Ahead of the design curve
Arty concepts, flashy prototypes and one-of-a-kind installations return for the 20th anniversary of Toronto’s Interior Design Show
Toronto’s 2018 Interior Design Show (IDS) will see two milestone anniversaries. The most significant is its 20th birthday and the show will celebrate by looking back at changes in the design industry over the past two decades while examining what’s ahead.
It’s also the fifth year that quartz-surface manufacturer Caesarstone has commissioned a concept-driven display to anchor the floor of the IDS, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre until Sunday.
The installation this year is the creation of a group that clearly understands how to make large and thoughtful gestures in a public space: New Yorkbased architectural practice Snarkitecture.
The firm’s designs have ranged from furniture to installations for a wide gamut of clients including streetwear-brand Kith, Calvin Klein, the New Museum, Italian contemporary furniture brand Kartell and Beats by Dr. Dre.
Headed by Alex Mustonen, Daniel Arsham and Ben Porto, Snarkitecture created The Beach, which used scaffolding, panelling, mirrors, a sloped floor and a million recyclable, antimicrobial plastic balls standing in for the ocean in a 2015 commission by the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
In Toronto, Snarkitechture’s IDS installation looks both to the past and present from the view of a home’s kitchen.
It is a room that has evolved from a largely closed, functional space into an increasingly open area meant for working, eating, playing, socializing and entertaining.
Using a basic kitchen element — water — and the now widespread island, which has transformed kitchen design, Snarkitecture used Caesarstone quartz to create four concept islands representing “Water,” “Ice,” “Steam” and “Play.”
Despite their focus not being residential architecture, there’s commonality in that the island is “a social space,” Snarkitecture partner/cofounder Alex Mustonen explained in a recent phone interview.
“We’re interested in the social aspect . . . and moments that are engaging.”
The concept, he adds, is rooted in cooking’s “primal” aspects and in how temperature changes water.
“When water is chilled, it’s ice, which has a connection to food storage. When it is heated it becomes steam for cooking. Eventually, it all makes its way back to the water table,” says Mustonen.
“Ice” island has 37 layers of veined black stone with a central vessel cradling a sphere of ice. The “Water” island has 32 layers of grey stone that form a fountain. “Steam” uses 28 layers of white stone that emanate hazy clouds of vapour.
The fourth exhibits the “element of play,” which Mustonen says runs through their work. For this one, they resurrected the seminal 1970s video game Pong, placing it on a highresolution LED screen in a nine-layer stone island.
The stacked designs allowed Snarkitecture to create masses of sculptural stone forms that evoke waterrelated shapes found in nature — glaciers, rivers and geysers.
They rise from a central pedestal like “a landscape, a topography (that) correlates to the irregular connections of ice and water and steam — and makes a conscious connection that people recognize,” Mustonen says.
For architects, the material is foundational element of any project. Mustonen points to the features of Caesarstone — non-porous, scratchand stain- and heat-resistant (up to 150 C).
Snarkitecture partner Ben Porto, speaking in a video about the project, also appreciates qualities harder to describe. In it, he holds a sample of the stone and says, “the full slabs — really — you have to get up in it to understand the material in its true glory.”