The client of this Lower Manhattan two-bedroom apartment is a young professional and “aspired to spirituality in herself,” says Orlando Diaz-Azcuy. Designed in collaboration with Alison Koch, Diaz-Azcuy had one directive: make it calm and serene.
Diaz-Azcuy’s immediate impulse was to hand-trowel plaster onto walls throughout the apartment. “It creates the feeling of being in fog or a mist in the way it reflects light. It activates the walls with a sense of spirit and life, and you also feel the touch of the human hand,” he says.
The décor’s palette — ivory, cream and sand – transmits purity and openness. Materials such as cerused oak and honed travertine bring an organic quality essential to zen interiors. The client’s abstract art conveys the sense of physical form perpetually morphing, receding into or arising from the greater mystery of being.
The plaster is slightly darker in the bedroom, where Orlando explains, “it’s desirable to have a more seductive coloration. Sleep is the ultimate expression of relaxation. Darker color lets you drop deeper into it.” When shades are closed, he adds, “it feels like you’re in a cloud.”
Notes from Orlando Diaz-Azcuy on creating your own serene space:
An Empty Canvas for the Soul
Keeping things monochromatic and uncluttered is a way of simulating the purity and openness of our essential inner being. As such, it welcomes relaxation that helps us drop into our interiority and stillness. But stark whites can be cold and antiseptic, so choose warm whites and applications like Venetian plaster that give walls dimension.
The Sensuality of Touch
Serenity is a visceral experience that awakens the senses. One way to evoke it is to mix textures—the aforementioned hand-troweled plaster, honed rather than coldly polished stone, warm woods, handmade clay objects, ancient artifacts that have a patina.
Sticking to the Essential
If you think of churches and temples, no matter how ornate they might be, they have a single focus. In Christian churches it is the cross, in Jewish temples it is the Torah ark, the prayer bell and dorje of a Buddhist temple, and so on. Similarly, objects brought into a serene living environment must be thoughtfully selected; each must feel perfect and natural to the space in which it lives.
Patina, Patina, Patina
Bright, shiny things can disturb the serenity of a space. Decorative items with patina, on the other hand, fit perfectly in warmly modern apartments because they emit a sense of antiquity and agelessness. They carry a quality of the eternal, which connects them to the wisdom of ancient cultures.
See more of Orlando Diaz-Azcuy’s work in his second monograph SOUL, authored by Jorge S. Arango and published by Rizzoli.
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