Editor’s note: Welcome to The Fug Report! Each week our fashion blogger friends Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, the sartorial geniuses behind Go Fug Yourself, will feature some of the most memorable looks of the week in this space. We hope you enjoy it!
Wikipedia says that succulents are water-retaining plants adapted to arid climates or soil conditions. We say they’re the greatest eye candy since Ryan Gosling. OK, that’s pushing it. But, really, could there be an easier way to add a touch of graphic, quirky charm to any space?
Succulents and their most notable family member, the cactus, have been a fixture on the design circuit for as long as the Eames Eiffel Chair has been around. Winning hearts and minds of designers the world over, the succulent embodies the Modernist movement’s overarching belief that form follows function. A timeless testament to the lasting value of the organic form stripped of all unnecessary ornament, here’s our guide to living with the best looking, utilitarian plants in the world.
Let us know in the comments what has you Yelping your friendly neighborhood garden center.
Here at Flavorpill HQ, we’ve spent the past hour or so in hysterics thanks to the absolutely brilliant Bad Rave Flyers, which we spotted via Dangerous Minds. The blog is exactly what the title suggests — a collection of hilariously terrible flyers for warehouse parties, club nights, and various other poorly defined events. While we’re tempted to simply point and laugh, we’d be remiss not to point out that the site doubles as a crash course in how to not to promote a party. After the jump, we’ve collected the best of the worst Bad Rave Flyers and reflected on what we can learn from them.
While office design is moving increasingly away from the high-walled cubicle and more towards shared open spaces, sometimes, you just need that private space. Design studio kawamura-ganjavian has come up with a punchy solution for those sudden mid-workday bouts of I-can’t-take-it-anymore: OSTRICH, a pocket pillow that “offers a micro environment in which to take a warm and comfortable power nap at ease.” In other words, it’s almost like you’ve hopped into a sensory-deprivation tank (at least from the neck up) — without ever having to leave your desk.
We’re up to our ears in modern, accessible design. No offense CB2, West Elm, or IKEA. Really, you’re great. You helped us furnish our first apartments, and we love you for that. But, we’re a little older, a little wiser, and we want more. More substance. More soul. Which is why we’re migrating en masse to intermittent flea markets, scouring Craigslist and enrolling in classes to learn everything from upholstery to blacksmithing to the lathe.
It’s not the first time we’ve resolved to roll up our sleeves and make more of our world. The last time, a New Age was upon us and the Western saga that produced the hipster’s predecessor was embracing simple living and imaginative expression. Art Boericke and Barry Shapiro, two builders living in Northern California, the movement’s epicenter, set out to explore what was happening in the woods and valleys around them. Boericke writes that it was a time that saw houses with “tiles that have never been in a store because the tilemaker’s kiln is just beyond her kitchen door.” Now out of print, The Craftsmen Builder and Handmade Houses, A Guide to the Woodbutcher’s Art document what they found.
We’ve rounded up the best of what these two tomes have to offer thanks to Mr. Chum’s comprehensive scans. Now, put on some Vashti Bunyan, grab a kilim pillow and click through to revisit these inspiring collections of handmade houses.
If a close friend says he’s been spending a whole lot of evenings with his Aunt Nora lately, it might be time to worry — not about the poor, elderly lady’s health, but that your buddy might actually have a cocaine problem. And a date with Lucy, as the Beatles reminded us, may well be an acid trip. But the name that really really raises a red flag is Sweet Jesus, aka heroin. These are only a few of the slang terms you’ll learn (or revisit) in The ABC’s of Drugs, a book created for a class assignment by School of Visual Arts student Melanie Chernock, which she describes as “essentially Toy Story on drugs.” In our favorite pages, after the jump, you’ll see Buddha figurines smoking marijuana mixed with opium, glittery troll dolls clutching disco balls, and Tigger as you’ve never seen him before; visit Chernock’s online portfolio for more.
In the late ’70s, a series of Futuro-style homes were constructed in the Sanzhi District of New Taipei City, Taiwan. The pod-shaped houses were part of an intended vacation resort, apparently set to be marketed to U.S. military officers who lived in East Asia part-time. The development was abandoned before anyone could move in — mainly for financial reasons it seems, but there are superstitious stories about the land being a burial ground and talk of several accidents happening on the construction site. The Sanzhi UFO pod houses were demolished a few years ago, but many curious visitors have photographed the strange flying saucer-style abodes. Get a closer look in our gallery past the break.
The Parisian suburbs are known for their grands ensembles, massive suburban apartment complexes built in the 1950s and 1960s. Square, monofunctional and surrounded by open spaces, they are the materialization of the reigning Modernist ideology of the time and are the first view foreign visitors get from Paris as they arrive from Roissy Charles De Gaulle or Orly Airport, as in the view of Sarcelles below.
After watching this video that Ohio designer Adam Ladd created with his five-year-old daughter, you’ll be smiling from ear to ear. Ladd asked her to share her thoughts about popular logos belonging to some of the world’s biggest corporations. She candidly shares her feelings about each image — in only a way that a five-year-old can — and the commentary is adorable, insightful, and allows you to look at age-old brands in a refreshing way. She instantly recognizes the Disney, Apple, and McDonald’s logos, which isn’t too surprising. Other symbols are simplified to a funny degree. Starbucks simply becomes the “coffee logo,” and anything that looks like it could be a cheetah is a cheetah (Greyhound, Puma, etc.). Check out her commentary past the break.
We love the Pritzker Prize-winning architectural team of SANAA because they gave us the New Museum, a whimsical steel stack of a building that sits at the intersection of Bowery and Prince Street in New York’s Lower East Side shouting out a rainbow colored “HELL, YES” to everyone who walks by. We love them even more for their minimal houses filled with light, quirky furniture, and lots and lots of plants.
SANAA is Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa. Based in Tokyo, their architecture has been described as metaphysical, dreamlike, and ethereal. A reaction to the chaos and cluttered complexity of the modern world, says Kristine Guzmán, architect and curator at MUSAC, “SANAA’s houses are capable of transforming a person’s way of life.”
Taking cues from our favorite houseplant loving design icons, here’s our guide to bringing a little SANAA into your world. Click through to check it out and let us know what inspired you the most in the comments!
