Design Through the Decades: The 2010s
As we wrap up the decade and recap this yearlong series, we want to know which designs and trends you think will endure
Victoria Villeneuve
December 25, 2019
Houzz contributor. Remodeling veteran, copy editor and reporter who enjoys writing about home and garden, especially when they intersect with travel, history, health, literature or the arts. Previously at Sunset magazine and the San Jose Mercury News
Houzz contributor. Remodeling veteran, copy editor and reporter who enjoys writing... More
This series looks at the stories behind iconic designs from each decade, starting in 1900. This installment covers porcelain and cardboard lights, digital hubs, overdyed rugs and more.
All year, Design Through the Decades has examined where iconic designs came from, how they informed later work and how they’re still being used in our homes today. In terms of context, we’ve certainly seen that what goes around comes around — maximalism and minimalism, chromatic and monochromatic, natural and synthetic, out of this world and down to earth. But each swing of the pendulum takes a different arc based on the latest technology, individual artistry and serendipity. Here are 11 recent works and trends, along with a look back at their predecessors on the design continuum. Now it’s your turn: What do you think people will remember years from now?
Previous: Design Through the Decades: The 2000s
All year, Design Through the Decades has examined where iconic designs came from, how they informed later work and how they’re still being used in our homes today. In terms of context, we’ve certainly seen that what goes around comes around — maximalism and minimalism, chromatic and monochromatic, natural and synthetic, out of this world and down to earth. But each swing of the pendulum takes a different arc based on the latest technology, individual artistry and serendipity. Here are 11 recent works and trends, along with a look back at their predecessors on the design continuum. Now it’s your turn: What do you think people will remember years from now?
Previous: Design Through the Decades: The 2000s
1. White Flax Pendant Light
New Zealand designer Jeremy Cole’s fond childhood memories include tinkering with his grandfather and watching his mother at work in her interior design showroom. School was trying — especially art, for which he felt little affinity. With his plans to be a carpenter derailed by an economic downturn, Cole left for London. There, during a chance visit to the Tate Modern art museum, he was struck by the translucence of a vessel by British ceramist Tim Gee. The encounter changed his life.
The next day, he set out to understand bone china and its relationship with light. He bought the materials and tools, slip-cast pieces in his apartment and drove them to a kiln, hoping they wouldn’t break on the way. Two months later, he produced his first piece, Aloe Blossom, and secured an invitation to exhibit in Frankfurt, Germany.
Cole has since returned to his homeland, where he’s inspired by the distinctive flora. His White Flax pendant light consists of 350 handmade porcelain leaves and thousands of components that attach them to the stainless steel frame. Here, it hangs by the stairs in David Barashi’s house in Seattle.
Your turn: What current light fixture stuns you with its craftsmanship? Tell us in the Comments.
Browse pendant lights in the Houzz Shop
New Zealand designer Jeremy Cole’s fond childhood memories include tinkering with his grandfather and watching his mother at work in her interior design showroom. School was trying — especially art, for which he felt little affinity. With his plans to be a carpenter derailed by an economic downturn, Cole left for London. There, during a chance visit to the Tate Modern art museum, he was struck by the translucence of a vessel by British ceramist Tim Gee. The encounter changed his life.
The next day, he set out to understand bone china and its relationship with light. He bought the materials and tools, slip-cast pieces in his apartment and drove them to a kiln, hoping they wouldn’t break on the way. Two months later, he produced his first piece, Aloe Blossom, and secured an invitation to exhibit in Frankfurt, Germany.
Cole has since returned to his homeland, where he’s inspired by the distinctive flora. His White Flax pendant light consists of 350 handmade porcelain leaves and thousands of components that attach them to the stainless steel frame. Here, it hangs by the stairs in David Barashi’s house in Seattle.
Your turn: What current light fixture stuns you with its craftsmanship? Tell us in the Comments.
Browse pendant lights in the Houzz Shop
Floral motifs and an emphasis on craftsmanship also were hallmarks of Art Nouveau style, popular in the early 20th century. This Wisteria lamp, by Clara Driscoll for Tiffany Studios, for example, marries a petaled shade comprising almost 2,000 pieces of hand-arranged glass with a bronze base and crown resembling a trunk and branches.
More: Read about Art Nouveau style, Fortuny lighting and Stickley furniture in Design Through the Decades: The 1900s
More: Read about Art Nouveau style, Fortuny lighting and Stickley furniture in Design Through the Decades: The 1900s
2. Color Blocking
The use of blocks of color has cycled in and out of the fashion world at least since Yves Saint Laurent showed his Mondrian collection for autumn-winter 1965. Now it’s making its mark on the home front too, whether in kitchens, living rooms, landscapes or even just with books.
In this English kitchen by Parker Bathrooms & Kitchens, wall cabinets lacquered in marine blue, mustard, lime, coral and plum pop against the black wall and quartz-topped island. Although their placement looks random, the German grid system used in the design provides symmetry.
Your turn: What trends do you associate with the 2010s? Let us know in the Comments.
Find a kitchen designer near you on Houzz
The use of blocks of color has cycled in and out of the fashion world at least since Yves Saint Laurent showed his Mondrian collection for autumn-winter 1965. Now it’s making its mark on the home front too, whether in kitchens, living rooms, landscapes or even just with books.
In this English kitchen by Parker Bathrooms & Kitchens, wall cabinets lacquered in marine blue, mustard, lime, coral and plum pop against the black wall and quartz-topped island. Although their placement looks random, the German grid system used in the design provides symmetry.
Your turn: What trends do you associate with the 2010s? Let us know in the Comments.
Find a kitchen designer near you on Houzz
Color blocking traces back to the geometric aesthetic of De Stijl (The Style) founders Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg. Their colleague Gerrit Rietveld’s Red Blue chair, here under the ribbonlike sculpture in Antonio Scolari and Christian Pizzinini’s Italian palace, is a 3D embodiment of the primary-color-filled black rectangles in the Dutch movement’s art.
More: Read about the De Stijl movement and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie School architecture in Design Through the Decades: The 1910s
More: Read about the De Stijl movement and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie School architecture in Design Through the Decades: The 1910s
3. Jane Coffee Table
New York architect West Chin and his wife, interior designer Roseann Repetti, launched their retail collection of furniture and accessories, FTF Design Studio, in 2006 as an extension of the custom work they were doing for their clients. The pieces they make themselves and select for their two shops, in Manhattan and East Hampton, share the modern minimalist look they’ve become known for since Chin founded West Chin Architects & Interior Designers in 1992.
The Jane coffee table, in this living area of a 2012 Long Island beach house designed by Chin and Repetti, is one of their signature works. Although it appears to be a solid slab magically hovering off the floor, it’s actually a hollow box sitting on an unobtrusive smaller base. In addition to the indoor-outdoor white Corian finish, it comes in several other finishes and sizes, plus a couple of storage versions. Chin and Repetti also will customize it upon request.
Like the table, the house feels as if it were floating over the ocean. That’s because it rests on 100 piles (inserted in cores drilled into the ground) instead of a flat concrete foundation — and because it has a 26-foot-wide retractable door that opens completely to the waterfront.
Your turn: What current tables have the potential to become classics? Share your picks in the Comments.
Shop for modern coffee tables
New York architect West Chin and his wife, interior designer Roseann Repetti, launched their retail collection of furniture and accessories, FTF Design Studio, in 2006 as an extension of the custom work they were doing for their clients. The pieces they make themselves and select for their two shops, in Manhattan and East Hampton, share the modern minimalist look they’ve become known for since Chin founded West Chin Architects & Interior Designers in 1992.
The Jane coffee table, in this living area of a 2012 Long Island beach house designed by Chin and Repetti, is one of their signature works. Although it appears to be a solid slab magically hovering off the floor, it’s actually a hollow box sitting on an unobtrusive smaller base. In addition to the indoor-outdoor white Corian finish, it comes in several other finishes and sizes, plus a couple of storage versions. Chin and Repetti also will customize it upon request.
Like the table, the house feels as if it were floating over the ocean. That’s because it rests on 100 piles (inserted in cores drilled into the ground) instead of a flat concrete foundation — and because it has a 26-foot-wide retractable door that opens completely to the waterfront.
Your turn: What current tables have the potential to become classics? Share your picks in the Comments.
Shop for modern coffee tables
The Jane table draws upon Swiss architect Le Corbusier’s groundbreaking ideas for a new modern architecture emphasizing simplicity, horizontality and a lifting up off the ground — ideas he put into practice in Villa Savoye, pictured, outside Paris.
More: Read about Le Corbusier’s and Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann’s dueling pavilions at the first Art Deco exhibition, plus the Bauhaus School, in Design Through the Decades: The 1920s
More: Read about Le Corbusier’s and Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann’s dueling pavilions at the first Art Deco exhibition, plus the Bauhaus School, in Design Through the Decades: The 1920s
4. Vuelta Furniture
Jaime Hayon was 13 when he moved from Spain to San Diego and became part of its skateboard culture. Watching people create skate decks and print T-shirts piqued his interest in design. He returned to Europe to study, first in Madrid and then at France’s prestigious National School of Decorative Arts, where Philippe Starck was teaching. After a six-year stint with Italy’s Benetton Group, he left in 2003 to focus on his own studio in Spain.
In some ways, it’s hard to reconcile the designer of cartoony cult Qee figurines for Hong Kong’s Toy2r with this Vuelta collection for venerable Austrian furniture manufacturer Wittmann, but that’s just a sign of Hayon’s incredible range.
Introduced at the 2017 Milan Furniture Fair, Vuelta “is the result of my imagined trip back in time to the Vienna of the 1930s,” Hayon says, adding that he’s happy a family-owned company as steeped in tradition as nearly 125-year-old Wittmann has given him so much liberty with his designs. The collection includes, from left, a beautifully seamed chair and sofa, whose backrests swoop around to wrap the sitter in a warm embrace, and a wing chair trimmed in black beech bentwood with a black oak armrest or walnut bentwood with a walnut armrest.
Your turn: What current upholstered piece makes you swoon, and why? Tell us in the Comments.
Shop for living room furniture
Jaime Hayon was 13 when he moved from Spain to San Diego and became part of its skateboard culture. Watching people create skate decks and print T-shirts piqued his interest in design. He returned to Europe to study, first in Madrid and then at France’s prestigious National School of Decorative Arts, where Philippe Starck was teaching. After a six-year stint with Italy’s Benetton Group, he left in 2003 to focus on his own studio in Spain.
In some ways, it’s hard to reconcile the designer of cartoony cult Qee figurines for Hong Kong’s Toy2r with this Vuelta collection for venerable Austrian furniture manufacturer Wittmann, but that’s just a sign of Hayon’s incredible range.
Introduced at the 2017 Milan Furniture Fair, Vuelta “is the result of my imagined trip back in time to the Vienna of the 1930s,” Hayon says, adding that he’s happy a family-owned company as steeped in tradition as nearly 125-year-old Wittmann has given him so much liberty with his designs. The collection includes, from left, a beautifully seamed chair and sofa, whose backrests swoop around to wrap the sitter in a warm embrace, and a wing chair trimmed in black beech bentwood with a black oak armrest or walnut bentwood with a walnut armrest.
Your turn: What current upholstered piece makes you swoon, and why? Tell us in the Comments.
Shop for living room furniture
The Vuelta collection’s bulbous forms playfully update the aerodynamic curves that characterize the period furniture in places like London’s Eltham Palace, King Henry VIII’s childhood home, which underwent a controversial renovation in the 1930s. As with the streamlined furniture, the Eltham entrance hall’s intricate inlaid paneling, domed ceiling, porthole window and round carpet with parallel tracks take their inspiration from the era’s luxurious ocean liners and exotic trains.
More: Read about the Streamline Moderne style and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Design Through the Decades: The 1930s
More: Read about the Streamline Moderne style and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Design Through the Decades: The 1930s
5. Helios Lounge
Growing up in Montana, brother-and-sister duo Aaron and Miranda Jones found summers too short, and upon relocating to San Francisco, they found summers too foggy. Wanting to be able to enjoy extended time outdoors with family and friends without getting chilled to the bone, Aaron realized that he could fill a niche by making heated outdoor seating. He spent 10 months on prototyping at a local makerspace, choosing concrete as his material for its conductivity, durability and ability to be molded into the organic curves he envisioned.
With Miranda on board to handle marketing and sales, they launched their design and fabrication company, Galanter & Jones, in 2012 with the Helios lounge, pictured here at the 2018 San Francisco Decorator Showcase in front of a wall of air plants installed by Living Green Design. The plug-in-ready piece — the biggest in their line — measures 94 inches wide by 35 inches deep by 30 inches high; it seats four and weighs about 250 pounds. Embedded with energy-efficient, adjustable-temperature radiant heating, the cast-concrete shell comes in five through-body colors, while the stainless steel base comes in four powder-coated finishes. Sitting on Helios, they say, is like lounging on a smooth river rock warmed by the sun.
Your turn: What’s the most innovative product you’ve seen this decade? Enlighten us in the Comments.
Shop for patio furniture
Growing up in Montana, brother-and-sister duo Aaron and Miranda Jones found summers too short, and upon relocating to San Francisco, they found summers too foggy. Wanting to be able to enjoy extended time outdoors with family and friends without getting chilled to the bone, Aaron realized that he could fill a niche by making heated outdoor seating. He spent 10 months on prototyping at a local makerspace, choosing concrete as his material for its conductivity, durability and ability to be molded into the organic curves he envisioned.
With Miranda on board to handle marketing and sales, they launched their design and fabrication company, Galanter & Jones, in 2012 with the Helios lounge, pictured here at the 2018 San Francisco Decorator Showcase in front of a wall of air plants installed by Living Green Design. The plug-in-ready piece — the biggest in their line — measures 94 inches wide by 35 inches deep by 30 inches high; it seats four and weighs about 250 pounds. Embedded with energy-efficient, adjustable-temperature radiant heating, the cast-concrete shell comes in five through-body colors, while the stainless steel base comes in four powder-coated finishes. Sitting on Helios, they say, is like lounging on a smooth river rock warmed by the sun.
Your turn: What’s the most innovative product you’ve seen this decade? Enlighten us in the Comments.
Shop for patio furniture
In his experiments with molding concrete, Aaron follows in the footsteps of Ray and Charles Eames, who spent years perfecting the process of molding plywood and fiberglass (which Aaron’s material is often mistaken for) into such three-dimensional pieces as their white La Chaise, pictured with Eames walnut stools and George Nelson’s famous bench in this California house.
More: Read about Eames chairs, George Nelson’s big storage idea and Dorothy Draper’s Hollywood glam interiors in Design Through the Decades: The 1940s
More: Read about Eames chairs, George Nelson’s big storage idea and Dorothy Draper’s Hollywood glam interiors in Design Through the Decades: The 1940s
6. Rose Gold, Rose Quartz and Millennial Pink
The 2010s fixation on pink goes something like this: Early in the decade, fine jewelers such as Piaget revived interest in rose gold, an alloy of gold, copper and silver that Russian imperial jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé had used in his most extravagant decorative eggs for the Romanovs about 100 years before. The fashion world jumped on the bandwagon, as did Apple, whose iPhone 6s in rose gold (also dubbed “bros’ gold”) in 2015 accounted for up to 40% of preorders. Then the Pantone Color Institute named Rose Quartz, a muted blush pink, co-color of 2016, along with soft purple-blue Serenity.
“In many parts of the world, we are experiencing a gender blur as it relates to fashion, which has in turn impacted color trends throughout all other areas of design,” the institute’s executive director, Leatrice Eiseman, told Houzz at the time. “This more unilateral approach to color is coinciding with societal movements toward gender equality and fluidity, the consumer’s increased comfort with using color as a form of expression, a generation that has less concern about being typecast or judged and an open exchange of digital information that has opened our eyes to different approaches to color usage.”
Under ordinary circumstances, metallic rose gold and matte Rose Quartz would yield to other hues in relatively short order — after all, Pantone crowns a color annually (Living Coral reigned this year, to be succeeded by Classic Blue). But the generation born in the 1980s and first half of the ’90s isn’t letting these Millennial Pink shades go lightly — in particular decrying Apple’s decision in 2017 to abandon the rose gold iPhone.
Penny Goldstone, digital fashion editor at TI Media, has said that’s because pink photographs well for social media. “It’s all about matching everything,” she told the British Broadcasting Corp. last year. “So on Instagram you’ll have people posting a picture where they’re drinking a glass of rosé while sitting on a pink lounger, wearing a vintage pink ’50s swimsuit.”
In any case, rose gold and Rose Quartz are flattering to many complexions and undeniably pretty. They’re used together on the ceiling light and soft furnishings in this teen bedroom, in a Dublin family home designed by Carton Interiors. The custom desk, window seat and closets make the most of the angled space.
Your turn: Are you a fan of Millennial Pink? Show us how you use it in the Comments.
Find local cabinetmakers to maximize your storage
The 2010s fixation on pink goes something like this: Early in the decade, fine jewelers such as Piaget revived interest in rose gold, an alloy of gold, copper and silver that Russian imperial jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé had used in his most extravagant decorative eggs for the Romanovs about 100 years before. The fashion world jumped on the bandwagon, as did Apple, whose iPhone 6s in rose gold (also dubbed “bros’ gold”) in 2015 accounted for up to 40% of preorders. Then the Pantone Color Institute named Rose Quartz, a muted blush pink, co-color of 2016, along with soft purple-blue Serenity.
“In many parts of the world, we are experiencing a gender blur as it relates to fashion, which has in turn impacted color trends throughout all other areas of design,” the institute’s executive director, Leatrice Eiseman, told Houzz at the time. “This more unilateral approach to color is coinciding with societal movements toward gender equality and fluidity, the consumer’s increased comfort with using color as a form of expression, a generation that has less concern about being typecast or judged and an open exchange of digital information that has opened our eyes to different approaches to color usage.”
Under ordinary circumstances, metallic rose gold and matte Rose Quartz would yield to other hues in relatively short order — after all, Pantone crowns a color annually (Living Coral reigned this year, to be succeeded by Classic Blue). But the generation born in the 1980s and first half of the ’90s isn’t letting these Millennial Pink shades go lightly — in particular decrying Apple’s decision in 2017 to abandon the rose gold iPhone.
Penny Goldstone, digital fashion editor at TI Media, has said that’s because pink photographs well for social media. “It’s all about matching everything,” she told the British Broadcasting Corp. last year. “So on Instagram you’ll have people posting a picture where they’re drinking a glass of rosé while sitting on a pink lounger, wearing a vintage pink ’50s swimsuit.”
In any case, rose gold and Rose Quartz are flattering to many complexions and undeniably pretty. They’re used together on the ceiling light and soft furnishings in this teen bedroom, in a Dublin family home designed by Carton Interiors. The custom desk, window seat and closets make the most of the angled space.
Your turn: Are you a fan of Millennial Pink? Show us how you use it in the Comments.
Find local cabinetmakers to maximize your storage
Pink was big in the 1950s too, thanks to first lady Mamie Eisenhower, whose love of the color sparked a trend that extended beyond fashion to paint, appliances and even toilet paper. In remodeling his Chicago house, John Smagner went all in on this bathroom’s midcentury modern look by selecting pink and gray wall tile to match the existing pink fixtures.
More: Read about the color-happy postwar period, when glass houses and Scandinavian furniture were hot, in Design Through the Decades: The 1950s
More: Read about the color-happy postwar period, when glass houses and Scandinavian furniture were hot, in Design Through the Decades: The 1950s
7. Confetti Glass Chandeliers
Andreea Avram Rusu emigrated with her family from Romania to the United States, where she received an architecture degree from the University of Texas. Post-college jobs took her to Paris and then New York. There she began lugging scrap wood from her firm and turning it into lamps in her spare time. “Lighting transforms space,” she says. “It is the single greatest determinant of how a space feels.”
By 2004, Avram Rusu was confident enough in her abilities to open her eponymous lighting, furniture and accessories studio in Brooklyn. She designs each piece and assembles the components — made by local glassblowers, ceramists, metalsmiths, woodworkers and machinists — by hand.
Duneier Design used chandeliers in two sizes from Avram Rusu’s Confetti collection to help achieve a festive, summery feel in this kitchen for a 2013 Hamptons show house. The collection, inspired by an explosion of confetti, consists of a chandelier and sconce with glass disks in several color palettes and a chandelier with metal disks in two finishes.
Andreea Avram Rusu emigrated with her family from Romania to the United States, where she received an architecture degree from the University of Texas. Post-college jobs took her to Paris and then New York. There she began lugging scrap wood from her firm and turning it into lamps in her spare time. “Lighting transforms space,” she says. “It is the single greatest determinant of how a space feels.”
By 2004, Avram Rusu was confident enough in her abilities to open her eponymous lighting, furniture and accessories studio in Brooklyn. She designs each piece and assembles the components — made by local glassblowers, ceramists, metalsmiths, woodworkers and machinists — by hand.
Duneier Design used chandeliers in two sizes from Avram Rusu’s Confetti collection to help achieve a festive, summery feel in this kitchen for a 2013 Hamptons show house. The collection, inspired by an explosion of confetti, consists of a chandelier and sconce with glass disks in several color palettes and a chandelier with metal disks in two finishes.
The Confetti glass chandelier borrows its translucent delicacy and starburst shape from the ancient tradition of glassblowing and midcentury modern Sputnik lights, including those at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, which were the models for this look-alike commissioned by Melina Copass for a California home.
More: Read about more Space Age emblems and John Lautner’s futuristic architecture in Design Through the Decades: The 1960s
More: Read about more Space Age emblems and John Lautner’s futuristic architecture in Design Through the Decades: The 1960s
8. Scraplights
When Jonathan Junker and Seth Grizzle were studying architecture at Kent State University in Ohio, they both wore the same kind of gray pants. And when they were working at Seattle architecture firms, they both needed a more creative, hands-on outlet. So when they teamed up and found success dumpster diving for corrugated cardboard and repurposing it into light fixtures, they named their conceptual design studio not after themselves, Junker and Grizzle, but after their sartorial trademark.
Graypants’ flagship Scraplights are made of concentric circles cut from cardboard with a laser, assembled by hand using a nontoxic adhesive and treated with a nontoxic fire retardant. In addition to pendants in a variety of sizes and shapes, there’s a floor lamp and a table lamp. In case you aren’t already familiar with Scraplights thanks to Starbucks — a big early customer — here they are pictured over the dining table in a new modern house in Seattle by Bjarko|Serra Architects.
Graypants has since expanded the family to include Scraplights White, made with white corrugated cardboard, and Scraplights Pebbles, which takes its forms from pebbles gathered at three beaches near Seattle; each shade is inscribed with the beach name and coordinates of the original stone that inspired it.
Your turn: Do you have a favorite product made from trash? Tell us about it in the Comments.
When Jonathan Junker and Seth Grizzle were studying architecture at Kent State University in Ohio, they both wore the same kind of gray pants. And when they were working at Seattle architecture firms, they both needed a more creative, hands-on outlet. So when they teamed up and found success dumpster diving for corrugated cardboard and repurposing it into light fixtures, they named their conceptual design studio not after themselves, Junker and Grizzle, but after their sartorial trademark.
Graypants’ flagship Scraplights are made of concentric circles cut from cardboard with a laser, assembled by hand using a nontoxic adhesive and treated with a nontoxic fire retardant. In addition to pendants in a variety of sizes and shapes, there’s a floor lamp and a table lamp. In case you aren’t already familiar with Scraplights thanks to Starbucks — a big early customer — here they are pictured over the dining table in a new modern house in Seattle by Bjarko|Serra Architects.
Graypants has since expanded the family to include Scraplights White, made with white corrugated cardboard, and Scraplights Pebbles, which takes its forms from pebbles gathered at three beaches near Seattle; each shade is inscribed with the beach name and coordinates of the original stone that inspired it.
Your turn: Do you have a favorite product made from trash? Tell us about it in the Comments.
Decades before Junker and Grizzle, Pritzker Prize-winning U.S. architect Frank Gehry used biodegradable cardboard for his Easy Edges furniture collection, including the iconic Wiggle chair in this Manhattan family room.
More: Read about Earthships, earth tones and steps toward sustainability in Design Through the Decades: The 1970s
More: Read about Earthships, earth tones and steps toward sustainability in Design Through the Decades: The 1970s
Photo from Souda
9. Sass Tables
Cardboard also was the basis for Marie-Pier Guilmain and Maud Beauchamp’s first achievement. They launched their Loyal Luxe line of pet products in 2008 with Canadian Cabin, a cute, flat-packed and 100% recyclable cat house in the style of a hunting chalet.
Today the women, who met in 2004 while studying industrial design at the University of Montreal, are focusing more on people products through MPGMB, the multidisciplinary Montreal studio and design consultancy they established in 2013. They’ve manipulated materials including clay, wood, metal, textiles, vinyl and glass to make graphic plates, vases, planters, plant stands, clocks, bookends, doorstops, wall art, Sonia Delaunay-inspired mirrors and more.
Their Sass collection of tables (side, dining, cafe and console), stools and pedestals for New York manufacturer Souda are black-, white- or clear-finished wooden disks that are stacked together in various combinations and, in the case of the tables and pedestals, topped with honed Carrara marble. These side tables are 16, 18 and 20 inches high with 14- or 16-inch-wide tops.
9. Sass Tables
Cardboard also was the basis for Marie-Pier Guilmain and Maud Beauchamp’s first achievement. They launched their Loyal Luxe line of pet products in 2008 with Canadian Cabin, a cute, flat-packed and 100% recyclable cat house in the style of a hunting chalet.
Today the women, who met in 2004 while studying industrial design at the University of Montreal, are focusing more on people products through MPGMB, the multidisciplinary Montreal studio and design consultancy they established in 2013. They’ve manipulated materials including clay, wood, metal, textiles, vinyl and glass to make graphic plates, vases, planters, plant stands, clocks, bookends, doorstops, wall art, Sonia Delaunay-inspired mirrors and more.
Their Sass collection of tables (side, dining, cafe and console), stools and pedestals for New York manufacturer Souda are black-, white- or clear-finished wooden disks that are stacked together in various combinations and, in the case of the tables and pedestals, topped with honed Carrara marble. These side tables are 16, 18 and 20 inches high with 14- or 16-inch-wide tops.
In its name, totemic forms and freewheeling nature (if not its neutral palette), the Sass collection pays homage to Italian designer Ettore Sottsass, founder of the postmodernist Memphis Group. His stick-figure-like Casablanca bookcase, Holebid coffee table and Ashoka table lamp join many other Memphis pieces in photographer Dennis Zanone’s Tennessee home.
More: Read about postmodernism and the American studio furniture and glass movements in Design Through the Decades: The 1980s
More: Read about postmodernism and the American studio furniture and glass movements in Design Through the Decades: The 1980s
10. Smart Home Hub
Introduced in the 2010s, modern digital assistants and their voice-controlled speakers, such as Amazon Echo and Google Home, pictured, are quickly becoming must-haves in our lives — often appearing in our kitchens. The 2019 U.S. Houzz Kitchen Trends Study found an 8% uptick in one year among homeowners upgrading electronics as part of their kitchen renovations, with 31% adding digital assistants.
In addition, the 2019 Kitchen & Bath Industry Show and International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas highlighted the integration of these assistants with the latest kitchen appliances. Ovens, range hoods, induction cooktops, refrigerators and dishwashers equipped with Home Connect or similar technology, for example, integrate with Alexa, Google Assistant and other assistants so that homeowners can use commands to remotely preheat the oven, check if the cooktop is on, be notified when the fridge door is ajar or the dish detergent is low and more.
GE Appliances, meanwhile, showcased the Kitchen Hub, an over-the-stove video screen and ventilation combo that works with Google Assistant to allow you to control your smart home from one place. And Samsung displayed a Family Hub refrigerator, integrated with its Bixby home assistant, that has built-in cameras to let you look inside from your cellphone and a touch-screen where you can check your calendar, stream a show or see who’s at the door.
Your turn: How have you adopted smart home technology? Let us know in the Comments.
Shop for kitchen appliances
Introduced in the 2010s, modern digital assistants and their voice-controlled speakers, such as Amazon Echo and Google Home, pictured, are quickly becoming must-haves in our lives — often appearing in our kitchens. The 2019 U.S. Houzz Kitchen Trends Study found an 8% uptick in one year among homeowners upgrading electronics as part of their kitchen renovations, with 31% adding digital assistants.
In addition, the 2019 Kitchen & Bath Industry Show and International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas highlighted the integration of these assistants with the latest kitchen appliances. Ovens, range hoods, induction cooktops, refrigerators and dishwashers equipped with Home Connect or similar technology, for example, integrate with Alexa, Google Assistant and other assistants so that homeowners can use commands to remotely preheat the oven, check if the cooktop is on, be notified when the fridge door is ajar or the dish detergent is low and more.
GE Appliances, meanwhile, showcased the Kitchen Hub, an over-the-stove video screen and ventilation combo that works with Google Assistant to allow you to control your smart home from one place. And Samsung displayed a Family Hub refrigerator, integrated with its Bixby home assistant, that has built-in cameras to let you look inside from your cellphone and a touch-screen where you can check your calendar, stream a show or see who’s at the door.
Your turn: How have you adopted smart home technology? Let us know in the Comments.
Shop for kitchen appliances
Indeed we’ve come a long way from the days when tech meant a desktop computer hidden away in the family room or home office. Now the command post is as likely to be a bustling kitchen as it is a secluded workspace. If you’re extra lucky, it has a view like the one from this office, in a coastal New York home by Foley Fiore Architecture.
More: Read about how working and relaxing at home became more comfortable with ergonomic task chairs and slipcovered sofas in Design Through the Decades: The 1990s
More: Read about how working and relaxing at home became more comfortable with ergonomic task chairs and slipcovered sofas in Design Through the Decades: The 1990s
11. Overdyed Rug
Overdyed rugs showed up on the scene about 2010, according to Sam Moradzadeh, CEO of Southern California rug purveyor Woven Accents. “One company in Turkey came up with this idea and now it’s everywhere,” he told Architectural Digest.
The idea was to dip antique rugs in vats of vegetable dye to mask undesirable patterns, colors or wear and tear. Demand for the super-saturated rugs in of-the-moment shades was so great that overdyeing now gussies up new rugs that have been deliberately distressed, and rug scraps that have been pieced together (sometimes with contrasting topstitching). And if you tire of your Living Coral overdyed rug, you can have the dye removed, Moradzadeh says.
A patchwork rug overdyed in blues and greens lends a touch of old-world character to this contemporary living room in a San Francisco duplex cleverly reconfigured by Jeff Schlarb Design Studio to work for one or two families.
Your turn: Does an overdyed rug enhance your space? Upload a photo in the Comments.
Shop for overdyed rugs by color and size
Overdyed rugs showed up on the scene about 2010, according to Sam Moradzadeh, CEO of Southern California rug purveyor Woven Accents. “One company in Turkey came up with this idea and now it’s everywhere,” he told Architectural Digest.
The idea was to dip antique rugs in vats of vegetable dye to mask undesirable patterns, colors or wear and tear. Demand for the super-saturated rugs in of-the-moment shades was so great that overdyeing now gussies up new rugs that have been deliberately distressed, and rug scraps that have been pieced together (sometimes with contrasting topstitching). And if you tire of your Living Coral overdyed rug, you can have the dye removed, Moradzadeh says.
A patchwork rug overdyed in blues and greens lends a touch of old-world character to this contemporary living room in a San Francisco duplex cleverly reconfigured by Jeff Schlarb Design Studio to work for one or two families.
Your turn: Does an overdyed rug enhance your space? Upload a photo in the Comments.
Shop for overdyed rugs by color and size
Fresh takes on centuries-old designs — whether Turkish rugs or French chairs — tend to be versatile pieces that work in contemporary and traditional rooms. For example, these Louis Ghost armchairs, Starck’s 2002 riff on 18th-century Louis XV style, have no problem fitting into a Georgian townhouse in London designed by Joy Flanagan.
More: Read about Starck chairs, Tom Dixon lights and other works with historical and cultural allusions in Design Through the Decades: The 2000s
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More: Read about Starck chairs, Tom Dixon lights and other works with historical and cultural allusions in Design Through the Decades: The 2000s
More on Houzz
World of Design: Where Color Trends Begin
Browse decorating guides
Find a pro for your home project
Shop for home products
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As to Rose Gold, Piaget May have "revived" it, but It was first created in the 1870s during the Black Hills Gold Rush in South Dakota by a French goldsmith named Henri LeBeau... Maybe influenced by his kinsman Faberge'. My wedding band from 1980 features carved rose gold leaves.
Saw quite a few of these... I'm still in love with rose gold, millennial pink, overdyed rugs, the sputnik chandeliers, and Art Deco revival. The rest, I can leave behind in this decade. :)
I always just really enjoy the creativity of designs!