“Eyebite” is designer Stephen Watkins'term for one form, one ingredient in a space that becomes the central element off which all others play.
For Vega, a new home design store in Washington, D.C., the eyebite is a monolithic curved and textured wall. “The shape softened the environment,” says Watkins, a New York-based interior designer who created the 3500-square-foot space. “I eliminated hard corners and right angles.”
Vega opened in May in Washington's burgeoning Seventh Street Art District, in the Northwest quadrant near Chinatown. Owner Jenny Pedersen's assortment of furniture, accessories, lighting, tableware, linens and other home-furnishing items favors soft, neutral colors (“though with the judicious intersection of brights to create spatial serenity,” she says) and textured materials like aged wood, sisal, cashmere, wool felt, resin and concrete.
Watkins accommodated Pedersen's taste in merchandise with his own feng shui sensibilities. Elliptical aluminum shelving, a curtain wall of silver woven industrial plastic, exposed brick, projected images of falling water, eclectic music, a rubberized vinyl floor, unexpected touches of bright color and a light cloud complete the multi-textured environment.
Client: Vega International, Washington, D.C. — Jenny Pedersen, owner
Design Team: Stephen Watkins Design Inc., New York — Stephen Watkins, president; Mitsuyo Nishimura, associate designer; Wade Pranaprom, assistant
Suppliers: Carnegie, Rockville Centre, N.Y. (wall fabric); French Seams, Washington, D.C. (curtains); HMC Inc., Columbia, Md. (desks); Yuka Hosota, New York (textured wall finish); Regency Distributors, New York (lighting); Dry Nature, New York (props and decoratives); Plasticland, New York (Plexiglas(r) shelves); Brian Jones, Smithfield, Va. (metalwork); Studio Santalla, Washington, D.C. (graphics); Sign Concepts, Springfield, Va. (signage); Arakawa, Portland, Ore. (hanging cable system)
Photography: Timothy Bell, New York