September 2019
Studio
"Think Carefully About the Space," says Michael Gabellini on creating a true conversation space in your home
“The best conversation areas work for the people sitting in them," said Gabellini. "They should make you feel at home and at ease whether you are with company or not.
“In terms of the layout, looser asymmetry works for a more casual space and creates a sense of blended eclecticism. More formal, classic layouts work best for sophisticated entertaining. This allows for comfortable sociability and character.
If your intent is to create conversation, make sure everyone can arrange and rearrange their own comfort zone and sitting position. It’s very hard to have a conversation when everyone is leaning and lost in depths of deep upholstery, so opt for sofas that lets you sit upright enough to feel comfortable without making you feel self-conscious.”
August 2019
Publication
Be Original: 5 Questions with Michael Gabellini
The best advice you’ve ever gotten:
“You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well, you just might find you get what you need.” (Mick Jagger, 1969)
Your place to get creative:
I get the most creative inspiration in our studio in New York City. Our firm’s location is like a “cockpit” of design that allows us to develop projects all over the world with a growing team of international staff that sends creative ripples outward in new directions.
Favorite iconic original design:
The humble paperclip, invented in the 1870s, and the Post-It note, invented a century later, show how simple and universal design can make an object absolutely indispensable. Amazingly, neither product has changed much since they were designed all those years ago. Improvements have been made, but the original concept remains.
Favorite new original design:
James Turrell’s massive land art project, The Roden Crater. He is transforming a 400,000-year-old, 3-mile-wide crater in Arizona into a colossal, naked-eye observatory. It’s an unbelievable life’s work—a masterpiece of original creation.
What’s your design mantra:
Keep it simple
and
grow yourself small.