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Restaurant Design: New York's Nobu 57

2006-01-06T12:41:00.000-08:00

Nobu 57 is closed, but the phones are ringing and people are knocking on the window, hoping perhaps for news of a last-minute cancellation. Inside the staff is flush with the news of a three-star review in the New York Times, and David Rockwell, giving me a tour of the restaurant his firm designed, is congratulating the cooks we encounter, quipping to each of them, "I hope I can still get a table."

Read the Entire Metropolis Magazine Article Here

Trend: Dublin Design

2006-01-05T12:50:00.000-08:00

By VIRGINIA GARDINER, NEW YORK TIMES, January 5, 2006

Letterfrack, a bleak and boggy village in western Ireland, was once best known for a reform school run by the Christian Brothers that was rife with physical and sexual abuse. Some 100 boys died there in its 87 years of operation, before it finally closed in 1974 - a dismal record even by the standards of church-run Irish reformatories.

Thirteen years later, when the Letterfrack Furniture College opened, it could not afford a new building, and instead took up residence in the prisonlike, seemingly haunted reform school. It was an odd start for an institution intended to reverse the depressed town's fortunes, and for several years the college operated on a meager budget with a skeletal staff, offering vocational training in furniture design and production to local students. But now Letterfrack is becoming famous for the furniture college, which as of 2002 has a stylish modern campus designed by the celebrated Dublin architecture firm O'Donnell & Tuomey. The school, now known for the exceptional quality of its graduates' wood furniture, attracts applicants from all over Ireland and Europe.

Letterfrack is one of many visible signs that Ireland's recent transformation into an economic powerhouse is playing out in the realms of architecture and design. Young architects and industrial and graphic designers, most of whom would once have left the country to pursue their careers, are studying and setting up shop in Irish cities, winning major commissions and turning Ireland into a center of world-class design.

Deyan Sudjic, the architecture critic for The Observer in London, attributes the new "Irish presence" in design not just to the economic boom itself, but to a "cultural confidence" born of it. The evidence of this new mood is accumulating all over Ireland, and beginning to spread beyond the country's shores. Last July, the Glucksman Gallery in Cork, a graceful new oak, glass and limestone building by O'Donnell & Tuomey, was nominated for the Royal Institute of British Architects' prestigious Stirling Prize. A month later, a huge new Habitat store, an Irish franchise of the European chain, opened in Dublin, showcasing Irish-designed furniture along with the usual Habitat line.

This year a major arts center by Grafton Architects in Dublin, featuring a luminous marble mosaic facade, will open in County Meath, and at the foot of the Great Pyramids in Egypt, construction will begin on a $335 million museum, conservation center and conference center by the Dublin-based Heneghan Peng Architects, who beat out some 1,500 other applicants in one of the largest architectural competitions ever.

Even the country's design establishment seems to have been caught by surprise by the pace of change.

"The number of designers being produced today doesn't meet the demand," said Colm O'Briain, the director of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. The National College is Ireland's premier design school, but even there, design became a significant part of the curriculum only in the 1970's, and the school is just on the verge of increasing its post-graduate design programs from 16 students to more than 50.

"Visual culture thrives on wealth," Mr. O'Briain said simply.

For all their newfound confidence, Ireland's young architects and designers are having to contend with the lack of any national design legacy to work from. The most famous 20th-century Irish designer was Eileen Gray, and she spent her life in France.

"We haven't had a visual culture," said John Tuomey of O'Donnell & Tuomey, who remembers searching for the "soul of Irish architecture" with his partner, Sheila O'Donnell, when they started their practice. In the end, all they could come up with was the striking but simple image of "buildings standing starkly on the landscape, like figures in the rain."

Charles O'Toole, the designer behind Charles Furniture, which sells pieces through the new Habitat store, said he has faced the same challenge in his work. "There aren't national design precedents here, as there are in places like Denmark or Italy," he said.

And Richard Seabrooke, the creative director of a Dublin graphic design group called Dynamo, said that in the absence of such a cultural patrimony, there has been a longtime tendency to embrace cultural clichés.

"We're still finding our way away from the Celtic-Riverdance thing," he said.

Mr. Seabrooke, 32, who favors hoodies in street-art-inspired patterns and Diesel jeans, designs packaging and corporate logos, and has recently been doing on-screen graphics and animation for new Irish television stations like City, a Dublin channel that started last year, and Channel 6, a national channel that will start broadcasting in March. Believing a more cohesive social scene will help the country's graphic and industrial designers forge a distinct aesthetic style, he has created a Web-based magazine, Candy, that highlights the work of young designers and artists, about half of them Irish, and has started holding events every two months with speakers like the Dublin graphic designers four5one, best known for their U2 album covers.

Young architects in Ireland have a bit more of a history to build on, thanks in part to Ms. O'Donnell and Mr. Tuomey, who were among a generation of architects who returned to Dublin in the 80's after working abroad, drawn not by the still-moribund economy but by a new cultural and political progressivism.

Twentieth-century Irish building up to that point had been heavily influenced by the architecture of corporate America, but the new returnees were more interested in the ideas of Europeans like Aldo Rossi, who were focused on responsible urban planning. Several young firms, including O'Donnell & Tuomey, participated in the government-sponsored Temple Bar project in 1991, which produced architecturally adventurous buildings that helped turn that dilapidated medieval neighborhood into a cultural hub of Dublin.

A decade-long economic boom and the resulting urban sprawl have again shifted the country's architectural priorities. Raymund Ryan, an Irish critic and curator now working at the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, says that the challenge facing young Irish architects is no longer the inner city, but the suburbs.

Mr. Ryan added that Irish architecture is still informed, if not by an Irish "soul," then by "a notion of memory and narrative" - as in O'Donnell & Tuomey's Letterfrack project, which kept the brooding reform school building in place even as it surrounded it with sloping modern structures. But he sees an equally powerful influence in the globalization exemplified by "comfortably international" firms like Heneghan Peng Architects, which was based for a time in New York, is building in Ireland, Egypt and Britain, and has a principal, Shih-Fu Peng, who was raised in the United States and Asia. Even Irish architects who have remained abroad are contributing to the country's globalized design culture: the Royal Institute of British Architects' award for the best small building by a British architect in 2005 went to a sharply angular house in County Cork designed by Niall McLaughlin, an Irishman based in London.

One often hears the refrain "everything is global" from architects and designers, including Mr. Seabrooke. "We are European," said Leo Scarff, a furniture designer and a co-founder of a low-cost plywood line called Jist. "I don't see the point in trying to develop a modern Irish style." Even John Tuomey calls his search for the soul of Irish architecture "a completely false quest, like nationalism, just out of date."

The dominant aesthetic style among young designers, which might best be described as Irish-inflected European, is embodied in the work of Tom de Paor, a 38-year-old architect whom Shane O'Toole, the architecture critic for The Irish Times, has called a "white-hot talent." Mr. de Paor built the pavilion for Ireland's 2000 debut at the Venice Architecture Biennial by stacking manufactured peat briquettes into a blocky structure. Mr. Ryan, who curated the event, described Mr. de Paor as "comfortable playing with Ireland's insecurity toward the past."

Last year, Mr. de Paor completed two underground houses, dug into a lot behind St. Nicholas of Myra church in Dublin, built soon after Catholic emancipation in the 19th century. "During the excavation," he recalled, "we discovered the site had been a burial ground in a 16th-century cholera epidemic." The houses, lighted naturally from above, are essentially buried in a graveyard.

The houses' spare, elegant concrete and tropical hardwood interiors, ambiguously European in style, are hidden behind an unmistakably Irish facade: an old stone wall that runs along the lot's edge, punctuated by modest wood doors and large panes of mirrored glass that reflect neighboring buildings.

As John Tuomey puts it, "People used to worry that the global would destroy the local, but in fact, the global helps the local to untrap itself."

Trend: Xbox Influences Car Design

2005-12-29T21:30:00.000-08:00

Video games have become so realistic, some say, that it can be hard to distinguish between actual life and virtual life.

A concept car developed by Nissan North America and Microsoft blends the two worlds even more, the companies said Wednesday.

The Nissan Urge roadster comes with an Xbox 360 video-game console loaded with the high-speed driving game "Project Gotham Racing 3."

To play, a person just needs to sit in the driver's seat. The controllers are the steering wheel, gas and brake pedals, while a 7-inch liquid crystal display screen drops from the rearview mirror.

Don't get too excited or concerned. The car may never hit the streets, and the game can only be played when the car is parked.

Sound fun? Maybe for a guy in the 15-to-25 age group. That's the target market for the Urge — a guy who knows all about cars from playing racing games, but chooses something like a used pickup when it comes to purchasing one, said John Cupit, a design manager with Nissan Design America.

"They don't see anything they want," Cupit said.

Nissan conducted an online survey of 2,000 people to find out what they did want in a car.

Turns out young women are pretty happy with the cars available now, Cupit said.

But young men wanted high-tech cars that adapted to their video-gaming, iPodding, cellphone-talking lifestyles.

The young men also said that though they preferred a car, they liked the look of motorcycles better.

Armed with that data, Nissan set out to build the perfect boy toy, a task that took about a year.

The result was the Urge, which on the outside has the flashy, metallic va-va-voom appeal of a motorcycle.

The inside is fairly bare-bones — in keeping with the suggested $20,000 price tag — except for the Xbox 360 and the flip-down monitor tucked into the rear-view mirror.

Nissan visited Microsoft's campus in October with the idea of partnering on the car.

It didn't take long for the Xbox team to get hooked.

A few of Microsoft's engineers have been in constant conversation with Nissan's engineers since then, said David Hufford, who works on the Xbox marketing team at Microsoft.

"It really tapped into the primal instincts of our shared target audience," Hufford said. "That audience is looking for really intense experiences that are embodied in the Urge concept."

The Urge is still exactly that — a concept.

Although Nissan does not plan to market anything that looks like the Urge, some of its features could be used on a future youth-oriented sports car, said Nissan spokesman Fred Standish.

Nissan is to unveil the roadster at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Jan. 9. From there, it will take the car to more shows around the world to drum up interest.

Installing the latest entertainment gadget on wheels is a staple in the auto business. Car radios date to the 1920s.

The 1950s Chrysler offered a phonograph under the dashboard. Today, DVD players and MP3 digital music player hookups are found in many vehicles.

The lightweight aluminum and carbon-fiber Urge was designed in San Diego and hand-built by Metal Crafters in Fountain Valley, Calif.

The concept car has an open "T" roof reminiscent of the Pontiac Trans Am and Chevrolet Camaro of the 1970s, plus a folding canvas cover in case of rain.

And perhaps Nissan can address another concept as well.

After virtual racing at breakneck speeds in a video game, can drivers behave themselves on real-life roads?

"It kind of alters your reality a little bit," Cupit said. "Maybe that's all I should say about it."

Trend: High-Style Remodeled LA High-Rise

2005-12-26T12:17:00.000-08:00

By Mimi Avins, LA Times Staff Writer

For a select group of Angelenos, the route to grandma's didn't go over the river and through the woods, but along Sunset to a 32-story Modernist block of stucco and glass built in 1964, a singular apartment house set back from and above the storied boulevard. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, encounter anyone under 60 in an elevator at Sierra Towers, and you'd assume they were visiting an older relative.

That was then. Now, paparazzi waiting for a glimpse of Lindsay Lohan or Matthew Perry leaving the condominium building might mistake an underweight Juicy Couture-clad blond toting a teensy dog in a Louis Vuitton carrier for a boldfaced name. A thirtysomething entertainment lawyer, just back from exercising his horses in Malibu, tracks dust on the travertine floor on his way to the elevator. Outside, Mamas Mesforoush, a polite young man who shuttles between homes in Los Angeles and London, hands a valet the keys to his customized Range Rover. He's just in time for a meeting with Mike Russo, the veteran contractor who's going to turn his apartment into a showplace, at a cost of $1,000 a square foot.

"Is that negotiable?" Mesforoush inquired at their first meeting.

"No," Russo replied.

"All right," the young man said. "Then you're hired."

Sierra Towers sits on Doheny Road at the western end of the Sunset Strip, where the lively commercial clutter of West Hollywood gives way to the grand mansions of Beverly Hills. The building has always had its fans, well-heeled Westsiders of a certain age who appreciated the unobstructed views from every floor and the tender ministrations of porters and attentive doormen. It isn't surprising that condos in the building have been selling for jaw-dropping prices the last few years — the cost of residential real estate has skyrocketed throughout Southern California. Yet a Sierra Towers address now represents something more than a hefty price tag: The building has acquired a cool quotient.

Franck Verhagen, a Belgian-born hairdresser, has warm relationships with many of the stylish men and women who sit in his chair at the Joseph Martin salon on Rodeo Drive. They come bearing fresh Aspen dish or such essential information as the current yachting port of choice (Dubrovnik). Then they'll ask what's new with him. Throughout 2004 and the beginning of this year, whenever Verhagen would reply that he and his partner, Martin Fassnidge, were planning to move to an apartment in Sierra Towers that they had gutted and were remodeling, the response often was, "I love that building." Some had heard the false gossip column reports that model Kate Moss paid $3 million for a condo there. Others knew that oil heir Brandon Davis and Harry Morton, scion of the Hard Rock Hotel empire, were looking in the building.

But many of Verhagen's clients knew that Sierra Towers was smokin' even before the latest crop of tabloid regulars arrived. A rash of free-spending owners combining a sense of manifest condo destiny with a contemporary design aesthetic have reinvented the once dowdy and undervalued building as a star, reeking sex appeal.

"When I tell people I'm moving there, they're so jealous," says jewelry and eyewear designer Loree Rodkin. "They say, 'I want an apartment there. Do you know anyone?' like it's some speakeasy you can only get into if you know the right person."

A former manager and friend of the famous, Rodkin bought side-by-side one-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments 18 months ago, then gutted both to create a "minimal Zen tribal" 4,000-square-foot one-bedroom haven that will be completed in March, if she doesn't make more changes.

From the beginning, the building has been home to a colorful and eclectic cast of characters: an Internet diet guru, a periodontist, a banker, directors, writers, producers, songwriters, an Oscar-winning actor, a land developer, a music mogul, wealthy widows, a legendary jockey, a hotel heiress (no, not that one), the ex-husband of a Kennedy, the daughter of a Rat Pack member and the mother of a TV talk show host, a former big band singer, the owner of a local chain of women's clothing stores who committed suicide in the early '90s by jumping from his 31st-floor balcony, one of the founders of MGM and an aging former Playboy bunny whose apartment was a gift from her married paramour, which didn't faze anyone as long as her homeowners association dues were paid. (See box at right.)

The meeting of producer and theater chain owner Ted Mann and actress Rhonda Fleming at Sierra Towers in the '70s resulted in a 24-year marriage. The late television star David Janssen and his wife Ellie and singer Buddy Greco and his vivacious wife Dani lived there in the '70s too. Observant neighbors were aware of David and Dani's affair before any gossip columnists. The lovers divorced their respective spouses, married and moved out of the building.

But there has never been so much activity and enthusiasm for creating luxurious homes in the sky as Sierra Towers has experienced since the beginning of this century. Five floors down from Rodkin's condo, the home of Irwin and Lynne Deutch occupies the same footprint as her masterwork in progress. The view that forms a backdrop for the Deutchs' dining room includes nearby green hillsides, the Getty Museum beyond and on a clear day, the Pacific. A spacious living room, media room and the apartment's only bedroom overlook the city, a panorama that's especially dramatic after nightfall, when the stars above and lights below twinkle.

The Deutchs bought the apartment six and a half years ago from George Hamilton, who left behind a lone bottle of suntan oil on the terrace. Mirrored walls that had reflected a pair of towering elephant tusks were also Hamilton's legacy, so Alison Spear, a Miami architect who had designed a pied-à-terre in New York for the Deutchs, was hired to transform the apartment into a loft-like space that would showcase their art collection and honor the views.

It took two years to pave floors with Lagos Azul limestone, construct room dividers of Australian walnut, enclose the kitchen in glass, install a state-of-the-art lighting system and conceal window shades controlled by timers in the ceiling. The result is a sleek, sophisticated apartment that echoes the simplicity of the building's architecture. God is in the details: The headboard in the master bedroom is recessed; if a door handle protruded, a cavity was carved into the wall to match it, so that the door lies flush when open.

"The Deutchs were really the front-runners," says Linda May, a Realtor who moved to Sierra Towers in 1990. "They were the first people to hire an internationally recognized architect to redo two apartments at such a high level. They took a leap of faith."

Russo, the general contractor who first refurbished a Sierra Towers unit 28 years ago, jumped with them. He is now such a familiar presence that he's rather like the building's unofficial mayor. He figures he's worked on 120 of the 148 apartments there, and redone some four times. He's currently involved in five major projects, including Mesforoush's and Rodkin's, and on a typical day 60 to 70 of his employees are at work high above Sunset Boulevard. A year and a half ago, he was so busy supervising 12 apartments in various stages of completion that he couldn't take on any more, even Matthew Perry's.

"For years, we'd just change a few things in a unit," Russo says. "There was a lot of old money in the building, people who weren't into design or doing everything over. If someone spent $200,000, that was a lot. I was so tired of doing the same thing over and over — putting in crown molding, new drapes and new cabinets — that I was ready to retire. Then younger people started moving in and gutting everything. The typical unit I work on now costs $1 million to redo, and it keeps going up. The building is built really solid, yet it was a sleeper for so many years."

The costliest of Russo's makeovers was $2.5 million, but that record could be broken soon, since fixing up apartments has become a competitive sport. "Every new owner has seen what's been done before, and they want theirs to be the flagship," he says. Four years ago, only five apartments had been combined with another to create bigger units. Now the number has risen to nine. Each floor contains six apartments, and for the first time, three units — the whole front of the 18th floor — will be gutted and combined into one apartment for real estate executive Charles S. Cohen.

Sierra Towers is so much taller than other buildings in the area that through the years, urban legends were spun about who was paid off by whom to get approval to build the high-rise at the edge of a neighborhood of houses. Residents still mention being able to walk out the door and be surrounded by homes as one of the building's most attractive features.

The L.A. dream had long been to own one of those houses, with a yard and palm-sheltered pool. (And maybe a guest house and cabanas.) The prevailing view held that apartment living couldn't match the appeal of a house surrounded by the wide open spaces. Even for apartment lovers, in the 1980s and early '90s, new condo buildings built on a Manhattan-like strip of Wilshire that became known as "the corridor" eclipsed Sierra Towers. The apartments in Westwood were newer and larger, and offered the latest kitchen bells and bathroom whistles. A Sierra Towers unit that hadn't been updated since the '60s looked shabby in comparison.

But not to Russell Filice. A Realtor used to high-rise living in San Francisco, he was 36 when he moved to Sierra Towers four years ago. When owners who had lived in the building for decades died or moved away, he targeted a young crowd lousy with disposable income, "a young, sexy, hip clientele that's out there with no place to go," he says. "My clients don't want the maintenance of a yard and a pool. They want a lifestyle that's similar to how they lived in college, except at a more luxurious level and with every amenity."

Publicist Jeffrey Lane has lived in 10 different Sierra Towers apartments in the last 15 years. He says, "Russ would call because he had someone who wanted to look at my unit. By the time I'd get home from the office, he'd say, 'We got an offer.' He is the whiz kid of that building. He has great architectural flair. When he shows a unit, he can envision what can be done with it. The brokers who came before were just selling a condo and that was it. Russell takes pride in the building and understands its potential."

Actor-director and architecture buff Vincent Gallo, who has bought and sold several units in Sierra Towers, purchased the two-story apartment once owned by David Geffen from Filice via a transatlantic phone call. Filice says Gallo has engaged Rem Koolhaas to redesign the space.

Mesforoush, another Filice client, drives up to Sierra Towers in one of two Rolls-Royce Phantoms, or in a Porsche GT when he's not in his Range Rover. A 27-year-old former bouncer, he says he got rich quick trading equities, and has bid $60 million to buy the Chateau Marmont. "This is the only condo building that has a young, sexy vibe," he says. "I'm going to buy up as many units as I can and redo them with a quality to the finishes that will blow every other apartment in this place away."

Verhagen and Fassnidge bought a three-bedroom apartment from Filice for themselves, but they also wanted a guest room, one of 11 privately owned suites on the sixth floor that residents use for offices, live-in help or guests. The tiny rooms sold for $60,000 a decade ago, but current prices as high as $300,000 haven't diminished demand. When Filice told them one was available, they didn't hesitate. After all, no sooner had they gutted their apartment than they were offered twice what they'd paid.

The couple hired San Francisco architect Tim Gemmel to create a gallery-like space with an office and one bedroom. They wanted an uncluttered shell to contain original Art Deco and mid-20th century furnishings and contemporary art. In deference to their dogs, Archie and Freddie, rugs of chocolate brown were chosen, and upholstered pieces were covered in brown, taupe or gray.

The pair picked a German lighting system that was more costly and intricate than even what Russo was accustomed to. Shortly before a polished concrete floor was to be installed, Fassnidge walked down Rodeo Drive from the salon he co-owns with Joseph Campbell to the Dolce & Gabbana store, where he was transfixed by the boutique's volcanic stone floor. Russo imported the stone from Italy, and the change lengthened the project by four months and exploded the budget. No sign of birth pangs is evident in the serene, seamless and deceptively simple apartment, completed in April, which owes much to the owners' eye for Modern design and the forethought that has become Russo's trademark.

Every unit in the building has terraces 8-feet wide that owners can enclose in glass or leave open to the elements, beyond glass walls. (Russo has closed in an apartment's terrace, only to open it up for the next owner.) Verhagen and Fassnidge frequently entertain on the terrace they chose to expose, which overlooks homes that dot the hills behind the building. "Sitting outside, you feel like you're in the South of France," Verhagen says. "I always thought if Doris Day and Rock Hudson had really been a couple, they would have lived at Sierra Towers."

Now, even a pair of Hollywood sweethearts would be lucky to get in. Several of Filice's clients want to buy as many units as they can. Josh Greer, a 30-year-old developer from Mobile, Ala., bunked at the Peninsula Hotel after his apartment was gutted. He bought another unit he'll quickly fix up and stay in until his first place is finished.

"It's like buying a lot that you then build a house on," he says. "By the time I'm done, I'll have spent $3 million on a 1,600-square-foot apartment. I know I could have gotten a house for that, but I wanted to be in Sierra Towers. There's Beverly Hills, there's West Hollywood, and then there's Sierra Towers. It's not a building. It's a neighborhood."

Paneling Makes a Comeback

2005-12-22T09:48:00.000-08:00

On a farm nestled in bucolic Springfield Township, Bucks County, there's an old barn under renovation.

In one room of the barn, hemlock panels blanket the ceiling, tucked under roof trusses, which also are made from hemlock. Wainscoting, made from ancient Chinese elm, circles the room. The elm's supplier, Mountain Lumber of Charlottesville, Va., claims the wood was recovered from a cache in the Luliang Mountain region of China and is 400 to 600 years old.

''The home owner wants an old Bucks County farm feel,'' says Bill D'Arcy, owner of Builders Guild of Allentown.

Wood paneling is gaining popularity but make no mistake — this is no throwback to the 1970s. Today's paneling is light years away from what was used 30 years ago.

Gone are the panels constructed from particle board and laminated photographs of wood grain.

''No one is using the inexpensive paneling,'' says Nancy Barsotti, an interior designer with offices in New York and Pittsburgh. ''People in general are looking for a higher quality that's more lasting.'' Designers are now using rich, natural woods for paneling such as elm, alder wood and hemlock.

''Paneling today is like hardwood floors for your walls,'' says Nancy Carroll of Nancy Carroll Interiors in Allentown. ''It's a more quality material.''

Back to nature

There's probably no interior design element more identifiable with the 1970s than wood paneling. Paired up with shag carpeting (usually orange, gold or avocado colored), '70s-era paneling turned what was usually a family room or basement into a deep, dark, groovy space to hang out.

The paneling most of us may be familiar with is not actually wood. It's various forms of shiny faux wood, usually dark and of uniform width. According to http://www.onthehouse.com , home centers in the '60s and '70s stocked an abundant supply of wall paneling to meet the demand of consumers who wanted to jazz up a bland room. Paneling was also an easy way to hide a wall's flaws without having to put up new dry wall or repair plaster.

''It was ugly stuff,'' Carroll says.

As time went on, home owners realized '70s paneling sapped a room of natural light and began either pulling it out or painting it a light color.

Today's paneling is predominantly made from natural materials, such as pine, cedar, oak. Carroll recently designed a room, which had a rustic, African theme, with alder wood panels that were lightly varnished. The knot holes were deep and accentuated and extremely rustic. The paneling was used on one wall, with an interesting piece of furniture in front of it for accent.

''It was really different,'' Carroll says.

Natural materials are prevalent through D'Arcy's renovation project in Bucks County. Chinese elm and hemlock combine to accentuate the room's focal point, a large, terra-cotta-lined bake oven.

''He wants it to look like it's been there,'' D'Arcy says.

D'Arcy says the homeowner plans to use the room for entertainment.

The hemlock used in the ceiling and trusses was recycled from an old Army Depot in Harrisburg, D'Arcy says. The centuries-old recycled Chinese elm covers 2,000 square feet of floor space and 3,000 square feet of wainscoting that encircles the room. The wainscoting panels are random widths, ranging from 3 to 5 inches wide. Of course, natural wood paneling isn't cheap. The Chinese elm D'Arcy used runs about $20 a square foot.

Historical bead board

While many of us may identify paneling with the 1970s, it actually dates back much further. Wood paneling was popular in homes built in the 18th century, including Colonial Williamsburg, Carroll says.

One of the most well-liked — and affordable — forms of paneling being used today is bead board, which was often seen in Victorian homes.

''Bead board has made a comeback,'' Carroll says.

Bead board, recognizable by its tongue and groove style, was used often in Victorian homes. Bead board lends a casual look that fits into any home, especially if the homeowner is going for a Colonial or Shaker inspired interior design.

''It's a wonderful material,'' Barsotti says. ''It's very durable but you need to treat it and hang it properly and use the right materials.''

Carroll says she uses bead board in kitchen backsplashes, powder rooms, mud rooms and in kids' rooms.

''It's gorilla proof,'' Carroll says.

Bead board isn't just for walls, however. Bead board was used on porch ceilings of turn-of-century homes, particularly in New England.

According to http://www.thisoldhouse.com , bead board is available in many types of woods, but it's most often made from easy-to-mill softwoods. Bead board is also a popular choice for do-it-yourselfers.

Gunter Wedhorn, of Wedhorn Construction in Nazareth, says bead board is also available in a medium-density fiberboard, which doesn't move like wood does. It's more stable when subjected to moisture and heat so it's an ideal choice for bathrooms, laundry rooms and kitchens. Wedhorn also says it comes pre-primed so it only needs a layer of top coat. The medium-density fiberboard form of bead board is also less costly than stained wood.

Wainscoting's a winner

''I do a lot of wainscoting,'' Carroll says. ''It's fun — the old look coming back.''

Wainscoting is a technique where decorative wood panels are installed usually covering the lower three to four feet of an interior wall. A strip of molding called a chair rail runs horizontally across the top of the panels, separating them from the rest of the wall.

Wainscoting is a way to add architectural interest to a blah room, without covering an entire wall with wood.

Wedhorn says he's seen wainscoting grow in popularity.

''I do a lot of kitchen and bath remodeling,'' Wedhorn says. ''I've noticed over the last 5 to 7 years that wainscoting has become popular in bathrooms.''

Bead board is a good replacement for bathrooms where years ago shiny tile was installed up a portion of the walls.

''[Home owners] don't like that look now,'' Wedhorn says. ''The wainscoting gives it a warmer look.''

Barsotti says she often uses wainscoting to fit the period of the home, particularly for Colonial interiors.

But wainscoting doesn't just have to be for older homes.

''Even in newer homes wainscoting has never gone out of style,'' Barsotti says. ''It lends a formality to the room.''

The Mysteries of Zanzibar

2005-12-22T08:38:00.000-08:00

Few ferry rides in the world can conjure up the wealth of expectations that arise on the two-hour trip from the verdant Tanzanian coast to Zanzibar. The name alone has for centuries endowed this region with a promise of splendor.

Standing on the boat's deck, with the sun dipping low to the west, I watched as fishermen in catamarans paddled into small inlets. As we powered farther out to sea, the white sails of dhows began to appear on the horizon, a throwback to the days when the wooden ships regularly plied the trade routes between Africa and Arabia.

We docked in the port of Stone Town, the capital of Zanzibar Island (part of what is commonly referred to as the Spice Islands) and a city of labyrinthine alleys and faded Omani palaces that is redolent of the glories of the old Islamic empires, more Middle Eastern in its feel than African. Women in full-length black robes streamed down the gangplank. A monsoon shower had swept in, drenching the port and sending everyone scurrying for the nearest taxi.

Tourism in Zanzibar and other Muslim islands off the coast of East Africa is undergoing a resurgence, despite the war in Iraq and bombings in the Middle East that have frightened many Western travelers away from Islamic countries. Stone Town, the first stop for most travelers here, retains the atmospheric trappings of urban life in Muslim cities but hews to a much looser interpretation of Islam than many places in the Middle East. So while calls to prayer regularly resound through the streets, bars and restaurants serve alcohol with little restraint.

Other fanciful indulgences abound: luxury hotels fashioned from the former manors of wealthy merchants, a native cuisine that brazenly drenches seafood in aromatic spices, and white-sand beaches just a few hours' drive from the city.

The best way to see Stone Town is to walk and, preferably, to get lost while doing so. My friend Tini and I hit the streets the morning after checking into the Tembo House Hotel, a former merchant's home right on the waterfront, and instantly found ourselves swept into the decaying opulence of the city. From the narrow passageways we ducked into the inner courtyards of old manors, pastel-colored paint peeling from the walls.

What lends Stone Town its charm are the remnants of empire, all piled atop one another and inflected by the native Swahili culture.

The Persians were among the first foreigners to settle here alongside the indigenous people. The island was colonized by the Portuguese starting in 1503 and brought under the control of Oman in 1698. The sultan of Oman eventually moved the seat of his kingdom to Zanzibar, which resulted in an artistic renaissance in Stone Town, with Arabic influence becoming much more overt in the designs of manors and palaces. In the late 19th century, the British Empire annexed the island, only to have it gain independence decades later before coming under the rule of the government of mainland Tanzania.

The shadow of the Arabian Peninsula, just across the Indian Ocean, falls everywhere in Stone Town. We made our way through the twisting streets, marveling at the thick wooden double doors with their arabesque carved lintels and large brass studs.

One narrow alley led to another, with branches veering off in all directions and plenty of dead ends. There were groups of men in white robes and skullcaps playing pool in small cafés, and cramped shops selling everything from spices to television sets to long rolls of multihued cloth. It had the same feel as Cairo or Damascus or Lahore - the urban design of Zanzibar is the same as the one imprinted all over the Islamic world.

Some of the most baroque edifices lie along the waterfront, including the former palace of the Omani sultans, which overlooks the harbor, and a towering old mansion called the House of Wonders, which has a museum of Swahili culture on the ground floor. There are surprising finds everywhere, like the pink Art Nouveau exterior of the Ciné Afrique, a shuttered movie theater in the north of the old town, along a street running east of the port.

One stroll took us to an Anglican church that stood on the site where slaves who had been brought in from the mainland were sold. Nearby was a small museum dedicated to the memory of the slave trade - two musty cells in a dungeon evoke the cramped quarters in which manacled Africans were once imprisoned after they had been marched to the coast from the continent's deep interior and dumped on ships.

At night, locals gather at Forodhani Gardens, a strip of park on the waterfront right outside the House of Wonders. Before sunset, cooks begin setting up grills and tables along the water and laying out skewers of raw seafood. You can stroll along the stalls and pick different delicacies that are then grilled in front of you by lamplight, washing it all down with mugs of fresh sugar-cane juice.

One popular attraction is a "spice tour," which virtually all the travel agencies in Stone Town run. Our guide, Fuad, drove us past the former home of the British explorer and missionary Dr. David Livingstone and into the gentle hills outside town, where sprawling plantations have been set up to grow and harvest cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, peppercorn and other spices. Stopping at one plantation filled with lush tropical plants, we rubbed some cloves between our fingers and sniffed it.

"This is Zanzibar's cash crop," Fuad said, "but the Tanzanian government pays farmers so little for it that people often try smuggling it into Kenya." With that, he drove us to another plantation, where we ended the tour by devouring kingfish cooked in a rich coconut curry.

It is along the coast, though, that Zanzibar is at its most vivid.

One day we took a minivan up to the beach at Kendwa, a small fishing village on the northwest shore of the island that is free of the crowds at the more popular backpacker resort of Nungwi. There was absolutely nothing to do there but laze around, eat seafood, read books and go swimming in the turquoise waters.

The beach had three or four small lodges with simple bungalows right next to each other, and the one where we stayed, Kendwa Rocks, had a reputation for having wild full-moon parties.

On our last night in Kendwa, we watched the blazing red orb of the sun sink into the ocean. The wind picked up and sped the dhows through the waters, their white sails puncturing the twilight calm.

Sleek Radiators

2005-12-22T08:31:00.000-08:00

By STEPHEN TREFFINGER, New York Times, December 22, 2005

Q. Is there a way to replace my bulky radiators with something slimmer - maybe even invisible?

A. I'm actually a fan of the big, beautiful radiator. For something so utilitarian, it provides a wealth of character - but it can indeed take up a lot of space. You're in luck, however. In recent years, the home heating field has come up with sleeker radiators, some in novel shapes. And there are other lower-profile options for warming your home.

Several companies offer slender, wall-mounted variations of the steam or hot water radiator. Runtal North America, a Ward Hill, Mass., company, has a line of hot-water wall panels that project two inches into the room. They are made of powder-coated steel and can be ordered in about 100 colors, so they can blend in or stand out.

They also come in all kinds of sizes, some small enough to slip under a window, right, some large enough to span a wall. You can hang the units vertically or horizontally, singly or in groups. Prices begin at about $360; (800) 526-2621 or runtalnorthamerica.com.

These are hot water only, so if you have steam, your options are fewer. Runtal North America's sibling company, Steam Radiators, makes wall panels that accommodate one- or two-pipe systems, above. The panels come in heights of 16 or 24 inches and lengths of 2 to 6 feet. Prices begin at about $500; steamradiators.com or (800) 966-0587.

If bold and showy is what you're after, Bisque, a British company, makes enameled-steel radiators with a modern, industrial look. "Hot Spring" spirals like a stretched Slinky. Another, "Kitchen Radiator," has vertical rows of tubes and twin rails for hanging towels.

In New York, Bisque's hot water radiators are available through 3-D Laboratory, a renovation company. Prices begin at about $500; 3-dlaboratory.com or (212) 791-7070.

Think of the IQ Glass radiant heating system as a double-pane window with wiring and a few extra tricks. The inner pane has an invisible metal oxide coating, which conducts electricity and warms the glass. The outer pane reflects the heat into the room, and krypton gas is sealed between them for insulation. The company, based in Belgium, does not yet sell its products in the United States but will soon. Information: iqglass.com or (888) 508-6711.

For a steady, invisible source of heat, consider radiant floor systems. Plastic tubing goes under the floor, and as hot water circulates it heats the room. Going barefoot is possible even in winter, and because the tubing spans the room, you don't have pockets of hot and cold.

Hannel Enterprises, in Spokane, Wash., designs and sells systems. It says installation, easiest in new construction, is not hard if there is a crawl space with access. Prices start at about $3 a square foot; radiantdirect.com or (888) 298-6036.

For Renovators, a Rude Awakening

2005-12-22T08:26:00.000-08:00

By Ernest Beck, New York Times, December 22, 2005

THE hurricanes that battered the Gulf Coast and Florida this year devastated communities and left tens of thousands of people homeless. Now consumers everywhere are likely to feel the impact of the storms in the form of rising prices for construction and building materials.

Many of those materials were already going up in price, but within six months things may be much worse.

Tack $7,000 onto the cost of building a typical house in 2006, according to Michael Carliner, an economist at the National Association of Home Builders. Because materials account for about a third of the cost of a new home, the increase "will have to be absorbed somewhere, most likely by consumers," he said.

And count on spending more to renovate.

"Prices are creeping up on all fronts," said Paul Winans, president of Winans Construction, a contractor in Oakland, Calif., which has added 15 percent to its bids over the last year to reflect a sharp increase in wholesale prices for materials.

Kitchen cabinets have risen 10 percent, he said; insulation is up 14 percent; finished lumber, 10 percent; windows and skylights, 8 percent; plaster and drywall, 15 to 20 percent. Materials for electrical work are up 15 to 20 percent, Mr. Winans said, partly because of factory closings after Hurricane Katrina.

Along with knocking out oil and gas platforms that supply plastics factories, Katrina shut down two big gypsum wallboard factories.

Although many oil production facilities are back in operation, the factories that depend on petroleum products are still facing shortfalls.

Ken Simonson, the chief economist at Associated General Contractors of America, a trade organization in Arlington, Va., says this uncertainty makes it likely that prices for some P.V.C. products used in home building, like insulation and roofing materials, "will remain 20 percent to 50 percent more expensive than in 2005."

Because of continuing production and delivery difficulties, cement and concrete prices are likely to surge 10 percent to 15 percent in 2006, on top of a 10 to 13 percent increase from October 2004 to October 2005, according to Mr. Simonson. And all this is before rebuilding in the gulf region gets under way. When that happens, says Mr. Winans, who is also president of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, "it will be like a vacuum sucking up things like drywall, plywood, insulation and roofing."

Exactly how much will be required isn't known, because plans for the reconstruction of New Orleans and other cities are not final. And intensive rebuilding would not begin until mid-2006, at the earliest.

That's assuming it happens. But if it does, initial estimates suggest that rebuilding New Orleans alone would require at least 3.86 tons of cement - the main ingredient of concrete - over five years, according to the Portland Cement Association, a trade organization in Skokie, Ill.

Ed Sullivan, the chief economist at the cement association, says that spot shortages are possible as rebuilding gets under way.

"If there is a shortage, typically those who are shut out are the smaller guys who don't plan ahead," he said. "Do-it-yourselfers would face the most difficulties."

Where there are shortages, price increases often follow. "We expect rising material costs to show up at the consumer level," Mr. Simonson said. "Everyone will have to deal with them."

Do-it-yourselfers probably do not need to worry about higher prices just yet. Home improvement chains like the Home Depot, partly because they are able to make large, long-term deals with vendors, have not increased prices, although Jennifer Smith, a spokeswoman for the Lowe's chain, acknowledged that "there have been pressures."

Price increases before the storms hit partly reflect the housing boom, and partly a growing demand for cement, steel and copper in rapidly developing countries like China and India. (China alone uses about a third of the world's cement.)

Other homebuilding essentials, like plywood, have faced constraints because factories can't keep up with demand.

Surprisingly, the supply of one crucial building material - lumber - has not been hurt. In fact, the hurricanes' downing of trees with an estimated 15 billion to 19 billion board feet of timber - enough to build 800,000 single-family homes, according to the Forest Service - is expected to hold prices steady.

That is, if the downed trees can be salvaged before they rot: only about 20 percent of the wood may be saved in time, the Home Builders group estimates.

Decorating With an Ear for R&B

2005-12-22T08:13:00.000-08:00

By Penelope Green, New York Times, December 22, 2005

THE first meeting between Laura Gottwald, an effervescent interior designer and jazz lover, and Margery Budoff, a personal injury lawyer and deeply committed audiophile, was so momentous that Ms. Budoff later had to rethink her undergarments.

It was 1995 and she had just moved into a one-bedroom apartment at Stewart House, the white brick, block-square monolith on East 10th Street in Manhattan, with Moby, an African Grey parrot; a pair of three-foot- tall, fidgety but lovely Quad 63 speakers; an assortment of amplifiers and pre-amps (heavy with tubes); and a handful of Chippendale chairs and tables (heavy with clawed feet). She also had a serious collection of vinyl - jazz, rhythm and blues, Latin and gospel recordings from the 1950's and 60's - and a huge black record washer. Curious and scholarly, Ms. Budoff was attempting at the time, she said the other day, "to just amass things."

"I was learning about antiques," she added, "and I didn't have any particular affinity for them. I just liked them because they were old."

A former child prodigy who played a piano concert series for children at the Brooklyn Museum when she was 8, Ms. Budoff has the sort of hungry intelligence that worries a fact like a terrier with a rubber ball. (In her teens, she would listen to the same John Coltrane record over and over until she grasped, "in a rudimentary way," as she described it, "the nature of improvisation over the heads of the tunes.")

When Ms. Gottwald came into Ms. Budoff's life, to untangle the antiques and stereo components and records, and to help her steer an aesthetic course, she offered midcentury modernism as a model. Ms. Budoff took to the style so enthusiastically that she began dressing to match her furniture, in 1950's foundation garments, pointy shoes and little suits.

"I thought that if I surrounded myself in everything from that vintage and wore everything from that vintage," she said, "I would transmogrify in some way. Obviously I was at some sort of psychological stage."

In any case, she had found Ms. Gottwald while looking for the rug, she said, "that would change my life." It was a 1940's powder blue Karastan, advertised in the classifieds of The New York Times by a man named Paul Fuhrman, who specialized in buying and reselling the contents of restaurants and hotels. At home with her new rug and old chairs, "I was really lost," Ms. Budoff said. She appealed to Mr. Fuhrman, who suggested she meet Ms. Gottwald, a snappy designer with a rich sense of humor.

Ms. Gottwald and Mr. Fuhrman had met when Ms. Gottwald was redoing the interiors of the Cavalier Hotel in Miami Beach; she later hired him to restore some of the Algonquin's furniture when she redesigned that hotel's interiors in 1990. (Note to Mr. Fuhrman: send up a flare. Both Ms. Gottwald and Ms. Budoff are pining for you. "He just vanished," Ms. Gottwald said.)

Anyway, Ms. Gottwald continued, "I think Paul thought that if anyone could make the Chippendale things work with that rug it would be me. I do remember saying that if there was a lot of space between them they could be in dialogue."

Or at least détente. Ms. Gottwald would arrive at Ms. Budoff's apartment, and they would push the furniture away and sit on the rug. Ms. Budoff would serve cocktails and maybe some gospel, and Ms. Gottwald served little tutorials on midcentury modern furniture, or contemporary fabric, or Murano glass. Theirs was a happy collaboration. Ms. Gottwald, who once followed Ornette Coleman around Manhattan for an entire afternoon just for fun, delighted in Ms. Budoff's music and tried to design with all the equipment in mind. Ms. Budoff, a member of three audio clubs - each an orgy of cable and component swapping - is very, very serious about sound.

She described 11 years spent with a pair of delicate Quad 63 electrostatic speakers with tenderness. "That's a speaker that broke my heart," she said. Tired of fixing them each year, she has run through a series of replacements. These days, a pair of Aerial 10T's, hulking, blond maple obelisks, are planted at the top of the down stroke in her T-shape apartment, which is where the living room is. Stewart House's low-ceilinged apartments with their dead-end alcoves flatten sound, particularly the bass end. "One of our disappointments is we were not able to make the room perfect acoustically," Ms. Gottwald said. Placed as they are, the Aerials produce the best sound possible, but only if you're sitting in the living room.

"The sweet seat," Ms. Gottwald explained, "is in the center of the mohair plush sofa by that famous 40's designer, Anonymous." (That's another Paul Fuhrman pick.)

They took it slowly - buying pieces over the years as Ms. Budoff's budget allowed. Most of the Chippendale left to make room for an Edward Wormley couch and credenza, an Eames chair and a shiny black lacquer cabinet. The rest was slid into the bedroom with Moby. "That's where we put Margery's old life," Ms. Gottwald said. A few years ago, Ms. Gottwald took Ms. Budoff to visit an elderly aunt in Ocean Grove, N.J., and to visit the flea market there. Ms. Budoff met her first vintage vacuum coffee pot, a 10-cup, double-handled Silex Delray, bulbous and alluring, which she bought for about $25.

"I walked towards it as if in a trance," she said. "I didn't know what it was, but I was determined to get to the bottom of it."

Into her apartment came a clinking army of bubble-shape glass coffee pots with evocative names like the Vaculator. The other night, there were 30-odd pots ranged above her record collection; nearly as many live in a closet. "They have multiplied like rabbits," Ms. Budoff said with some annoyance. "Now I'm trying to get rid of them."

(She has already jettisoned her 50's drag; she was disillusioned by the awkward fit of her 50's foundation garments, the bullet bras in particular, and their inability to transform her on a deep cellular level.)

Last fall, Ms. Gottwald made another match for Ms. Budoff. She took her to see Jack Fetterman, an old friend who was D.J.-ing in a bar between Chinatown and the Lower East Side. It was a frigid, weird evening, "a bad gig," Mr. Fetterman said, but his mixing piqued Ms. Budoff's interest. Mr. Fetterman, an architect who works by day at E.R. Butler & Company, a high-end custom hardware manufacturer, is also a composer/remixer of a very particular sort of midcentury lounge music (a term he would hate). It's a swanky, ambient, very orchestral sound, all vibraphones and acoustic piano. Mr. Fetterman calls it "exotica house." Aficionados sometimes call it "neo-easy listening," and refer you to its heroes: Les Baxter, Martin Denny, Juan Garcia Esquivel.

"It's geeky white music," Ms. Gottwald said with a shudder, the farthest sound from Ms. Budoff's beloved deep soul, gutbucket R&B and doo-wop. But the periods are the same, stretching from the 1950's to deep in the 1970's, when disco took over.

In the cab on the way home that evening - Mr. Fetterman lives on Ninth Street - the two discussed speakers and record washers and each found in the other a kindred spirit.

"When I heard that he'd had his Dynaco speakers since college," Ms. Budoff said, "I knew that he was not a 'civilian,' and that he, too, qualified as being from another planet."

Mr. Fetterman has since taught Ms. Budoff to D.J. -she goes by the name D.J. Mobita, in honor of Moby the parrot. They have been playing before the burlesque shows at Rififi, a bar and former theater on East 11th Street. Ms. Budoff now spins for his Internet radio program, "Quiet City: Radio in Hi-Fi," on Luxuriamusic.com.

A few weeks ago, all three sat around the 1954 Gimbels metal dinette table that belonged to Ms. Budoff's parents - exhumed and given a new elliptical bite-proof top by Ms. Gottwald (so that Moby could eat with Ms. Budoff). They all wore architectural eyewear and looked like the members of a late 1970's New Wave band. Mr. Fetterman favors a thick black frame; Ms. Budoff's frames were bright green; Ms. Gottwald's a shimmering red that matched her hair. Ms. Budoff's apartment, with its glittering silk pillows, vinyl-filled shelves, and slyly updated 50's furnishings, made an apt backdrop. Indeed, it might have been the cover of one of Mr. Fetterman's easy-listening records.

They broached a term for Ms. Budoff and Mr. Fetterman: vinyl archaeologists.

For their Christmas party invitations this year, Ms. Budoff and Mr. Fetterman have made a wreath of his old record covers and photographed it with a swirly title: "How's This Sound for Christmas?"

Feds Auction Off Corrupt Congressman's Items

2005-12-17T14:33:00.000-08:00

The antiques and other furnishings forfeited by former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham in his corruption case were laid out yesterday in a San Diego area warehouse as if on display at a garage sale.

Which, in a sense, they were.

The handmade Oriental carpets spread on a concrete floor and French armoires propped up on shipping crates were on display for the media before they are sold to the public.

Nearby, federal agents discussed the loot with an appraiser and representatives for an auctioneer, with their papers spread over a marble-topped buffet with curved glass doors and gold-leaf fittings.

Just over a week after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy and tax evasion, Cunningham turned over many of the items he agreed to surrender after admitting he took bribes from Pentagon contractors and a New York businessman.

The furnishings will be put up for auction early next year and the proceeds will be split among the agencies that investigated the case: the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation division and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

As the wares were displayed yesterday, Cunningham's colleagues in Washington, D.C., formally accepted his resignation. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Cunningham "violated" the trust he built during a military and legislative career. Cunningham faces up to 10 years in prison and $350,000 in fines at a sentencing scheduled for Feb. 27.

He admitted he took more than $2.4 million in bribes and agreed to forfeit $1.8 million in cash, his share of the proceeds from the sale of his Rancho Santa Fe mansion and a variety of items bought with bribe money.

Trendsetter: Ross Lovegrove

2005-12-17T14:23:00.000-08:00

Ross Lovegrove, the 47-year-old industrial designer, has placed a bear skull and a meringue side-by-side on his studio shelf in London. The Welshman, who is inspired by the beauty and logic of nature, says the two very different objects remind him of the versatility of biomaterials.

Both are made of protein and polysaccharides, yet the skull is strong enough to stand on, while the meringue would disappear if he poured water on it. "They set my mind fizzing about packaging, waste, and the earth," he enthuses.

Absorbing reams of information from unlikely sources is Lovegrove's modus operandi. He "sucks" ideas from people and places -- so much so that he often doesn't sleep through the night. He is perhaps most famous for designing furniture inspired by nature, such as the Go chair for U.S. company Bernhardt Design, which resembles a high-tech praying mantis. But he has also created airplane seats for Japan Airlines, cameras for Olympus, and watches for Tag Heuer.

TIMELY SOLUTIONS. Linking this varied portfolio is a constant search for forms that look and feel human, and new materials to render them in a cleaner, more efficient way. The Go chair, for example, features a lightweight frame of magnesium, a metal previously unused in furniture design.

Lovegrove's distinctive aesthetic and innovative approach earned him the World Technology Award for Design this November. The prize is part of an annual ceremony presented by the World Technology Network, a global think tank and elite club based in New York City, to honor the most innovative individuals and companies in science and technology. Peers nominate the candidates and vote for the winners.

"Ross was nominated for his continual search for innovative design and his integration of environmental concerns, which seems very timely given the issues that many people are finding pressing on humanity at the moment," says James Clark, founder and chairman of the awards.

INNOVATIVE SCIENCE. At the core of Lovegrove's design ethic is DNA: Design, Nature, Art. His creations try to be as purposeful as possible. A bottle he created for the Welsh mineral water company Ty Nant not only looks like a beautiful twist of running water, but can also be crushed for more efficient disposal, and is easier for children and the elderly to hold than regular bottles.

Lovegrove is shocked by the waste in some products, such as the average pump-action toothpaste tube, which contains three times as much plastic as an iPod. This love of the natural form earned him the nickname "Captain Organic" from Los Angeles architect Greg Lynn.

The pace of Lovegrove's life is fast and furious. In the past month, he has been around the world three times, talked to Boeing in Seattle about working on the interior of the 787 Dreamliner, and met with Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake in Tokyo, with whom he has worked on cosmetics packaging in the past.

Despite his hectic schedule, Lovegrove chose to travel to California for the World Technology award ceremony because, he explains, "I think science is more innovative than anything right now." The people he met at the event -- the cancer researcher with whom he discussed nanotech, for instance -- exposed him to new ideas that will swirl in his brain until they come out in some future design.

DREAM CAR. So much travel may take him away from Lovegrove Studio in London, where he manages 10 designers and colleagues, but it gives him more time to draw. On long trips, he fills blank leather-bound sketchbooks, which he buys from one particular shop in Venice, Italy.

His latest book contains ink drawings and thoughts about avian flu and utopian and dystopian views of the world. His creations are increasingly about the bigger picture, rather than isolated products. "I am not a hit-and-run designer," he quips.

It is somewhat ironic, then, that Lovegrove's lifetime ambition is to design a car. His excited tone cranks up a notch when he discusses his latest concept -- a transparent bubble-shaped vehicle that allows drivers to see the world around them.

It has few parts (the average car is made up of 30,000 components, he says) and cuts down on noise and air pollution in a manner similar to Toyota's hybrid vehicles. The overall look is athletic, with thin wheels, yet comfortingly rounded, like an air bubble.

BIG PICTURE. Until Lovegrove finds a client willing to produce his dream, he has enough on his plate. After a few days in London with his family this month, he is off again to Milan to meet with a well-known lighting and technology company that wants him to rethink its brand, then on to home furnishing company VitrA in Istanbul, then to Munich to give a public lecture at the Pinakothek art museum.

Sitcom Style

2005-12-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

What type of interior designer writes a book about television? Someone who once believed those weren't characters on the tube but real people. Someone like Diana Friedman.

"When I was watching television as a kid, my older sister used to tell me that if I could see them, then they could see me, too," says Friedman, 33, a freelance writer who, as a child in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan, fixated on "The Brady Bunch" kids as well as their four-bedroom, three-bath California split-level house.

Friedman's love for TV, especially sitcoms, and her passion for interior design meet in the new book "Sitcom Style: Inside America's Favorite TV Homes" (Clarkson Potter, $29.95). She serves up 50-plus years of pop culture with a picture-perfect tour through the sets of more than two dozen shows, from "I Love Lucy" to "Everybody Loves Raymond." Full of color photos and recollections of set designers for some of TV's most popular programs, "Sitcom Style" is a blend of obsession, confession and investigation. (It's probably just what Kramer was thinking when he pushed for that coffee-table book on coffee tables.)

Like lots of Americans, Friedman grew up watching TV - perhaps a little too much. Like lots of Americans, she found herself, as well as friends and colleagues, saying things like, "I grew up just like 'The Cosby Show'" or "My childhood was very 'Leave It to Beaver.'"

Designing woman

Unlike lots of Americans, Friedman spent two years hunting nationwide for set photographs and tidbits from the shows' designers to put into a book. (In case you're wondering, many pieces from these legendary shows now sit in the offices of those same designers.) She included interior and exterior photos; several of the latter are of New York City buildings from sitcoms such as "Sex and the City," "Friends," "The Odd Couple," "Mad About You" and "Seinfield." Building addresses, of course, are in the book.

Friedman emphasizes that sets are much more than a series of exterior TV shots and a collection of random props; they're carefully structured show pieces, built to unveil moods and to help actors create memorable characters. The sets breathe life into personalities, unwrapping mothers and fathers and siblings and friends so real that a child might actually believe she could look back at them.

How detailed are designers? Mel Cooper, set designer for "Seinfeld," made sure the cereal boxes on Jerry's kitchen shelf in his Manhattan apartment were alphabetized each week. "I love that because it identifies his obsessive-compulsive behavior," Friedman says. Melinda Ritz, the designer for "Will & Grace," another show in the city, used a framed Boys Life magazine cover to hint at Will's sexual orientation. And the cultured and sophisticated appearance of Frasier Crane's Seattle apartment came at a price - a half-million bucks - including Martin Crane's recliner, says set designer Ray Christopher.

Some decorators shopped at thrift shops and antique stores. Others at Sears and JC Penney. Some even rumbled through the garages and attics of relatives. The goals were to provide more realistic looks inside the homes.

Sometimes, designers had less influence in a show's set and subsequent style trend. The sunken living area in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" that came to symbolize the apartment of a liberated 1970s woman was suggested by Jay Sandrich, a frequent episode director. Sandrich wanted a sunken area because it shortened the distance between the front door and kitchen; that gave characters easier entrances and exits.

A short story

Some sets had to disguise shortcomings. Furniture in the make-believe Manhattan apartment in "The Jeffersons" was built lower to the ground because actors Sherman Helmsley and Isabelle Sanford were short. Altering the furniture "made it easier for them to get in and out of," assistant art director Michael Brittain says.

The book does have its missing pieces. Because photos and tidbits for older shows were hard to come by, readers won't get a retro look at classics such as "Father Knows Best," "Ozzie and Harriet" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (bad news for those who'd like to know a little more about the placement of the ottoman that caused Rob Petrie's weekly "trip" across the living room carpet).

"There were issues of availability," Friedman says. "I had to track down so many photographs, that was difficult, and I was able to get to different family members who looked around in garages and attics. That wasn't always possible for some older shows." Friedman does explore campy faux residences, like the grass huts in "Gilligan's Island" and the one-room bottle in "I Dream of Jeannie." When filmed from afar, on a counter in Major Nelson's Cocoa Beach, Fla., home, the bottle was a 1964 Jim Beam Christmas decanter. But when the camera moves inside, Jeannie relaxes on a purple-velvet sectional sofa, surrounded by urns and lanterns.

There are pages devoted to "The Munsters," "The Addams Family," "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons." At the same time, there's a reason why a sitcom like "Cheers" is excluded. While Sam Malone's bar contained excellent design features, Friedman wanted to stress family and the home. "It was important to me that the shows took place in the home," she says. While "Cheers" was a classic, "it didn't do anything to change our thinking in how we live at home."

Side tables and more

Tidbits from the new book "Sitcom Style: Inside America's Favorite TV Homes":

Martin Crane's striped recliner ("Frasier"), including duct tape, cost $1,500, as much as the glass-and-stone dining room table situated directly behind it on the set.

The chairs on "All in the Family" were purchased for less than $20 each at a secondhand store on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. Both pieces now rest in the Smithsonian.

The living room on "Roseanne" cost production designer Garvin Eddy $5,000 to create in 1988. The plaid sofa and side chairs came from Sears. Trophies, pillows and other knickknacks came from sidewalk sales and even Eddy's own garage.

Two programs: "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" were originally set in New York. But producers changed their minds. It actually was cheaper to shoot the Clampetts in Beverly Hills. And Mary Richards of Minneapolis was deemed a more sympathetic character than Mary from Manhattan.

Orange: The New Pink

2005-12-17T13:52:00.000-08:00

Color is one of the best ways to turn your home into a refuge and, at the same time, make a statement. Why not stimulate your imagination and capture a feeling in the hues surrounding you?

A small home can benefit enormously by using the correct colors. The perfect shade can change the way you feel about a room, but finding the perfect shade might not be easy.

Each year the Color Marketing and Design Department at the Sherwin-Williams paint company monitors the currents and crosscurrents of color preference to forecast trends for the next year.

"One year often flows into the next," says director Sheri Thompson, as a change in popular color might mean a deepening of a hue here or an injection of a difference there. There is not an overnight shift from "right" to "wrong," but there can be noticeable mood changes that indicate a preference for one color over another.

With its introduction of a collection called Natural Living, Sherwin-Williams says that orange is here to stay.

Michelle Lamb, senior editor of Trend Curve, which forecasts trends in color and design for home furnishings, says, "Everyone said orange wouldn't sell, and they were flat out wrong."

Orange can capture the appearance of an Aztec clay pot, harvest pumpkins or turning leaves and lend a feeling of warmth and coziness to a room. The Natural Living group of colors includes Mocha, a friendly brown; the windy ocean colors of Candid Blue and Jargon Jade; deep Indigo; and Arresting Auburn.

For bedrooms and bathrooms, a palette of Relaxed Retreat unfolds with just-off-the-clothesline freshness in colors that seem as if a warm breeze could blow right through them.

"Playing clean and warm blues off each other is directional," Lamb says. "This palette has a variety of values and personalities. It doesn't go into deep colors but becomes more saturated. Some colors look luminescent. This collection illustrates the fresh way color is being used today. It's much more interesting than color has ever been in the 21 years I've been forecasting."

Dancing Green, Ravishing Coral, Jacaranda and Peach Fuzz bring to mind spas, villas and luxury hotels. Consider a little bathroom with awning stripes painted in Cooled Blue, a clear aqua, coupled with Lucent Yellow, a soft greenish gold.

In trying to find the ideal shade, do your homework, take your time, and settle only for what you want.

Buy a quart of each color that seems to be a possibility for your room. Take them home and test each in several spots. Then evaluate the effect throughout the day in natural and artificial light.

Wallpaper: Back in Vogue?

2005-12-17T13:44:00.000-08:00

Like all design trends, wallpaper is cyclical in nature. Wallcoverings have fallen in and out of fashion countless times since the Chinese first adorned their walls with rice paper in 200 B.C.

Although wallpaper has been considered passé by most interior designers for more than a decade, it's back in vogue.

Gone are the days of gaudy floral prints or '80s borders with rows of ducks and cows. Today's selections are definitely not your grandmother's wallpaper.

With an array of new products -- from embossed and flocked to paintable wallpaper -- there's something sassy about today's decorating choices. Many designs boast bold textures and lush colors, including metallics and pearl effects. Hot colors include shades of brown, blue, red and orange.

"Wallpaper is definitely getting popular again and there are a lot more interesting selections than there used to be," said Sarah Hedgspeth, a designer with The Blue Nest on Brownsboro Road.

"People are hyped up about decorating with wallcoverings because there are so many cool choices. I think a lot of people are looking to simplify their space with clean lines and a classic look. Wallpaper can definitely help do that."

Like with most trends, Hedgspeth said, some looks are more popular in different areas of the country.

"The flocked and metallic papers that are available are wonderful, and they are the hot new trends in places like New York and Chicago," she said. "With interiors following fashion trends so much, the metallics are popular, including some that are more subtle, along with others that have a very glam '40s look that almost looks like mirror.

"I'm not sure how popular those will be in Louisville, though, since most people here have more conservative tastes in decorating."

Hedgspeth and other local designers agree that one of the hottest trends for area homeowners is embossed and textured wallpaper. There are an array of papers that mimic the look and feel of leather, linen, Venetian plaster and other interesting textures.

"Some of those textured trends can fly in a conservative market, and we have a lot of really cool textured paper," Hedgspeth said. "We have a faux suede paper that would be wonderful beneath a chair rail with an equestrian-themed paper on the top of the wall. That's something I can picture in one of the beautiful homes in Louisville."

Other unique choices include patterned grasscloths, cork wallpaper and beaded wallpaper.

"We've also gotten in some really fabulous glass-bead wallpaper," Hedgspeth said. "That's something that's really different that most people don't even know is out there."

Many Louisville area homeowners are shifting away from the relaxed style and monotones of the '90s to a colorful, tailored look by using wallpaper, said Stephanie Stegner, an interior designer and manager of Wallpaper Depot, 10530 Dixie Highway.

"A lot of people are going for a more contemporary look by using things like sculptured borders or textured wallpaper, such as papers that are embossed with silk," Stegner said.

"Another one of the biggest changes we're seeing is that a lot of customers are looking for wallpaper with a black background. That gives a very elegant look."

Embossed wallpapers that can be painted, such as the collections offered by Anaglypta, are also popular in Louisville, designers say. And they're not just for walls.

You can customize everything from room dividers to ceilings with paintable paper. For example, you can paint an embossed paper a pewter color and hang it on the ceiling to give the appearance of a tin ceiling at a much lower cost.

Obtaining a chic look can be as simple as adding a bold wallpaper or fabric to a dining room, front hallway or restroom, said Stacy Allan, marketing director for Thibaut (www.thibautdesign.com), a New Jersey-based company founded in 1886 and touted as the nation's oldest continuously operating wallpaper firm.

"A powder room, for instance, is a great place to experiment with pattern and color because usually there's not a lot of architectural detail in a powder room," she said. "Wallpaper can spruce up any space, large or small."

Thibaut's newest collection, "Texture Resource," features designs that include exotic and distinctive replications of everything from alligator, a mottled charcoal-chestnut combination, to sharkskin, a unique texture available in several colors, including straw and dark peppercorn.

Designs from this collection surround a room with rich color and a layer of soft pattern, Allan said.

"Many of the Texture Resource selections are embossed so they have a wonderful tactile quality. With such a depth of texture, they make a far more interesting alternative to paint."

In patterns, Allan said, the transition is away from the small, closely clustered designs of the past to larger, open designs that have a jolt of color.

One example is Thibaut's "Marco Polo" design from its "Great Estates" collection, which is based on 18th-century drawings that were rescaled, re-colored and rejuvenated for today's home.

A vivid color palette also characterizes "Sweet Life," another new collection from Thibaut that focuses on life's simple pleasures. The motifs are vibrant and feature whimsical designs, including polka dots, checks and daisies, along with goldfish, frogs, turtles and seashells.

With so many choices, Allan said, using wallcovering is "an easy, affordable way to really add a personal touch to your home.

"You can easily find wallpaper that is unique and perfect for you and your interests," she said. "It gives personality to a home."

Although some wallpaper from early decades was very difficult to remove, Allan said, today's selections are usually much easier to take down.

"You don't have to make a lifetime commitment to the paper, if you make sure to select a quality paper that will be easiest to remove," she said.

"The biggest key is to make sure to apply a good primer to the walls before you hang the paper. A lot of people make the mistake of hanging paper right onto the drywall in new homes without even painting or priming the walls. That's when you run into trouble when you try to remove it."

With its durability, most wallpaper can last for years.

"We've seen wallpaper hanging in historic homes, and it has been there for decades and still looks fine," Allan said. "As far as home decorating goes, wallpaper is here to stay. And it will stay on the wall as long as you want it to, if it's hung properly. Yet, if you want to remove it and try another look, that's usually easy to do too."

Hotels Set Style Trends

2005-12-16T20:54:00.000-08:00

By Michael S. Rosenwald, the Washington Post

Jennifer Candotti's husband recently gave her a gift: a quiet night away from him and their baby in a nearby hotel.

"It was such a great night," she said. "I was by myself. I was so, so comfortable."

The next morning, she reflected on what made her feel so cozy - the feather-bed mattress pad, the down comforter, the feather and down pillow, the 300-thread-count sheets and even the bed skirt, because it matched so nicely. Ultimately, her stay produced sensations associated with royalty. "I just didn't want it to end," she said.

It didn't have to. Candotti went back to her home in Brookeville, Md., and did something thousands of hotel guests now do every day: She logged on to the hotel's Web site and went shopping. She ordered, for $1,500, just about everything her body touched. By the end of the week, she had the goods, which she used to turn her guest room into a hotel at home.

The days of hotel guests stealing Ritz-Carlton towels may be on their way out. Now, guests often just buy the room or even the lobby - the shower curtains, the lamps, the carpet, the chairs, the chaises, the desks, the beds, the bedding, the soap, the dishes, the flatware and the pricey artwork on the wall. The hotels sell all of this in an effort to tap into the dreams of the American consumer, who already has been rapidly trading up to other high-end products, such as $60 bottles of vodka, $200 designer jeans and pricey chocolate.

"Hotels are probably the best design showrooms for beds and home furnishings that exist right now," said Ross Klein, president of W Hotels, a division of Starwood Hotels. "People can experience luxury with us for a night or two, then decide what they want for their home. You know, it's awfully hard to spend the night at Bloomingdale's."

Among the furnishings being bought and sold are Marriott's red acrylic teardrop lamp ($190) and Kashwere Chenilla chaise ($1,795). From Westin Hotels & Resorts, guests can buy a California king-size bed ($1,450) and the Heavenly shower curtain and liner ($35). The W Hotel has acrylic I-beam side tables ($290 each). The Nine Zero Hotel in Boston is offering a Macassar veneer desk ($3,600), a pair of wall sconces ($2,400) or an 18- by 18-foot area rug from the lobby ($14,000).

For many guests, staying at a fancy hotel is an introduction to sophisticated interior design and how it can translate to living a certain lifestyle, said Joanne Kravetz, who chairs the interior design department at the Art Institute of California in Los Angeles. They check out of the room but keep a lifestyle - of the hip, urban W Hotel or the clean and modern Marriott or the cosmopolitan haven of Boston's Nine Zero.

"The hotel has now brought that lifestyle into your realm of reality," Kravetz said. "You can have this. There's no barrier in between. You don't need a decorator. You don't need a designer. And for the hotels, this is just another way for you to plunk down some money and have what you want if you want it."

Direct-to-consumer hotel- merchandise sales topped $60 million last year, according to Hospitality Design magazine, and industry observers think that figure will grow quickly, with several companies popping up to market and sell furnishings for hotels, which then can focus exclusively on guests.

Already, W Hotel in New York has taken the trend further, opening a store in Manhattan where guests can buy furnishings right off the shelves. Westin recently began selling its custom-designed Speakman dual shower head - five adjustable jets, ranging from light mist to massaging needles - through Nordstrom. Price: $130.

"The interest in our furnishings has just been overwhelming," said Thomas Holtmann, the operations manager at Nine Zero, where rooms run upward of $400 a night. "Hotels used to be a nice home away from home. Now, guests feel like they want to take our ideas home with them."

How did this happen? Hotel observers say the boom probably has its roots in the late-1990s emergence of boutique hotels, particularly the cool but affordable properties designed by Ian Schrager, of Studio 54 nightclub fame.

Boutique-hotel popularity cut into the bottom lines of big hotel chains, which for years had concentrated on consistency of furnishings, ignoring design to increase functionality. Only recently are the big chains catching up by launching broad redesigns of their brands and rooms. New Marriott rooms, for instance, have granite countertops in the bathrooms, rich wood interiors, ergonomic chairs and the latest in luxury bedding, right down to the $155 duvet cover that Maryland resident Candotti purchased for her home.

Now, industry observers say, the hotel world is all about lifestyle décor, which, from a sales perspective, dovetails seamlessly with the aspirations of the American consumer willing to spend a little more to live the good life. With less than 6 percent of the population using interior designers, the hotels have plenty of room to serve as arbiter of chic home styles.

"This is for a segment of the population that can afford to stay at a really nice hotel, just not every weekend," said Sarah Bates, vice president of Hoteluxury, a company that is selling boutique-hotel furnishings to the masses. "It's a special occasion for them, a little slice of luxury, which now they can feel every day right in their own homes."

But much of the furnishings and bedding in hotel rooms is custom-made for hotels and, therefore, difficult, if not impossible, to find where one normally might look. "I looked all over," Candotti said. "Bed Bath & Beyond. Linens 'n Things. I couldn't find the same stuff. Nothing was quite right. Nothing was as good as what was in the hotel."

So she went to Marriott's Web site and bought it.

The hotel chain contracts the work to acquire the products and maintain the Web site through a company called Hotels At Home. In Nine Zero's case, the boutique hotel was the first customer of Hoteluxury, a Boston company. Hoteluxury sent a team of photographers into Nine Zero for four days.

"We photographed everything in the public spaces - wineglasses, cutlery, sconces, furniture," Bates said. "Everything in the hotel that a guest might naturally want. Then we worked with the interior designers to find the sources for all the products. We set up vendor relationships with them and contracts to sell their products."

Some hotels decide what to sell based on what guests try to steal.

"You know how Mary Poppins has that carpet bag and pulls out a bird cage?" asked Klein, the W Hotel president. "You'll be amazed what people still try to steal from hotels. We had a guest walk out of our Union Square (New York) property with a 60-inch leather-wrapped lamp. I don't know how he did that, but we were happy to add this to the guest's bill, and we knew we had to add it to the catalog."

Doug Rucker's Rules for Living

2005-12-16T20:47:00.000-08:00

"Houses should be of their time and of their place. Indigenous houses — native to the area — are timeless houses."

"Because we're in Southern California with its wonderful views, I visualize my houses as basically glass, with the solid parts being the cabinets, the closets, the walls to the bedroom and bathroom."

"Houses need protective overhangs for generous glass areas to save cooling bills, prevent interior deterioration, cut glare."

"A California indigenous house is in concert with the site. It sings the same song. It faces the right way, it yields when the land yields, it juts when the land juts, it blends, flows, capitulates. It loves the site and is married to it."

"The indigenous house should be made of the fewest possible materials in order to create a harmony of structure. The less simple it gets, the less powerful it gets."

"Houses should be thought out in every detail. Details are what make it work."

"A house should be built of real materials: wood, bricks, stucco, tile, glass."

"A house wants to be optimistic. Natural wood and off-white are two of the most optimistic colors."

"Everyone is happier in harmony. Eliminate all that creates disharmony. Fill your house solely with what you love."

"To create harmony, think of design within the context of the next largest entity. That is, an accessory such as a lamp should be selected considering the furniture. The furniture should be selected considering the room as a whole."

"Living in a conflicted house, like living with a conflicted person, is difficult. A conflicted house may have one of the following: inconvenient floor plan; minimal storage; poor light [or] heat; steep, narrow stairs; bad flow."

"I think of a house as an integrated part of a total environment for living. That includes all the property, lot-line to lot-line. There should be an integration between the landscaping and the house, with no sense of demarcation."

"Every indoor room should have its own outdoor space. It's a wonderful way to increase the apparent size."

"A California house should have a semi-enclosed outdoor transition space that will make your passage from jungle to home and from home to jungle a relaxing experience. Our climate allows for it."

Trendsetter: Doug Rucker

2005-12-16T20:46:00.000-08:00

By Barbara King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

DOUG RUCKER puts on his baseball cap, slides open the back door of his house and heads toward his architectural office just a few steps off the patio. OK, then, his wife decides, time for her to get back to work too, and off she goes out the front door and down a high, rounding driveway to her art studio, clutching a mug of hot tea.

Standing before a wall of windows, Rucker flips through a set of meticulously detailed blueprints for Kris Kristofferson's new house, relatively chaste in size at 2,000 square feet, but capacious compared to his own. For 10 years, he and Marge Lewi-Rucker have lived comfortably and contentedly in a three-room structure that is just over 700 square feet.

Thirty years ago, on a dance floor in Malibu, Rucker, a residential architect, and Lewi-Rucker, an artist and therapist, both in their 40s and each in longtime, collapsing marriages, "finally found our real loves," as he describes their meeting. By 1984, they had left behind their respective former lives, their big houses and the bulk of their belongings to be together.

If living in tiny quarters was what made the most sense at their ages, then that was that, they would do it. Scrap the plans for the larger house along with the dismaying mortgage they hadn't expected, then downsize, pare down, let go — whatever handy jargon you want to ascribe to it — and make a go of it.

After his divorce, with his split from the sale of the house he had designed and built on a Malibu promontory, Rucker managed to buy an acre of rural property choked with waist-high mustard weeds off Kanan Road, 1,700 feet up in the Santa Monica Mountains.

"I got as close to Malibu as I could afford," he says.

Even today, with the landscape immediately surrounding the house cleared of its tangle of wildness, and a decomposed granite lawn just outside the front door raked in serene Zen-like patterns, the place has the aura of an outlying region you might stumble upon on an exotic trek.

Rucker drew up plans for an 1,800-square-foot house, but by then, he and Lewi-Rucker were in their 50s and realized they couldn't take on 30 years of hefty monthly payments.

Instead, Rucker built a 500-square-foot workspace for himself with built-in furniture, expanding it a year later with a bedroom and bathroom addition so Marge could move in.

For nine years, until he built a separate 550-square-foot office, Rucker worked at a draft board in the living area. "Returning from work was easy," says the easily amused Rucker, laughing in his quick, vigorous way. "I'd turn off the lights and walk across the room to the couch. I was home."

Rucker also put up a prefab greenhouse studio for Lewi-Rucker near the entry to the property, where she could create her Prismacolor drawings. To filter the sun, he lowered the floor of the makeshift art studio and suspended a shade cloth over a metal framework he designed from chain-link railing; Lewi-Rucker made panels for the ceiling out of foam board that she covered with silver-painted tar paper.

There's a built-in bed where they sleep when they have guests, who sleep in the house on the other built-in bed that calls to mind a berth on a schooner.

Two people can only pull off the tricky business of living in a condensed manner if they're willing to make a stoic assessment of what they can and can't hang on to and to be vigilant about organization.

"I tell all my clients to make three piles: the throw-out pile, the maybe pile and the keep pile. The keep pile is what tugs at your heart," says Rucker. "Then I tell them to toss piles one and two. If you have of lots of 'maybe' stuff, you'll feel like a maybe person. Surround yourself only with things you love."

The Rucker rule: Bring into your house only those things you absolutely do not wish to be without. You'll feel a lot better. Throw out that unsightly chair, get rid of clothes you don't wear or items that are only marginally satisfying, give away books you've read (unless you love your library, in which case make a beautiful one). Eliminate all that creates disharmony. A harmonious house contributes to a harmonious life.

Both Rucker and his wife have everything they need, they insist, and more important, what they really want: pictures of their children (she has four, he has three), his mother's books, his five volumes of a self-published autobiography (two more are on the way), "special little tchotchkes" her children made, the easel her father, a painter, brought back from his days in Paris, the drafting table used by her father and also her mother, a children's book illustrator, movie videos and CDs they store in the built-in cabinets. (Built-ins are everywhere, and key to living small.)

"I'm not that attached to things, anyway. I'm more drawn to dancing, music, reading, my work, nature," says Lewi-Rucker, taking a sideways glance out the window toward the limpid sky brushed with loose, vapory clouds.

Having, as they do, doors and windows opening from almost every direction onto thick clusters of chaparral, the exaltation of steep mountain ranges circling all about, the lawn rising and falling on various levels, they escape the claustrophobia that, say, a city apartment of the same size might engender. A feeling of expansiveness takes over.

"We don't feel we've been denied," adds Rucker. "I had already lost everything once before when my first Malibu house burned down in the fires in '70. It looked like a pile of steel spaghetti on the ground. It was a total houseclean. But I felt strangely liberated. Possessions possess the possessor. If all of a sudden you don't have anything, then nothing owns you."

Since 1958, when the Illinois native set up his one-man architectural office in Southern California, he has designed more than 200 residences in the Malibu area — all unmistakably what computer systems engineer Ron Munro, a two-time client, refers to as "a Doug Rucker." Instantly recognizable but never formulaic.

By that he means, in part, liberal use of floor-to-ceiling glass softened by overhangs, liberal use of warm woods, post and beam construction, unusual sensitivity to the site and to the personalities of the inhabitants, a flawless fusing of indoors and outdoors, a sense of contained drama without the staginess of the architect-in-need-of-applause.

Rucker gets out of the way, just as he intends his houses to get out of the way of the inhabitants.

"A house has to stay in the background and not compete with the owner for attention," says Rucker. "It shouldn't be an excuse for the architect's ego. In a trophy house, the house is the thing and not the people. In my architecture, the people are the thing and the house is the backdrop. I could design a structure that looks like a gorilla lying down. It would be good publicity, but it wouldn't be a good house."

Rucker, says Louis T. Busch, a Malibu Realtor for 56 years, is known not just for the beauty of his houses, but for their function. "He makes houses livable. Some architects miss the point. They don't do a good job of taking advantage of the view, or taking into account your real needs, like closets. He does it all very well."

After 47 years of envisioning residences, Rucker's passion and energy for his work — as distinctive, as appealing, as fresh as ever — is undiminished, his philosophy for what makes good architecture, and for how we ought to live, unwavering. He is emphatically immune to architectural fads.

A house should be indigenous, he maintains: of its time and of its place. All those still-proliferating borrowed styles you see here — Mediterranean, Colonial, Provincial, Tudor, Roman Villa, Spanish Revival — are not regional, he points out, and most are bad facsimiles of buildings meant for other ages, other places and other climates. In short, they don't belong here.

"We're in Southern California in 2005," Rucker says and pauses, as if that has said it all. "New houses that import styles from another time and place betray the imaginative possibilities of the present day. We sell ourselves short by not building our buildings. We've missed our opportunity to make our own character."

A house should also have integrity, and the source of that integrity, he says, is "to have integrity in your person."

Quality, not quantity. "A 20,000-square-foot house is a tremendous slap in the face to the whole environment." Real, not fake. "I won't build houses of false materials. Real architecture makes good ruins. Fake buildings become rubble and dust that blows away."

In a no-nonsense "Doug Rucker," what you see is what you get. No linoleum made to look like tile. No glued-on Styrofoam beams made to look like wood. No plasticized countertops made to look like marble. No stamped concrete made to look like cobblestone. "A house has to know what it is."

Rucker is given to speaking of structures and materials in anthropomorphic terms, as if they were living, breathing, cognizant beings: "Stone likes to be on the ground. It gets nervous and unsettled the higher it gets. Wood loves to be high too, because it was once a tree. Wood does not like to be painted. It likes natural finishes. Brick does not like to be painted. It wants to be brick. Lay brick as a patio and it will thank you every time you walk on it. Stucco and drywall love to be painted. They are unhappy and incomplete when they are not. They mate with paint for life, like ducks and geese."

But he is just as inclined to be plain-spoken. "I treat houses basically as a shelter. The chief purpose of a house is protection from the elements, even if the elements are as mild as here in Southern California. It's also a place to put your stuff, as George Carlin says."

The biggest mistake architects and clients make, he says, is not thinking of architectural design as a total environment for living. Landscaping is part of the design, lot line to lot line. There should be a soft interplay between indoor and outdoor, and every room should have its own outdoor space.

"He put windows in my garage. I never had that before," says client Carolyn Craft, a retired teacher. "Everything Doug does is thought out, beautiful, simple — cabinetry, his use of space, glass walls, beam ceilings. I lie in bed and just stare at my ceiling. You can always tell a Doug Rucker house. It's like walking into peace."

Great Gift Ideas - Design Books

2005-12-16T20:28:00.000-08:00

Of the thousands of design books published each year, what makes one worth giving? For me, the ideal is an obsessed author exploring underappreciated material, illuminating how spaces and objects are dreamed up and why they catch on. I also wish for practical and visionary decorating ideas, mixed with gossipy anecdotes about the eureka moments of inventors and the colorful lives of patrons. And, especially at this time of year, I crave imagery that transports the reader far from the slush and the madding crowds.

Anzolo Fuga: Murano Glass Artist. Works for A.V.E.M.

Three years ago hundreds of forgotten vases and platters from the 1950's and 60's patterned with swirls, stripes, dots or grids turned up in dusty storage at a dying Venetian glass factory. Many were fashioned by Anzolo Fuga, a staff artisan whose ancestors had been glassworkers since the 1330's. "Anzolo Fuga: Murano Glass Artist" (Acanthus Press, $75), by the Venetian glass historian Rosa Barovier Mentasti, explains how Fuga achieved kaleidoscopic effects with bubbles in molten glass, sprayed enamel and gold and interwoven glass rods. The book is a rare example of clear prose and exacting research in the emerging field of midcentury modern design scholarship.

Tibetan Furniture

The market for Tibetan furniture has boomed in the last decade as China turns quasi-capitalist. "Tibetan Furniture" (Floating World Editions, $60), by Chris Buckley, a Beijing-based historian and dealer, decodes paintings and carvings on tables, cabinets and chests. Few hardwood trees grow in Tibet, so cabinetmakers disguise the softwood with scenes of deities, mythical beasts and palaces. New paintings are now being applied to plainer furniture, Mr. Buckley warns, and 19th-century fakes made for British tourists are hard to tell from ancient artifacts.

Humble Masterpieces: Everyday Marvels of Design

Consumer-tailored products dating back to abacuses make "Humble Masterpieces: Everyday Marvels of Design" (ReganBooks, $22) a heartening read. The author, Paola Antonelli, a curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, chronicles the weird accidents and demographic shifts that brought forth 100 icons, including tea bags, guitar picks and spark plugs. The safety pin was born in the 1840's as Walter Hunt, a bankrupt mechanic, was nervously twisting wire while wondering how to pay off his $15 debts. The Java Jacket coffee cup sleeve exists mainly because, in 1991, Jay Sorensen spilled coffee in his lap from a cup too hot to handle.

Marital intrigue spices the book, too. The Slinky dominated the toy market because Betty James steered the company well in the 1960's after her husband, Richard James, the Slinky's inventor, ran off to join a Bolivian cult.

Class Act: William Haines

Scandal helped William Haines shape Hollywood décor in the 1930's. An MGM screen idol in the 20's, he was fired in 1933 for being openly gay. Haines had run an antiques store and helped design sets during his film career, and Carole Lombard, Joan Crawford and Jack Warner hired him to fill their mansions with mirrored bedsteads, pagoda-shaped lampshades and armchairs trimmed in pompoms. By the 40's Haines had gone somewhat modernist, incorporating bookcases into sofa arms and commissioning Lucite sconces shaped like quartz crystals. Two of Haines's associates, Peter Schifando and Jean H. Mathison, have written "Class Act: William Haines, Legendary Hollywood Decorator" (Pointed Leaf Press, $95). Among the illustrations are recent photos of the handful of Haines interiors that survive, including the American ambassador's residence in London, where the lemon and beige palette seems surprisingly Californian.

Great Houses of New York, 1880-1930

White elephant homes created for superrich clients, like Haines's, are often short-lived. Half of the 43 mansions in "Great Houses of New York, 1880-1930" (Acanthus Press, $80), by the architectural historian Michael C. Kathrens, have been destroyed. The millionaires impressed one another by installing sandalwood flooring, separate art galleries for porcelain and sculpture, and driveway turntables for cars. Mr. Kathrens is frank about the aesthetic results, be they "ponderous and lacking a definitive style" or "masterpieces of refined interpretation."

Meditative Spaces

Gift recipients stressed out by the holidays, however, may need antidotes to such materialistic excess. For "Meditative Spaces" (Universe, $29.95), Michael Freeman, a London-based architectural photographer, found 70 retreat rooms at homes and offices in a dozen countries, mostly in Asia. He balanced rustic follies - a handcrafted treehouse, a lacy gazebo made of chain-link fencing - with architect-designed annexes for condo towers. He also studied historical precedents; at an eighth-century Tibetan monastery, he writes, "cloth banners line the walls and rows of pillars to create a dreamlike world of dim, incense-impregnated space." A common thread in his examples is veiled sunlight. Slit windows and bamboo slats keep the meditators out of public view, yet still aware of the passage of time.

Christmas in Santa Fe

2005-12-16T20:23:00.000-08:00

By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN

FIRST, there is the smell. Perhaps nothing defines Santa Fe at Christmas so much as the piquant scent of piñón wood in the clear night air, the temperature hovering in single digits, the smoke an enveloping garland of warmth extending from faux-brick hearths in modest doublewides to sculptured kiva fireplaces in the corners of art galleries on Canyon Road.

It is fitting that red and green are the colors of chili.

For the last 25 years or so, I have spent Christmases visiting family in Santa Fe, the spirit of the season beginning en route from the Albuquerque airport on I-25, where piñón trees planted in the highway medians shimmer with tinsel - a gift of generosity by anonymous residents who brave traffic barreling at 80 miles an hour to perform a rash act of public beauty.

Some people go so far as to compare the high desert expanses of northern New Mexico to the Holy Land. But the Holy Land doesn't have posole - the traditional New Mexico pork and hominy stew - tamales, blue corn tortillas or bizcochitos, the tiny anise Christmas cookies that have the improbable honor of being the official state cookie of New Mexico.

Santa Fe can often OD on its own preciousness (witness the unfortunate preponderance of dogs with Christmas-light antlers).

But more deeply, it is a place of ritual, in which the area's distinctive blend of Indian and Hispanic cultures is played out in seasonal traditions that feel centuries away from Home Depot U.S.A.

On Christmas Eve, the simple act of creating lanterns by plunking candles in scoops of sand in paper bags, to be placed by the hundreds on rooftops, transforms historic adobes into luminous silhouettes.

For a few hours during the city's famous farolito walk, on that evening, usually in the biting cold, cars are verboten, electric street lights are turned off and the pulse of modern life grows faint. While tourists mob Canyon Road, the city's art gallery ghetto, locals descend on historic side streets like Acequia Madre, breaking into spontaneous Christmas carols while huddling around fragrant bonfires of stacked piñón wood. In Plaza Fatima, a hidden side street lined with adobe walls ending in a courtyard, kids stand transfixed by the "farolito train" on a Lionel track. Then there are the "flying farolitos" - glowing tetrahedrons of light that sail cometlike across the sky, the evanescent work of Arvo Thomson, a German-born solar energy system installer.

Like much of Santa Fe, the farolitos are in fact a somewhat modern confection, part of "the myth of Santa Fe," in the words of the architectural historian Chris Wilson. Early in the century, a coterie of architects, artists, archaeologists and tourist promoters got together and decreed Santa Fe's adobe look, later codified into law, including sprawling adobe compounds inhabited by rich anglos who now drive BMW S.U.V.'s while fantasizing about living in Indian pueblos. The farolitos were added to the mix in 1971 by a group of neighborhood associations celebrating a zoning ordinance protecting against rampant overdevelopment.

A debate now rages over "electro-litos," the electrified pretenders that blanket the downtown plaza and most hotels. "They have no aesthetic value," said John Pen La Farge, a Santa Fe native and son of the writer Oliver La Farge. "They're like a screw top on a wine bottle."

Thus, the twist on an old joke in a town that fetishizes history, especially its own:

Q: How many Santa Feans does it take to change a light bulb?

A: One to climb the ladder and screw it in, and four to stand around saying they liked it better the way it was.

The town's relentless tastefulness can make one pine for blow-up Santas and a loudspeaker blaring the "Chipmunks' Greatest Christmas Hits." The counterpoint: the pull of ritual, arguably stronger than in any other part of the country.

In Hispanic communities like Bernalillo, north of Albuquerque, and tiny hamlets like Santa Cruz de la Cañada outside Espanola, the nine days leading up to Christmas are the time of "las posadas," house-to-house re-enactments of Mary and Joseph's search for a "room at the inn" serenaded by Spanish hymns. In Santa Fe on Christmas Eve, the Cathedral of St. Francis, built between 1869 and 1886, celebrates a flotilla of Masses in Spanish and English, including a children's Mass, a Midnight Mass and a mariachi Mass on Christmas morning.

Beyond family, Christmas Day for me means a visit to the dances at Santo Domingo Pueblo, when the dirt plaza, or town square, becomes a Cecil B. De Mille-scale production of the spirit - some 500 dancers, animated by a chorus of men with sonorous voices whose drumming feels like the beat of the earth's heart.

The residents who aren't dancing watch from rooftops and balconies or from ringside lawn chairs, bundled in dazzingly colorful Pendleton blankets for warmth.

THE day lingers long past Christmas: the blue sky contrasting with the red earth, the tinkling of the bells and rattles on the dancers' belts and moccasins, the whiff of piñón, the long lines of dancers of all ages moving in unison to the drums, "the ceaseless downtread, always to the earth's centre," as D. H. Lawrence wrote of the Taos Pueblo.

Dances at Santo Domingo, one of the most conservative of the region's eight pueblos, tend to draw fewer tourists. Although dances vary from pueblo to pueblo and year by year, they are all "a form of communal prayer," in the words of the anthropologist Jill D. Sweet. They mark the joining of native and Catholic holy days. Among them are the Mattachines and Comanche dances, hybrid forms strongly influenced by the Spanish-colonial past - including conquest, "a legacy of conflict and interdependence," said James F. Brooks, the president of the School of American Research in Santa Fe.

Of course, many visitors come to town strictly for R. & R. The skiers get up at the crack of dawn, fighting at hotel breakfasts over who gets first crack at the automatic waffle maker. Make no mistake: Santa Fe at Christmas can be an utter zoo, especially if you have your heart set on lunch at Café Pasqual's. (Hint: try Maria's New Mexican Kitchen, far from the plaza, home of killer margaritas and blue corn enchiladas). When our two boys were in the Thomas the Tank Engine phase, my husband and I always made time for the Santa Fe Southern Railway's scenic 36-mile round trip to Lamy in vintage railcars. Those who want to go native should leave the plaza and head straight for the arroyo, the dried riverbed that is the fleece set's Champs Elysées.

More off the beaten track is Tsankawi, a little known unexcavated portion of Bandelier. Built in 1400 by the Anasazi, who lived on the mesa top, the hike follows ancestral trails up the rock, the steps literally worn into the stone. Tsankawi is rich with petroglyphs, and because it is little traveled, there is a sense of discovery about it all. On the way back, we often stop for chicken and green chili sandwiches at the Tesuque Village Market. Tesuque, a community outside town where $2 million adobes commune with trailers, is the preferred ZIP code for celebs who want to keep a low profile.

Mornings, we bushwhack through the chamisa in the arroyo to what is now known as Museum Hill, with four of Santa Fe's amazing museums, including the Museum of International Folk Art and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. (The Case Trading Post is an excellent source for Indian jewelry).

Santa Fe, a national leader in body workers per capita, is home to Ten Thousand Waves, a Japanese health spa like no other. There is nothing quite like slipping into a kimono and zoris in winter, navigating gravel paths as the bitter cold sets in. Then you plunk down into your outdoor hot tub, gazing at boughs of fragrant, snow-covered juniper and thanking the steam gods for concealing all your flaws. (Sadly, I have never tried the signature facial of pulverized nightingale droppings, said to be the fave of geishas.)

Each year, before leaving Santa Fe, we steel ourselves to dodge the kitsch and head to the plaza for a last-minute museum and shopping blitzkrieg. Serious shopping lust invariably strikes under the portale at the Palace of the Governors, where local Indian craft makers, who are themselves an official museum exhibit, display their wares.

At Kaune's Foodtown, a fancy grocery store, we stock up on fresh blue corn tortillas and then stash them in our luggage to take back to our home in California. We hoard them in the freezer, unthawing them only on very special occasions and extending Christmas in Santa Fe until next year.

•

WHERE TO EAT

Maria's New Mexican Kitchen (555 West Cordova Road, 505-983-7929) is perfect in every way. Watch tortillas being made surrounded by "Feliz Navidad" signs. Reservations are strongly suggested. Festive and casual.

Tesuque Village Market (Highway 285 North, Exit 168, 505-988-8848) is a place to soak up the local scene at breakfast and lunch. Try the burritos.

Bobcat Bite (420 Old Las Vegas Highway, 505-983-5319) is outside of town but worth the drive for the green chili cheeseburgers.

The Compound (653 Canyon Road, 505-982-4353) provides elegant dining in a historic adobe setting; the chef and owner, Mark Kiffin, won the James Beard Award this year for best chef of the Southwest.

WHERE TO STAY

Hotel Santa Fe (1501 Paseo de Peralta, 505 982-1200; www.hotelsantafe.com) is the only hotel in Santa Fe owned by Indians (the Picaris Pueblo), and it is a charming one. Evening programs include flute performances and architectural lectures. Rooms are $125 to $325 a night.

La Fonda Hotel (100 East San Francisco Street, 800-523-5002; www.lafondasantafe.com) is a venerable hotel; some rooms overlook St. Francis Cathedral. Rooms are $159 to $500.

Bishop's Lodge Resort and Spa (1297 Bishops Lodge Road, 800-419-0492; www.bishopslodge.com) has doubles starting at $149. It is three miles from the plaza and a good choice for families. It has trail rides and a spa.

WHERE TO RELAX

Ten Thousand Waves Spa (3452 Hyde Park Road, 505-982-9304; tenthousandwaves.com) is modeled on Japanese bathhouses. Choose a private indoor or an outdoor bath ($19 to $30 per person for 55 minutes) or the coed communal bath, clothing optional. There is also a women's communal bath. Private baths require reservations.

A Modern Shell for a 40's Colonial

2005-12-16T20:18:00.000-08:00

By Paige Williams, the New York Times

Charles Rose bought his three-story house with every intention of tearing it down. Vinyl-clad, built from a 1940's kit, the mail-order colonial had good bones and occupied an attractive cloistered acre near Cambridge, Mass., where he had lived for 16 years. But the garage blocked the expansive side yard, and the ceilings were so low, the nooks so dark, that Mr. Rose wanted to bring on the bulldozers.

Mr. Rose - an architect who is distinguishing himself with public structures and houses of ethereal lines, space and light - could have renovated, or, of course, demolished. His first marriage was ending, though, and he and his young son and daughter had experienced enough loss. The Belmont house was to be a new start. So he turned to a presumably mundane genre of architecture - the addition - and gave it a twist.

The central challenge with additions is always how to merge old and new without making a discordant, dysfunctional mess, but Mr. Rose's problem presented itself in the extreme. Adding a modern wing to the existing house would have been like marrying a sleek young comer to a drab old dud.

So Mr. Rose wrapped it. He put the old house in a box.

He constructed an abstract cedar screen around the 3,500-square-foot house, kept the windows but widened them, added a second-floor deck and built his addition onto the deck, in place of the garage. Now the cedar box meets an additional 3,500-square-foot expanse of glass and copper, which is already mellowing nicely in the New England weather.

In certain light you can see through the cedar screen to the old house, to the past. "Maybe this is slightly contradictory, but I do like the layering of history," said Mr. Rose, 45. "In the case of my two older children and me, this house was where we sort of put our lives back together. I wanted there to be a vestige of that."

The old wing holds four bedrooms, four and a half baths, a playroom and a music room. (Mr. Rose is a talented classical pianist and an opera devotee.) The new wing has the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, the master bedroom, two upstairs offices and three decks, including one on the roof, accessible by an exterior glass staircase that ascends through the limbs of a majestic old maple. A whimsical bonus on the roof deck is a wood-burning fireplace, as well as a downward view of the old house's pitched roof and bracing, like a stage set.

Copper House, as the $800,000 project was called, has an altogether sculptural, almost balletic, force - at every turn, interplay between extremes of hard, soft, heavy and light. Mr. Rose defined the dining space with a glass and steel staircase, a sculptural beech server and a monolithic bluestone fireplace. The fireplace is repeated in the living room, which steps down with the grade of the site, as if "feathered into the landscape," as Terence Riley, the curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, has said generally of Mr. Rose's designs.

FLOOR-TO-CEILING windows make up the north wall, angled to incorporate the maple tree and opening the house to the generous yard. An oversize scupper, another Rose signature, frames the west entrance. Inside, Mr. Rose joined the two wings with a three-story atrium traversed by another glass staircase. This airy unification of past and present is the only place the fusion hasn't been camouflaged and is the first thing visitors see upon entering the house; Mr. Rose put it right out there, like a confession.

To temper the aggressiveness of the angles made by so much glass, concrete and steel, he used rich woods: mahogany to frame windows, and rosewood, mahogany and bamboo in the floors. Also, subtle colors.

"I wanted to telegraph to people that children live here," said Pam Moore, Mr. Rose's wife. A former reporter for Business Week, Ms. Moore married Mr. Rose in 2001; they have a 3-year-old son who races around the open floors on toy fire engines and adroitly navigates the house's harder edges. (He eases down the main staircase on his bottom and calls it "frumping.")

"I wanted the colors to be warm," Ms. Moore said. "I didn't want it to be too serious, like a museum."

They painted the interior steel columns navy blue, echoing tones of the aging exterior copper. The walls (the palest pumpkin and yellow) reflect the summer greens and autumnal reds and golds of the surrounding maples and honey locusts. In this way, the house feels almost organic. The copper shifts color with sun and snow; the cedar is a willing canvas for rain. It's quite a contrast to the predominant Victorians and Cape Cods, which don't embrace the frigid New England winter so much as hunker down and bear it.

Mr. Rose brought to Copper House an aesthetic that might have started with backyard projects at his childhood home in Garden City, N.Y., but crystallized when he was an undergraduate and graduate student in architecture at Princeton, Columbia and Harvard. He went to Princeton to study physics but quickly became interested in solar architecture, which, along with later courses in landscape architecture, informs his work today.

"The key thing about him is his wonderful sense of how a building relates to its site and the landscape beyond," Mr. Riley said. In his introduction to "Charles Rose, Architect," a monograph to be published in March by Princeton Architectural Press, Mr. Riley recalls Henry James's impression of New England as an "uncastled" landscape, noting that Mr. Rose's work seems to spring from similar aesthetic principles: an instinct to conform to the landscape rather than dominate it. "Frank Lloyd Wright understood that as well," Mr. Riley said.

Mr. Rose applies this awareness far beyond New England, as well as in the classroom. He has taught at universities including Harvard and M.I.T., drawing notice as an architect establishing his name relatively early with increasingly complex, coveted projects. He designs primarily for the arts, government and universities - a 65,000-square-foot campus center at Brandeis University, for instance, and Camp Paintrock in Wyoming, both of which won American Architecture Awards.

Mr. Rose is particularly proud of his work for Paintrock, a youth development program founded by John R. Alm, the chief executive of Coca-Cola Enterprises, for smart and ambitious but poor teenagers from Los Angeles. The participants, all rising high school freshmen, spend the summer like cliff dwellers, in cabins cantilevered over the canyon.

"It sets up conditions that are completely disassociative with the environment they come from," Mr. Rose said. "Some of the philosophy isn't unlike the transcendentalists - this very reliant, American approach to existence, where there's power in the landscape."

Of course landscapes can also mean the searing South Texas plateaus or the urban grid of Manhattan, where Mr. Rose is designing a penthouse on East 22nd Street for the violin star Joshua Bell. In 2004 Mr. Rose's firm, Charles Rose Architects of Somerville, Mass., won a competitive commission from the Design Excellence Program of the federal General Services Administration for one of a dozen or so new border stations. The entry point - now being built in Del Rio, Tex., on the Mexican border - had to simultaneously convey welcome and authority, on a budget.

"He took a very basic premise and used bold strokes to get across something that could have been as nondescript and uninteresting as a toll booth on the New Jersey Turnpike," said Ed Feiner, who was the chief architect for the General Services Administration when Mr. Rose won the commission. "Most impressive is his ability to take a somewhat austere budget and a somewhat austere palette of materials and create something extremely innovative and creative in form."

Mr. Rose built Copper House with similar frugality in mind. Using off-the-shelf copper sheeting, for example, he kept the costs for the project to about $140 a square foot, compared with the $250 to $450 that his projects typically cost.

He finished the house in 2004. Now he and Ms. Moore are slowly furnishing it with their own creations. For her upstairs office Mr. Rose made an origami showpiece of a mahogany desk that includes a built-in work area for their son. And they recently installed the dining room table, which they designed together: an oval bubinga wood surface (Moore) over geometric steel legs (Rose).

"Every architect should have to build a house and then live in it," Mr. Rose said. "This building gives me great feedback every day." The handrail on the main stairs, for instance: block mahogany with a finger groove. "I slide my hand down it every morning," he said. "It's not a big deal, and yet it's this wonderful little element that I encounter every day.

"Houses only need a few wonderful moments like that if you interact with them in a ritualistic way."

TREND: Search Engines Reign Supreme

2005-12-14T10:23:00.000-08:00

Word comes from Mediaweek that there were 5.1 BILLION internet searches conducted in October 2005. Just ponder that for a moment.

Google accounted for 48% of the searches, followed by Yahoo (22%), MSN (11%), AOL (7%) and Ask Jeeves (3%).

If you're not "found" when somebody searches for your product or service online, you're missing out on the most dynamic and expanding source of business available.

TREND: Online video resources for homeowners

2005-12-14T10:22:00.000-08:00

Scripps Networks will launch HGTVkitchendesign.com, the first of six planned broadband channels featuring niche video content, on Dec. 15.

The new Web-only video network, which will be programmed on a daily basis, will launch with a total of 200 videos. Six endemic advertisers have signed onto the new channel, including Kohler, Moen, Viking, Dupont, Whirlpool and Sherwin Williams.

Each advertiser is running a campaign which includes a variety of 15-and 30-second video ads and banners. Plus, these brands' images have been integrated within the site's "interactive kitchen planner," which allows users to virtual test various kitchen design schemes.

Scripps plans to promote HGTVkitchendesign.com through paid keyword ads on Google and Yahoo!, while also utilizing on-air mentions on various HGTV shows. Next year, the company says it will launch similar networks focused on Bath Design, Healthy Eating, and Gardening, among others.

Comment: This is the cutting edge of the internet, folks - on-demand video advice and assistance focusing on big-ticket investments and purchases. These kitchen product manufacturers know that their products will be featured prominently in nontraditional ways. Advertizing is giving way to "culture placement" - the idea that people who are viewing a how-to video on installing a dishwasher will be staring at a Moen dishwasher the entire time and will make the leap that a Moen dishwasher is the way to go.

Trend: Modern Design Goes Soft

2005-12-13T11:31:00.000-08:00

By Sally Beatty,

The Wall Street Journal

Valerie Hartman Levy has never been a fan of modern design. Her taste, she says, runs more toward "rustic, New England, beaten up." So when her interior designer suggested contemporary furnishings for her Atlanta home, Levy bristled. "It made me think of black leather couches and chrome," she says.

But with a bit of coaxing from designer Nancy Braithwaite, the Levys are now living in a house packed with angular club chairs and rectangular tables — albeit in updated versions softened by curvier lines, feltlike wools and touches of ash, birch and walnut. The pieces are all "youthful and beautiful," says Levy. Even better, she says, they're functional.

The home-furnishings business is angling for a change. Just a few years ago, good taste was overstated, defined by ornate Oriental carpets and sofas dripping with tassels. Dining tables came with pedestals and crystal-chandelier sales were booming. Now, in a reaction against the clutter of tradition, designers and furniture makers are emphasizing a more minimalistic look. With its insistence on sharp lines and shiny surfaces, this style in the past has sometimes been a hard sell for consumers. But this time, there's a soft twist: In place of cold or stiff materials like metal and leather, the new versions come with fuzzy fabrics, plush stuffing and more forgiving edges. The goal? To bridge classical and modern looks and make the furniture easier to live with.

The update also helps retailers move merchandise more easily, and sales pitches for the new modern look often include terms like "warm" and "soft." Jonathan Adler, a designer whose Web site declares "minimalism is a bummer," is now showing in stores his first full line of sofas and club chairs. They're decidedly boxy but also ample and plushly padded. Interior designer Victoria Hagan is expanding her modernistic furniture collection with angular console tables, with mahogany and brass accents to take the edge off. And at the International Furniture Market in October in High Point, N.C., where the industry showcases its newest designs, designers from Ralph Lauren to Liz Claiborne introduced new lines that emphasize a softened modern look inspired by Art Deco.

Of course, even with the toned-down approach, modern looks can be off-putting for some. Lots of right angles mean more sharp edges for kids to bump into. Glass surfaces can be a showcase for fingerprints. And sleek designs don't leave much room for stashing books, appliances and other household items.

Gina Dizzia, a 28-year-old attorney in New York's Brooklyn Heights, says she likes the "neatness and sleek lines" of modern design. But even the softened sofa she bought for her living room, in white, with a streamlined back, was "too firm" for relaxing and reading. "I like things to be modern-looking," says Dizzia. "But I also want things to be comfortable." She lent the $1,000 couch to her sister and replaced it with a plusher version that set her back a further $3,000.

This new wave of design is reminiscent of the spare lines of midcentury modern furniture (kidney-shape tables, tulip chairs) from the 1940s and '50s that was originally part of a social movement to make good design available to the masses. Variations on the theme have been wafting in and out of fashion since the look's heyday in the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Its most recent boost came about a decade ago, when hipsters rediscovered the architecture of Richard Neutra and other modern architects.

That U.S. manufacturers are now moving closer to modernism underscores the continued heat they are feeling from cheap Asian imports. Furniture and bedding sales rose almost 8 percent to $76 billion last year, according to the Commerce Department. But wholesale shipments of U.S.-made wood furniture are well below their 2000 peak — hitting $10.6 billion in 2004, down from $12.2 billion four years earlier, according to the trade group American Home Furnishings Alliance.

While Asian furniture makers have done well with more elaborate lines, the Asians have steered clear of sleeker looks "because they did not play to their strengths," says Jerry Epperson, a furniture-industry analyst with Mann, Armistead & Epperson in Richmond, Va. For domestic manufacturers, the softened-up, modern look promises an opening that at least won't "put them at a tremendous disadvantage" with importers, Epperson adds.

The toned-down styles are also part of cyclical shifts in design, which are shorter than ever because of the growth in television-design shows, design Web sites and home-furnishing magazines. What's more, the boom in high-tech electronics, such as flat-screen TVs and stainless steel appliances, has made modern design appealing again, while feeding into the furnishings industry's attempt to create a new modern yet classical category.

Adler compares the new rules of home design to current fashion, where wearing a Chanel jacket with jeans is now the norm. "You have to look a little bit inappropriate to look fashionable," he says. "Anything that is too rigorously in one design looks out of fashion."

Interior Trends Affect Housing Sales

2005-12-12T11:49:00.000-08:00

So you're thinking of selling your home.

You've picked a fair price, you've hired an agent and are getting ready for an open house.

You figure the market is so hot right now that all you'll have to do is sit back and watch the offers come rolling in.

Well, Bunky, unless you're living in Fantasyland, there are certainly things you can do to improve your chances. Writer/broker Mark Nash, who has authored four books on real estate, said there are definitely pluses and minuses whenever a house goes on the market.

"You definitely want to do whatever you can to maximize your chances," said Nash, whose most recent book is "1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home. "That said, there are things buyers want and things they don't want."

According to Nash,

They want: Smaller square-footage homes. After years of sprawl, new construction buyers want less space with better finishes.

They don't want: Ebony-stained hardwood floors. You're better off tearing it out than trying to sand the ebony out to refinish.

They want: Quality kitchen cabinets. With the kitchen/great room the center of family living, buyers today are looking at furniture style cabinets.

They don't want: Single-rod closets. Buyers want the most storage in the least amount of space. Organizers accomplish this.

They want: Wall space for flat screen TVs. Specify power and cable boxes close to locations where homebuyers want to place the latest in visual technology. The popular location for installation in new construction is over the fireplace.

They don't want: Dark rooms with small windows. Natural light can overrule a lot of other problems in a home.

There's more, but if you leave out the parts that would require you to perform an extreme makeover on your home, it's really quite simple.

"You could start by doing three things," Nash said. "Clean your house really well. Neutralize and streamline, which means take down wallpaper and paint and make sure people can see the back of the closets.

"And get rid of family photos."

Even the one from the Halloween party where Uncle Seymour came dressed as Barbra Streisand?

"It's a territorial thing," Nash said. "If your house looks too much like you, it's tougher for people to see themselves living in it."

Of course, choices start with far more basic ones than whether there's a wall on which to hang the flat-screen TV.

In the beginning, there's that old standby - location, location, location.

"The bottom line for buyers is that they're always looking to get the most the can for the least amount," said Denny Lyons of Century 21 King in Rancho Cucamonga. "Whether it's location or square footage or amenities, they want the house that offers the most for the least."

That said, different buyers have different priorities. For a young family, the quality of the school district might outweigh an extra room, while someone who commutes to Los Angeles or Orange County might want to be near a freeway.

The National Association of Realtors said in a 2004 survey that there were five things buyers wanted in a home above all else:

• Centralized air conditioning, although this varies from region to region.

• A walk-in closet in the master bedroom.

• A bedroom on the main floor.

• A patio.

• An oversized garage.

Ron Phipps, the organization's presidential liaison for housing and diversity, said priorities have changed.

"In years past, what was in the box was less important than the size of the box," he said. "Now people are focusing on quality rather than quantity, because values have gone up. They are so much less willing to compromise."

Especially when buying a brand-new home, it's often possible to make all sorts of choices. Megabuilder KB Home not only surveys buyers about their preferences, it has created a Home Studio at Ontario Mills where a potential buyer can customize a purchase in all sorts of ways.

"We have an in-house architectural department with 160 people nationwide," said Scott Laurie, president of the Inland Valley division. "They use these surveys to design all sorts of options for homes."

KB Home doesn't only survey buyers of its own products.

"We recently did a survey in San Bernardino County where we asked all buyers what they were looking for," Laurie said. "Big closets are always important, and so are nice kitchens and family rooms. People care very much around here about bedroom count. and they want larger garages too. Everybody has toys like jet skis and they need a place to store them."

Lyons, who sold real estate for years in Beverly Hills before coming to Rancho Cucamonga, said buyers are looking to be able to put their own mark on a house.

"It's sort of like an empty canvas," he said. "Depending on how handy people are, they can fix things or remodel. But if not, they're sort of stuck with it as is unless they have the money to spend."

Nash says with prices as high as they are, it isn't always easy to get a potential buyer to commit to purchasing a home.

"For one thing, the more prices go up, the more we lose buyers who can't get into the market at the entry level," he said. "I've already had some buyers say they're going to sit it out and wait, that they don't want to buy at the top of the market."

What's in and what's out in buying and selling homes:

• Multiple and high-powered phone lines.

• Separate shower stalls and bathtubs in master bathrooms.

• Built-in home stereo systems are a must-have for many audiophiles.

• Balconies and decks wider than 3 feet.

• Guest parking.

• Dog parks. Dogs and homeownership go hand-in-hand.

• Ranch or one level homes. The baby boomers are discovering their utility in droves.

• Second Homes. The baby boomers are also keeping this market segment strong.

• Seller give-backs. With a more balanced market in most metro markets, requests by buyers to pay closing costs have increased, and some sellers are paying them.

• Carbon Monoxide detectors. Home inspectors red flag homes that have only smoke detectors.

OUT

• The real estate bubble. It's a correction with a soft decline in prices.

• Wallpaper. Buyers never have the same taste as decorators. Take it down (carefully) and paint.

• Builder grade light fixtures and interior fixtures used outside. The right fixtures say quality to buyers.

• Mid-century awnings on exterior windows and doors. Buyers want to let the sun shine in.

• Mirrored backsplashes in kitchens and everywhere else. Mirrored walls and ceilings say 1980s hedonism.

• Commitment (strong, bold trendy) colors. They look great in magazines, but as one buyer said to me "I don't live in a magazine."

• Gas grills that need their own tank. Buyers prefer the gas piped from the house so they don't have to replace tanks.

• Dropped ceilings. It might have updated a bungalow in the 1950s, but buyers want as much vertical space as possible.

• Flipping. Inventories of unsold homes are increasing, signaling weakening demand by all buyers.

House & Garden Survey Results

2005-12-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK -- The special January 2006 issue of House & Garden features in-depth research on the building boom and the explosion of house size. House & Garden's national online survey, conducted by Equation Research, indicates that new is still hot: 70% of homeowners said they preferred a newly built house to a previously owned space.

Other survey results:
"FLEX" ROOMS: a big trend in homes today is flex rooms that can be used for media rooms, home offices, exercise rooms, etc. More than 38% want a media room or home theater, 17% a home spa. Other amenities we dream of: a wine cellar (10%), a guest suite (10%), and a dressing room to call our own (9%).

KITCHEN POWER: The majority of those surveyed responded that the kitchen mattered most when buying their current home. The area that least affected their decision to buy: the garden.

MOST POPULAR HOUSE STYLES: What houses are most popular in different regions in the country? Classic clapboard Colonial with a porch is the most popular in the North, while a Spanish villa with garden courtyard leads the pack in the West. Least popular nationwide? A shingled Cape Cod cottage.

DECOR MATTERS IN THE LIVING ROOM: Although one-third of buyers of single-family homes in 2004 said that they could do without a proper living room and the dining room is shrinking to a barely functional 10 by 12 feet today, decor in the living room was most important to 53% of those surveyed. The kitchen was runner-up with 19%. Decor in children's rooms mattered least.

The real estate special report also includes extensive research that paints a portrait of the coming home market. Five trends to watch in real estate in 2006 are:

1. A Return to Form - architecture and quality houses are more
important today

2. City Living - from Seattle to Miami, baby boomers are moving
downtown

3. Designer Homes - "star-chitecture" condominiums

4. Concierge Service - residential properties with all the benefits
of hotel living

5. Personalized Space - customized rooms have begun to replace
traditional living areas

Trendsetter: Artist Andy Fabo

2005-12-12T11:32:00.000-08:00

The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto offers a window onto a fascinating period of Toronto's recent art history with a pair of exhibitions on view to December 31. "Andy Fabo" collects works from the 1970s through 2005 for the first museum retrospective by the Toronto-based artist, a key figure in the fields of both culture and activism. Fabo's exuberant depictions of the male body were crucial in the emergence of queer culture as a subject for art in the 1970s. His portrayal of the male body as a vulnerable site of conflict is part and parcel of the identity-based ethos that so expanded the boundaries of art in the period, and also seems to prefigure the HIV/AIDS crisis that would shake the 1980s art world to its roots.

Modern Photography Alive and Well

2005-12-12T11:25:00.000-08:00

Photography at the Tipping Point

by Nancy Tousley

Like painting, photography has been declared dead, but so far there has been no public fuss or outcry about the medium's demise, although the obituary was published nearly fifteen years ago. "From the moment of its sesquicentennial in 1989 photography was dead," William J. Mitchell wrote in The Reconfigured Eye (1992), "—or more precisely, radically and permanently displaced—as was painting 150 years before." Yet photographic images surround us everywhere and most people hardly stop and think of how they got there or how they were made or who made them. In the day-to-day world, these matters are of little consequence; the smooth surface of our image culture remains unruffled. Painting is still around, too, lately experiencing yet another comeback. It is undead even though the invention of photography in 1839 was said to make it obsolete, in the face of science, to create images with pigments and hairs attached to the end of a stick. The new technology obviously trumped painting as an engine for rendering a truthful appearance of the real world.

As it happened, painting and photography struck up a relationship almost immediately. Instead of dying out, painting absorbed not only photographic images and visual effects but also photographic thinking, and in the process reinvigorated itself. Photography, for its part, extended itself to become a malleable, plastic medium capable both of acquiring painting's scale and of constructing complete fictions. At the same time, it returned to realism as a style, restating in a different way photography's nature as a medium connected directly to the appearance of the world. Now, however, the impact of a newer technology, the so-called digital revolution of the 1990s, is making itself increasingly felt through the ready accessibility of digital-imaging technology, and thus the end of photography or "photography as we know it" is announced. Digital technology promises to change everything, not that traditional photography has led a laid-back or static existence. Tied securely to advances in camera and film technology, photography has changed dramatically over the past 166 years, but most radically and rapidly in the past fifteen. It is, of course, digital technology that has enabled the most radical extension of photography's capabilities. Although the implications, both discernible and theoretical, of digital imaging and the complexities of its uses are many, the truth is that, so far, digital photography has not broken completely with "photography as we know it." It has not yet let go its hold on the world out there, although it can alter it at will.

As though to prove the point, there was a sense of convergence in the exhibition "Real Pictures: Photographs from the Collection of Claudia Beck and Andrew Gruft," as historical photographs met the work of artists using photography. Curated by Grant Arnold and shown at the Vancouver Art Gallery in spring 2005, "Real Pictures" was a gauge of the present state of photography. More than 370 works covered the medium from the 1840s to the present. Formed by two collectors who are passionate and curious about photography in all of its manifestations—artistic and non-artistic; historical, modern and contemporary; unique and editioned prints and albums—the Beck/Gruft collection has exceptional scope. It contains most of the photographic genres and techniques in use since the 1840s, including photographic postcards, the equivalent of an instant news flash, taken in the streets by unknown photographers during the Mexican Revolution, and work by high modernists like Harry Callahan. In an exhibition hung thematically within a loose chronology, the earliest photographs were in the first gallery, although the title panel carried a digital photograph made two years ago. From one vantage point, it was possible to take in Charcoal Burners, a calotype from 1845 by the British inventor of the negative/positive process, the seed of modern photography, William Henry Fox Talbot; Man on Horse, an 1887 collotype from Animal Locomotion by Eadweard Muybridge, the British inventor of one of the first camera shutters and the chemical and mechanical means he used to take sequential photographs of people and animals in motion; and Inspecting, Allan O'Connor searches for Botrytis cinerea, a digital chromogenic print made in 2003 by the Vancouver-based artist-photographer Scott McFarland, who assembled his lush picture seamlessly from several exposures and composed it like a painting.

The three photographs have in common their realism, the prevailing tendency exhibited in the Beck/Gruft collection from beginning to end. The clear, detailed, documentary realism of the Fox Talbot somehow still carries the aura of a freshly captured, unmediated reality that we know does not exist. The scientifically staged, analytical Muybridge breaks down rapid, continuous motion into a series of sequential still images that deconstructs human perception to show the unaided eye what it cannot see, that all four hooves of a galloping horse are at one time off the ground. The McFarland, a large colour picture that makes its intense fictional reality seem the order of the day, manipulates camera vision in order to emulate what the eye sees. The triangulation of these photographs, as Arnold puts it, is "an encapsulation of the historic moment we are at now."

With the advent of digital imaging, photography as we have known it is entering its historical phase. "We're at a tipping point," says Joel Sternfeld, an American photographer with work in "Real Pictures," as quoted in the New York Times in 2004. "The digital print is becoming the look of our time, and it makes the C-print start to look like a tintype." What is more, the core of the discourse on photography has not changed for nearly two centuries: it has centred on the medium's relationship to reality and the issue of truth, whether from the perspective of pre-modernism, modernism (photography captures objective truth) or postmodernism (all photography is fiction). This seems certain to become a non-issue as the digital era deepens.

Images that look like photographs can be constructed entirely in the computer even now. Just as Kodak put the box camera and roll film into the hands of every proud parent and tourist, now everyone with a desire to take and remake photographs can have a digital camera and "darkroom" at home. It is telling that the advertising slogan for the HP Photosmart Solution is "Click, Print, Invent." The generation that has grown up on the computer is hardly likely to find a compelling debate in the truth or falsity of photography. It distributes the photographic images it "invents," a verb that stresses concept over process, by e-mail or posts them on the Internet. Kodak recently announced the advent of a digital camera that will transmit images wirelessly from the camera to its printer or to any e-mail address. The photograph has been dematerialized.

It seems certain that one day, not soon, photography will no longer hold on to its connection to the world out there that we refer to as reality. The medium is being transformed by innumerable combinations and permutations of technology— by the manipulation of analog technology by digital technology, by the capabilities of digital cameras and printers, by the computer-manipulation of digital photographs, by the enlarged scale that digital technology permits, by computer-generated images or CGIs and so on. Not as troubling to the computer-raised generation as to older folk, digital manipulations of photographs—rearrangements of the elements in images, collages of images from different exposures or sources, erasures, colour changes or enhancements, added or subtracted shading—are invisible to the eye.

One of the instructive pleasures of an inclusive array of photographs like "Real Pictures" is the great variety of processes on view: calotype, woodburytype, salted paper print, carbon print, collotype, cyanotype, silver albumen print, platinum print, photogravure, silver gelatin print, offset lithograph, azo dye print, Polaroid SX-70 print, dye transfer print, ink-jet print, chromogenic print and digital chromogenic print. This recitation of the names of processes might seem to be one of strange alchemies, but the distinctive characteristics of each, which cannot be experienced in reproductions on the pages of books or catalogues, emphasize the fact that photographs are material objects whose physical properties are defined by processes. The glassy transparency of digital photography erases the trace of process and leaves the viewer to fall back on perception, intuition and knowledge of the way camera optics work and the way the world looks to interpret its images.

But what will photography be when it is no longer connected to the world out there as a material trace? Will it be photography? We will need a new definition, something else to call it. It is not surprising, then, that aspects of digital imaging and the society that has created it have become the medium-critical subject or undercurrent subject matter of both analog and digital photography. At the present moment, photography has never been so elastic or inclusive in its references to the histories of photography, art and technology. This is due not only to the uses of digital technology but also to developments in art and photography since the conceptualism of the 1960s led to neo-conceptualism, picture theory, staged photography and the new documentary realism. However, this is realism with a twist. "Photographs are still always depictions, it's just that for my generation the model for the photograph is probably not reality anymore, but images we have of that reality," says Thomas Ruff, quoted in the catalogue to the exhibition "The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography, 1960-1982."

Evan Penny's No One—In Particular (2001), a chromogenic photograph in "Real Pictures," is the image of one of his own sculptures, a portrait bust from a series of portrait busts distorted by camera optics, whose features were cobbled together, eyes here, nose there, from media images and observations of people on the street. Penny has made up the physiognomy from details detached from specificity, whose randomness signals that this is not a portrait. The photograph, an image of an image, takes the format of the ID photo, matching the work of the German photographer Thomas Ruff, but the ironic "original" refers to the hybrid, unfixed, even alien nature of identity in the digital era (especially on the Internet, where it is commonplace to assume personas in chat rooms and avatars in games).

Thomas Demand's chromogenic prints, some of which were recently shown in a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, are images of images of images, photographs of life-size coloured-paper and cardboard models of newspaper and magazine photographs. The Demands seem realistic from a certain viewing distance but on closer approach their artificiality becomes apparent. Their images are precise descriptive renderings stripped of the details that are characteristic of photographs and that give specificity to the places and objects they portray. Sites charged with significance and reproduced in the media—Hitler's bunker, the kitchen of a farmhouse where Saddam Hussein hid, Jeffrey Dahmer's hallway—are reduced to no place in particular. Their depleted value as information is exchanged for aesthetic value. With their pristine, smooth-surfaced objects, structural clarity and heightened, airtight visual atmospheres, they might be CGIs.

For the Czech philosopher Vilém Flusser, who is sometimes called the philosopher of new media, the invention of photography was the most important cultural invention since linear writing in the second millennium BCE. The photograph, which Flusser theorized as the first technical image, overcame "the artificial separation of culture into science, technology, and art," as Andreas Ströhl, the editor of Flusser's book Writings, explains. In the early 1980s, Flusser proposed that the crux of photography criticism was not the relationship between an object and its representation. "Truth is a relationship between a statement and its meaning," he wrote. "Photography turns the relationship between statement and meaning completely around. The photograph does not discover meanings, but rather, it gives them. It does not matter if they are true or false—even if this could be established. The critical question is, Which meaning does it intend to give according to which criteria? The criterion 'true'—the value 'truth'—is no longer operative in photography and must be abandoned."

Many artists using photography in the early 1980s were abandoning truth in photography in different ways. But whether art photography will ever completely sever its direct connection to the world, and abandon the notion of truth or reality as something to embrace or something to work against, is debatable, although digital imaging is already doing it in the commercial world. In the meantime, at the tipping point, digital imaging has struck up a relationship with both photography and painting. Picture-theory artists and photographers in Düsseldorf and Vancouver have shown that a photograph can be an autonomous object, pure picture. The tipping point is a rich place to be for photography, filled with potential that will be worked out in the evolving practice of artists.

Picasso in Instanbul

2005-12-12T11:14:00.000-08:00

By Sarah Rainsford, BBC News, Instanbul

The new exhibition is at Istanbul's Sakip Sabanci Museum - a modern gallery nestling in landscaped gardens overlooking the Bosphorus.

The project was the dream of the late millionaire entrepreneur Sakip Sabanci himself. It has been realised by his niece Guler - who says the show is all about proving Turkey's credentials.

"If we can meet the standards to exhibit Picasso, that puts us alongside world-class museums. It shows they trust us," she explains. "And of course, Picasso is the symbol of modernism. We wanted to bring him here because we believe that Turkey is part of the West and a part of that modernism."

It is certainly an impressive debut as a host.

Picasso's journey

The curators have gathered 135 exhibits. They are displayed chronologically, from some of Picasso's first paintings as a boy through to pieces he selected himself for his final exhibition, which opened a month after his death in 1973.

In Istanbul, for this grand opening, Picasso's friend and biographer John Richardson revealed that the artist was constantly amazed at his own creativity, and felt the need to explore his gift. The many stages of that journey of discovery are now displayed in Turkey.

"I think it's an amazing range of works," says lead curator and Picasso expert Marilyn McCully.

"It's not an exhibition where you only see the masterpieces, the things you are familiar with. It's an exhibition where you can discover Picasso and see how he worked."

Not that the masterpieces have been neglected.

The ground-breaking Les Demoiselles D'Avignon is represented by an enormous tapestry of the work, commissioned by Picasso and very rarely seen. Together with a second tapestry, Femmes a leur Toilette, it adds a touch of Turkish flavour.

Dozens of other rare works are on loan from the Picasso family collection including ceramics, sculptures and sketches. Most come from his grandson Bernard.

Educational role

Turkey has long been a major lender of its own art and artefacts to the West, mainly from the era of the Ottoman Empire. This event aims to reverse the trend.

But it is also about introducing Turks to modern Western art. The museum aims to educate, as well as entertain.

"When people come to the exhibition we will give them an audio guide. It is compulsory, so they can appreciate it better," Guler Sabanci explains.

As preview visitors wander the halls, glued to those mandatory headsets, Marilyn McCully says she envies many Turks their first encounter with Picasso.

"I think the Turkish people have a real advantage that they can approach the work fresh, without any preconceived ideas," the curator explains.

"The works have been chosen to encourage that. The first ones are not that difficult but they show Picasso very early on - extending the limits of how we see and how he saw."

Hungry for art

As Turkey looks to Europe politically, the art world is looking to bridge the cultural divide as well.

"This exhibition sets a standard that I am sure the Turkish public will demand on everything from now on," says Guler Sabanci.

She says the museum has been flooded with phone calls enquiring after tickets - an early sign the Picasso show will spark an appetite for Western art.

This exhibition runs until March. The museum already has plans for a follow-up show devoted to Auguste Rodin - with sculptures on loan from his museum in Paris.

Flat Screen TVs Changing Home Design Needs

2005-12-12T11:11:00.000-08:00

Changing lifestyles change home design

By Ann Brenoff

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Homes last for many years, but their designs often don't. The problem is, when homes no longer keep up with the way people live, they can linger on the market and are less likely to bring top dollar. And designs that don't factor in flat-screen TVs are today's prime example.

For much of the 1990s, homes were designed with an alcove in which to put an entertainment center. Marketers promoted how wonderful it would be to stick an armoire in there with doors that could be shut, keeping the TV, VCR and other electronics out of sight when not in use. And then along came the flat-screen TV - intended to be stylish and hung on a wall like artwork, not hidden behind closed cabinet doors and shoved into an alcove.

Almost 11 million flat-screens were sold last year, and industry experts predict an additional 20 million units will be bought this year and more than twice as many in 2006 as prices continue to drop.

"I can't tell you how many times during showings I hear, 'It's not big enough for my flat-screen,' or 'The room is too small to watch the TV,'" said Tricia LaMotte of Keller Williams Realty in Valencia, Calif.

She recently represented a couple in their 30s who owned a small condominium north of Los Angeles. They wanted to start a family and were wanting to move up to a larger home.

"They looked at at least a dozen homes," LaMotte said, "and in each case, nothing worked because the living room was too small for their TV."

For their part, builders of tract homes say that the design process begins with marketing research to learn which features are important to the most people and what price the public is willing to pay for them.

But trends sometimes move more quickly than builders, said Gopal Ahluwalia, a research economist with the National Association of Home Builders' Research Center.

Flat-screen TVs are a touchy topic with Ahluwalia. They weren't around five years ago, he said, and then two years ago they suddenly boomed. Who knew?

"They hit us in a big way," he admitted, "once the prices of those TVs dropped, everyone wanted one."

But builders responded with a vengeance, determined to be ahead of the next curve. And that curve, they have decided, is energy-management systems, which are being built into homes to help control energy waste and costs.

Builders, Ahluwalia said, listen to what consumers tell them. That's why new garages are built 2 feet deeper than they used to be - to 22 feet - to accommodate minivans and SUVs.

Consumers apparently really want to live out-of-doors, so builders are building homes with outdoor kitchens and living spaces.

But what builders giveth, builders taketh away. Say goodbye to living rooms. One-third of all new homes built in 2004 had no living room, and the pendulum is swinging toward houses without living rooms.

"People tell us they don't use their living rooms anyway," Ahluwalia said, and perhaps more important to builders, "Forty percent of the people we asked said they would buy a house without a living room in it if it had other features."

The national Home Design Trends Survey of the American Institute of Architect recently found that what consumers want is more informality, greater flexibility in room use and more ease of maintenance. Some survey highlights:

Thirty percent of the responding AIA companies reported an increase in the popularity of dedicated hobby and game rooms.

The demand for home offices has grown substantially.

Private space for some family members (such as in-laws) and caregivers is hot - and explains the advent of bedrooms off the kitchen or garage.

Elaborate laundry rooms.

Some design "flaws" aren't flaws at all; they are a matter of changing lifestyles. When the kids are small, we want the family room open and visible from the kitchen; when they grow to be teenagers, we want the family room far, far away and preferably soundproof.

But some flaws fall squarely on builders.

Not everyone wants a master bedroom suite that's half a mile away from the other bedrooms. Nor is it practical to have the dining room not be adjacent to the kitchen unless the house comes with live-in help to serve the evening meal.

What floor do builders put the laundry on? The first. On what floor is most of that laundry generated? The second, where the bedrooms and bathrooms are.

Trendsetter: Architect Matt Schleub

2005-12-12T11:09:00.000-08:00

With a series of circular structures and bright, splashy colors, Architect Matt Schlueb's house -- which sits nestled in a four-acre forested lot, apart from other nearby houses -- might remind some people of Dr. Seuss' stories.

"It's nice. It energizes me in the morning when I get up to attack the day," says Schlueb, who designed and built the two-story, 2,450-square-foot home. "It is kind of a refreshing change from most of the spaces out there that you encounter every day."

Schlueb literally thought outside the box when designing his home, he says, since most houses are designed as box-like structures with a straight, linear pattern. In Schlueb's house, the open floor plan takes visitors on a winding, circular path through rooms painted in a rainbow of hues -- purple, yellow, blue, red and green.

"It definitely is surreal," Schlueb says.

Schlueb -- who lives in the funky house with his wife, Julianne, and sons, Oskar, 3, and baby Olin, 7 months -- says having children inspired him to design his home.

"We wanted to try to create something that might ... stimulate their imagination, growing up in a house like this."

"We want to show them the extreme example of what can be done with a house," he says. "Some people have trouble visualizing it unless they walk through it."

Green, Gorgeous, and Great for the Environment

2005-12-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

By Mary Beth Breckenridge, Knight Ridder

Green can be gorgeous.

Environmentalism in the home is hip these days, but it's a far cry from any neo-hippie notion of weaving your own linen upholstery fabric from flax you've raised organically. Rather, earth consciousness has gone upscale, in the form of decorative, sustainable products that appeal as much to our sense of beauty as to our sense of responsibility.

Some manufacturers are hesitant to label a product green for fear consumers might equate that description with ''ugly or funky or something,'' said author and green-building advocate Jennifer Roberts.

To dispel that frumpy image, we asked Roberts and a few interior designers for their suggestions of decorative elements that are both earth-friendly and elegant. Here are some of their favorites.

GLASS TILES

Roberts uses ''exquisite'' and ''jewellike'' to describe the hand-crafted glass tiles made by Oceanside Glasstile in Carlsbad, Calif.

The company uses discarded bottles, post-industrial recycled glass and silica sand to make the tiles, which contain up to 85 percent recycled content. The hand-cut pieces include metallics as well as translucent tiles, which have a shimmering, watery quality. The tiles come in both mosaic sheets and larger tiles and can be used for kitchen or bath counters, walls, floors and pools.

''I tell people, this isn't what green is all about. This is what beauty is all about,'' said Roberts, author of Good Green Homes: Creating Better Homes for a Healthier Planet and Redux: Designs that Reuse, Recycle, and Reveal.

Oceanside Glasstiles are pricey, Roberts said, but just a few used as accents could be a lovely touch.

BAMBOO FLOORING

Just a few years ago, bamboo seemed an exotic choice for flooring. Now it's going mainstream.

Bamboo flooring is made from strips of bamboo cane, glued together under heat and pressure to form planks that rival or exceed hardwoods in durability. Some bamboo flooring shows the bamboo nodes -- the rings that look like knuckles -- and therefore has a tropical look, while other types look much like hardwood flooring.

Because the canes grow big enough for harvesting in five years or less, bamboo is a quickly renewable resource. What's more, bamboo flooring is available prefinished, so you don't have to suffer through having the floor finished in your home, Wolff said.

''It wouldn't look right in every setting,'' she said, ``but in the right place, it's gorgeous.''

Roberts cautioned that not all bamboo flooring is equal in quality, so buy from a reputable dealer and look for a long warranty. Many flooring retailers -- particularly those that sell better-quality products -- carry bamboo.

CORK FLOORING

Another flooring material that many designers love for its beauty and functionality is cork. Cork was popular in the first half of the 20th century, and it has recently come back into favor because of its environmental benefits and improvements in its looks.

Cork is the bark of the cork oak tree. If harvested properly, it can be stripped from a mature tree every nine years without harm.

One manufacturer that interior designer Alan Garren likes, Expanko of Parkesburg, Pa., uses both bark and cork waste in its flooring. The cork is ground, baked in molds and cut into slabs, then finished with wax or polyurethane. Even the cork dust and tree trimmings are used in the manufacturing process as fuel.

Garren, of Garren McCuan Renner Interiors in Bath, likes cork because it's soft and easy to stand on. It also adds a feeling of warmth to a room, Akron interior designer Cynthia J. Hoffman said.

GLASS-CHIP COUNTERS

Chips of recycled glass embedded in a solid-surface material put a sparkly new spin on kitchen and bath counter tops.

The material, which resembles a terrazzo floor, is strong and heat-resistant. One brand, IceStone, is made from 75 percent recycled materials; another, Vetrazzo, has an 80 percent recycled content.

Counter Production, which makes Vetrazzo, has an online showroom at www.counterproduction.com.

WALL COVERINGS

In most settings, Marcia Wolff, owner of the Akron, Ohio, interior design firm Design Council, steers her clients away from wall coverings that contain vinyl. One alternative she particularly likes is Innvironments, a line of wall covering from Innovations in Wallcoverings.

The products in the Innvironments line are made from either natural and renewable or recyclable materials, using water-based inks.

The variety of styles is wide. Among them are iridescent wallpapers, leopard prints, grass cloth, linen and cork looks and a wall covering that resembles suede.

Innvironments wall coverings are intended for commercial use, but are often used in residential settings, said Michael Hardin of the Dorsey Group, the manufacturer's representative in Ohio. However, their wider size and the properties of the wall coverings make them better suited for professional installation than a do-it-yourself project. A contractor can order the wall coverings from the company.

More information is available at Innovations in Wallcoverings's website, www.innovationsusa.com.

LINOLEUM

Linoleum is often used as a generic term for vinyl flooring, but the two are not the same. Linoleum is made primarily from natural ingredients including linseed oil, which oxidizes over time to make it more durable.

It's also become something of a fashion statement in the last decade. Hoffman and Wolff are partial to Marmoleum, a brand of linoleum from Forbo Flooring that comes in a variety of colors and designs that can be combined to create patterns much like rugs.

Linoleum is comfortable underfoot and holds up well under heavy traffic, which is why Hoffman chose it for a playroom she designed. Dust doesn't cling to it, and the oxidation of the linseed oil keeps microorganisms from multiplying on it, giving it an antibacterial quality.

Information on Marmoleum is available at www.forbolinoleumna.com.

NATURAL FABRICS

Both Hoffman and Hudson interior designer Pamela Bayer are enamored with Indika, a brand of natural fabrics woven in Kalispell, Mont.

The fabrics are made from natural and organically grown materials such as silk, hemp and organic cotton, and are free of synthetic chemicals and dyes. Plant and vegetable dyes create variation in the color of the fabrics, giving it a richness, Bayer said.

The company uses the fabric in high-end bedding and towels and also makes fabrics for use in window treatments and upholstery. Indika information is available at indikahome.com or 866-446-3452.

Living with Style: Gale Ann Hurd

2005-12-12T10:50:00.000-08:00

By Jamie Diamond, New York Times, December 12, 2005

I DON'T have an analyst," Gale Anne Hurd said one recent Sunday afternoon, "but if I did, maybe I could figure out why I'm living everywhere but in the present."

In her work as a film producer, Ms. Hurd immerses herself in images of the future. She has made nearly 30 movies, including science fiction spectacles like the three "Terminators," two of the "Aliens" movies and the new "Aeon Flux," which stars Charlize Theron as a gymnastically gifted assassin in the 25th century.

"I'm just attracted to the action element of science fiction," Ms. Hurd said. "It's great to sit in the editing room with the director and sound engineers and to create the feeling where your heart is racing and you're sitting at the edge of your seat and you find yourself holding your breath."

But while the fictional realms she spends her days in may raise her pulse rate, she wouldn't want to live there. "There's a cold and antiseptic sensibility to those worlds that I really don't want to come home to," she said.

Instead, Ms. Hurd, a delicate, soft-spoken woman with a Louise Brooks bob, comes home to a very different world of her own making: a 1923 Mediterranean revival house, designed by the prominent Pasadena architecture firm Marston & Van Pelt, that has been painstakingly renovated and furnished to reflect the era in which it was built.

Ms. Hurd and her husband, the screenwriter and director Jonathan Hensleigh, bought the house, in a historic neighborhood in Pasadena, in 2000. They were drawn to its hilltop setting, its large windows, the French doors that opened to the outside from almost every room, and the grounds - three acres with nine fountains, a koi pond and mulberry, myrtle, pomegranate and palm trees. But the house needed a lot of work, and the couple, along with Lolita De Palma, Ms. Hurd's 14-year-old daughter from her two-year marriage to the director Brian De Palma, had to wait two and a half years before they could move in.

Ms. Hurd wanted the house to look as if it had been decorated in the 20's - for inspiration, she turned to books showing early Hollywood estates - but she and Mr. Hensleigh had no interest in sacrificing contemporary comforts. The existing swimming pool was torn out and replaced by a family room; a new pool and pool house were built elsewhere on the property; the kitchen was expanded, and the garage became a media room, gym and wine cellar.

When construction was done, a group of several designers decorated rooms in the house - Ms. Hurd had agreed to let it be used as a decorator show house, to raise money for local schools. Later she brought in her own team. Madeline Stuart, a Los Angeles interior designer, created a dark wood bed modeled after a 17th-century Spanish one, built an ornate cast-plaster double-sided fireplace in the master suite and ripped out recently installed marble in the bathrooms to make way for custom-made 20's-style tiles. Kristin Peterson and William Foster, also local designers, converted an enclosed patio to a billiards room, fitting it out with a pool table from the 20's and restoring a teal-blue starburst painting on the foyer's vaulted ceiling. They brought Spanish revival furniture into the foyer and living room.

The result is a 6-bedroom, 8-bathroom, 12,000-square-foot house that looks a lot like a set from a 1920's movie. It's a far cry from the one-story Los Angeles ranch house where Ms. Hurd, now 50, spent her early childhood, staring out picture windows at the San Fernando Valley below, and even farther from the modernist house in Palm Springs where her family moved when she was 10. But people who live in glass houses, she learned, aren't always happy about it.

"To my mind, a family house felt lived-in, not brand-new, with a patina of age and history that a modern house never had," Ms. Hurd said. "To me, a family house had a second floor and a banister."

She also developed an early affinity for objects like the Persian rugs and Roseville pottery that she has collected for years - things with a crafted rather than a mass-produced feel.

"A lot of my films have dealt with the dark side of technology," she said, "and stress that you have to examine the ramifications of progress."

Although she describes herself as an action fan who grew up "zooming around in dune buggies" and riding horses at a fast gallop in the desert, her manner one recent afternoon was serene. She sat in her living room with her hands folded in her lap, wearing a knit Jean Paul Gaultier dress, matching earrings and a necklace, and 4-inch cork platform sandals, a picture of self-possession.

The only child of a father who was in real estate and a mother who was a fourth-generation Angeleno, Ms. Hurd said, "I did not grow up California casual. We dressed for dinner, just as if we had guests."

The producer and director Roger Corman, for whom she worked early in her career, says he thinks Ms. Hurd's innate formality may have served her well in the film industry. "When she worked with us she seemed self-contained, which you don't necessarily need to have as a producer - I know people who explode all over the place," he said. "But it's a good quality to have as a woman because it gives the impression that you know what you're doing."

Ms. Hurd apparently conveyed this impression from her earliest days as a producer. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford and working for four years for Mr. Corman, she opened her own office in 1982. Her first project was producing a script called "The Terminator," which she and her friend James Cameron, whom she later married, had written, and which he would direct.

The two of them set out to woo Arnold Schwarzenegger to star in the film, taking him to lunch at Scandia, a venerable Hollywood restaurant. Some quantity of vodka and caviar later, the check came, and neither Ms. Hurd nor Mr. Cameron could pay the bill.

"We kept waiting for Arnold to leave so we could deal with the restaurant, but he picked up on the problem," Ms. Hurd said. "I thought, he's not going to commit to a movie when we can't pay for lunch." But Mr. Schwarzenegger was impressed enough with his would-be producer and director to be magnanimous.

"He said, 'Things like this happened to me early on in my career, and I'm sure the money will be in escrow at some point, and I'm happy to pick up lunch and happy to star in your movie.' "

Financing the project was trickier. After the script had been turned down by all the major studios, Ms. Hurd, at her wit's end, learned that a man in a company that financed films was selling a desk for $200.

"Any way to get your foot in the door," she said. "I went to the warehouse to see the desk and said, 'O.K., I'll take the desk, but would you please read this script?' The guy read it and called me the next day. Obviously, if the script hadn't been any good, there wouldn't have been any phone call, and I would have been out $200. But I would have had a lovely desk."

The desk, unfortunately, doesn't match the décor of her new house.

"But I keep it in storage," she said. "It's just too sentimental to throw away."

Spectacular Restoration of Library's Map Room

2005-12-12T10:47:00.000-08:00

By Glenn Collins, New York Times, December 11, 2005

For decades, it has been known simply as Room 117.

Under a gilt ceiling that has been likened to an inside-out Fabergé egg, an avid circle of initiates has marveled at a glorious 1598 depiction of sea monsters in the waters of the Indies. They have cherished 17th-century visions of the world drawn by the Rembrandts of early cartography. And they have savored a renowned 1668 map that depicts modern-day California as an island, an image now sardonically viewed, by some, as a sign.

The room's bronze-handled doors were shuttered nine months ago. But Thursday, after a $5 million restoration, the largest map collection in any public library in the world will reopen in its Beaux-Arts jewelry box at the New York Public Library, a room noted for its spectacular corner view of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

The meticulous reconstruction was intended to return the soaring 7,000-square-foot space to the original 1911 intention of its architects, John Merven Carrère and Thomas Hastings. But it is also marrying the collection's priceless maps - including many classics from the age of exploration - to new mapping resources of the digital age.

Surely Room 117 was in need of a little work. "If there ever was a sleeping beauty, it was the map room," said Dr. Paul LeClerc, the library's president. "Or maybe the analogy is to the ugly duckling." The once-dazzling ceiling had darkened with decades of automobile and heating-fuel particulates since windows were opened before ventilation systems were installed in the 1980's.

Carved portals of blue-gray marble from Germany became sheathed in city grime. Exquisite carved walnut cartouches depicting griffins and cherubs had been hidden behind industrial shelving. Not only had original chandeliers become coated with dirt, but in the 1960's, a row of chandeliers disappeared, replaced by grayish fluorescents. Even the paint covering the elegant summits of the classic arched windows - a World War II expedient to baffle enemy bombers - has finally been removed.

Newly restored is the 40-foot-by-35-foot main map-reference reading room, with its 20-foot-tall plaster Beaux-Arts ceiling densely encrusted with designs of fruits, vegetables, dragons and cherubs in its original vivid color palette of gilt, green and vermillion.

The map room will henceforth be officially known as the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division after the principal sponsors of its reconstruction and endowment. The city of New York also provided $2.5 million, and the federal government $500,000 toward construction, planned by its lead architect, Davis Brody Bond.

The library's map collection "shows how human beings from one era to another across different cultures come to an understanding of themselves and the universe," Dr. LeClerc said. "It reveals as much about these people as the world they are trying to represent."

The division's collection of almost 420,000 maps, atlases and cartographic books will have tables wired for laptop plug-ins. The map room - actually two rooms and a mezzanine - will have more than 360 storage shelves, some of them measuring 5 by 7 1/2 feet, 900 map drawers and 1,800 additional drawers in storage rooms under Bryant Park, where the temporary ice rink is situated. The reconstruction "has been very labor intensive," said Scott Walker, the project superintendent for some 60 hard hats working for F. J. Sciame Construction Company, "especially putting in the 4-inch-by-4-inch squares of gilt," he said of the reading-room ceiling.

No public library has more maps, said Alice C. Hudson, chief of the map division, though private collections at Harvard University, the University of Illinois, the American Geographical Society and several other institutions are of comparable size, and the Library of Congress has some five million maps.

The map division has some of the rarest maps in the world, yet all of them can be studied, and handled, by the public "without giving us your first-born child to see them," Ms. Hudson said. "We do not have a rare-book mentality in this map division." Many of the maps are sheathed in plastic, and most are stored in cabinets. High-tech amenities will also include security improvements that the library declines to discuss. Such enhancements gained new urgency with the recent arrest of a prominent antique map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley III, who was charged in Connecticut with three counts of larceny stemming from a June 8 visit to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

According to an affidavit, surveillance cameras captured Mr. Smiley removing a map. Mr. Smiley pleaded not guilty on Aug. 9, and has declined to comment on the case, as has his lawyer, and Yale as well.

The arrest rocked the close-knit universe of mapdom, and sent librarians from New York to London scurrying to their stacks to see if their own collections were intact.

Ms. Hudson declined to comment about Mr. Smiley directly, and would not say whether her collection was missing any maps, because "the F.B.I. is investigating," she said.

But beyond security, the division is also well on the way to making the map room "go virtual," said Matt Knutzen, a cartographer who is assistant chief of the division, "bringing the historic collections into the digital age. We hope to bring antiquarian materials to a whole new audience across the world."

And so, eight new high-speed computers will enable patrons to download map data and retrieve new geographic information systems that will open the division's vast collection to digital enhancement, and facilitate copying on new large-format printers.

The staff is working to create a geographical search engine - a cartographic user interface, as it were - that could relate maps to other collections of the library, such as the 500,000 images from its collections that have been digitized, including historic building photographs, posters, floor plans and subway construction blueprints.

Eventually, Mr. Knutzen explained, a user would be able to designate a location such as a tenement in which an ancestor once lived, then retrieve vintage images of the property as well as published articles, Census records and diary entries. The restoration is part of a $100-million, decades-long project to transform the interiors and exteriors of the library in time for the 2011 centennial rededication of the building.

Many of the division's maps are worth six figures, and one of the collection's venerable map sets created by the family of Willem Janszoon Blaeu - the aforementioned cartographic Rembrandts - has fetched more than $1 million at auction, "but you cannot put a value on this collection," said Ms. Hudson, who has been chief for 24 years.

About 80 percent of patrons, she said, use 20 percent of the collection - mostly New York City maps, from its extensive archive. But the division acquires maps from around the world.

The collection, from the 16th century to the present, spans classic engravings, vellum heirlooms, manuscript maps, cemetery maps, railroad maps, insurance maps, harbor charts, computer-produced cartography charts and CD-ROM's.

The oldest map, from 1545, depicts North and South America; the newest is a 2005 map of the European Union.

The division has its roots in the establishment of the Astor Library and the Lenox Library in the 19th century. In the 1920's, the photographer Walker Evans worked as a page in the map room. After Pearl Harbor, the Army arrived looking for maps of Japan; immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, engineers and architects began searching for maps to help untangle the blasted infrastructure at ground zero.

Through the years, its users have included archaeologists, historians, site-study consultants, preservation specialists and genealogists as well as writers researching novels, plays and film scripts.

One patron arrived with his great grandfather's journal; librarians enabled him to confirm its description of a Texas cattle drive in the 1860's by finding maps of old livestock routes.

Then there are those who take the name of the room literally enough to step up to the reference desk "and ask, 'Can I get the crosstown bus over to the U.N. here?' " Ms. Hudson said.

"If the New York Public Library is the temple of New York, then the map room is the holy of holies," said Philip Lopate, Adams Professor of English at Hofstra University. He used the collection extensively to research his 2004 book, "Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan."

Dr. LeClerc said that new technology would not replace what he called the library's historic mission, "its continuing commitment to the acquisition, care and presentation of physical objects," he said. "Our collections will continue to grow, as will access to electronic information."

But will technology make the map room unnecessary? "You need to be here," Dr. Hudson said on a recent afternoon in the reading room. "We've had more people coming in because they've seen the maps on our website. There will always be people handling our maps."

Design-Obsessed Go Blog Wild

2005-12-11T13:08:00.000-08:00

For people obsessed with design, the advent of design-focused Web journals, or blogs, has been a wonderful, terrible development.

Wonderful because these idiosyncratic Web sites, in which specific and frequently updated content is filtered through an individual blogger's sensibility, give devotees an opportunity to indulge their obsession at the click of a computer mouse. Terrible because, as anyone who has ever discovered a favorite blog already knows, the impulse to hit the "refresh" button every five minutes to see what has been posted most recently can take over one's life, putting things like social calendars and professional advancement in peril.

In the past few years, blogs such as Apartment Therapy (www.apartmenttherapy.com), MoCo Loco (www.mocoloco.com), Design*Sponge (www.designsponge.blogspot.com) and Funfurde (www.funfurde.blogspot.com) have emerged to constitute a bona-fide design district within the blogosphere, the collective noun denoting all the blogs to be found on the Internet. (Estimates of how many blogs exist vary absurdly, with some analysts guessing around 3 million, others closer to 30 million -- a discrepancy rooted in these analysts' inability to agree on the definition of "blog.")

Think of the typical design blog as equal parts bulletin board, cocktail party, garage sale and aesthetic manifesto. On any one of them, a visitor might find a sequence of posts celebrating a new line of furnishings from a major retailer, soliciting opinions on a coveted coffee table, advertising a sofa for sale and decrying a new building that has been much ballyhooed by the architectural press.

"They're a great interactive resource," says interior designer Ky Ta of Washington. By posting questions on blog comment boards, he says, "you can basically leverage the entire design community to solve problems. They're also a great buying guide for people who don't necessarily know where to go to look for certain things. So they're really providing a free service, and anyone with an Internet connection can use it."

Ta regularly scans several design blogs, he says.

One unique aspect of blogs is the way in which their creators and consumers are always switching places. Most blogs, including most design blogs, are solo operations administered by an amateur blogger who adds new posts whenever he or she can find the time. Larger blogs such as Apartment Therapy have teams of editors with different bailiwicks, and actually make money -- or at least try to -- by selling space to advertisers. (Apartment Therapy, which launched in March 2004, boasts 14,000 visitors daily.)

At sites large and small, readers are encouraged to submit content in the form of comments to existing posts, or quite often in the form of full-length posts of their own. In this way, design blogs -- unlike the shows on HGTV or the glossy shelter and design magazines -- are truly democratic media, to which everybody is free to offer a critique, share a clever idea or shed light on an unsung talent or little-known product.

Jill Slater, an editor at New York-based Apartment Therapy, got her job by impressing the blog's creator and chief editor, Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, with the quality and erudition of her frequent posts. She notes that the relationship between the blog's editors and its readers is far more intimate than that of a magazine or TV show and its fans.

She also notes that on the blog's "open thread" posts -- free-for-all message boards where visitors can discuss any topic they want, design-related or not -- "there's a real sense of community. People are like, `Can you help me pick out a couch?' and suddenly there are all these links from everybody. But they're also sharing Thanksgiving recipes, and asking about each other's kids."

Recently, Apartment Therapy added a feature that allows people to submit photos of whatever catches their eye -- "a cool couch, a great design on a tile floor, anything really," says Slater -- by taking a picture with a cell phone and e-mailing it to the site, where they appear in series of four with brief comments by the photographers. The pictures appear instantly, and are bumped only when new ones arrive to take their place.

This immediacy, says MoCo Loco blogger Harry Wakefield, truly sets blogs apart from traditional media. Readers unable to attend a furniture fair in Milan or an exhibit opening in San Francisco can nevertheless be among the first to know what's creating a stir, thanks to bloggers like him.

"MoCo Loco covered ICFF [the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, held annually in New York] in real time. I posted the images the same day I took them, And we did Tokyo Design Week within a day of the end of that event. We can present design news faster" than magazines or newspapers, he says.

Of course, the editorial process at magazines and newspapers is inevitably slowed not only by printing and distribution, which take a significant amount of time, but also by the intervention of legions of editors, diligently checking content for accuracy, balance and tone.

Most blogs have no comparable infrastructure. News and opinion often bleed into one another -- but no one seems to mind. In fact, it's one of the things readers love about them.

"I get to say practical things the magazines can't," says the blogger behind Funfurde, who prefers not to give his real name. ("My day job technically precludes me from blogging," he confesses.) "Like, `Yes, it's a brilliant piece by a renowned designer, but really it's just a block of painted foam, so should it cost $5,000?' Or, `Is a chair made of concrete really going to be comfortable?'

On Funfurde you can appreciate the brilliance of design but also ask the question: Does it actually work? Not all design has to be useful, of course, but most of the magazines don't even try to address that.

"I can also start out with incomplete information," he adds. " `Hey, here's a really cool sofa, but I don't know how much it costs or where you can buy it.' Usually within 24 hours a Funfurde reader has chimed in with the information. And that's totally acceptable. No one complains; in fact, they're happy to help. Try that in a magazine."

Letting Professionals Do the Holiday Decorating

2005-12-11T12:53:00.000-08:00

The last thing John Gendron wants to do during the holidays is climb high on his steep-pitched roof to hang a wreath from his chimney.

These days, he doesn't have to. Instead, he hires a contractor to put one wreath on his chimney and two others high on the house, and to hang Christmas lights on his home and in the crabapple trees in his front yard.

Tens of thousands of Americans this year will do the same.

Short on time, leery of ladders and lacking expertise for sometimes-elaborate lighting displays, homeowners are opening their wallets and hiring others do the work.

This is the third year that Gendron has hired Lucas Tree Experts, a Portland tree service company that installs Christmas lighting and decorations for homeowners and businesses during the holiday season.

When it gets closer to Christmas, Gendron and his family will trim indoor and outdoor trees for the festivity and pleasure of it, while also enjoying the lights and wreaths put up by Lucas Tree.

"These people are professionals at what they do, much like we're professionals at what we do," said Gendron, who owns a commercial real estate firm. "We're not able to do what they do as well as they can do it."

Lucas Tree is a franchisee for Christmas Decor Inc., a Texas-based company with 375 franchises in 48 states and Canada that will put up holiday decorations for 40,000 customers this year, according to Christmas Decor marketing director Brandon Stephens. The company has been adding 30 to 40 franchises and 5,000 to 6,000 customers a year, he said.

For a price, the company will design a Christmas display, install the lights and decorations, take them down after the holidays and store them until the next year. The average initial cost is $1,500, with the cost going down in subsequent years because the commercial-grade lights already have been purchased.

In Maine, Lucas Tree will put up lights, wreaths, silhouetted Santas and other decorations on about 50 homes and businesses for prices ranging from $500 to $10,000. Gendron declined to reveal what he paid, other than to call it a "good value for the money."

Customers include working couples who have little spare time and older folks who don't want to climb ladders, said Chuck Cotton of Lucas Tree. Others don't have the skills or the equipment needed to put up intricate displays.

"It's more a convenience than anything," he said. "They don't have the time or the ability to do some of the things that we can do."

Hiring people to hang lights was once considered something only the wealthy could afford.

But with the cost of lights going down and companies able to install them in an efficient manner, the jobs are no longer reserved just for the rich, said Virginia Postrel, author of "The Substance of Style," a book that examines the link between aesthetic pleasures and American commerce and culture.

Many people who hire contractors to install Christmas decorations could be described as upper-middle class who simply want nice-looking holiday displays, she said.

"Their time is worth more than their money," Postrel said. "And if you don't have a giant mansion, it's not that expensive of a job."

Brite Ideas Decorating Inc., a national Christmas decoration installation company based in Omaha, Neb., says its distributors will decorate more than 23,000 homes this year – up from just over 1,000 five years ago. Customers include tennis player Andre Agassi, country singer Travis Tritt, boxer Evander Holyfield and basketball player Grant Hill, said Reed Nyffeler, national sales director.

The company has put up elaborate displays with hundreds of thousand of lights that cost up to $75,000. But the average initial cost is $1,500 to $2,000, Nyffeler said.

"They don't mow their lawn, they don't do their landscaping, they don't paint their houses," he said of the typical customers. "And they don't put up Christmas lights."

Besides giving homeowners a way to brighten up their homes, the Christmas decoration industry gives local seasonal businesses – such as landscapers and tree trimmers – a way to make a few extra bucks during a slow time of the year.

"Once the growing season ends, business drops off," said Cotton, of Lucas Tree. "This picks us up during the holiday season."

As the companies become more efficient in installing lights and decorations, prices will continue to come down so that even more people can afford the luxury, Postrel said.

"This is a classic case of how new industries take off," Postrel said. "It's just a small version."

Trendsetter: Kalman Ruttenstein

2005-12-11T12:35:00.000-08:00

By ERIC WILSON, New York Times

Kalman Ruttenstein, the fashion director of Bloomingdale's, whose instinct for trends was so keen and enthusiasm for promotion so vigorous that he frequently upstaged even his more famous designers, died yesterday at Mount Sinai Hospital. He was 69 and lived in Manhattan.

The cause was complications of lymphoma, said Anne Keating, the senior vice president for public relations at Bloomingdale's.

As the most visible face of Bloomingdale's during his 28-year career there, Mr. Ruttenstein, known as Kal, informed shoppers of what would be important for the season by blending the latest designs from the runways of Paris, New York and Milan with mainstream versions of the same trends, produced for the store by manufacturers at his request. He also liberally lifted ideas from what was happening in pop culture, creating in-store boutiques with designs inspired by movies and musicals, pairing fashion with the music from "The Phantom of the Opera," "Hairspray" and "Saturday Night Fever."

His role as the chief interpreter of style for the store, ensuring that Bloomingdale's was stocked with tiered peasant skirts or hot pants well before consumers knew they wanted them, was sometimes at odds with the designers he favored. Gianni Versace once banned Mr. Ruttenstein from a fashion show because Bloomingdale's carried similar men's wear designs under the store's own label. But few harbored grudges against Mr. Ruttenstein for long. He often pulled the strings behind the scenes that helped advance many designers' careers.

"He was really the one man who was the voice of the designer," Donna Karan said. "He understood us as designers, and then he could explain us to the consumer."

Mr. Ruttenstein was a vibrant presence at fashion shows, offering reporters his enthusiastic endorsement of collections he liked, and for those he did not, an excuse that he could not talk at the moment.

But he found more inspiration in the most stylish restaurants: Balthazar or Da Silvano in New York, Bice in Milan and Le Stresa in Paris, where he was fond of pointing out unexpected celebrities like Marc Jacobs with Lee Radziwill or speculating on whether certain customers paid more for their dates than for their dinners.

Most of his favorite restaurants stocked glass bottles of Diet Coke because Mr. Ruttenstein was a famously fickle diner, who appreciated a high level of carbonation in his soft drinks, and his stamp of approval for good service would cement a restaurant's reputation.

"Restaurants are the discothèques of the first decade of the new century," he said in DNR, the men's wear publication. "I have to be out there to see what everyone is wearing. I don't feel like I'm doing my job if I'm not out at night."

Mr. Ruttenstein had a serious stroke on Jan. 30, 1997, but within a few months he returned to his usual schedule of attending fashion shows and traveling to Europe up to six times a year. His new uniform was a more comfortable Sean John velour tracksuit paired with white sneakers and a custom-tailored blazer.

By studying stylish women, Mr. Ruttenstein was quick to recognize when cropped jackets or jeans as skinny as stovepipes were about to take off. And he had a knack for gauging which movie or Broadway show would be a hit and would commission promotional merchandise and events around them, as he did when he saw the musical "Rent" in 1996.

"Kal had a unique ability to see what wasn't there," said Michael Gould, the chief executive of Bloomingdale's, part of Federated Department Stores. "He could conceptualize about something that had nothing to do with fashion and make it applicable to the business."

Mr. Ruttenstein also promoted many young designers, clearing window displays to expose the work of those who were then unknown to general audiences, including Zac Posen and Helmut Lang.

Ms. Karan recalled that in 1975, when Mr. Ruttenstein was president of Bonwit Teller, before he joined Bloomingdale's, he dedicated a window to her first solo designs for Anne Klein, including cow-print skirts shown in a sea of oversize red balloons, a modern display for the time.

In 1988, he recommended to Robert McDonald, then the president of Perry Ellis, that Marc Jacobs should become its women's designer, helping establish Mr. Jacobs's career.

Kalman Ruttenstein was born on June 9, 1936, in Buffalo, where his parents, Maxwell and Rose Ruttenstein, owned three clothing shops. In his teens, he often accompanied his mother to buying trips to Seventh Avenue, before pursuing an English degree at Princeton University, from which he graduated in 1958, and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.

In 1960, Mr. Ruttenstein entered the training program at Lord & Taylor, and in 1972, he went to Saks Fifth Avenue as a vice president, making his reputation as a fashion seer when the store quickly sold out of thousands of tie-dyed jeans, shirts and jackets he had ordered while on vacation in St.-Tropez.

In 1977, Marvin Traub, then the president of Bloomingdale's, hired Mr. Ruttenstein from Bonwit Teller to shake up the store's stodgy image. Mr. Ruttenstein responded with a range of collections from young designers. When Bloomingdale's changed its focus to lower-priced collections in the 1990's, he responded by looking for ways to offer adaptations of the runway collections. "My job in the 80's was much more just looking around," Mr. Ruttenstein said in an interview in The New Yorker in 1994. "In the 90's, I gotta make it happen."

Mr. Ruttenstein left no immediate survivors .

Chinatown Store a Museum

2005-12-11T12:24:00.001-08:00

By David Pierson
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

December 11, 2005

On a late Saturday morning in Chinatown, shopkeepers began unlocking their storefronts with a noisy clang. Elderly men shuffled to a Central Plaza bakery to slurp milk tea and devour freshly baked buns. And hungry tourists murmured outside dim sum restaurants while waiting to be seated.

Away from the activity on a nearby pedestrian lane named Chung King Road, Shirley Fong and her two daughters, Kelly Kawashima and Jamie Fong, prepared for customers by dusting the floor of their family gift shop, Fong's Oriental Works of Art.

It's an enchanting, museum-like space cluttered with thousands of painstakingly made Asian figurines, ceramics and cloisonne sitting on antique shelves and in glass cases. With its dimly lighted interior and jade ornaments, the business evokes a long-gone era when the Far East still represented mystery and exoticism.

The women are still getting used to their temporary role as stewards of the 53-year-old shop. Almost always, the ritual of opening the store fell to Shirley's husband, family patriarch Gim Fong, who died Oct. 17 of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 74.

Every Tuesday through Sunday, Fong left his Monterey Park home and took the 10 Freeway to Chinatown so he could slide open the steel gates under the red vintage Fong's neon facade by 11 a.m.

A soft-spoken man whose ancestors arrived in the U.S. in the 1860s, Fong belonged to one of the early generations of Chinese Americans born and raised in America. He witnessed Chinatown's heyday between the 1950s and 1970s. He endured its steep decline in the 1980s and early 1990s. And unlike other old-timers, he kept his store open when the trendy art galleries opened because he thought they signaled a neighborhood revival.

Fong's death reverberated across Chinatown. As one of the longest-tenured merchants in the neighborhood, he was one of Chinatown's unofficial historians, the man to show old photographs and letters because he could explain what life was like there years ago.

"He was a reminder of the past and embraced it because he was willing to talk about it in such an engaging way," said Lisa See, Fong's distant cousin and author of "On Gold Mountain," a book that documents the rise of the Fong family from makers of racy underwear in Sacramento around the turn of the 20th century to successful Asian antiquities dealers in a fledgling Los Angeles to the present.

See said Fong's death takes on more significance in Chinatown because it reflects a massive generational shift. The original Cantonese families who founded Chinatown — and established L.A.'s Chinese community — are vanishing quickly from Chinatown, replaced by a new generation of Chinese, whether American-born or from other parts of Southeast Asia, including Vietnam.

Fong's store reflects an older Chinatown era. Though most shops in the district sell inexpensive trinkets to tourists, Fong's is a throwback to the days when the district also had high-end stores. The shop was one of several on Chung King Road offering imports, including rosewood furniture and rare jade bracelets.

At Fong's, shoppers could find a $20 jade Buddha as well as rare snuff bottles and embroidered artwork for between $3,000 and $5,000.

"He touched everything in that store," Shirley Fong said, fighting back tears. "He didn't just buy a dozen of this and a dozen of that. He picked it up and looked at it. He loved every piece he sold. That's why he had so many things hidden away. He couldn't part with anything."

Gim Fong was a member of one of the city's most important pioneering Chinese American families, a clan that helped the Chinese enter society's mainstream at a time when institutional racism prevented them from owning property or marrying outside their race. Many of those old families have left Chinatown in the last 100 years.

"The new players in Chinatown will come and go, but Gim was one of the originals in Chinatown," said George Yu, who heads the Chinatown Business Improvement District. "I can't say [old-timers] gave up on Chinatown; they just left because they figured it would never be the same again."

Born in 1931 in Old Chinatown — which was leveled to make room for Union Station — Gim Fong was the youngest of eight children. He and his family lived briefly in Canton during the Great Depression but moved back to Los Angeles after the Japanese invasion of their country. His father, Fong Yun, opened an antique shop on Ord Street across from where Phillipe's restaurant is today. It burned down, so in 1952 he moved to the space on Chung King Road.

"Some people have lived their whole lives in L.A. and never knew there was a street back here," said Shirley Fong, 70.

The store was celebrated by famous Los Angeles artist Leo Politi in his children's books "Moy Moy" and "Mr. Fong's Toy Shop."

Gim Fong served in the Army from 1953 to 1955, working mainly as an airplane mechanic for the 82nd Airborne Division. Learning to solder, weld and treat metal led him later in life to his great expertise: cloisonne and plique-a-jour, forms of intricate enamel work that he used to make miniature bowls.

For his creations, he soldered together wire frames that looked like capillaries, filling the spaces in between with colored enamels. Fong sold many of these, but not the ones he made. They meant too much to him. One bowl from another manufacturer in a glass cabinet at the store was about the size of a tennis ball split in half and looked like a Tiffany lampshade. It cost $125.

"He used trial and error," his wife said. "A lot of times, he'd burn the piece. He could never duplicate anything because he never wrote anything down."

Fong married her in 1956, a year after they met at a UCLA beach party. She was the daughter of a Methodist minister and later introduced her husband to Christianity. She also introduced him to the opera.

When his father died in 1972, Fong took over the business and enjoyed the booming interest in Chinese culture produced by President Nixon's groundbreaking visit to China.

In a 1972 interview for a Los Angeles Times article on how Chinese Angelenos viewed the summit meeting, he said: "Everyone is thinking of new possibilities. This will open up trade and there will be a better atmosphere for peace. I am for peace. If Red China can give it to us, then why not?"

Chinatown was so busy in those years that Fong's sometimes stayed open past midnight on weekends.

"We had so much fun in the old days," Fong told a Times interviewer in 2001.

The store looks much as it did during the Richard Nixon presidency, with its many wares — some no bigger than a thumbnail — taking up every inch of space in the rectangular room. The floor is still outfitted with the same off-white tiles. The neon "Fong's" sign still glows brightly, though only on weekends since Fong died. And the owl kite and goldfish lantern his father made still hang above the store, as they have for decades.

Shirley Fong said the shop brings in about half the customers it did in the 1970s, but the store still commands a loyal clientele that complements the usual weekend tourists.

David and Barbara Goux started shopping at Fong's five years ago. The Long Beach residents said they were charmed by Fong, who sated their interest in snuff bottles.

"He was such a gentleman," Barbara Goux said at the store recently. "He had wonderful taste and he wanted to share that wonderful taste."

At his funeral, dozens of loved ones and customers wrote some of their favorite memories of Fong to share with his family. "He looked beyond each single figurine and Peking glass vase I bought and shared stories that came to mind when looking at them," one of Fong's regular patrons wrote. "Somehow time always managed to stand still when inside the store, a small haven away from the madness of the big city."

Almost two months after his death, Fong still looms over his store with his famous smile. It's on view in a glossy framed photograph on a wall. He greeted visitors with this smile and saying "May I help you?" Parents would tell their children not to touch anything for fear they would break the delicate displays, but Fong let the youngsters hold whatever item they wanted.

Since their father died, Kawashima, 45, and Jamie Fong, 42, have been helping their mother, who opens the store only on weekends because it's the only time of the week they can guarantee that there will be customers. During the week, Kawashima is a librarian at a private school and Jamie Fong is an accountant for Toyota. The store for decades had been solely Fong's domain, but his wife knew what to do one recent Saturday, wrapping items in tissue and stapling together receipts.

Soon, Fong's older brother, Charles, will try running the store. He's 94 and doesn't walk very well, so he has solicited the help of some of his sons.

"It's very hard to give up" the store, Shirley Fong said. "They've been in this business all their lives."

For the daughters, there was always the issue of the store's future. Fong had spoken of retiring in two years. Jamie Fong said she wondered if he was disappointed that she and her sister would not take over and continue a century-old family tradition.

It wasn't until she read an article in a British magazine profiling Chinatown's new art district that she knew how he felt. In it, Fong said:

"The first generation, they're all gone. There are only a few original owners that are still here; most of them will die out and that's it.

"When I leave, this is going to be closed. My kids aren't going to work for peanuts. I sent them to school so they won't do this. That's progress."

Kor Hotel Chain Markets Interior Pieces

2005-12-11T12:24:00.000-08:00

Kor Raises the Bar on Burgeoning Hotel-Retail Market with Signature Kelly Wearstler Designs and Luxurious Environment and Spa Collections

One snooze proves it. The Viceroy Circadian bed isn't just a one-night indulgence, it's a daily necessity. Now you can own the plush pillow-top mattress, fine cotton linens, and duck down comforter and pillows from Kor Hotel Group's luxury shopping collection, and restore your rhythm night after night at home.

As of December 1, the Los Angeles-based arbiter of style and design now extends its boutique flair from guestrooms to guests' homes with the launch of an on-line shopping site which features three collections of hand-selected products -- from bed to bath to decor -- modeled on the signature design at Kor's renowned hotels, including Viceroy Santa Monica, Chamberlain in West Hollywood, Maison 140 in Beverly Hills and others.

From residential hotels to hotel-inspired homes, converging consumer trends are making the indulgent ease of boutique hotels shopping-cart ready. Now Kor brings its own somatic comforts to user-friendly cyberspace just in time for the holiday season: Virtual guests can shop through the web portal shopkor.com or by calling toll free at (888) 333-3441. A "Wish List" option allows consumers to request inclusion of Kor items that are not currently available through the on-line shopping collection. All Kor hotel websites also feature a new "shop" link -- you can take it with you.

Merchandise selections

Kor's three custom collections embody the boutique hotel experience. Let Kor inspire your dreams with its sumptuous Viceroy Circadian Collection of bedding, soothe your soul with Estrella Spa products and enlighten your style-sense with designer, decor originals.

Signatures Collection: Hotel Designers' Own Inspirations

Now customers can enhance their homes with a selection of decorative accessories hand-picked by Kelly Wearstler and other Kor designers. Exclusive to Kor hotels, distinctive pieces include the oversized parrot-green Italian urns in Viceroy Santa Monica's striking lobby ($1,250), the romantic blackened-metal footman's patio lanterns illuminating Viceroy Santa Monica's exterior spaces ($750) and the embossed blanc de chine gourd vases from Delfina in Santa Monica ($600).

A selection of pieces custom-designed by Kelly Wearstler for each hotel will be available as well: red Madame Butterfly headboards from Maison 140, white casper wingback chaises and green front desk chairs from Viceroy Santa Monica's lobby, and rope headboards featured at Avalon.

Environments Collection: Style in Bed and Beyond

Reluctant to check out of that plush pillow-top bed? Since guests need to go home eventually, Kor's Viceroy Circadian Bedding Collection is now available for home delivery: Signature boutique pillow-top mattress with box-spring (from $1,200), Viceroy Circadian duck-down pillows and duvet blankets (from $110) and Italian-made Egyptian cotton bed linens (sets from $225). Extend your experience beyond the bed with luxurious items like the Parliament Bath Towel Collection (sets from $42), sculpted Italian vases (from $125) and gold Sun King mirrors ($1,600).

Rituals Collection: Classic Curative Traditions

Recreate the indulgence of Viceroy Palm Springs' Estrella Spa in the home boudoir with cashmere-soft spa bathrobes, white waffle-weave shower curtains and soothing body treatments from Red Flower and Mor Cosmetics. (Prices range from $36 to $180.)

Where to buy

Like the hotel destinations that inspire it, Kor's luxury shopping collection can't be found just anywhere. These exclusive new retail products are available only through Kor Hotel Group's online catalog accessible through the portal shopkor.com, through the "shop" link within the Kor Hotel Group website (korhotelgroup.com/shop) and individual hotel sites, or toll fee at (888) 333-3441.

About Kor Hotel Group

The Kor Group is a privately held real estate development and management firm with investments primarily in hotels, resorts and multi-family real estate. Kor Hotel Group, the hospitality division of Kor, holds a diverse property portfolio and manages both its own assets and non-owned hotels under third-party management agreements. Kor Hotel Group's properties include Viceroy Santa Monica and Viceroy Palm Springs, Avalon Hotel and Maison 140 in Beverly Hills, Tides in South Beach, Chamberlain in West Hollywood, The Jefferson in Washington D.C. and Campton Place in San Francisco, as well as forthcoming Viceroy Resorts and Residences in Miami, Anguilla and Riviera Maya debuting in 2008.

Deck the Halls with Pink, Fuchsia, Teal, Purple . . .

2005-12-11T12:13:00.000-08:00

By Sue Doerler, The Arizona Republic

This year, holiday décor no longer is green and red.

Take a look at any store, from Kmart to Holiday Haus to Paddock Pools, Patios & Spas, and you'll see holiday decorations in a rainbow of colors. Part of the $435.3 billion that will be spent on the holidays this year will be for teal-colored ornaments, glittery gold candleholders, fuchsia garland and silver Christmas trees.

Holiday trends are following fashion trends. Designers and retailers are embracing bolder colors, enticing people who own boxes of traditional ornaments and decoration to buy even more decorations. Retailers also hope to sell décor to those who don't celebrate Christmas but want a festive feel.

"I'm all for going against tradition when it comes to color," said Kenneth Brown, host of HGTV's reDesign show. "You can make your home feel like Christmas even if you don't go with the traditional colors."

Colors such as pink, orange, yellow and purple make the holiday even more festive, said Brown, who plans to decorate his house this year in every shade of green imaginable. Those festive colors also let you personalize your home so it doesn't look like your neighbor's, he said.

"It's not just holiday decorating," he said. "It's holiday designing."

Robb & Stucky designer Michael Scott, who is decorating his home in gold, equates holiday colors with fashion trends. These days, holiday and non-holiday dresses alike are adorned in glitter and sequins. So, too, are holiday decorations. Examples: the blue Chunky Sequin Stocking from West Elm and the Vintage Glitter Wall Stars from Pottery Barn.

Lime and turquoise have been hot clothing and home colors for several years. In holiday décor, Z Gallerie is offering the Peacock Feather Collection.

Combine turquoise or teal with brown and you have a perfect metro-contemporary look. At Stratford Court, a furniture, antiques and design store that has lavish holiday displays, a flocked tree is done up in turquoise and several shades of brown. Those colors mirror the upholstery fabrics Steve Stratford saw at October's International Home Furnishings Market at High Point, N.C. He owns the Phoenix store with his wife, Carol.

Other color choices?

• Earthy colors, such as browns and terra cotta, which work well with our desert environment. Dalon Faulstick, director of Christmas for Paddock Pools, Patios & Spas in Scottsdale, suggests combining them with golds and dark greens for a rich look.

• Blue and white. Mirroring the colors of Hanukkah, blue and white work well with Victorian-themed rooms or for establishing a simple yet classic look. Add silver or gold for effect.

• Fuchsia, pink, black and silver. The faux flowers and garland you buy for Christmas can be reused in your décor throughout the year.

• All white, which says elegant or modern.

• Pink and orange, for a festive appearance. "It almost looks like candy," said HGTV show host Brown.

• Purple and silver, for a regal look.

Can't tear yourself away from red and green? Try burgundy and olive instead, suggested Scott of Robb & Stucky. These colors, especially when accented with gold and silver, will make your décor seem richer.

Or make the green more blue and make the red purple. Teal and purple work well together. The Diamondbacks' uniforms are a testament to that.

Afraid to use color?

Put up a white tree this year, then next year add another color, such as purple, pink or blue, Paddock's Faulstick said. Change the accent color each year or embellish it.

Men's Fashions Influence Interior Design

2005-12-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

If you’re looking for the latest trend in home design, take a look around the men’s department next time you’re at the mall. “Menswear trends are making the transition to home styles this year,” says Chris Tennyson, director of visual merchandising for Bombay. Classic, masculine looks bring a very clean, traditional style to the home.

“This trend incorporates bigger, more substantial furniture pieces as well as new finishes like dark black rubbed surfaces,” says Tennyson. These looks are perfect as we move into the fall and winter months and people are looking for comfort and warmth in their homes. A good example of the substantial pieces Tennyson is talking about is Bombay’s D’Orsay coffee table. With clean, solid lines and a deep espresso finish, this table can anchor a room and is at home in either contemporary or traditional settings.

This season’s look also relies on traditional menswear fabrics to add texture and pattern to a room. “Look for patterns like argyle, herringbone, tweed and plaid in everything from window treatments to pillows to upholstery,” says Tennyson. He recommends layering these fabrics to create a rich, textured feel in your room. To achieve this look in the bedroom, start with Bombay’s wingback bed. Large and dramatic, the headboard of this bed is covered in sumptuous chocolate brown microfiber that looks and feels like suede for added tactile interest.
Layer on a beautiful bedspread and add a collection of throw pillows in tweed and herringbone and you’ll feel like you’ve been transported to a London flat. “We’re seeing a move away from the more casual look toward a room that is inspired by tailored fashions – simplified design that is more traditional, but not boring” says Tennyson.

Even this season’s accessories take their cue from men’s’ fashions. Look for materials like tortoiseshell and bone that you would typically find in cufflinks. Bombay’s horn umbrella stand is a good example. Beautifully crafted of alternating squares of black and white naturally harvested water buffalo horn, the stand adds panache to a room while being very practical.
Leather is another important trend this season, both in upholstery and in accessories. The Heathrow leather chair is upholstered in topgrain cattlehide and accented with brass nailhead trim. The java-colored leather coordinates with any décor. “It’s almost a British men’s club feel, but not at all stuffy,” says Tennyson.

And to keep your room from feeling like a private club, throw in something unexpected to liven it up – a red pillow or a striking piece of blue and white porcelain. “Every room should have a ‘wow’ piece,” says Tennyson. “Something unexpected that draws your attention and makes you smile.” These “wow” pieces also help define a room as yours – it’s way to express your personality. So while you can incorporate the newest home fashions into your decorating scheme, your home will never look like a furniture catalog or a showroom – it will always look like it belongs to you and your family.

Before buying anything, measure everything (don’t forget elevators and doorways), and draw a floor plan. Check out design Web sites and TV shows. Visit furniture manufacturers’ online catalogs and furniture stores for ideas on style, function and dimensions. And always keep a packet of your fabric swatches, paint chips and favorite room photos handy. “We’re not buying on impulse,” says Kristy’s fiancé, Sean Keller. “We’re shopping piece by piece. And when we find something we like, we think about it for a few days just to be sure.”

“We’ll be living with the things we buy for a long time,” adds Kristy. “And we want our home to reflect who we are now and in the future.”

Trends in Kitchen Design Here to Stay

2005-12-11T12:09:00.000-08:00

“... kitchens are being treated more like any other room in the house, with elaborate moulding, specialty lighting, and finely crafted floors and ceilings.”

We’ve all seen them…the decorating TV shows that trumpet the latest high fashion trends in kitchens — from glass countertops to microwaves that double as flat screen televisions.
It’s easy to get caught up in the hype for the latest high-priced item, but what trends are worth your attention and investment? While industry experts often disagree on style issues, they all agree on one thing: the trend of bigger, more open, more important kitchens in the U.S. is here to stay. “A generation ago, kitchens were thought of as the place where mom cooked by herself, then brought the food out to the rest of the family. Now, kitchens are the hub of the home, where the entire family gathers in the evenings, after work, to do homework, share meals, and entertain friends.

Everything we’re seeing in kitchen design is just another way to make kitchens more multifunctional and welcoming,” said Ellen Cheever, ASID, a well-known kitchen designer, educator, and frequent contributor to industry publications like “Kitchen and Bath Design News.”

Trend #1: The Kitchens Within a Kitchen
As more Americans build homes with kitchens that are open to living and dining rooms, kitchens are being treated more like any other room in the house, with elaborate moulding, specialty lighting, and finely crafted floor and ceilings. “People need their kitchen to be expandable and collapsible, too,” Cheever added. “On the weeknights, they need to be able to navigate their kitchen quickly when they’re just warming up a simple meal.
But on the weekends, they need it to open up enough so they can prepare a fancy gourmet meal and entertain a large group of friends while they are cooking.” As a result, designers are creating quick prep areas where a small sink, cutting board, and microwave are close together. Larger homes are often using a small butler’s pantry off the main kitchen for this purpose, with a clean up sink, microwave, prep area and small refrigerator.
The butler’s pantry has the added convenience of keeping dirty dishes out of the way while entertaining, and storing large amounts of serve ware, linens and china. Cheever noted that customers are also putting in larger sinks in the island, to make a food prep zone, and placing larger farmhouse sinks along the back wall for more elaborate “clean up centers.”
“The days when kitchens always had one sink right under the kitchen window appear to be over,” Cheever said.

Trend #2: Eclectic Is In
Customers of all kinds are interested in the new, unusual and artful, according to Jan Aufderhar, semicustom manager for MasterBrand Cabinets.
MasterBrand Cabinets makes many of the built-in cabinets sold in the U.S., including its upscale semi-custom Decora line, sold through more than 1,000 dealers nationally. While the upscale markets are often driving innovation, these trends are now becoming common at all price levels, Aufderhar said.
“Instead of having a solid bank of cabinets with a standard look, customers are mixing and matching finishes, putting cabinets up on feet to make them look more like freestanding furniture, and choosing exotic woods and hardware,” she said. Decora alone offers more than 1,000 different finish and door combinations. The company’s knobs and drawer pulls are often a focal point in a kitchen, providing a “jewelry-like” panache with more expensive and quality made materials.
“White cabinets are still popular, but the sales are going down for those as customers go for painted finishes like chili pepper red, or rich, handrubbed finishes like dark cherry,” Aufderhar said. Customers are adding more display area into upper cabinets as well, putting in clear or art glass inserts into their door fronts and gallery lighting inside the cabinet to show off prized ceramics or hand-blown glass collections.

Trend #3: More Tall, Less Wall
As customer’s floor plans continue to be more open, there is less space to mount above the counter cabinets. As a result, manufacturers are creating more height options for cabinets to help break up the space between rooms. “We’ve been installing a lot of pedestal cabinets — these are cabinets which are taller than the rest, usually 42 inches or more, that act almost like a built-in-pedestal at the end of a long run of under the counter cabinets. It’s a great post for a column or other architectural element for the room,” Cheever said.
She noted that designers are also creating counters with two levels. The high level breaks up space between kitchen and living room areas and reduces the appearance of counter clutter. It also provides a handy place to pull up a barstool to do homework. Designers are also creating “baking centers” with lower than standard counter heights perfect for kneading bread or making candy.

Trend #4: Expanded Office/Work Desk Areas
“Used to be, there was a desk in the kitchen so mom could store her recipes and work on the bills,” Cheever said. “But as more homes got wireless internet access, mom didn’t like being cooped up at a kitchen desk.”
Today, customers are forgoing tiny kitchen desks for larger desks that wrap around into the family room — perfect for watching the kids while they surf the internet and paying the bills while enjoying TV with the family.

Trend #5: Everything at Your Fingertips
“Customers today are no longer satisfied to have cabinets that merely look good. They want them to work efficiently for them, too,” Aufderhar said. Decora was one of the first in the semi-custom cabinet market to offer a full line of cabinet storage options, from overhead wine racks, to pull out spice racks and chopping boards, and more. The ACCESSories line, Aufderhar said, has been very popular with the gourmet cook who doesn’t want to scramble around in the back of a cabinet for a pot or pan during a dinner party. Appliance manufacturers have been quick to capitalize on the trend too, as they develop warming drawers, beverage chillers and more for under the counter. By offering customers options like buffet storage for linens, fine glass storage, beverage centers, and the like, Decora has made it possible for customers to design more complex areas in their kitchens. “Instead of the kitchens with just a traditional cook, prep, clean-up, and food storage areas, customers can use their kitchen cabinets to create a formal dining area, a casual dining space, a homework area, a wine service/ bar area, or anything they need, just by carving out a corner of space in their kitchens. It’s the products and the planning that are truly key to making the open-concept kitchen trend work. It’s a trend that truly reflects how people are living these days, and I think it’s a way of life that will be around for a long time,” Aufderhar said.

Wales Recognizes Colourful Design Trend

2005-12-11T12:04:00.000-08:00

2005 has seen a sudden surge in the number of leading designers and manufacturers using colour in all areas of contemporary furniture.

These colours are not just the bright primary colours usually associated with contemporary design, or the fun and bright colours on paint and plastic finishes either, this is a return to rich warm colours.

Contemporary trends in upholstery and dining have reflected that classic use of flat neutrals. Black, white, taupe and cream with a contrasting colourful feature piece or highlights of colour in accessories.

This year, however, the leading manufacturers have cheerfully introduced full ranges of vibrant but wonderfully subtle warm colours into their upholstery. Along with fuller ranges of deeper and richer neutrals it creates a much softer and inviting look to your home, and really brings out the best in contemporary design.

New technology has allowed this to apply to the use of lacquers in storage, tables, mirrors and occasional pieces. Glossy and matt lacquers have increased in popularity in the last few years but again the new ranges of colours are altogether more inviting and can be mixed and matched. This injection of colour has ensured that even dull storage cupboards can become an interesting feature in a room.

A clever addition to the contemporary furniture collection has been the increased use of lacquered glass. Clear glass is lacquered on the underside and results in a strong, enriched colour with a more subtle and elegant finish than the lacquer used alone. Since glass is more resistant than lacquer it has meant that colour could be introduced to surfaces that were unable to accept it before such as dining tables and coffee tables. Now the traditionally more sombre or serious rooms in the home, such as the dining room, can now be easily brightened with a colourful centrepiece, not just an ornament or two.

It is not just new colours that have changed, natural materials like woods and veneers have been given a colour makeover. In the last five years contemporary furniture has been associated mainly with either very light bleached woods or very dark stained wenge or grey, but now there has been a shift to reintroduce natural warm wood colours such as walnut and cherry while the much-maligned teak is making a strong return.

These are blended with bright steel or aluminium to produce a warmer look, yet keeping the sleek lines associated with contemporary design.

These understated, yet vibrant woods work exceptionally well with the clean and soft lines of the furniture, enhancing the design and natural beauty of the wood. Even traditionalists have come to appreciate and embrace the qualities of contemporary design thanks to the increase in use of traditional materials mixed with modern colours.

It is a well-known fact that colour can influence the way we feel and even the way we present ourselves, but the one factor that all the colour therapists agree upon is that the use of colour can brighten up everything, especially your moods.

As winter closes in and the weather gets colder, days get darker and outdoors becomes intolerable, an injection of colour indoors will help to keep you cheerful and ensure that inside is as warm, welcoming and colourful as possible!

Designs on the Future

2005-12-11T12:02:00.000-08:00

By Orit Arfa, The Jerusalem Post, December 8, 2005

These days, it's no longer enough for a restaurant to offer good food, a caf to serve quality coffee, or a clothing store to sell top fashions. Any entrepreneur seriously interested in luring customers has to invest in interior design. The interior is the "face" of an establishment: it often expresses the spirit of the place and creates the ambience that attracts the right clientele.

This is especially true for bars, since people don't go to bars merely to drink but to meet people, escape their home surroundings and enter a new world.

"When you enter a bar, you go through an experience," says Yoav Zucker, co-owner of Saluna Lounge Bar in Jaffa. "It involves the design of a place, quality of people, staff, music and atmosphere. Design is one of the crucial elements."

The bar's interior designers, the Tel Aviv-based company Roth-Tevet, took home the newly established Ot HaItzuv interior design award for their work on Saluna.

The Design 2006 exhibition, now on at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Grounds through December 10, promises to show off the best of Israeli design and attest to Israel's growth and sophistication in the field.

There are an estimated 4,000-4,500 interior designers in Israel, both those who studied formally and informally. Israel has more than 10 design and architecture schools, both publicly and privately owned. Trade magazines and lifestyle channels circulate dialogue about design and increase the profession's allure.

Giora Urian, who literally wrote the book on Israeli design, has been a key figure in developing the design scene in Israel. His publishing house, Urian, published the first comprehensive book on Israeli design entitled From the Israel Museum to the Carmel Market.

"I saw that there was no documentation in Israel of what people are doing in architecture and design, and this is something that every country has," says Urian, whose many design projects are motivated by his vision of a bustling and competitive Israeli design market.

Last year, Urian developed the Ot HaItzuv award for the fields of interior and industrial design. Judges include prominent practitioners and academics such as Prof. Arthur Goldreich, Prof. Ron Nabarro, Gila Shakin, Reuven Givati, Haim Dotan, Buky Schwartz, Prof. Arie Sivan, Heidi Arad, Sergio Lerman, Dov Alon, Ilan Pivco, and Yehoshua Kastiel.

"It always bothered me that there are prizes for theater and advertising but nothing for design" he says.

The award competition drew in 800 submissions for interior design and 600 submissions for industrial design. A lavish ceremony took place on Thursday at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Grounds, where the award-winning works are on display in a 350-square meter exhibit.

According to Arie Sivan, chair of the Interior Design Department at the College of Management and Academic Studies, the design profession began to flourish in the 1990s. From the founding of the state until the 1970s, there may have been investments in d cor of a home or business, but there was no significant interior design that created a harmonious blend of textiles, lighting, and furniture. It was national institutions or institutions representing Israel that invested in the best architects and interior architects.

"In the 1990s there was a revolution, and interior design became vox populi on all levels."

Sivan boasts that all his graduates find work in interior design and in related fields such as events design, exhibition design and fair booth design, as well as installation art and art design for film and TV.

The only two schools in Israel offering academic degrees in interior design are the College of Management and Academic Studies, and the Holon Academic Institute of Technology.

Most aspiring designers enhance their local training by encountering European, American and Japanese trends. As a result, Israeli designers become good improvisers, leading to no particular Israeli style or trend, except perhaps eclecticism.

"In terms of identifying pure Israel style - I don't think it really exists or if it's relevant," says Heidi Arad, an architect/interior designer and a founding faculty member of the interior design department at the College of Management and Academic Studies.

Alex Meitlis, a total designer, sees Israel's lack of any specific aesthetic tradition as an advantage. "In terms of design, Israel offers much more than other places. People are open to different formats and styles."

Sivan notes that "One of the things that stand out is the recognition of the power of plastics, which is developing strongly. What was once a material looked down upon is becoming more widely used because it has a lot of possibilities."

He gives credit for the increased prestige of plastic to Philippe Stark, the French designer whose work has echoes all over the world. He had replaced more prestigious materials with plastics, making its use much more acceptable, even in high society.

Sivan also cites the phenomenon of "Ikeaism"- a term adapted from the Scandinavian mega furniture design chain - as a major influence in contemporary design. Ikeaism is characterized by three elements: classic country style, which uses solid shapes; green style, which uses natural materials in simple ways; and hi-tech style, which mixes metals with plastic and glass.

However, Urian notices an opposite trend in cafes, bars and restaurants. "Because of the intifada and the Twin Towers tragedy, people are looking for warmth and feeling of a place that's familiar so that they feel safe and protected. The hi-tech, minimal feel with steel and glass has been replaced by warm colors, a lot of wood, and retro furniture. New places try to look old and used, as if they've been around for years."

IKEA has been instrumental in bridging the gap between the popularity of interior design in offices, restaurants and bars, and its popularity in the average home. "IKEA has created a revolution in the demand for home design also among less wealthy Israelis," says Urian.

Designer imitations have also penetrated the Israeli market. Urian points out that in the south of Tel Aviv, many furniture stores imitate high-end designer furniture sold at stores such as Habitat at Tollman's for NIS 15,000, and sell them for NIS 500.

Urian is hoping to circulate and increase demand for original Israeli design both locally and internationally by developing a designers' quarter in Jaffa. A mixture of renovation and construction will turn a backwater Jaffa neighborhood on Rehov Yefet into a design village and tourist center. Roughly the size of Neveh Tzedek, the envisaged quarter will feature more than 100 shops and galleries, as well as residential complexes, a park and ample parking.

Currently, 16 pioneering designers have already opened shops in the quarter.

"I want Israelis to know that there are very talented designers in their midst so that they don't have to go abroad and the local design market will thrive," says Urian.

Industrial design, which is intricately related to commerce, has become increasingly important in Israel for economic rather than aesthetic reasons. Industrial design is generally defined as product design for mass production. Unlike artistic or small-scale product design, functionality is an important feature of industrial design. Lately, however, industrial design has become a form of fashion design for products, especially in the field of electronics.

"The life-cycle of products has been shortened dramatically, from the design and technological point of view," says Ron Nabarro, founder of the graduate department of Industrial Design at the Technion, and chief visionary officer of Senior-Touch, a company that designs products for the elderly.

"If you buy an MP3 player today, it's old in three months. The designers are called in to manifest the new technological qualities in a look that give the user the feeling that 'I have something state-of-the-art.'"

For example, he cites that when he designed for Tadiran many years ago, the life-cycle of a telephone was seven years. Especially in hi-tech, packaging can be just as much a strategic marketing feature as the product itself.

That is why Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor is trying to encourage Israeli companies to become more design savvy, offering companies a 75% subsidy toward private tutorials in industrial design by leaders in the field.

"For the past two years, the ministry has recognized the importance of industrial design as a lever for economic development," says Yael Versano Barzily, deputy director, Finance Administration, Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor.

Industrial design has become such a hot topic that there are now two award schemes. In 2004, the ministry developed its own award for industrial design, which drew 272 submissions. Winners of the competition will also be on display at Design 2006.

In what Urian considers a misuse of government power, the ministry has sought to limit the display of Ot HaItzuv industrial design award winners.

"If they really worked for the sake of the designers and not for the sake of their ego, they would have helped us, not limited us," says Urian. "You want to do something good for the country, and this is what you get."

Versano Barzily denied knowledge of the affair and welcomes the efforts of Ot HaItzuv. "Anyone who is doing anything to increase awareness is great," she says.

Art and Furniture Used to Smuggle Drugs

2005-12-03T12:13:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Drug Enforcement Administration announced the arrest Wednesday of 78 people as part of a probe into a suspected Colombian heroin ring accused of using artwork, furniture and clothing to smuggle drugs into the United States.

The yearlong investigation, called Operation High Step because some drugs were found in dancing shoes, also resulted in the seizure of 78 kilograms of heroin, according to the DEA.

Arrests took place in Colombia and the United States, the DEA said. Nineteen Colombians are among those arrested, according to the agency, and they will be subject to extradition to the United States. The DEA said it worked with the Colombian National Police on the investigation.

Operation High Step also netted the seizure of 39 kilograms of cocaine, $1.4 million in U.S. currency and 20 weapons, the DEA said.

The alleged traffickers used sophisticated methods to smuggle heroin into the United States, a DEA statement said.

Heroin bricks were hidden inside the frames of paintings, secreted in furniture and sewn into clothing and shoes. One official said the alleged ring sometimes put a heroin-laced coating on furniture and paintings. Once items arrived in the United States, others would retrieve heroin from that coating.

"Behind the allure of artwork lurked the poison of heroin," DEA Administrator Karen Tandy said in the statement. "Heroin promises anything but beauty -- forcing addiction, pain and devastation on its users."

Law enforcement estimates the alleged ring moved 25 kilograms of heroin each month into the United States, where it then was processed before being sold.

Each kilogram would result in 25,000 hits of heroin on the streets of U.S. cities, the DEA said.

Indian Textiles Reflect Trade Influences

2005-12-03T11:51:00.000-08:00

"That’s a 17th century Indian border print that was popular in Persia,” says Dr Ruth Barnes, looking at the leaf-like motif print on my skirt. “Border prints tend to last longest — like the flowering lotus, or certain star patterns.”

Barnes, a textile curator from the Department of Eastern Art at The Ashmolean Museum at Oxford is sharing a quick lunch in the chaotic National Museum canteen, Delhi, with fellow textile scholar Rosemary Crill from the South Asian Department of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

It is Masters of the Cloth, an exhibition of “Indian textiles traded to distant shores,” or the TAPI Collection, that has brought the two textile curators to speak on a symposium on Indian trade cloths.

The exhibition displays an impressive private collection of Indian textile from the 13th to the 20th centuries that originated in India but were not preserved. Destined for export, they withstood time on foreign shores and became a prominent part of those cultures — at times serving as costumes for the nobility, festive displays and gifts.

Take the silk patola, which was among the most prestigious textiles traded to Southeast Asia, and became the prerogative of Indonesian royalty and nobility. Or the hand-woven cotton plaid, checked or striped Indian Madras cloth that reached West Africa and became a symbol of the cultural identity of the Kalabari community.

Kashmir shawls were a favourite in Persia and Europe. By the 19th century, they became the rage in France and their price varied form 1,700-3,000 francs each.

Tracking the history and diversity of trade textiles from India, Crill is surprised to find that “though there is adaptation, a lot of the prints and weaves are still preserved.”

African Ceramics Exhibit in Chicago

2005-12-03T11:39:00.000-08:00

Experts on African art tend to wax eloquent about what it tells us about the societies that produced it. To hear many of them talk, you'd think that African ceramics, for example, are chiefly of interest as artifacts to be decoded for clues about the traditions and religious practices of their makers.

But Keith Achepohl is not an anthropologist. When the Chicago-born artist looks at a potential addition to the impressive collection of African pottery he's been amassing over the past 30 years, he spends little time pondering what it might reveal about its cultural context.

What he wants to know, mainly, is whether it's beautiful.

"Dealers will come by and line up 10 or 15 pots in my driveway, and all I have to do is listen for which one's talking to me, because that's what great art does," says Achepohl, 71, in an interview from his home in Iowa City. "It starts talking to you and says, 'You need me!' "

Over the years, the pots have chattered away, and more than 125 of these terracotta masterpieces will be on display in a new exhibition, "For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Ache-pohl Collection," opening Saturday at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Read the entire article from the Chicago Sun-Times

More about the exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago

A Chinese Renaissance in Oil Painting

2005-12-03T11:36:00.000-08:00

Art imitates life. This is true of contemporary Chinese art, particularly the increasingly popular genre of oil painting.

A grand retrospective exhibition entitled "Along the Roaring River: A New Era for Chinese Oil Paintings" is being staged at the National Art Museum of China in downtown Beijing.

The exhibit is designed "to help people from art circles and the general public to view the growing pains and joys of Chinese oil art, and to retrace the path painters have taken over three decades when unprecedented, historic changes are taking place in China," says Zhang Zuying of the Chinese Oil Painters Society.

The exhibition, running until December 8, occupies all 11 display halls of the spacious art museum, with 249 masterpieces created in the past 30 years by some of China's best-known oil artists.

It is organized jointly by the Chinese Oil Painters Society, the Oil Art Committee of the Chinese Artists Association and the Ministry of Culture.

The retrospective also marks the 10th birthday of the Chinese Oil Artists' Society and 20th birthday of the Oil Art Committee of the Chinese Artists' Association, organizers said.

"From the perspective of world art, Chinese oil painting appears to be young and immature. It was in the early 20th century that oil painting was introduced to China," commented Guangzhou-based Li Gongming.

And during its 100 years of development, "the art of Chinese oil painting its concepts, ideas, styles, and techniques always has been influenced by social and political changes in China. The history of Chinese oil painting is, to a large extent, a visual representation of the tumultuous history of modern China."

This oil painting exhibition is exactly such a visual showcase for major changes in contemporary China since 1976, said the organizers, who have arranged the exhibition in three time frames spanning from 1976-2005.

In autumn of 1976, with the end of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), Chinese society entered a new era when Chinese oil painting gained more space to grow, writes veteran art historian Shui Tianzhong in the preface to the catalogue for the exhibition.

Between 1977 and 1979, Chinese oil art was in a time of recovery. Artists used oil paintings to question the legitimacy of past political movements, to expose injustice, the cruelty of social turmoil and to extol human dignity in hard times.

For instance, Gao Xiaohua's and Cheng Conglin's paintings portray the bloody military conflicts between different factions of Red Guards during the "cultural revolution."

Between 1979 and 1985, Chinese oil painting gathered steam and artists found their voices in portraying on-going, pulsating waves of "socialist construction and the drive to realize modernization."

Artists with solid basic training before the "cultural revolution" and unforgettable experiences of being "re-educated" in rural China, rose to stardom with paintings that were labelled Rural Realist works.

In 1985, over 100 Chinese oil painters and art critics held a seminar near Huangshan Mountains in East China's Anhui Province. They called for artistic diversity and absorption of new ideas from the outside world, which caused a sensation among Chinese artists.

MOMA Exhibit finds art in fear

2005-12-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

By Linda Hales
The Washington Post

NEW YORK -- Disturbing questions bubble to the surface at the Museum of Modern Art's new exhibition "SAFE: Design Takes On Risk."

Is barbed wire a metaphor for protection or aggression?

Do microbes make you feel afraid or safe? Would you be comfortable watching your baby cuddle a pastel plush-toy germ?

Is a steel mesh bodysuit fashion-forward or as scary as the sharks it was designed to withstand?

Humans might be less vulnerable because they know how to design personal armor. But as a species, we can be frightening: We expend energy devising a poison gas attack and more energy creating ways for innocent infants to survive it.

The exhibition, which opened in October, takes no position on weapons of mass destruction. It presents more than 300 problem-solvers and talismans as commentaries on daily trauma. Danger can come from natural disaster, disease, road rage, criminal intent, war, paranoia, dust or a very hot cup of coffee.

"There is nothing closer to the big bang of design -- to its prime reason to exist -- than objects that deal with self-preservation," curator Paula Antonelli writes in the catalogue.

Emergency preparedness has worked its way to the front burner of American life. But in person, Antonelli bristled at the inevitable suggestion that safety equipment is more topical now because of terrorism, Hurricane Katrina or the earthquake that struck Pakistan.

"There is an underlying sense of fear in society," she responded. "It's not timed; it's timeless."

MoMA began considering an exhibition of emergency gear in the spring of 2001. The terror attacks on the World Trade Center brought the project to a halt. For the next four years, while the design galleries were closed during the museum's expansion, Antonelli and an assistant, Patricia Juncosa Vecchierini, let the project incubate to excellent effect. A broader definition emerged after Antonelli organized the 2003 Aspen Design Conference around the topic of risk, in partnership with Dutch designer Hella Jongerius and New Yorker Gregg Pasquarelli. The final premise became: Risk inspires creation.

Visit the Museum of Modern Art's online exhibition

Trendsetter: Carmen Miranda

2005-12-03T10:28:00.000-08:00

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Carmen Miranda is back and fighting to get her slice of the icon pie in her native Brazil, where memories have faded of the late bombshell known for her trademark fruit headdress.

In marking the 50th anniversary of Miranda's death this week, the Modern Art Museum is hosting "Carmen Miranda Forever," an exhibition honoring the Hollywood star that introduced Brazil and outrageous turbans to moviegoers everywhere.

While Miranda was adored here – more than 500,000 packed Rio streets during her funeral procession in 1955 – exhibit curator Fabiano Canosa said the South American country's devotion pales in relation to her success in the United States, where she starred in films such as "Copacabana" and "That Night in Rio."

"In America she always had a much bigger following. You can still find her records there today," he said. Organizers said they are discussing plans to bring the exhibit to the United States and Europe. Kitty Monte Alto, vice president of CMG Worldwide, said her company may also bring the exhibit to the Queen Mary ocean liner in Long Beach, California, which is hosting a similar show devoted to Marilyn Monroe.

According to biographer Ruy Castro, Miranda was the highest paid actress in the United States in 1944. "She was the most famous Brazilian woman of the 20th century and she was the first Brazilian woman famous outside Brazil," said Castro, whose 500-page biography of the star hit stores Wednesday. He said that while most Brazilians recognize Miranda with her trademark fruit headdress, few today really know who she was.

Few Brazilians know that Miranda was actually Portuguese and came to Brazil when she was 10 months old. Nor do many remember the hundreds of records she cut during the 1920s and 1930s.

Miranda's biggest impact may have been on the world of fashion, he said. The department store Macy's dedicated its windows to the "Carmen Miranda Look" in 1943, and even today Brazilian designers devote entire collections to her memory. The exhibition, which opened Wednesday, is billed as the largest ever dedicated to Miranda. It features over 700 items, including clothing, jewels, old records, magazines and pictures. It chronicles her early years in Brazil during the 1920s and 1930s, when she was the country's most popular singer and the star of 10 films, all but one of which have been lost. It also follows Miranda's career in the United States, from Broadway to Hollywood, where she quickly became a star.

Lenny Kravitz - designer

2005-12-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

Lenny Kravitz is reportedly launching his own house and home line.

The rocker - who hopes to create a whole lifestyle range - says he doesn't want to cash on his name, but wants another "creative outlet".

He is quoted in Scotland's Daily Record newspaper as saying: "I'm working on a fashion house and home line. I've just kind of been laying back. Now is the time for me to do it. It's more of a lifestyle brand. It's something that's just another outlet for me."

The singer - who set up his own interior design company earlier this year - added: "I'm not doing it to slap my name on things and sell them. Yes, it's about business, but for me, it's a really creative outlet."

Earlier this year, the star stunned drinkers at a packed London nightclub - when he used his celebrity status to enforce a smoking ban.

The 40-year-old asked management at swanky nightspot Kaberet's Prophecy totell revellers not to light up in order to protect his voice.

A source said at the time: "Lenny doesn't like to make a fuss, but his voice is his livelihood and he's prepared to go to any lengths to protect it."

Beautiful Farmer's Market Space in the UK

2005-12-03T08:56:00.000-08:00

A CONVERTED railway goods shed has been publicly acclaimed as a shining example of good design in Kent, United Kingdom.

The Goods Shed at Canterbury West Station was chosen by Kent's design champion Piers Gough for the first ever Kent Design Champion Award at the annual Kent Building Design Awards.

Owner Susanna Atkins has turned the building into a restaurant and farmers’ market, leaving much of the interior brickwork and roof timbers exposed. It provides a popular community focus on the edge of the city centre.

Mr Gough presented the accolade at Canterbury Cathedral International Study Centre on Thursday. He said the Victorian building now had a "lovely charm" as if it had been purpose-built for a farmers’ market. He praised the sensitivity of its design and respect for the building’s original construction. It had not been over-designed, he said.

Photo Murals - They're Baaa-aak!

2005-12-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

Pioneered in the early 1930's by commercial photographers like Drix Duryea and nearly as ubiquitous as drip-dry shirts in the 1970's, photo murals have again entered the decorative consciousness. They are often made with digital images and go up as panels, like wallpaper.

Graham & Brown, a British company, recently introduced three digital wallpapers. Especially glamorous is Roses, an intense close-up of pink blossoms, above. Other patterns include Blue Water and Green Flower. The murals come as sets of three or four panels ($130) and cover an area eight feet high and either six or four and a half feet wide; www.grahambrown.com or (800) 554-0887.

Trend: Petrified Wood

2005-12-03T08:51:00.000-08:00

IT looks like something you hope never happens to a tooth, so why is it on the cutting edge of furniture fashion?

Petrified wood, from trees that have fossilized to stone, is currently intriguing those interested in interior design who have worked their way through exotic veneers, rare planks, reclaimed timbers and halved and polished roots and stumps - some of the latest excitements in the wood furniture world.

In contrast to the freeform tabletops of George Nakashima, which now are intensely collectible, or to the massive upended split logs of John Houshmand, a contemporary designer working in the Nakashima style, or to the raw, aged or weathered furniture of importers like Tucker Robbins, petrified wood is as much mineral as matchstick.

What's the appeal?

Vicente Wolf, a New York designer who recently bought two pieces - his first - at Hudson Furniture, in the meatpacking district, said it was precisely because petrified wood has attributes of wood and stone.

"It has the warmth and grain of wood, but you see the depth and veining of the stone," he said. "It looks like one thing, but it's something else."

David Sargert, an architect with offices in Massachusetts and New Mexico who works at a six-foot-wide petrified wood desk, has used the material for furnishing residential projects and resort spas. Mr. Sargert said that when it is cut and polished, "the edges are petrified bark, but the actual surface has a gemlike quality."

Over time, logs buried by volcanic eruption or catastrophic flooding slowly absorb silica dissolved in ash, mud or water, and the wood fiber fossilizes to stone.

It's very attractive stone, with a resemblance to marble or to polished horn, and in the same decorator colors: chocolate black, Provençal ochre, pearl gray, fawn beige. Petrified wood, whether dug up or scavenged, is cut into slabs with diamond-cutting blades. But it is its age that provides a big part of the thrill, and that accounts for the price: typically several thousand dollars for a sample the size of a cocktail table.

How old is petrified wood?

Attributions to the Jurassic and Triassic periods are readily thrown around, in the way dealers discussing French furniture talk about the 17th and 18th centuries. Dinosaurs are mentioned a lot.

At ABC Carpet & Home in New York, on the fourth floor in the Grounded boutique, an organic lumpy-stuff salon where a dozen or so pieces of petrified wood sat like molars on the floor last week (about a third were sold), the sales tags read, "Circa Prehistoric." That would be as opposed to "Circa 1960," which is how the Danish teakwood furniture in the next room was described.

This makes petrified wood basically a souvenir of life on earth, which is a pretty untoppable possession for the home. And it is heavy with the weight of time.

Read the entire article from the New York Times

Container Housing Leaps Forward

2005-12-03T08:35:00.000-08:00

By ALASTAIR GORDON

THIS year for the first time, Art Basel Miami Beach, the four-year-old annual art fair, is being accompanied by a series of high-profile design events, including installations by Zaha Hadid, the architect, and Ron Arad, the furniture designer, and an exhibition of furnishings organized by Murray Moss, proprietor of Moss, the influential SoHo design store.

But when the fair opens today, design's boldface names may be upstaged by Adam Kalkin, an architect and artist who is unveiling his Push Button House, a shipping container with motorized walls that unfold like an elaborate Murphy bed to reveal an unexpectedly muted interior with the refined furnishings one might find in a Park Avenue apartment of patrician taste, complete with a couch from George Smith and a lacquer chandelier.

"It works like a flower - you push a button and the thing transforms itself," Mr. Kalkin said last week as he puttered in the 8,000-square-foot factory he rents in Kenvil, N.J., while welders and electricians finished up the Push Button House before loading it onto a flatbed truck for the trip to Miami. "All the finishes inside are milky and human and delicate," he added, "all trapped inside this heavy mechanical box."

Houses fashioned from shipping containers are hardly new, as Mr. Kalkin readily admits. A wave of prototypes has been produced over the last few years by architects like Jennifer Siegal and design firms like LOT-EK. But Mr. Kalkin, 41, has continued to push the medium in new and sometimes idiosyncratic directions, often in an unlikely collaboration with Albert Hadley, the 85-year-old society decorator.

"Most architects have a prerecorded message, but Adam's imagination is endless," said Mera Rubell, a Miami art collector who said that Mr. Kalkin is a candidate to design an addition to her family's private museum, the Rubell Family Collection. "He's not held back by conventional necessities. If you want to conceptualize something out of the box, Adam will take you there."

Mr. Kalkin has used the container as a centerpiece in a broad spectrum of projects that include affordable housing, refugee shelters, performance pieces, movies and Web sites. "I'm not into the container per se," Mr. Kalkin said. "It's what I can do with it emotionally; transforming a commodity into poetry."

Mr. Kalkin's latest series of projects, which he refers to collectively as the Velvet Fist of Happiness, defies easy categorization.

"Kalkin's work lies somewhere between performance art and architecture," said K. Michael Hays, a professor at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. "I love the way he flirts with the decorative, verging on the kitsch. That's part of his edginess."

Mr. Kalkin's self-published book, "Architecture and Hygiene," contains childlike renderings of unrealized art projects with titles like the "Sphincter of Loneliness" and the "Bicycle-Powered Electric Chair" alongside ready-made plans for container houses.

But for all his enigmatic posturing, Mr. Kalkin still grounds his work in the real world. He created his own house in Bernardsville, N.J., by encasing an 1880's farmhouse in a cavernous prefab aircraft hangar, a surreal juxtaposition of homey sentiment and industrial grit.

Read the entire article from the New York Times

Got one if these in your attic?

2005-11-29T21:04:00.000-08:00

Rather nice for an entry table, don't you think?

This little item (actually, it's not so little - almost 23 inches tall) will be coming up on auction at Sotheby's in early December. It's an Attic Black-Figured Volute Krater, attributed to the class of Bologna 59, circa 500 B.C. It's expected to sell for around $175,000.

Santa, are you paying attention?

Hospital Design Acknowledges Weight Gains

2005-11-27T18:06:00.000-08:00

As hospitals struggle to serve the growing number of overweight patients, design experts offer tips on creating bariatric-friendly healthcare spaces.

By Dave Barista, Assistant Managing Editor
Building Design and Construction

During the past 20 years, obesity among U.S. adults has increased more than 60%, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The disease now affects more than 60 million adults, or about 30% of the U.S. adult population.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of U.S. hospitals are ill-prepared to accommodate the growing number of overweight patients. One reason is the lack of bariatric-specific design guidelines.

"Designers may think they cover obesity by adhering to ADA guidelines," said Keith Smith, AIA, principal with Indianapolis-based healthcare design specialist BSA LifeStructures. "ADA covers legal disabilities only, and obesity is not considered a legal disability."

Smith said special considerations for the overweight and obese population should be the norm on all hospital projects, not just special bariatric-care units. Design considerations include everything from wider doorways and heavy-duty beds to patient lifts and larger toilets.

BD&C talked with leading healthcare design experts for their advice on designing bariatric-friendly healthcare spaces:

Plan for larger equipment. Doorways and storage areas should be larger than normal to accommodate oversized wheelchairs, beds, and gurneys. At St. Vincent Carmel (Ind.) Hospital, the Building Team increased door widths from 36 inches to 42 inches to better accommodate larger patients and equipment, according to Smith, lead architect on the project. Smith also specified doors with recessed hinges to maximize the openings.

Some hospitals are specifying 48-inch doorways and even 60-inch double-leaf doors (composed of a combination of 24- and 36-inch doors) in bathrooms to allow sufficient clearance for two nurses to assist the patient into these tight spaces, said Dennis Gallant, director of Design Innovations and Programs with Hill-Rom, a Batesville, Ind.-based manufacturer of healthcare-related equipment.

Avoid wall-mounted toilets. Although these are popular among facility staff for their ease of maintenance, wall-mounted toilets may not stand up to constant use by obese patients. "They can pull away from the wall and potentially break from the carrier with larger patients," said Randy Regier, AIA, president of Taylor & Associates Architects, Newport Beach, Calif. Regier urges Building Teams to specify floor-mounted units that can support at least 1,000 pounds. Other considerations: floor-mounted sinks and oversized toilet seats, which can range from 16 to 19 inches in width and up to 19 inches deep.

Choose the right lift system. Whether portable or mounted, a lift system in patient rooms is a must. "Healthcare workers sustain more overexertion injuries than virtually any other type of worker," said Suzanne M. Bish, operational marketing manager with Hill-Rom. She said that aides, nurses, radiology technicians, and physical therapists all rank among the professions at greatest risk for back injury.

Portable lift systems have become more popular as hospitals look to maintain flexibility. High-end systems can lift more than 1,000 pounds off the floor. Many smaller units weight less than 100 pounds for easy mobility, while providing the ability to lift 600 or more pounds.

Where space is at a premium, a ceiling-mounted unit may be the way to go. Many of these systems provide full room coverage and are designed to allow staff members to lift, rotate, and recline or decline patients without manual assistance.

Provide plenty of room around toilets and beds. BSA LifeStructures' Smith recommends at least 24 inches of space on either side of toilets to accommodate patients and staff assisting in ambulation.

Placement of toilets is also vitally important, said Richard Dallam, principal with Seattle-based architect NBBJ. Poorly placed units will force patients to make twisting movements to position themselves on the toilet, which can be particularly detrimental to post-surgical patients. "We locate toilets so that they can be accessed by moving sideways, rather than making a 90- or 180-degree turn," said Dallam.

Similarly, allow at least five feet of clear space around three sides of the bed to provide ample room for patients in wheelchairs or with walkers. This also provides clearance for portable lifts to be maneuvered along side the bed, said Hill-Rom's Gallant.

Include heavy-duty grab bars in and around showers. Grab bars in bathrooms and showers should be structurally supported to handle at least 500 pounds of weight, said Smith. Showers should include multiple handrails, built-in seating, minimal step-up, and removable showerheads with a flexible hose to minimize movement during washing. Size is also crucial. "Showers must be large enough to accommodate patients, yet configured so patients can still reach railings for support," said Smith.

Recess weigh scales into the floor. Years ago, obese patients had to be shuttled to the loading dock to get an accurate weight reading. Most hospitals today are more sympathetic to patients' dignity, providing oversized scales in patient rooms or within bariatric departments. Smith recommends that scales be recessed into the floor with grab bars nearby to ease maneuverability.

Beds equipped with weigh scales are also becoming popular. The latest units can provide accurate readings up to 1,000 pounds. "This way patients can be admitted directly to their hospital bed instead of having to be taken to a loading dock," said Bish.

Other new technologies in hospital beds include units with built-in powered transport to minimize the number of staff members required to transport patients, and beds with powered side air bolsters that can be deflated with the touch of a button to allow for closer care or easy transport, especially during an emergency situation, said Bish.

Hill-Rom's ExcelCare bed, for instance, expands from 40 to 50 inches wide. Similarly, Camtec Products, Church Creek, Md., offers a bed that expands from 37 to 54 inches in width, allowing it to be used for both bariatric and non-bariatric patients.

In any case, bariatric beds should be rated for at least 600 pounds.

Don't forget about family members. "Obesity is truly a genetic disease," said Ken Fujioka, MD, director of the Center of Weight Management at Scripps Clinic, La Jolla, Calif. "If we have a son come in, chances are the parents will also be heavy." This means waiting areas and patient rooms should be equipped with wider chairs (30 to 40 inches wide) with reinforced arms that can support 750 pounds or more. Fujioka said bench-style seats will also do, especially for projects on a tight budget.

Avoid creating "bariatrics-only" sections in general waiting areas. "Mix bariatric chairs with the other furnishings with the same look and feel," said Dawn McDonald, IIDA, senior associate with Indianapolis-based Maregatti Interiors, lead interior designer on the St. Vincent Carmel Hospital project. "We oftentimes use loveseats because they are discreet, yet provide the extra room and stability larger people need." McDonald recommends that 15–20% of waiting room chairs accommodate obese patients.

Michael Lehman, principal with Taylor & Associates Architects, said specifying larger furniture has a ripple effect on space planning and costs. "Waiting areas must be larger or provide fewer seats to accommodate the wider chairs," said Lehman. "Also, alcoves must be bigger to store oversized furniture."

Plan for additional air-conditioning capacity. Since obese patients typically have increased sensitivity to temperature, additional air-conditioning capacity may be required to keep patients and their families comfortable. This can include everything from portable fans to beefed up HVAC systems. The bariatric patient rooms at St. Vincent Carmel Hospital, for example, feature an air exchange rate 15–20% higher than standard patient rooms to react more quickly to changes in thermostat settings.

Get a bariatric facility assessment. Several manufacturers and consultants offer assessment services that will track the pathway of obese patients through the hospital or bariatric unit. This can help the Building Team formulate a plan of action for both the initial construction and future expansion plans.

So, how are hospitals responding to the influx of obese patients?

"The response varies," said Sharon Woodworth, associate principal with Anshen+Allen, San Francisco. "Some new hospitals are designing all of their rooms with many of these features, while others are implementing some of the features—wider doors, but no lifts, for example—in some of the rooms," said Woodworth.

Of course, some hospitals have decided to do nothing at all. "Those facilities will not be able to admit bariatric patients," said Woodworth.

The New Bohemians

2005-11-27T13:47:00.000-08:00

SOMEWHERE beyond the last hip outpost of Far East Williamsburg, the shag haircuts and vintage sunglasses finally disappear. There, on the gritty interstices of Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant, in the shadow of the J/M/Z elevated line, lifestyle is replaced by just life: 99-cent stores, live poultry markets, accident lawyers (1-888-I-CAN-SUE), shabby bodegas and people engaged in the sometimes brutish business of simply getting by in a city where everyone else seems to be making it.

But a few yards from this ordinary midway, in an old brick schoolhouse on a weedy side street near Broadway, a handful of young New Yorkers have claimed a small piece of middle ground. They're not hard to spot; they are artists, musicians, writers and performers, and occasionally one will emerge through a featureless steel door: a lanky guy lugging an amp and an old Victrola, maybe, or a long-boned blonde wearing a torn T-shirt and beat-up sneakers.

You could call their house an artists' collective or a commune, except that its residents work independently and, aside from sharing groceries and some common space, earn their keep. They're not squatters - everyone pays rent and utilities - and they're decidedly not slackers: many them put in hours that would shame a first-year law associate. Although they are taking part in an age-old urban ritual, the exodus of young people from traditional bohemian strongholds to terra incognita, they don't think of themselves as homesteaders.

Knit together more by friendship and mutual emotional support than by circumstance, these city dwellers are an ad hoc family. Like so many New Yorkers, they have woven new skeins of kinship in a place where blood relations are often far away - an absence most keenly felt during the feast-filled weeks of the holiday season.

They also have found a solution to at least one of New York's seemingly unsolvable real estate puzzles. That is, how can struggling, if not penniless, artists thrive in a city where the average Manhattan studio apartment rents for $2,000 a month and has barely enough room for an easel, much less for practicing pliés or the cello?

Whether they're artists' "combines" or informal arrangements among friends, similar examples of organic group living can be found elsewhere in New York, especially outside Manhattan, and have long been a fixture of other American cities. Like many of the people living in these places, the inhabitants of this old schoolhouse seem uninterested in the traditional boundaries of apartment living. Yet they are not disaffected hippies or strident radicals, nor are they alien to ambition and achievement, two touchstones of New York life.

It doesn't sound pretty if you do the math. Ten overcommitted creative types in their mid-20's to mid-30's divided by two kitchens and two bathrooms, minus chore wheels and duty rosters, should equal clogged plumbing and frequent skirmishing. And indeed, luxury isn't the order of the day at the house. The décor consists of exposed pipes, homemade furniture and found art. The downstairs bedrooms are windowless crypts with concrete-block walls. The kitchens are grungy. But no one seems to complain, perhaps because the payoff for these privations is space, lots of it: a wood-floor dance studio, a sprawling multipurpose work area, a light-filled living room on the second floor, and a cluttered tarpaper-roof garden - all for about $800 per person.

The group house was born, so to speak, in 1996 when Erin McGonigle, an artist then in her mid-20's, answered a "House for Rent" ad in The Village Voice. When she went to see the space, debris filled every square inch of the ground floor, and an open fire burned beneath the exhaust chute where a boiler used to be. After she and a friend spent five months unbuilding and rebuilding the ground floor, they invited a few more artist friends to move in. They called the house ORT - the German word for site or place and also, they decided, an acronym for "organizing resources together." The second floor opened in 2002, and the community soon doubled to 10.

Read the entire article in the New York Times

Who Needs Grass?

2005-11-27T13:42:00.000-08:00

When Christina Groza moved from an older building in Astoria, Queens, into a recently built one in College Point, the new home had a major selling point. Unlike the modest front lawn of her Astoria home, the original lawn outside the new building had been paved over with concrete.

That suited Ms. Groza just fine. Parking is scarce in the area, and although she loves nature as much as the next person, she also likes a guaranteed spot near her front door at the end of the day.

"Anyone who says they'd rather have a lawn than concrete never tried parking a car around here," said Ms. Groza, 48, who cleans office buildings in Manhattan.

"If you're looking for a lawn, you should move to Long Island or New Jersey."

The battle against the onslaught of concrete and asphalt was lost long ago in Manhattan.

While there are no official city figures on pave-overs, it is clear that the fight is still being waged in the other boroughs and in some suburbs, where signs of creeping urbanism threaten the leafy suburban aesthetic.

New York City has no rules prohibiting property owners from paving over their lawns, but Tony Avella, a city councilman from Queens, hopes to change that.

Mr. Avella says that he is trying to get city agencies to adopt regulations restricting "pave-overs," and that if this is not successful, he is preparing legislation to make the practice unlawful.

"These pave-overs have become an eyesore and an affront to the whole notion of open space in our neighborhoods," said Mr. Avella, a Democrat from Bayside who is chairman of the Council's zoning committee. "We need to preserve green space, not destroy it."

The grassy front lawn, once a staple of the American dream, is steadily being usurped by the pave-over. Many homeowners, opting for grayer pastures, are pouring concrete over their patches of green.

Often the reason is practical - to make room for additional parking, or to create a low-maintenance home without lawnmowers or landscapers.

But the trend against turf also represents an aesthetic shift, a decision that grass has lost its class, and that a tastefully paved yard, front and back, is much more elegant.

"Not everyone wants that beautiful green front yard anymore," said Martha Lucia Marin, a sales agent with listings mostly in northern Queens.

"A lot of people are saying the house looks more elegant with nice brickwork instead of grass. It's also an economical decision. You can park in front of your door, and you don't have to take care of a lawn. It saves work and makes for a low-maintenance home."

But Mr. Avella called pave-overs a blight on the area he represents, much of which has tree-lined streets and single-family homes with lawns.

Many times, he said, lawns for single-family homes are paved over because the house has been illegally converted to accommodate additional tenants.

Also, he said, the paved space contributes to flooding, diverting rainfall onto a neighbor's property or directly into the city's storm drain system.

Mr. Avella said he was trying to coordinate discussions among several city agencies, including the Departments of Environmental Protection, Buildings and Transportation, which all have some jurisdiction in the matter.

The pave-over issue, he said, strikes at the heart of the current state of the boroughs and the suburbs, said Mr. Avella, who has been a staunch opponent of overdevelopment, like developers' conversions of small homes into large, gaudy dwellings on small plots.

New York City has no regulations against the paving over of lawns, said Ilyse Fink, a spokeswoman for the Buildings Department.

Paving over for the sake of parking, however, can run afoul of restrictions on the number of cars that may be parked on a residential property, which is determined by the area of the plot and the local zoning, she said.

Mr. Avella said he would like to explore solutions adopted by other municipalities across the country, including setting percentage limits on how much driveways can be expanded and how much lawns can be covered.

Paving over has become so commonplace that it is spurring differences between neighbors and debates within households about whether to dispense with the lawn.

Read the entire article in the New York Times

Trend: One-Brand Furniture Stores

2005-11-20T21:04:00.000-08:00

Big-name manufacturers like Bassett, Thomasville, Lane, Broyhill and Ashley, among others, are rearranging the retail furniture business and becoming retailers themselves. Like Ethan Allen and La-Z-Boy long before them, the manufacturers are opening single-brand stores across the country, where they typically license their products to individual store owners to sell exclusively.

This retail arrangement eliminates the middleman, the fickle third-party retailer. It also gets rid of the competition, capturing the shopper in an enormous showroom where the displays and details of the brand's products are closely controlled. And it gives manufacturers control over the diplomatic details of delivery.

Ethan Allen was among the pioneers of the concept in the early 1960's that is catching on anew - and swiftly - among American furniture manufacturers as no-name furniture imports from Asia have begun to match the quality and beat the prices of brands in the United States. In 2004, sales at manufacturers' dedicated stores made up 8.4 percent of all furniture sales, up from 6.8 percent of sales in 2002, said Jerry Epperson, a furniture industry analyst at the investment banking firm of Mann, Armistead & Epperson.

Bassett began opening its stores in 1997 and by 2000, it had 57. The company opened stores at 17 sites in 2005, and now has 128 stores, which account for 73 percent of sales.

Ashley Furniture Industries, which began opening its Ashley Home stores in 1997, has 210 stores nationwide, 50 of which it has opened in the past year, said Ron Wanek, Ashley's chairman.

"It's very difficult for the independent retailer to do a very good job," Mr. Wanek said. "They don't know how to professionally lay out a store and select the merchandise and do the advertising and have a good computer system."

Most manufacturers selling their own brands today are relatively new at retail.

In 1994, one of the top 10 furniture stores ranked by the trade magazine Furniture Today sold only a single brand: IKEA. Last year, 5 of the top 10 sold through single-brand stores: Ethan Allen, IKEA, La-Z-Boy, Ashley and American Signature.

"Most manufacturers don't make very good retailers, and it takes most of them time to learn what's involved," Mr. Epperson said.

They are determined to learn, however. The editor in chief of Furniture Today, Ray Allegrezza, said: "Some of the larger manufacturers have said, 'We've got to find a way to control our own destiny.' They're doing it at retail but running a risk of alienating the base of retailers who have been with you all along."

Some independent retailers turned on Bassett and stopped carrying the brand after they learned the manufacturer was likely to compete with them, said Robert H. Spilman Jr., president and chief executive of Bassett Furniture Industries in Bassett, Va.

Mr. Spilman said Bassett opened its stores to begin competing with the "increasing amount of sophistication" in the home furnishings business, brought on by stores like Crate & Barrel, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn and West Elm.

"It's been a painful process," Mr. Spilman said, but he added that the company began to rebound recently with slight sales gains.

Yet some traditional retailers have joined the manufacturers and begun opening their own single-brand stores.

Read the full article in the New York Times

Trendsetter: Sim Van der Ryn

2005-11-20T21:01:00.000-08:00

HE is the Albus Dumbledore of green architecture. Long before the Prius hit the road and sustainability became the buzzword du jour, there was Sim Van der Ryn, now 70, the intrepid pioneer of the eco-frontier.

Mr. Van der Ryn was sitting in the living room of his home near Tomales Bay the other day, his collection of 1950's miniature trucks - a "monument to fossil fuels" - on prominent display.

As Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem were to the women's movement, so Mr. Van der Ryn has been to green design. The official California state architect in the mid-1970's under Gov. Jerry Brown, Mr. Van der Ryn began his career "as a hippie with hubris," pioneering concepts now taken for granted, from solar roof panels to rainwater catchment systems. At one point he was called Captain Compost for his relentless advocacy of compost toilets.

In more recent years Mr. Van der Ryn has designed what may be the world's largest green residence (15,000 square feet), a contradiction he freely acknowledges, and this fall work was completed on the Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies at De Anza College in Cupertino, Calif. The center is operated by students and was designed as a teaching tool with a transparent "truth wall," which lets them study the innards of the building.

Read the entire article in the New York Times

A Moment to Relax . . . . . .

2005-11-20T19:05:00.000-08:00

Just in case you find yourself in Lisbon with nothing to do, may I suggest an afternoon at the Hotel Ritz Lisbon's new spa? From their promotional materials:

The Four Seasons Hotel Rize Lisbon invites you on a journey of relaxation, self-discovery and pampering at its newly opened Spa. Designed to inspire a feeling of serene exoticism, the Spa soothes the senses with calming, Buddhist-inspired music, Zen design in marble and rich oak, sensuous art pieces and luxe furnishings, from Italian poolside loungers to ergonomically designed, oversized beds.

With captivating views over the Hotel garden and Eduardo VII Park, the Spa offers a transporting experience with every treatment we offer. Guests are renewed with a heightened sense of body and mind, from pre-treatment eucalyptus-infused steams to lime foot revival massages and customised reading lights in the relaxation room. After your treatment is complete, enjoy the tantalizing menu at the poolside Spa café, where you can look over the garden through floor-to-ceiling windows and contemplate life's luxuries.

Highlights:

1,500 square metres (16,146 square feet) of tranquil space, including an 18-metre (59-foot) indoor lap pool and pool lounge area with oversized chairs
Four multi-purpose treatment rooms, finished in oak and marble with candlelight and private showers
A relaxation room to enjoy your blissful after-treatment state, with state-of-the-art adjustable beds and personalised music system
Changing rooms with heated limestone floors, sauna, steam room and refreshing crushed ice fountain
A Spa shop with a wide range of ESPA body care products, as well as robes, slippers and relaxation books and CDs
Poolside Spa café offers an all-day health-conscious yet indulgent menu, custom-created by Chef Stéphane Hestin

Five Star Hotel - in Kabul

2005-11-20T18:52:00.000-08:00

Insurgent violence wracks the countryside, but a building boom fueled by international aid, profits from the opium trade and foreign investment is remaking Afghanistan's dusty capital. The city even got its first five-star hotel Tuesday.

Four years after the Taliban's ouster, a shiny new office building rises amid Kabul's traditional mud-colored buildings and there is a glitzy shopping mall boasting the country's only escalators. A bright U.S. Embassy is nearly ready, and suburbs of new homes are springing up. But this city of 4 million people is far from being a metropolis.

It has electricity for only a few hours a day. The vast majority of its residents are poor, living in single-room, mud-brick houses and drawing water from wells that are sometimes polluted with cholera.

Militants occasionally fire rockets into downtown and the threat of kidnapping forces many foreigners to live in tightly guarded compounds ringed by concrete bomb barriers and to travel in armored convoys.

Still, change is evident across the city as workers clear away the rubble of buildings and houses wrecked during a quarter century of war.

The Kabul Serena luxury hotel was one of the most high-profile projects, and its opening drew President Hamid Karzai, ambassadors, foreign aid workers and others as well as the building's sponsor, the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of 20 million Ismaili Muslims around the world.

The hotel is "an important milestone in Afghanistan's reconstruction and its re-engagement with the world community," said the Aga Khan, whose philanthropic organization, the Aga Khan Development Network, built and operates the hotel.

Read the entire article in the Washington Post

Marrakech

2005-11-19T16:20:00.000-08:00

An influx of European tourists to Marrakech has revitalized this intriguing city and given the adventurous opportunities to stay in hotels fit for a Pasha.

The Europeans brought their sense of style with them so that, these days, almost everywhere you turn in Marrakech you see something new: traditional djellaba robes and babouche slippers in fun, new fabrics; European-inspired gourmet twists on recipes for such old Moroccan standards as tajine, a ubiquitous stew; and a host of trendy new boutique hotels.

Best of all, people have rediscovered the elegant architecture of the hermitic medina, which blends austere Islamic abstraction with Moorish embellishment, sub-Saharan design and the colorful folk art of the Berber people of the Atlas Mountains.

The genie behind the city's transformation was King Mohammed VI, who took the throne of the democratic monarchy of Morocco in 1999. Two years later, he launched an initiative to ready the country to receive 10 million tourists by 2010.

Read the entire article at the Los Angeles Times

Profile: Andree Putman

2005-11-19T10:06:00.000-08:00

Say "French interior design" to many people, and they think of Louis XIV grandeur or curvy French Provincial style. Surprise — France's most famous interior designer is a modern purist who's been called "the vestal virgin of immaculate conceptual."

As a teenager, Andrée Putman stripped her bedroom down to an iron military bed from the Napoleonic era and a painting by Joan Miró. When she was 20, she wanted armchairs by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and a chandelier by Isamu Noguchi.

Although her parents were "true eccentrics," says Putman, "I was a rebellious person. I wouldn't approve of beautiful old furniture in the house, too many objects and distracting things that make you not quiet and peaceful. Everything in my life came from that."

Read the entire article in the Houston Chronicle

Floors: Resin-Coated Concrete

2005-11-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

Playwright David Young has resin-coated concrete floors in his front foyer, basement and son's bedroom. "They are fantastic," he says. "The more messed up the floor the better. Patch it, coat it and it looks like a wall in Pompeii. It's cheap, practical and beautiful. The combination we all want."

He has used the resin to make a time capsule of the front hall, inserting "all the crap everyone collects that sit in jars . . . shells, beach glass, keys, money."

Now that we are de-cluttering, taking the skirts off the furniture and clearing out to the very corners of our spaces, floors are being rediscovered as the sixth wall. Unencumbered expanses of floor can make a place feel liberated, free and refreshed, but only if they are worthy of attention. So whether you want carriage-trade perfection or the raw contemporary look of a loft conversion, here's the lowdown on what's going down on the naked floor.

As walls and furnishings become smoother and sleeker, floors take on more character. The original lofts were converted factories, with concrete or industrial-scale wood planks -- history written into the imperfections. Just like "distressed" designer jeans, treated concrete and reclaimed woods bring this look to newer spaces. Tints and patinas are added to concrete. Wood flooring is faux-aged and scarred. Even ceramic tiles are cross-hatched or etched.

Read the entire article in The Globe

Making Room for Flat-Screen TVs

2005-11-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

There was an episode a few years ago on HGTV's "House Hunters" about a first-time buyer looking for a home big enough to accommodate her dining-room table. The table wasn't an heirloom; it wasn't even terribly attractive. But it was big -- very big.

So with viewers collectively groaning and shouting variations of "Just toss the stupid table already" at their TVs, the buyer turned up her nose at house after house until she found one that fit her table.

In today's home market, that dining-room table is a flat-screen television.

Homes last for decades, but their designs often don't. The problem is, when homes no longer keep up with the way people live, they can linger on the market and are less likely to bring top dollar. And designs that don't factor in flat-screen TVs are today's prime example.

For much of the 1990s, homes were designed with an alcove in which to put an entertainment center. Marketers touted how wonderful it would be to stick an armoire in there with doors that could be shut, keeping the TV, VCR and other electronics out of sight when not in use.

And then along came the flat-screen TV -- intended to be stylish and hung on a wall like artwork, not hidden behind closed cabinet doors and shoved into an alcove.

"I can't tell you how many times during showings I hear, 'It's not big enough for my flat-screen,' or, 'The room is too small to watch the TV,"' said Tricia LaMotte of Keller Williams Realty in Valencia, Calif.

She recently represented a couple in their 30s who owned a small condominium north of Los Angeles. They wanted to start a family and were looking to move up to a larger home for sale in the mid-$500,000s.

"They looked at at least a dozen homes," LaMotte said, "and in each case, nothing worked because the living room was too small for their TV."

Profile: Budji Layug

2005-11-19T09:47:00.000-08:00

It's living proof of the occasional irony that we sometimes have to look far and wide to find who we really are. After seven years of wandering the world, studying interior design at the New York School of Interior Design, taking painting at the American School in Paris, and learning how to cut and style hair at Vidal Sassoon in London, Antonio "Budji" Layug came home to the Philippines and saw some men hacking bamboo for a banca one day on a beach. Such was the quiet genesis of a love affair with the resilient and versatile wood that would become a virtual trademark for this internationally renowned interior and furniture designer. One could say, in fact, that Layug crossed a bamboo bridge right into the world market.

Not that he was really in search mode during those exhilarating days in the late '60s and early '70s, Layug recalls, when the 17-year-old Ateneo high school graduate took off, with his beloved mother Herminia's blessing, to see the world. "I was part of the hippie generation, and I didn't know where I would end up next," he recounts with a laugh, sitting in one of the many stylish nooks of his showroom in Makati. "It was not a conscious thing, searching for something. I just wanted adventure, to see the world and have fun. At a young age, I was already open to beautiful things, and seeing that all over the world made it 'normal' for me. It became natural, and I absorbed it." Sometimes Layug wonders now how he managed at that age, by himself. "Luckily, it was my mom who pushed me. She opened the door, and I went. My sensibility would not have been the same if I didn't do that, if I wasn't exposed. I probably would have just ended up copying or looking to the west. But because I was out there, I came to appreciate what we have and experimented with it -- bamboo, leather on rattan, mother-of-pearl. I'm always asking, what can I do with the material?"

Today, 30 years after designing his first pieces of furniture in 1975, Layug is an international presence. He has shops in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, has been carried by Bloomingdales, Lord and Taylor, and Harrod's, and has showrooms in San Francisco and Los Angeles. His lines sell briskly in representative stores from Australia to Spain. He was also the "midwife" of Movement 8, the group of designers gathered by the Center for International Trade and Export Missions (CITEM) to make the Filipino design presence felt in Valencia, Spain, and later in Paris, Milan, Cologne and New York in the mid-'90s. Today, Layug is known as a total designer who can create an entire structure from scratch, working with architect Royal Pineda and then filling spaces with exquisite interiors that have virtually changed the idea of contemporary Philippine design. "It started with bamboo, because the material already has that Asian character and all that detail, I just thought of coming up with the simplest lines to make it classic. Filipino design for me has got to do with material, and then only later do you go into form, as form varies."

And what of his oft-bandied label as a "global designer"? "That simply means it appeals to a global market-it can go into the eastern, Mediterranean, tropical, or Scandinavian setting. But always, it must be modern."

Read the entire article in the Global Nation

Visit Budji's Official Site

First Design Plaza in Viet Nam Planned

2005-11-19T09:37:00.000-08:00

Construction is underway on the US$24 million Melinh Plaza, Viet Nam’s first dedicated building materials and interior design trade centre, said a representative from T&M Vietnam, the project’s foreign investor.

Speaking at a pre-launch briefing on Tuesday, he said that preliminary infrastructure for the site just outside Ha Noi has been completed, and that the centre is scheduled to open next year. He said a soft opening is planned for May 2006, while the grand opening next September will feature a large international exhibition.

The plaza will cover 67,000 sq.m on a site located close to the Thang Long - Ha Noi highway. It will include business offices, restaurants and display areas to showcase building materials and interior design products.

Read entire article in the Viet Nam News

A Seattle Victorian

2005-11-19T09:33:00.000-08:00

DENISE HEMUS LIVED in a small Craftsman house in Seattle's Central Area and regularly walked her dog around the neighborhood. She was fascinated by an old house that was so run down outside, she assumed it was equally awful inside. So she was impressed as, through many months, a new foundation and lower floor were built and the exterior façades were brought back to vibrancy with repairs and paint.

The man responsible for the transformation, architect/developer John Hunt of John Hunt Associates, had bought it and the adjoining lots with a view to fixing it up and building new townhouses. He appreciated how remarkably well the inside was preserved; the principal rooms had not been altered, and the woodwork was intact even after all these years and owners. Its most remarkable feature was the faux-painted paneling and trim that had transformed clear-grain fir into quarter-sawn white oak.

Read the article in the Seattle Times

Profile: Jay Johnson

2005-11-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

THOUGH it was the celebrity decorator Jed Johnson who died in the explosion of T.W.A. Flight 800 in 1996, it is his twin brother, Jay, who is in a sense the man who fell to earth.

Jay Johnson, 56, the shy, private brother, for whom Jed was not only a best friend but his "public half," was suddenly the director of Jed Johnson & Associates, a multimillion-dollar interior design firm whose clients included Pierre Bergé, then the manager of the Yves Saint Laurent empire, as well as Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, Barbra Streisand and Richard Gere.

The Johnson twins, who dropped out of college at 19 in 1967 and hitchhiked with an AWOL soldier from Sacramento to New York, quickly became internationally famous as a pair of extraordinarily handsome men. (Jed was Andy Warhol's lover for 12 years.) But they were, in subtle ways, as different as night and day.

"Jed was the front person: he sort of took care of that side for me," Jay Johnson, a soft-spoken man, said several weeks ago, sitting in the living room of the apartment in the meatpacking district of Manhattan that he shares with his partner, Tom Cashin. "I didn't really realize that until he was gone."

In a move that surprised many who knew him, Mr. Johnson took the helm of the decorating company his brother left to him, deciding not only to keep the business open, despite the loss of its principal designer and figurehead, but to run it.

Read the entire article in the New York Times

Trendsetter: Agatha Ruiz de la Prada

2005-11-13T10:01:00.000-08:00

Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, a flamboyant Spanish designer of clothing and home furnishings, opened her first American store in SoHo last month. The store, which bears her name, was designed by Jordi Castel and Jordi Veciana, architects in Barcelona. It will sell her riotously colored wares, including clothing, furniture, kitchenware, rugs, lamps and pet and bath accessories, all adorned with her signature patterns of hearts, flowers and stripes.

Product: Illuminated Faucet

2005-11-13T09:56:00.001-08:00

A kitchen faucet used to be very straightforward: you turned it on and water came out. Now some come with bells and whistles attached - as well as the kitchen sink. New, sleekly designed faucets offer features like light that shines through the water and hands-free mechanisms.

Whatever the extras, faucets in general have started to reflect "an Asian or Zen influence," said Judd Lord, the industrial design manager of the Delta Faucet Company. "There's a growing trend toward modern geometric aesthetics," he added.

The Eve faucet with one side handle, by KWC America, has a light emitting diode device that illuminates the water. Its sprayer pulls out from the spout; in chrome or stainless steel.

Exhibit: Art Deco Skyscrapers

2005-11-13T09:53:00.000-08:00

Hotel developers in the 1920's hired Schultze & Weaver, a Manhattan architecture firm, to design Art Deco skyscrapers with opulent Georgian, Moorish or Renaissance interiors. A current exhibition at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University Museum in Miami, "In Pursuit of Pleasure: Schultze & Weaver and the American Hotel," documents the partnership, best known for the Waldorf-Astoria and the Pierre (right, in a 1928 drawing) in New York and the Breakers in Palm Beach (left, its Venetian-style lounge). Ornate furnishings will be displayed, including nickel-bronze filigree gates from the Waldorf, along with sketches, photos, brochures and menus. EVE M. KAHN

Visit the Wolfsonian Website

Resource: Antony Todd

2005-11-13T09:32:00.000-08:00

Antony Todd, the Manhattan event and floral designer who opened a store with Nina Griscom in Southampton, N.Y., last year, is expanding into furniture and interiors. The Brodsky Organization, developer of 4W, an apartment building by the architect Hugh Hardy at 4 West 21st St., hired Mr. Todd, above, to consult on the look of the lobby, the hallways and the kitchens and baths. Mr. Todd's design for a sample apartment at the 4W sales office includes 10 pieces of furniture that are now available through his company, Antony Todd Inc.

Mr. Todd conceived the furniture, which is classically modern with a touch of 1970's glamour, as the equivalent of a bridge line of clothing, covering the gap between Crate & Barrel-style designs and custom furniture. Delivery time is approximately eight weeks.

"The pieces have clean, simple lines that will work with most interiors," said Mr. Todd, 43. "They are not about making great design statements. They are peaceful, they don't scream at you." The collection includes several Parsons-style lacquered pieces, including a square 52-inch dining table, top right, in high-gloss China Red ($2,880), and a 48-inch-long console ($1,490), at top left with a pair of coffee tables with steel bases and high-gloss inlay tops ($1,250 each). There are also upholstered pieces, including a 6-foot-6-inch long sofa (above in linen; from $8,500, depending on fabric); a 4-by-8-foot mirror edged in quarter-inch-thick metal (behind Mr. Todd, $1,650); and a whitewashed oak desk ($1,890). To order: (212) 367-7363. RAUL A. BARRENECHE

Trend: Cheap and Chic for Everyone

2005-11-13T09:26:00.000-08:00

Style isn't only for the rich. With big names wooing a public obsessed with décor, form and affordability can finally unite.

For millions of newly sophisticated but cash-challenged consumers, interior design has become a favorite form of self-expression. In catering to their needs, retailers are reshaping the low-price end of the $75-billion home furnishing industry, turning it from cheap to chic.

Ellen Lupton, curator of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, traces today's trend to the '90s, which she calls "Martha Stewart's decade — the time when our country's taste in design totally changed." "Martha showed people how to think design at the highest level. She redefined what home life should look like: open and light and natural and soft and clean." Today, Lupton says, do-it-yourself fine design is less elitist and easier than ever — a result of the high-style injection Stewart initiated, and then carried into Kmart — and now carried forward by others. It's benefited all concerned — especially the designers who license their names and designs for big bucks, and retailers who can't seem to keep their wares in stock.

Lupton says: "Target played a huge part in all this; they are very experimental and brave in their design and merchandising strategy."

The chain made architect Michael Graves a household housewares name, expanded fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi's reach into home décor, and is now out to make Thomas O'Brien the latest home décor maven for the masses, with its current blitz of TV commercials.

The current trend toward affordable design is made possible by improved technology and reduced offshore production costs, which have helped drive prices down. Fully assembled furniture made in Asia today is 20% to 40% lower priced than when it was produced domestically five years ago, according to Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group. "A sectional couch that was $2,000 then might be $1,450 now. A table that was $4,000 might be $2,500 today."

Flashback: A Sixties Christmas

2005-11-12T17:03:00.000-08:00

I have a horrible confession to make.

I've tried to ignore it, kept it a secret for forty years, and buried all evidence of it long ago. But it's no use: my secret is tearing me up inside and I'm ready to burst like a microwaved persimmon pudding. It doesn't help that whenever I get ready to come clean, I feel the prickly disdain of my inner Martha Stewart, who reminds me that I have a reputation to uphold. What would people think, she says, if they knew the truth? What about your career? Your dignity? Your pride? Well, the heck with Martha and her platoon of domestic taste arbiters. It's time for me to step into the sunlight and let the whole world know the truth:

My name is Steve and I am an aluminaholic.

Yes, it's true. I know you'd never know it from looking at me, but I grew up in a household that decorated an aluminum Christmas tree every year.

Right after Chanukkah (we celebrated any holiday that featured groaning tables of food), Dad would retrieve the boxes from the basement and I'd eagerly start sorting the plump craft paper tubes into "longies" and "shorties." You had to push the branches out of their wrappers pompom first, otherwise the needles would bend the other way and not look perky. Just when we were almost finished plugging the branches into the dowel trunk, we'd discover to our dismay that we were a few branches short. So we would artfully rearrange them to camouflage the gaps. Easier said than done: we had no aluminum shame in those days - the tree was placed front and center in the living room picture window - so sparse areas had to be discretely spaced. Then box after box of ornaments would disappear into the tree, hanging from those straight, spindly branches in rows, like families of bats.

Friends don't get it. I nod my head knowingly when they talk about vacuuming pine needles for a month. I chortle merrily when they agonize over that age old question, "To tinsel or not to tinsel." I grimace when the mention their flocking woes. I smile and tsk-tsk-tsk when they describe trying to untangle strings of lights. But it's a sham. I might as well take a doily spelling out IMPOSTER, pin it to my chest, and sprinkle myself with confectioner's sugar.

Needles? You haven't lived until you're down on your hands and knees attempting to extract sparkly aluminum shards which have mysteriously embedded themselves in the olive green and cerulean blue loops of high-low carpet. Sometimes we resorted to using pliers.

Tinsel and flock? You've got to be kidding. Not only would a tinseled tree be even more flammable, if that were possible, but the flocking would tarnish the aluminium, turning the pom poms into verdigris clumps. Come to think of it, at least it would be a green tree.

Strings of lights? The thing was, we couldn't put lights on the tree. In those days, there weren't the little white twinkly kind, which would have looked great on the metal tree; there was only super hot, fire-causing bulbs in red, green, blue and orange. So us aluminumers relied on a Magic Color Wheel to augment the sparkle. The wheel was comprised of a floodlight bulb, in front of which turned a plastic disk not unlike a car's headlight cover, only it was four colors - you guessed it - red, green, blue and orange. A wheel was only good for illuminating one side of the tree, so we had two.

Now, these wheels were tricky things: first, they had to be arranged so they lit up the tree without blinding anyone, or for that matter, accidentally triggering a seizure, like in that Andromeda Strain movie. Second, they were notoriously unsteady: if they tipped over, the hot floodlight lay in direct contact with the carpet and soon the smell of melting nylon filled the room. Another pyrotechnic problem: their disk-turning motors would frequently overheat, and suddenly the disk would jam, causing an inordinate amount of grinding noise and the very real possibility of a fire as the plastic disk started to melt. Dad and I would race to the tree and, trying not to burn ourselves on the sizzling plastic, manually turn the disk until the motor began again. Often we had to turn off the wheel to let the motor and the smoking plastic cool down. This was the happy, carefree era of life-threatening decorations and toxic fumes.

Then came the really fun part: coordinating the wheels to achieve the color combinations of your choice. This was my domain, and I loved it. Red on the left side, blue on the right; then a segue to orange on the left side, green on the right. It was a thrilling lesson in color combining, color mixing -- and frustration, because the wheels inevitably turned at different speeds, causing the planned pattern to fall out of synch. Nevertheless, it was fantastic to turn off the rest of the lights in the living room, open the drapes, and transform our quiet cul-de-sac into Little Las Vegas. Grandma and Grandpa's oohs and aahs weren't bad, either.

The really magical thing, the 2001 A Space Odyssey moment, came on Christmas Eve, once everyone else was asleep. I'd sneak into the living room, turn on the wheels, and lay down under the tree, staring up at the ceiling. Stanley Kubrick had nothing on us when it came to psychedelic visions. Because that was the most spectacular thing of all: to watch the patterns of light dancing on the ceiling, melting from one color to the next, sparkling with tiny pinpoints of light reflecting off the aluminum pompoms. It wasn't very traditional, but it spelled Joy to me.

These days, those aluminum trees sell for hundreds of dollars on Ebay, and there are scads of rambunctious dogs and cats in our house, so I make do with a mirrored disco ball and a flashlight. What can I say? Pine scented, snow-encrusted boughs are lovely, to be sure, and a traditional tree festooned with popcorn and cranberry garlands must be delightful. But nothing gets me into the holiday spirit like the sound of motors grinding, the sparkle of gaudy lights reflecting off an aluminum tree, and the scent of burning nylon. Ahh, Christmas!

- Steve Carlisle

Trendsetter: Tom Wesselmann

2005-11-12T14:47:00.000-08:00

Tom Wesselmann: Works on Paper, Retrospective 1960-2004

Maxwell Davidson Gallery
724 Fifth Avenue, between 56th and 57th Streets, Manhattan
Through Dec. 23

Because in the early days of his career he painted still lifes of commercial foodstuffs and, more provocatively, stylized but erotic bodies, or parts thereof (his famous 1960's "Great American Nude" series mingled the classic reclining nude with the sexy pinup), Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004) got tagged as a Pop artist. And the designation stuck, even though, in later decades, he moved into new areas of interest, producing landscapes and large abstract cutouts in metal.

Visit the Maxwell Davidson Gallery Site

Words to Live By: Angelo Dongia

2005-11-12T14:41:00.000-08:00

“Assumption is the mother of screw-up.” – Angelo Donghia

Remember Josephine the Plumber?

2005-11-12T14:35:00.000-08:00

Long overlooked as remodelers and do-it-yourselfers, more and more women are picking up power tools and putting them to use. Some experts say the female home improvement market is a $50-billion industry. While women have always played a role in remodeling choices and room design, "What has shifted is that women are taking on projects and doing them themselves," says Heidi Baker, co-founder of Be Jane, an online community dedicated to serving the fastest growing segment of the home improvement marketplace – women do-it-yourselfers.

Be Jane is not alone in its efforts to target women. New York-based Barbara K Enterprises Inc. features power tools and tool sets specifically designed for women by company founder, author and former contractor Barbara Kavovit. The tools weigh a little less than average and feature grips sized to better fit women's hands, and come in stylish carrying cases. "This is all about areas where women have historically lacked confidence," says Kavovit, a single mother and homeowner herself. "We are helping them get out of the kitchen and giving them the entrée to be independent, the basic knowledge to be self-sufficient."

Home improvement centers themselves are getting better at meeting women's needs, say the experts. Lowe's and Home Depot have taken steps to make their stores more female friendly and implement a number of how-to workshops for men and women. Companies like power tool manufacturer Ryobi are targeting the female market by advertising directly to women and providing a range of tools for beginner and intermediate do-it-yourselfers. Nearly 90 percent of women polled said they would be happy to receive a power tool for Mother's Day. (In 2003 at Amazon.com's hardware site, Mother's Day sales of power tools equaled Father's Day sales.)

Nearly 20 percent of the homes sold in 2004 were sold to single women, according to the National Association of Realtors. That contrasts with 10 percent sold to single men. From 2004-2010, the number of single female homeowners will rise from 17 million to 30 million, a 76 percent increase. By 2010, 28 percent of households will be headed by women.

These are independent minded people, used to doing things for themselves. Home repair and remodeling means more to such a demographic. It's more than installing a sink or a dimmer switch. "They want to save time and money and have the confidence to do it themselves. They don't want to have to rely on others and want to lead that independent lifestyle that we all strive for," says Kavovit.

The Numbers – Women Do It Yourselfers

85 percent of women are, or expect to be, solely responsible for a home at some point in their lives.
37 percent of women would rather do a home improvement project than go shopping (28 percent) or cook (25 percent).
61 percent of female homeowners say they enjoy home maintenance and repair projects.
Women take the lead in initiating both kitchen and bath remodeling projects, initiating 45 percent of kitchen remodeling projects and 43 percent of bathroom projects. This compares to 34 percent and 36 percent for men.

Trendsetter: Santiago Calatrava

2005-11-12T14:30:00.000-08:00

The last time the Metropolitan Museum of Art organized a show on a living architect was 1973, when Postmodernism was in its infancy and Brutalism was still embraced as an architectural style. Since then, architecture has become more popular than ever, and the Met’s new show capitalizes on that popularity. Architect and sculptor Santiago Calatrava has several major projects in the works in Manhattan, including a $2.2 billion transportation hub at ground zero. Surprisingly, some of these projects began as sculptures, with no initial thought that they would one day inspire architecture. The results are stunning. A new 10-unit condominium tower appears to be ten glowing glass cubes strung together with wire.

More about Calatrava’s tower

CALENDAR OF DESIGN EVENTS

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Click on the event name to see the official site.

International Hotel/Motel & Restaurant Show
Dates: November 12-15, 2005
Location: Jacob J. Javitz Convention Center, NY NY

Luxury Kitchen & Bath Collection
Dates: December 7- 9, 2005
Location: Beverly Hilton; Beverly Hills, CA

Salon du Meuble de Paris
Dates: January 5-9, 2006
Location: Porte de Versailles, Paris, France

Domotex
Dates: January 14-17, 2006
Location: Hanover Exhibition Grounds, Hanover, Germany

International Furniture Fair (IMM Cologne 2006)
Dates: January 16-22, 2006
Location: KolnMesse Exhibition Center, Cologne, Germany

Surfaces 2006
Dates: February 1-3, 2006
Location: Sands Expo & Convention Center, Las Vegas NV

ISH China
Dates: March 14-17, 2006
Location: China Intl. Exhibition Ctr.; Beijing, China

Domotex Asia/ China Floor
Dates: March 28-30, 2006
Location: Shanghai Intl. Exhibition Ctr., Shanghai, China

NEOCON West
Dates: March 29-30, 2006
Location: Los Angeles Merchandise Mart, Los Angeles, CA

Coverings: International Tile & Stone Exhibition
Dates: April 4-7, 2006
Location: Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL

Las Vegas International Hotel & Restaurant Show
Dates: April 12th & 13th, 2006
Location: Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas NV

Kitchen/Bath Industry Show & Conference
Dates: April 21-23 2006
Location: McCormick Place, Chicago

Hospitality Design 2006 Expo & Conference
Dates: April 27-29, 2006
Location: Sands Expo & Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV

High Point International Home Furnishings Market
Dates: April 27-May 3, 2006
Location: Int'l Home Furnishings Center, Highpoint, NC

Trend: Cutting the Cubicle from Office Design

2005-11-12T12:21:00.000-08:00

The cubicle is undergoing a makeover. And even some cubicle manufacturers concede it's about time. The ubiquitous workstation has served companies for more than four decades. Despite its blandness, businesses embraced the cube's simple functionality and relative cost-savings. No need to blow out walls and remodel when you could plant a cubicle farm.

But knowledge- and service-based industries that put a premium on collaboration increasingly view the cubicle as a barrier to interaction and productivity. And a new breed of workers, weaned on peer-to-peer computer file sharing, always-on wireless hot spots and instant access to information, has pushed companies to rethink cubicles, design consultants and others say.

For many, the conventional cubicle is a quaint, even contradictory anachronism. How can you think outside the box when you're working inside one?

The modern cubicleless floor plan started gaining traction even as cubicle production and sales reached their heights during the late 1990s dot-com era. Although cubicles allow for quick accommodation of personnel, some companies were taking a dim view of them by 2000.

Muzak, the Fort Mill, S.C., company that pipes music to retail and other workplaces, was among them. It deployed a blend of shared, artsy workstations and glass offices when it moved into its 100,000-square-foot warehouse headquarters in 2000.

The company "created a city in a box," based on the Italian piazza model, said Muzak's marketing-campaign coordinator Karen Vigeland. That city grew over the past year, when the company added more than 100 employees and converted more warehouse space -- without using conventional cubicles. The result is a complex of transparent offices and shared workstations set along boulevard-like aisles, all spilling into open areas.

The open architecture "allows for impromptu meetings... and a better exchange of ideas," Vigeland said.

Read the entire article at the Monterey Herald