SNUG & STYLISH
coziness?” asks Andres Modak, Snowe’s co-founder. “Sometimes you want to think beyond safety to complexity, crispness, coolness. . . . Simplicity leaves room for the interesting stuff.”
In the showroom, he says, the “pieces ground the soothing, neutral, monochrome tones with a pop of soft pattern and texture.” Examples include throw blankets made in Italy from cashmere and merino wool, as well as the Sail Pouf by GAN, a triangular beanbag chair.
“It’s a favorite among the team for taking break-out meetings,” Modak adds. “They’re wonderfully comfortable and feel fun and accessible.”
Star architect Jean Nouvel’s sharply drawn elegance can create a sense of warmth as well. The goal for Monad Terrace, his first project in Miami — which will feature a honeycomb exterior of glassencased metal and hard interior materials like black Zeus and Calacatta gold marble — is to direct residents’ attention to the views over Biscayne Bay. Rather than cocooning, Nouvel’s concept embraces the outside world (59 units starting at $2 million; MonadTerrace.Miami).
“This symbiosis of geometry and light is the key point,” says Nouvel, who expects the first residents to move in next year. “It’s like the light in the eye: When you see it, you know there’s life.”
And the reflections that the light, water and building create together, he adds, “set the atmosphere for maybe a dinner with friends or time out on the terrace. . . . You are completely in relationship with the beauty of the site.”
Too much coziness, these and other design experts say, can actually make your home less appealing.
“This hygge trend is good for Instagram, but once you actually live in the space, it’s different,” says Virginia Valentini, who runs Spazio Primario with husband Francesco Breganze ( SpazioPri
mario.com). “The dripping candles on the coffee table might look great in a photo shoot, but when you actually need the table, it’s a mess.” Instead, Valentini says, clean rooms provide tranquility by freeing their inhabitants from the heaviness that comes from too many tchotchkes. One way Spazio Primario creates warmth is through layering: leather, textiles, oilrubbed wood and dark paint colors all add depth.
Still other aesthetes agree smart design needn’t sacrifice style for serenity. “Comfortable spaces don’t have to feel homespun,” affirms Johanna Uurasjarvi, West Elm’s creative director ( WestElm.com). “We’re really trying to inject optimism in our design, making uplifting interiors that are modern and full of light.”
Raised in Finland, Uurasjarvi knows her way around hygge. She has just introduced a new line that includes boldly colored plates and textiles, and furniture edged in marble and bronze. West Elm’s new palette is cheerier all around, but rendered in materials and silhouettes that skew more sleek than soothing.
A subdued quality especially inspires architect Thomas Hickey, whose Manhattan firm GRADE is popular with financiers and entertainers like Oprah Winfrey ( GRADENewYork.com).
“Our work is restrained and understated, so it makes the cacophony of everyday life disappear,” says Hickey.
Hickey and his firm design their own furniture and finishes, and GRADE’s homes feature lots of rift-cut wideplank oak and walnut, and metal finishes like polished nickel and blackened alloys.
“We’re creating opportunities for comfort, but it doesn’t have to look like a big teddy bear,” Hickey says. “Our clients tend to be 35to 50-year-olds who don’t want to go from bachelor pad to Martha Stewart. They want to raise a young family without feeling like they’ve thrown in the towel and lost all sense of style.”
For New Yorkers seeking the antithesis of hygge, Chelsea’s Chamber gallery has choices bordering on the apocalyptic (515 W. 23rd St., 212-206-0236, ChamberNYC.
com). To wit: Carl Emil Jacobsen’s fiber concrete, steel and acrylic Powder Table, pigmented with crushed bricks and stones, and Ferreol Babin’s Coal Soul lamp, which the designer
calls “matte, dark and rough.”
“Our objects have something to say,” says Chamber founder Juan Garcia Mosqueda. “The last thing they consider is whether something’s comfortable.”
Carpenters Workshop Gallery in New York also eschews design as consolation (693 Fifth Ave., 212-8290610, CarpentersWorkshop
Gallery.com). An exhibit on through March 4 includes Mathieu Lehanneur’s stark Spring Lamp, where naked LED tubes sit atop luxe materials like onyx and handblown stretched glass.
“It’s a question of confrontation,” says Cedric Morisset, global director of the gallery, which also has outposts in London and Paris. “Some artists . . . want to create a violent or interactive impact. It’s not about giving comfort.”