Lately, the trademarks of Scandinavian design have been minimalist forms and muted, neutral tones—but now, a latest guard of artists and designers are embracing daring colours and patterns harking back to an earlier era in Danish design. Stay within the know with our weekly roundup of headlines, launches, events, beneficial reading and more.
Business News
Last November, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a rule that, if put into motion, would have effectively outlawed cords in window coverings. Now, the rule is on pause after a challenge from an industry group. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has granted the Window Covering Manufacturers Association’s motion to remain the CPSC’s rule while the case is pending judicial review. The WCMA initially filed a lawsuit difficult the rule on November 30, two days after it was published, claiming that it doesn’t substantially advance child safety or account for the regular decline in safety incidents for the reason that current voluntary standard took effect in 2018. The WCMA also claims that the rule could increase custom window covering costs for consumers, small businesses and the larger industrial market. Over the approaching months, each groups will file briefs to the court, which can then hear oral arguments before proceeding.
Wells Fargo—the country’s third-largest mortgage lender—is stepping back from the mortgage market, Insider reports, a choice that may trigger significant layoffs within the bank’s mortgage operations department. In an effort to scale back risk in light of rising rates of interest and falling homebuyer demand, the bank has decided to shift its strategy from targeting as many U.S. homeowners as possible to as a substitute providing mortgages only to existing customers and people in minority communities. The lender can also be shuttering its related business selling mortgages through third parties. Though Wells Fargo will not be the largest mortgage lender within the U.S., less competition out there may make conditions tougher for prospective homebuyers and people working in related industries like real estate, Forbes reports.
Former Walt Disney Imagineering president Bob Weis joined architecture and design firm Gensler as its global immersive experience design leader, Fast Company reports. While Gensler has made steps toward incorporating immersive elements into former projects—similar to AT&T’s Dallas headquarters, which features ambient music, recordings of regional birdsong and interactive art—the firm hired Weis to include more sensory experiences into future projects, including stores, workplaces, health care facilities and residential spaces. Gensler is the newest architecture firm to enter the multisensory experience design space, following Seattle-based NBBJ’s 2020 acquisition of experience design studio ESI Design and the Recent York–based Rockwell Group’s history of subverting conventional architecture through its work on resorts, theater sets and immersive experiences.
A recent survey from the National Association of Realtors underscored the experiences of Black real estate professionals facing discrimination from colleagues and clients, The Recent York Times reports, revealing that white real estate agents made nearly 3 times as much as their Black peers last 12 months. In accordance with the report, the median for white real estate agents’ residential sales last 12 months was $356,000, while the median for Black agents was $246,000. For the latter group, racism results in fewer clients and smaller commissions on lower-priced properties—especially since homes owned by Black persons are often undervalued, priced a median of 23 percent lower than those owned by white people. Some agents also report that racism contributes to an earnings gap, with examples of white agents receiving higher commission splits than Black agents. While the NAR implemented the Fair Housing Motion Plan (ACT Initiative) in 2020 to enhance industry equity, many Black agents are taking matters into their very own hands with mentorship programs and scholarships to advertise diversity and equity in real estate.
A 12 months after initially filing its request, Mattress Firm—the industry’s largest mattress retailer—withdrew its planned public offering, Furniture Today reports. The news comes only a month after the retailer’s parent company, Steinhoff International, announced it was restructuring its $10.8 billion debt with key lenders. Acquired by Steinhoff in 2016, Mattress Firm filed for Chapter 11 two years later, then downsized its retail footprint by unloading unprofitable stores. In January 2022, the corporate filed for the now-withdrawn IPO, announcing plans to sell $100 million in shares.
The very best latest apartments can now be present in the Sun Belt states, in line with latest data from apartment listing service RentCafe, which weighed aspects similar to location desirability, occupancy and size to create an inventory of rankings amongst latest apartments accomplished over the past decade, a period that saw the variety of apartments within the U.S. grow by 33 percent—though latest builds should not evenly spread across the country. The corporate placed Boca Raton, Florida, at the highest of the list, with a 50.2 percent increase in latest apartments, a 91.9 percent occupancy rate, a median size of 1,027 square feet and 96.2 percent of units situated in prime locations. Beyond that, the top-20 city list was dominated by Texas, with 12 cities on the list; followed by Florida, with seven cities; and California, with six cities. Few large metropolitan cities made the list, other than Denver and Washington, D.C.
Courtesy of Ikea
Launches & Collaborations
Ikea partnered with Rotterdam, Netherlands–based designer Sabine Marcelis for a joint collection featuring lighting, serveware, rugs and more. Named Varmblixt, the gathering includes 20 different pieces, with 4 fixtures specifically set to stay on in Ikea’s broader everlasting collection.
Courtesy of The San Francisco Decorator Showcase
Showhouses
The forty fourth annual San Francisco Decorator Showcase will return to a live, in-person event this 12 months, hosted at an 18th century Mediterranean Spanish home positioned in the town’s Sea Cliff neighborhood. In-built 1927 by lauded architects Hyman and Appleton, the 6,100-square-foot home features three levels with 28 design spaces—including seven bedrooms, five full baths, a gym, a movie room and quite a lot of entertaining spaces. Re-imagined by a slate of top designers the space will open to the general public from April 29 to May 29, with proceeds to profit San Francisco University High School.
The Kips Bay Decorator Showhouse Palm Beach has announced the 21-person slate of architects and designers who will probably be reimagining the interiors of an estate positioned in the town’s Northshore neighborhood for this 12 months’s event. The 2023 cohort includes design professionals similar to Billy Ceglia, Eneia White, Delia Kenza and Megan Grehl, who will transform the house before it opens to the general public on February 23.
Beneficial Reading
A growing variety of major furniture retailers—from e-commerce players like Wayfair to legacy giants like Macy’s and Crate & Barrel—implemented sustainable sourcing policies in 2022. As Melissa Daniels writes for Modern Retail, the price and logistics involved in overhauling a sprawling furniture supply chain presents a substantial challenge to retailers, though the payoff in shopper recognition is getting more helpful by the 12 months.
When Jerald Cooper launched the @hoodmidcenturymodern Instagram account in 2019, his goal was to capture and catalog the history of modernism in Black culture in his hometown of Cincinnati. Now, 82,000 followers later, that mission has modified. As Matt Shaw reports for The Recent York Times, Cooper’s current project—a crowdsourced map database where users can upload their very own content with geographically tagged locations on Google Maps—offers an extension of the unique account by allowing the community to make their very own contributions, fulfilling Cooper’s latest aim of breaking down historic barriers in architecture and design.
Call for Entries
Wayfair is now accepting entries for the eighth annual Tastemaker Awards. The competition will rejoice the 12 months’s most exceptional designs in six categories: design of the 12 months, most dramatic renovation, best bathroom design, best industrial business design, best outdoor design and pro’s selection award. To submit an entry before the February 1, 2023, deadline, click here.
High Point Market Authority is now accepting applications for the biannual Design Influencers Tour at Spring Market this 12 months, organized in partnership with Esteem Media. This system will bring 10 design influencers to the event for a two-day tour of sponsoring showrooms, where attendees will study each exhibitor and in turn promote their respective social media accounts. To use before the February 17 deadline, click here.
Courtesy of Wayfair
Cue the Applause
Atlanta Market announced the 2023 Best Booth winners from the trade show’s winter edition. Chosen for visual design excellence, the 16 winning temporary exhibitors include Aid Through Trade, Big Heart Tea, Carvalho Couture, Christmas Tradition, Creekside Antiques & Design, Driftless Studios, Flutter Gallery, Golden Gems, Handbag Handcuff, Lifestraw, Lucie Kaas, Lucy Darling, Musee, One Dot World, Rite within the Rain and Somar Creations.
In Memoriam
Bernie Gordon, co-founder of design company and interior surfacing products provider Wolf-Gordon, passed away on the age of 98. Gordon’s legacy within the industry involves leading the rising movement within the industrial market to make use of fabric-backed vinyl as a wallcovering, which kicked off when he founded the corporate that’s now Wolf-Gordon alongside salesmen Tony Prota and Frank Carr in 1967. Gordon went on to steer product design and development there until his 1991 retirement, when his son David Gordon stepped into the role of executive vp and saw the corporate through yet one more period of expansion in product and brand design. “I’m happy with what we did after we were running the place, and I’m happy with the natural evolution that has taken place at the corporate since then,” Gordon said in Wolf-Gordon’s 2017 publication Sample Book: 50 Years of Interior Finishes. “As a way to stay in business, you have got to maintain coming up with latest things.”
Homepage image: Ikea teamed up with designer Sabine Marcelis for the launch of the Varmblixt collection | Courtesy of Ikea