Last week, designer Jens Risom passed away at his home in Connecticut, seven months after celebrating his 100th birthday. To bid farewell to this dearly departed design hero and mark the Danish-American's centenary – a significant landmark in anyone's book – we trawled the Wallpaper* archives to bring you a vintage profile on the great man...

The seriously leafy, squeaky-clean Connecticut town of New Canaan, one hour from Grand Central by the Metro-North commuter railway, is reputed to be the richest small town in America. Behind the oaks, pines and plane trees, million-dollar, New England clapboard homes nestle discreetly on huge plots. Old money stockbrokers and entertainment glitterati alike appreciate the privacy that mutual affluence brings.

Via wallpaper.com >

Based in Brooklyn and trained at Pratt, American designer Todd Bracher has lived in Copenhagen, Milan, Paris, and London. These stints have informed prestigious gigs with European companies—he ran Tom Dixon’s design studio after receiving his master’s degree at Denmark’s Design School, and more recently served as creative director of Georg Jensen. In his own practice, he joins artistic direction, strategic services, and product design for a multi-faceted approach that’s served brands such as Herman Miller, SodaStream, 3M, and Humanscale.

Via interiordesign.net >

In the 1970s, Dieter Rams began formulating his 10 principles of good design, which designers today still interpret as gospel—a testament to Rams's unquestionable foresight and greatness. If you were to quantify his impact, you need only look at the millions of Apple products in our pockets and on our desks; Jonathan Ive and Steve Jobs were disciples of Rams and incorporated his industrial design philosophy—as demonstrated through his work at the German electronics company Braun—into their own work.

Yet it was furniture, not electronics, that was most emblematic of Rams's 10 principles, according to the designer himself.

"Perhaps even more directly than with the Braun appliances, my furniture arose from a belief in how the world should be 'outfitted' and how people should live in this artificial environment," Rams once said. "In this respect, each piece of furniture is also a design for a certain kind of world and way of living."

Via fastcodesign.com >

It’s hard to believe that developing splints — and producing them in the thousands for the U.S. Navy during World War II — would eventually lead to the creation of one of the most iconic midcentury-modern furniture pieces: the Eames molded plywood chair. But, this is a true story. That exploratory nature, along with a function-meets-form design sensibility, helped catapult the Eameses into becoming the first “it” couple of American modernism. As August 21 marks the day that both Charles and Ray Eames passed away, a decade apart, we reflect on 10 of the duo’s best-known product designs, from furniture and textile to a whimsical accessory and game.

Read the article on architizer.com >

Since joining Perkins+Will in 2005, associate principal and New York office interior design director Meena Krenek, IIDA and LEED AP, has proven that office space can be a destination for design, not just a workplace. The winner of three ASID Annual Design Excellence Awards from the Georgia Chapter, Krenek has designed Atlanta-based offices for for AutoTrader.com, Carter’s, McKinsey & Company, and Shaw Contract Group, among countless others. Here, she discusses the importance of storytelling, why she based a stairwell on a carpet tufting machine, and the joy of a beautiful case of pencils.

Read the article on interiordesign.net >