Interior Design Hall of Famer Debra Lehman Smith and her Washington and New York–based firm, LSM, are renowned for exacting, elemental, and art gallery–esque corporate environs for the Fortune 500 set. The firm’s lifeblood, she explains, is deep, decades-long relationships with likeminded clients, from Bloomberg to Gulfstream, as well as artists and manufacturing partners. Among her frequent teammates is Molteni Group’s UniFor, with whom she’s worked for 20-odd years on furniture designs that, courtesy of “the company’s engineering expertise and craftsmanship,” rise to the status of “all-inclusive environments,” Lehman Smith notes. Building on that relationship, LSM will debut at Salone del Mobile Milano in April an ongoing series, Andromeda, its name a nod to a land art monument in Sicily by shepherd-turned-sculptor Lorenzo Reina (also the location in which the pieces were photographed). Designed with firm director Mark Alan Andre, the range encompasses a looks-good-from-all-angles curved or linear seating unit, a conference table, side table with round or oval top, and a “bare-minimal” credenza. The palette is succinct but ultra-refined—leather upholstery; bevel-edged tabletops in Italian travertine, terra-cotta, and concrete-like ceramic—with the commonality being polished-aluminum bases that reflect their surroundings, providing an ethereal, floating feel and a chameleon-like quality: both transformed by and transforming their environment. unifor.it/en
Headshot of Debra Lehman-Smith of LSM. Photography by David Parry.