The Ace Hotel & Swim Club

Great design helps us humans enjoy comfortable, modern lives and since many dogowners consider their furry friends members of their families too, shouldn’t they also benefit from good design? That's the idea behind BARKitecture CHIQue 2009, a doghouse design competition and auction that I'm here in Palm Springs, California, to help to judge and which takes place Friday, May 1 to benefit Gilda’s Club Desert Cities California.

Palm Springs is a city steeped in mid-century modern architecture and speckled with homes by design legendaries like John Lautner, W. Stewart Williams, William Krisel, Lloyd Wright, so these are not going to be your everyday doghouses but ones with thoughtful, regional, eco- and, of course, pet-friendly designs.

The BARKitecture CHIQue 2009 event takes place at the Ace Hotel and Swim Club on Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. and will feature the doghouses on display followed by an awards presentation of the top three winners and a live auction of those winner (the remaining designs will be sold in at silent auction). The proceeds benefit Gilda’s Club Desert Cities California, a support organization for people whose lives have been affected by cancer.

Check out this video clip by local station KPSP to see some of the designs that will be on display. To attend BARKitecture CHIQue 2009 call Total Marketing Partners at 760-323-3338 for tickets, $25 each. If you’re able to make it to the event, be sure to find me and say hello!      —Miyoko Ohtake
 

With a bevy of design fairs taking place in New York this week, it was impossible to venture far in the city without stumbling across an exhibition of new design.

Seattle-based readers (and online shoppers with a passion for fashion) may be well aware of Totokaelo, the Capitol Hill-based purveyor of avant-garde design.

To celebrate the conclusion of Palm Springs Modernism Week, the good folks at de Lab are hosting "PS Modernists: Insider Stories." Ever imagine what it was like to hang out with Albert Frey or sip martinis with John Lautner and Julius Shulman? Moderated by Sam Heaton, "Insider Stories" is a rare opportunity to meet the original modernists—long-time residents who lived and worked with key figures during the birth of modernism in Palm Springs. Speakers include Jean Farrar, Albert Frey's long-time companion, Leland Lee, an 8-year colleague of Julius Shulman, and Mathew Sumich, an artist and landscape designer who frequently collaborated with John Lautner, Donald Wexler, William Cody, and Albert Frey, among others. A reception at the Ace Hotel follows the panel discussion.