Standout interior and garden designs that have us of a mind to rethink…damn near everything

By Tia Kim

OUTSIDE SPACE NYC
“The garden is not just a selection of plants, but a living illustration,” begins Irene Kalina and Edward Jones’s description of their Dumbo based urban landscape design business. Combining Jones’s architecture degree and Oxfordshire sensibilities with Kalina’s training at Parsons School of Design and Brooklyn Botanic Garden, they synergize modernism with English garden delicacy, the former seen here in a Fort Greene backyard space. They also conceive in sequence their work “always changing in color, texture and effect,” with the pair adding that “for those interested in the monetary value of their home, gardens increase it. For those who would love more room to live, escape, and entertain, it makes you wonder how you ever did without it.”

68 Jay Street, Studio 1006, outsidespacenyc.com

Work stead
This Gowanus firm, headed by Robert Andrew Highsmith, Stefanie Brechbuehler, and Ryan Mahoney, offers custom building, interiors, and products its roster of completed projects including the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, the Rivertown Lodge in Hudson, New York, The Dewberry Charleston in South Carolina, and numerous public and private residential projects. “Celebrating our interest in utility, form, and material strength,” as the firm site puts it, Wokstead services encompass interior design, concept and schematic building design, custom lighting and cabinetry, and furniture procurement. Its tastes are perfectly encapsulated in this Union Street residence, which combines urbane tastes with livability and uncluttered lines, in ways we would render all our spaces…if we could.
232 3rd Street, E102, workstead.com

MERCER INTERIOR
With offices in Park Slope as well as Warwick in the Hudson River Valley, Elizabeth Mercer Aurandt’s eponymous firm, launched in 2006, specializes in both high end residential and commercial projects, and has, for us, a particular flair for home offices and kitchens, not least in its ability to elevate non essentials, leaving space for preparation and contemplation. At the age of twelve, Mercer Aurandt was chosen to perform a violin solo with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra, and went on to be an honors graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. She has an enviable roster of tradespeople and contractors in her circle, and a winning way of making unexpected challenge part of the art, and fun.
mercerinterior.com

Trade mart interiors
Ellee Nolan Asaro’s firm offers custom furniture design, paint and wallpaper consultation, custom upholstery (for furniture, headboards, and walls) and other services, but finds a particular stride when creating and accenting natural lighting. Whether via drapery, window shading, or shutter selection from makers like Hunter Douglas, Graber, and ADO “I am influenced,” she said, “by the world of color, texture and shapes in everyday life.”

6311 Amboy Road, Staten Island, trademartinteriors.com