Life: Co-Operative

08/10/10

Living in a Room of Value, Innovation, Craft & Authenticity

Raise your hand if you’re tired of the word and concept of “luxury”.

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07/29/10

Elements of a Room

The Hampton's Showhouse, Paris Ceramics

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07/19/10

The French Farm: Greenwich

The successful marriage of landscape design and architecture.

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06/24/10

What Do You Love? What Makes YOU Smile?

Lisa Perry saw the Carl Fischer photograph of Andy Warhol drowning in a sea of soup, and must have immediately thought to herself, “this art would be a phenomenal dress”. She smiled and bought the rights and now she sells them in her shops. www.lisaperrystyle.com

andy

Is it Eero Saarinen’s work that you love? Is it his architecture or furniture design? Or both? Perhaps he’s not your cup of tea. A wonderful tour of his work has been circling the globe since last year. Did you catch it?

For me, it’s both, but especially his furniture designs and that...

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05/17/10

Throwing My Arms Around Mixed-Use Architecture & Development

Architecture should make us alert to the conflicts that shape the modern city rather than conceal them.

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04/15/10

Grant Wood: American Painter & Inspiration

Do you use art in your home decoration? Do you think about it? How do you use art in your home decoration?

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03/23/10

Nation's Top Decorator's Show House Cancelled

This post is a follow-up to my post when I announced the Designers of the Show House.

The Kips Bay Decorator Show House is an annual fundraiser for the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club wherein big-name interior designers dress up a pricey Manhattan home for those interested in design ideas from around the nation to tour. Only this year, there's no home. . . now.

The Show House raises roughly $1 million annually for the club. Each year, a host of distinguished designers are recruited to do up a room in a multi-million dollar Manhattan mansion or townhouse on the market, and oglers pay $30 to salivate over the exquisiteness of it all (the photo above is from the...

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03/09/10

Nation's Top Decorator Showhouse in NYC Announces Designers

"Showhouses are built on fantasy, and the most amazing fantasies of all are seen each Spring at the Manhattan showhouse to benefit the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club." —House Beautiful

It's that wonderful time of year again! Time to get excited about the 2010 Kips Bay Decorator Show House! For the first time ever, the Show House will be housed on the Upper West Side in a magnificent 19th Century Renaissance Revival limestone mansion at 26 West 76th Street. The Pre-Renovation Party was held on Tuesday 3/2 where I attended and this year's Designer's were announced.

The show opens to the public on April 30, 2010.

So, I give you the class of 2010!
Congratulations to...

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03/04/10

Design Trends: Wallpaper is Back!

You may have heard rumblings. You may have heard galloping or wind whirling about in late 2007 or early 2008, but for sure in 2009. It wasn’t fashion. It wasn’t entertainment and it CERTAINLY wasn’t politics. What you heard was the triumphant return of wallpaper . . . also known as wallcoverings.

Yes, embrace it. Cover yourself in it and roll around on the floor in it sans the glue paste or wetting it first. Love it. Smell it, but don’t lick it.

Personally, the return of wallpaper is terrific news. We’ve come a long way baby! This isn’t your mother’s trellis with birds paper – well, there still...

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02/15/10

The Architecture of Politics at Ground Zero

I wrote this blog because, frankly, I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening with the architecture at ground zero. So I purchased and just finished reading “UP FROM ZERO: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York” by Paul Goldberger (the architecture critic for The New Yorker) and "Sixteen Acres: Architecture and the Outrageous Struggle for the Future of Ground Zero" by Philip Nobel (a writer who was trained as an architect). I’ve also scanned articles from The New York Times....

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02/04/10

An Old New Way To See Art AND Artists Who Use Text To Say Nice Things

Mickey Smith
PERCEPTION, 2008

There was something abundantly more to Peggy Guggenheim and Holly Solomon than their eccentricities, proclivities, business sense and style. They knew that viewing and showing art in a comfortable place where folks could relax, lounge and thrash out what they were seeing could be good for the soul. They also knew good art and had a sense for discovering / championing fresh talent. Guggenheim = Pollack. Solomon = Mapplethorpe.

Like the Salon’s of Paris, Venice, and New York of another era, Curators are blossoming in this age of joblessness and uncertainty. What’s...

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01/29/10

Color & Pattern Trends. Inspiration in Interior Design.

Most of the world heard last December that Pantone declared turquoise the color of the year for 2010. Really? Excuse me?

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About This Blog

LIFE: CO-OPERATIVE — a blog that dips into art, architecture and design

Contributor

Lane Brooks is a creative type who has written for House & Garden, Time Out New York, Details, and Food and Wine. He's produced for HBO, Showtime and LOGO and owns his own creative, design and public relations agency. He's putting the final touches on his first novel and longs for a world where everything is beautiful and interesting.

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