Fall Harvest

Cindy Allen -- Interior Design, 11/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

We didn't have any problem spotting the best apples in this season's bumper crop of small, young, fast studios—they had already been snatched up by some pretty impressive clients. Jean Paul Gaultier, for one, could have hired anybody on earth to renovate his future fashion atelier, a beaux arts Paris socialist club. Instead, he went with a firm so new it didn't even exist yet: Alain Moatti and Henri Rivière had been working independently before catching Gaultier's eye with a CD-ROM full of surreal fantasy sketches. In contrast with Moatti and Rivière, Jonathan Adler is a veritable veteran of design. He only recently moved from ceramics to interiors, though, and he'd never completed a hospitality project before being hired for Le Parker Meridien Palm Springs in California. His honeymoon voyage takes us through a flamboyant landscape of Vistosi chandeliers, Moroccan bridal shawls, and—of course—geometric-patterned table lamps. Then, just because we always like to upset the apple cart, we went from small to XXL with Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum. In this issue's special section, tucked right in the front of the magazine, you'll find a report highlighting the kind of office, institutional, and health-care projects that embody HOK's supersize dynamism and creativity. •Before winter is upon us, I also want to add a few final words on harvesting. First, watch out for poison ivy. (I got the worst case ever, out picking apples last fall.) Second, a truly bountiful harvest needs sunshine. Let's keep it light in the next few years.