News

A Random Walk: A Challenge To Interior Design: Design Your Profession

Mon, 30 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

4.18.11 | The airwaves are carrying wisps of a renewal of discussions between IIDA and ASID about the possibility of a merger. Here’s a challenge: we throw down the gauntlet to all interior designers:Design Your Profession . . . and start by designing a new unified professional organization. If you don’t, someone will do it for you, for example, architects and the Interior Design Protective council.

A Random Walk: Some Thoughts on Steelcase 360º: Educating the Creative Leaders of Tomorrow

Mon, 30 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

3.28.11 | Thinking about the substance of a webcast panel organized by Steelcase, with Jim Keane, Roger Martin and Daniel Pink, as panelists, it occurred to me that the answer to elevating the importance of creative thinking and “Design” in business is not sending analytics to Asia, as suggested by Mr. Pink. It lies in studying how these two approaches and capabilities can be most effectively integrated and used.

A Random Walk – Interior Design: Toward A New Definition - Part 7: The IFI Declaration

Mon, 30 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Some Thoughts on the IFI DFIE Declaration
3.14.11 | The IFI DFIE INTERIORS Declaration is an interesting tapestry of what the profession is and what it aims to be. An obvious question is, “To what extent do my developing views on the definition of “interior design” accord with those expressed in the Declaration?

A Random Walk: Interior Design: Toward A New Definition - Part 6 – Why Design

Mon, 30 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

2.7.11 | Interior design – and, in fact, all design for the built environment – is purposeful. In this regard, it many be helpful, for this discussion, to categorize the major aspects of architecture and design into two areas, technique and purpose. It appears that now the profession is ready to begin, and has begun, the shift of emphasis from technique to purpose.

A Random Walk - Interior Design: Toward a New Definition - Part 5 Some Thoughts on Aesthetics

Mon, 30 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

10.11.10 | Can aesthetics be analyzed? From the ancients to the present time, people have looked at aesthetics and their effects, both from a philosophical and historical point of view, and as a proper subject of psychology, that is, the human response to aesthetic offerings.

A Random Walk: Interior Design: Toward a New Definition - Part 4 - Planning and Communicating

Mon, 30 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

10.4.10 | We must address issues that are at the heart of interior design, but are too often ignored. One fundamental fact is that interior design is not a choice: we can’t avoid interior design; but every one of us chooses the quality of interior design. If there is an interior, there is no such thing as “no interior design.”

A Random Walk: Interior Design: Toward a New Definition - Part 3: Creating Our Environments

Mon, 30 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

9.13.10 | One of the most remarkable and distinctive capabilities of the human species is its ability to create its own environment in infinite variety. This is the great opportunity and challenge of interior design, and on a larger scale, urban design.

A Random Walk: Interior Design: Toward a New Definition - Part 2- The Potential for Harm

Mon, 30 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

9.6.10 | While we all consider interior design as a positive force in the world, it is also of sufficient force and effect that its misapplication may produce considerable harm. Moreover, by its very nature, the interior environment, by design, can be, and has been, used to intentionally produce significant injury. A definition of the field must encompass this.

A Random Walk: Interior Design: Toward a New Definition

Mon, 30 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

8.30.10 | In the public mind there is no understanding about what interior design is, not even confusion. So, at one end of the definitional spectrum we have the know-nothings. At the other end, we find the regulators and qualifiers, NCIDQ, the know-too-muchers or kitchen-sinkers.

Nature With an Edge

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 05:00:00 GMT

9.19.06 | New York Times | It sounds too selfish to say that the struggle to preserve the natural world is also a struggle to preserve the wholeness of our being, but it is a fact nonetheless. There are few better examples of this than the works now on display at the International Center of Photography, in a new exhibition called “Ecotopia.” That word implies something paradisal, but what the exhibition really suggests is the fragile ecology of the place we live — the glory of what it is and the sorrow of what we have done to it.

And They All Look Just the Same

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 05:00:00 GMT

9.17.06. New York Times | [H]aving traveled to neighborhoods all over the country, from Milwaukee to Louisville, Fayetteville to Portland, Ore., what I’ve come to realize is that what makes a neighborhood a neighborhood is evidence of continual evolution and reinvention. Old houses, brand new ones and all those in between merge in a balance of past, present and future that makes a place feel vital. (This mix also helps guarantee a diversity of ages, ethnicities, income levels and backgrounds.) One architectural era isn’t necessarily better or worse than another — it’s the mixture of ingredients that makes a delectable dish.

From Aeron to Airstream, Things That Work

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 05:00:00 GMT

9.13.06 | New York Times | I [Allison Arieff] was saddened to learn of the passing of industrial designer Bill Stumpf over the weekend. He’s best known for the ergonomic Aeron chair (which he designed with Don Chadwick) . . . . Equally significant was Stumpf’s thoughtfully articulated philosophy on the purpose and importance of design in our culture, exemplified by his collection of essays on how design shapes our lives in his book, “The Ice Palace That Melted Away.”

When lecturing or writing about design, I’ve often referred back to a particular quote from Stumpf: “If your shoes are comfortable you’re not aware they’re on. If the water is pure you can’t taste it. Similarly when a chair is a perfect fit for your body, it becomes ‘invisible’ and you’re not aware of it at all.” . . .

Stumpf opted to demystify design. In both his words and the objects he made, he highlighted design’s potential — to do good, to be socially responsible, to be comfortable, to have a sense of play, to be useful — while avoiding its perils. . . . Take, for example, Stumpf’s notion of sustainable furniture: not something crafted from sunflower seeds or wood reclaimed from a high-school gym floor, but simply something beautifully designed and well-constructed that you’d enjoy for years before passing it down to your children and they to theirs. . . .

Mysterious Cubicle Crud

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 05:00:00 GMT

4.4.06 | Washington Post | The reason I can't blog this morning is that I have just moved to a new cubicle and am totally out of sorts . . . . I don't want to be seen as a Work Station Complainer. Every office has people whose work stations are, at least in their imagination, killing them.. . . Changing workstations can be every bit as emotionally devastating as going through a divorce. There is a pervasive strangeness to everything. There are unfamiliar sounds, light hitting the eyes at an odd angle, peculiar vapors from a photocopier, plus the reorientation of the body with regard to magnetic North.

All That Curvy Glass: Is It Worth It?

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 05:00:00 GMT

1.17.06 | New York Times | Now that many of the new residential buildings come with a big-name designer or architect attached to them, I am even more curious: What do these famous, sophisticated and cutting-edge people bring to a building that was once defined only by location and square footage? Are Richard Meier's or Philippe Starck's contributions on things like room layouts and bathroom faucets worth the premium prices? So, when I read that Charles Gwathmey and Robert Siegel, who are partners in one of America's greatest architectural firms, had designed a building at Astor Place on an unusual triangular site on the western edge of the East Village, I was intrigued.

By SUZANNE SLESIN