Design Public

I’m so excited that Jonathan Adler’s “Monthly Musings” now includes a comments section. I left one that really rambled because the paragraph separations did not work out, so I sound even more A.D.D. than usual. This month he is musing about finding inspiration in places from Morgan Fairchild’s face to Timbaland’s mad mixology. I love knowing what makes people tick. My favorite example of this is in Douglas Keeve’s documentary Unzipped, where Isaac Mizrahi creates a collection inspired by Nanook of the North and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

So what inspires you? Do tell!

image of Kiki’s Derriere from Jonathanadler.com. You can buy one here.

Unzipped and Nanook images from amazon.com. You can buy your copy of Unzipped here.

MTM image from youtube. You can catch the theme song here.

Every so often I receive these big tempting catalogs called “Neiman Marcus: The Book.” As an added bonus, there is often a copy of INCIRCLE entree*. The only times I ever yearn to be rich are when the Hartsfield-Jackson security line for serfs like me is endless and I long for my own jet, and when I flip through entree.

This photo was taken by Kevin Garrett, who scouted out the best places to stay in South Africa for the magazine. It is the lobby of The Saxon Boutique Hotel in South Africa. I love the way the baskets are composed, and the color and texture they give to the wall; texture tells the whole story in this room.  It seems very Vicente Wolf, whether it be something that would inspire him or something he would design. 17-hour flight in coach or not, I have been dreaming of going to this place ever since I read his article.

In fact, I couldn’t help but thing of  the Kelly Wearstler Santa Monica Viceroy Hollywood Regency version of adding texture to a wall with “native” round objects.  She keeps her color palette neutral (albeit what I call “Wearstler-crisp”) as well:

photo one by Kevin Garrett for Neiman Marcus INCIRCLE entree

photo two from KWID.com

*I can’t for the life of me figure out how to put the little thingee over the second “e” in entree. I can’t for the life of me remember what the thingee is called. Is it a tilde? I took Latin and Spanish, not French!  And “Intro to BASIC” instead of “Intro to HTML” or “Typing for Dummies”.

Thanks to Rhea for leaving the following information in the comments section of the post about Samuel Mockbee:

There is an exhibition called Southern Exposure: Contemporary Regional Architecture which features the work of the Rural Studio at the Virginia Center for Architecture through June 8. It features the Yancey Chapel as well as several other projects. The exhibition also highlights the work of other contemporary architects practicing in the Regional style, including Marlon Blackwell, Frank Harmon, W.G. Clark, and the firms of Lake|Flato and Mack Scogin Merril Elam Architects

On Thursday, May 1, 2008, Jason Coomes, a faculty member of the Rural Studio, discusses the ongoing work of the studio.

The Virginia Center for Architecture is located in Richmond, Virginia. If you’d like more information, please visit www.virginiaarchitecture.org.

Also, I found that Rural Studio has fantastic blogs that feature current projects.  Check them out here.

photos are from the Rural Studio blogs 

I’ve been meaning to tell you about this great book my Mom brought me as a hostess gift about a year ago. It’s a monograph of the work of Samuel ‘Sambo’ Mockbee, appropriately titled Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency. I kept putting it off, because frankly, scanning stuff is a boring chore, plus, it’s really hard to pick just a few projects from this book. I doubt I can summarize it better than the book jacket:

For almost ten years, Samuel Mockbee, a recent MacArthur “genius grant” recipient, and his architecture students at Auburn University have been designing and building striking houses and community buildings for impoverished residents of Alabama’s Hale County. Using salvaged lumber and bricks, discarded tires, hay and waste cardboard bales, concrete rubble, colored bottles, and old license plates, they create inexpensive buildings in a style Mockbee describes as ‘contemporary modernism grounded in Southern culture.’”

This is the first project from Sambo I remember seeing back in architecture school. It’s The Cardboard Pod and is made from baled sheets of corrugated wax-impregnated boards:This is the incredible Yancey Chapel, built around an existing rusted trough and constructed from 1000 dirt-filled used tires:This property near The Yancey Chapel is called The Goat House, a former shed for animals that Rural Studio originally planned as part of an artists’ colony. The colony never, um, colonized, and the building is now a residence. You see the Chapel aesthetic influence on the structure: (more…)

I just noticed this over at Urban Flea, who noticed it over at Home Rejuvenation. IKEA has moved into Monorail interiors; this one is the Kobe Portliner . I haven’t seen this much effort go into public transportation since Campbell Scott’s character in Singles campaigned for his SUPERTRAIN (”if you give them great coffee, and great music..I don’t know, people really love their cars.”).
 
Before that, it was probably Eero designing his new and exciting “moving waiting rooms” at Dulles. Although the interior design was sharp, they are actually shoeboxes on wheels that provide a bumpy stuffy ride over to the terminals. Saarinen or not, give me a people mover any day. Better yet, make me walk off my Biscoff cookie.Sadly, can you imagine how badly destroyed the interior above would be after one week in most U.S. cities? It would be tagged, burned, covered in lugees, etc.

My favorite image from my newly set up bloglines feeds - the tree cozy. From PAN-DAN via swissmiss:Does anyone else know anything about where this is? It reminds me of some exhibition in France - I am blanking on the name, or The Spoleto Festival. Wherever it is, it’s quite striking, and this is a great image.2:30 p.m. E.S.T.:  UPDATE!  Zee from Homebug has let me know that the tree is the work of artist Carol Hummel!  Thank you Zee! Another image I clipped a few weeks ago comes from one of my new favorite blogs, Homebug. New to me, I should say, it’s been around for over a year. I stumbled upon it via design*sponge.

The weird thing is, I had just finished admiring Homebug’s red phone in our anti-depressive living group and within 24 hours I saw her on design*sponge. Isn’t it weird how certain things cross your path a few times all of the sudden? It was like it was fate telling me to subscribe to Homebug! I am also in love with Homebug’s dog, Polly, who looks exactly like my niece dog Chloe Harris. Is this dog the perfect model or what?I’ve also been enjoying exploring Urban Prairie, and checking out Chris Brown’s inspirations, like this one:

Finally, I can’t stop thinking about this perfect nook from Christina Murphy Interiors I saw over at desire to inspire:

Clotheslines have been on my brain all weekend. It started on Friday morning. I finally got around to reading the rest of The New York Times from the previous day (it took me until then to get the whole Charlton Heston thing that was going on the crossword, and I’m not allowed to read the rest of it until I’m done. It’s an O.C.D. thing, you wouldn’t understand). The International Report had a great article called “A Line in the Yard: The Battle Over the Right to Dry Outside.” It seems some Canadian renegades who like, want to save energy or something crazy like that, have the audacity to hang their clothes on a line behind privacy fences in a neighborhood that prohibits such an obscene act. With Earth Day being in April and all, I thought I would take a look at good old clotheslines.

I was trying to find an image of the clothesline in the middle of Muriel’s burned backyard, and I came across this fascinating and eloquent post over at makingwifi. I love it when that kind of thing happens! Am I the only person that did not realize this contraption is called a Hoist? It’s really rather genius.

This photo from flickr member Vincent Casey conjures up one memory I have of clotheslines: My classmate Peggy had all of her jeans stolen off the her clothesline in Venice (this was back in the day when most jeans were under $100; I know some of you are too young to remember way back then).  Unfortunately, Peggy and her roommates had a second story apartment, and the jean bandits would jump up and steal their pants.   Similarly, I figure in my ‘hood, where pieces of cars, lawn ornaments and copper gutters are stolen on a daily basis, a pair of True Religions on the line would not be safe, never mind the bird poop problems, so it’s a no-go for me. However, I have fond memories of my grandparents’ long line in Bristol, Connecticut, and even in historic and perfect looking Hingham Massachusetts, where the town likes to dictate what kind of mailbox one should have, my mom lets her laundry dry in the sun. What’s the big deal?

Later on that day, I was catching up on Bluelines, the blog that has taken the place of Blueprint magazine, and I saw a great feature written by Lena. She had collected some of her favorite flickr clothesline images. You can see all of them here. The one above is from flickr member turkeyfarmtreasures as shown over at Bluelines. The clothesline is a great way to air out and show off her vintage tablecloth collection!

In addition, late last week I noticed hulagirl’s mini-clothesline workspace arrangement on another blog, which right now I can’t remember. I think it may have been shelterriffic. I have been doing this with my holiday cards for the past few years and it’s a great way to show them off without involving tape on the walls.

By the way, I still miss her fabulous booth at Kudzu. Atlanta lost a lot of creativity when Hula and her family left us for Portland! You can keep up with them at her blog, Hula Seventy.

Finally, in this stream of consciousness mixed with blog hopping trip I was on, I remembered a favorite Martha Schwartz exhibit from the 1997 Spoleto Festival. It was called “Field Work”:

In case you are interested in installing your own clothesline, here’s how.  Also, here’s another article about the benefits of air-drying and how much it can reduce our carbon footprints.

I’ve been slacking on my blog reading, and it shows. But Lord is it fun to have a juicy three weeks’ worth of posts to catch up on some of my favorites. I must seem like the crazy over-commenter when I do that - I currently have lost my voice from talking too much so now I’m commenting on blogs too much to make up for it!

Because of my negligence, some of the posts that captured my attention this week are a little dated, but oh well!

1) via Style Court I found out that Edith Wharton’s The Mount is facing foreclosure. Click here to find out how you can help save The Mount! By the way, Style Court never ceases to blow my mind - it is such an excellent blog I just don’t know how she keeps it up so well.

2) It was wonderful to get to know Ninainvorm over at sfgirlbybay. She’s been a favorite of mine on flickr for awhile, but I never knew anything about her or that she has a blog. Thanks Nina and Victoria!

In fact, by coincidence we featured a flickr contribution from Nina awhile back right here.

3) via The New York Times House and Home Section, I found out about MoMA’s new site, which will let viewers follow the building process for five prefabricated houses that will eventually be exhibited outside the museum. (more…)

Dear Bravotv.com,

Will you please include home tours for The Real Housewives of N.Y.C.?  I just did not see enough.  Creepy codependent couple Alex and banana hammock wearing Simon’s townhouse in Brooklyn is obviously in need of a major renovation, Bethanny obviously spends all her money on clothes and still has a twenty-something decorated apartment, Jill’s pad has just about  O.D.’d on Zarin fabrics and Luann appears to have the dream Manhattan townhouse.   Ramona’s condo is dressed the way she dresses, that’s all I’ll say about that.  But I want to see more!  While you’re at it, please include their Hamptons homes.

Regarding the housewives, I admit it, and a lot of my culturally uppity friends AND their significant others who usually only admit to listening to NPR and watching PBS admit it; we are totally addicted to the guilty pleasure of The Real Housewives of N.Y.C. and O.C.  I’ve never seen such tacky social-climbing, talking about money, or cosmetic surgery addiction in my life.  It’s delicious.  How funny is it that they all think being the fourth wife of a Count is a big deal?  Ladies, get a grip, it’s the social equivalent of  being a distant Kennedy cousin who hasn’t committed a felony.

Anyway Bravo, please give us a tour of the homes.  Preferably with each woman giving it for maximum entertainment.

Sincerely,

A Reality TV Junkie

photos from bravotv.com

For a lot of designers, writing is a lost art. People have become lost in archispeak and are unable to describe a room or tell a story. This week I’ve been thoroughly enjoying a delicious memoir written by one of the best known decorators of this century: Billy Baldwin Remembers. I’m kind of kicking myself right now because it starts on amazon for about $10, and I paid $45 at that unfriendly Savannah book store, but it was worth it. You are a fool if you don’t hop over there (the title’s the link) and scoop this one up right now.

The book starts with some of Baldwin’s early inspirations and experiences. He describes the “stars in his crown;” iconic ladies of style like Nan Kempner, Babe Paley, Diana Vreeland, Jackie O. and even Garbo. Even better, he dishes the dirt about clients from hell, their peculiar habits, bad taste, lack of manners, bizarre requests and overinflated self importance. (more…)