February 3, 2009
Minimalism and fantasy, together. The interior of this teahouse is simple and modern, while the fantastical exterior looks like something from a Hiyao Miyazaki film. The interior view of the sliding wooden doors or shutters is just beautiful.
February 2, 2009
Why does my cringe list contain so many toys or toy-like objects? I like many toys. But not really this one. This toy was in the house for as long as I can remember while my sisters and I were growing up.
A red PK22 chair cut from UK Elle Decor magazine about 9 years ago and saved in a fit of desire. It’s likely that this chair never really was this shade of cherry red, but only appears that way thanks to the vagaries of magazine printing and digital photo colours.
February 1, 2009
Beautiful, inviting 60s room from English textile designer John Hopper‘s amazing Flickr collection of textiles and interiors from the last several centuries. That hidden door!
From the YouTube description:
Germany 1970. The German moderator discuss in the beginning how boring and lame the official looks are and that the fashion and color designers came up with the following outfits to make the game more interesting and colorful.
January 31, 2009
Maybe it’s because these houses are reminiscent of the tradition of handmade houses here on the West Coast, but there’s something pleasingly familiar about the eccentric wooden buildings of Christiana, the surreal, semi-autonomous, rebel neighbourhood of Copenhagen.
January 30, 2009
These photographs are from my husband grandparents’ house, a blue Edwardian two-storey that still stands in Strathcona, Vancouver’s oldest residential neighbourhood. The house is less than a block away from our studio and very close to where we both live.
January 29, 2009
Japanese designer and computer scientist Asao Tokolo has devised a way to tile a pattern of arabesques in such a way that each square tile can be randomly rotated and still match up with all of its neighbours.
January 28, 2009
“Dazzle painting,” devised in Britain during WWI, was based on the theory that complex optical patterns would confuse enemy naval rangefinders by disguising a ship’s speed and direction. It employed a number of visual tricks including the painting of false bow waves on rear portions of the ship rather than the prow.
January 27, 2009
On occasion, the women of 20th C design do get a certain amount of recognition. This rare aluminum pendant lamp by Eileen Gray, previously owned by Yves St Laurent, is up for auction at Christie’s and is estimated at US$1 million.
