Hey North America, meet Mal Corboy

One of the great perks to writing a design blog is that I get to meet people from all over the world. Over the course of the last few months I've had the pleasure to get to know New Zealand-based designer Mal Corboy. Mal's work is beyond impressive, it's some of the best kitchen design I've ever seen.

Mal's a rising force on the international design scene and has been racking up awards in his native New Zealand and in Australia for the last nine years. He entered his first design competition in 2002 and since then he's received 18 awards.

He appears regularly in the international design press and is a regular on New Zealand TV, most recently for New Zealand TV2's My House My Castle.

Already, he's designing for the North American market. He manufactures everything under license in Australasia and then ships his kitchens to North America. He's the first designer form Australasia to go down this path.

Mal's interested to increase his presence on this side of the Pacific and I'd love to see him succeed. In looking over his work, I determined to make sure he succeeds. We need his design sensibilities desperately.

You can see more of Mal Corboy's work on his website and you can contact him directly there too. I've been obsessing over German kitchen design since I returned home from Europe last month but after looking over Mal's portfolio I'm beginning to think I need to start looking to my west for inspiration. Here are some more highlights:

If you have any questions for Mal, feel free to leave them in the comments below. I'm sure he'll be checking in. Just keep in mind that there's a 17 hour time difference between the East Coast and Aukland. Thanks Mal!

Crossville has a great idea

Another cool innovation I saw at Coverings last week came from Tennessee-based Crossville. That innovation was a partnership with Benjamin Moore paints called Color by numbers.

Crossville developed a palette of 16 colored wall, floor, listello and trim tiles to coordinate with a palette of Benjamin Moore Aura colors. Between they two companies, they produced a full and complimentary palette that's bound to take away a lot of the guesswork out of room design.

Here's the link to a .pdf that gives an overview of the program. You can find out more information from Crossville's website and anywhere Bejnamin Moore paints or Crossville tiles are sold. Bravo Crossville!

Grespania's Coverlam stole the show

I saw a ton of new and exciting stuff at Coverings last week but more than anything, a tile series from Spanish manufacturer Grespania rose to the top and showed what I say was the best thing shown in Las Vegas. In recent years, advances in ceramics technology have allowed tile manufacturers to make larger and thinner tile.

Grespania's Coverlam is a series of massive and massively thin tiles that wouldn't have been possible a couple of years ago. Here's my shot of their Oxido display from last week.

Coverlam comes in in four sizes: 500mm x 500mm, 500mm x 1000mm, 1000mm x 1000mm and astoundingly, 3000mm x 1000mm. As impressive as the sizes are, what blew me away is that these tiles are 3.5mm thick. How thick is 3.5mm? Look.

Unbelievable. By making tile this thin and this large, grout lines are pretty minimized, obviously. But there are a few other things going on that are a bit less obvious. There's a serious reduction in the resources needed to make this tile when compared to more traditionally sized tile. The second big savings comes from their reduced weight.

That reduced weight has a cascading effect. Coverlam costs less to transport and it adds less weight to the load a structure has to bear. Load bearing is an issue in timber-framed homes, especially on their upper floors.

Coverlam can be used on floors, on walls, as building sheathing and intriguingly, kitchen and bath counters. Did I mention that you can cut it with a glass cutter? Here are some publicity stills that show the product in use.

You can learn more about Coverlam on Grespania's website. Here's the direct link to the Coverlam catalog. Coverlam is available worldwide and it represents something entirely new. Consider using it in a future project.

Reality check

The events in Japan are horrific. Truly, truly horrific. As painful as it is to watch the events unfold, it's equally painful to watch the fear-mongering going on around the world.

I grew up in a house 26 miles from Three Mile Island and I was in the eighth grade when it experienced a partial core meltdown. The entire world freaked out when TMI was happening and I remember getting caught up in it. Granted, I was 13 years old at the time. Boy do I remember keeping the blinds drawn and not being able to go outside for recess. I remember too the absent kids whose parents decided to flee.

via Smithsonian

But despite the partial core meltdown and the release of radioactive water and steam, nothing happened. South Central Pennsylvania is an agricultural area and there was no increased incidence of two-headed cows or mutated corn. Study after study has shown conclusively that the people surrounding Three Mile Island suffered no ill effects. I can tell you the same thing as someone who grew up close to Three Mile Island. I don't have three arms nor do I have an increased chance of getting cancer despite my love for the Susquehanna River and the manure-scented air of Pennsylvania.

The troubled nuclear plants in Japan will be contained and the Japanese people will rebuild their lives and their country. Count on it. Just as equally, you can count on the anti-nuclear people to use the tragedy in Japan to try to stop further investment in nuclear power. Most people don't understand what ionizing radiation is and have not idea that they're exposed to it constantly. Further, they have no idea that the Pacific coast of North America is at no risk for ill effects from the events unfolding in Japan.

Here's a table that explains radioactive exposure in a very straightforward way.Many thanks to my cousin Tim for passing this along to me.

We cannot continue to burn stuff to make electricity, that much is clear. Between rising sea levels, peak oil and melting icecaps, burning fossil fuels represents a bigger problem than any nuclear power plant can.

Until the inefficiencies of wind power and solar power are addressed, nuclear is the best option we have.

You're free to disagree with me of course but I ask that you do so rationally. And whether you agree with me or not I ask that you pass along that table.

Mosaico+ has a winner in Dialoghi

Another favorite from Coverings last year was back this year with a new booth and a new product line that's really fired my imagination. That vendor was Mosaico+ (Mosaico Piu in Italian) and one of their new product lines is Dialoghi. Dialoghi means dialog in English and it's certainly an apt title.

Dialoghi consists of a number of mosaic shapes that are available in a host of stones, colored glasses, woods and metals. In a few weeks there will be an interactive planner on their website available where you'll be able to mix and match their tiles to your heart's content. You'll then be able to design your own, fully-custom mosaic pattern and it'll arrive as 30cm x 30cm sheets, all ready to install.

Planners and randomizers aren't unusual on manufacturer's websites when it comes to the mosaic niche. What makes Mosaico+ so cool is their shapes. It's easier to show rather than tell so here goes.

See what I mean? Bravi Mosaico+! Their new website will be up and running in a few weeks but in the meantime, you can look at the rest of their offerings.