Modern design in the summer months. Sometimes it's best to just take it outside.
By Caroline Kooshoian
14 June 2005
The Topiary chair by Richard Schultz blends with nature and casts shadows that hide in a sun dappled lawn.
Taking its profile from interior trends, the Talt collection from Modern Outdoor brings high-end design to new low levels.
Father’s Day has long been a BBQ-man’s holy day and a national reminder that, by now, your yard should be in full swing for some serious summer entertaining. Over the years though, our expectations for just what constitutes a party-ready backyard have changed. It no longer means hauling the old picnic table and rusty-hinged folding chairs from their dark storage hold and hosing them off for another lazy, sun-soaking summer. These days, a backyard has rooms, niches, and low, Asian inspired furniture. It has ponds and speakers and carefully placed lighting. Even the bottles of Off!, once strewn about on wobbling plastic side tables have been replaced, by copper, citronella burning torches.
American’s are spending more time outdoors, and it’s a trend reflected in our outdoor spaces. Dave Petina, Market Analyst for market research company Freedonia Group, explains that following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, the country entered what’s often referred to as a cocooning stage. Home became the preferred place to meet and entertain, and the trend of investing in outdoor items like furniture, outdoor heaters/air conditioners, and accessories, which had been on the rise from the late 1990s, really began to soar.
It’s a rise that will continue, Petina says, through 2008, with a 5.4 percent increase each year until then. The projection brings the U.S. annual spending on outdoor items to $6.5 billion. And that’s a number manufacturers respond to. They’re increasing quality, style and options to compete in the hot summer market, and that means now is prime time to cast out the old and bring in the modern. So leave the dinosaurs in storage and make that backyard the upscale, up-to-date, uptown gathering place it should be. It may mean a big raise in neighborhood social status and, if that doesn’t convince, a jolt in your home’s resale value.
Says Petina, “Outdoor rooms are becoming the norm and, when it comes to resale value, can be compared to upgrading a kitchen or bathroom, or adding a first floor master suite. “
From Nola the Paxa bench offers straight clean lines for the outdoor modernist.
Whether or not the panels are dropped, Richard Schultz's outdoor pavilion (shown top with the 1966 collection, and bottom with 2000) keeps yards in easy, up-to-date style not just all summer long, but for decades.
Called Land Ho!, it's probably just what you'll say when you see this inviting plant-enhanced seat on a hot summer day; from Nola.
When remodeling any of those rooms, people want to upgrade while maintaining consistency with the rest of the home, and the same is true when upgrading outdoor spaces. Furniture and style should flow easily from interior to exterior spaces, especially when outdoor rooms connect to living rooms or dining rooms by vast expanses of sliding glass doors. At California based furniture company Modern Outdoor, VP of Operations Brett Himmel says outdoor designers have been taking their cues from what’s happening in interior residential.
“Our best selling pieces are the Talt line,” Himmel says, “The whole collection is about 3 inches lower than most seating, and it’s because of the impact of that low profile in high-end interior that it’s so popular in high-end outdoor as well”
The Talt line is so popular that Modern Outdoor this year introduced a new take on the whole collection. Originally available with uncovered slats, Modern Outdoor has added a variety of new electric-hued upholstery choices like lime and sunshine to soften the seats and brighten the view.
If you're just looking for an exciting piece or two to spice up your outdoor surroundings, look at the range of products available from Swedish design company Nola. Its seating and benches range from the free-form Flow, an outdoor sofa based on the undulating shape of a wave, to the straight lined minimalist Paxa bench of cast concrete and galvanized steel. But for a fun punch of color, humor and functionality, check out Nola’s Land Ho! seat. A blob-like perch that incorporates a planter, the Land Ho! looks like a perfect resting place for a hot summer day.
If you're not as adventurous with your style, opt for the modern classics by Richard Schultz. Schultz, who designed for Knoll furniture and worked closely with Harry Bertoia, focuses on clean modern lines and the way a piece fits into its outdoor surroundings. Most well-known for his respected 1966 collection, still in production, Schultz has rounded out his outdoor creations with a line of more sculptural pieces in the Topiary collection. With negative space and hedge-like proportions, pieces in the Topiary collection make shadows like those trees cast on sun-dappled grass and become an unexpected compliment to natural scenery.
So what to do with all the great pieces of furniture you’re sure to be finding for your outdoor getaway? Give it the lush and inviting surround of an outdoor room. Easy to set up pavillions are available from high-end designers like Schultz, through his company, and Michael Graves, for Target. No pavillion? Let hedges, water features, or flowering vines climbing lattice define your space, and your furniture will do the rest. Then, when your indoor summer gathering gets too heated up, just tell your guests to take it outside.
Caroline Kooshoian is an Editor at PURE CONTEMPORARY.
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