Hey There -
I’m Michael Yarinsky - an architect and interdisciplinary designer and co-founder of the studio Office of Tangible Space in New York and San Francisco. We specialize in architecture, interiors, furniture and curation and range in scale from intimate objects to the urban. The work seeks to create a dialogue with the people who use our spaces and objects and foster an interpersonal relationship with our immediate environment. We believe that curiosity, warmth, materiality, and play are essential to crafting spaces that invite connection. Our design aspires to evoke a sense of belonging. We hope to make you feel something and make you notice.
The collection of furniture with Made by Choice - Sieni, meaning mushroom in Finnish, is a collection of furnishings for flexible use in the home, office, or hospitality setting. The forms in the series allude to fungal structures - stems, hypha, caps, and gills. We invite the pieces to take root in space and spread their atmosphere. Curiously soft and hard at the same moment, the pieces beg you to be handled.
The most inspiring thing recently was that I was able to visit the home/studio of Yrjö Kukkapuro last fall a few months before he passed away. Beyond his incomparable designs, he lived and worked in a model I find very inspiring. Living amongst the work every day, allowing the freedom to play, and forming a practice out of genuine joy and passion are all things I strive for.
I tend to like to finish my typical work hours and then stay later in the office after our team leaves for the day. I put on music and am able to focus with not too many distractions. I like to draw and write on loose printer paper before I ever translate that work into the computer. It removes layers of complication and helps me better translate loose ideas into words and into form. I work intuitively but have a rigorous output - I am very critical of my own work and a heavy editor, and am heavily influenced by the processes and practices of designers I admire both contemporary and historic.
In the studio we are woking on several houses, a dishware collection, continuing work with Aalto’s Kaufman Conference Center in NY, a new set of collectible furniture, a tech office in NY and in SF, an indoor-outdoor stacking chair, an exhibition design for a famous Finnish furniture designer in NY, and I’m working on a remake of The Futurist Cookbook with Allan Wexler.
Remembering back to the expansion of the Sieni collection with Made by Choice February of 2022. I originally designed the Sieni chair in 2019 and we launched it in early 2020 right before the pandemic hit. We always planned for it to be a larger collection of pieces but were finding it hard to find focused time to ideate and prototype. Together with MBC, we decided it would be best for me to come to Finland for an extended period of time and conduct a residency and design charette.
The month was incredibly productive and not without its struggles. Instead of a play-by-play, I figured it might be best to highlight a few standout memories:
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I spent the full month commuting back and forth via cross country skis from the Made By Choice Factory in Salo to the Wiurila Manor house up a large hill. Idyllic sounding, I know.
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It was way colder than I expected and it got dark early. Finland does not use road salt but only sometimes uses pea gravel to add some grip to the ice. I slipped a lot.
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I couldn’t find charcoal to draw with so I burnt a chair leg in a bbq grill that was outside the factory. Pretty sure the workers in the factory thought I was crazy.
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I got to experience the Finnish healthcare system firsthand after I was admitted to a clinic with a digestive issue. Just incredible. And no bill.
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Things close early in Salo - I ended up spending several evenings wandering around the Prisma (like a Finnish Target) because it was the only thing open 24 hours. I brought home several winter coats and a lot of random beautifully designed hardware and glassware pieces. It was a very unique view into everyday Finnish culture.
I came back to Finland a month later to see the finalized production-ready collection and celebrate the launch with Made by Choice within Mirkku Kullberg’s incredible Glasshouse gallery in Helsinki.
I cant wait to see what Made by Choice gets up to next especially in the US.
- Michael Yarinsky
