The defining lines and elements of a space can speak volumes of those who live, work or play there, and those telling details take a modernist, yet visually expressive approach at SPG Architects. The firm’s aesthetic has led to them working with top fashion clients like Catherine Malandrino, Calvin Klein, Bill Blass and Polo Ralph Lauren, as well as an array of lifestyle and media brands and an ever-growing roster of personal residences throughout the U.S. and Latin America.
“Our work strives for a visual consistency based on human proportions, the exploration of light and the judicious use of materials that provide singular tactile, visual, spatial and temporal experiences,” says Eric Gartner, a partner at SPG. “Architectural ideas are drawn from the project site and the client’s needs and desires and, inevitably, tempered by local regulations. These then are expressed through manipulations of form and light.”
VISUAL CONNECTIONS | “We like spaces to be layered and multipurpose,” Gartner explains. “It’s critical to define them, make – often virtual – edges, but by allowing them at times to overlap, you can achieve a greater richness to space.”
Taking the idea of a cohesive space one step further, SPG collaborates with landscape architects to reflect the look and feel of a project’s natural surroundings, thereby creating a connection between the modern interiors and the exterior spaces.
“We believe that the experience of the environment should be as seamless as possible,” Gartner shares. “This can be expressed in orientation and views or, where climate permits, in access and continuity of spaces. The landscaping must reinforce the architecture with shared goals.”
Careful consideration comes into play as well in the decision for a home’s statement within its landscaped footprint.
“Sometimes it’s appropriate for a house to appear to be an object in the environment,” Gartner notes. “At others, it’s designed as an extension of that environment or site. We believe that sustainability and environmental sensitivity is reinforced by the indoor/outdoor connection in a subliminal but meaningful way.”
MODERN HEART, WARM SOUL | Modernist by practice, the firm seeks to create spaces that are spare, clear and architectonic, but never cold.
“We look to materials and the variety in texture, color and scale they provide to enrich and warm spaces,” Gartner comments. “It’s definitely a visual, visceral decision, but always guided by sustainable principles.” That dedication to the environment comes up in myriad ways as this firm moves through each project. One key method is through the use of natural light, an element Gartner believes to be as important for sustainability as it is for effect.
“Natural light makes a space more dynamic,” the architect states. “The naturally changing intensity, solar angles, and color of light brings movement and life into interior and covered spaces.”
SPG will create openings that go to the edges of floors, walls or ceilings, and will allow light to reflect off and graze those surfaces and to penetrate deep inside. Gartner notes that the objects that lie between the sun and enclosed or covered spaces – like trees, overhangs, louvers or window mullions – contribute to the effect by creating dynamic shadows and adding a layer of color and detail to the built surfaces.
“For us,” the architect says, “light is another material option in our design toolkit.”
COMMERCIAL & CUTTING-EDGE | An interest in the latest building technologies and construction methods, as well as the juxtaposition of industrial and natural materials, enhances the inherent quality of SPG’s work. Particular care is placed on employing materials and energy resources to their maximum efficiency, and the firm increasingly turns to alternative energy sources to accomplish this.
Gartner says the firm’s commercial clients are often less restrained in their choices of materials, frequently opting for more technologically driven manufactured products and surfaces. In residential projects, the contrast of such sleek materials can provide interesting combinations.
“Our periodic use of manmade materials in our residential projects provides for interesting juxtapositions with more natural substances, enhancing the qualities of both the manmade and the naturally occurring materials through their contrast,” he tells.
It’s such contrasts that come to define SPG’s projects – clean but not cold, modern but with a nod to nature – and bring a unique view of the immediate and surrounding environments to those who experience them.
“It’s a lot like language, where a single word can have many different meanings depending on use,” Gartner concludes. “Spaces should be able to be seen and experienced in multiple ways.”
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