Framing the Landscape: SONO by Atelier Carle

Set in the landscape of Wentworth-Nord, Quebec, SONO is a secondary residence by Montreal-based Atelier Carle, oriented toward northern light and framing a sweeping panorama across the site. Three long concrete walls, varying in height and scaled to the landscape, form the approach to the building — anchoring it in time and grounding it within the site. A narrow gap between the walls reveals the entrance. Beyond this threshold, the interior tells a different story. Here, a timber structure and flexible layout signal a home designed to adapt and evolve over a much longer horizon than most.

The brief was a unique one: the clients, two friends wishing to share the same secondary residence, without being obliged to "live together" in every sense. Atelier Carle responded with an architectural sequence that meanders — gradually revealing the whole of the home, room by room, while maintaining a quiet sense of visual privacy and acoustic separation. True to the spirit of the times, it's the kitchen that opens most completely to the landscape, becoming the natural gathering point — for the couple, for guests, and metaphorically, for the surrounding environment itself.

What's interesting about SONO is that its design isn't rooted in regional architectural style or identity. Instead, the practice has focused on something more phenomenological — the connection between how the body perceives landscape in real time, and how architecture can "frame" that experience as it shifts across the day. The spaces unfold in terraces that follow the natural slope of the site, each room offering a different vantage point, with light constantly changing the feel of the space. It's this sensitivity, rather than a fixed formula, that defines Atelier Carle's approach, resulting in an architectural language that responds to its surroundings rather than imposing on them.

Just as compelling as the design is the process behind it. SONO was built through close collaboration between the architects, builders, and trades involved — a relationship the firm sees as essential, and one that a traditional fixed-price contract model often struggles to support. For a project of this depth, decision-making couldn't be linear or architect-led alone; it required patience, trust, and enthusiasm from everyone involved, including the clients themselves.

That collaborative spirit extended to the materials too. Working closely with a local carpenter, the team sourced a significant quantity of hemlock from a site adjacent to the project — used throughout the exposed timber structure, and on the north façade for the columns, fascias, and cladding. It's a fitting material choice: locally sourced and ecologically considered, hemlock aligns naturally with the project's broader values. The house itself sits directly on existing bedrock, with no blasting or major excavation required — a final, quiet gesture toward leaving the site as undisturbed as possible.

Credits

Atelier Carle Team: Alain Carle, Isaniel Lévesque, Baptiste Balbrick, James Jabbour, Starr Wang, Sarah Mei Mousseau

General contractor: Metric Construction Inc.

Structural engineer: VCMa Engineering consultants

Geotechnical engineer: Ingénat Engineering consultants

Reclaimed wood: Taylor Lukian

Windows: Shalwin

Millwork: Xavier Collection

Photography by Félix Michaud

VIEW STORY

Artek Celebrates 90th Anniversary by Reintroducing Gems from the Archive

As part of Artek’s 90th anniversary in 2025, the iconic brand is reintroducing a selection of designs to honour its co-founders Aino and Alvar Aalto. These beloved pieces from the archive — both festive form and function — have been out of production for decades and are now returning to the Artek collection as limited anniversary editions or standard products.

Gems from the Archive includes Screen 100 in a wider range of heights to accommodate modern living, the return of Cabinet 250 to Artek’s standard collection, and two special limited editions of Stool X602 featuring the “X-leg”— one of Alvar Aalto’s most significant later innovations.

Screen 100 is the most architectural of Alvar Aalto’s designs — a room divider with a soft, undulating form inspired by the organic wave motif seen in many Aalto buildings. Now available in four heights — 100, 130, 150, and 180 cm — Screen 100 meets the needs of contemporary interiors, bringing both structure and sculptural elegance to a variety of spaces.

Beyond dividing rooms, Screen 100 can shield or conceal areas, create an inviting backdrop for seating, serve as an informal coat stand, or even provide an elegant, easy-to-install background for video calls — reflecting the evolving needs of the home.

Light and well-proportioned, the screen can be rolled up for storage and shaped to suit the space. It is crafted from Finnish pinewood, rather than the birchwood typically associated with Aalto furniture. Pine is a soft wood that grows throughout Finland, with a bold character that deepens into a rich patina as it ages gracefully.

Often referred to as the “cocktail cabinet,” Cabinet 250 rejoins the standard Artek collection following the success of a limited edition from the Artek + Moomin collection earlier in 2025. Simple in form and celebratory in function, its understated beauty makes it a stand-alone centrepiece for living and dining spaces, perfect for housing special tableware and refreshments.

While Cabinet 250 is credited to Alvar Aalto because of its L-leg, archival documents reveal that Aino Aalto first attached a cabinet body to this design. Its compact size and well-proportioned interior make it a practical storage unit for everyday items such as bed linen and clothing, reflecting Aino’s belief that no object or function is undeserving of aesthetic beauty.

Two special limited editions of Stool X602 celebrate ninety years of Artek, highlighting one of Alvar Aalto’s most refined innovations: the fan-shaped “X-leg.” First presented at the 1954 Konstruktiv Form exhibition at Stockholm’s Nordiska Kompaniet, the X-leg is a sculptural evolution of Aalto’s iconic L-leg. The hexagonal seat features a “curly birch” veneer applied with marquetry—a rare Finnish silver birch with wavy, irregular rings that create a fiery, richly textured pattern.

The stool is offered in two models: one fully honey-stained, the other with a honey-stained seat and natural lacquered legs, emphasizing the X-leg’s sculptural form. Each model is limited to ninety individually numbered pieces, making them unique collector’s items.

All pieces are crafted in Finland and will be available from 15 October 2025.

Photography by Joachim Wichmann, © Artek

VIEW STORY

Fritz Hansen Presents the After Series by Michael Anastassiades

Fritz Hansen has unveiled After, a new chair and table series by acclaimed designer Michael Anastassiades. Defined by geometric clarity, subtle gestures, and immaculate execution, the collection bridges the Danish brand’s 153-year heritage with a modern design language.

Named After, as a reference to the design approach, the series introduces a more modern design language to the Fritz Hansen collection, yet with a sense of continuity from its heritage lineage. The collaboration marks Anastassiades’ first with Fritz Hansen, though the London-based Cypriot's long-standing admiration for Danish design is central to the series. Drawing on the brand’s archives and ethos of collective contribution, he distilled traditional archetypes into his own pared-down expression.

The result is a chair that clearly bears Anastassiades’ signature while echoing the legacy of Danish masters such as Kaare Klint and Poul Kjærholm. The round dining table echoes the clarity and play on geometry in a sturdier form. Their honesty, purity and materiality, a testament to the technical prowess and craftsmanship of Fritz Hansen. “My approach is based around the idea of collective contribution, building on the Danish design heritage and bringing my own layer of simplification and thinking,” Anastassiades explains. “There is a lot of clarity in shapes and forms and why they need to be there, they are very considered and geometric, primal in a way.”

The After chair is conceived as a precise interplay of stacked elements: a curved backrest resting on square legs, which hold a gently scooped plywood seat. The joins are matched to the millimetre, an exactitude achieved through a traditional cabinetmaking technique used for the backrest, in which a piece of wood is sliced into sheets, glued back together in identical sequence and pressed into a curved shape. “The joinery has to be so good, so stable, and there needs to be a level of comfort,” Anastassiades says. “The curved backrest has to be so precise to the millimetre… All these details matter. They are really subtle gestures that make the chair.”

This sense of stacked layers and contrasting geometry is repeated in the After dining table. The round tabletop appears to float on cross-shaped legs, their chunky rounded edges aligning them to and distinguishing them from the chair. Two distinct finishes offer contrasting characters: Ash with a hard wax oil that highlights the natural elegance of the grain, and Burgundy lazur, a rich hue reminiscent of darker wood tones or the patina of aged brass that Anastassiades uses in his lighting designs. A burgundy version with a Rosso Levanto marble top pushes the series into another realm, contrasting the monumental materiality of the wine-red stone with the tactility of the wooden legs. Thin cushions, in nature or burgundy Pure leather, further refine comfort.

Anastassiades describes the process with Fritz Hansen — which involves workshops with the brand’s creative director and furniture makers to develop the final product — as slow, methodical and collaborative. “Their knowledge is so fundamental in the process. It is a very different approach than any of the other brands I have worked with,” he says. “A part of the aesthetic is how you work with the limitations of the wood and find innovative ways of solving the problem that are not going to compromise the design. I’m very happy with the result; the execution, the quality and the detail are very good. It is such a simple design but it is immaculately manufactured."

For Fritz Hansen’s Creative Director Els Van Hoorebeeck, the After series encapsulates the brand’s philosophy of design being an evolution, not revolution. “In ash you get Fritz Hansen the manufacturer – the details, the immaculate delivery, the comfort maximised for the chair without losing the aesthetic purity. Whereas the burgundy and marble table feels as if it has landed exactly where the brand is at from a design perspective.”

Van Hoorebeeck adds: “The After series emphasises where we come from, how we work with our heritage, and at the same time shows a preview of what is ahead. It is a really nice link between the past, present and the future.”

The After series launches worldwide on 4 September, 2025, and will be available in Australia and New Zealand through Cult.

Images courtesy of Fritz Hansen

VIEW STORY

Nordiska Kök Reimagines the Heart of a Parisian Home with Understated Elegance

Set within a Belle Époque home in Le Vésinet, just outside Paris, this bespoke kitchen by Nordiska Kök is part of a thoughtful extension and renovation led by Wukang Architectes in collaboration with interior designer Sara Mengesha, of Meio Interiors. Designed to feel like a natural continuation of the home’s neoclassical architecture, the kitchen brings together Nordic restraint and Parisian elegance through warm oak cabinetry, soft curved forms, and a serene, light-filled palette.

Built in 1870, the neoclassical residence is rich with historic detail—decorative cornices, parquet floors, and grand French doors that flood the home with light. When Sara and her family moved in, the kitchen sat within a newer extension—clean-lined but out of step with the original house. “The old kitchen felt disconnected—more like an add-on than a continuation,” she explains. The vision was to create something that felt more integrated, both in materiality and mood.

Crafted in Nordiska Kök’s workshop just outside Gothenburg, Sweden, the new kitchen offers a tailored solution—one that honours the home’s architectural language while introducing a gentle contemporary rhythm. Shaker cabinetry in warm dark oak brings a grounding richness, while soft arches—inspired by the home’s original fireplace—introduce a graceful, sculptural quality to the space.

Light hues and natural materials define the palette, allowing the kitchen to feel calm and cohesive within the wider home. Curved open shelving, marble worktops, and Corston knobs in a warm, brushed finish give the design both presence and polish. Despite its pared-back look, the kitchen is full of thoughtful details—from the beautifully concealed tea and coffee station tucked behind pocket doors, to the island bench that invites friends and family to gather.

As with all Nordiska Kök kitchens, form and function go hand in hand. The layout flows effortlessly from one zone to the next, creating a sense of rhythm and ease that suits the open-plan design. Framed by tall French windows that overlook the garden, the space is bathed in natural light, enhancing the warmth of the oak cabinetry and drawing out the subtle texture of the Dover White Namibia marble.

Credits

Kitchen: Nordiska Kök

Interior design: Meio Interiors

Architecture: Wukang Architectes

Photography: Andrea Papini

VIEW STORY