Page 8 - Reside Magazine Lusk Associates

Up Front

DESIGN

Desert Dreamers

A new book highlights the beauty
of life in dry and rugged lands

Living in Marfa, Texas, writers and
photographers Molly Mandell and James
Burke are intimately familiar with the
harshness of the arid landscape in all its
remoteness and scarcity. With every passing
day, however, the couple also grow more
attuned to the nuances of their desert
environment, particularly the profound
and spectacular beauty of its endless sky.
“We’re in love,” they write in the introduction
to their new book, “Desert by Design.”
Via the book’s expansive photography
and intimate storytelling, Mandell and Burke
take us around the world to break bread with
others like them, the “dreamers and doers,”
foregoing the conveniences of modern life
in favor of living in more rugged terrain.
Their journey spans the alien Joshua trees
of California’s Mojave to the cleft red rock
formations framing Jordan’s Wadi Rum, with
visits to various creatives along the way.
According to the authors, “deserts are
laboratories for all kinds of experimentation,”
where artists, designers and visionaries
forge new paths within the context of the
land. The book begins in Makrana, the marble
capital of India, where we meet designers
Dushyant Bansal and Priyanka Sharma of
Studio Raw Material. We get to know their
eclectic design practice by taking a glimpse
into their home, which, like many of their Photos: From “Desert by Design” by Molly Mandell and James Burke, published by Abrams. © Molly Mandell and James Burke.
works, is made from the scraps of nearby
quarries: the walls feature the rough textures
of exposed stone, a contrast to the colorful
polished slabs that form irregular mosaics
on the floor. Their enormous black-framed
windows add a modernist touch, merging
the interior with exterior.
Mandell and Burke’s travels continue
on to the storied Marrakech oasis of the
late Yves Saint Laurent, and one couple’s
roving camper in the Santa Cruz province

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