Why Furniture Matters When Designing Your Home

Interior design is exciting because it shows off one’s style and gives you a canvas to display how you want to express yourself.  Each design decision can’t be made lightly because it could be like a bad domino effect waiting to happen. Choosing the right furniture can either make or break the interior layout of your home.  Especially if you live in a city like New York where space is a challenge, you don’t want to choose furniture that is too bulky, boring and adds no value. The furniture’s size, dimension, and design are all factors that must be cohesive and complimentary to each other.

Choosing The Right Furniture Pieces

Furniture helps set the stage for creating a welcoming and relaxed environment for your guests. It is important to maximize the functionality of your space and pick that perfect couch, cabinet, table etc., to make your rooms come to life.

 West End Apartment designed by JMA

Importance of Dual-Use Furniture

JMA recently did an interior renovation for a West End apartment located in the Upper West Side. We wanted to create signature-customized pieces that worked for specific rooms. In the foyer, we sought to make a cabinet storage piece perfect for books, shoes, and other items. Dual-use furniture is beneficial because it adds function and a unique special touch to your apartment. The bookcase was custom-made to have sections that were cut various sizes and heights to stir interest and make the room look taller.

Storage cabinet designed by JMA

Foyer at the West End Apartment

Another furniture piece JMA had fun creating was a modern white cabinet at the 5^th street townhouse project. The built-in white cabinet is not bulky, blends in with the rest of the room, and creates an illusion of higher ceilings. The cabinet is a focal point in the family room because it displays personal memorabilia and an example of our client’s personality. At the base of the cabinet, we wanted it have a unique geometric style door and a storage space to provide privacy.  

Modern Cabinet designed by JMA 

Creating Unexpected Furniture Arrangements

I always believe that when you go into someone’s home the furniture helps narrate the design story and creates a vibe. In the living room at the West End Apartment, the style we were aiming for is a modern streamlined look with a “Mad Men” feel to it.

The standout furniture pieces we created were two dark colored wood cabinets. They are both high-quality pieces and give the apartment a cool contemporary flair. The longer furniture piece makes the room look wide, spacious, and gives it a twist. The dark color compliments the light colored herringbone floors and highlights the white trim moldings. The diffused accent lighting in the apartment creates a warm ambiance over the intricate details of the apartment and the furniture.

Dark wood cabinets designed by JMA

Sometimes when you shop at stores, you see a plenty of items that look too “cookie-cutter.” These pieces are mainly all about the function and have little to no unique design style to it. JMA is great at combining function, beauty, and comfort all into one package. When decorating your home it’s okay to splurge on customized items because it allows the room to reach its full potential. I believe designing is all about trusting your instincts and having fun with customizing or buying furniture pieces to create the vibe you want. Furniture is just one of the design factors that helps draw your guests in and defines the space, so make sure you are choosing good ones.

Citations

• Fusaro, Kim “10 Tricks to Make Your Home Look Bigger”. Women’s Day. Hearst. Nov. 21, 2011 Web.
• Margolies, Jane “12 Decorating Do’s and Don'ts From Top Designers” House Beautiful. Hearst.  Web. Feb 19, 2014

Architecture as an Art Form

Architecture is a highly complex beautiful work of art. The essence of art is expressing oneself and sparking a conversation with the viewer. For instance, I love walking around the city, and coming across a building that forces me to question “How does that building stand up and not tip over?” Architectural forms genuinely are meant to benefit society and not hinder it. Some people have a romantic fiction of the term art defining it, as “art is just art”. However, I believe that all art has a function; at the very least, it has a purpose to convey a unique message.

Calatrava’s Oculus at the World Trade Center

When Jorge Mastropietro designs, he is always thinking about how each person is going to be living in that space, and how will he create a structure that responds to the needs of its users. Architects have a certain responsibility to construct buildings that are functional and have a meaningful place for people to dwell.  Architecture is truly an art form; imagine visiting two different houses, one house built from a generic blueprint that satisfies the fundamental requirements of a house. Moreover, this house would just be to provide shelter. Then, compare it to a house like Jorge’s XS House, a house designed with purpose and pleases the senses. For instance, Jorge designed a unique water feature in the XS House that is both a pleasing sound and sight.  It gives the home a kinetic, natural energy.  This type of architecture will always be far more engaging as a habitat for the owner and to the passer-by who views it. The XS House, like all of Jorge’s projects, is a great representation of good architecture that also fulfills the artistic desire.

XS House designed by JMA

Architects have an ultimate mission of conveying emotion through space and form, by the means of a combination of various parameters such as light, materials, proportions, etc. The XS House is beautiful construction made with high quality materials. The house is based off the relationship with the inside and outside space. The interior is the refuge of the house. The outside is what binds us to nature and to society. The inside plays with the lights and shadows, with walls that are variously open and closed, ranging from transparent to solid. The result of this project is a beautiful and simplistic modern style home.

Architecture is the recurrent form of art in our lives; life simply would not be the same without it. For instance, architecture without art is merely construction and this alone does not afford any value to the soul.  Jorge believes that architecture satisfies the poetic needs of human beings. Architecture is a unique type of art.  It takes creativity and vision for architects to design buildings just as it does to write a novel, sculpt, or how a painter would paint on a canvas.