September 2005

Dwelling Designs

by Martina Priadka

Ammar, founder of Dwelling Designs, is a world traveler with a love of international art and culture and an eye for design. Through his travel and studies he has found a way to bring these passions together and share them with the local public in a very unique way. Ammar took some time with theskini and gave us some insight on what he is doing and how he began.

TS: What is Dwelling Designs?

AF: Dwelling Designs is a contemporary and modern themed studio focused on bringing unique and stylish furniture to the Twin Cities. We do this by showing exclusive pieces on our floor and offering custom furniture to our clients. We also complement these pieces by selling fashionable accessories such as throw pillows, art work, and lighting. We focus on the industry to bring the latest trends when sourcing our pieces. We also offer design services.

TS: How did you get started?

AF: I personally got interested in design from a global perspective. Nearly everyone on my mother’s side of the family was an interior designer and I always wanted to be an architect but never entered that path in college, opting instead to go the same route my father did, which was medicine. However, I was lucky growing up because my family always traveled internationally. In college I was fortunate enough to study abroad in over six different countries. I ended up ditching medicine and going with my passion, International Relations. Like most people in my field of study who didn’t go on to graduate school, I got stuck in a corporate career completely unrelated to my area of study. But with the paychecks I received, I made an effort to visit more countries, either alone or with a partner. I even quit my job after three years to move to South America and teach English because the travel bug wouldn’t leave me. I was always the sucker bringing back souvenirs such as Turkish rugs, Buddha statues, Venetian glass.

In late 2002 my uncle, who has a special connection with me and also loves to travel, took me on a Southeast Asia tour. Thailand was the only place I visited where I wanted to bring everything back with me, especially the furniture. It was Asian, but everything had a modern twist to it. In Bangkok they have these huge furniture galleries in their malls and I caught myself returning to these displays in awe with design beauty. Everything was so modern, so sleek, but you could see the Asian roots in it all. Later on, I discovered that these designs we saw in Thailand were being reinvented by the Italians, the masters of furniture production and were even more popular in Italy! I began to learn about the classical nature of these pieces and where the inspiration for a particular design came from. It was amazing how some of the most modern pieces were 16th century designs! So the more I learned the more I became passionate about design. My uncle, who is a commercial designer and runs his own firm outfitting hotels and businesses all over the world, was thinking what I was thinking: Let’s bring this concept home. So we began importing containers from all around, primarily Italy and Thailand.

Dwelling Designs was formally established in 2003. Our concept was to bring these unique and one-of-a-kind contemporary pieces to the Twin Cities market as a result of the loft and condo boom as well as a renewed focus on home design as evidenced by some of the popular home makeover shows such as Trading Spaces and even Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

Amazingly, the loft and condo industry is still going strong and these developers are not showing any signs of holding back on their developments. Before we started business, I felt that there were too many lofts and not enough loft furnishings.

TS: What made you choose Minneapolis as your location?

\AF: Besides the fact that the Twin Cities has been my home since 1999, I love Minneapolis and the fact that it is a large metropolitan city that has some available niches for starting a business. Minneapolis only had a few contemporary furniture resources and that market was primarily dominated by Room and Board. It was starting to become very boring to see the same familiar Room and Board pieces in every loft model and I even started hearing complaints from loft buyers walking through these model homes. Cities like Chicago, which Minneapolis tends to follow right behind, have an established design district with several available resources. We’re just getting started here in Minneapolis. I think the more design stores the better for our city and I’m not afraid of competition coming in and taking business away from us. I think with newcomers such as Ikea and Design Within Reach, business has only increased for us because there is an even greater appreciation for design in the Twin Cities.

TS: Do you use local designers?

AF: We now use local interior designers, local artists, and local craftsmen. I prefer to support the local industry, but, as we did in the beginning, sometimes we’ll have to look elsewhere to find a unique piece. Importing from overseas is necessary for the latest designs. But I always try and find it at home first. 100% of our custom furniture business is local. At the moment, our upholstery products are made in a factory in Plymouth so our staff is very hands-on with the design process. About 90% of the artwork is consigned over from local artists that come from Stillwater, St. Paul, and Minneapolis. And our work shops for custom wood products are in St. Paul and Northeast Minneapolis.

TS: How do you discover your designers and source your pieces?

AF: Most of our pieces are inspired from the classics. There is a lot of modern furniture out there that looks great with its bright pink high-gloss lacquered cabinet face but the buyer knows that it won’t last more than one year in their home without the guilt stepping in forcing the customer to keep it in their home because they dropped 4-digits on the piece. Instead we strive for pieces that are modern, but timeless. The only way to do this is to find and source pieces with classical elements. For example, if I see a sofa that is very clean and squared but with stainless steel legs, we’ll look for ways to make it more appropriate while feeding the modern design urge. Some tufting on the back cushions will give it a classic look and help it stand out. We’ll dress it up with a neutral-colored fabric, such as grey, but add some wild throw pillows that might have some pinks and blues in it. If the client gets sick of pink, change the pillows at a fraction of the cost of replacing a sofa. And instead of the highly polished chromed steel legs, maybe tone it down to a brushed stainless steel look.

TS: What do you love most about the design business?

AF: It’s almost the same as being in the fashion business. I grew up with parents dedicated to bringing high end European fashion to a lacking market in the Midwest so I feel like I’m doing the same thing with the home design market. My favorite comment from customers is “Thank you for bringing this to Minneapolis.” Even though it’s very, very minimal, it makes me feel like I’m making a difference to this city.

I also love the fact that design is an international phenomenon. I obviously love to travel and all good design has classical roots that are global. Italian platform beds are inspired from Asian-Zen minimalism and are constructed from American rift-cut white oak. Sometimes this bed is marketed as Scandanavian design, sometimes Italian design, and sometimes Asian. And most of the successful furniture designers come from all over the world: Karim Rashid, Christian Liagre, Paulo Piva, and Antonio Citterio to name a few.

TS: Any famous clients?

AF: I have found out in the past that certain people I have worked with were either president of this foundation or CEO of that company and didn’t realize it until it was pointed out to me. Usually if it’s a national celebrity they won’t be coming in by themselves but rather through their interior designer. So through their interior designers, we have worked with hockey players, music producers, and even a certain MVP NBA player. It’s very important to work well with these interior designers because usually only a handful of them have all the celebrity’s for clients. One celebrity refers another celebrity to the same designer.

TS: What is the future of Dwelling Designs?

AF: Dwelling will need to remain warm, classic and contemporary with a focus on very unique and custom products. But we want to hit the very modern, European lines without an identity conflict in our store, so we plan to open a new studio in the warehouse district by the winter. Some new partners and I just signed a lease in the warehouse district to open Poliform Minneapolis (www.poliform.com). Poliform is an international company that specializes in clean and modern furnishings, wall units, and closet systems. We will also be introducing, through associated brands like Varenna and Flexform, kitchens and some of the most breathtaking upholstery products.

We recently completed a modern kitchen as well as a modern built-in wall unit for a plasma television so perhaps Dwelling will bring in some examples of these large scale projects to our showroom.

TS: What are the current trends in home design right now?

AF: Asian chic is the current trend we are seeing. Its bold colors, dark woods, and zen properties (such as low beds, deep sofas) are what’s attracting people to this style.

For upholstery and color, we just need to look at the fashion industry to see what’s popular since we are so tied in with clothing trends. Basically, anything bold is hot right now. Toned down neutrals such as beige are no longer the common colors for a sofa, unless they are accented with colorful pillows. Chinese reds, imperial yellow, celadon, and persimmon are very popular. Orange and brown combination make for a very earthy-chic look. The popular light baby blue is being replaced by a more aqua-turquoise blue. Earthy-Brown is still hot and is being mixed with all sorts of colors; the brown-pink combo looks great together and now the white and brown combo is looking more popular (replacing the classic white and black).

For wood finishes, I still see the espresso/dark brown/wenge wood being very popular but I think it will move away by next spring. Medium-toned brown woods such as walnut are becoming increasingly popular because of its success in Europe (we’re usually a couple years behind). Lately modern furniture has been associated with exotic woods such as ebony macassar, zebra wood, and wenge. As for finishes, wood is getting shinier with high gloss finishes.

Leather is still not as popular as it once was and there are several fabrics moving in for high end fabric options that are priced as high as leather, such as linen and mohair.

TS: What do you foresee being the next big trend?

AF: The design industry is mostly dominated by females but we’re seeing more and more male interest, especially in sleek platform beds and medium-toned brown woods such as walnut. So we’ll probably see modern design evolve in to an earthy, warm setting that has a more unisex appeal or even masculine. As a result, the trend will probably start to move toward more practicality in design, such as comfort and toned-down features; almost going toward the transitional look.

TS: What do you offer that is unique to Dwelling Designs?

AF: We are very unique in the sense that we are probably the only place in the Twin Cities to go for exclusive and custom furniture that specializes in contemporary and modern design. Anyone can go to any cabinet maker and have a quality dining table made, but that cabinet maker is depending on your direction. For those looking for something different with modern and classical elements, our staff can design the perfect piece and knows of all the resources to get it done. Our craftsmen specialize in design and this doesn’t just mean knowing the latest looks by flipping through a magazine. It means they know of the wood species that will make it a stand-out piece. It’s not just an oak platform bed, but a rift-cut white oak veneered platform bed with the grain running in a linear direction and the mattress is set into the platform rather than floating on top, that way your mattress can still be cushy and large but appear minimal. They will work with metals to help industrialize that look. Modern is also heading into the exotic direction too, so we know of the rare exotic species to help make a particular piece stand out and where to source that wood or how to select the proper grain pattern that best suits that wood for the piece.

Dwelling Designs
5041 France Ave So | Minneapolis | 612.922-9361 | www.dwellingdesigns.com

...Now That's Theskini!::permalink


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