22 Verdant Spaces Enliven & Inspire
From rich emerald and vibrant kelly to sugary mint and soothing olive, shades of green breathe life into a space. In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, we picked our favorite 22 rooms in a spectrum of verdant tones.
1. Le Square Épicier Fin by Locatelli Partners
With an East-West design aesthetic that’s distinctly Vietnamese, the verdant wallpaper in this Ho Chi Ming City café depicts Le Désert de Retz, an 18th-century folly garden near Paris. “It was designed by an aristocratic Frenchman to give people a promenade of different countries,” Locatelli explains of its Roman temple ruins, Egyptian pyramid, and Chinese house pavilions. Throughout the café, a cultural exchange always is at play.
2. The Prospect Hollywood by Martyn Lawrence Bullard
Once upon a time in old Hollywood, the famed Hollywood Boulevard went by the name of Prospect Boulevard. Who knew? Now guests at The Prospect Hollywood hotel, which opened recently, will be among the cognoscenti—after all, that’s where the Martyn Lawrence Bullard-designed property derives its name. An emerald green enclosure greets guests at the lobby-lounge, and the gilded palm trees that stretch toward the ceiling alongside the millwork’s arched niches are emblematic of old-school Hollywood.
3. VyTA Restaurant by Collidanielarchitetto
During the heyday of London’s Swinging Sixties, few places were groovier than the West End’s Covent Garden with its bustling stalls and boutiques. Now, the neighborhood is more popular than ever. The custom bar at VyTA boasts a façade of gold metal tubes, topped with Alps green marble, and a back counter of extra-light stratified glass with a silver mirror milled in a diamond pattern fit between bands of rosewood.
4. 56 Leonard by SheltonMindel
Cheeky artificial turf appears inside the two-bedroom apartment, anchoring a seating arrangement. “We created a relationship of indoor-outdoor spaces and interior-exterior gardens,”Interior Design Hall of Fame member Lee Mindel says, “to celebrate the building’s architecture.”
5. Little Shelter by Department of Architecture Co.
Wanting to be sensitive to the region’s centuries-old architecture, Department of Architecture Co. decided to take a fresh look at shingles for Little Shelter in Chiang Mai, Thailand. To give the illusion of more space in the guest rooms, a scattering of reflective acrylic tile is mixed in with spray-painted PVC versions. This ceiling’s vinyl was printed with an intentionally blurry photograph of a local pine forest.
6. Glass House by Hacin + Associates
For this Cambridge, Massachusetts restaurant, nostalgia was a key factor. The photomurals hark back to the era when glass was manufactured nearby, and colors evoke a grandmother’s kitchen.
7. Distillery by KOGAA Studio
The 19th-century former distillery’s bones translated well into a co-working space. The team partially removed its central beam system to create a double-height presentation hall and installed a tiny bar in an existing elevator shaft, now painted Persian green.
8. Asmundo di Gisira Hotel by Studio GUM
Running with the hotel’s story line, each space is dedicated to a particular myth or legend about Sicily or Catania. Furniture from the 1930s through the 1960s, versus the 18th century, propels the plot forward in time. In this photo, the lounge’s vinyl mural by Rossana Taormina features a tourist studying a guide book.
9. Drawing Hotel by Nido Architecture
Six contemporary artists were given carte blanche to decorate the hotel’s hallways. As a result, five radically different floors each pack their own visual wow. Françoise Pétrovitch’s watercolors appoint the fourth-floor corridors.
10. Aimo e Nadia BistRo by Rossana Orlandi
The three-story emporium encourages visitors to linger: They can wander through the gallery’s labyrinthine rooms, sit in the greenery-filled courtyard, and have dinner at the restaurant pictured here. Orlandi worked with creative director Jacopo Etro to create custom adaptations of fashion textiles for the eatery’s upholstery and wallpaper, so visitors would feel as if they’re “walking into a dress,” as she says, “but with fabulous food.”
11. Wartski London by Waldo Works
Flanking the entrance to the sales gallery are orderly, faceted upper walls of ribbed concrete flecked with chips of slate from quarries in North Wales, a nod to Wartski’s origins. Above, the coffered ceiling boasts a classical geometry; below, expansive display cases slide open electronically. Throughout is woven wool carpeting, in Welsh green, of course.
12. Barcelona Vacation Home by CaSA
Bright color is introduced with the teal and green central corridor to the bedrooms. In each of the glassed-in bathrooms, the paint matches the square ceramic tile. That makes it easy for visiting groups to remember who goes where.
13. SoCal Residence by NicoleHollis and Rios Clementi Hale Studios
Hale’s design not only walks a fine line between classic and contemporary, but also artfully satisfies the family’s requirements. One wing contains the bar/lounge that the client requested for entertaining friends with drinks and cigars.
14. Charleston Residence by Workstead
This renovation of an 1853 row-house was for a dream client: a New York–based family who gave the studio carte blanche to design the project as if it were their own. Now it’s a crash pad for the family when they’re in town and an event space for the studio when they’re not. In the master bath, formerly a porch, vanity mirrors are mounted on windows painted Farrow & Ball’s Studio Green.
15. Conseil Régional d’Ile-de France Headquarters by Saguez & Partners
Since this government HQ is in France, food was not forgotten. One of its dining options is Sous-Bois restaurant, which was inspired by the region’s forests, with a slatted-oak ceiling and real, fragrant logs and greenery.
16. XYZ Lounge by Didier Fiúza Faustino
At the architect-artist’s first hospitality project, an installation vibe is achieved with Italian marble paneling and surfacing and a Memphis-esque palette.
17. Maximiliano by FreelandBuck
FreelandBuck, the Los Angeles architecture firm founded by Brennan Buck and David Freeland, creates environments that seem to defy reality. The firm has kept busy with a bevy of notable commissions that landed them on our list of must-watch emerging firms, this Los Angeles eatery being one of them.
18. Festive São Paulo Home by Pascali Semerdjian Arquitetos
Timber accents form a unifying thread throughout this four-bedroom apartment. Vertical slats of reddish-hued freijo clad walls in the powder room, while automotive paint swathes the custom sink and vanity.
19. Edelman Dubai Office by Roar
This workplace is delineated by color: The royal blue of Edelman’s logo defines reception, while IT is marked by a calming green. Oak-veneered bleacher seating furnishes the lounge.
20. Gard’Ann by Kissmiklos
This café originally belonged to a 1928 chocolate factory. The old counter was pastel green, so Kissmiklos extended that hue throughout. Even the ceiling received coats of paint in the color, along with white stripes.
21. Poznan Flat by Atelier Starzak Strebicki
This apartment’s mobile walls allow rooms to divide or disappear behind expanses of cool blue and mint. A checkerboard installation of Winckelmans tile unifies the bathroom, which sports a Geberit tub and Hidrobox shower and fittings.
22. Mia Yoga by Crosby Studios
Dubbed Instagram’s favorite designer by the New York Times, Harry Nuriev uses color to establish the mood of a space, like this calming mint.
Can’t get enough green? Here are 7 more green interiors.
