Interiors Archives - Azure Magazine

6 Projects Pushing the Boundaries of Sustainable Design

Elizabeth Pagliacolo — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:51:00 +0000

Earth Forest Campus — Barcelona, Spain

PHOTO: Iwan Baan

Until recently, 3D-printed construction and traditional earth buildings existed at opposite ends of the technological spectrum. But an innovative Forest Campus in Barcelona’s Collserola Natural Park, developed by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) with international architecture firm Hassel, combines the best of both worlds, marrying cutting-edge techniques with vernacular design. The product of over one decade of research, the 100-square-metre structure is a full-scale prototype for sustainable and affordable construction. Though 3D-printed architecture is typically made of carbon-intensive concrete, the Forest Campus was printed...

The post 6 Projects Pushing the Boundaries of Sustainable Design appeared first on Azure Magazine.

The Outhouse Gets a Major Makeover at a Washington Campsite

Sydney Shilling — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:46:00 +0000

Washrooms (or the lack thereof) are rarely the highlight of a camping trip. But a new destination for nature lovers in Long Beach, Washington, makes for an elegant exception. Japanese outdoor lifestyle company Snow Peak worked with local firm EFA Architect — led by Erik Fagerland with his son Scott as lead designer — to bring the elevated experience of its branded campsites in Japan to the North American market. The architects were tasked with designing a welcome pavilion and store, as well as the wash house and a spa.

In keeping with the aesthetic of Snow Peak’s Japanese campsites, the wash house is finished in shou sugi ban cladding from Nakamoto Forestry.

With a modest budget and big ambitions, the firm set out to...

The post The Outhouse Gets a Major Makeover at a Washington Campsite appeared first on Azure Magazine.

In Madrid, Casa Nube Is a Colourful Nest

Kendra Jackson — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:42:00 +0000

Once a rabbit warren of small rooms, narrow corridors and an isolated kitchen, this 1950s apartment near Madrid’s El Retiro Park is now spacious, light-filled and splashed with colour thanks to architect Javier Jiménez Iniesta of local design practice Studio Animal (which also has an office in Barcelona). Addressing the overly compartmentalized lay-out by doing away with it completely, Jiménez Iniesta clustered Casa Nube living, dining and reading areas into one all-white, three-metre-high communal space that is open to the kitchen. This move not only created a free-flowing floor plan that better supports the mother and son who live here, it also lets sunlight pour in from two sides and allows for natural temperature regulation through...

The post In Madrid, Casa Nube Is a Colourful Nest appeared first on Azure Magazine.

Metalcore Reveals a Turquoise Hideaway

Kendra Jackson — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:41:00 +0000

For architects Carlos Rebolo and Alejandro Caraballo — who co-founded their Madrid-based firm CRAC in 2020 — the purpose of architecture is not simply to build but to investigate and examine how one interacts with and is influenced behaviourally by their surroundings. So when it came to renovating his own apartment (which he shares with his partner), Rebolo naturally experimented by transforming a conventional three-bedroom layout with a closed-off living room and kitchen into a bright, open one-bedroom space centred around a large metal-wrapped cube that contains the bathroom, as well as storage for a study on one end and the bedroom closet on the other.

Dubbed Metalcore, the square volume is clad in a turquoise wavy metal...

The post Metalcore Reveals a Turquoise Hideaway appeared first on Azure Magazine.

An Adaptive Re-Use Restaurant That’s Really Cooking with Gas

Eric Mutrie — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 12:34:00 +0000

The Brief

Following the same road map that saw Michelin evolve from a tire manufacturer into a global culinary authority, a former Madrid auto shop recently reopened as Tramo: a buzzy restaurant that has, fittingly, already earned itself a place in the Michelin Guide. Tramo marks the second venture from Proyectos Conscientes, a hospitality group that prides itself on dining spots dedicated to responsible consumption. With that in mind, Madrid architecture firm SelgasCano (the brains behind the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion) and Andreu Carulla (a product and spatial designer specializing in old school craftsmanship) worked together to refine — but not completely reform — the industrial space with low-waste, high-performance design....

The post An Adaptive Re-Use Restaurant That’s Really Cooking with Gas appeared first on Azure Magazine.

Chicago’s Norman Kelley Puts the Glass Brick in “Bricks and Mortar”

Eric Mutrie — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:16:56 +0000

A popular stereotype is that architects only wear black. But spend some time with designers, and you’ll find that the profession’s dress code is actually more nuanced. Yes, minimalist goths abound, devoted to living in sartorial darkness day in and day out. But you’ll also meet experimental designers like SAANA’s Kazuyo Sejima who embrace runway styles in all manner of hues, not to mention disciples of Richard Rogers who understand how to rock lime green, bright orange or even both at the same time.

Somewhere in the middle of this fashion spectrum lies cowboy-adjacent architects who dress like they’re building your house rather than just designing it — favouring hardwearing, workwear-inflected classics like field shirts and officer chinos, usually in some shade of khaki. That’s where Buck Mason comes in. Sure enough, the clothing brand’s latest retail location (designed by Chicago firm Norman Kelley, working alongside architect Spencer McNeil) in Oak Brook, Illinois, appeals directly to a rugged, architecturally savvy clientele.

Launched in L.A. in 2013, Buck Mason began with a plan to create the perfect T-shirt. Founders Erik Allen Ford and Sasha Koehn come by their love of design and construction honestly: Koehn previously worked as a landscape architect, and his and Ford’s fathers were a stone sculptor and brick-layer, respectively — with the brand’s name a tribute to those two careers. (They chose the “Buck” half because it sounds tough, and speaks to the idea of bucking trends.)

Their quest for top quality eventually led the company to set up its own production facility in Pennsylvania, where it now operates a knitting mill and a sewing factory dedicated to made-in-the-USA T-shirts. In store, these homegrown offerings are rounded out by other clothes produced farther afield yet still steeped in classic American tradition. Picture something that an off-duty Steve McQueen or Christy Turlington might wear, and you’ll be in the right style ballpark.

For the company’s latest, 60-square-metre outpost at Oakbrook Center (a mall about 30 minutes outside Chicago), Norman Kelley worked to reflect the brand’s deep appreciation for design history. Inspired by Jean Prouvé’s 1940s design for a demountable house, the firm envisioned a shop-in-shop that stations a reclaimed oakwood shell structure in the middle of the floor. The setup brings a sense of intimacy to the otherwise generic mall storefront, creating the feeling of stepping into someone’s home — or more accurately, into their log cabin. Adding to the warmth of this inner sanctum, a selection of orb-style pendants in a variety of scales hangs above, spotlighting the merchandise below.

Built at an angle to the space’s existing perimeter walls, the wooden core also introduces cozy outer nooks that help to pace out the display of product. Window-like cutouts offer views between the store’s two layers, adding to the overall sense of depth.

For its next big design move, Norman Kelley studied up on regional architectural history. Glass brick, which has enjoyed a major resurgence over the past couple years, actually made its debut back at Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition. Inspired by this origin story, Norman Kelley installed rows of 15.24-by-7.62-centimetre glass blocks at the upper edge of the interior wooden structure’s walls, creating a border akin to a clerestory window. “The use of glass block further connects the store to a legacy of Midwest innovation and material ingenuity,” the designers explain in their project description. At the back edge of the space, the glass brick extends down to the floor, creating a translucent grid that complements the clean lines of the clothing on display.

A selection of books stocked in the shop pay tribute to Jean Prouvé, as well as other design luminaries like Eileen Gray, Louis Kahn, and Noguchi. Vintage photos, stereo equipment, and an artwork of a cowboy riding a bucking bronco add to the decor mix.

In a retail landscape that has seen other brands struggling to maintain a strong bricks and mortar presence, Buck Mason is scaling up quickly, moving from 11 stores in 2020 to 33 as of this year. Clearly, consumers are connecting with the brand’s textural fabrics and sandy palette — not to mention its classically-minded approach to store design. And if you want just want some all-black basics? Buck Mason can help with that, too.

The post Chicago’s Norman Kelley Puts the Glass Brick in “Bricks and Mortar” appeared first on Azure Magazine.

A Spanish Cocktail Bar that Evokes Golden Treasure

Sophie Sobol — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 19:29:01 +0000

You might not find the legendary lost city of El Dorado on the 24th floor of the NHow Hotel in Amsterdam, but you will find Sonora Bar — a luxury Spanish cocktail bar steeped in the mythology of pre-Columbian design. Designed by Barcelona-based studio El Equipo Creativo, Sonora Bar brings Latin American flavours — including their singnature Azul Margarita — to a European audience.

Designed to complement its sister space, the Selva Restaurant, located on the same floor of the NHow Hotel, El Equipo Creativo’s Sonora Bar was imagined with a distinctly Latin American flair. But where Selva Restaurant reveals a lush tropical forest, Sonora Bar is the hidden gem in the jungle.

A dazzling golden structure, the central bar immediately draws the eye. Inspired by pre-Columbian gold idols, the rounded, organic form — evoking a giant mushroom — gleams with a golden finish from floor to ceiling. Grooved surfaces around the room reflect a dappled texture, much like cascading water, that is echoed in the tiled, glass facade behind the bar and the watery pattern of the carpet. Organic-shaped furniture in pops of red and vibrant patterns are meant to evoke poisonous fruit and other jungle dangers that exist by a watering hole. Add in the lush greenery and hanging plants, and Sonora Bar is something out of a fairy tale.

Despite the challenge of balancing this dramatic interior with the bar’s stunning view (courtesy of a glass facade by OMA studio) — not to mention cultivating an authentic Latin American feel in a Dutch hotel — El Equipo Creativo is up to the task with the fantastical Sonora Bar.

“It’s more than just having a drink. It’s about feeling like you’re part of an exciting story,” says the Sonora bar team. “If you want a fun escape and a taste of old tales, come visit. Every sip is an adventure.”

The post A Spanish Cocktail Bar that Evokes Golden Treasure appeared first on Azure Magazine.

KPMB’s Office Design for Scotiabank North Delivers Big Corporate Perks

Eric Mutrie — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 17:55:03 +0000

The term “third place” (first coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg back in 1989) is typically used to describe social environments located beyond someone’s home or office — with coffee shops and bars being two of the most frequently cited examples. Lately, however, workspaces like Scotiabank North — the Canadian bank’s new downtown Toronto hub, designed by KPMB Architects — are evolving to integrate third places of their own. In the process, companies are demonstrating the importance of treating one’s workforce less like staff and more like guests.

The bank’s 14-storey office anchors the Bay Adelaide Centre’s recently completed north tower, designed by KPMB with Adamson Associates. At the interior scale, KPMB describes the fit out for Scotiabank North as being driven by the concept of “hosting your employees.” What results is a combination of amenities that take cues from both hospitality settings and cultural venues, filling the varied office levels with everything from bistros to art galleries.

Rather than distracting from daily business, these socially-minded “third places” actively support it — indeed, many of them evolved directly from engagement sessions with the bank’s team, which set priorities such as inclusion, accessibility, health and wellness.

The project’s strong focus on shared spaces is most apparent on the third floor, which has been dubbed the North Commons. Anchored by a grab-and-go coffee shop and outfitted with a full range of seating options (from Maharam-upholstered banquettes to communal tables designed by Mary Ratcliffe Studio), this flexible social hub becomes a destination for everything from quick employee catch ups to full-scale town halls.

Adding to the setting’s appeal, windows look out to the Cloud Gardens Conservatory, a neighbouring Financial District landmark.

Additional coffee stations and bistros are spread throughout floors six to nine, with each of these areas including a staircase linking different levels to promote chance encounters.

Given that many Scotiabank employees play host to important clients, the office’s warm, welcoming atmosphere is also designed with external guests in mind. Private lounges, dining rooms and an outdoor terrace on the office’s higher floors ensure a comfortable, memorable experience for visitors, all while cutting down on the need for offsite reservations.

A dedicated client reception desk on the 10th floor even offers visitors a chance to browse an adjacent art gallery corridor before they’re led to their eventual destination.

The furniture and finishes are similarly gallery-worthy. Throughout, natural materials like stone (used most dramatically on reception desks made with Super Silver from Enmar Consulting Inc.) and wood are complemented by graphic treatments that reflect forest or mountain imagery.

Boardroom designs include custom tables by Nienkämper and executive seating from Andreu World, while an antique table from Scotiabank’s original boardroom sits in another meeting space in a fun nod to company history.

When it comes time to get down to business, an activity-based working strategy allows employees to choose the space that best suits their task. Floor plans, furniture and technology were planned with each of the bank’s businesses in mind, ensuring that everyone from the trading floors to corporate banking, asset management and group treasury has the right mix of work studios, hoteling desks, private offices and quiet zones.

The outcome is a finely attuned balance of work and play. After all, while there’s no doubt that a workspace needs to support productivity, it also helps to have an office that employees actually like. And when it comes to talent recruitment and retention — not to mention wooing workers back downtown — Scotiabank North’s big investment in social and break spaces seems likely to pay off.

The post KPMB’s Office Design for Scotiabank North Delivers Big Corporate Perks appeared first on Azure Magazine.

New York Menswear Shop NN.07 Appeals to Stylish Nomads

Eric Mutrie — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 16:02:09 +0000

If you’re looking to refresh your fall wardrobe, NN.07’s New York flagship is an especially good place to start. Long an under-the-radar favourite of TikTok menswear enthusiasts, the brand has been steadily building a more mainstream following ever since Jeremy Allen White wore its checkered wool Gael jacket on The Bear. That coat makes for a great introduction to NN.07, which specializes in sophisticated, easy-wearing garments that feel distinctive, yet not too flashy.

But while chef Carmy is clearly a fan, it may be best to think of NN.07 as a guy with a hard-to-pin-down accent who was raised by diplomat parents: He’s been everywhere, he’s seen everything, and he has the best taste in sweaters. Technically, NN.07 is a Danish company, but its name — “No Nationality” — actively resists that type of straightforward classification. Indeed, rather than positioning itself as an evangelist of Scandinavian minimalism, the brand’s About page instead states that “We believe in personalities not nationalities.” (The “07” comes from the year the brand was founded, meaning it came of age during the height of the digital nomad movement.)

That same cosmopolitan confidence carries over to the look of the company’s stores, designed by Dutch interiors studio Reiters-Wings. For NN.07’s new Manhattan outpost (which is its first U.S. location), the firm began with a neutral base of creamy plaster walls, then layered in visual interest with bold colours, rich textures and intriguing accents. In the process, designers Tim Reiters and Adriaan Wings demonstrate a tried-and-true approach to creating a cool and composed ensemble, no matter what particular locale you might be headed to next.

Mind you, closer investigation does reveal one subtle nod to NN.07’s true country of origin. Along with evoking the cobalt blue used in NN.07’s branding, the custom tiles that clad the boutique’s back shelving and central column are based on a 1970s Nils Thorsson tile design, Bacca, that was originally produced at Denmark’s Royal Copenhagen factory. Reiters-Wings worked with Dutch tile company Palet to develop a modern reinterpretation, produced using a new printing technique that achieves similar pigments as the ones that resulted from Thorsson’s original faience production.

Apart from this homage to Danish design history, the rest of the shop speaks directly to the man on the move. Rounded aluminum display tables reference the curves of an Airstream Caravan — a Californian invention that is synonymous with the Great American roadtrip. This same design language is also used to create a loveseat that playfully riffs on the idea of the “boyfriend chair” — a regular feature in women’s boutiques intended to be a place for bored partners to sit while their girlfriends shop. Here, Reiters-Wings flips the script. “Take a seat on the beautiful linen velvet upholstery from Maharan and wait patiently until your man has finished shopping,” the firm says in its project description.

Added into the mix are a series of boulders, which complement the shop’s earth tones while also bringing a raw, elemental edge to the otherwise orderly space. Ceramic vases and sculptures by Leslie Scanlon act as another textural accent, recalling souvenirs from past adventures. The message: at NN.07’s New York boutique, shopping is its own form of journey.

The post New York Menswear Shop NN.07 Appeals to Stylish Nomads appeared first on Azure Magazine.

Othership Reaches a Spiritual High with Spa Designs by Futurestudio

Eric Mutrie — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 13:24:00 +0000

A 75-minute class at one of OTHERSHIP’s out-of-this-world bathhouses moves through a thermal circuit of hot and cold experiences accompanied by guided breathwork exercises. Here, senior editor ERIC MUTRIE inhales and exhales his way through each one while unpacking the vision behind FUTURESTUDIO’s sublime health club designs — and the cult following they attract.

At the entrance to Othership’s subterranean Yorkville location, floors clad in thin, exterior-grade Endicott bricks lead the transition from city chaos to calming spa. Photo by Graydon Herriott

Welcome Breathers

Soon after I book my first class at Othership Yorkville (one of the company’s growing fleet of sauna and ice bath–equipped spas, which currently includes two Toronto locations and one in New York’s Flatiron District that opened in July), I receive a registration email telling me, “We can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.” In person during my session a few days later (“Guided All Around: Inner Power”), there is a whole lot more where that came from. Othership is here to make you sweat, but also to help you explore, journey and evolve. All this to say, your mileage will vary based on your tolerance for wellness mantras and your willingness to engage in spiritual introspection. But even if you’re skeptical, it’s still worth walking through the front doors at one of its locations. (You’ll know them by the large handles carved in the shape of the brand’s Spirograph logo.)

What awaits on the other side is an amber-hued temple designed by Futurestudio, the red-hot Toronto firm that has spent the past few years reviving the city’s nightlife scene with bars and restaurants that deliver a memorable sense of theatricality. And while a visit to any one of the culinary hot spots bearing founder Ali McQuaid Mitchell’s fingerprints (including the gold-ceilinged Bar Prima and circus-themed Piano Piano on Colborne Street) is enough to restore your faith in the magic of a great evening out, the experience that awaits at Othership is perhaps something even more profound: an alternative form of social outing that is built not around food and drink but rather around deeper nourishment of the mind, body and soul. “We’ve been really lucky to be able to have a hand in the culture of the city right now,” McQuaid Mitchell says. “But honestly, it’s just because amazing, ambitious people have come to us and trusted us. Our clients are bringing it in terms of their food or their experience programming, so it’s up to us as designers to do everything we can to enhance that.”

Othership Yorkville’s instructors guide a group of “Shipheads” through breathwork exercises inside the glowing 90-person cedar sauna. Photo by Graydon Herriott

First Group Share

To understand Othership’s early success, you must first meditate on the many stresses of modern life. Am I saving enough for retirement? Is A.I. coming for my job? Will the planet still be habitable in 2050? And, in a slightly less urgent sense, How does anybody even go out anymore? “Mindful drinking” is on the rise, and Gen Z is imbibing the least of all; even kombucha has probably become too strong for somebody in your social circle. Yet with so much of a city’s nightlife built around alcohol, it can be difficult to know how to catch up with old friends — let alone meet new ones — in dry settings. And if we don’t come up with some compelling answers to keep downtown alive, our loneliness epidemic isn’t going to solve itself.

Enter Othership. The company’s CEO, Robbie Bent, became sober six years ago after a silent meditation retreat helped him take control of his struggles with addiction. Upon his return, he started frequenting saunas as a way of going out on the weekends while still avoiding alcohol. It wasn’t long before he and his wife, Emily, had built a garage bathhouse of their very own, where they soon invited Toronto friends — and, later, a small network of other referrals — to join them for guided breathwork. The enthusiastic response eventually encouraged the couple to start thinking about how they could bring that same experience to the masses, and in 2021, they co-founded Othership alongside Myles Farmer, Amanda Laine and Harrison Taylor.

While McQuaid Mitchell didn’t have any specific spa design experience, the Othership crew was nevertheless drawn to the transportive, energizing quality of Futurestudio’s portfolio. “One of the things they communicated was that this was not going to be a quiet spa where you’re shushed,” the designer says. “It was going to be a much more lively experience.”

To announce these ambitions, the company signed its first lease in Toronto’s Entertainment District. In doing so, it established itself as an early leader in the ongoing boom in wellness destinations — including, in Toronto alone, Alter (another hydrotherapy hot spot), Trove (which adds nurse-administered IVs into the mix) and Jaybird (which is really just a yoga and Pilates studio, but a very mindful one with a signature scent, no mirrors, and dim infrared lighting). Originating in Vancouver, Jaybird is co-owned by Bent’s sister, and both its Yorkville location and Trove are also designed by Futurestudio. In other words, even as the boutique health club sector has grown, Othership has remained more or less at the centre of the orbit.

A woven hemp and cotton textile by fibre artist Charlotte Blake hangs behind an Anony light fixture in Othership Yorkville’s Social Commons tea lounge. Underfoot, pebble mosaic tile flooring features real river rocks. Photo by Graydon Herriott

III

Intention Setting

Granted, social sweating and bathing have a long history, dating from public baths in ancient Greece and Rome to the Russian banyas, Turkish hammams and Korean jjimjilbang that now dot Toronto’s suburbs — not to mention the downtown bathhouses that endure as historic places of refuge for the gay community in the wake of 1981’s Operation Soap raids. Further afield, Finland and Estonia’s sauna traditions even rank on UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage List.

“In some ways, what they are doing is so new, and in other ways, it’s as old as time.”

Ali McQuaid Mitchell, Futurestudio

When McQuaid Mitchell came on board, the Othership team presented her with a binder of global bathhouse research. “There’s this common thread in so many cultures throughout history,” she says. “In some ways, what they are doing is so new, and in other ways, it’s as old as time.” The look and feel that she developed for the company’s spas speaks directly to that eternal state, establishing spaces that feel as primordial as they do forward-thinking.

On the time-honoured end of the spectrum, Othership’s reception areas introduce a palette of age-old building materials — wood and brick — that preview the cedar-clad sauna and masonry-wrapped ice bath room soon to follow. Adding to the elemental feel, the change areas and communal shower spaces feature floors made from sliced river rocks that create the sensation of a midnight nature walk. “We wanted it to feel like you were stepping on something natural, not something manufactured,” explains McQuaid Mitchell. “The rocks bring warmth but also an inconsistency — similar to the bricks. Some of them are perfect but some of them are not, and there’s differences in the spacing of them, as well as just a natural variety in the product itself that adds to the overall texture.”

McQuaid Mitchell notes that all these materials have been carefully chosen not just for their aesthetic appeal but also for their performance merits. Those river rock floors, for instance, boast excellent slip resistance, while the bleacher seating in the front tea lounge (a temperate zone used for class orientations that is also open to anyone looking to take a break from the thermal circuit) is upholstered in easy to-clean marine vinyl to keep it from absorbing sweat. Backdropping this relaxation area, hanging patchwork tapestries by Studio La Beauté and a textile installation by Charlotte Blake billow gently as if caught by the wind (in fact, it’s the HVAC pumping in a steady supply of fresh air). “The functionality of the space requires so many hard materials, but we wanted to still have an element of softness,” says McQuaid Mitchell.

For all of Othership’s old-world charm, it also incorporates plenty of contemporary innovations — from booming speakers to carefully calibrated mood lighting. The most prominent fixture is a giant circular pendant (a custom Anony design) that floats above the tea lounge with UFO-like presence. Moving into the sauna, a series of glowing strips pulse and change colour, while a cluster of RBW’s Ripple and Dimple sconces in the showers balance natural inspiration with sci-fi flair.

Critically, everything is calibrated at 2200 Kelvin — the same golden glow as candlelight. “It’s not a light temperature that’s off-the-shelf for the most part, so in some cases we had to actually paint the bulbs to get that,” McQuaid Mitchell says. “We talked about making people feel really comfortable in their bathing suits, so a lot of the time, the light is placed to illuminate the task and not the person.” As a result, the environment doesn’t feel overly cruisy, although a few people have surely locked eyes and struck up conversation over tea during the Friday night mixers.

Bricks protrude from the walls of Othership Yorkville’s cold plunge room to create cantilevered tealight podiums. Photo by Graydon Herriott

The Plunge

This brings us to programming. Othership offers three main types of experiences: guided group sessions, evening socials (where the music and lighting skew closer to what you might find on a dance floor) and flexible drop-in hours. The guided classes (which cost $55 for a single booking and typically happen four times a day) are the best way to really tune out the world — complete with breathwork and visualization exercises, scent bombs that fill the sauna with notes of cedar and vetiver or cinnamon and orange, and vulnerable (yet optional) group discussions. Especially if you’re looking to work up the courage to submerge your body in an ice-cold pool, some peer encouragement never hurts.

At first, dropping into zero-degree water after having just sat in a sweltering sauna for 20-odd minutes feels painful and panic-inducing. But 30 seconds later, I’m left with a strange sense of accomplishment. As I step out of the ice bath, several of my classmates high-five me. Our instructor congratulates us all on being brave. Depending on your level of cynicism, this will either offer evidence of Othership’s warm community atmosphere or feel like a journey to the centre of a healing crystal. People here tend to talk like they just got back from Burning Man.

Either way, after two more dips, we carry on to our final round in the sauna. The wall speakers, which had previously been pounding out a series of thumping beats, switch to something sweeping and ethereal — classic dream-sequence music. Our fearless leader prompts everyone to close their eyes and visualize walking through a field. “You start to notice your childhood home in the distance,” she says. “You keep walking until you are standing in front of it.” We can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it. Our guide tells us to open the door. Someone next to me starts to gently sob.

A gong hangs in an illuminated alcove in the passageway between Othership Yorkville’s sauna and cold room. Photo by Graydon Herriott

Emotional Release

At some point after we’ve all entered the homes we grew up in and thanked our younger selves for allowing us to become the person we are today, our instructor invites everyone to open their eyes and share how they’re feeling. Expressions of genuine gratitude quickly pour out. “This was amazing. I never make time for myself — all I do is work.” “I really needed somewhere to scream today.” “I owe so much to my friend for talking me into coming here.” You don’t necessarily need to reach the astral plane to walk out of Othership feeling refreshed. And I will say this: During much of my time there, I completely forgot that I was sitting in a basement below a construction site for an upcoming location of Mandy’s Gourmet Salads.

It is thanks to Futurestudio’s obsessive, down-to-the-smallest-detail approach that Othership manages to stir the soul the way that it does. “I think, as a team at Futurestudio, we’re just always wondering when we’re in a space, Why shouldn’t it just be the best it could be in every way?” McQuaid Mitchell says. “The lighting should be perfect, the floor, the tables — while still leaving room for natural imperfection, too.”

In turn, if there is anyone who can attest to Othership’s true power, it is her. “I have a really fast pace here at the studio, and I do almost nothing creative during the day — instead, I’m dealing with job sites, or contractors, or emails, or all the other running-a-business things,” she says. “Then I get into my creative zone at night. So when I know that I need uninterrupted creative time, I’ll go to Othership, come home and then work on a project with the clarity that it gives me.”

Back when McQuaid Mitchell first started working with Bent, he asked her what her dream project would be. “I immediately said something in New York City,” she recalls. “When he signed the lease [for Othership Flatiron], he called me up and said, ‘We’re making your dream come true.’ Whenever I land in New York, the energy of the city is just incredible, so I’m really proud of being able to create something that’s part of that in some small way.” The new location maintains Othership’s trademark look but executes it at the biggest scale yet — with a 60 square-metre sauna that is the largest in America. McQuaid Mitchell is now in the process of designing a second U.S. Othership, set to open in Brooklyn early next year.

Expect more to follow: The company is currently in expansion mode, buoyed by $10 million in financing from investors that include pop star (and meditation evangelist) Shawn Mendes. Let the transcendental work continue. “More than ever, people want to have an experience that they won’t have at home,” McQuaid Mitchell says. “So it’s just rising to meet that expectation and letting people get lost.” Anyone can open a spa. But not just anyone can start a full-blown cultural phenomenon.

The cold area at Othership’s Flatiron location, featuring sunken ice baths. Photo by Ian Patterson.

THE NEXT FRONTIER:

What sets Othership’s NYC debut apart? Even though Othership’s Flatiron space is the company’s third location, the process of translating its signature experience from Canada to the U.S. meant that, in many ways, Futurestudio was designing its first Othership all over again.

RBW sconces dot the communal showers, which are clad in Deco-Tile ceramics that balance earthy hues with metallic sheen. Photo by Ian Patterson

Building codes necessitated several major updates: New York State requires gendered change rooms, and the tubs in the cold plunge area needed to be sunken into the ground rather than raised on platforms.

A Noguchi pendant light in the entryway to Othership Flatiron. Photo by Ian Patterson

An Othership guide demonstrating towel waving. Photo by Ian Patterson

Many of the tradespeople and equipment suppliers also changed. On the other hand, major millwork was done by the same fabricator that had worked on the Yorkville location (Canara Woodworking), including a reception desk and stadium seating built in Toronto and shipped in for easier oversight.

A donut-shaped light fixture by Anony. Photo by Ian Patterson

Patchwork tapestries by Studio La Beauté. Photo by Ian Patterson

McQuaid Mitchell continued to work with Toronto collaborators like Anony, Studio La Beauté and Charlotte Blake. For its part, Anony adapted its signature circular light fixture into a ring shape that wraps around the Social Commons fireplace.

The post Othership Reaches a Spiritual High with Spa Designs by Futurestudio appeared first on Azure Magazine.