The Kitchen Mogul strikes again

Anybody who spends any time around this blog knows that I love to find new finds from all over the net. I don't care if it's a new product or a new website, the amount of great content and great people out there is staggering. Well a couple of weeks ago I made the acquaintance of someone on Twitter who goes by the nom de net The Kitchen Mogul.

The Kitchen Mogul and I have struck up an enjoyable repartee on Twitter and he writes a really great blog called Kitchen Design Think Tank. The man knows what he's talking about and his experienced eye is forever combing the internet for new ideas related to kitchen design. He reminds me in a lot of way of my pal Johnny Grey, who's another one who's forever rethinking his (and my) assumptions.

I've added Kitchen Design Think Tank to my blogroll and I'm recommending giving his blog a good read. He's relatively new at all this, so pop over and say hello. He's a high-end designer who knows what he's talking about.

The Mogul sent me some photos and a description of of kitchen that won a Design Award in London last week and I'm pretty taken with it. He sent along too a description of it from the designer, Darren Morgan from Glenvale Kitchens in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The kitchen's now in a showroom in Norther Ireland but it began it's life at a trade show. Designing a single kitchen that will fit into two, wildly dissimilar spaces is a level of complication I don't even want to think about.

The kitchens broken into five work zones; consumables, non-consumables, cleaning, preparation and cooking; and it has a real, 750 liter aquarium in its back splash.

I love how seamlessly it fits into the room it's in and I am completely taken with that island.

From the designer:

I wanted this kitchen to literally come alive within the architecture surrounding it while still performing beyond expectation on functional level.

My aim is to encourage a relationship between user and kitchen right down to knowing the names of the fish and having the functionality tailored to the user’s lifestyle.

The remotely operated doors and custom made aquarium breathe life into this kitchen while the island introduces softer geometry and mood setting colour.  This kitchen fits any social occasion or time of day and can sit in a "Standby" and an "In Use" position!

Achieving ergonomic efficiency and aesthetical satisfaction on every level is the reason for this design.

Technology:

A Servo Drive electric opening system is used on all doors and drawers. This includes the only remotely operated opening system for wall units available in the world (At the time of design).

The aquarium heating, lighting, filtration and circulation systems use the most efficient technology available.

Innovation:

Kitchen aquariums are common, a living splash back is not!

The island is unconventional introducing soft geometry, energy efficient extraction and interactive lighting.

This kitchen is attempting to be evolutionary in that it is completely functional, completely automated, can be in a standby or an in-use position and offers entertainment and companionship to the user.

I'll take two! Many thanks to The Kitchen Mogul and his blog Kitchen Design Think Tank for passing all that along. Now go pay him a visit and tell him I said hello.

This is the check that Don wrote

This is the check that Don wrote in the Mad Men episode when Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce dropped out of the Honda RFP.

Here's Don's building in case you're wondering. 104 Waverly Place is in Greenwich Village, on the corner of McDougal and Waverly, across the street from Washington Square Park.

AMC has a season four scrapbook on their website that's chock full of these sorts of odds and ends that produce paroxysms of glee among Mad Men fans. Check it out. All hail Rufus the Dog from Dog Walk Blog for pointing it out to me.

My first cover

Thanks to Floor Covering Weekly for putting yours truly on the cover of their issue this week. Man, many thanks to the terrific folks behind this. I know who you are.

So this week it's Floor Covering Weekly and mark my words, I'm not stopping until I make the cover of Us Weekly. Hah! Here's the link: Floor Covering Weekly

Broken tile on purpose

Massimiliano Adami is a highly regarded Italian designer who's been working with Ceramiche Refin, a tile manufacturer located outside of Modena. His latest project is called Terraviva and it involves purposely cracking large-format floor tile and then setting it.

The idea being that it's imperfections that make life interesting, so why not set a few right into the floor?

This is not a graphic that's been printed onto this tile, the tile's actually broken and the cracks are grouted in.

You can see it a little more clearly in this close-up.

It's an interesting idea, and I like the idea of embracing imperfections. However, The idea of setting out with a goal of making imperfections kind of bothers me. I could get used to it with a little effort though.

What do you guys think? Embrace imperfections as they crop up or set out with the goal of making imperfections? Would you ever install something like this in your home? Are Ceramiche Refin and Massimiliano Adami onto something?

Black stripes are always right

I get hundreds of press releases and product announcements every week, it comes with the territory. That's not a complaint. Not at all. I welcome those things and I find they are the easiest way for me to keep up with what's going on in my field.

I received one yesterday from Flambeau Lighting and the release featured this photo.

I love it. I love the pendants, I love the room. I love how the stripes from the shade continue up the rods to the ceiling. Here's a close up of the pendant itself.

It's the stripes, the back stripes, that get me every time. Flambeau has all kind of other great lighting designs, and I encourage you to check out their catalog.

I've always loved black and white color schemes because they remind me of Tim Burton's work. In 1985 I saw a short film by an unknown filmmaker. The film was called Frankenweenie and it was Tim Burton's first movie. It was a Disney production, as hard as that is to believe. You can find it on YouTube these days. Anyhow, I was struck by the visual style of that movie, I'd never seen anything like it. Burton ended up getting fired from Disney over the film and the world owes Disney a debt of gratitude for their wise decision. Though I'm sure it was traumatic for Burton at the time, that firing unleashed a breathtaking talent on the world.

photo courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art

Burton did a retrospective of his work at the Museum of Modern Art last year and it was cool to see how his style had evolved over the years and it was even more cool to see how much he'd held onto. Here's the ad MoMA put together while Burton's retrospective was running at the museum.





The pendant lights I started with have a Burton-esque feel to them and I like them all the more for it.

As the offerings in Flambeau Lighting's catalog show, black stripes are always right. They've certainly served Tim Burton well.