Tell us about yourself and your work: what you’re passionate about, what inspires you, and where you’re going. I am a graphic designer and a very passionate collector of all things modernism, mostly from the mid-twentieth century. I collect vintage furniture, pottery, toys, ephemera, records, books, packaging, etc.

Living in California has had a direct impact on what I do and what I like. The modern homes, the furniture, and all the history of designers in the area made it a very obvious choice for me. I am very inspired by my collection as well as by folk art, color, and, in general, the warmth of modernism from that era. I like to surround myself with things that inspire me, from the things I sit on to the things I look at.

My work is a direct reflection of the things around me. I have a dresser in my office that is filled with vintage ephemera that I’ve picked up over the years and I like to open drawers and just look at things every now and then. I also have two shelves with vintage packaging and an ever-growing library of vintage books.

Tell us about your space. What’s your aesthetic? What do you like or dislike? My space is an ever-changing showroom in a way. I am constantly looking for things and replace others when I find something that suits the area better. This forced me to start selling the things I don’t need anymore and it’s now growing into a store of vintage things.

You have a few vintage pieces by Charles and Ray Eames in your space. Why did you choose them? I have many of the vintage molded fiberglass chairs in different colors, some upholstered. They are just so fun and I use them all the time. I also have two molded plywood DCM chairs that I believe are some of the most beautiful, simple, and comfortable chairs I’ve ever sat on. Definitely recommended.

I picked them up because, well, Ray and Charles are probably one of the most influential designers in the U.S. — and on me personally. I just had to have them in my home.

Photos: Javier García

Above: Mark Jensesn at work. Photo: Jensen Architects

You are the principal architect of an 18-person firm that was established in 1990. Can you tell us about what drew you to architecture? Two things: first, my German grandfather hand-crafted a collection of solid maple building blocks for his grandson (thankfully, he didn’t have the tools in his garage-shop to make “blobs”). Second, my high school geometry teacher (a “recovering” architect himself) took one look at my hyper-organized class binder and said to me: “Mark, you are going to be an architect.”

Above: The Kokoris residence. Photos: Cesar Rubio.

Your residential work is strongly contemporary and very finely detailed. The Kokoris Residence, for example, features almost hidden tile work near the entrance and the Twin Peaks Residence in San Francisco has a system of rounds built into the concrete at the front door that let light into the floor below. Are you inspired in these details by the site? What drives you in your design decisions? In music, there are some songs that grab you the first time you hear them… but you may quickly tire of them. Other songs only bring you in after multiple listenings. In my architecture, I aspire to the latter. Standing up to multiple listenings means getting the details right.

Above: Twin Peaks residence. Photos: Jensen Architects

Tell us about some of the work spaces you’ve designed in client’s homes. Do you find people are asking for more flexible work spaces? Is a dedicated home office a think of the past as more and more we find ourselves liberated by wireless internet to roam the house? There is an ongoing discussion about the “third place”: neither home nor office but rather a coffee house or a train station. This is an interesting conversation but I think we are quickly moving past it where we can be connected anywhere at any time. The new home office is the sofa or the pool.

Herman Miller is committed to sustainable practice in everything we do. In 2005 you collaborated with a number of design firms to create the Scrap House – can you tell us about that project? The Scrap House was an interesting experiment in how one could build a single family home with found objects and reclaimed materials. What is more pressing now is to consider how we could shift the construction culture of single family homes toward a variety of alternatives: smaller floor plans, built closer together, pre-manufactured, and requiring no energy input.

Above: The Scrap House. Photos: Cesar Rubio

It seems so often these days that work spills out of the office and into the home. How do you strike a balance between your work and the rest of your life? Since I love what I do, I am not so troubled by striking this balance. But to answer your question: “Less Internet, More Cabernet.” (It sounds better in Italian.)

Above: Interior of the three-wing conference room for advertising agency Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners West. Photo: Richard Barnes.

Above: The view from Airey’s home office in Northern Ireland.

You’ve undergone major changes in your worklife – first when you moved from working in an office to basing yourself out of your home and then again when you moved homes. Can you tell us about those transitions? The first change (switching from an office to working from home) was in 2005 when I chose to become self-employed. My past employer became my first retainer client, giving me two or three days of contracted work per week (for 18 months or so). Because of which, I can’t remember too many nerves about going it alone.

People ask if it’s hard to motivate myself. I mean, there are always plenty of distractions when your home doubles as your workspace. Thankfully, I’ve never had much trouble. Maybe it was my upbringing — my dad made me appreciate the value of hard work.

What do I miss? Walking to work. I used to walk through the centre of Edinburgh each morning and evening. Loved it. Nowadays my daily commute takes five seconds. 10 if you count both ways.

Moving house is something I’m used to. Since first leaving my parent’s home when I was 19 I’ve lived at about 15 different addresses. That’ll be why there’s not a lot in my office — you tend to shed the junk each time you move.

You’ve set up a home workspace twice now – what did you do differently the second time? It’s six times. Six house moves since 2005. Each time for the better, though, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely happy with how my workspace looks (typical designer).

How does working from home impact your work? It’s hard to say. The work I produce now is of a much higher standard to what I was doing in my office days, but I’ve learned a hell of a lot along the way. Maybe if I stayed in an office, with more ease of receiving feedback from others, I’d be doing better. I don’t know.

You’re not only running a successful design business you also manage regularly post insightful pieces on your blog. How do you manage your time? I just do one thing at a time, whether it’s working on a client project, publishing a blog post, replying to emails, spending time with friends and family. But I limit the number of clients I work with at once, and each of my three blogs are only updated once or twice a week, so I’m probably not as busy as it might seem.

What inspires you in your work? Inspiration isn’t easy to pin down. I don’t think it’s necessary for the work I do. For me, what’s more important is motivation, and there’s one main aspect that keeps me going: I hope that one day I can fully support a family of my own, and if I’m to do that, I know I need to keep improving, keep streamlining my process, keep learning new skills, new approaches. The fact that I love my job and have a passion for design is a big motivator, too.

Above: Bolander’s office is 100 feet across a driveway from his home in Malibu.

While studying architecture you also learned to build furniture. How do those skills impact the buildings you design today? I still design some furniture and every once in a while even build something.  I think that designing and building furniture gave me a better sense of both material and assemblage, details of how different pieces (small in the case of furniture and larger with architecture) unite.

Above: The Mosquito table  and Hoist stool designed and fabricated by Bolander.

For the Whitehouse Chicago office I designed the edit desks, the reception desk and also a table that we ended up using both in the lunchroom/café as well as in the conference rooms and other meeting areas.

It is a simple plywood table that is built with just a couple of sheets of plywood and simple tools.  It is made of a top and two base pieces that all just key together.  To illustrate the table to the client I built a rough prototype myself in a few hours.

Lots of the furniture pieces I built were basically assemblage pieces; I spent lots of time searching for interesting objects and materials.  Like many architects I continue to look for interesting materials and methods of detailing all of the time.  I am working on a house in Mammoth, CA right now where we are using timber that the forest service has marked for removal from the local mountains (as fire control/forest management) for the exterior siding.

Above: The house in Mammoth uses locally sourced salvage timber for the exterior cladding.

We are cutting and assembling it in an irregular pattern to create depth and texture on the building façade.  I feel like this idea and detailing were influenced by building furniture.

You are based in Malibu. An architect’s surrounds often impact their designs. How did the area around your home, which you designed, have an impact on the building? My own house was built 15 years ago and was primarily budget driven.

We spent very little money and so had to spend it carefully.  Since paint is about the least expensive way to decorate we ended up painting the house with about 20 different shades of blue and green.

My wife and I both like those colors of course, but we were definitely influenced by the green of the surrounding mountains and the blue of the sky.  The form of the house, a curved shed roof, was a reaction to the slopes of the mountains around us and the slope of our own site.

On your website you mention the well known diagram by Charles Eames (below) showing the overlap of the interests of a design firm, a client, and society, the overlap signifying a successful project. How has that influenced the way you work?

That idea influences every project. I can’t really work outside of my own interests, and if I listen to my client and consider their needs (which hopefully I do) then their interests are represented.  The influence of society is felt on every project by the constraints of zoning and building codes.  Trying to work outside of those restraints is sometimes possible (by getting variances for example) but is often costly both in the time and energy that can be taken from a project.

I’m essentially a modernist and so are my clients for the most part, but the most common phrase I hear from a client is that they don’t want a cold house.  Much of the color and texture that is brought into many of my projects warms a simple and open space.

Above and below: The Blair House. Bolander specified site-cast, board-formed concrete foundation and walls, aluminum windows and 2×2 wood slats on the interior walls and ceiling. The cabinets are clad in laminate with solid surface countertops.  The concrete was the first material choice and was basically chosen from necessity, both for fire resistance and strength.  The laminate colors and wood were really a reaction to the concrete.

Another value that is often present with all three interested parties is that of gathering, whether as family or friends, or in the case of a business with clients and employees.  The now very common open plan of kitchen, dining and living illustrates this overlap to me.

Above and below: Collier House. Here Bolander used board-formed concrete walls, concrete floors, structural steel, laminate and solid surface countertops.  ”This is a beach house and the client wanted ‘happy’, beachy colors.  I worked with them to develop the color palette.”

Environmental sensibility also is embraced by the three interested parties that Eames mentions.  Most of my clients want to create buildings with low impact.  In Malibu visual resources are very important.  We are working on a project right now where the client has asked that the visual impact of the house be very low, and the governing agencies have mandated similar restrictions.  We are working together (albeit with some friction from time to time) to accomplish a house that meets my clients’ needs as well as those of the greater society of neighbors and users of the Santa Monica mountains.

Above: This is a render of Birusingh house which is still making its way through the approval process.

Do you bring your work home? How do you strike a life/work balance? Did you design a home office or does work just “happen” in your home? As odd as it may sound I really don’t.  I have a separate studio that is about 100 feet away from my house (below).  Every once in a while my kids pop in after school and sometimes some of them will spend the afternoon in the studio working on their homework, but once I cross the driveway and head back into the house I am home for the evening.

What inspires you in your work? Things like materials as we have discussed, and the sites themselves of course.

Above: Bolander and Kurt Birusingh at a site meeting for the Birusingh house.

I am fortunate to work on some pretty beautiful sites and more and more am trying to not get in the way of the natural beauty.

Above: Blair House sits on a steep site.

Also mentioned are families and gathering.  I think that creating spaces that people love does enable them to spend more time with the people that are important to them.  It’s cliché of course but we are more and more cut off from each other as our methods of communication get oddly more efficient.

There are other things I like, vintage bikes and being in beautiful natural settings for example.  I’m sure they influence my work somehow but I don’t know exactly how.

Lastly, an engaged client is by far the most inspirational element of a project.  That doesn’t always happen but when it does it really changes the project for the better.

Above: Corwin House at sunset.

Matt Hickman, is a freelance journalist and consultant who covers lifestyle, design and green-living. I talked to him about his Brooklyn home office.

How long have you worked from home? I’ve worked from home on and off for six years — half of which was spent as a graduate student. Home/work for the past three years has been a two bedroom, fourth floor walk-up apartment in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Red Hook, a heavily industrial waterfront area was once marked by gangster grittiness of all stripes … first the mafia and later urban gangs. The waterfront area is now infamous as a haven for working artists, designers, and writers since it’s slightly off the grid. Geographically, Red Hook is no Siberia but the lack of a convenient subway stop keep the rents low. Everyone seems to know each other and the smattering of bars, restaurants, and boutiques are predominately run or staffed by locals. There’s an organic farm, community gardens growing in vacant lots, historic longshoreman bars, waterfront parks and piers, and, um, an IKEA [the frame below in Matt's entryway is from IKEA]. I couldn’t imagine working from any where else … although it is refreshing to shed the pajamas every so often and attend proper meetings.

What does a ‘normal’ day entail? An average work day revolves a lot of moving around from bed to desk to couch to a stool in the kitchen. Lots of “walk” breaks and trips to Fairway market for lunch. Workdays kind of flow on and on, starting early and ending late. I spend a lot of time looking out my windows and thinking since there’s great light, little noise, and few distractions. I have city views and a full-frontal view of Statue of Liberty sitting in the lower New York Harbor. During late summer afternoons, I charge my laptop, grab a a blanket, and head to my roof where I get WiFi.

Is there any form of technology that helps you? My MacBook desktop is cluttered with Sticky Notes, otherwise my virtual organization habits are pretty minimal. I keep an old fashioned paper calender. IM is my virtual water cooler. Since I do miss the daily interaction of being in a proper office full-time, saying hello to friends and colleagues while taking a work break is a godsend (most of the time).

How do you organize your space? Is there a desktop tool you can’t do without? Working from my living and bedrooms, I have to keep everything organized and in-order (organizing and cleaning and redecorating is my ultimate work-from-home procrastination tool). Public radio is usually on at all hours and there’s a steady supply of caffeine in the fridge. Magazines and books (mostly fiction and memoir) are on hand for periodic recharging. Stamps, good pens, my Blackberry, and loose pieces of paper are all required in my work area. And then there’s cable television ….

What inspires you? Living in a creative enclave in the middle of the city really keeps the inspiration levels high. If I was working from home elsewhere in the city, I’d feel flat-out stifled, much more claustrophobic. It’s liberating (but, yes, at times lonely). I’m often inspired by — and frequently write about — the people around me … sustainable furniture designers, clothing designers, gardeners, art curators, dancers, web designers, eco-entrepreneurs, musicians, craftspeople. I don’t have to venture far. And I like that.