It can be argued that, at this time of year, having access to an outdoor respite is vital in Canada, where winters have more stick-with-it-ness than Hillary Clinton, all but guaranteeing vitamin D deficiency and pasty skin. And so, a sun porch, for the few months of the year when one is actually habitable, restores good health, not to mention one's spirit.
Great patio furniture helps, too.
This season, the most fetching lounge chairs, tables and lighting share a few key characteristics. They are indoor-calibre and luxuriously uncomplicated. The palette is pared down, rarely consisting of more than one colour. The list of materials used in these pieces, likewise, is short, rich and largely elemental. Over all, the effect is minimal but warm – an aesthetic antidote to the super-saturated and distracting world of memes, Tweets and bleating text alerts. Cumulatively, it's a way to rest our hyper-stimulated retinas – along with the rest of our body and mind.
Ontario designer Ryan Taylor, who founded the studio ONI Projects, has created a side table that's emblematic of this look. Called the Everything Table, it's composed of three materials: a glass top, a spun aluminum drum and steel legs, all sourced locally near his Toronto studio.
The table has an airy, floats-off-the-ground look. But the simplicity of his design belies a strong versatility. "It's called the Everything table," he explains, "because it can be used for lots of different things." For example, the top comes off to allow for storage (pool toys or towels) and is incised with a round hole that a plant can grow though (provided a pot of soil is placed inside the drum); or the whole thing can be filled with ice and made into a cooler. "I filled it with beer during the [2015] Interior Design Show," says Taylor. "It was very popular."
The product works particularly well in small spaces and can be used indoors or out. "So many people are living in tiny condos these days," he says, not to mention tight urban homes with small decks and yards. The Everything, he hopes, provides plenty of functional options without taking up much square footage. "I hate clutter," says Taylor, which explains why the table is unobtrusive, both visually and physically.
French designer Matali Crasset has created a piece that embodies a similar idea: a dining table made from raw concrete that would work well inside in an industrial-style space but is durable enough for the outdoors, too.
The piece is exclusively imported into Canada by Françoise Turner-Larcade and sold through her Toronto studio, Roseland Art & Decoration.
"What really seduced me about the table was the material," says Turner-Larcade. "It's raw, but takes a lot of technique to produce. The concrete was formed with a wood mould, which has imprinted the texture of the wood's grain [onto it]."
It's an effect that lends warmth to an otherwise cold material.
Plus, says Turner-Larcade, "the proportions are wonderful." And good proportion is key to the kind of design that – like all the objects on these pages – cuts through the noise of the day.