Before her tenure at Dwell, Sarah was immersed in blog culture as managing editor of the green design and architecture site, Inhabitat.com, and the sustainable solutions site, Worldchanging.com. When not working in design, Sarah writes, talks and forecasts about food and consumer culture.
I'm in the air en route to Minneapolis for the American Craft Council's annual conference, where a number of writers, artists, makers, scholars and others will gather to discuss the future of craft.
A trip to New York City is inevitably a whirlwind, whether it's your first visit or your five hundredth. Even a day in the life of a local usually happens at high speed. And while the sea of taxis and tangle of subway lines pull a lot of weight when it comes to transporting the city's millions, New York is a pedestrian's metropolis to be sure.
On day two at Cersaie—a very warm, sunny day in Bologna—the booth of tile manufacturer Mutina hummed with excitement over a visit from design celeb Patricia Urquiola (whose work is featured in the new issue of Dwell). This is the second year Urquiola has worked with Mutina designing a line known as Déchirer (meaning "to tear" in French).
Our first stop on day one of our week of tile-mania at Cersaie was at the booth of tile manufacturer Trend, an Italian company that makes enamel, quartz, granite and glass tile. Their space was decked out with green glass bottles—a symbol of their commitment to environmentally-responsible practices, which includes maintaining a team of researchers who track the company's environmental footprint and look for new technologies to improve their production process. Their dedicated website, Trend in Green, explains some of their practices in greater depth.
I spent last week at Cersaie, the annual trade show held each year in Bologna, Italy, featuring the latest in ceramic tiles and bath fixtures. When my hosts told me ahead of time to pack comfortable shoes in preparation for walking "miles of tiles," they weren't exaggerating—Cersaie fills dozens of football field-size exhibition halls, buzzing with over 100,000 people who come from around the world to survey the fruits of one of Italy's most prized industries. Having returned from my trek and soaked my feet a while, I've rounded up a handful of trends spotted at Cersaie that you're likely to see in tile in the coming months.
This weekend's SF20 Modernism Show and Sale opened to the public this morning at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. Dwell editors Aaron Britt and Sarah Rich took a spin around the floor and found some excellent mid-century furniture and art, exhibited by gallerists from around the country. We picked out some of our favorite items and put together a slideshow for those of you who can't make it to the show. But for readers who are Bay Area locals, do check out the show yourself. Even if you're not there to take a piece home, it's worth admiring the goods.
We recently received a letter from a reader, Kristy Krone, after she read the article Hive Design in our September issue, which takes a peek at a rooftop apiary above a Toronto hotel. Krone, a recent graduate of California State University's Interior Design program, had been working on a hive of her own—this one for human habitation. She was kind enough to share the concept with Dwell readers.
While most Dwell readers know Artek as the Finnish design company founded by Alvar and Aino Aalto, there's another Artek not too far away with a very different profile: a research and training branch of the Danish Technical University called the Arctic Technology Centre (Artek for short). This past summer, students from the university worked with Artek to design a mobile cottage for Arctic tourists that would have a light footprint but still be heavy duty enough for the extreme conditions.
A great sigh of relief gave way to early anticipation as we sent off our first ever Dwell Special Issue last week. The little book, called Make It Yours, will be on the stands later this month and for three months following, so keep your eyes out. It features tips and information from some of our best featured stories to help you create what you've seen in the pages of Dwell at home. Until then, find all your tips here, starting with this week's picks from around the Web.
San Francisco's Mission District is known for its vibrant and often contrasting cultures—Mexican paleta wagons share the sidewalk with Twittering hipsters slinging crème brulée, produce markets sell tropical fruit and dried chiles beneath gilted Victorians, and murals line otherwise neglected alleyways. But it was far from all of this Mission buzz where architect Malcolm Davis and his partner, chef Thomas Brian Lackey, decided to turn a run-down building into a high-design home for their shared passions. On a retail-free stretch of Folsom Street, Stable Cafe has become a new anchor for the community.
