We love seeing two of our favorite materials — chairs and concrete — married into the stunning amphitheater designed by artist Armand Pierre Fernandez for Milan’s Parco Sempione, Milan in 1973. Embedded into the concrete steps are the personalities that chairs inevitably evoke, each seat curiously special and intentional. It made us think of artist Maria Lassnig’s view of chairs…
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I didn’t realize how naturally brutalist concrete sidewalks are — drab gray, strangely crude— until I saw leaves painted on the sidewalk outside a Harlem plant store. The harsh, dreary slabs were transformed and seemed to be casting light and a feeling of whimsy and charm. It made me wonder why sidewalks are rarely embellished, and how to do it…
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We’re smitten with HomeMade Modern’s stylish, DIY-able home goods — from beds to planters — and really smart, detailed designs that empower you to improvise.
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We did a double-take during a virtual tour of a monochromatic home in Risskov, Denmark designed by haute-architecture firm Ardess: The luxurious silvery custom-made interior of Douglas fir, linoleum, and concrete looks curiously like the weathered silver-painted plywood door we spotted in Chelsea a couple of years ago, and fell in love with.
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Of all the shipping pallet creations we’ve come across, this has to be one of the most stylish. It is curiously reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s famous chrome-and-black-leather Grand Confort chair. In pallet wood! It is one of the many brilliant hacks and revisions we’ve seen of the iconic, now-uibiquitous chair… …since we came across interior designer…
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Designer Laura Handler, whose Montana home we featured a while back, sent us a report of her vist to ICFF, the yearly International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City. Here’s the trend she spotted and her funny and insightful commentary : I did notice an interesting phenomenon. There seemed to be a growing trend of faux distressed…
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We love outdoor fireplaces and are always looking for interesting iterations, like this big slab of rusting steel as a fireproof backstop, with a cast cement fireplace, and the one Constantino Nivola fashioned one out of ordinary brick to create his outdoor room.
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There is no getting away for my thing for cement. Fantasies of making things out of it abound in ‘improvised life’s archives and for years Working with Cement was in the stack of books on my bedside table. When I was renovating what was to become ‘improvised life’s Laboratory, I contemplated surrounding the tub in…
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For years, I made short-shrift of concrete block, associating it with the clunky cinderblock-and-pine shelves beloved by frugal college students, or bleak, prison-like garages and homemade tool sheds. I’d pass cheap, strong concrete blocks at construction sites and lumber yards, and wonder what I could do with them. Although I’m crazy about concrete, I seemed…
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