I’m not afraid to admit that this stretch of winter, at least for me, is a time to grin and bear it. A few snowstorms have offered moments of excitement, but it’s during these otherwise chilly, grey months that I’m thankful my inbox is full of beautiful spaces and clever designs to distract me.
There wasn’t an overwhelming number of headline-grabbing launches last month, but the news on my radar all seems to loosely revolve around the ground beneath our feet — whether it’s the actual floor of a decorator show house, a gallery offering a new platform for South Asian design, or an e-commerce brand opening a showroom floor for the very first time. Here are a few that caught my eye for my monthly Design Diary.
Opening Night: House of Santal
It’s hard not to perk up when you hear the phrase ‘first of its kind’ in our world, and it’s even more meaningful when it represents positive change. The opening of House of Santal, a new gallery devoted to contemporary and collectible South Asian craft, feels right on the money: it’s a voice largely missing from NYC’s gallery scene.
Founded by designer Raksha Sanikam, the 8,000-square-foot gallery is tucked on the seventh floor of a Midtown office building along Rockefeller Center. The inaugural exhibition brings Sanikam's own background to the fold, exploring Indian design (future collections will platform neighboring countries) through furniture and objects rooted in centuries-old crafts and techniques, all presented through a contemporary lens. On view are pieces large and small, like a teak console by Vipin Joe with brass fronts depicting a South Indian tale, or a coat stand by Rebecca Ruben featuring a traditionally hammered metal base. It’s worth trekking to Midtown — or at least clicking through the broader digital collection, if Midtown isn't your cup of tea.
Room crush: Kips Bay
Even if the designs end up a little too wild for real life, it’s always a journey to tour the many variations of decorator show houses. Free to experiment, designers really take risks — the ideas don’t always land perfectly, but that’s part of what makes these show houses fun (bold is better than boring).
One space that caught my eye at this year’s Ninth Annual Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach comes from Florida’s Amy Young Designs, where a kitchen (which she's nicknamed The Breakfast Club — After Hours) was imagined for a dream client who loves to entertain. Young leans into boutique-hotel vibes, layering the room with crafty details, but the element that excited me most is the galley kitchen’s mosaic floor. Called Artifact, it's a collaboration between New York-based interior arcitect Alison Rose and Artistic Tile, and it really ups the playful mood. As if a jewel box tipped over and spilled across the floor, the confetti-like pattern scatters colorful shapes within a field of tiny tesserae mosaics. A mosaic floor in your kitchen? It’s an unusual idea — but in a room like this, it’s definitely a crowd pleaser.
Collab Watch: Studio Mellone x Nordic Knots
One collaboration that's currently on my mood board comes from New York’s Studio Mellone, which worked with Nordic Knots on a four-piece collection. André Mellone, the Brazilian-born designer, tapped all sorts of influences — South American modernism, Art Deco, Bauhaus — in this small series of graphic constructions rendered in warm, earthy colors.
Like many designers, Mellone says rugs are often the first piece of the puzzle when putting together a room, and his designs strike a lovely balance between that “supporting role” and “star power” energy. My favorite of the batch is the Normandie design, which has enough pattern and play that you hardly need to do much else in a space. Imagine that — a floorcovering that stands all on its own.
Exhibit A: Negative Sculpture at the Gagosian
Speaking of bold lines, an installation called Negative Sculpture at the Gagosian on West 21st Street is currently — and deservedly — dominating my Instagram feed. Entitled Convoluted Line A and Convoluted Line B, the pair of monumental sculptures arrive by way of land artist Michael Heizer. We tend to think of sculptures that rise in space, something you might place on a floor. But Heizer’s latest appears to cut into the ground itself.
In reality, you’re entering a gallery with a raised concrete floor carved by steel-lined trenches that wind almost like scribbles across the open space. It’s a nod to Heizer’s desert works from the 1960s, where the artist famously carved monumental forms into the Nevada landscape (it took over 50 years to realize). Smaller in scale, the installations at Gagosian are still massive, spanning nearly 90 feet.
On My Radar: Castlery
I recently attended a demonstration by a furniture brand in which a glass of red wine was poured onto a very white sofa upholstered in performance fabric. According to plan, the wine really did roll off the sofa without a trace. That brand was Castlery, the Singapore-founded company that most of us in the U.S. experience solely through the internet — a brand that, like the wine demonstration, has been hard to test without a physical storefront. But as is the trend with fellow online-native brands, Castlery has just announced it will open its first U.S. flagship showroom in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.
For those who’ve eyed the brand but wanted to experience it in real life, the showroom will open in May with 3,000 square feet of space. The final look is still taking shape (expect a blend of Eastern and Western influences, and a series of curated compact 'rooms' designed around city living), but it’s another sign that physical spaces still hold value in our all-digital universe. Sometimes, you just need to sit on an actual sofa before you buy it.
