Quick Takes With: Ruth Mandl

Today in Quick Takes: the closest Remodelista gets to a cover star.

If you’ve picked up a copy of our latest book, The Low-Impact Home, you’ve seen Ruth Mandl’s work. Together with her partner and husband, Bobby Johnston, she founded CO Adaptive, an architectural and, more recently, building practice focused on sustainability. (We delve deep into their inventive, inviting passive kitchen in the book’s pages.) Says Ruth: “I’m humbled by the breadth of understanding I’ve gained about the building process from the perspective of the carpenters who are now part of our CO Adaptive team. Being a design-build practice is offering me a new vantage point on the practice of building.”

Writing in from the CO Adaptive studio in the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard, Ruth shares three books on her TBR list, the architecture that inspired her growing up in Vienna, and the wardrobe staple she has on repeat. Read on…

You’re invited to dinner. What’s your go-to gift?

A plant in a beautiful pot. I’ve always had an affinity for bringing the natural world indoors—to nurture fauna with soil, water, and light. Spaces that are good for plants are also great habitats for humans. And even if the host doesn’t have a green thumb, the pot will be a useful addition to any collection of housewares.

What’s on your bedside table?

Shopcraft as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford (a recommendation from one of our carpenters, and I am really liking it thus far!).

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

And I can’t wait to read What If We Get it Right? Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.

What’s your desert island design/art/architecture-related book?

In all frankness, I would rather read a good story on a desert island! Ideally a well-written autobiography or biography about someone who effected change.

What podcast or playlist do you put on when you need inspiration?

I love listening to Terry Gross interview all kinds of people on Fresh Air. She asks fantastic questions and gets to the heart of things. There’s so much to be gained from asking intelligent questions and listening with empathy to what someone has to say: It’s a lesson we carry with us when we design projects for our clients.

My unpopular design opinion is…

Great design goes beyond the aesthetic. So much of architecture and design is understood and appreciated by the public through the consumption of splashy architectural photography: sumptuous, rich images of completed projects, materials, and spaces. I think truly amazing design must go deeper than this surface-level assessment. At CO Adaptive, we’re trying to tell a broader story about design as a more comprehensive process beyond the look of the thing.

Three words that describe my design style:

Simple, functional, adaptive.

What item from your closet do you have on repeat?

Borrowing from my “three words that describe my design style,” I have these jumpsuits by Rachel Comey on repeat. They are extremely functional, well made and simple (and chic, it should be added!), with many of them purchased secondhand. To the extent possible, I try to tap into the circular fashion economy.

First design love?

This is so hard to remember accurately. I was a big fan of Magritte and Surrealism in high school. I loved, and still love, Adolf Loos’ and Otto Wagner’s architecture in my home town of Vienna, and I was very inspired by Zaha Hadid’s early architectural paintings. In fact, I arrived at architecture through painting and art and was always attracted to painting that I felt told a story and had a message. I paint now, and feel that at some point I will come full-circle, but I am not there yet.

Thanks so much, Ruth! Follow CO Adaptive’s work @coadaptive and via coadaptive.co.

N.B.: Featured photograph by Matthew Williams for Remodelista.