Kips Bay Show House 2019: Amy Meier's Outdoor Space (Palm Beach, FLA)

Interior Design can truly have a social aim!

In 1973, in an attempt to raise critical funds for Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club for much needed after school and enrichment programs in New York City, the concept for the @kbshowhouse was born. 
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Since then, the design world’s interior rock star equivalents have outfitted a Manhattan townhouse dedicated to showcasing their work, a must-see event for design professionals, and enthusiasts the world over.

In 2017, the showhouse expanded to its second location, in the sunny and more summery Palm Beach, Florida. This year, in a handsome Mediterranean-style villa, with views and vistas overlooking and through to the ocean, a coastal context offers a design language far different than its more northern equivalent.

And although the rooms assigned, and designed, offer a more kaleidoscopic scheme, this outdoor space by @amymeierdesign conceives quietly, with such an understated elegance, exactly the direction in which the design world has gone. Coined by Meier as #nouvellenouveau , and inspired by designers such as Adolf Loos, famous for his essay on Ornament and Crime, in which he championed smooth, and clear surfaces in contrast to lavish decoration, this space achieves exactly that.

Combining stuccoed over brick, with the enlisted master blacksmith @metalbydaviddesantis bringing more naturalistic decoration surrounding, and above, the marble fireplace; this space combines clean lines with the more naturalistic in a truly timeless way. Through the use of a sleek #diningchair in teak from @sutherlandfurniture , a further nod to the casual refinement that so suits Florida’s lifestyle is achieved. With underlying classical proportion, and symmetry set slightly askew, truly my favorite room of the house!