ikea pick: 16-drawer cabinet

We can imagine lots of ways to use this 16-drawer cabinet from Ikea, PS Sinka($249). It is made out almost entirely of solid birch (except for drawer bottoms and back), so doesn’t stand the chance of being chipped like a laminate. It could be easily taken off its base and hung on the wall, placed on…

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how to haul stuff on a bike shanghai-style

While in Shanghai a year or so ago, photographer Alain Delorme became fascinated by the extraordinary loads carried by migrants on their bicycles and other rigged vehicles: “piles of stacked ‘made in china’ products which form unusual sculptures…loads of tires, water containers, office chairs, flowers…” The images are amazing, though we find the title Manufactured Totems and…

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dishtowel as….

At Mill Valley Beerworks in California, they use .49 red-striped cotton Tekla dishtowels from Ikea as cloth napkins. They are reminiscent of classic French provincial tea towels. You can’t get any cheaper than that for a good-looking resource that invites improvisation: placemats, gift wrapping…stitched-together to become a pillow cover or… mapped with stripes going horizontally…

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more improvising at the beach – in black tie

Improv Everywhere is devoted to “causing scenes of chaos and joy in public places”. Over the years, they have invited anyone-who-wants-to to participate in their missions which have included Cell-Phone Symphonies to No Pants Subway Rides. In the latest, they instructed their agents to appear at Coney Island dressed in tuxedos and ball gowns bought at thrift stores…

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improvising at the beach

Until our recent vacation, we hadn’t been to the beach for so long that we’d forgotten what wonders lay there: raw materials free for the playing with… …Our friend James brought a ball with him, then hunted for the perfect piece of driftwood, for a pick-up game of stickball (and we realized that we never…

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the unexpected delights of a real dictionary

…While we’re on the subject of bound dictionaries, largely considered an anachronism these days, we loved finding a dictionary on a stand at Zeitgeist Coffee in Seattle. We found ourselves flipping through randomly to discover a few odd words and ideas we never would have found otherwise: teeny surprises in our day, and a reminder

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thinking about structures from the inside out

We came across this coupling of essential quotes when we were poking around John Zernings blog about Garden Trellises and Architectural Space Frames. “Applied to architecture and structure, the former is primarily an aesthetic position; the latter is a principle of economy.” wrote Zerning. We find both immensely useful, and made a sign to remind…

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