Design Currents: Nature or Nurture

Nature-inspired designs take some surprising twists and turns in the hands of Brooklyn creatives.

design trends - collage of design images

Clockwise from left: Photo by Sarah Elliott; photo by Oscar Romero; photo courtesy of Chiaozza; photo by Janna Tew for Salter House

by Cate Corcoran

07/17/2024 0

Going all natural doesn’t always mean doing what’s expected. Brooklyn creatives interpret nature in myriad forms by turns serene, playful, dark, and wild.

A soothing Brooklyn parlor designed by Studio Nune with natural materials and colors includes a gathered silk hanging light by Ruemmler and daybed with attached arm by Nathalie Deboel.

Bouquet paintings by the Brooklyn-based artist duo Chiaozza (Terri Chiao and Adam Frezza) inspired by the natural world are “whimsically otherworldly” and allow us to “imagine other worlds without forgetting our own,” according to gallery Hashimoto Contemporary.

The simple and sustainable Ply Occasional Table by Williamsburg-based furniture maker and set designer Ciara Jade Dockery comprises three pieces of formaldehyde-free, soy-bonded plywood that fit together without any hardware and stow flat.

Gowanus is backdrop and muse to poems by preservationist Brad Vogel about eight years of living and loving in the sometimes spooky section along the polluted canal; “Find Me in the Feral Pockets” benefits the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club and the Lenape Center.

Available from Brooklyn Heights’ Salter House, a unique set of bookends handmade of acrylic paint, wood, and brass by Los Angeles artist Skylar Hughes take the changing seasons as their subject.