Fleetwood Fernandez

Their eponymous studio has completed residential, hospitality, and institutional projects throughout the United States. Recent work includes the headquarters for a private hedge fund in Los Angeles, multiple restaurants, and single-family residences in Los Angeles, New York, and Haiti.

Their work has been recognized with many publications and awards, including several AIA Los Angeles Restaurant Design Awards, 2019 Interior Design Best of Year honoree, Architect Magazine 2014 National Design Review Winner, and 2010 AIA Los Angeles Next LA Award. We sat down with them to talk about their practice and how they see the notion of home evolving in a post pandemic age.

Describe your design aesthetic in three words.

Reduced. Crafted. Quiet.

Which person, place, or thing—inside the industry or out—inspires you? 

The Tramuntana Mountains and terrain in Mallorca, where Mariapaz is from, as well as the building tradition in the area, have long been an inspiration.

The material and emotional resonance of stone, olive, pine, sun and sea is always on our mind. 

Do you find inspiration in the past or are you always looking ahead?

We take a lot of inspiration from the past and invoke memories of place into the design process. However, we love embracing new technology as it updates the process of design and construction. We see a lot of opportunity to splice new fabrication techniques with old world craft knowledge. 

How did growing up in Spain influence your work?

In Spain, craft is still very much imbedded in the culture and building practice, where homes are expected to last for generations. Architecture and interiors have a custom-made quality that is sometimes lacking in the United States. We are constantly seeking to introduce that crafted quality into our projects.

What are some post-pandemic residential design trends that you’re seeing as people rethink the notion of what home needs to look, feel, and function like?

The biggest change we are seeing is the need for flexible space. Prior to the Pandemic, most residential projects had very specific single-use and resale-minded programmatic elements; ie; Bedroom, Kitchen, Living Room. Due to the requirements to remote-work, remote-learn and remote-socializing, homes now need spaces that can be multi-functional without losing their appeal and utility. Also, people have gained a greater appreciation for nature and consequently clients are looking for ways to add and improve available outdoor space, and for meaningful connections between indoor and outdoor space, bringing light, views and fresh air into every room.

What are you currently working on that you cannot wait to see completed?

We have been working on two residential projects for a couple of years that are very engaged to their surroundings in opposing ways. One is a hillside residence for a curator couple in Los Angeles, and the other is a desert home near Joshua Tree for an editor. The former is introspective, carving space out from the inside, while the latter explores space as a panoptic expanse. 

What would be your dream commission?

It would be a commission to ourselves from us, a project without clients, stakeholders, and others’ agendas. While we love the challenge of crafting space for others, it will be a dream to build our own house on the Mediterranean coast one day. 

In a post-pandemic age, the idea of home means so many things. People needed their homes to serve so many purposes during the pandemic. Will that change at all now? 

No. Even though we feel there will be a return to so many of the activities and social interactions we all loved prior to the pandemic, there has also been an awakening with regards to the ingrained and quite frankly moribund attitudes toward living, working and what it means to be in attendance. We see an exciting change coming with residential architecture that allows for flexibility and intersection.

Let us know what some of your favorite MASS Beverly pieces are that embody this new idea of home.

Flat Table by Rimadesio. Perfectly distilled but infinitely adaptable. Equally at home in a formal dining setting, home office, or breakfast nook. 

10th Kitchen Counter 280 by Exteta. We have gotten so many requests from clients to upgrade their outdoor entertaining spaces during the pandemic. This smart design is a great way to bring the kitchen outdoors without the usual bulk of built-in equipment. 

Hello Sonia! Small Wall Hanging by cc-tapis. This is an unexpected and wonderful combination of textures, lovingly crafted by hand. It would bring warmth to any room, and it makes a perfect zoom backdrop!

Targa Lounge Chair by Gtv Thonet. The woven cane coupled with the simple lines makes this chair both classic and current simultaneously. It works well in multiple settings.

Bistrot S metal vertical bookcase by Henge. This appeals to us because of the solid wood and hand finished metal. It can be a nice room divider allowing for flexible space allocation, and it is sculptural enough to stand on its own even without books or objects in it.

We have always enjoyed cooking, but this last year of lockdowns and social distance definitively gave us more time to make the kind of involved recipes that would typically be reserved for a weekend or special occasion.

It was both therapeutic and energizing to make something delicious to look forward to at the end of some very long and dark days. Hunter loves making dough from scratch and his favorite thing to make (and eat!) is pasta, so he will spend many hours preparing the dough, the filling, the sauce, and stuffing tiny shapes into delicious origami-like bites. I selfishly gave him Evan Funke’s cookbook American Sfoglino, and he has perfected the delicate Cestini, which he combines with whatever is in season.