Power Struggle

I've decided that a nutty three year old girl lives within Karim Rashid's colorful candy shell. Her name is Karina, and she likes to assert her tyrannical childishness by forcing him to indulge in attention seeking acts of blobby decorating, while using all the colors of the crayola rainbow. I can imagine it must be a PR nightmare trying to keep both halves of a schizophrenic designer together during photoshoots... does Karina pull at Karim's glasses and demand apple juice and Dora the Explorer?

Dear Karim, the pink Converse shoes Karina picked out for you are rather natty, but I'm concerned about those Alexander Girard tattoos... Oh wait, those are "your" designs. I think you have only yourself to blame for that judgment call. On the other hand, I'm kind of liking what she did with your extra special Fisher Price weekend house.

She's a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world.

Kid friendly leather, soft rounded edges, and a magic marked up carpet, all suggest Karina's tiny helping hands. But what's up with the big red question? A plea for recognition, perhaps? A subliminal stamp on the room?

Toys and tvs in the bathroom -- a kid definitely designed this place. Plus, it's looking a lot like Yo Gabba Gabba up in this hizzy. You be the judge:

Can you even tell which one is the cartoon, and which is the house? I didn't think so.

Still, there are a few signs of adult life in this home. I'm sure this followed a major Karim/Karina showdown, wherein Karina whined for 678459 hours straight, and Karim plugged his ears and belted out some Moby tunes, which would undoubtedly destroy any child's will to power.

And then Little K let Big K have a grown up(ish) office space.

And also this artwork that keeps threatening to reveal some very adult information... or maybe that's just me.

I'm not sure which K is responsible for the world's most amazing diving board, or these glorious windows, so I guess I'll have to award both a shiny gold star.

I suppose K squared make a pretty good team, all things considered. The both share a love of dress up, and you know they like to get together and talk about Me Me Me. I'm really not sure why Karim doesn't just embrace his inner Karina, and shout it from the rooftops that he loves having a little girl inside him... Well, maybe not in exactly those words.

Dude, you're not fooling anyone.

(all photographs by Richard Powers)

Beware the Blob

It's heading right for us! During the late 50's and 60's, biomorphic design took over homes everywhere with its blobby, soft forms and rounded edges, only to be quashed by the hard shapes and blunt, straight lines of the sleek 70's. Fast forward to the current design crisis (har har), which endlessly recycles past trends to form a patchwork pastiche of eclectic styles. Translation: ain't nothing new under the sun. So it should come as no surprise that the blob is back, in all its space age, plasticized glory.

As architect Greg Lynn, designer of the Bloom House, would have us believe, Blobitecture is a way of life -- which is fine, so long as I can snag that coffee table in my local furniture shop. Hubba hubba, that sucka is bubblicious.

But a great deal of the house is characterized not by its furnishings, but by its groovy custom built ins (many of which were made with Corian, the new plastic), lack of ornament, and clean, white spaces.

Of course the vast expanses of white are punctuated by flashy shots of color, often in the form of creepy little Japanime characters. It's like minimalism for disturbed 5 year olds.

Perhaps taking a cue from Takashi Murakami, there's a vaguely psychotic undercurrent to the art and sculpture present in the home. The whole house reads like a sterilized acid trip.

Have I mentioned before that my own tastes tun toward the vaguely psychotic? Love those prints by Malcolm Venville -- I really have a thing for wrestlers right now. And the wood frame on Lynn's Duchess Chair warms the room up a bit. I could live here.

But did I forget to tell you that the home owners are Oprah rich? Apparently the lights above the breakfast nook are by Damien Hirst, who probably charged a $987,436 dollar fee for the design. Eight Ikea lights arranged in a circle should create a reasonably good facsimile for about $987,336 less.

However, if you've got a zillion Benjamins burning yet another hole in your threadbare hobo jeans, you can purchase one of Lynn's Recycled Toy Tables. Who doesn't want a pile of overgrown eggplants grinning up at you WITH TEETH while you slurp down your morning Toasty O's?

Lest ye think that Lynn has an, ahem, corner on the blob market, may I redirect your attention to the ever zany Karim Rashid's blobtacular loft?

Well, for a guy who likes to create pink blobby bathroom vanities and tubs, I would say this is practically restrained, wouldn't you?

Or perhaps you prefer the designed by My Little Ponies look of Rashid's home furnishings line? The graffitied signature is so "Barbie wuz here, but now she's gone. She's left her name to carry on..."

Back to Rashid's loft. Did I actually use the word "restrained" in the first picture???

I take it back. But I actually do kind of dig the desk, which I expect would inspire grandiose, pink tinged blog postings about wildly surreal furniture.

I guess -- if you can't already tell -- I feel a litte conflicted about The Blob. On one hand, it's sort of extremely infantile. On the other hand, I think I actually like these table lamps designed by Rashid.

What do you think, smart and savvy readers? Would you ever live in these spaces, or do they bring back nightmares of the blob in your closet that summer you did all those drugs? You can tell me. The blob can't hurt you here.