I’m so glad I started following Dwell Studio on Twitter. Otherwise, I might have missed the blog post about Dwell Studio partner Jenna Chused’s feature in Martha Stewart Living! Her apartment is impeccable without being intimidating; for example, I love the way she used this school chart as art:

And I have some serious kitchen envy over this one. Wow, the power of a rug! This kitchen is strong like bull (as my father would say):

Check out the rest of the slideshow over at Martha’s place – I promise it will be worth your while! Also, you can get your own Dwell Studio style by browsing over here.

Photographs via marthastewartliving.com. Photographer name was not listed; if you know it, please comment so that I can add it to this post.

I haven’t, but I’m dying to! What did you think?

I’m a huge fan of Bill Cunningham, and he has a charming video here about the fashions he’s seeing on The High Line.

Speaking of fashion, check out the High Line Merch here. I love the Trina Turk green and white print hat:

Keep up with High Line news over at The High Line Blog and the ever-growing Friends of The High Line flickr group pool. This shot is from flickr member ljpsf.

top two photos from thehighline.org

Wow. I wish I could write like Alexandra Lange. It isn’t ALL that often that I actually read the text in a blog and admire the writing so much (I don’t mean any offense to bloggers at all, I’m just saying that this is a stellar example of a blogpost). This post over at Design Observer regarding the Standard Hotel in NYC and its precedents is a standard I wish I could shoot for and live up to as a writer, but it’s not ever going to happen (in fact, I’m lucky if I give my posts a re-read or even a spellcheck, so I have a long way to go). There is no unintelligible “archispeak” or blathering boring theoretical crap. It’s complete, it’s beautifully written, it’s has the teensiest tiniest, almost imperceptible dash of subtle snark. It understands history and context, and gets to the heart of the matter and asks brilliant questions, leaving the review open to discussion; that is to say the reader can complete the review for herself in a Choose Your Own Adventure kind of way. GO READ IT NOW! You’ll be a better architecture buff for it!

I don’t think I’d enjoy this building very much. Genius Brutalist engineering or not, my paranoid neuroses would not let me trust those legs to hold up the building. By the way, the legs are straddling The High Line.

The Standard New York, Polshek Partnership Architects, 2008

Photo by Andre Balazs Properties via Design Observer

I have absolutely no time to read all my favorite blogs this week and construct a post with my favorite links, but I was excited to see the Meridian Pendant in mumm by Lights Up! receive some AT love the other day. I originally bought this lamp for my own home at DRTC here in Atlanta, and when Drew, a founder of Design Public came to visit, I showed it to him and told him we simply must find out the vendor and carry it at DP. That was years ago, and the graphic prints of the Lights Up! fixtures are still going strong.

In following the AT Before/After story of the Lights Up! owners Nick and Kate (photographed above), I followed the trail to another favorite blog, Door Sixteen. Apparently, Nick and Kate inquired about the pendant lamp they spied in Door Sixteen’s New Years Eve Party Post, which is this lovely piece from another favorite of mine, Mibo. The uber-renovators over at Door Sixteen led Nick and Kate over to Design Public, where they eventually picked out their mumm Meridian Pendant Lamp.

I’m starting to feel like Elaine on Seinfeld typing all of these exclamation points. When I actually take the time to edit my own posts (which is, ah, ahem, not that often, usually after I’ve posted and read it live and say “oh crud, this post is a disaster.”), I find myself cutting out exclamation point after exclamation point, so you are kind of killing me right now, Lights Up!(!!!)!

Nick and Kate’s photos swiped from Apartment Therapy Boston

Door Sixteen photos swiped from Door Sixteen’s Apartment Therapy House Tour – you MUST check this out if you haven’t already! Door Sixteen hit my radar during The Homies blog contest; it’s an excellent renovation and design blog, and the photography rocks.

Wow. I just saw the renderings of the latest Herzog & de Meuron building at 56 Leonard in the AJC today. Holy Moly! My writing has even less flow than usual today, so I am resorting to bullet points for my thoughts on it:

• All of this playing with form and cantalievers in high rises lately reminds me of all of the experimentation that happened during the brutalist movement. I think architects are playing with these crazy new forms because, well, because they can. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.
• I’m not quite convinced how this structure fits into the Manhattan context, but one thing that stands out is its relationship to the many stepped back buildings. By the way, the shape of such buildings were an immediate response to building height restrictions, but their forms  wound up heavily influencing many Art Deco buildings in other cities that did not have such restrictions years ago.
• It’s also even way more JENGA-esque than this building.
• I like it more than the Chicago dildo building.
• All I can think about in regards to the individual outdoor areas is that the buildings this tall in Atlanta have falcons nesting out on their balconies, which has rendered them unusable, except to the wildlife guys in the Silkwoody suits who tag the birds and check on them. Maybe they won’t have that problem here, but there sure will be a bird doo problem!
• Which leads me to how in the name of Windex are they going to wash the windows?

renderings via Curbed (head over there for a huge range of comments and opinions on this design), copyright Herzog and de Meuron, Basel 2008

Have you heard of Majora Carter? She rocks. In 2001 she founded Sustainable Bronx, an organization that “aims to alleviate poverty and remediate the environment through green-collar jobs.” She says “we believe that don’t you need to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one. We believe we need to create opportunities for people who are living here already so they can stay.”

She wrote a $1.25 million dollar grant for The South Bronx Greenway:

She’s big into  green roofs as well.  There’s a Smart Roof Demonstration Project video here. To make a contribution towards the Greening the Ghetto effort, click here.

quotes and first two images via CNN.com

before and after renderings by Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects

Hmmm, I was looking up an exhibit that looks cool so that I could link you over to it, and then I spied a picture of the redesigned Museum of Art and Design. I thought it was either (a) a really ugly building or (b) that I just wasn’t getting it, so I decided I’d do a blog post about it and see what you all thought. As I started digging around some more, I thought “how did I miss this???” In my defense, I live in Atlanta, but still! Turns out, the original building, built in 1964, was designed by Edward Durell Stone, and the new one has completely desecrated it. YIKES! How does a museum of design ruin a classic marble building in order to construct a structure that looks like an ugly plastic building blocks set? I just don’t get it. Can anyone help me see why anyone would do this? Is it uber-sustainable? Do the form and the facade fit into the context like a puzzle piece? Is the redesigned interior a million more times more stunning than the exterior? Does it spell out the world “Heil,” or is there an “EFH” which makes me think it’s E.F. Hutton’s headquarters?

It should be stated that one should not critique a building without experiencing it in person. There is no way to feel your own body in the space, truly understand the context of the site and the site itself without actually visiting. But one can tsk tsk a museum of design for not valuing an historic building, and sometimes, you can judge a book by its cover. The redesign’s facade is fugly as hell, and my usually high regard for Manhattan’s dedication to preservation and for its architecture in general just went down a small notch. Oh well, at least it’s not a Trump building.

By the way, the upcoming exhibition called Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary looks really cool. It opens September 27.

Check out the transformation process here.

• photo 1 by David Heald via madmuseum.org.

• photo 2 by Eddie Hausner for The New York Times

Going to be in the New York area next week with your little brown dog Finney and not sure what to do? Go to Pet Fashion Week!

Not only will this be THE pet show to go to but we are proud to report that two of our pet loving designers will be featured at the event.

You’ll find all the Marmalade pet care products at the Ecouture exhibit…

And…

Jed Crystal from Hepper has a soon to be available NomNom food tray which was chosen as one of the eight finalists for the Pet Fashion Week Lifestyle Innovation Awards. This highly coveted industry award is presented to one of the eight companies that has demonstrated the highest excellence in pet product design. This year, Pet Fashion Week NY has chosen “pet dinnerware” as its featured category for the PFW Lifestyle Innovation Award. So, I present to you the NomNom! Good luck, Jed…we are rooting for you!

* Above Pet Fashion Week photography by Nathan Shanahan, Dog accessories by Fab Dog, Styling by Annemarie Aldrich, Courtesy of Pet Fashion Week NY

I just read about this project in Good Magazine. It’s called Re:Construction, and it’s a public art project spearheaded by the Alliance for Downtown NY in collaboration with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Here is the idea:

“Re:Construction channels the energy of Downtown’s rebuilding process by recasting construction sites as ‘canvases’ for innovative public art and architecture. This initiative comes at a time when Lower Manhattan is experiencing one of the largest public and private construction undertakings in the nation’s history. In response, Re:Construction bridges the efforts of multiple public partners and the creative community to both highlight and enliven the process of rebuilding while improving the quality of life in Lower Manhattan through the creation of places of attraction, curiosity and anticipation.”

Some of the pilot projects include Best Pedestrian Route by GRO Architects:

photo by Adam Kleinman

Tattfoo Tan’s Concrete Jungle, where the orange construction safety paint on jersey barriers has gone Dior:

(before)

(after)

photo by Tattfoo Tan

It’s interesting, obviously lots of graffiti and guerrilla artists have been taking advantage of these types of sites for a long time, and doing a great job. It will be interesting to see if the organized version can compete. Any time there is a chance to create art, I say go for it, whether through a bunch of red tape or illegally.

http://www.downtownny.com/news?nid=98

http://www.reconstructionnyc.org/

 Who doesn’t love a firehouse? It seems they are truly en fuego right now as a trend.  Perhaps it started with this house, where the Ghostbusters had their headquarters:

Then there was The Real World: Boston, where a charming firehouse was renovated to house seven self-important, immature  strangers.  This was one cool renovation:

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