Link: Susanne Lorenz (German)

"Kamelyon Design is a design and manufacturing studio that specializes in custom handmade fixtures and shades. Brett Grinkmeyer formed Kamelyon Design in early 2000 to pursue his interest in furniture and lighting design. Kamelyon Design combines his skill as a designer and his passion for fine craftsmanship. The light sculptures have received acclaim not only for their unique designs, but also for their innovative construction. Mr. Grinkmeyer makes each one of the lamps by hand insuring the highest level of quality possible. The goal of Kamelyon Design is to break new ground and to create truly unique designs that stir the soul – designs that transcend fad or fashion."

Link: Kamelyon Design [Thanks, Brett!]

Winning projects represent the cutting edge in contemporary architecture, interior design and historic restoration, selected by a distinguished jury of local and internationally known architects."

Some of the winning firms include:

FUN - designed by Alessandra Maiolino - is a pioneering and exquisite elastic shelving system. Modular stainless steel elements innovatively combine with beautifully fashioned shelves, made from plywood with sensuous linoleum faces in various colours. Because FUN does not rely on uprights of fixed lengths, it enables you to shape it into a number of highly versatile combinations, with different numbers, heights, and widths of shelves. FUN is easy to transport, assemble, and mould to your changing needs and aspirations. It is available for both the home and commercial application.

Bark Deco makes modern doggy beds in three styles availble in a multitude of fabrics and wood veneers.

bark deco beds are designed to provide the ultimate in modern style and luxury for the special members of your family. every bark deco bed is handmade from start to finish. the platforms are constructed from birch hardwood with the care and attention to detail given to fine furniture.

exotic wood veneers are applied and finished by hand over the course of several days. veneers offered in the debut collection are wenge, zebrawood and teak. all bark deco beds measure seven inches tall (regardless of size). each model features a ventilated platform and is elevated for style and comfort (no drafty floors). rubber feet are added to help keep the bed in place.

The M7 prototype is the result of a slow process of research and development, begun in 2001 by the Chilean architects’ cooperative URO1.ORG. Its aim was to find modular construction solutions that would allow users to freely configure and construct their own small-scale architecture. The weekend home, located at Tunquén on a green plateau facing the Pacific Ocean, was used as an experiment to study a variety of possible materials and to perfect assembly methods based on extreme simplicity and practical economy.

Firm: URO1.org
Via: Domus (Registration Req'd)

"Menos is the answer to the challenges of modern life. Living areas are not sectioned off, but rather they merge into each other. The multifunctional concept provides you with the freedom to use living areas more effectively and more creatively too. With innumerable combinations, use Menos to create new designs over and over again: closed and open elements, drawers, shelves and containers always adapted to your respective requirements. Whether in living, sleeping, or dining areas, meonos creates rooms and defines the harmonious unity of living in general. A feeling of feeling at home."

Located on a lake front site in the Cascade Mountain Range, the house navigates an extreme topography drops 54 feet over 126 feet in distance from the road to the lake shore. The house negotiates the slope and the "occupyable spaces high in the tree branches" with minimal site clearing or grading.

Firm: E. Cobb Architects Inc.

In this case, Lekker Projects, a small environmental design firm with offices in Shanghai and Singapore, was faced with the problem of correcting bad Feng Shui while creating a distinct signage element for the 88 Xintiandi Hotel in Shanghai. The solution was to use Chinese roof tiles (the symbol of the hotel) in an inventive way to create a simple but striking result. The form of the tiles are instantly recongnizable, but their application is inspired.

Firm: Lekker Projects
Link: 88 Xintiandi

Made of eco-friendly bamboo, ekobo is a line of contemporary tableware designed in France and hand-crafted in Vietnam in respect of the rules of equitable commerce.

Designer: ekobo
Link: illico design [Thanks, Thomas!]

This is really what used to be a corridor bell, as it was originally used for flats in apartment blocks. But the neat bell mechanism, made completely without the use of plastic components, can also be heard in the average-sized family house. The key twist mechanism is designed to fit doors of 6 cm thickness, but can be shortened for thinner doors by cutting the square shaft with a hacksaw. The quality nickel-coated steel plate bell can also be mounted outside.

Link: Manufactum
Via: The Red Ferret Journal

The MetroShed idea grew from the need to have a quiet, detached living / working space close to home. The MetroShed is a modern outdoor structure created using top quality wood, glass, aluminum and acrylic building materials. The MetroShed is sold as an unfurnished shell, or fully furnished ready to enjoy. The MetroShed can also be customized to match existing modern contemporary residences.

Link: Metro Shed [Thanks, Donovan!]

But Victoria Gardens is no City Walk, its ambitions are much less hyper-realistic, and perhaps this is what sets it apart from many other themed malls that we have seen. But the result is a somewhat duplicitous place that insists it is one thing when it is actually something else.

Link: Victoria Gardens
Reference: Downtown Mauled - Part I

The New York Times saw fit to cover the opening of this new mall, so we figured that it was worth the 40 minute drive to check it out. City planners had originally envisioned a more traditional mall, but the developers had a bold idea that breaks many (though not all) of the rules of the typical mall development. The idea behind Victoria Gardens is not new, pseudo-historic town centers are the core of most New Urbanist neighborhoods, but here it has been inserted into an existing tract home city.

The name of this mall betrays its form; all of the shops are located along an urban grid of streets open to vehicular traffic, complete with parking meters and sidewalks. Parking lots and service areas located in the center of the blocks, much like a traditional American town. "Victoria Gardens" fails to provide a hint of the urban space that has been created, or perhaps this was an intentional move to calm local residents who may fear density.

Link: Victoria Gardens
Article: New York Times - A Different Sort of Mall for a California Town
Reference: Downtown Mauled - Part II

Developer: Forest City Enterprises with Lewis Retail Centers
Masterplan and Design Concept/Design Architect: Field Paoli
Executive Design Architect: Altoon & Porter
Executive Architect: KA Architects
Design Architect: Elkus Manfredi Architects
Landscape Architect: SWA Group

Sheets and pillows come in thread counts ranging from 200 to 300. Bed and tables are made from bent ply with walnut veneer.

Link: Area Home [Thanks, Scott!]

J. Schatz has come up with not one but two lamps shaped just like your favorite bird feeder, a shade lamp and a nightlight.

Read a book next to an Egg Shade Lamp or lie in bed and stare at a ceiling full of stars with the Star Egg Nightlight. Available in nine colors and three exquisite finishes: Lush, Exotic and Crackle.

Link: Egg Lamps
Related: Egg Bird Feeder

Our favorite pieces include the spalted naple low bench/table (featured at right) and the black walnut table (middle image featured below).

Link: John Houshmand

Like The Art Book, this book presents 500 designers in an AZ format that departs from the usual emphasis on genres and time periods. The gardens are carefully selected to choose the appropriate work for key figures which illustrates their influence on the traditions of gardening in many countries around the world. They range, therefore, from the palaces of kings to the all-consuming passions, bordering on obsessions, of amateur enthusiasts."

Link: Phaidon Press
Link: McNally Robinson

The exhibit is a preview in support of a new book to be published by Balcony Press and scheduled for release in the Fall of 2005 – entitled “2000 + New Architecture from Los Angeles”. The book’s editor is John Chase.

Each participating architect has fitted the presentation of his work into a diamond-shaped 6 ft x 2 ft “tower” designed by Lorcan O’Herlihy, AIA. The towers are mounted on wheels, arranged randomly, and can move around the room. This affords the viewer a walk through the exhibit non-sequentially, much like walking through a forest of trees. Each firm’s viewpoint is contained within the tower and may be studied from all angles by a single viewer, or by a group of viewers, thus presenting an opportunity for discussion.

The Garden on Turtle Creek, started in 1997 and completed in May 1999, is a model for the union of modern landscape design aesthetics and environmental sensitivity. Weaving new landscape elements into the sites natural systems and intense native vegetation, the garden mediates two strong contextual forces: the sophisticated glass, limestone, and concrete house, designed by Antoine Predock from 1987-1993, and the unpredictable site condition of a steep, richly vegetated slope that descends into Turtle Creek.

Their designs run the gambit of interior furnishings, fittings, accessories and interior designs. Their styles is clean and fun, and somehow familiar... could it be that we have seen Geppetto's work before and just not known who they were? Check them out... and please do take note, won't you?

Link: Geppetto

"Nik's Project presents a limited collection of pieces designed by Nikolas Piper for specific projects ordered by foundations and private institutions. The combination of traditional forge and modern technologies which Nikolas combines in his designs create these timeless pieces of furniture whose outstanding features are their organic, sensual and functional characteristics."

Link: Nik's Project
Link: Alice's Legs

We recently came across the work of Chilean architect Felipe Assadi and were impressed with the quality of work produced by his five person firm. We think that his work holds its own compared with work by European and American architects with whom we are better acquainted and certainly deserves some attention.

Link: Felipe Assadi

An excellent look at small, modernist component built houses by the architect Norman Cherner. Divided into chapters as follows: Plans and intro, Panel Construction, Bent Construction, Girder Construction, Masonary and Foundation Construction, Quonset Construction, Materials and Methods. Excellent isometric drawings and details by the architect. Also sections, elevations, and floor plans. Black and white photos of homes under construction and finished.

Research showed that literally billions of single-use chopsticks were consumed annually. The more shocking revelation was that it took, by some estimates, 25 million trees and bamboo plants to support that resource waste. Was there an opportunity to use the chopsticks for other applications that would provide a consumer benefit while bringing awareness to the negative environmental impact of single-use chopsticks?

Link: Kwytza Kraft

The clock dial is white lacquered with quartz movement.

Designers: Shin and Tomoko Azumi
Link: Lapalma

It started as a rumor, hardly louder than the rustle of palm fronds from the octet of 90-foot trees that sway above the southern end of one green, quiet block. Frank Gehry, for most people's money the most famous architect in the world, had bought the large vacant lot at the northern end of the block. He was planning to build his dream house there.

Perhaps the very first thought — you could see it in people's dawning reaction, even from those who haven't yet rattled their jewelry at the much-debated Walt Disney Concert Hall downtown — was that the house had every chance of looking as wrong as Shaquille O'Neal in a Miami Heat uniform. But that thought was almost immediately shooed away by a second: They were about to be … Gehry-adjacent.

Link: LA Times

"A personal plate, bowl, cup, and utensils, all snugly wrapped together in a desktop-sized placemat. This set of dishes expands your good-design sense to the office and stands with upright readiness next to a desk or in the communal kitchen cupboard. Made of high-heat malamine, the dishes add a touch of practical elegance to our takeout soup and sandwich."

"Need the bathroom? Gotta check your voicemail? Time for a caffeine fix, pronto? Life's minor emergencies call for signage that speaks loud and clear, in any language. Out of the ordinary yet obvious, our highly visible 3-D signage brings a sense of order to your work environment, all with a creative spin and whimsical touch. Our icon based signs are made of flame retardent, high-density black PVC. Installation is accomplished lickety-split, thanks to brushed aluminum brackets that require just two screws."

This text contains the essence of Thomas Church's design philosophy, as well as practical advice. It is illustrated by site plans and photographs of some of the 2000 gardens that Church designed during his career. Called "the last great traditional designer and the first great modern designer", Church was one of the central figures in the development of the modern Californian garden. For the first time, West Coast designers based their work not on imitation of East Coast traditions, but on climatic, landscape and lifestyle characteristics unique to California and the West. Church viewed the garden as a logical extension of the house, with one extending naturally into the other.