Archinect - Features

A Conversation with Studio8, a Mostly-European Staffed Small Studio in Shanghai

2018-07-16T13:45:00-04:00

Based in Shanghai, Studio8 is a multidisciplinary studio designing everything from the visual identity and branding, to the furniture and architecture for restaurants, hotels, stores, and residences. Founded only three years ago, the firm is comprised of an international team of young creatives. For this week's Small Studio Snapshot, we talked with co-founder Shirley Dong about designing spaces; their magnificent, recently completed, Anadu resort; and working together as a diverse team from all over the world.

Cutting a Rug: Making the Abstract Tangible With Urban Fabric + Elena Manferdini's "Building Portraits" area rugs

2017-02-10T12:13:00-05:00

After the success of Four O Nine’s “Urban Fabric” rugs, the firm has partnered with designer Elena Manferdini to create “Building Portraits,” a series of limited-edition area rugs that incorporate riffs on Miesian patterns and city grids with more abstract impressions of urbanity. The result, as unveiled in an opening in L.A.’s Chinatown on January 27th, is a mesmerizing blend of texture and architectural imagination.

UpStarts: Four O Nine architecture and design

2015-01-12T09:30:00-05:00

In a country infamous for its one time zone and countless architectural knock-offs, Four O Nine's success is startling and original.

UpStarts is a series of features on the foundations of contemporary practice. It will have a global reach in which practices from Europe, North America, Asia, and beyond will be asked to address the work behind getting the work, and the effect of cultural contexts. The focus will be on how a practice is initiated and maintained. In many ways, the critical years of a fledgling design partnership is within the initial five years, after the haze and daze of getting it off the ground. UpStarts surveys the first years of practice as a tool for tracking the tactics of the rapidly evolving methods for sustaining a practice.