Have a seat, playa

Despite my deep deep burning love for hip hop (seriously) I'm sort of guessing that this will be my first and last post on a dyed in the wool hip hop genius.  I really don't see myself typing this sentence more than once:  Grammy-winner, skateboarder, Neptunes producer, and Jay-Z BFF, Pharrell Williams has teamed up with French design powerhouse Domeau & Peres to create the sexiest chair known to mankind.  Behold, The Perspective Chair:

I've been seeing lots of animal furniture lately but none of them were, uh, doin it and, nope, no people in sight.  I totally feel all lame and dorky like Vincent Libretti from project runway 3 when I say, this chair turns me on.  Pharrell and I are from the same hometown, but sadly, we never met.  This chair makes me want to go back - several - years and sign up for bandcamp so homeboy could (cover your eyes ma) treat me like he treats this chair.  Ok, that was gross.  Anyway, I'm in love with everything about this seat, the red lacquer (LOVE lacquer anything), the arch of her foot, the shape of the seat.  Must. Have. One.

The chair, as well as a second chair design and a table will be part of a show in Paris at the prestigious Emmanuel Perrotin Galerie from October 21, 2008 - January 10, 2009.  After which it will go into production in various colors with only FOUR VERSIONS OF EACH up for sale.  sigh.

Matt had a plaster mold making & fiberglass experimentation stretch last year, which I begged him to quit due to the yucky nasty fumes but I'm wondering if we should resurrect it to make our own version of this hot little number.  Get your mind out of the gutter, we'd just make a chair.

If you love the perspective chair but don't want your guests to have sex on the brain, you may also heart these:

The "Made In China" collection created by London Design Team Julie Mathias and Wolfgang Kaeppner of WOKmedia.  Each piece is unique and created from traditional chinese furniture retrofitted with handcarved toys and finished in... here it comes... white lacquer.  What do you think, should we go buy some toys from the thrift store and paint those bitches white, or what?  WOKmedia is a virtual design playground, expect to see more on them from me later.  For now, here's a last look:

Hotel it on the mountian

Whenever I think of hotels the first thought in my mind is that scene from Revenge of the Nerds 2 where they stay at the hotel coral essex, throw a wild party and change the sign to read hot oral sex.  ha ha, it makes me giggle.  Unlike the hilarity of the classic film hotel, the hotels I've been dreaming about lately are so insane awesome I've been crying a river of tears.  I've also been wondering:  is it OK to plan a vacation just to visit a hotel?  Do I really even need to worry about the city when the lodgings are so posh?  I'm almost ready to stop funding on my remodel just to go on a global inspirational tour... but not quite.  Until then, I'll be virtually vacationing right here with you.  Enter, the first column in my world-wide hotel expose, first up:  the Hotel Fox in, of course, the design holy land, Copenhagen.

clockwise from top left: room 408 "Cultivated Nature is More Fun" Eike König and Martin Lorenz Frankfurt - Germany room 407 "Strong enough / Forte o Bastante" Speto – Brazil room 121 "Sleep Seasons" Rinzen – Australia room 409 "Heidi" Benjamin Güdel –  Switzerland

We've all seen plenty of (really amazing) hotels who've employed the work of famed designers to decorate a room or floor or lobby, but this project differentiates itself by using street artists.  Over 1000 artists submitted applications to design their own room, the owners (funded by, ahem, Volkswagen) selected the creme de la creme.  And now I want to go there and live for a week at a time in each room.  This room jumped right out at me:

I'm planning a black and white (and lime!) bedroom for myself so the above, room 206 sent me into a decorating frenzy.  French street artist (get this), WK interact, designed custom wallpaper for this sexy room. After playing shut in for 3 or 4 days, I'll probably want more color, so I'll move down the hall to this swanky pad:

This room personifies everything that is right with design:  stuffed animals, check; raccoon, dog and llama wallpaper, check; sacred heart motif with low-level lighting, check. I think I could just as easily achieve this look if I packed a suitcase and moved into Hope Perkins's warped little mind.  Actually, this room was designed by Miami based artists Sam and Tury of friends with you.  Who are you guys?  I love you and thanks for being friends with me.

If 206 and 214 are all booked up, I'd love to stay here:

room 217 by German artist Birgit Amadori, featuring layers of wallpaper and handpainting.  More contenders:

"Sleep Well" Room 106 by French Artist Geneviève Gauckler.  (I wonder why it's in english??)

I'd have a coin toss for any of these beautifully sterile rooms:

counterclockwise from top left: room 306, "pico pico" Kim Hiorthøy –Norway room 414, "Complexity - reliability" E-Types – Denmark room 502, "hearts, the royal wedding" Nicola Carter and Luise Vormittag - UK room 317, "monday" Kim Hiorthøy – Norway

Looks like I like this Kim Hiorthøy girl, I think I smell a future post coming on

Here are some last looks:

room 509 "King's Court 1" Birgit Amadori - Germany.

All that wallpaper is custom, which brings the heartbreaking factor of this room up to about 752million.  

room 302 " Harmony’s Helm" Friendswithyou –  U.S.A.

Right now I'm learning the hard way that tile isn't so cheap and neither are giant gold gilded bull heads, go figure.  I think a trusty plane ticket is in order.

proto-tight

When I groggily gazed at the computer this morning, a post on modern austin acted as a virtual bag of smelling salts for my dreary eyes:  turns out that the delightful ladies of Prototype on South Congress are putting one of their houses on the market.  Audrey?  Emily?  Not sure which one of these cutie pies is moving but they're selling a house I would never want to leave.  Take a gander:

Clearly the crown jewel of the estate, this bath makes my heart go pitter pat.  It's also a great reconciliation between the great debate at my house:  I want a double shower, matt wants a tub. Voila, we'll have both, all  flanked by lovely tile and luxurious hardwoods.  Here's more:

le exterior.  looks like Jen Perkin's colorful house But wait, that's not all:

Is it just me or does all the furniture seem a little too close to the walls?  There's so much space, let's see a more dynamic arrangement.  Otherwise, the space is clearly freakin perfection.  I don't even know which piece of furniture to point out they're all so damn marvelous.  Hopefully they'll end up at the store for sale once the house goes off the market.  Here's one more thing I want you to see:

adorable patio.  Oh, and one more thing:

I've already suffered through life with a red bedroom and will never go back, it was good for a while but then got old.  HOWEVER, j'adore le platform!  What a great way to divide up space.  My master is gigundus and I've been keeping myself up at night trying to think of the best way to break that puppy up.  Of course!  A platform, I'm seeing a lovely light wood... or dark.  

Oh!  That reminds me, I just picked up some fabric samples from Fanny's Fabrics for my new sofa, keep your fingers crossed that I'll have a couch redux update soon!

kisses!