The current obsessions of a Yabu Pushelberg designer

Marcia MacDonald joined the design firm Yabu Pushelberg more than two decades ago. She started as an intern and worked her way up to design director, a job she describes as “putting the icing on the cake that the design teams bake.” The company’s work, primarily luxury hotel and retail spaces, tends to be highly collaborative, and MacDonald’s touch is discernable in almost every project. She brings a cerebral meticulousness to each space—for the very small Times Square location of Moxy, a boutique hotel, she oversaw the design of mobile and collapsible furniture that could be hung from peg rails on the wall.

Stuff She Loves

Miller Yee Fong’s Lotus Chair shows off the mid-century California designer’s mastery of the craft

Hand-forged Tajika garden clippers add satisfying tactility to MacDonald’s herb-foraging hobby

MacDonald owns several pairs of Anaheim Factory slip-on Vans, which she describes as her “go-to” shoe

Each piece in the German ceramicist Johannes Nagel’s vessel series is created from a mould of loose sand into which plaster is poured. The sand changes shape as the plaster sets, giving the artist limited control over the final form

Dutch artist Nacho Carbonell’s Green Cocoon lamp invokes the organic world in its design

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