venice contemporary architectural surprise

there's an area in venice near the canals and just west of the very cool street abbot kinney blvd called silver triangle. it's just far enough away from the congestion of the beach to be quiet yet it's walking distance to the beach and to abbot kinney.

in the silver triangle, a very cool project, market mews, just opened its doors for a very cool party last night hosted by deasy/penner. first of all, the party was set in one of the very cool lofty units with the main party area in the 2-story living room which opened onto a patio through a raised glass garage door that spanned both stories. add to that a very soulful dj, st germain champagne cocktails, a very good looking laid back crowd and beautiful and unique furniture from ford-brady and the vibe is ultra cool. the listing agent ramey ward, gave us a tour of the model next door to the party and explained that 2 units are already sold in the group of 8 loft-like 2br townhouses designed by architect steven ehrlich. priced from $1,265,000 to $1,490,000, these contemporary units have some green features including drought resistant landscaping and tankless water heaters.

welcome to the neighborhood!

glow closeups

thanks to dan del campos of pop image culture, i've added some of his photos here from the glow festival in santa monica. these illustrate some of the visual delights more clearly than my phone pics in the last posting. enjoy!

glow inspired by paris and grunions

it was wonderful to see thousands show up at and around the historic santa monica pier from dusk to dawn last night for a new festival called glow. it was inspired by the popular nuit blanche in paris and 'grunion runs'. remarkably, when california grunions spawn, as a wave breaks, you can see their silvery 5" to 6" bodies swim up the sandy slope as far as possible for 30 seconds to 3 minutes. in addition to that natural delight, glow offered media art, performances, music, and sculpture installations.

the glow program was extensive and to my delight, included many eco-friendly elements like the free bike valet which was very busy, a service i absolutely love at the local farmer's market. there was a solar powered installation which illuminated koi fish wind socks. there were illuminated tumbleweeds floating in the water made from recycled plastic bottles. reclaimed materials from reDiscover were available for visitors to place on flatbed screens of opaque projectors to create unique visual storytelling.

hopefully i'll have my camera with me next time so i won't have to rely on my phone for the pics. and i hope glow santa monica returns every year and more people will participate both as the audience and the artist. thanks to everyone who worked so hard to put this together!

in my june 27th post, i mentioned an amazing, comprehensive, sustainable standard covering all commercial and consumer products except cars and airplanes. check out the video from the 'getting smart about sustainable products' event recently at treepeople to learn more about this incredible standard. developed by market for transformation to sustainability (mts), it's called SMaRT (sustainable materials rating technology). the standard is based on product life cycle assessment across the product's entire supply chain. it is a wonderful tool for any consumer, but in particular for me as a designer, it will help a great deal since it provides a quantifiable and verifiable sustainable standards. some design products with SMaRT certification include miliken, forbo and knoll who have insightful comments on mts' blog. these standards will save designers time and our client's money as we won't have to do certain research on a product since mts has already done that. thank you mts!!!!!

design for a cause in MA

though i'm based in LA, i was born and raised in MA and wanted to share this cool design competition for MA designers. it's the annual festival of wreaths co-sponsored by van millwork and boston magazine, open to any mass-based designer and architect. register by 8.1.8 and those selected will get to decorate parts of the van millwork showroom in needham and then viewing and voting begins 11.29.8 for 3 weeks followed by a gala. the top winner will get a full-page in boston home magazine! the best part though is that this is a fundraiser for the room to dream foundation,which creates healing environments in hospitals, communities and homes for children and adolescents who are faced with chronic illnesses. what a great way to help our community through design!

more fabulous eco-friendly design products!

we are extremely fortunate today that there are so many wonderful eco-friendly materials and products available. these eco-treasures can pop up at the most unlikely places. for example, the other week i attended the la home show and was extremely impressed with the better home and gardens green works living green exhibit (touring the country this summer/fall!). they had a very effective display showing us how to green our homes. they also shared some very cool green materials like these from matrix-z.

matrix-z's seastone is a beautiful manufactured stone for residential, commercial, interior, exterior, horizontal, vertical, wet and dry applications. it's a great alternative to mined stone incorporating natural shells, recycled glass, and aggregates. it's slip resistant and mildew, mold, stain and wear resistant. also, it received the emerald green award for green products and practices. suggested retail prices range from approximately $7.25 to $14.25 per square foot and trade is about $4-$6.

they also have a line of gorgeous shell tiles called seatile like this paua/abalone. this is obviously a material best suited for a backsplash or similar while the seastone is much more versatile.