apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

We're loving Brazilian conceptual artist Cildo Meireles' Red Shift room at Tate Modern. The piece was conceived, as Meireles puts it, as "a place in which someone, for some reason – whether due to preference, mania, imposition or circumstance – would accumulate in a given place the greatest possible number of objects in different shades of red."

More images after the jump...

Last Friday we had the pleasure of attending Kiosk's opening night party (free soft pretzels!) for their new mini-exhibition, curated by Reference Library's Andy Beach. For those unfamiliar, Kiosk describes itself thusly:

"We opened the store to offer an antidote to over-design. We consider the objects we stock to be humble, straightforward and beautiful for their simplicity and directness. Often they are traditional goods that have developed over generations or anonymous design found in general stores, DIYs and kiosks, products created by not one personality but things that are the result of local aesthetics and needs."

Reference Library is essentially an ongoing catalog of Andy's lost bids on Ebay; there are other posts, but as the blog's focus remains interesting, unique objects, the Kiosk pairing makes perfect sense. After the jump, a few of our favorite, still-available items...

Miles Redd is one of the few decorators we can think of who concerns himself with the substance of things, actively experimenting with new textures and materials. In the forthcoming holiday issue of Domino, due on stands next week, Redd runs down a list of 10 lessons applicable in any space, and we thought we'd share a few of our favorites after the jump...

We recently noticed these new additions to CB2's line of lighting and wanted to share.

Glam Sconce comes in either "Lobster Red" (whoever writes copy for CB2's website deserves a raise) and "Polished Chrome"; we think these are a great, inexpensive way to get light up on forgotten walls. The chrome version in particular could work well in both slick, throwback interiors, or when paired with something more industrial, as pictured after the jump...

In spite of some of our more ascetic tendencies, we adore Hermès. We can't help it. The brand is covered in skins, reeks of colonialism, and is the antithesis of frugality. It is also beautifully made, iconically detailed and can, on occasion, be used as currency (in his younger years, our boss once accepted payment for a decorating job in scarves). To quote Pierre-Alexis Dumas, "I call what we do quality manufacturing - not luxury. We're not expensive, because to be expensive you have to be vain. We're costly. We have a devastating passion for detail. Our fight for quality is forcing us to strive for a better world."

Credit where credit is due, Jennifer from The Peak of Chic posted some of these photos of the Hermès windows on Faubourg Saint Honoré last week, but we were so inspired we wanted to share more...

Artist Richard Woods, known most recently for his "Wrongwoods" collaboration with Sebastian Wrong, was given full reign over a "hideous 1980s ranch house" in Woodstock, NY. This caught our eye (how could it not?) in the most recent issue of World Of Interiors, and we thought we'd share.

More photos after the jump...

Though we've written about them at length over the years, we had to share this. Five years after opening, and a good three years since we'd stopped hoping their website would ever serve any kind of functional purpose, Brooklyn's Future Perfect has finally acknowledged web business, and relaunched their previously obtuse site last week...

Recently, we've noticed a growing resurgence in the use of house plants in decorating. Desire to Inspire recently did a series on the 1978 House & Garden book "Decorating with House Plants", and plants play beautifully in our last house tour (especially under the bathroom sink).

These photos of photographer Marcelo Kraslicic's apartment, spotted at the Centre for the Aesthetic Revolution, caught our eye with their use of plants as a focal point...

Speaking of amazing reader-submitted painting projects, Maude sent in her inspiring Mondrian-themed kitchen this afternoon. She says:

Hey there! I wanted to share with you some pictures of my Mondrian kitchen wall. As a big Mondrian fan, I also dreamed of doing something around it and I finally move in a new place that was perfect for my idea. We did by hand with tape and patience, it took us about one day and on the second we did some little touch up. We're extremely happy with the result!

We spotted these sconces over at Design Therapy last night and had to share. Created by Philippe Starck for his new new hotel venture Mama Shelter, located outside Paris, the sconces are really made of just a two easily acquired items; a hanging task light, and a Halloween mask.

We've found Starck's recent work too be a little self-referential for it's own good, but we think these are pretty great, especially considering how easy they would be to construct at home...

This image of photographer Richard Avedon's custom designed bed stopped us in our tracks this morning. Inspired by old water cooler crates and designed to provide as many books within arm's reach as possible, Avedon commissioned the structure from Brian Tolle and Jim Gratson. Though it was finally constructed of Mahogany, in its original form simple cardboard boxes were used, so the photographer could "play with the configuration"...

We spotted these Fossili Moderni tables at Moss over the weekend, and fell in love with their brutal construction and simple materials. Part of a series designed by Massimiliano Adami, Fossili Moderni utilizes polyurethane foam to fill the space between found objects, creating unique, individual pieces (an aesthetic certainly reflected in the price of just under $5,000 per table)...

Robert Loughlin is a New York institution of sorts. A long time picker for some of the city's better known antique dealers, his work has been well documented.

Robert is also a painter, and if one counts painting the same thing over and over again, on as many objects and available canvases as possible, quite a prolific one at that...

We had the pleasure of watching the amazing french film from 1981, Diva, last night, and wanted to share a few of it's amazing interiors. Thoroughly set-designed (and highly romanticized), Diva's main living spaces are a parking garage, used as storage for wrecked luxury automobiles, and a converted loft above a bar...