The Designer’s Archive: Volume I

Most of our specification decisions are made not at a desk but at a shelf — a long oak rack along one wall of the studio that holds every material we are currently working with. Once a season we clear it down and rebuild it. These are the pairings that survived this round.

• Smoked oak with honed travertine — warm on warm, no contrast, used for a Notting Hill kitchen.
• Bleached ash with ribbed linen — a wardrobe interior that disappears against the room.
• Walnut with antiqued brass — a library project where the brass was specified pre-aged.
• Char-stained oak with brushed steel — a media wall, the only project this season with a hard contrast.
• Fumed oak with limewashed plaster — for a master bedroom, both finishes hand-applied.
• Pale maple with off-white lacquer — the lightest scheme of the season, a children's playroom.

The pattern, if there is one, is that we are reaching for less contrast than we used to. The drama is in the joint, not the colour change.