Desert by Design Creative Minds, Arid Places, Tailor-Made Spaces

by Burke, James; Mandell, Molly

• ISBN13: 9781419775796
• ISBN10: 1419775790
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-04-08
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Summary

Desert by Design celebrates the interior worlds that exist in Earth’s most arid climes and, more importantly, the creative minds who inhabit them

It is an ode to these landscapes—their sounds, smells, flora, and fauna—filled with equal parts mystery and beauty and a glimpse into the projects and lives of those who have chosen to call them home. Deserts are known to be sensitive ecosystems where adaptability and resilience become common currency, requiring humans to live within the environment rather than apart from it. The result is a people who are inspired by challenge and who constantly create and innovate, a notion that set in for Marfa, Texas-based desert dwellers Molly Mandell and James Burke as they took off on a quest to identify thirty incredible spaces across the globe. By area, deserts make up a third of the planet’s landmass, so Mandell and Burke had a lot of ground to cover. They made their way through the southwestern United States, down to Mexico and Argentina, and across the pond to Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, and the Canary Islands. They traveled to Rajasthan, India, and to a micro-desert in New Zealand. They visited high desert and low desert, urban desert and rural desert, sandy desert and scrubby desert. They photographed everything from iconic properties inhabited by Yves Saint Laurent, César Manrique, and Donald Judd to thoughtfully curated, centuries-old adobe structures and modern, groundbreaking ones, all the while interviewing the choreographers, hoteliers, sculptors, environmentalists, chefs, audio engineers, and preservationists who bring them to life.

Desert by Design—its genuine, beautiful, and unexpected approach—is decidedly not your average interiors book. From tips for cultivating the intimate and unpretentious environment that is synonymous with the desert to images that evoke mindful living, it is both an homage to this unique and dynamic climate—its most extraordinary places and memorable personalities—and a manual for adopting elements of this lifestyle, no matter our location. Yes, this publication is for desert people, those who reside in it or who simply resonate with it. But it likewise exists for all of us who are seeking authentic design inspiration or courage to take the path less traveled, regardless of where we hang our hats.

Author Biography

Molly Mandell and James Burke are arts and culture writers, photographers, and producers. Their work has appeared in the likes of Kinfolk, where Mandell was formerly an editor, Wallpaper*, Monocle, Vogue Mexico, and the Los Angeles Times. In 2018, Mandell and Burke authored their first book, Made in Cuba, and served as the editor and art director and the copy editor, respectively, for Nathan Williams’s The Eye. More recently, they have comprised the editorial team for the platform Creative Voyage and acted as creative directors for burgeoning hospitality concepts around the globe. When not on the road, the duo resides in the artistic enclave of Marfa, Texas, where they are actively developing a cross-cultural, multidisciplinary residency program based in the Chihuahuan Desert and the land where Mexico and the United States meet.