apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I consider myself a modernist, but this house seems horribly dated--at least in its presentation. As Dwell magazine has been showing us for the last, what, 7 years?, modernism (and even minimalism) does not have to equal a living space devoid of posessions. I don't actually believe that the occupants live like this, and while I understand and appreciate that homes are staged for the purpose of photography, I fail to see how stripping the home of its contents (save a few stickers on the wall and a stuffed animal in the children's room) is inspirational to anyone -- fine, maybe, for an architectural journal, but just plain silly in the context of an article about interiors and the people who occupy them.

Kid-friendly? Why is that little girl playing with the fireplace?

I 100% agree with Anna. I am so tired of these contrived and staged photos of these super mod homes with families of 20 kids and there is not a toy or posession s in sight-Anywhere. Get real. If you have kids or just a life in general, a house will have more in it than this. I love how it states that the house is "Kid friendly". Yeah, maybe if your child is allergic to everything besides concrete. I am a modernist, but refuse to believe that a modern home must be stripped bare of anything. When there is nothing in the house, what is so inspiring about it? To conclude my rant, I have to say that the living room furniture is truly the ugliest set of furniture I have ever seen. Rant over.

Answer to my own question: Because there isn't a toy in sight.

These kids are gonna be messed up.

who makes those chairs and sofas? i know they've been featured on AT before.

eh, If New York Mag was coming over to my house I'd get the toys up off the floor, the kitchen counter cleared, and the newspaper and mail off my dining table too.

(I could never live with young kids and a pool like that, but that's another issue)

I think those are ligne roset sofas

yeah they are togo sofas from ligne roset. if i could afford them, i would have them in an instant

The sofa is Ligne Roset-Togo, I think.

I like the space. It's minimalist, and it's obviously what the homeowners wanted.

Those stairs are kid friendly... if the kid wears body armour and a helmet. And the back yard is kid friendly if the kid just happened to be born with functioning gills.

I do wish modern residential architecture would move beyond the generic square, flat-roofed box. Or if this style is here to stay, there should at least be some kind of a name for it a la colonial, Cape Cod, ranch, etc. I have a possible name: Ordwellian.

i like it...the fact that the neighbors are annoyed, annoys me. there are plenty of ugly houses with ugly decor around. I would take this place being next door to me than many of the alternatives out there. the child's room (not shown on this post) is sweet, colorful and lovely. I see nothing wrong with the parents choosing to confine the toys and playfulness to the child's room. That being said, I think the decor of the home is a bit sparse for me personally, but the design is fab.

It is disturbing to me that so many people have been commenting, in the contest and here, about bad parenting, based on a photograph of someone's house. Doesn't that seem like a giant leap of logic? It's not like we are seeing the kids' rooms, and know there are sharp edges and no toys.

I love the wall of stone. I like the house, too, although I'm not into the Ligne Roset sofas. I would prefer some planted areas by the pool, but it's their house, not mine.

I have to echo what fiona said - it seems to be coming up more frequently lately and it's a really nasty form of judging someone to decide you know that their kids are going to be screwed up based on what the parents' house looks like. If there were feces and insects crawling around I think we could all agree that was an unsafe environment for the kids, but you all have no idea what this person does to make their home safer for the kids when there aren't cameras around (ie gates on the stairs, cushioned corners on the hearth, that kind of thing).

Having said that, I like the house a lot. If it were mine it wouldn't be quite so minimalist, but I like the structure itself and I LOVE that gray wall.

The brick wall doesn't appeal to me based on the first photo, but then in the others, with more context, I really like it; it works.

If I had somebody photographing my house, I'd remove toys, etc. I would like to see an image of the "real" house - that would be an interesting feature in a magazine (the staged house vs. the real deal).

T8
www.strangeclosets.com

When design takes priority, the result is often strange closets.

I am not criticizing the Hsu's or their parenting skills. However, I do take umbrage with the notion that this house is anything resembling "kid friendly." There's nothing "deceptive" about it- this is a house of horrors for children. I certainly would not be comfortable letting any child of mine run around unsupervised in that house.

how is that comment NOT criticizing their parenting skills?

i actually have a 3 seater ligne roset sofa and two side chairs in red i am about to sell if anyone is interested. i'm in LA

jribic@yahoo.com

i have a bunch of pictures if anyone is interested

i don't understand why everybody thinks that a million toys are a sign of 'good' parenting. Just because a kid has an excess of brightly colored plastic pieces and polyester filled plush that will eventually become landfill does not mean he or she is well cared for. Children don't need cheap junk to enjoy playtime. Furthermore, the amount of parental attention given to the child trumps the amount of toys that child has in relativity to the quality of life that child is leading.

Hmm.

We just bought (another -- our second in 19 years) Togo set, and ultrasuede or not, (ours is) would not get it in white (we got red)... even the Roset sales people agree...

Yes, they have a housekeeper, but there will be a lot of stress around it keeping it white (keeping ball point pens and markers away, juices...)

That baby isn't even at the edge of the rug which seems to be a foot away from the fireplace. At least that's what I see with the kid's shadow being on the floor and not on the fireplace. But from the comments, she's one step away from playing with lit matches. The horror! And shouldn't children around that age not be left unsupervised anyways, no matter how kid-friendly a place looks?

Love the sofas and the pool and that grey brick wall. I like that the wall decals in the girls' room are removeable, so they can change it up depending on their mood.

I like the place, but I am not anti-clutter, so it does feel too empty for me, like they haven't actually moved in their things yet. But I think I could imagine moving in with my things. :)

Wait, are we critiquing the design of their house or their lifestyle? I don't understand the huge debates that come up around houses with kids. The thing is, when you live with kids, there will always be toys and such out. That's what kids do. But a well-designed home for kids will have places to put them away easily, which is exactly what you do when you are photographing the space for a home feature (but that's the photgrapher and/or art director's job - they could prop it a bit more of they wanted to).

For a family home, if anything, my aesthetic is to have the "put-away" state a bit too sparse, so when you are living your life and things are actually out you're not tripping over the visual clutter. Plus, more importantly for safety's sake, you don't want anything accessible that doesn't need to be - young kids will pull it over, get paint on it, stick it in their mouth and choke, etc.

Love the place - it stopped me in my tracks when I got the mag. The finishes, particularly the wall, are amazing. And fyi, the stairs are encased by a glass wall so kids don't fall off.

Overall, not my cup of tea. Just looking at the kitchen made me feel lonely - so bare and devoid of any signs of life. (Although that's probably the result of staging for the photo shoot, and it likely would not look that way when the family is using that fab table to prep for a bbq, as noted in the article.)

I did, however, like the master bathroom. The warmth of the wood floors balanced the grey (concrete?) walls and modernist lines nicely.

People are too wedded to the clutter of our present-day consumerism. Living like this isn't easy for folks who've been taught to buy buy buy junk junk junk, but it is achievable (and admirable).

Some in this thread said "get real" -- how about changing your idea of what real is?

I live just down the street from this house! My husband and I pass it all the time and have always wondered what it looked like inside. It's such a breath of fresh air in this neighborhood where all of the new construction is what we refer to as "Queens Fabulous" with lots of shiny chrome "rail-ry", busts of Athena and pink stucco. Seeing it in the actual context of the neighborhood, it is very subtle and we happen to like it very much. Then again, we feel like our nabe is starved for more stuff like this.

As for the comments about the poor parenting, give me a break! I grew up in a house about this kid-friendly and never once set the house on fire because the fireplace was low and we could reach it. I doubt very much the kids are "unsupervised" and these kind of comments don't belong on a site like this, in my opinion. Save your snark for UrbanBaby.

Are you people actually sitting at home in your sad pajamas criticizing the way these people raise their children...based on the way they have decorated their house?

Did one of you bitches actually write "I take umbrage"?

...Seriously?

You are laughable.

i just don't think it's smart to say the house is kid-friendly when you have stairs like that. or a pool with no fence.

just omit the phrase 'kid-friendly' from the article, no problem.

oboista- I was very happy to read your comment. My parents live in Queens and I grew up there and it pains me to see those awkward pink stucco monstrosities with the cemented front "yards" popping up in place of beautiful tudors or capes that really make the neighborhood.
I'm gad to hear that this house really works within the context of North Flushing.

Being a Queens native, you tend to think that these houses don't belong just because of the history and surroundings. But this house definitely has more taste than some of the other tackier new houses that I've seen being built. And it's also something new and fresh.
I also always wanted a pool growing up, and this one is very cool and different than your normal inground pool. Just wondering how the NY winters will treat it. And also wonder if that kitchen will get really cold with only (what seems to be) an exterior glass wall?
When I first read this article I thought it was pretty interesting that a house like this exists in Queens! I would like to have grown up in a place like this...
By the way, I don't like how so many people are so quick to judge on the "bad parenting" just by the looks of a house. These comments should be focused more on structure and design the house than on parenting skills.

Vladcole and erinorea - well put.

People need to get it out of their heads that uncluttered = soulless. Children should not be raised to take comfort in having crap lie around everywhere, which is what might result from growing up being used to a cluttered environment. When those kids become adults, they might need to surround themselves with more and more unnecessary things in order to feel secure. And in the context of our environmental problems, we need to reduce "stuff" as much as possible, not rejoice in it!

(Yeah, I may be reading a lot into it with all this psychoanalysis and whatnot, but man, so did some of these other commenters! Just wanted to take it to the other extreme to balance out the thread. hah.)

So anyway, in that sense, you might say that this is actually quite good parenting, no? I mean, judging from the pictures, at least... ;)