AZURE September/October 2021

The office is back. As life gradually returns to corporate spaces across North America after over a year of remote work, the importance of balancing collaborative, open layouts with personal comfort is more pronounced than ever. For Nienkamper, this combined need for community-oriented work culture and quieter, more intimate conditions is the driving force behind VOX Hex. Thanks to its distinct hexagonal shape, the system offers a pleasantly secluded personal workspace, cocooning the occupant in a semi-private nook within an open environment. The angular geometry also allows multiple workstations to be arranged into a spatially efficient cluster, where each workspace maintains a high degree of acoustic — and hygienic — separation. It makes for an eye-catching presence, with crisp lines and sharp angles fanning out in an elegantly kinetic interplay.…

As we were wrapping this issue, we learned of an interesting piece of news from Sweden. Cementa’s Slite plant, the country’s biggest cement factory and second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, was prohibited from continuing to mine limestone due to environmental concerns. Instantly jeopardizing future construction, the local ruling points to a major issue worldwide. The making of architecture, a massively carbon-intensive industry, is under more scrutiny than ever. How, why and what are we building? In the wake of a summer marred by increasingly hostile weather, with wildfires and floods appearing globally, everything we create has to have environmental integrity. To plan the September/October issue, devoted to cultural, commercial and institutional buildings, we reviewed numerous just-completed and about-to-be-completed projects by renowned practitioners around the world. Our intention — as…

When envisioning a faucet, what better inspiration than water itself? For Toronto- and New York–based duo Yabu Pushelberg, the crystalline blue of northern Italy’s Lake Orta was an appropriate point of departure for the new Sailing collection. A collaboration with Italy’s renowned Fantini Rubinetti, a company founded on Lake Orta’s shores, the series subtly translates natural — and nautical — heritage into a contemporary design language. “We wanted to emulate the lake’s essence as a tranquil retreat while paying homage to the boldness of Fantini’s creative point of view as a master faucet producer,” the designers say. And the results show. An understated carved-pipe form defines the sleek spout, while the horn-shaped handles evoke the classic nautical cleats used to tie boats to the dock. Smoothly contoured, both elements quietly…

As the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. For designers, this means that the right hardware is essential not only to create the perfect entrance, but to ensure that the initial sentiment remains long after the proverbial and material door closes. Colombo’s vibrant Mood Collection, released on the occasion of the Italian company’s 30th anniversary, does just that. It consists of a two-part series of novel window and door handles, pulls and washroom roses (the 5.2-centimetre-square version is shown) in a plethora of electric hues, including a bold new contemporary finish: Capri Blue. colombodesign.com…

In urban India, funerary sites are often cold and impersonal, reduced to places of mere function by rampant development and overcrowding. Responding to this and the rapid erasure of public space in cities across the country, Ahmedabad-based d6thD Design Studio has proposed a new approach to the conventional crematorium that strives to remedy both. By combining ceremonial and social functions in a split-level riverside park, the firm’s Udan Crematorium embodies the optimism of life-after-death inherent in Hindu belief. Nestled in the small town of Amalsad in the country’s west, the landscape is a space for final goodbyes and new hellos where funerary and public programs are one — and the lush complex fittingly celebrates spirituality as a part of everyday life. Golden duranta and henna hedges form snaking pathways around…

“My inspiration is always based in the sartorial world,” says Spanish designer Jose Manuel Ferrero. “Even in my interior design work, I play with upholstery.” Raised in the small municipality of Ontinyent in Valencia, known for its booming textile industry, Ferrero developed an interest in fabric production at an early age. After studying design in Castellon and briefly working under famed architect Oscar Tusquets Blanca in Barcelona, Ferrero came back to the city in 2003 to start his own practice, Estudi{H}ac. For his first collection with local manufacturer Harmony, the designer returned to these nostalgic roots, this time in an unexpected material: ceramic tile. Entitled Pique, the line is a nod to the classic cotton fabric of the same name. Dating back to the 18th century, the textile’s weave is…