AD100: The New Taste
The AD100 is Architectural Digest’s annual list of interior, architectural, and landscape design’s top talent. Today on AD, we join some of the industry’s most influential designers, Martyn Lawrence Bullard, Leyden Lewis, Pamela Shamshiri, Bjarke Ingels, and more, for a closer look at their creative process and how they approach the concept of ‘taste’ in their designs.
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Taste is a concept that can be very limiting.
00:11 Is this taste good taste, bad taste?
00:16 Whose taste?
00:17 Whose taste is it?
00:19 I think that the very notion of taste
00:21 is something to kind of push through.
00:24 The AD 100 is an annual list of talents
00:28 in architecture, interior design, and landscape design
00:31 who we, the editors at AD, feel were important and influential
00:35 in that year.
00:37 It's really hard because it's 100 names,
00:40 and there are clearly more than 100 notable talents
00:43 in the world.
00:44 We have multiple meetings.
00:46 They can get heated.
00:47 People can make a case for someone.
00:50 I would compare it to a red carpet.
00:52 When you look at a major red carpet,
00:54 you want to feel that you're seeing the stars of today
00:57 and the rising stars of tomorrow.
00:59 I really look at the AD 100 as a group
01:02 of super talented, influential individuals
01:05 who can really help us to explore the idea of taste
01:10 in a richer way.
01:11 When you first use the word taste, I think of food, right?
01:25 When you're eating something, and whether you like it
01:28 or not, there's no right or wrong to that.
01:31 There's the things that you like and the things that you're
01:34 like, oh, I don't like that.
01:35 And for me, it's the same with taste and design.
01:41 This whole culture of the L-shaped sofa and beige,
01:45 the sort of minimal, safe beige.
01:49 I hate beige, but I think hopefully the culture is
01:52 changing a little bit.
01:53 Rooms or interiors are becoming more personal,
01:57 and that's the key element.
02:02 A lot of the way that we see the world,
02:04 it's so conditioned in our thinking
02:05 that it's hard to understand the ways in which it's
02:09 restricting us.
02:12 That's why I wanted to be a designer in the first place,
02:14 was the kind of unbridled sense of imagining what's possible.
02:21 I think often in the early stages of a project,
02:25 you sort of experiment with things
02:28 that are somewhat jarring, a little sort of ugly.
02:37 Something in it provokes you or attracts you or maybe even
02:40 repulses you, but that's why you need to poke at it more.
02:47 There's people who are very avant garde, who are really
02:50 out there pushing the boundaries of architecture.
02:53 You're also getting a peek into the homes of people
02:55 who we feel we might know or have an opinion about.
02:58 How does Kylie Jenner live?
02:59 How does Kendall Jenner live?
03:01 A designer like Martin Lawrence Ballard,
03:04 he is the celebrity whisperer.
03:06 Nobody does celebrities like Martin
03:08 and gives you that fantasy lifestyle
03:11 and that sort of California dream.
03:13 I think they feel they can explore all the fantasies
03:16 around how they want to live with no judgment,
03:19 and the way that someone feels they're most comfortable
03:22 and fulfilled and happy in their home
03:24 is probably ultimately good taste.
03:26 We are in my living room here in my house in LA.
03:36 It's really Daisy's house.
03:37 We have this wonderful domed ceiling.
03:44 It was sort of my own version of the Sistine Chapel.
03:47 [LAUGHS]
03:48 Designers' homes are our experiment pads.
03:54 So you have to try things for yourself.
03:56 These amazing palm trees came from the Yves Saint Laurent sale.
04:00 It's my mad mix.
04:02 It's things that make me happy.
04:03 There's been a lot of wild requests over the years.
04:12 A sex room is a big one these days.
04:14 People love a sex room.
04:16 We've had a room that had to be quilted in black patent leather
04:20 to look like a Chanel handbag.
04:22 Not quite sure what that fantasy was, but I'm down for it.
04:25 At one point, somebody asked me to gold leaf a garage.
04:28 We parted ways over that one.
04:30 People say to me all the time, oh, what
04:32 is it like decorating for celebrities?
04:33 What's it like doing these houses?
04:36 Everybody in the world is the same at the end of the day.
04:40 But the difference with a celebrity
04:41 is that they can't run down the road to get a pint of milk.
04:45 So you have to create everything that they need.
04:49 It's really about creating real, real personal space
04:54 where they feel protected and where they feel joyous.
05:00 Interiors have to be joyous.
05:01 They have to be spaces that make us happy.
05:03 From about the age of 10 or 11, I started collecting things.
05:11 And on my way to the studio, I started
05:13 collecting things, and on my way home from school every day,
05:16 I would stop off at vintage-y junk shops,
05:18 and I'd go rummaging through to find out
05:20 what they'd got in new that day.
05:22 What I was doing was training myself to become a designer,
05:25 but I wanted to be an actor.
05:27 By the time I was 21, I thought, right, I'm going to Hollywood.
05:33 I'm going to be discovered, and I'm going to be a movie star.
05:37 I ended up getting cast in a movie.
05:39 Basically, I was cut out of the whole thing in the end.
05:41 But what happened from that is I met one of the producers,
05:45 and he and his then girlfriend came to this little house
05:47 that I had.
05:48 Everything in my house was from the flea markets.
05:51 And they were like, oh my god, this is amazing.
05:53 Will you come and decorate?
05:54 I thought, maybe if I do it, they're
05:56 going to put me in another movie.
05:57 And they loved it.
05:59 And my career was born.
06:00 Ellen Pompeo, who's a longtime client of mine,
06:07 loves the whole idea of Bordeaux slung
06:10 on a chaise in the middle of a beach with a daiquiri.
06:13 Quite like the sound of that myself.
06:16 I'm a huge fan of the French Riviera and that whole vibe.
06:21 South of France is definitely a huge inspiration.
06:25 You know, the materials, the teak of the house,
06:31 the concrete in the floors, it has so many elements
06:34 of the French '60s.
06:36 But the part of this house that I love the most
06:39 is that it's got so much of you mixed up in it.
06:43 It's got the sex appeal.
06:44 It's got the family life.
06:46 It's got the actress.
06:47 It really does, because design aesthetic is one thing.
06:51 But where is the character?
06:53 Where is the soul?
06:54 I took inspiration from Gio Ponti for this marble wall
07:00 in her bedroom.
07:04 In her living room, you are engulfed
07:07 in a glorious, glamorous Brazilian marble,
07:12 all reminiscent of the waves.
07:16 It's that subliminal connection that really makes design work.
07:21 Design is to trigger us, not just
07:24 to make beautiful wallpaper.
07:28 And so my process to this day still is based on feeling.
07:33 When I think about creating a room,
07:35 I really start with the feeling approach.
07:38 How is this room going to make you feel?
07:40 How is it going to support your well-being?
07:43 You're trying to evoke emotion and create
07:46 a narrative through design.
07:47 There are certain spaces that make you really static
07:52 and calm.
07:54 And there are spaces that cause motion and movement.
07:57 I love playing with that tension.
08:00 People like Pamela Shamshiri are really
08:02 pushing to say you could look at your visual world
08:05 and your built world in a totally different way.
08:09 She's not just decorating the room
08:10 and placing things in it.
08:12 She is beloved by her clients.
08:15 She is going to live in that house with you
08:18 and experience that house as you would experience it.
08:21 This is my studio.
08:31 We wanted it to feel like a home and a house
08:34 and do for our team what we do for our clients.
08:38 And so we have a big commune kitchen.
08:40 There's a bar in like every room.
08:44 A big thing about our firm is that we don't really
08:56 differentiate between architecture or interior
08:59 design or graphics.
09:00 Ideas are welcome from everyone.
09:02 We're definitely thinking about the whole picture.
09:05 And it's really a holistic look because of it.
09:07 There's prototypes and materials and pieces everywhere.
09:17 I think my favorite object is a Frank Lloyd Wright textile
09:21 block that we found on a project digging out the dirt.
09:24 It's right there in the ground, like five feet under.
09:26 You just don't know.
09:27 You just have to be open and ready.
09:29 I think I just love it because it's something
09:31 we unearth on a job site.
09:33 And it's a link to the past.
09:35 I'm always looking for those lessons,
09:37 like from the past to carry forward
09:39 and making those connections.
09:41 Annie and Adam, they had such a hand
09:58 in coming up with her narrative.
10:00 It was, what if Wes Anderson had bought a California Swiss
10:03 chalet and Yves Saint Laurent was coming over?
10:07 I think I'm a little obsessed with time travel.
10:09 I'm going to sound like a crazy person.
10:10 My dad is Iranian.
10:17 And my mom is Italian.
10:19 We lived in a tower in Tehran.
10:21 It was very Messian.
10:23 The old and the new are side by side.
10:26 And you really get a sense of layers of history there.
10:29 I was really a studious dorky, but also very escapist.
10:36 I was really into my books and a big dreamer
10:39 and just lots of fantasy and play.
10:43 1979, Iran exploded in violence.
10:47 My brother and my mom and I were here for Christmas.
10:51 And then the revolution happened.
10:52 And my dad got stuck and came out, I think,
10:55 three years later.
10:56 We left our dog.
10:57 We left our shoes.
10:59 We left everything.
11:00 And there's something really empowering
11:01 when you have to reset up your life so abruptly overnight.
11:06 With all that loss, I dove into the fantasies of the home
11:11 and life for other people.
11:13 I feel really lucky that I get to carry that out
11:15 and have a hand in setting up new chapters in people's lives
11:19 now.
11:20 This project that we highlighted of Pam's
11:23 is a historic house.
11:25 And it's a real knockout, but a challenging house, too,
11:28 to actually live a life in.
11:29 Pam felt the spirit of that house.
11:42 The house was designed by Aikman Sikandar.
11:48 It was designed by Aikman C. Jones.
11:50 It was his favorite house.
11:55 It just took my breath away.
12:03 My client's a statuist.
12:06 She's a student of architecture.
12:07 And she's a patron of the arts and starting a gallery.
12:11 I feel like you're a long-lost sister for me.
12:14 We just have so much in common.
12:15 We were at a place in both of our lives
12:17 where we were in similar transitions.
12:20 Moving out of a marriage or a relationship that didn't work,
12:26 and then finding ways that we could reinvent ourselves.
12:32 She's so invested in this house and wanting
12:36 to bring it to its best place, but also looking out
12:39 for her own comfort and her new needs
12:42 as her kids left the house.
12:43 I mean, if I'm that in love with the building and the person,
12:46 then I'm hooked.
12:50 But what I was really freaked out about
12:52 was I could tell that we really needed to make some big shifts.
12:56 There's a lot of guessing and a lot
12:58 of fantasizing about what the architect's intentions were.
13:03 Like the kitchen, which is a circular kitchen,
13:05 and probably something Quincy Jones would have maybe never
13:08 done, but we had clues that he could have done it.
13:15 I was standing above the great room
13:17 and everyone was down below waiting for answers from me,
13:20 which is like my life.
13:22 And I looked at the stairs.
13:24 I could see that each stair was a different length.
13:29 And the floor pattern, there was also rhythm.
13:34 I was like, he was into jazz.
13:37 He was into free-forming a bit.
13:40 I realized even though his was very geometric and rectilinear,
13:44 we could bring natural lines in.
13:46 I think as long as we're honoring the intention,
13:52 then we can take some liberties.
13:54 And once we figure that out, it brings freedom.
14:00 I just really believe in being humble and open
14:02 and looking for all those lessons within a building.
14:06 That skill of uniting the past, the present, and something
14:10 that feels futuristic, that is ultimately
14:13 what the AD 100 list should be doing,
14:15 pushing us to think about the past in a new way.
14:19 I don't think the future of design
14:21 is something that we've never seen before.
14:24 It's an interpretation of the past
14:27 in the context of the future.
14:29 I mean, Bjarke Ingels is an extraordinary architect.
14:33 We take something that's sort of conventional
14:35 and then just knocks it out of the park.
14:37 To me, he's a future thinker.
14:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]
14:42 We're designing this single-family home,
14:50 like a big circle on top of a hill in northern Denmark.
14:52 The house is tailored to the sort of unique desires
14:58 of this family.
15:00 So imagine a single house designed as much for the cars
15:04 as for the people, a single ribbon of rooms,
15:08 cars in one end and the living room in the other end,
15:10 wrapped around the top of the hill, where every room is
15:14 looking out over the landscape and out
15:16 over the intimacy of the garden.
15:19 It has the effect that when he goes to bed every night,
15:21 he looks across his garden and down into all of his parked
15:25 cars and can say goodnight, just like my son says
15:29 goodnight to his teddy bears.
15:35 At the same time, we're also designing a 3D-printed home
15:38 for four astronauts to live on the moon.
15:42 The most effective way to do it is with a single pivot,
15:46 then essentially two redundant houses, one for two astronauts
15:51 and one for two astronauts.
15:52 So strangely, rather different, but also rather similar
15:57 program requirements and architectural end results.
16:03 By committing to something fully,
16:07 you force yourself onto new territory
16:10 where you may discover and explore new possibilities.
16:14 And is that part of taste?
16:16 Yes.
16:18 He takes that idea of taste and he smashes it.
16:21 He pushes way beyond it.
16:24 The less that people stay harnessed to old think,
16:28 there's a much more openness and opportunity
16:31 to think about the individual inhabiting the space.
16:33 What is their experience of the space?
16:35 We are in a position where we need
16:37 to design new ways of living.
16:39 If we can understand that people have different traditions
16:42 of using space and designing for them,
16:46 then we can support the idea that people can be,
16:51 that they can be in space.
16:52 They can be in public space.
16:55 The interior design of our bodies is so limited
16:58 and we keep on the suit the entire time.
17:02 Much of my entire life has been trying
17:05 to make sure that my body feels really comfortable
17:09 wherever it's at.
17:12 I was trained in a very, very European model.
17:15 Bourbousier, Mies van der Rohe, those were the names.
17:19 Break those buildings apart and you
17:21 will understand architecture in the 20th and 21st century.
17:25 But I couldn't break apart exactly what I was seeing
17:28 based on the tools that I had been supplied with.
17:31 Leydon is such an interesting talent, classically trained,
17:34 but he doesn't have a formula.
17:36 And your eye is surprised and delighted
17:39 when you look at the work because it's fresh, it's new.
17:42 He's not relying on like, this is good taste
17:44 and I always do it, you know?
17:45 Taste, in my definition, is a construct.
17:52 Started somewhere in about the 16th or 17th century
17:55 in Europe.
17:56 [MUSIC PLAYING]
18:00 It is not inherent.
18:02 Taste is something that one has to be schooled on.
18:04 So it is already confined to a very specific group of people
18:11 and a very specific place.
18:14 We talk about people either having it or not having it.
18:18 You know, the West African birthing chair.
18:21 Does that have taste?
18:23 I find it strange to speak about things
18:25 like that in the construct of the word taste.
18:30 The way in which I approach design today
18:32 is staying completely open.
18:35 [MUSIC PLAYING]
18:52 The Brooklyn Tower occupies the site of the old Brooklyn Dime
18:57 Savings Bank.
18:58 Also, the first place that my parents opened up
19:01 a passbook found as immigrants in this country.
19:06 The client, she's a Holocaust survivor.
19:10 She started the renovation when she was 90 years old.
19:14 When I include my clients' cultural backgrounds,
19:18 then the possibilities are just endless.
19:20 [MUSIC PLAYING]
19:24 Melanie Barnett is an incredible clay and ceramic artist.
19:27 [MUSIC PLAYING]
19:29 And the space is being designed not
19:32 with an idea of 2.5 kids and the dog, a profile of a family
19:39 that doesn't live there.
19:40 [MUSIC PLAYING]
19:44 When I think of Melanie, I think of dancing.
19:46 And so it's going to be a great space to just shove things
19:49 into the corner, and everyone can party and pull it back
19:52 together very quickly.
19:53 So I'm a dance hall reggae queen from the '80s and '90s.
19:58 Don't play anything past the '90s.
20:00 You got it.
20:02 How do we create space that nurtures Black life?
20:06 And what does that look like?
20:07 What's your thoughts?
20:08 You think that we need--
20:10 We made what is going to turn into the fireplace
20:13 and the ceramic installation.
20:14 You have been talking about this wall.
20:17 Whatever this wall was supposed to be
20:19 or was going to be, but it's been a wall
20:21 that you've been very much interested in creating
20:23 for a long time.
20:25 When I was making the work and when I do not just this project
20:28 but my work in general, I look at the origins
20:31 of how the diaspora came about through Atlantic slave trade,
20:34 through colonialism.
20:36 Playhouse here.
20:37 That's it, yeah.
20:39 When people look at it, they ask, are they broken?
20:41 Yes, they're cut, but we could put them back together.
20:44 And the idea is that we put these patterns back together
20:47 because we create new stories, new narratives.
20:51 I'm born and raised in Brooklyn.
20:54 My parents immigrated from Trinidad and Tobago.
20:57 My father came here to study art.
21:02 My mother got the kind of work that she could get.
21:05 She was a domestic.
21:07 And my father really took me under his wing,
21:09 whereas other kids had a football field.
21:12 My Saturday afternoons were dedicated to walking up
21:14 Easton Parkway, heading to the Brooklyn Museum,
21:17 and taking classes with college-age students.
21:20 And so here I was, this 13-year-old kid.
21:22 Just remember the first time I saw someone drop the robe.
21:28 There was not a moment in my life
21:29 when art wasn't considered as a part of my responsibility
21:33 to my family.
21:33 My drawing happens everywhere, on the back of an envelope
21:39 or on the walls.
21:40 I draw a lot on drawings.
21:43 There's still something very peaceful about drawing to me
21:46 that connects me, again, to something a lot more basic.
21:49 People believe that they need so much stuff.
21:53 But for me, telling my own truth in my own space is critical.
21:57 And I want to let my clients know
22:00 that in your personal space, you're
22:02 allowed to do whatever you want to do.
22:05 When I walk through that turquoise door,
22:10 I'm going to say, I'm at home, and I feel me.
22:13 The house is full with a lot of joyful moments
22:19 of not being as uptight as architecture can be.
22:23 [MUSIC PLAYING]
22:26 If one is made to feel comfortable in their bodies
22:46 within the space, I'm all for it.
22:51 It's capturing somebody's personality,
22:54 capturing that dream, and making it into decorative reality.
22:59 Gorgeous.
22:59 Love it.
23:00 Beautiful.
23:01 Turn the wrist out a little bit.
23:02 Beautiful.
23:03 Does she have some diamonds on or something?
23:04 Yeah, in her ears, yeah.
23:05 OK, great.
23:06 Beautiful.
23:08 OK, great.
23:08 You want to see?
23:11 One of the things I love about the magic of shooting a cover,
23:14 particularly with a celebrity, is
23:16 that you can get a little spicy.
23:19 We definitely tempted Ellen with it.
23:21 We said, hey, how are we going to get a little bit of that
23:23 sexiness for your shoot?
23:25 And so we thought, pull out her vintage car,
23:27 get you in an oiled up wetsuit, throw on some diamond earrings,
23:31 give you a surfboard, and let's see what happens.
23:33 You are able to make magic.
23:39 Not the same magic.
23:40 It's different magic for everyone.
23:42 That's what makes me tick.
23:43 That's what makes me happy.
23:45 Hey, that's the dream.
23:50 The power of turning fiction into fact
23:52 is the ultimate superpower of the designer.
23:56 There's opportunity to really imagine and create
23:58 the most wondrous worlds.
24:02 The truth is, if we stick with established good taste,
24:06 architecture, interior design, and landscape design
24:09 would not be evolving.
24:10 You've seen the idea of taste in fashion, and in movies,
24:14 and pop culture, and music.
24:15 It's always changing.
24:17 And I do think that's important in our practice,
24:19 too, that we move forward into new ideas.
24:22 When it comes to taste, I think what makes you happy
24:36 is all that matters.
24:37 In a lot of ways, it's a feeling.
24:42 It's just a feeling of appreciation, and beauty,
24:45 and uniqueness.
24:48 If you have humility as a decorator,
24:51 which not everyone does, you want the room
24:54 to belong to the person.
24:56 And so you want to take this opportunity to make a portrait.
25:02 Each time I meet a client and walk into a house,
25:07 I need to understand their personality
25:09 and how I want to reflect that into the home.
25:13 I think that to make something useful
25:16 is actually quite beautiful.
25:17 Being Korean-American, my parents always said,
25:26 if you're not a doctor or a lawyer,
25:27 you'll never be accepted.
25:29 And when I told my parents that I
25:32 wanted to go into interior design,
25:34 they were pretty horrified.
25:38 Taste is about authenticity.
25:40 Taste is about authenticity of yourself and the world.
25:45 If you can create a space that holds somebody there,
25:51 where they don't want to leave, where that's it
25:53 and that's enough, that for me is
25:56 knowing you've done a good job.
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