The Monocle Minute
On Design

This week, we luxuriate in the view from a clifftop weekend house near Seoul, find tranquillity at Ace Hotel’s first Canadian outpost (pictured) and fantasise about an electric Honda CB50 bike, before taking a load off on a new edition of Acerbis’s playfully architectural Med chair. But first, Nolan Giles on the gaudy horrors of TV sports-show sets.

Designed by Seoul-based firm Tru Architects, Bugok Friday is a one-storey weekend house inspired by the country’s jeongja pavilions, which were built at scenic viewpoints. Sitting on a cliff on the outskirts of South Korea’s capital, the house has been designed to make the most of the views to Bukhansan mountain. A simple, linear structure, the building appears to be influenced by the country’s traditional hanok houses – a resemblance that its chief architect, Cho Sungik, says isn’t intentional.

“Hearing that one of my buildings resembles a hanok is high praise,” says Cho. “But I didn’t make design decisions with that likeness as a priority.” He says that a second floor wasn’t added because it would have created a longer shadow in the yard, not because the hanok is one-storey. And while the corrugated steel used for the roof resembles a hanok’s stone tiles, it’s also a material that’s affordable, widely available and easy to instal, says Cho.

These design decisions – as well as long windows that frame the view and a semi-enclosed terrace – create a home that puts the surrounding natural environment front and centre. “We wanted the owners to see all the things that we don’t take the time to look at [in our daily lives],” says Cho. It’s an approach that we would welcome in any weekend home.
trugroup.co.kr

Ace Hotel’s first outing in Canada has just opened in Toronto. The 123-key project, designed by the city’s own Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, stands in the historic Fashion District, a former manufacturing hub that has become a thriving artistic neighbourhood. While the hotel is a new build, the structure is imbued with a strong sense of place, fitting in seamlessly among the buildings that surround it. Its red-brick façade references the slabs pressed by the nearby Don Valley Brick Works, which are used in countless buildings throughout the city. Guests are greeted upon entry by “Horizon Line”, a large, site-specific art installation that represents Lake Ontario’s glittering water.

Complementing Shim-Sutcliffe’s work is that of Atelier Ace, the hotel’s in-house architecture and design team. The atelier is responsible for the hotel’s interiors and custom furniture, which take their cue from Toronto’s legacy of manufacturing and textiles, as well as Ontario’s verdant forests and sinuous rivers. Guest rooms feature Douglas fir panelling, copper accents and deep-set window benches. The result is a hotel that offers respite from the capital’s hustle and bustle in spaces that still feel firmly rooted in the city.
acehotel.com

Federica Biasi’s star is on the rise. The Italian creative director and consultant, who graduated with honours from the Istituto Europeo di Design in 2011, won young designer of the year at the 2021 Edida International Design Awards. Today she runs her own namesake practice in the Lombard capital, where her clients and collaborators include the likes of Nespresso, Mingardo and furniture brand Lema. To find out more about her approach to work and the connection between Italian and Nordic design, we caught up with Biasi for Monocle On Design on Monocle 24.

Despite your Italian roots, your work would feel quite at home in the Nordic countries, thanks to its clean lines and pared-back material selections. Was this a deliberate choice or something that evolved naturally?
I think of myself as European, both as a person and as a designer. I was born in Italy but when I started working I was living in Amsterdam. While I was there, I was researching trends and going to design fairs in northern Europe to help my clients understand the influences and developments in the design industry in that part of the world. So a lot of my early inspiration came from the Nordics rather than from Italy. When I returned home my approach was probably more northern European as a result. I probably started to merge these influences.

Despite working as a trend forecaster early in your career, your work feels timeless. How have you avoided the temptation to create pieces that will only appeal to current tastes?
I believe in creating work that lasts. I don’t want to do anything based on a trend but I still have to convince the companies that I work for that what I want to design will sell this year. As a result, sometimes I play with materials or colours but the shapes that I work with are always timeless.

Are there any materials that transcend trends?
Yes and no. Metal, for example, almost always ages well but some finishes don’t. Think about brass in the past 10 years: we have seen so much of it, in all sorts of projects, that we don’t want to see it any more. While metal might be a timeless material, the fact that brass became trendy has made it lose that timelessness.

For more from Biasi, tune in to ‘Monocle On Design’.

Ride-sharing mopeds, which can be rented via an app after a quick verification of your driver’s licence, are now common in many large cities. These electric vehicles offer a practical way to zip around town but their growing popularity raises an important question for bike-makers: why would a city dweller bother buying a moped if there’s one available on every street corner? To entice new customers, we suggest that manufacturers introduce electric versions of their best-loved vintage models.

Take, for example, the Honda CB50 from the 1970s. This compact street motorcycle almost seems designed to run on a battery: it is about the same size as a bicycle, weighs just 74kg and is perfect for short urban adventures. And in terms of character, this Japanese beauty beats any app-based service by a mile. Offered the choice between a generic ride-share and an electrified CB50, we know which we’d jump on.

Completed in 1902, New York’s Flatiron Building remains a favourite of many architecture buffs, thanks to its striking triangular form. In 1983 it inspired Giotto Stoppino and Lodovico Acerbis, founder of his namesake furniture company, to design the Med chair. With its front legs sitting significantly wider than those at the rear, its proportions playfully allude to the Manhattan skyscraper. The chair has now been reimagined by Acerbis’s current creative directors, Francesco Meda and David Lopez Quincoces.

Inspired by the original concept drawings of the Med, which were discovered in the brand’s archives, the duo have made the new iteration available in solid, dark-stained walnut or black-stained ash, with a seat and back upholstered in either fabric or leather. It’s a smart take on the classic design and we expect it to be a popular choice among the design-savvy for years to come – much like the building it draws inspiration from.
acerbisdesign.com

Nobody understands America’s viewing habits quite like Tatari. The San Francisco-based data and analytics company studies advertising across television and streaming platforms to help brands ensure that their ads are reaching the right eyes. But what does the future have in store for this industry? That’s what Tatari will be exploring at Forward, a conference that it is organising in New York.

To publicise it, the company called in the services of digital design studio A Line, which named the event and created its visual identity. The result is a “design system” that uses pixelated, F-shaped graphics, which can be translated onto an array of colourful, geometric posters and slick signage. “The shape of the letter F forms the basis of a grid,” says James Trump, A Line’s co-founder and creative director. “This was an exciting realisation, as it meant that the F logo that we designed could be used at a range of scales on our layouts. It can be supersized to feel really bold or used more quietly, with the square grid guiding copy and iconography.” Fans of the work will be able to pick up clothing and water bottles featuring an appropriately scaled logo mark when the event kicks off in September.
aline.studio;forwardbytatari.com