Best of Year: Urban/Suburban House

Deborah Wilk -- Interior Design, 12/1/2010 5:27:00 PM

Firm: Ghislaine Viñas Interior Design
Location: New York

A perfect meeting of minds between a designer and her repeat clients resulted in this home for a family of five. The 8,000-square-foot space is spread over the top four stories of a six-story structure that radically reinvented a crumbling warehouse. Its 1915 facade profile and window placement haven’t changed, but bluestone replaced the original brick, and nothing but the joists remained inside. Once the rebuilding was complete—thanks to an architect at the husband’s real-estate development company, DDG Partners—Ghislaine Viñas went to work with color-saturated finishes and furnishings. In the entry, armchairs dipped in orange paint coordinate with the giant fleurs-de-lis on the wallpaper. The kitchen island is yolk yellow, with the counter custom-tinted to match. For the study, she provided a pendant dome sprouting turquoise feathers. Decor throughout engages in a playful dialogue with artwork, from the stairwell’s Styrofoam tower to the boys’ bedroom’s murals, the work of an artist represented by the wife’s gallery, Mixed Greens.

Merit Winners:


Firm: Studio MK27
Site: São Paulo, Brazil
Standout: Folding teak screens open up both ends of a volume predominantly built with textured raw concrete.


Firm: Isay Weinfeld
Site: São Paulo, Brazil
Standout: Adjoining concrete structures were sited to embrace new patios while respecting old-growth trees.


Firm: Xten Architecture
Site: Encino, California
Standout: A trapezoid that juts out from a 1960’s ranch house, this addition combines steel and concrete with glass coated in a nano-ceramic film to protect artwork inside.