I have long held a fascination with objects designed for  ”special needs” populations.  Collectively, the range of our special needs is unspeakably large, but several companies are determined to satisfy them, with designs and objects that I find heartening; someone has considered our daily challenges and came up with a 4-foot shoehorn for those who […]

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Interiors in Film
What is your favorite cinematic interior? We can’t help but think of the obvious: Woody Allen’s “Interiors.” Apartment Therapy wrote a great post on the same. 
  

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 Please come visit us at Neocon. We are at the Mart for one more day.

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Love it or hate it, it’s coming. And it’s still causing controversy. As much as we love good design, we also love vital (and viable) waterfront areas, especially in the city. We will report back with a dispatch from the front line of the big box store in the city. 
 

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Good signage not only does its job, but it can change your experience of a place.  The sign above, by Martin Wong, was part of a public art project called Traffic Signs for Hearing Impaired. 
  
Here’s a great interview with Mies Hora, about sign and symbol obsession.

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Here is a great article on urban scavengers by Guy Trebay, in case you missed it.

[photo by Robert Wright, New York Times] 

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We still love to work to the tune of heavy break-up songs, but lately we’re also looking for a little 4 o’clock jolt (see the Avett Brothers). Enjoy!
 
1. If it Be Your Will, Leonard Cohen 
2. Typical, Laura Marling
3. My Shadow, Lavender Diamond
4. Stitching Leggings, Kate Nash 
5. Breathe Me, Sia 
6. Dancing Daze, Avett Brothers
7. Wig in a Box, the Polyphonic Spree (Hedwig […]

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At MOMA
Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to TodayMarch 2–May 12, 2008
The Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Exhibition Gallery, sixth floor
Color Chart celebrates a paradox: the lush beauty that results when contemporary artists assign color decisions to chance, readymade source, or arbitrary system. Midway through the twentieth century, long-held convictions regarding the spiritual […]

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We love wood blocks and were pleased to learn that we’re in good company. Last Sunday, Designer Tucker Viemeister came out with his affection for wood blocks, in the New York Times. Viemeister is partial to Friedrich Froebel’s blocks (which Frank Lloyd Wright cut his teeth on, as well).
[ photo credit: Patrick Andrade]  
Writer Lawrence Weschler swears that wood […]

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Here is an exciting project combining oral history with architecture: some of the great Chicago architects talk about their work. Go ahead and click on the excerpt from Gertrude Lemp Kerbis’s interview–her first impression of Taliesen East. 

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