This article is part of our November Design special section, which focuses on style, function and form in the workplace. More than ever, pods and podlike chairs are necessary refuges in busy work environments. Today’s open-plan office, where executives might sit shoulder-to-shoulder with underlings, is no longer defined by a desk. Work happens over coffee,…
Josephus Melchior Thimister, the Dutch designer who died of suicide last week at age 57, was, the couturier Ralph Rucci said, “the greatest designer of his generation.” Anne Chapelle, the Belgian businesswoman who once backed him, called him “a master.” He had run the house of Balenciaga for five years, started his own couture and…
This article is part of our November Design special section, which focuses on style, function and form in the workplace. The biggest news in the world of co-working has been the turmoil at WeWork. But a quieter development has been happening behind the scenes for some time, and it has to do with design. While…
This article is part of our November Design special section, which focuses on style, function and form in the workplace. Michael Green has seen the future of the building industry, and that future is wood. Lots of wood. The Vancouver-based architect is among the most ardent proponents of what is known as mass timber, prefabricated…
This article is part of our November Design special section, which focuses on style, function and form in the workplace. Lee Bey stood under the rotunda at the James R. Thompson Center, 13 stories of mirror-glass balconies rising around him in tiers, and shiny elevators (now off-limits without official business) zipping up and down. The…
This article is part of our November Design special section, which focuses on style, function and form in the workplace. GREENWICH, Conn. — Inspiration sometimes comes to the poet John Barr while he gazes at boulders beneath his new cantilevered writing studio here. Or as he strolls along its entry passageway lined in oak shelves,…
Not so long ago, in a much sleepier Nashville, a person couldn’t swing a microphone without hitting a “meat and three” (chicken, beef or pork and three Southern sides), those almost-home-cooked-answers to what’s for lunch or dinner. Meat and threes are still dishing it out in Music City, but their numbers are dwindling (Arnold’s Country…
This article is part of our November Design special section, which focuses on style, function and form in the workplace. In Nashville, a surging economy has led to a recent construction boom, with cranes dotting the skyline. And the city’s built environment has always been subject to such churn. “We’ve never had that deep stock…
This column is part of a series for the Design special report of The New York Times. Readers are invited to send questions to designadvice@nytimes.com. My parents are downsizing and trying to push furniture on me and my siblings. I’m not talking about stodgy old brown furniture, but some sizable and boldly colored postmodern pieces…
This article is part of our November Design special section, which focuses on style, function and form in the workplace. Unwanted plastics clog landfills and sully city streets and nature preserves. Most alarming to many, the material is beginning to overwhelm the planet’s oceans — from the ballooning Great Pacific Garbage Patch to trash discovered…