DESIGN

Inside Out | Decorating Al FrescoBy RITA KONIG |May 4, 2010, 3:38 pm --> A screened porch like this one, in Garrison, N.Y., provides the perfect outdoor room for summer living.Rita Konig is a decorator based in New York who has written about style for British Vogue, The Telegraph and Domino.RelatedRead more Inside Out columnsCovered porches are a heavenly part of American life, especially if you are from England, where they are useful for about half an hour a year. And I like to treat these outdoor rooms pretty much as I do theLearn English
indoor ones:? furniture with soft cushions; dining tables with damask cloths and silver candlesticks; hurricane shades (and plenty of them) with fat candles that glow at night. For me, they are the chicest places to eat — and live — in summer.So when I decorated this covered porch in Garrison, N.Y., for Deborah Needleman, I approached it in the same way that I considered the living room. I wanted seating with places to keep your drink handy, and warm lighting. I bought a rather peeling metal chandelier in Palm Springs, and we had the contractor paint the gold wall lights white. With their new color and cone-shaped shades, the transformation has been huge. (It is always worth considering what white paint might do for something you are on the verge of throwing out. The painted floor makes the porch much cozier, in the same way that a rug does inside, adding zip to those narrow gray floorboards so often found on porches. It took some to-ing and fro-ing to get it right, but I am very happy with the result. I love painted floors, particularly when some sort of pattern is applied. And while I don’t advocate smoking, this is the place your smoking guests are likely to go after dinner, so ashtrays and match strikers are a good thing to put on the end tables — and they do look so pretty! Read more;We Three Things | Bird BraidsBy LEANNE SHAPTON |May 3, 2010, 6:03 pm --> I hear more birds than I see. Neither my patience nor my neighborhood seem conducive to watching birds and their enigmatic nesting rituals. With spring’s arrival, I hear them calling and chirping outside my window, but I rarely turn around to look. Instead my eye is drawn to designers and artists producing their own versions of ornithology. Read more;Awards Night | Not Afraid of ColorBy PILAR VILADAS |May 3, 2010, 3:31 pm -->This week, the paint company Benjamin Moore will present its Hue Awards for the best use of color in architecture and interiors, and the lifetime achievement award will go to the New York design team of William Diamond and Anthony Baratta, whose sophisticated, bold, and vividly-colored interiors have been featured in The New York Times Magazine. Although the choice of Diamond Baratta would seem a no-brainer, this is the first time that the award has gone to interior designers; past winners were the architects Steven Holl, Ettore Sottsass, and Ricardo Legorreta. Diamond Baratta is known for custom-designing everything from fabrics to braided rugs, and paint colors are no exception. But in an odd coincidence, the designers have always used Benjamin Moore paint bases. And when they told told the company that they were donating their $5000 prize money to the Center for Special Studies at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, which provides specialized care to people with HIV and AIDS, Benjamin Moore matched Diamond Baratta donation. Baratta credits Diamond with being the firm color maven.;Bill is really the maestro of color selection,; he said.;It like music;you have to have perfect pitch.; Above, a few of the firm colorful interiors.Now Online | T Magazine Design ; Living Summer 2010By T MAGAZINE |April 30, 2010, 5:39 pm -->It all about great rooms starting with our cover story, which takes a grand tour of some of the most famous spaces of the 20th century including Robert Mallet-Stevens Villa Noailles and the Condé Nast apartment designed by Elsie De Wolfe. Pilar Viladas pays a visit to the fashion designer Lela Rose store-front loft with its and seemingly endless dining table and specially designed dog elevator! Christopher Petkanas looks at the life of Syrie Maugham, a doyenne of decorating known for her all-white rooms, and Christine Muhlke checks in with the contemporary decorating diva Kelly Wearstler who lives and works in brilliant Technicolor. Armand Limnander reports on the Villa Necchi, a 1930s Milanese house that plays a starring role in a new film and Guy Trebay meets the design legend Irving Harper whose house is jam-packed with his paper sculptures. Pull up a chair. See more from the issue ?London Underground | Pick Me UpBy ELIAS REDSTONE |April 30, 2010, 5:15 pm -->Sylvain Deleu/Courtesy of Somerset House Artwork at Robert Ryan open studio at Pick Me Up.RelatedRead more London Underground columnsEvery so often, it is nice to see designers getting down and dirty. Pick Me Up, London’s first contemporary graphic art fair, is a celebration of screen printing, hand-drawn illustration and lo-fi design.The suggestively titled show is taking place in the Learn French
Embankment Galleries at Somerset House. Under the direction of its curator, Claire Catterall, the venue has adopted a lively approach to design exhibitions, embracing live action and hot new talent. In this case, most of the graphic artists and illustrators are just out of school, making this one of the youngest and friendliest shows in town. Read more;Seeing Things | Rodarte for Knoll LuxeBy BROOKE HODGE |April 30, 2010, 2:20 pm -->Dan Sawyer; Autumn de Wilde Knoll Luxe textile Auden, inspired by Rodarte’s spring/summer 2009 collection.RelatedRead more Seeing Things columnsThese days, fashion-design collaborations are so common that they’re beginning to seem a little, well, old hat. But the clothing label Rodarte’s collaboration with Knoll Luxe (www.knoll-luxe.com), a luxury textile division of the furniture company Knoll Inc., is anything but. Read more;The Masters TourBy T MAGAZINE |April 29, 2010, 9:38 am -->Marcus Gaab Picture yourself in the great rooms of the 20th century. And then decorate them. View slide show>>Milan Report | The Wrap-UpBy ANDREAS KOKKINO |April 28, 2010, 12:59 pm -->The Milan Furniture Fair and its outside exhibitions and events seem to get bigger every year. In fact, it getting to the point where no one person can see everything — even if you find yourself with a few extra days on your hands, waiting for a volcanic ash cloud to blow away. And there was a lot worth seeing — so much, in fact, that T has put together a roundup of some (but not all) of the things we couldn;t fit into reports from the field.An earlier version of this post misidentified the nationality of the architect Vincent Van Duysen. He is Belgian, not Dutch.Do-Good DesignBy JESSE ASHLOCK |April 28, 2010, 10:30 am -->From Interactive Institute What’s the point of design these days, anyway? That’s the question the curators at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum wrestled with for nearly three years as they assembled ‘‘Why Design Now?,’’ the museum’s fourth National Design Triennial, which opens May 14. Their response, presented through 134 projects from around the world, might be the design equivalent of the Hippocratic oath. Many are high-minded, utilitarian responses to critical problems overseas (cleaner-burning stoves, a land-mine-removal suit) and at home (New York City’s new Hoop bike rack, M.I.T.’s prototype for a lightweight electric city car). ‘‘There’s room for high-style design, but there also needs to be room for the rest of the world,’’ says Matilda McQuaid, the museum’s deputy curatorial director. But its definition of socially responsible has room for whimsical conceptualism (Interactive Institute’s Energy Aware Clock, above), architectural grandiosity (Foster ; Partners’ sustainable city of Masdar in Abu Dhabi) and simple beauty (Heath Ceramics tableware). Even Twitter made the cut. ‘‘People say the focus on socially responsible design is just because of the Wall Street crisis and isn’t going to survive once things are back to normal,’’ McQuaid says. ‘‘I think it’s here to stay.’’What a DishBy SANDRA BALLENTINE |April 28, 2010, 9:30 am -->Jens Mortensen Rudolf Stingel has a lot on his plate these days — literally. The New York-based conceptual artist collaborated with Bernardaud, the French porcelain company, and the Art Production Fund’s WOW (Works on Whatever) on a pair of luscious-looking dinner plates that are almost too beautiful to mar with a meal. The plates, which come in an edition of 2,500 in both black and white, are based on photographs of a wall relief that Stingel began in 2008. Fittingly, that project was inspired by the wallpaper in theRosetta Stone
dining room of his childhood home. Why make tableware? ‘‘I like to eat,’’ the artist says. ‘‘And I like to look at my work — two birds, one stone.’’ It’s not the artist’s first excursion into the everyday. In 2004, he famously swathed Grand Central Station’s cavernous Vanderbilt Hall in floral carpeting. Impressive, of course. But this is one project he’ll be able to dine out on for years. And at $98 each, so will you. Available at worksonwhatever.com and Bernardaud boutiques in New York and Chicago.