Home and design are the twin themes weaving through the latest edition of Ark Journal.
Volume XII considers the connections between home – a source of comfort, shelter and inspiration – and design, not just the structures and objects but also the immaterial, the atmospheres and sense of belonging that shape our daily lives and our society.
Central elements are the materials, craftsmanship and traditions that are integrated into modern design to instil meaning and authenticity. This volume explores how design influences emotions and behaviour by creating intimate and thoughtful spaces that nurture creativity and contemplation.
Among the homes included are a New York townhouse that preserves a Danish sensibility, and a brutalist concrete house set among trees in Antwerp that tells a noir-ish story. Two apartments in Berlin, both centred around art, reflect very different lives and interventions, while an austere home of shadows and light in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, mirrors the landscape and the city through materials.
For Japanese fashion visionary Jun Takahashi, his studio/home is where he cultivates the concepts of chaos and balance that pervade his runway collections, his art and his new furniture designs.
Other stories include: an interview with Paola Antonelli, the provocative senior curator of architecture and design at MoMA; the future of collectible design; the watercolours of Ylva Carlgren; the vernacular chair; and Case Studies by Pernille Vest.
Ark Journal explores the spaces around us, the objects we put in them and the people who make them. Bridging architecture, design and art, the Journal show them as interplay rather than in silos, and with a sense of enduring Scandinavian values and aesthetics. It celebrates good ideas, honest and inventive design and materials and encourage critical debate. Each issue the magazine visits extraordinary homes around the world that are more than the sum of their parts and that express the personal narratives of the people who live in them, their philosophies and influences. Architecture is placed at the core of Ark Journal, in the broader context of our lives, reflecting its more humanistic side and celebrating tactility and individual dimensions.
Copenhagen-based, Ark Journal is a biannual magazine founded by Editor-in-Chief Mette Barfod and made by an experienced team of designers, stylists, photographers and editors. The 240-page magazine is sold in 25 countries around the world.
