; Modernist-patterned fabric wrapping the guest-room living area walls; warm terracotta textiles encircling the lobby; and honey yellow portières dividing stations in the restaurant. The effect, created by London-based Sella Concept, is one of instant warm fuzziness in every space, encouraging guests who’ve booked two nights — or two weeks — to feel right at home.

01.17.24

Interiors

This Holiday Rental in London is a Treasure Trove of 1970s and ’80s Furniture

Have you ever found the perfect piece of furniture, only to realize that you can’t fit it into your apartment because the pass-throughs are too narrow? For Hollie Bowden, access was particularly problematic during her renovation of a one-bedroom holiday rental apartment in London, which is located on the fifth and sixth floors of a Victorian building in Covent Garden and reached via a narrow and winding staircase. Which items could she bring up safely, without having to first hack them to bits? Luckily, she found a modular leather sofa bed by De Sede, one of many vintage finds from the '70s and '80s that give the sunny yellow space a retro-futurist feel, in a vibe we're calling High-Tech Country Kitchen.

01.11.24

Interiors

An Important New Residential Building in Philly — With Plans for Other Locales — Focuses On Community and the Arts

If you’re an artist who’s tired of schlepping to your studio, why not move into this new Philadelphia residential building — designed by architecture firm Leong Leong — rent one of the six studios available downstairs, and shorten your commute to a mere elevator ride? Called Ray, the building is part of a new initiative by Garage magazine founder Dasha Zhukova to, as the building's founders put it, "make art and design a part of everyday life."

01.09.24

Interiors

Tapestries and Textiles Give This Madrid Apartment a Modern Moorish Flavor

"Just renovated, but with no charm or personality” — judging from the time we've spent browsing Zillow, this is the precise way we'd describe so many homes that have hit the market in recent years. So it was for this 2,000-square-foot holiday apartment in Madrid, which was recently refreshed by local studio Casa Josephine for a young American-Kuwaiti businesswoman — who owns Ecru, a lifestyle brand based in Kuwait and India — and her family. Throughout the home, the designers have deftly blended a mix of influences, from Moorish to the Middle Eastern, to create a space filled with rich, contemporary textiles in colors that are unmistakably Spanish.