EYE ON DESIGN BY DAN GREGORY

Entries categorized as ‘Decorating Ideas’

Flexa Studio

March 12, 2010 · 6 Comments

Extra Space Without Adding On

Meet the little building that can! I’m excited to announce the launch of our Flexa Studio: a modern, versatile, 120 square-foot prefabricated room. It’s a way to add space without the expense and disruption of remodeling. Award-winning designer Casper Mork-Ulnes, who holds a Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University and is creative director of Modern Cabana, developed Flexa Studio in collaboration with Houseplans.com.

The simple shed-roof and crisp horizontal rain-screen siding — with glass entry door and fixed and operable side windows — give the structure  a handsome contemporary presence to complement any garden setting. Place it in the backyard or side yard,

to use as a home office, media room, or teen pad:

or add a sleeper and turn it into an overflow guest room.

The 10- by 12-foot structure comes pre-assembled or as a panelized kit-of-parts that you put together yourself. In both cases you build the foundation, then bolt the Flexa Studio to it. It’s eco-friendly thanks to the use of  FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council)-certified lumber, recycled denim insulation, prefabricated elements for minimal waste, and a small footprint for less site impact. In most jurisdictions, permits are not required for structures that are 120 square feet or less — check with your building department to verify local permitting requirements. Flexa House starts at $8950 plus shipping, which varies based on distance and whether you order it pre-assembled or as the panelized kit.

I want to thank Room & Board and R & B Design Associate Joe Darling for expertly furnishing our model to illustrate the Live, Work, and Play possibilities. The warm contemporary pieces in the photographs are listed below:

1. Gallery leaning media shelf in natural steel: $749

2. Eames molded plywood lounge chair in walnut by Herman Miller: $679

3. Fuller 7′ x 7′ felted rug in grey: $1715

This is a cool fool-the-eye rug: the design resembles a shadow pattern on the floor and made me look around to see where the light was coming from.

4. Tiffany arm chair in red: $249

5. Portica desk in stainless steel with solid walnut top (48 x 24 x 29h): $959

6. Pierce 69″ two-cushion full comfort sleeper in Delamont charcoal: $2299

7. Outdoor Sunbrella pillow in orange: $59

8. Hive pillow in Ink: $109

9. Sasha table lamps with silver shades: $229 each

10. Link table lamp in orange: $380

11. Nelson medium cigar pendant lamp: $329

12. Framed print, Study for Homage To the Square – 1954, Albers: $419

13. Framed poster, Rothko Blue, Green and Brown poster: $199

14. Laguna outdoor chair (and ottoman, not shown) in Sunbrella taupe: $599 (2)

15. Montego outdoor side table (18 inches square): $449

The Flexa Studio Photography is by Joe Fletcher, who shot the unit at San Francisco’s Flora Grubb Gardens (which provided the plants and pots). The Flexa Studio is a cousin of our Flexahouse modern ranch house plan by architect Nick Noyes — someday I hope we’ll have a whole family of Flexas!

More About Casper Mork-Ulnes

In addition to founding Modern Cabana with builder Nick Damner (last year they showcased other Modern Cabana products at Sunset’s Celebration Weekend where I first spoke to them about working with us), Casper has produced a variety of sleek contemporary houses and remodels through Mork-Ulnes Design. Here, for example, he

reshaped a San Francisco Victorian into a dramatic light-box-cum-stair-tower.

On the top floor he reinvented a dormer window into an elegant sitting, viewing, and storage alcove (photos courtesy Inhabitat.com). These are great ideas worth remembering as you think about ways to customize any of our home plans.


Categories: Architectural Innovation · Building Materials · Decorating Ideas · Furniture · Green Design · Home Products · Landscape Ideas · Modern Houses · contemporary home design

Contemporary Floor Coverings

February 22, 2010 · 2 Comments

Modern Patterns Under Foot

It may still be dark and wintry outside but here’s a way to brighten the indoors: browse the range of contemporary floor coverings now available. Start with the new rugs designed by Los Angeles architect Stephen Kanner, FAIA and his 14 year-old daughter Caroline. These floor coverings give new meaning to the phrase “cut a rug:” the grid of vivid colors seems to float and dance, creating a room-within-the-room.

It, and the elegant runner below, are part of the “Squares” line.

The rugs are part of the Ariana + Kanner Modern Rug Collection, constructed by Ariana Rugs’ Ahmad and Alex Ahmadi, who are third generation Afghan rug weavers from Kabul.

These hand-knotted, hand-tufted cotton and wool rugs incorporate sustainable materials including bamboo silk and banana. The one above is from the “Square Compressions” line. Inspiration for the designs comes from the geometries and color field explorations of 20th century painting, including Russian Constructivism, the Bauhaus, and American Abstract Expressionism.

Stephen is known for sleek machine age architecture — from futuristic homes and a zig-zagging In-’n-Out Burger outlet to the sweeping car-commanding canopy/marquis of his United Oil Gasoline Station,

completed in 2009 (photo by John Linden, courtesy archdaily) and  shown here.  But in the rugs I detect a new found freedom with hue and pattern that must have come from his collaboration with Caroline.

Another product — more a floor covering than a rug — is by a company called FLOR. It’s all about flexibility: you can mix and match the 19.7 inch squares or “carpet tiles” (made of renewable and recycled content) as you see fit. Launched in 2003, FLOR’s offerings keep expanding. We used FLOR in several Sunset Idea Houses and they were very successful.

These blue striped squares are part of the “Stripe It Rich/C Note” line and run about $16 per tile. Or here’s the “Shiny Doodle 2 Rug Kit:”

which includes ten tiles. A special “FLORdot” system holds each square securely in place.

Chilewich is a New York company that has made a name in very contemporary matting made from woven vinyl in a variety of textures, patterns, and colors.

They can add lightness as well as warmth to a room, as the image of a modern dining area, above, shows. Here’s their “Bright” series:

And the more subdued “Dark Neutrals:”

These mats are elegant and practical at the same time: easy to clean by vacuuming, or mopping with a detergent solution.

So now as you take a break from watching the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, you can think about ways to bring a little gold medal design excitement into your home!

Categories: Architectural Innovation · Architectural Styles · Decorating Ideas · Design Ideas and Inspiration · Recycled products · contemporary home design
Tagged: , ,

News from the New York Gift Show

February 5, 2010 · 1 Comment

Top New Home Products

From our Manhattan correspondent, Michael Cannell (author and former NY Times Home Section editor):

The new home product show season got started this past week with Accent on Design, a division of the sprawling New York International Gift Fair held at the Jacob Javits Center. Accent on Design showcases contemporary work, offering an early glimpse of evolving design ideas and a wealth of affordable smaller-scale products. (The splashier high-end furniture introductions come a few months from now at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York and the Milan Furniture Fair. ) Below are our picks for Best of Show.

Bright Box

Here’s a handsome example of how designers are reacting against all the automation of modern life.

This lamp is concealed in a box. It operates by what might be called a “hands-on dimmer:” it slides in and out to adjust the light level. The Box Light by Jonas Hakaniem from Design House Stockholm — famous for their light bulb encased in clear glass resembling a block of ice — is available May, 2010 (10 cm wide, 8 cm high, 15 cm deep): $275.

Message Center

Bamboo was prevalent at the show as the appetite for green materials gains momentum.

For kitchen or entryway, this Dry Erase Panel by Three by Three allows you to scrawl a message or shopping list without resorting to that office-style whiteboard. It’s magnetic too. Large, 31.5 by 15.75 inches, including letter holder, three hooks, bamboo cup and holder, magnetic strip (1″x12″), four strong magnets, and a dry erase pen: $100. Small, 23.5 by 11.5 inches, including two hooks, bamboo cup and holder, magnetic strip (1″x9″), three strong magnets, and a dry erase pen: $70.

Valentine Glow

Lighting designers are moving toward the atmospheric effects of indirect lighting,

as evidenced by these 5 inch-tall silicone Mood Flame tealight holders by Jan Hoekstra, from gSelect: $25.

Relative Merits

Like family members gathered around a dining table, these Family Chairs by Lina Nordqvist are similar but unique.

Available in beech, black and white lacquer, from Design House Stockholm: $700 for two.

Low-hanging Felt

Felt is the material of the moment—a reaction against the sharp lines and hard surfaces of modernism.

This pendant made of stitched wool felt triangles provides a soft, glowing presence. Called Icosa, it was designed by Ross Menuez; available from Areaware after March 3rd, 2010: $120.

Flexible Table

Swedish furniture design tends to be minimal but inviting, and the Wing collection by Sara Szyber is no exception.

The solid-wood Drop Leaf Table is big enough to seat six people

and small enough (30 centimeters) to serve as a side table when it’s folded down. Comes in black or white, from Design House Stockholm: $695.

Wood Light

Throughout the show designers used materials in new and surprising ways, and with an emphasis on the natural and renewable.

In this case the standard plastic flashlight is redone in beech wood with an LED bulb. The Small Torch is by Jonas Damon.  Something to keep on a table instead of in a drawer; from Areaware: $32.

Return — Recline? — of a Classic

It is increasingly common to see classic furniture pieces reintroduced at design shows as companies squeezed by the economy play their trump cards.

In this case it’s the award-winning canvas NY Chair from 1958 by Takeshi Nii, which also happens to feed the current appetite for flexible furniture. It folds  to five inches in width when not in use; from yliving: $590.

Categories: Appliances and Fixtures · Decorating Ideas · Furniture · Green Design · Home Products · contemporary home design
Tagged: , , , ,

Home as Avatar — and Other Movie Musings

January 7, 2010 · 2 Comments

Machines in the Garden

On the surface, Avatar, the new blockbuster bailout of a movie by James Cameron, has nothing to do with home design but everything to do with a fevered and fertile visual imagination.

You probably know the sci-fi plot (see the excellent Wikipedia summation) about colonists mining “unobtanium,” an elusive rock to be sure, on the planet Pandora (diagram of the miners’ control room above), who have created avatars that let them mingle with the indigenous Na ‘ve population in order to get them out of the way.  It’s not so much a movie as a fabulous computerized “dark ride” through a lush jungle world

where nature is nurtured into a frenzied confrontation (image courtesy avatarplanet)

between Pocahontas and the Air Force (image courtesy Wired).

When I saw it with my younger daughter Martha, who contributed the Pocohontas analogy, we could only get seats in the second  row and thanks to our 3-D glasses I kept swatting at or dodging the ferns, branches, flying beasts, and other hyper-realistic computer-captured characters that whipped or whizzed past. Exhausting but fun. My older daughter Eliza, an art photographer, views the film in a very different light at Photophilanthropy.com — the family definitely helped with my research for this post!

So my point is? Home is the ultimate avatar, whether machine or forest. It represents us to the world and is our refuge and second skin. Architectural sociologist Clare Cooper-Marcus’ groundbreaking book House As A Mirror of Self (Nicolas-Hays, 2006) details this phenomenon through her case study research with more than 60 individuals. As she states: “At the base of this study is a very simple yet frequently overlooked premise. As we change and grow throughout our lives, our psychological development is punctuated not only by meaningful emotional relationships with people, but also by close, affective ties with a number of physical environments, beginning in childhood.”

This is true in my own experience: when I was teaching architectural history at Carnegie-Mellon University, I asked my students to write a short essay about their college living environments. Some described their dorm rooms as a kind of refuge; others as a public meeting place. In effect, each room became a reflection of psychological need, an avatar if you will. The trick is to understand your “inner home” (the Na ‘ve people’s Hometree and Tree of Souls? Unobtainium?) without launching rockets at it — or getting a divorce.

Associations Are Important

Another new film actually uses a house to tell part of the story. In Nancy Myers’ It’s Complicated the home of amicably divorced baker and restaurant owner Jane Adler, played by Meryl Steep, is a beautiful tile roofed adobe, supposedly in Santa Barbara

though actually in Thousand Oaks (photo courtesy Cote de Texas blog), and resembles a spiffed up version of classic adobe style houses

from the 1920s and early 1930s, like the Donald Dickey guest house in Ojai by architect Palmer Sabin, or

the E. L. Doheny Ranch at Santa Paula Canyon by architect Wallace Neff. And because the owner is a chef

it has a great kitchen with dazzling light and a seductive Carrara marble-topped island (photo courtesy Design 59 blog). The house as presented by set decorator Beth Rubino is warm, comfortably contemporary, and richly historical all at the same time. In other words, it’s a house with a past and an air of contentment about the present. And it represents an ideal of modern-day, food-and-garden-centric Southern California. It’s like living inside a large tile-roofed croissant. Adobe bricks and terra cotta tiles, are, after all — baked.

The Adler character’s momentary fling with her ex-husband drives the movie but in the end doesn’t affect the character of the home. In fact, it seems fitting that she ultimately falls in love with the architect who is designing her new kitchen addition. The home and the character are “moving on” to the next stage of their lives. For more on the rationale behind the set design see the film’s Production Notes and a brief interview with the director at Santa Barbara Visitors Bureau. Our homes — whether sci-fi trees or adobe ranch houses — are yeasty metaphors indeed.

Categories: Architectural Styles · Books · Decorating Ideas · Design Ideas and Inspiration · Houses in Movies · Kitchen and Bath · architectural history
Tagged:

Holiday Gifts for the Home

November 25, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Start With a Bauhaus-designed Tree

Michael Cannell — our fearless correspondent in Manhattan, blogger for Fast Company, and former Home Editor for The New York Times — presents ten home-oriented gift suggestions for the holidays:

1. Believe it or not, fake Christmas trees are coming back into fashion as mid-century artifacts.

Kuno Prey, a Bauhaus professor, designed this 58-inch tree (it’s widest branches are 44 inches) to resemble a cluster of pipe cleaners. ($325)

2. Here’s a good way to replace ornaments dented or cracked in storage.

These felt holiday ornaments by Joshua Stone — snowflake, dove, tree, and snowman — are die cut from thick grey industrial wool. Each is threaded with orange yarn for hanging. ($20 for a set of four)

3. Kids will love this walking elephant because it trudges forward with a realistic rocking motion, making them feel like they’re on their own jungle safari.

Parents will love it because it’s made with non-toxic dye and chemical-free rubberwood. ($250)

4. These star-shaped lights can be hung from a light fixture, doorframe, or rafter to cast a dappled holiday glow.

Called Starlightz by Artecnica, they’re made from chlorine-free bleached paper and silk-screened and glued by hand. Light and cord included. ($35 each)

5. There’s no rule that you have to use those old-fashioned red-and-white stockings.

Give your mantel a more contemporary spin with wool felt stockings decorated with monkeys, mermaids and a surfing Santa from the New York textile company Hable Construction. ($76 to $135)

6. These super energy efficient L. E. D. (light emitting diode) mini lights — they use 80% less energy than conventional lights — will last up to 100,000 hours.

So no more replacing dimmed bulbs. Unlike earlier L.E.D. Christmas lights, which produced a bluish white, this version emits a pure white. ($14.95 for a string of 50 lights)

7. Here’s a modern variation on the cardboard take-out drink carrier: Brigade by Furni is a set of four porcelain cups, glazed on the interior and top lip.

They fit snugly into a walnut-veneer carrying tray so the quartet of mulled cider can be safely conveyed to the fireside. ($79)

8. The mid-century designers Charles and Ray Eames were fascinated by toys. They scattered their office with a menagerie of playful objects, and in 1969 they made a short documentary about a spinning top.

Their interest prompted the artists James Klein and David Reid, who collaborate under the name KleinReid, to design a limited-edition set of three solid walnut tops made by Herman Miller. (set of three for $199)

9. How great is this? Bertand Planes, an artist and designer, created a mashup of high and low technologies by turning an iron windup music box into a USB drive.

The handle acts as a mouse, allowing you to scroll up and down text, change window size, etc. (Limited edition of five, price available on request)

10. The holidays occur in waves: first comes the tsunami of catalogs. Then gifts. Finally, the obligatory thank you notes.

Make your gratitude stand out with these vintage-style cards from John Derian. ($1.50 apiece)

Thank you to you, also, Mike!

Categories: Appliances and Fixtures · Decorating Ideas · Games · Home Products · Lighting · Uncategorized
Tagged: , , , , , ,