They say that that if we want to get a good night’s sleep, our bedroom needs to be dedicated only to that and love-making and nothing that might stimulate thinking, even reading. But stumbling on photos of several artists in bed made us realize that we love, and miss, the idea of bed as relaxing, creative outpost and retreat outfitted with what we need to feed our heads and fuel creativity. That got us thinking about their use of big bedside tables…
Read MoreDonald Judd Spaces: A Deep Dive Into Judd’s Inspired Designs for Living
We are thrilled by the publication of Donald Judd Spaces, a rare visual survey of the legendary artist’s living and working spaces. It contains a trove of new and archival photographs alongside five essays by the artist which afford a close look and greater understanding of his integrative thinking and aesthetic, and very employable ideas.
Read MoreSleeping like Donald Judd in Low-to-the Floor Beds, with Details and Plans
At the Judd Foundation, we stumbled upon this wonderful bedroom with a very Judd-esque low bed. It reminded us of the austere low platforms he made for his Spring Street Loft. We took a closer look at how he made them.
Read MoreThe How and Why of Donald Judd’s Brilliant Plywood Tables
Artist Donald Judd’s iconic plywood tables are made with materials you can get anywhere, with methods just about anybody can do: his response to the lack of useful, well-designed furniture he was unable to find.
Read MoreFormula for a DIY Donald Judd-esque Sofa
Artist Donald Judd’s austere, organic, ultra-simple furniture has been inspiration for lots of knockoff’s and diy’s and straight-out ripoffs. His iconic sofa, below, inspired the $6,000 Maple sofa, above, a collaboration of Brooklyn-based industrial designer Farrah Sit and textile designer Rebecca Atwood. Sit and Atwood have made improvments on Judd’s design, from a practical comfort point-of-view. The sofa is definitely DIY-able.
Read MoreDirty Pink Obsession: Even Donald Judd Loved It
It seems that even Artist Donald Judd liked muted, “dirty” pink walls, the focus of our ongoing obsession. Here’s one of the rooms in the Cobb House that he renovated in Marfa, Texas, the vast army base he bought and transformed in the 1990’s.
Read MoreHouse Tour: Donald Judd’s Soho Loft (w addendum)
We’ve been inspired by the work of artist Donald Judd since we first set eyes on his deceptively simple furniture constructed out of plywood years ago, which blurred the lines between art and utility in a totally surprising way. Recently, the five-story 19th-century cast-iron loft building in Soho where the artist lived and worked for 25…
Read Mored-i-y: cracking the code of a donald judd table
Recently, 2 or 3 Things I Know posted a picture of this table by the artist Donald Judd; it is miraculous in its simplicity and harmony. I put my face close to the screen to contemplate the structure. It looked to me to be made of big sheets of plywood with an ash or birch veneer: a…
Read MoreNew York Magazine’s Low Lift Home Improvements for Under $100 INCLUDING Improvised Life’s Big Fat Idea
How swell to see Improvised Life mentioned in New York Magazine’s ’31 Low Lift Home Improvements for Under $100′ for our decoding of Donald Judd furniture. We got a lot of ideas for jazzing up our space….
Read MoreArtist’s Cool Precursors to the Pallet Bed
Artists Donald Judd and Martin Kippenberger both liked sleeping on a low platform, unbounded in the room…the precursor to the popular pallet bed?
Read MoreBed on Boxes, Files, Shipping Pallets and Other Platforms
This image of a charming plywood platform bed reminded us of the late Tobias Wong’s bed made of a mattress on top of a grouping of file cabinets. No need for an OFFICIAL bed, of the grand style seen on every home blog and magazine. A good mattress on a flat sturdy slab is a simple formula. And…
Read Moreel cosmico’s teepees, tents and trailors (for rent or inspiration)
El Cosmico, a hippy-ish retreat/hotel with wonderful amenities and a very cool philosophy, offers a variety of simple, unique accommodations — teepees, tents and trailors — that promote sitting on porches, naps and other moments of non-action
Even El Cosmico’s website is both freshing and inspiring. We took a mini virtual vacation.
cantilevered homes, chairs, diy, life
Holton Rower spotted this amazing image on henk nouwens flickr. It is titled ‘The Cantilevered Void House’ and accompanied by these words: “Standing immobile throughout the day, these vivid objects, with their fantastic shadows on the wall behind them shifting and elongating hour by hour with the sun’s rotation, exuded a kind of darkness for…
Read Mored-i-y bench made of stump, slab, stone
While walking in the woods upstate last week, we came across this ad hoc bench positioned across from a massive, ancient tree. The bench had been forged out of the forest’s own materials, without nails. We love the asymmetry of the stump pillar on one side, and the pile of flat rocks on the other,…
Read Morehouse tour: laura handler’s montana log cabin
Intrigued by a brief mention on her website of her renovated log cabin in Montana, we wrote designer Laura Handler to ask if we could see some pictures of the place. We not only got pictures with charming, haiku-like notations, but the wonderful story behind the cabin: Fourteen years ago, my mother died and left…
Read Morecopy these: plywood chairs + tables (for kid’s or adults)
We are smitten with these vintage plywood children’s chairs whose very direct, modern lines and whimsical port holes make us envision an adult version. (Turned on it’s side, a chair could easily morph into a table…). There’s something Donald Judd-esque about them, softened by the curved corners. They wouldn’t be too hard to copy…They look…
Read Morefab orange-frame mirror, inspired by a work of art
Today, not for the first time, we mistook an artwork for a household object – a mirror actually. We saw this work by Winston Roeth at YouHaveBeenHereSometime right after seeing some images of mirrors and our brain said: “Wow, what a great deeply-orange painted mirror! Why don’t we make one of those?!!” Then we scrolled down…
Read Moreimprov heart + the snaptastic room divider
One of the amazing and surprising responses to our going “dark” last week were Comments and emails the came in from ‘improvised life’ readers – whom we’ve never actually met – sending words of support, understanding and gratitude for what we’ve been doing over the past year or so. It knocked us out, reaffirming what…
Read Moreslab-and-pillar table inspiration from casa malaparte
Recently in a wordless post called simply Casa Malaparte, Atelier featured some elegant, elemental tables made by placing a flat surface-on-pillars-or-stones; they reminded us of our favorite Le Corbusier table, a slab of concrete on a concrete block base. It sent us rooting through our file of slab-and-pillar tables, a great formula for oddly chic…
Read Moreawesome building blocks for kids + grownups (to d-i-y?)
Wary Meyers has the BEST eye for flea market finds. Dig this giant set of colorful interlocking building blocks he posted on his site. They have no known provenance. Says Wary: They could be old, could be new. My guess is this was an old collaboration between Josef Albers and Donald Judd. and Bill Ding.…
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