“This is the best thing to wear for today, you understand. Because I don’t like women in skirts, and the best thing is to wear pantyhose or some pants under a short skirt - I think – then you have the pants under the skirt, and then you can pull the stockings up over the pants, underneath the skirt, and you can always take off the skirt and use it as a cape. So I think this is the best costume for today. [Laughs.] I have to think these things up… you know! Mother wanted me to come out in a kimono, so we had quite a fight.”

I’ve been so irked by the fact that they’re making a new movie of Grey Gardens – was the Maysles‘ perfect documentary film not enough? – that I’ve been ignoring the latest wave of Grey Gardens fandom. But cult favourites all fall prey to the clumsiness of Hollywood eventually, and maybe now is probably the right time for Grey Gardens. Living large on nothing in the midst of galloping disrepair is an interesting allegory for the times, and maybe Grey Gardens mania is a more honest reaction to the current state of America than, say, the cultural offerings in the previous post. In an interview he did for in the Criterion DVD’s Special Features, Marc Jacobs talks about the clip from the real Grey Gardens, above, which shows the real Little Edie talking about her avant-garde outfit (the interview with him doesn’t seem to be on YouTube). Jacobs loves her DIY style and panache and mentions that her line “This is the best costume for today” has been the motto around his studio for years. Thanks to KEEHNAN for inspiring this by posting on Grey Gardens here and here, better than I could have, based on the amazing photos published by the NYT. Another video of Edie here.

Jonas Salk claimed that it wasn’t until he left his basement lab in the States and went to clear his head in a monastery in Assisi that he became able to solve the puzzle of polio. He thought that Assisi’s colonnaded walks, serene architecture and hillside views had provided the right mental conditions for the necessary creative and intellectual leap. This story is from the April edition of Scientific American, in an article on neuroscience by Emily Anthes titled “How Room Designs Affect Your Work and Mood.” Salk was so certain of the effect of Assisi’s architecture on his work that he later hired Louis Kahn to build the now famous Salk Institute (photos below), and the influence of Assisi is clearly visible – the simple, harmonious colonnades, the long vistas, the pale buttery colour of the stone. Some of the scientific findings in the article confirm what we might already have guessed, while others are more surprising. Lighter, brighter spaces with full-spectrum lighting increase alertness and help guard against depression and, later in life, against cognitive decline. Conversely, rooms intended mainly for relaxation should feature darker colours, dimmer lighting, fewer sharp edges on furniture and bookshelves (these activate the part of the brain that alerts us to danger), and more carpeting. Lower ceilings improve performance in detail-oriented tasks, whereas high ceilings encourage abstract creative thought. Views of nature, particularly distant trees and green space, are proven to significantly aid in creativity, concentration and memory (and in combatting ADD in children). It’s worth reading the whole article (click below).

It seems obvious that architecture would affect human behaviour and capabilities, and it’s exasperating that in the West we so often have to reinvent the wheel, usually by employing science to restore such knowledge – in this case architectural and kinaesthetic knowledge – that has been developed over centuries and even millennia in other places. I’m thinking of the carefully worked-out design of monasteries and churches as places that generate inspiration and contemplation for example, or the genius of  Japanese house design. But if we have to reinvent the wheel, then I guess we have to reinvent the wheel. In the 60s and 70s the field of environmental psychology made a lot of headway in this area, and now after a long lull, interest in the effect of architectural design on human behaviour seems to be on the rise again. The BC Cancer research building in Vancouver was built with these ideas in mind.

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Selgas Cano is a Spanish architecture firm, and this long glass tube in a little wooded ravine is the Madrid office they’ve built for themselves. The shutters over the clear roof are retractable (see the photo of the pulleys at bottom). The building seems to have inspired some wildly varying reactions from those who either find it beautiful and inspiring or who feel it’s a cramped, claustrophobic, unventilated bunker or train car – see the archdaily link to see what I mean. The superb photos are by architectural photographer Iwan Baan. Via archdaily via kenmat and maxchad. PS Both fans and detractors of this space may want to read a recent Scientific American article on the neuroscience of how room design affects work, creativity and mood. Two relevant points are that low ceilings facilitate detail work while high ceilings facilitate abstraction; and that views of nature improve creativity, focus and memory. This space offers all of those advantages – natural views, as well as ceilings that are both low and high, depending on the retraction of the roof and on which part of the room you’re in.

This post is a personal addendum to our earlier post about a discussion amongst readers of another design blog about whether one designer had copied or “borrowed” another designer’s idea. We certainly didn’t mean to imply that the second designer copied the first, because those things are impossible to know, and he may well not have, and in any case his design diverged significantly from hers. Anyway, here’s a trivial case from our own experience, and it’s just one among many. It’s about army blanket pillows, which we had thought were our exclusive idea but which of course were not.

We hadn’t seen the others until ours began to get some press, and then we realized other people were making them too. Who came first? Do others think we’re copycats, or are they copycats, or is affordable army surplus just in the air, like the warfare version of Depression-Era Chic? It’s nearly impossible to know, and anyway the very idea of pure originality is suspect. Design is a fertile field of rampant cross-pollination, and we hope it remains a fertile field rather than a minefield of intellectual property rights. In any case, as they say, there’s nothing new under the sun. Click below to follow our design process. The photograph at very top is from here – we think the pillows pictured are probably by Red Barn. Directly above, one of our favourite photos, bench pillows from Italian Elle Decor, Summer 2004. Below, pillows by us.

PS You can make your own army blanket pillows. We’ll post a DIY soon. In the meantime, check out your local army surplus for blankets or look here. Our story about why we decided to make these pillows, below.

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