Design
Park51
I’m trying not to get caught up in the political debate about the Islamic Center, Park51 Community Center, proposed near the World Trade Center site, but it is very controversial, particularly here in DC and I have my own firm views. Regardless of the political debate, I was taken aback by the official conceptual designs on Park51’s website, which I hadn’t seen until recently, described here by Philip Kennicott as an architectural review in The Washington Post. These are preliminary concepts by Soma Architects. Well, imagine my surprise as I tried to find their website, which surprisingly was hard to do, http://www.soma-architects.com/ and I discovered that they are literally right…
Atelier Oi’s Art Forms
After all of my interior design oriented posts last week, I thought I’d feature this picture on the cover of Interior Design Magazine. They describe it as “art forms,” which I agree but it also looks to me like a three-dimensional, hanging-from-the-ceiling mural that is fully integrated and actually “makes” the entire fantasy space. I find this enchanting. There’s more to the story here. This looks like such a happy place that I’m fully expecting fairies to go filtering across. I love the play with proportion. Here are more designs by the Switzerland firm Atelier Oi and their new headquarters in La Neuveville. Look how different this building can look…
A Show House Across the Lake
My mother attended a Show House recently across Lake Ponchartrain, across from New Orleans. Here are her notes. A recent tour of Southern Living’s Louisiana Idea House yielded some surprises but not many ideas. Southern Living calls Bayou Bend, located in the Terra Bella development outside of Covington, Louisiana, a “quiet cottage”. Granted, its location is quiet, but its size is not what I’d call a cottage. It has 4 bedrooms, a study, mud room, a garage apartment and I didn’t even count the number of baths! Designers Grace Kaynor and Vesta Fort did feature works by local artists, though. Large cypress doors open onto an entry with a tile…
