Artist and musician Kurt and singer-songwriter Lori’s rocker claims a spot in the living room of their Toronto home. (Photo: Michael Graydon / Covet Garden, Issue 9)

Charles and Ray’s iconic design waits at the ready for clients — or just a weary worker — in this home office. (Photo: Dana Gallagher / Desire to Inspire)

This bold Eames Molded Plastic Armchair with Rocker Base adds to the atmosphere in the sitting room of this playful apartment. (Photo: MICASE via Desire to Inspire)

“The Eames rocker is the only piece of nursery furniture that lasts and lasts. Ours made its way to the living room after we stopped rocking our son to sleep,” Brooklyn architectural designer Tiffany Schrader-Brown told Design*Sponge. (Photo: Rachel Been / Design*Sponge)

Designer and Grain Edit founder Dave Cuzner‘s living space includes a vintage orange Eames rocker. (Photo: Dave Cuzner / Herman Miller)

Relaxation at its finest — two white Eames Molded Plastic Armchairs with Rocker Bases welcome the great outdoors. (Photo: NH)

Top photo: Jay Parkinson / Herman Miller

Each hybrid synthesizes essential traits from two “parents” of differing typologies; for example, a set of bookshelves combined with the stepped form of an arena results in the book-arena, which doubly functions as storage and seating for office-wide meetings. Other hybrids include the tree-chair, mountain-offices, house-table, and sky-cave …. This conceptual intertwining of interior office and exterior world expands the experiential possibilities of inhabitation. To sit in a chair as if inside a tree, or occupy a table as one would a house, is to prompt a rethinking of how we exist with objects and environments. One’s fundamental notions of dwelling and working are consequently upended, yet simultaneously clarified.

This larger idea of merging solutions within the office space has already won Ogosta the AIA Los Angeles Next LA Honor Award 2012 as well as recognition in several publications. But the details also got our attention: the project’s light, airy setting incorporates several designs by Charles and Ray Eames, such as Eames Aluminum Group Management Chairs, Eames Molded Plastic Chairs, and Eames Molded Plastic Armchairs with Rocker Bases — all in white. We asked Ogosta why he selected these styles and color. “It was important that the seating be compatible with the limited palette of wood and white materials for the project,” he stated. “The various Eames chairs seemed to complement the project’s furniture hybrid-objects, as they have a simplicity which does not distract from the overall space.”

Also considered? Charles and Ray’s California connection. Explained Ogosta, “The project also aims to internalize and clarify the surrounding areas of Los Angeles — its natural forms, its urban character, and its cultural openness — so including Eames chairs seemed appropriate given that they are indigenous creations of Southern California.”

See more of Hybrid Office here and at edwardogosta.com.

Images: edwardogosta.com

1. Core 77′s coverage of the finale party at the Herman Miller Pop Up Shop.

2. Architect David Closes’ modern renovation of this crumbling convent church in Spain (via Inhabitat).

3. And over in Portugal, this reorganization of Pombal Castle’s Hill by COMOCO Architects (via Yatzer).

4. “Shocking Color in a Swedish Summer House” on Remodelista (check out that Magis Chair_One).

5. The gallery-like A+P House by Bauart Architects featured on Freshome.

6. The WTHR weather app inspired by the “10 Principles Of Design” by industrial designer Dieter Rams (via Co.Design).

7. The design of the Karaköy Rooms boutique hotel in Istanbul by RunArchitects via MoCo Loco.

8. These posters of chairs like our Eames molded plastic armchair with rocker base at Monoqui.

9. The “Lost” Steve Jobs interview that debuted this week on iTunes.

10. This must-see short video by NYC-based production company Variable celebrating the Hindu festival of colors (via The Fox Is Black).

Tell us about Candy Black: How it started, what you’re passionate about, and where you’re going. Candy Black was started out of a mutual passion for interior and graphic design between myself and Katie Culley (my fiance) and to offer these services to a clientele through a niche boutique studio. We both worked for other companies, but wanted to break away and start something new and interesting.

We formed in August of 2010 and it has been a very exciting journey ever since — from branding and interiors for Vauxhall Fashion Scout at London Fashion Week and full CMS web design and build for Graduate Fashion Week (UK) to quirky bar and restaurant projects. I think, to date, we are most proud of our latest project, a homegrown, family-run surf/ride/skate/coffee shop that we did all the concepting, strategy, branding, marketing and interior/exterior design for. The project was for Katie’s family, so they trusted us to direct the project and pretty much gave us free reign, which for a designer is always nice.

What inspires you? We draw our main inspiration from different lifestyles, as that is how we like to approach our projects — putting ourselves in the clients’/users’ shoes and visualize how they would see or interact with the work.

Tell us about your workspace. Any special considerations that affected the way it’s set up? What do you like or dislike? We completely refurbished the space, which used to be an old bakery (and had been used as accounting offices before us). We totally stripped it back and introduced the black and white palette to compliment the original floor-to-ceiling white tiles. We wanted to furnish the space with pieces based on the classics, like Eames molded plastic chairs and a 70′s sofa and industrial lighting combined with modern floating shelves and design equipment. We wanted a studio that fully embraces and showcases our passion for design. I do wish we had a little coffee/kitchen area with coffee machine and vintage fridge — I’m working on it!

Tell us about those Eames molded plastic armchairs. Why did you select them? We have four black Eames molded plastic chairs with wooden legs and a white Eames molded plastic rocking chair. (We also have four white plastic chairs with wire legs at home.) I love the way they exude design. They are a statement and an iconic piece, but always work with the space.

Photos: Courtesy of Candy Black

This simple, straightforward design illustrating a quote by Charles Eames comes from the CAMP creative studio in southern California. Download it here.

The graphic design team from the watch company Fossil created this nod to vintage lettering in its series of free wallpapers on fossil.com. Download it here.

Three tones of grey make up this quiet wallpaper, aptly named “Space by Nané.” Download it here.

Maraid Design’s cosmic wallpaper offering is from the vintage book “Odhams Encyclopaedia for Children.” Download it here.

This striking wallpaper celebrates Helvetica, the font chosen for the then-new Herman Miller logo in 1960 (the look lasted for almost 40 years). Download it here.

Don your desktop with bold lines and a small burst of personality courtesy of kikki.K, an Australian stationery store. Download it here.

How could we resist? With its declaration of love for mid-century modern design icons like the Nelson Marshmallow Sofa, the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman, the Noguchi Table, and the Eames Molded Plastic Rocker, this wallpaper at Lush Pad admittedly wins our hearts. Download it here.

Want more desktop wallpaper ideas? Check out these other stories from Lifework:

1. Distraction-Free Desktop

2. New Desktop Wallpapers

3. Free Desktop Wallpapers

4. Pantone Desktop Wallpaper

Images: Linked to their sources

Our Design for You competition is winding down. Next week, next Tuesday to be exact, will be the final day you will be able to enter to win one of the five painted Eames rockers. Plus the person with the most friends and family who have signed up will win an Aeron chair. But now time is really of the essence. You’ve got until November 2 – next Tuesday. Get onto it!

How long have you worked in your current studio? And where is it? I moved from Pasadena to Eagle Rock about five months ago.  It is only about six miles away from my the old place but somehow it feels more “LA” to me.  I work from home so my studio consists of a spare bedroom and a garage which I have yet to take advantage of.  Eventually (hopefully soon) I plan on doing all of my printing and painting out of the garage but since moving here I have mostly been doing work for clients so there hasn’t really been a need to set it up.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? My style tends to be very graphic.  Geometric and organic shapes combined with a lot of different textures. Partly due to the fact that a lot of my work is screen-printed. Aesthetically, it’s kind of hard to say since I jump around a lot but it definitely has a nostalgic or retro quality to it.  I have heard my work be described as future folk before but I am not entirely sure what that means.

As an artist how do you keep your space organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? Shelves, lots of shelves and drawers.  Basically anywhere I can hide things.  Having a garage is great, I no longer have printers and power tools looming over my head waiting to attack with the next earthquake.

What would you change about your workspace if you could? The windows, though they are great and provide good lighting, swing inward and make it difficult to put furniture anywhere.  My desk and shelving are where they are because they have to be.  The mid wall light fixtures don’t help the situation either.

What do you most love about your space? The old beat up wood floors and, contrary to my previous response, the lighting.

Tell me about the experience of painting the Eames chair? How much prep did you have to do?  What inspired the final design? Well, since I had to finish the piece within a short amount of time I arrived knowing what I was going to do with a mock up in hand.  Admittedly, I was a little freaked out about being filmed but it turned out to be a great experience and I really enjoyed it.  It was good to put faces to names of people whose work I knew and admired.  The design I came up with based on the tag line of “for a better world around you”. I knew I wanted it to be simple and have something to do with nature so I came up with the bird/peacock design. It seemed to work well with the form of the chair.

What inspires you? Everything.  People, places, events etc.  I try to get out of the studio, experience new things and break routine as much as possible.  Sitting within four walls all day can be quite mind numbing.

Here’s the fourth in our interviews with the artists who painted the Eames’ rockers for the competition. Dave Cuzner interviewed the Oakland-based artist Mark Giglio for us back in January. We revisit his studio to hear about the experience of working on a classic piece of furniture.

How long have you worked in your current studio? My studio is in Oakland California and I’ve been here for almost 9 years. Soon I’ll split my time between here and my new home studio. I’m mostly doing graphic design work out of my studio because it’s a small space in an apartment. Then at my home studio I’ll have a wood shop and printing area. I’m really excited to be able to do a lot more with the two spaces.

What would you change about your workspace if you could? Before I would have said limited space. But now I tend to only think about making a new desk for my home studio and what materials I’ll make it out of. And how I can build out my home work space to be modular so I can easily go from wood shop to print shop to painting studio.

What do you most love about your space? That it’s my personal space with all the things I like being around. My projects, my books and things I’ve collected on my travels. They are all there. I often spend a good amount of my time freelancing in other people’s offices so I really appreciate coming back to my own space. It’s really nice having a personal space to experiment and work in.

Describe your style? Graphic and simple.

As an artist how do you keep your space organized? Bookshelves and organized piles. I like things to be organized or categorized in a certain way and found piles and bookshelves work best for me. That way things are out in sight and I know right where everything is. Clutter distracts me so my space is usually very organized. My laptop is pretty much like my surroundings, over organized. Everything is hidden in a folder in a folder in a folder.

Tell me about the experience of painting the Eames chair? How much prep did you have to do? What inspired the final design? Being apart of the ‘Design for You’ project was really awesome. I’ve been an Eames fan for a long time so getting to work on a rocker was really cool. My final design was inspired by the rocker itself and from the creative brief which was to design something around Herman Miller’s motto “For a better world around you”. I sat and thought a lot about how a rocker might be used before I started sketching. The thing that stuck with me the most was story telling, how a mother might be rocking her child and talking to it. Which then lead to how important it is for us to all talk and share things. To pass on environmental wisdom to one another so we can build a better world around us. Once I had my concept I sketched things out and finalized my design about two days before painting the chair. Then the last thing I did the day before the shoot was make my cushion. Cut the pattern from my scrap fabrics and sew them together.

What inspires you? Learning about new processes to make something with, exposing myself to new things through travel, going to museums and libraries, meeting new people and friends. Trying to learn and expose myself to new things, I think that is what keeps me inspired the most. And also always wanting to make something new. I really love making things and that ultimately is what keeps me going.

How long have you worked in your current studio? And where is it? I have worked at my studio for almost 3 years. It’s an old pencil factory buildling in Brooklyn that has been divided up into smaller studios. I work as an illustrator for a pretty wide range of clients in advertising, editorial and television.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? My work is linnear, graphic and obsessive. My drawings are influenced by comics, vintage children’s books, woodblock prints and contemporary graphic design. I work primarily with a pencil on paper, sometimes I paint, sometimes I silkscreen but overall, I try to keep my process pretty simple.

As an artist how do you keep your space organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? My space is not huge so I have to be good about how I organize things. I’ve had a couple of desks built with custom shelving around it which has helped with storage. It also helps me have different work stations for when I work on digital things versus analog messy work. At times the computer can be a real distraction so having it on a different surface from my drawings helps a lot. I have a dry rack for prints and flat files to store larger work. On the computer I love using programs like iCal and Excell for managing clients and deadlines and Dropbox for file organization.

What would you change about your workspace if you could? I would probably add another table and more shelving. Right now I have these book shelves built into my drawing desk and it would be nice to have more room for my growing piles of books.

What do you most love about your space? I love the large custom tables I helped build. They were originally meant to be used for silkscreen but I just spread everything out on it.

Tell me about the experience of painting the Eames chair? How much prep did you have to do? What inspired the final design? Painting the Eames chair was an incredible experience! I didn’t have a whole lot of time to paint something super intricate so I decided to limit my colors to black and a bright magenta. I prepped a bit for the chair here in my studio by working out sketches of each of the little vignettes. The final design was really inspired by the shape of the chair, I wanted it to be organic to mirror the form. We were also by the theme we were given “Making the world a better place” which inspired me to come up with something fun.

What inspires you? Living here in Brooklyn, surrounded by a ton of talented and ambitious people really inspires me on a daily basis.

How long have you worked in your current studio? And where is it? Well, I work out of my apartment, but I have a pretty big balcony where I can paint and get all my work done. My place is only a few block from MacArthur Park in Los Angeles and I’ve been here for about a year.

Describe your style? How would you define your aesthetic? Simple is best. Bold black lines and a sense of wonder. I have these characters that I always draw; bears, birds, and elephants mostly. I like to keep them very iconic and easily recognized.

As an artist how do you keep your space organized? I’m thinking here of the physical space but also your computer. Are there any particular programs you find really useful? Oh boy, I’m probably the most unorganized person I know. Paint, brushes, paper everywhere, but in that pile of mess I know where everything is! My computer is the same way, I just toss everything on my desktop. Luckily there is a fancy search feature for when I forget where things are. I have a degree in graphic design so Photoshop and Illustrator are some of my favorite programs to use.

What would you change about your workspace if you could? MORE SPACE!

What do you most love about your space? It’s outdoors and I can work in the sunshine.

What inspires you? Cartoons are my biggest inspiration. Anything thats makes me smile. And just having a crazy imagination.

Tell me about the experience of painting the Eames chair? How much prep did you have to do?  What inspired the final design? Painting the Eames chair was really fun. I am use to painting on flat surfaces and it was a welcomed changed. I’ll be honest I didn’t have anything planned out, I had a loose idea in my head but kept adding things as I went. First I put down white as a primer but as soon as the white hit the blue I thought it looked pretty awesome. Then I went on from there. The final design is a bear sitting down in a snow-capped valley with chocolate syrup being poured down the mountains… I really dont know how it turned out that way… I guess I was hungry!

Artist Mike Perry has taken a design classic – the Eames rocking chair – and given it a very interesting makeover. Grace posted a nice piece on the chair over at Design*Sponge. I contacted Mike and he’s going to give us an interview so keep an eye out for his wild workspace.

Modern Findings: cat on a hot Eames rocker.

Curbly: Plastolux posts his home office complete with Aeron chair and vintage George Nelson desk.

Mark Wentzel: Those lovely fat Eames chairs. I know Mark made them in 2009 but I only just discovered them and I think they deserve a bit more attention.

Notcot: A chocolate Eames house. OK, again this was published a while ago but I bet a lot of you missed it. Canadian magazine The Block commissioned chocolate guru Thomas Haas to make the classic 1949 Eames Case Study house.

Apartment Therapy: Where’s the connection here? Well, the bunny is called Eames. And that’s it really. Although we did start with a cat. Get the full story on Pawesome.