Muffin

Celebrating 10 years of creative partnership with our good friends at George Smith, from all of us at Commune, we are very excited to introduce the Muffin Collection.

Muffin is rooted in the art deco and streamline movements, yet thoroughly updated for contemporary comforts. Muffin is a bespoke collection and is available in sofa, armchair, chaise, and ottoman form. Voluminous in geometry, transcending any prescribed notions or style, and suited for both indoor and outdoor. Each piece is painstakingly handcrafted in George Smith’s workroom in Newcastle, one of the finest in the world.

Below we talk with the team at George Smith about the past 10 years of collaboration, the common ground between our practices, and the inspiration behind Muffin. We also share a bit of our development process, watercolor sketches, and the beautiful photoshoot that took place in our colleague and collaborator Lisa Eisner's backyard in Bevery Hills, shot by the inimitable Rich Stapleton.

1. Hi Roman and Steven, we are celebrating 10 years since our first collaboration! In terms of design, what common ground do you originally find with George Smith?

There is a Charles Eames quote… “The details are not the details. They make the design.” Both of our studios aim to produce serious work, solve problems for clients and make things of quality that stand the test of time. Our companies each have a love of history, commitment to detail and appreciation of the craftspeople who make things. It's a common ground we both have in ethos and approach.

2. The Turkish sofa has proven to be one of our best-selling products to date. Please can you elaborate on why and what attributes make the Turkish sofa so favorable?

The Turkish Collection represents a certain sense of ease that we’re always after — it’s cozy, and comfortable, it’s incredibly versatile in terms of its styling, it’s handsome dressed up in mohair or dressed down in linen… It’s absolutely timeless. People respond to its relaxed attitude and elegant proportions.

3. Looking back on 10 years of collaboration, do you have any standout projects that were particularly memorable or significant?

Our Turkish collection definitely became a standout right from the start.. it really captured the essence of blending California casual meeting classic English attitude. We have used it in so many of our own projects, clients love it and it takes on the individual spirit of each project.

4. We are very excited for the launch of our new collection. Were there any design influences or references that inspired the creation of the Muffin collection?

The Muffin Collection was born from a desire to blend rounded art deco and streamlined shapes with a more current profile. We were inspired by Jean Michel-Franck, and Jean Royere, as well as American furniture of the 1940’s. Muffin is meant to have a spirit of playful elegance, yet you can find its DNA somewhere between our Turkish and Channel collections, too; it’s something that was always waiting to be explored.

5. What spaces do you envision the Muffin collection being most suited for and do you have any styling tips for our readers?

We really think Muffin is very versatile and can fit into any space. It would look amazing juxtaposed in pure modernist architecture and yet completely suitable in more traditional spaces. It’s perfectly comfortable and at home in a California bungalow or in a London townhouse. It can live in harmony mixed with both contemporary furnishings as well as vintage antiques of all periods and styles. We’re so eager to see how people use it and, more importantly, how they live with it. We also think it’s going to look great in patterned fabrics.

6. How does the Muffin collection strike a balance between functionality and visual appeal in its design approach?

Form and function are paramount, regardless of which one follows the other. The great thing about Muffin are the contradictions if you can call them that: it’s visually voluminous but dimensionally speaking it’s very standard, the proportions are playful and exaggerated but they hug you just right.

7. Is there any piece from this collection that you are particularly proud of or feel best represents your aesthetic?

It’s hard to pick one piece as it’s such a cohesive and succinct collection. One piece couldn’t have happened without the other, yet each one can stand on its own.

8. How do you both approach design concepts to create cohesive spaces that reflect the essence of Commune design?

Listening to the client and being a good conduit.

9. In what ways does sustainability inform your design ethos and how do you integrate these into your projects?

Locality is a big one for us. If we’re working on a project in Japan, we’re working with artists and artisans in Japan. If we’re working on a project here at home, we’re tapping into the incredible circle of collaborators, new and old, that we’ve built up over 20 years of doing this. We believe in introducing our clients to high quality, well-crafted furnishings that are timeless and will become part of their lives for the long haul and may even become heirlooms, we don’t believe in “fast” anything…furniture, fashion etc…to us what’s trendy most likely will become landfill. We also source a lot of vintage, we work with naturally felled wood, and so on. These things add up to our definition of sustainability.

10. What trends or innovations do you both foresee shaping the future of interior design and how will you evolve to stay at the forefront of this?

For us, it’s about continuing to build our world and our vocabulary. Collections like Muffin is where we get to innovate and bring to life the pieces that are missing in our projects and will become classics.

11. Lastly, could you share with us what interiors projects we can expect from Commune in the near future?

We are working on several residential projects from a couple of beach houses in California to a chalet in Switzerland. We are also working on a re-fresh of the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, which we originally designed 15 years ago and has become a bit of a classic around here. We are lucky to always have a large variety of projects in the studio from an extensive re-imagining of a tennis club in Dallas, Texas, to a Japanese restaurant and record bar in Nashville, to a goat house and chicken coop for a client in Los Angeles, it’s never a dull moment around here.

For more photos of our work with George Smith take a look here.