2thewalls is the closest thing on the internet to the much-missed and now cult-status Nest: Quarterly of Interiors. Finding 2thewalls is a bit like falling down the rabbit hole, and not just because reading it feels like deciphering text printed on a zebra crossing. Like Nest, 2thewalls is concerned with the way people actually live in architecture, and, also similar to Nest, 2thewalls somehow illuminates reality’s tendency to take on an almost Alice in Wonderland quality. In design, reality really is stranger than fiction, and both publications get this across not just through unconventional subject matter and design, but also by providing interesting historical context in such a way that it overturns our more banal assumptions about where objects and styles come from. I find it a welcome refuge from the massive decontextualization of styles and objects that most decor magazines and blogs (tumblr! I’m talking to you!) are guilty of, something that I think flattens our experience of the design around us and converts it into an exhausting avalanche of commodities. 2thewalls always makes me think, and it has the additional knack of somehow digging up things that I’ve once loved but have then lost or forgotten. A long time ago I cut out these two photos (above and below) from a vintage garage-sale copy of Architectural Digest: a blue fold-out writing desk in the shape of a hippo, and an old wooden staircase out of a folk tale, but I lost them and never saw them again until they resurfaced on 2thewalls. I’m showing this work only because it’s a favourite of mine, but there is so much more there to look at on 2thewalls. All of the work shown here  is by Atelier Lalanne, and you really should go to 2thewalls to read the original accompanying text. Photos here, all except for the last two, are courtesy of 2thewalls and were taken from the February 1981 issue of AD, and are by Marc Lacroix. 2thewalls is a project of New York designer Keehnan Konyha.

The table by Francois-Xavier Lalanne, above, is easily disassembled into 5 round bistro tables. Below, Francois-Xavier (inset) and Claude Lalanne. The two pieces at bottom – a frog that opens into a chair and a necklace that seems to have been made in ancient Greece – both sold recently at auction. A comprehensive book on Atelier Lalanne work is Claude & Francois-Xavier Lalanne and see also Claude & Francois-Xavier Lalanne: Fragments.

This writing studio somehow comes as no suprise. James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Dahl’s disturbing adult stories were written in this cramped, somewhat decrepit room. From The New York Times Magazine, 2006. Roald Dahl died in 1990; the house and studio are now a museum. Take a 3D tour of the shed here.

It was a surprise to see this little piece of Canadiana on Dahl’s door – apparently it was a longstanding family joke.

I love this art object/piece of furniture by artist Fia Backstrom, who has had a number of exhibitions in Vancouver. From the NYT article “Artful Lodgers“:

Fia Backstrom describes her apartment near the Gowanus Canal as a perpetual battle between organization and chaos. ‘‘It is simultaneously studio and bed in one,’’ she says. But she has silence, solitude and a full view of the sky. Backstrom’s question-mark chaise was part of her summer show, ‘‘that social space between speaking and meaning,’’ at White Columns, and the wallpaper is her 2003 work ‘‘1.000.000 people incl. satellite suburbs.’’ Her shows ‘‘A Choreographed Exhibition’’ at Le Centre d’Art Contemporain de la Ferme du Buisson in France and ‘‘Pottery and Poetry’’ at the Apartment in Vancouver, Canada, both open this month, and she is currently reading ‘‘The K. Protocol,’’ a book of haiku by the artist Karl Holmqvist, whom Backstrom calls ‘‘pivotal to my practice.’’

There’s something compelling about Ray Eames’ desk area, papered with work and photographs. Many people seem to have a ferocious aversion to clutter these days, but artists like to have materials and visual stimulation at hand in their studios and there’s some evidence that this supports the creative process. Charles Eames’ desk was interesting too, if a bit more austere. They each had the same beautiful adjustable trestle drafting table, but Ray sat facing her bulletin board full of images while Charles sat facing out into the room, and I’m sure there are plenty of theories about that. Photos are from Eames Office.

When we can’t stand the sewing machines anymore in this Vancouver heat wave, we can go out and graze on or just gaze on the organic greens we planted outside the studio door: herbs, lettuce, arugula, chives, tomatoes, artichokes, peas, strawberries, chard and kale. For pest control reasons and to boost nutrients, we planted them with yarrow, zinnias, clover, petunias and nasturtiums. The fence was made from the encroaching bamboo grove next door. When whitefly began to move into the bamboo, hordes of bush tits and dragonflies flew in to eat them.