Another beautiful film by The Selby.

Here’s what we’re listening to:

World News, Local Natives

Blowin’ in the Wind, Stevie Wonder (that’s right!) [click on "preview this track"]

Little Life, Josephine Foster

Province, TV on the Radio

Lollipop, Squeak E. Clean

Can’t Get it Right Today, Joe Purdy

Recently, I noticed some other beautiful speaker designs, at MOMA, like these speech bubble speakers:

I’m also a fan of these collapsible MUJI cardboard speakers:

It helps with productivity to be surrounded by beautiful sound, which reminds me that we are due for another mix soon. What do you like to listen to when you work?

Fall Mix Tape: something about fall can be very exhausting. We are adjusting to the shorter days, the darkness, and covered skin. There are rewards: apple cider and donuts, pumpkins, sweaters and scarves, leaf peeping, etcetera. But while you’re struggling with the transition, here are some songs that are keeping the feeling of summer alive.

Chasing Pavement, by Adele

Tonight, Dance Dance Dance, by Lykke Li 

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? She and Him

Rockferry, by Duffy

Latter Days, **Trouble, by Over the Rhine  

**This is the song we continue to play on repeat–we are sure we will be sick of it one day soon, but not yet.  

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 Soundtrack) 

8. The Don, The View (click on “the don”)

Listening and reading are different. To start, most of us are steeped (and even drowning) in the written word–the daily news, our bills, e-mail correspondence, work memos, proposals, reports, you name it.  But sound can stop us in our tracks, even when we’re most determined to keep trucking. Almost always, it either carries us more gently to where we were going, or inspires us to switch gears entirely. We can’t design spaces without thinking of the sounds with which we want or hope to fill them. Here’s what’s on our “mixtape” right now:

1. Here Comes the Sun Again, M Ward 

2. One, Two, Three, Four, Feist

3. Julie, Jens Lekman

4. Postcards from Italy, Beirut

5. Here Today and Gone Tomorrow, Hazel Dickens  

You can preview the songs on Amazon. We admit our mix is infused with a little winter melancholy, but even these moody songs put a little spring in our step.  

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.