As designers of hotels, homes, furniture and accessories, George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg spend their days surrounded by intriguing objects. But when the founders of the Toronto- and New York-based design firm Yabu Pushelberg choose pieces to keep in their own homes, they focus mainly on two considerations.
“Sometimes it’s a trigger of a memory, of good times,” said Mr. Pushelberg, 71, explaining that the couple collects objects that recall their travels, from finds in North American antiques shops to discoveries in cities like Delhi, Marrakesh, Milan and Tokyo.
Mr. Yabu, 71, said they also look for items that will inspire their design work, which has included hotels for brands such as Aman, Edition and Park Hyatt, and furniture for companies including Molteni&C, DePadova and Stellar Works.
“I don’t like an object just because it’s pretty,” Mr. Yabu said. “I like an object because I think it’s going to inspire me in the future.”
The pieces that populate the couple’s loft-like apartment in Manhattan’s West Village are “like an inventory of ideas and thoughts,” he said.
Mr. Yabu and Mr. Pushelberg recently shared a few special objects they used to create an area for playing games in their living room.
Easy Upgrade
Miniature Japanese vessels; from about $30 at Idée Shop and Nalata Nalata
These tiny, handcrafted wood vessels have become a source of fascination for Mr. Yabu and Mr. Pushelberg, who discovered them a few years ago at Idée Shop, a store in the Tokyo Midtown Galleria shopping center in Japan, and were immediately mesmerized by the meticulous craftsmanship.
“They’re only about two inches tall and they look almost like pumpkins, gourds or acorns,” Mr. Yabu said. “They’re these amorphous objects that are so precisely made you can’t tell they’re actually little vessels or containers.”
The beauty of the raw material also encouraged them to learn more about different species of Japanese trees. “We started reading about all these different Japanese woods, like sycamore and hinoki,” Mr. Yabu said, to learn more about how those woods can be used in furniture and interiors.
They bought just a few of the vessels at first. “But we went back two or three times, and collected more and more,” Mr. Pushelberg said, adding that similar pieces can be found at Nalata Nalata in New York. “We have a whole pile of them now.”
Splurge
Dinosaur Double Old Fashioned Glasses; $330 each at Cursive Home
Mr. Yabu and Mr. Pushelberg have long been entranced by the way different manufacturing techniques can dramatically change the appearance of glass, like whether the material is blown, cast, etched, cut or colored. These double old fashioned Bohemian crystal glasses from Artel caught their attention with their mix of dramatic color and intricate hand-engraved detail.
“The motif of dinosaurs is incredible,” Mr. Pushelberg said. “They’re classy but irreverent at the same time.”
The craftspeople who make the glasses “carve away the color,” Mr. Yabu said. “So with a ceiling lamp or daylight from a window, you can see light passing through and creating a pattern.” When the angle of light is just perfect, he added, the design creates a projection of a dinosaur on a tabletop.
Because a game table is a place where hosts and guests alike have time to appreciate a good drink in great glassware, they decided that investing in these tumblers was worth the expense.
One of a Kind
Vintage bar cabinet by Gio Ponti
A game room is an ideal place for a home bar, Mr. Yabu said, and this vintage midcentury modern cabinet by the 20th-century Italian architect Gio Ponti helps make an evening of cards extra special. The couple found it more 25 years ago and bought it for less than $1,000 at an antiques shop in Miami that is no longer in business.
The couple loved the piece’s distinctive look, with elegant proportions and inset bronze tiles depicting Italian villages. “When you think of bar cabinets of that era, the proportions were more on the masculine side,” Mr. Yabu said. “But this one is very delicate, on long legs, which is very unusual.”
As a result, it tends to draw people in for a closer look. After years of watching guests interact with it, they said, the couple hope to stoke a similar sense of curiosity with a bar cabinet they are currently designing for the furniture company Man of Parts.
“We’re learning from what we collect and see,” Mr. Pushelberg said, “and applying it in new ways.”
Hiroko Masuike is a New York-based photographer and photo editor for The Times.
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