ARMANDO AGUIRRE MAKES HIGH DESIGN OBJECTS WITH LOW MATERIALS

El Paso–born interior designer Armando Aguirre made the vase he brought to set — a deceptively simple form filled with white tulips that had already started to wilt on the way over — because he couldn’t find anything exactly like it for his own home. He approaches furnishing his client’s interiors — before establishing his own interiors practice in 2023, Aguirre worked under luxury interior design firm Studio Mellone — the same way as he does his own, which he describes as a highly rational pursuit, thoughtfully balancing every piece of furniture with negative space. His approach to object design, however, is more emotional than technical. His Vase, for example, combines an unpretentious glass cylinder you could get from any florist with a laser-cut steel band that fits inside of it, connected by four screws that you can see if you peer down at it from above. “I was really influenced by the amazing steel rivets on the candlesticks and change trays that Richard Meier designed for Swid Powell,” Aguirre says. “Rather than try to weld it in a way that the screws are invisible, I like the transparency of showing how it’s assembled.” He’s drawn to the trappings of hardware stores, like the brushed steel used for his Wall Vase or Steel Lamp, and other quotidian raw materials — he recently remade an intricate Maison Desny–style lamp out of legos. “I wanted to make this very expensive, sophisticated art deco lamp that would sell at auction for $50,000 out of Legos,” he says. “High design, low materials — I find myself going back to that contrast again and again.”