<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Architect, Annabelle Selldorf.  &amp;quot;I am more experimental than I used to be. I&amp;#039;m no Buckminster Fuller, but I enjoy challenging myself.&amp;quot; --- Annabelle Selldorf  ELLE DECOR: What are you trying to bring to architecture that isn&amp;#039;t there?  Annabelle Selldorf: Tension is an interesting quality -- and architecture must have it. There should be elements of the inexplicable, the mysterious, and the poetic in something that is perfectly rational.  ED: What are your inspirations or influences?  AS: I&amp;#039;m inspired by looking at art, by looking at precedent. Looking is what you have to do if you want to make things, so you develop a critical eye.  ED: What are your three must-haves?  AS: A tape measure, my Lumix camera, and a very good pen; it&amp;#039;s all about recording, I guess. ED: How do you describe your style?  AS: Modern. It&amp;#039;s specific, precise, restrained, and plausible.  ED: How has your aesthetic evolved?  AS: My aesthetic is the same. What has changed is the degree to which I like to mess with it. I am more experimental than I used to be. I&amp;#039;m no Buckminster Fuller, but I enjoy challenging myself.  ED: What materials are your hallmarks?  AS: There isn&amp;#039;t any one material that&amp;#039;s mine. It all depends on the context. For example, I did a house that had the most exquisite marble applications. That sounds ostentatious, but it wasn&amp;#039;t, given the context. The color white I subscribe to extensively. I love thinking about color, but I often go with white.  ED: What design advances do you find exciting?  AS: I&amp;#039;m not so interested in technology for technology&amp;#039;s sake. I don&amp;#039;t need incredibly sophisticated climate-control systems. And I&amp;#039;m absolutely amazed at the time people spend exchanging messages; I don&amp;#039;t have a lot of time left over for those things.  ED: What is the most important thing you have learned?  AS: Listening and collaborating -- all the while pursuing my own path -- and making use of other people&amp;#039;s points of view. The more you know what a client wants, the more interesting it gets.  ED: How has the public&amp;#039;s increased awareness of design affected your work?  AS: The more educated people are, the more sophisticated the dialogue is. The pitfall is that occasionally people think architecture is a paint-by-numbers activity -- which it&amp;#039;s not.  ED: What&amp;#039;s the last place that made you think, I wish I&amp;#039;d done that?  AS: An overgrown garden wall on Long Island. It was at once architectural and natural; it had this wonderful quality of capturing life. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/interior-designers/interviews/a573/women-in-design-annabelle-selldorf-51990/?click=edc-more>