Color Wheel

Going through some old files, I found this sketch for a class on interior design that I taught ages ago...

At Home

That's the title of the latest Bill Bryson book (latest to me anyway).  The guy just has a way with explaining things!  At Home gathers research - and extremely odd facts - about pretty much everything around the modern western-style house, adding engaging, funny, and/or appalling background to our daily lives.

Some facts have that inevitable "duh!" quality of a truth we should have known, as with the appearance of the modern dining room.

Until the 18th century, people tended to eat where they happened to be.  In medieval times family, friends, servants, traveling strangers, their dogs, and rats all often lived, ate, and slept in the single great Hall.  (The kitchen might be the only other room.)  Through the 1700s houses developed more rooms, but these were (to us) strangely undifferentiated in use, all rooms - even bedrooms - were used for all purposes.  Chairs and "occasional" tables tended to live shoved against the walls until needed for a card game or a greasy snack.

But as expensive and easily stained upholstered furniture grew more commonplace, so did separate rooms for gravy.  Living rooms grew separate from dining ones.

Just think: if clear plastic sofa covers had been invented in the 15th C, Thanksgiving turkey with gravy might be traditional sofa food.

Family dinner, public domain image messed with.

So I'm working my way through this fun grab-bag of a book...

I've escaped the terrifying chapter on fleas, bedbugs, and rat infestations (put the lid down on the toilet - take my word for it -just do it!)  and am now reading about poisonous wallpaper and lead paints.  Fascinating stuff!

Architectural Field Trip

I finally went to visit Dallas' new Omni convention-hotel.

There had been a lot of controversy about this hotel: mostly about the city's share in financing, but also about its rather bland exterior.  It is, as hotels go nowadays, fairly staid and simple in its exterior look and there are a couple what-the? accidental looking lawns that could use further development into parks, but I was pleasantly surprised in walking up to the hotel by how gracious and welcoming its restaurant patios looked.

Omni Hotel Dallas patio - image from Omni Hotels 

Inside, the building was a rather clever mix of a basically simple timeless-Modern style architectural framework and trendier, more playful furnishings and lighting.  There was some downright silly furniture (Mies lounge in copper lame' ha!) that amused me.  I especially liked the odd metal mesh with crystals art pieces that hung above several seating areas suggesting chandeliers.  One of the cleverest uses of an under-the-stair space I've seen.  Beautiful photographs of Dallas.  Nice detailing - especially in wood - in the restaurant with the patio.  And a sports bar where, for once, giant TV screens seemed integral to the room... sorta the Times Square of bars.

And, speaking of Times Square, the hotel has terrifically cool night lighting - adding excitement to Dallas' skyline.

The Omni is on the far right, image from Omni Hotels

All in all, I'm now a fan of the hotel.  No question that it adds huge convenience for convention goers who stay here, but it also adds a LOT of new and much improved meeting space too.  This has to help Dallas.

I also wandered over to see the new work being done at the convention center itself.  Kinda fun.  The new meeting spaces have some real character.  There's a ballroom with a handsome series of photo-collage murals (though way too busy-patterned a rug and wall fabric) and a funny-cool glass meeting room that hangs pod-like over one of the big concourses.  All welcome improvements and additions.

Two Views: One Kitchen

Checking out BRW Creative (the architecture office's in-house blog) led me to these fascinating photos which perfectly illustrate the way architects versus non-architects can view the same space...  The architects tend to like it more austere; the civilians not so much.

This is the same room - all that has changed is the addition of a few (still pretty austere) bits of set dressing - a few blooming branches, a loaf of bread on a wood board, and a toaster - and that the second photo has more flattering side lighting, while the camera's view includes the warm wood floor and table.   

Imagine this room if those shelves were stacked with colorful Fiestaware plates and bowls and if the tables held colored vegetables? RED tomatoes?  GREEN peppers?  YELLOW squash?  As it is, the delicate pink of the blossoms has never seemed so powerful.

Set dressing.  (And color.)  Very important things.

I just noticed: the magazine also edited out a big air vent in that duct...  Cheat-y Photoshop-y.  Photos borrowed from Habitually Chic, originally from Domino magazine

Film Fest

In this here Film Fest there seems to be a strong revisiting-the-'80s thread.

Wall Street is 1980s to its core... yet still proves the enduring lure of greed.  I think I like it better than the latest riff, though mostly for the crazy joy of the period costumes.  And there was a great interior desecrator, um, decorator part where Daryl Hanna's character "decorates" ("designs" is sooo the wrong word here) the young greedy guy's condo.  (Condos - so '80s)  She has fake brick put over the real wall, then fake plaster fakely cracked over that, so there are just layers of faux all lovingly documented by the camera.  Perhaps that symbolism is a trifle heavy-handed?  But then, there was nothing subtle about the '80s either.