design

Official Montreal ’76 Olympics poster that would never pass a committee now

November 18, 2008

Poster by Raymond Bellemare for the Canadian Graphics and Design Directorate (Graphisme et Dessin) of the Organizing Committee of the 1976 Olympic Games, Montreal

Only 32 years have passed since this fantastic official poster for the 1976 Montreal Olympics was produced, but from a 2008 vantage point it’s hard to imagine how a committee ever okayed it.

Wooden pony walls.

Granted these are already amazing spaces, but wooden pony walls can work in smaller spaces also.

Categories: design, Uncategorised

I can’t explain why, but there’s something so charming about this traffic-blocking gate on wheels seen in a great mod bistro in Bangkok. It’s rolled away from the restaurant door during the day, then rolled out to block the door at night.

Categories: design, Uncategorised

Cloud and Mix

November 14, 2008

It’s not clear who would have room for a large inflatable cloud at home, but technically we do actually have room for this in our studio and we’d love to have it, if we could afford it.

Categories: design, Uncategorised

Sea Urchin Chair.

November 13, 2008

Yes, those sea urchin spines do look familiar – they’re 8000 black zip ties. From notcot via make.

Categories: design, Uncategorised

More Nest Magazine.

November 10, 2008

I’m still missing Nest Magazine. For much more information, see the previous post. I certainly understand from first-hand experience that these design projects are labours of love and very hard to sustain over time.

Categories: book, design, favourite, graphics and signage, interiors, Uncategorised

I miss Nest Quarterly Magazine.

November 9, 2008

I have been really feeling the absence of Nest: A Quarterly of Interiors magazine lately, more than four years after it became defunct. On a whim I Google searched “I miss Nest Magazine” this week and found out how very not alone I am.

Categories: architecture, art, book, design, DIY, favourite, graphics and signage, interiors, Uncategorised

Oak Rooms – Gentlemen’s Club in Notting Hill

November 7, 2008

Seriously, is there still such a thing as a gentlemen’s club? Alright, so if we’re going to have gender segregation, then women might want a club too, in my case a women’s club where people can talk about books or politics or even men but where no one ever mentions Sex and the City.

Categories: design, furniture, interiors, Uncategorised

We’re sorry about the War of 1812 (Goodbye George Bush)

November 6, 2008

Circa 2007. Canadian comedian Colin Mochrie heaps mockery on soon-to-be-voted-out George Bush in his persona of newsman Anthony St. George on the Canadian comedy show This Hour Has 22 Minutes. We are sorry.

Categories: Canadian design, design, favourite, humour, politics, Uncategorised, video

On the cheap in NYC

Art and architecture students produce creative DIY interiors on small budgets in NYC. For details see the NYT article. A wire cloud sculpture; a kitchen table made easily from a wood slab and tube legs from Home Depot; hanging wood light fixture made from ply offcuts; small space made larger via a loft bed and storage steps, with a desk surface made by resting a wood slab on two filing cabinets; spare paint used for wall decoration; spectacular chandelier made from plastic bags; kitchen cabinet made with a jigsaw and waste plywood.

Categories: art, design, DIY, furniture, interiors, Uncategorised

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This blog is a long, somewhat messy photo essay on the history and politics of design. Design's socio-historical context—that is, the constraints and influences on the way we make objects, dwellings and cities—seems too often ignored. We no longer know where our styles, tastes or objects really come from, and this damages our creativity and sense of meaning. Historical knowledge is so fugitive in the New World, with everything so decontextualized in the rapid flow of commodities and images. Don't even get me started on tumblr and pinterest. As Fran Lebowitz said, "Designers now, they all have these things called mood boards. I suppose they think a sense of discovery equals invention. It would be as if every writer had a board with paragraphs of other writers—'Oh, I'll take a little bit of this, and that, he was really good.' Yes, he was really good! And that is not a mood board, it is a stealing board." As for the sort of design I'm personally interested in, full disclaimer.....read more ____________________________________

To read about my book project on Vancouver's UN-Habitat Forum event of 1976 concerning just and sustainable urban settlements, click here. Few know that Buckminster Fuller, Margaret Mead, Mother Teresa, Paolo Soleri and Maggie & Pierre Trudeau, along with many thousands of others, came to Vancouver in 1976 to talk about better, safer, fairer and greener cities worldwide. In fact it was the founding conference of UN Habitat, an agency built around a foundational document called The Vancouver Declaration. My book is about what happened that year and is a snapshot not just of Vancouver but of how people around the world began to view cities and themselves differently in the wake of, among other things, the first oil crisis. ____________________________________

design

Official Montreal ’76 Olympics poster that would never pass a committee now

Wooden pony walls.

Thai gate on wheels.

Sea Urchin Chair.

More Nest Magazine.

I miss Nest Quarterly Magazine.

Oak Rooms – Gentlemen’s Club in Notting Hill

We’re sorry about the War of 1812 (Goodbye George Bush)

On the cheap in NYC

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