Madeline Gins & Arakawa have decided not to die.
Gins & Arakawa are a husband and wife poetic architecture team who have been working 45 years to create habitats that prolong the life of the inhabitants by taking away any sense of stability.. Their latest is the Bioscleave House in East Hampton, built to cradle tentativeness:
“It gets you back to your basic, generative level of existence…You cannot resolve your view to any one horizon. Therefore you feel mighty tentative.”
There are no level surfaces; there are poles to help you…
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This Aesop store is in North Melbourne, but the SAY WORD design factor was pretty high so I thought we should share.
Aesop beauty supplies are held in pretty high regard around the world; for some reason there is no US retail store — lots of stockists, but no super brown box design store.
We want one in New York. Feels like the warehouse that holds the Ark of the Covenant.
via The Cool Hunter
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Gorgeous looking prison in Austria. Actual rooms, sunlight.
What if people came out of prison rehabilitated? There’s a thought.
via Andrea Harner
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Powerhouse Arena is a gallery, bookstore, workshop, boutique and event space nestled between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges in DUMBO.
The two-tier amphitheater is perfect for speakers and performances; the wrap-around windows let out onto the bridges and Manhattan skyline.
We’ve had two events there: BIFOLD: YOUTH and PHTHRD II: a rock & roll show and a Photographer’s Duel. The space easily accommodated hundreds of guests, DJs, amplifiers, bars, and even an afghan rug show. We’ll be back for more.
Powerhouse Arena, 37 Main Street, DUMBO
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Smack Mellon Gallery in DUMBO, home to LVHRD’s first PHTHRD Photography Competition, was voted Best Party Venue by NY Mag.
They point out some of the features that first attracted us to the space: “soaring 35-foot ceilings, 25 enormous windows with views of the Manhattan Bridge, and access to the grassy Brooklyn Bridge Park across the street.”
On a summer night when the sun is going down you can stand at one of the windows and see the purple water between the two bridges and beyond it the orange glass…
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As the world’s population moves into the city it is necessary to reimagine the way we collect ourselves within the space of our urban habitat. We don’t have 5,000 sq ft to work with, and even if we did, the vast majority of people living in mega-cities don’t own enough furniture to fill a space half that size.
Due out later this month from Loft Publications, Living in Small Spaces asks the question: “Is a large canvas necessary to paint a masterpiece?” (via MocoLoco)
Living in Small Spaces looks at the…
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That’s what John Lumea wonders on his architecture blog Horizonr.
“…But now, the flags can’t help but function, for many, as billboards for America’s role in a so-called “war on terror” that more than three-quarters of Americans think is going “badly” and more than 60 percent think we should never have started in the first place.
Adding insult to injury, the largest of the flags blocks the very thing — the sky ceiling — that always has helped to make Grand Central a great American room.†(via gothamist)
In other…
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This Ain’t No Disco [it’s where we work] asks creative Agencies from around the world to lower their veil of secrecy and submit photos of their workspace so the rest of us who don’t work there can salivate over the hammocks, nautical furniture, and graffiti that adorn the walls of these inspired environments. It’s kind of like porn, but less sticky.
Recently added, thehappycorp global, usually quite secretive about allowing outsiders in, submitted a photo spread of the living and loving that goes on at their Nolita office. The photos are…
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Even though MCFGHT II was last month we can always look forward to next year’s karaoke showdown. We’re already getting inspiration from–where else–Japan.
Via thecoolhunter we’re seeing some karaoke clubs that could be either your heaven or hell. The rooms match the delirious spirit of karaoke we fell in love with, the dizzy riot that goes on in your head when you’re leading a room of friends through “Freebird.â€
What we want to see next, maybe at Arlene’s Grocery: mariachi-only karaoke night. You+full mariachi band=new resolve to live.
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UK furniture design firm, Farm, has some interesting, if not destabilizingly expensive ideas for chairs, tables, couches, lighting and mango tools. Some things, like the flute dressing screen made out of corrugated cardboard and the flute lamp, look like transplants from the Ming dynasty. The “Ex-box bench” is for sale at ₤250 per accordian-cardboard meter of seating. While the bench looks cool, we’ve seen cardboard furniture designed and produced inexpensively, some so simple a child could manage.
We really like the “Remembrance Sideboard” set of drawers and cabinets crafted out…
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Last Friday morning the guerilla art group House of Malcontents boarded a Manhattan-bound F-train at Coney Island and decked out one of the cars to resemble a living room: welcome mats, rugs, hanging geraniums, and curtains for the windows.
They replaced MTA safety posters with family photos and covered the ads for cosmetic surgeons with faux bookshelves. The group said their remodeling was commentary on the ungodly ammount of time New Yorkers spend riding the rails.
Most commuters were pleased, New York Magazine reports, camera phones at the ready. Others…
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The world may be running out of wild magnolias, but panic not, you can take them with you. ELT (Elevated Landscape Technologies) Easy Green manufactures a line of products built around one main idea: sustainable living. This product line is a response to the desire to bring nature back into our cities. ELT designs modular indoor/outdoor living walls that lend your domus the attributes of a Costa Rican cloud forest. Take a look at some example of green walls from around the world right here.
Besides modular living walls, ELT is…
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