Archive for category: ArtiFacts

I grew up at a time in which our parents were perfectly comfortable saying, “Go out and play. Just be home for supper.” I was an enterprising kid, and I made it my job to make the outdoors my everything. I was very accustomed to finding a place to meet my friends, to explore, to walk or ride my bike wherever I needed to go, to do my homework on a picnic table, or to spread a blanket on the lush grass for seating. I had it figured out. So, you can imagine how I felt when I was old enough to go to work.

At first, that blast of air conditioning seemed a welcome blessing. And in the winter, I was happy my hands weren’t blue. But after a while, I missed the breeze, the smell of grass, the air from outside, even if it wasn’t all that fresh or warm. I’d look out the window and wonder what it would feel like to be out there. Offices with closed windows felt like traps.

Eventually, closed in became a proper description of my feelings. And if I was bored at work, watching the clock till I could go out again became a pasttime. If it was snowing, I’d wonder how the ride home would be. Will I get stuck? Would I get in an accident? And I dreaded the traffic. Ugh. But I still wanted to get out there.

And Then …

When COVID hit, I remembered the scream of the absolute silence in my ears. No noise. No people. No cars. No this. No that. Just no. As this new reality sunk in, I joined the club as we slowly picked ourselves up and started groping for some sense of normalcy, some way to get back to work. At first, I scrambled a bit to try to make my home my office. Then I realized how much I already had to work with. A little trial, a little error, and things began to fall into place. In the end, having to make do helped me realize with a little resourcefulness, with an eye toward adaptive re-use, and with the determination to work with what I had, amazing things were possible. I began to enjoy the discovery.

With time and some imagination, my adjustment evolved. I realized I could work just about anywhere, even in my back yard (in the photo above). My yard became my office on nice days. All I needed was my laptop, my phone, a pad if I wanted to jot down some notes in longhand, a few suitable pieces of furniture, enough luck to keep it from raining, and a few birds, squirrels, and chipmunks for administrative assistance. And should the weather be inclement — or if I preferred to lounge a bit while I worked — I retreated to my sunroom with a cup of coffee, a blanket, and Eddie as my typist and personal attaché.

And So …

Now, nearly a year later, the world is slowly progressing. We have vaccines that may or may not immunize us against current and future strains of the coronavirus. But workplaces won’t ever be the same. We’ve discovered we don’t need as many of them as much as we used to think we did. Workforces, too, have progressed. They, too, won’t ever be the same. We’ve found ways to be productive and to collaborate — even face to face online — from home. We’ve learned our offices can be wherever they need to be, wherever we feel comfortable.

If you need help making your new workspace comfortable, regardless of where it is, we can help.

And I promise you: That’s not blue sky.

It’s yet another indication of the profound effects of the coronavirus pandemic that, well, as this article put it: “Commercial designers are coming for the home.” As any angler will tell you, ya gotta fish where the fish are. And given COVID-19, the fish aren’t filling hotels. Neither are people.

I love this, from the article:

Office furniture makers … have all become work-from-home furniture makers. Some of that move was simple—a few product tweaks and some new marketing copy.

What? Talk about selling people short. Those two sentences fall somewhere on a scale between presumptuous and insulting.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

Grandpa O’Brien loved to say, “Charity begins at home.” Have we ever had a better opportunity — or more of a right — to be charitable to ourselves than we do right now? Think about this: Since the pandemic broke out, if someone asked you where you were going, have you said, “Back to the house?” Not likely. You’re much more likely to have said, “I’m going home.” And it’s even more likely your voice would have conveyed the anticipation of safety and comfort. And why not?

As we wrote in a previous post, our homes have evolved to become workplaces, schools, exercise spaces, and places of worship. As that evolution continues, our homes are becoming our favorite restaurants, our go-to hotels, our spas of choice, and the safest places for recreational activities. Our homes have become our havens, our escapes, and our sanctuaries. None of that happened because office furniture makers tweaked some products and seduced us with new marketing copy. It happened because the wheels we had didn’t need to be re-invented.

Did we need to re-arrange some things? Yes. But change is one of the healthy parts of the pandemic. Did we need to pick up a few new furnishings? Probably. That’s why God invented consignment shops. Do we need to invest a little more time and pride in the homes we already have? Yes. But didn’t we and our homes deserve that pride anyway?

As my husband has said to me (and demonstrated) during the coronavirus lockdown (much to my chagrin), “You can’t grow a beard without getting some hair on your face.” I don’t know where he comes up with those things. But I think he means — like the eggs that need be broken to make omelettes — we have to be willing to get things a little messy in order to make them better. (The beard remains questionable as to its being better.)

If you need help with your Hotel Home, we’re at your service.

The Harris Poll conducted an online survey, the “Window to Well-Being”, in August of this year on behalf of Marvin, the family owned and operated cedar and lumber company (and manufacturer of doors and windows). Harris polled more 1,300 people in the United States, including homeowners, builders, architects, and designers. In addition, Harris had also conducted an online flash poll in April of this year on behalf of Marvin, reaching more than 1,000 people in the United States, ages 18 and older.

The results were not surprising:

• 96 percent of homeowners said their homes contribute to their happiness, just one percentage point behind the health of their families.
• 58 percent of homeowners plan to complete a home renovation to help them feel happier at home.
• Nearly 70 percent of homeowners and more than 80 percent of trade professionals said access to natural light is a top contributor to feelings of well-being.
• 73 percent of architects and designers said clients have asked to increase natural light in their homes.
• 61 percent of homeowners struggle to wake up when it is still dark outside and 81 percent feel more rested when they wake up to natural light.
• 92 percent of respondents said outside noise is an important factor in buying a home. Nearly 70 percent said poor soundproofing would keep them from buying a particular home.
• 95 percent of homeowners agree air circulation is an important factor when buying a home.
• 90 percent say outdoor views are important to making a home feel happy.

None of that is surprising because we’re animals — and we’re social and nesting animals, at that.

Check for Grown-Ups

Especially during the coronavirus pandemic, a house is no longer just a home: It’s now doing duty as a workplace, a school, an exercise space, and in some cases a place of worship. Is that a lot to ask? Well, that depends who you ask.

With or without a pandemic, we’re always in favor of taking a look at our confines. What we mean is we’re always re-evaluating and re-arranging our own homes. (We think practicing what we preach is a good thing.) The dirty little secret to doing that is that there is no dirty little secret. Rather than looking for some magic arrangement or thinking in terms of right-or-wrong configurations, use your imagination. Optimize your space.

Does that thing work over there? No? Move it. Does this piece of furniture or equipment work in this room? No? Move it. Do these colors suit your taste? No? Change them. Do you have all the things you need to do what needs to be done in your home? No? Get them. As long as there are no adults around to tell you can’t do something, do it. It’s your home. And it’s your key to thriving in place.

If you need help, call us. We’re not afraid of grown-ups.

A long time ago, I came to realize and accept the fact that there are some things I’ll just never understand. I was reminded of that fact recently when I saw a promotion for this product. It got me wondering: If we’re all willing to pay lip service to thinking outside the box, why do we seem so willing and eager to live and work in it? And it also prompted me to think about the liabilities of short sight and the extent to which we routinely overlook our own human natures.

Yes. I know. The prevailing wisdom would have us believe two heads are better than one. By following that logic, though, we got a progression something like this:

• If two heads are better, more than two must be even better.
• If more heads are better, let’s get more people working together.
• To maximize the number of people working together, let’s create open office spaces.
• Oops.

Well … maybe that two heads thing wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.”
(Jean-Paul Sartre)

What Was Plan B?

Once we’d committed to the open-office concept, we’d pretty much abandoned the long view. So, since there’s no short-term, inexpensive means of getting rid of those open spaces, we opted to bring back a latter-day version of the phone booth. Take a little bit of space, a little bit of sound-absorbing insulation, a little bit of claustrophobia, and — VOILA! — we’ve created a space in which even Harry Houdini wouldn’t have wanted to work. And we’ve managed to package it with all the trappings of a good idea.

At this point, having skipped the long view that would have precluded our falling in love with open spaces in the first place, we also have to wonder if we’re skipping the math, too: How many phone booths would we have to buy at 3,500 bucks a pop before we could have just divided our open spaces into private offices?

“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.” (Albert Camus)

It’s hard not to wonder what we might have been able to do with a little perspective.

Expect More

Along with everything else, it’s hard not to wonder what would happen if we all just slowed down a little. Tap the brakes. Take a few deep breaths. Think beyond tomorrow. Question everything hailed as The Next Big Idea. Think about ourselves, those around us, and what we all need.

Yes. We need camaraderie, companionship, community, and collaboration. Yes. We need each other’s creative energy and enthusiasm. But we also need privacy. We need time and space in which to take stock of ourselves, to collect our own thoughts, to experience our own periods of inspiration and wonder. After all, inspiration and wonder are the senses that make us human.

If we’re going to think outside the box, we shouldn’t have to work in one. Expect more.

“Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

I’m of Italian descent. I was brought up in an Italian household with parents and grandparents who endured hard lives in Italy, came here to make better lives for themselves, only to have to live through the Great Depression. For them, wasting was not part of the program. Almost everything that came into their possession had a second life. Clothing was recycled, becoming material for rugs, being woven into quilts, or being cut or torn into scraps and used as cleaning and dusting rags. Paper bags from the grocery store were turned into book covers. Even the food (if any ever was left uneaten) was composted and used in the garden.

Dirty dish water was poured on lawns and in gardens, with the hope that the residual soap would kill the weeds. There were no paper towels, no plastic bags, no bottles, no cups. Someone else’s junk became our treasures.We wasted nothing and took pride in — and sustenance from — our frugality.

That’s why I’m so glad to see an upturn in the concern about waste and what to do about it. That’s why it feels so familiar, comforting, and right. It pleases me to see the design world purposely using products made from recycled or repurposed other products.

What’s Old is New

I recently listened to a podcast on NeoConversations called, “Design and the Circular Economy.” I was taken by the comments of one of the speakers, Guilio Bonazzi, CEO and Chairman of Aquafil, a company dedicated to new production models for sustainable development. Aquafil creates reused and reusable fibers and fabrics using waste materials, purposefully formulating those materials to have second lives, third lives, and more. Bonazzi refers often to the life cycle of materials. He and Aquafil respect the planet, respect the gifts to be derived from it, and learn creatively, every day, while adding beauty and reuse to everyday life.

Material produced by Aquafil is used by Interface in some of their carpeting, in Armani clothing, in H&M clothing, in the Adidas X Parley Collection, and in ever-increasing numbers of products for myriad uses.

In nature, nothing is lost. In Guilio Bonazzi’s world, nothing is lost. In my world, the philosophy by which I was raised is not lost. You’ll see it in my designs. Who knows? Maybe Bonazzi’s nonna and mine knew each other.

Maybe they didn’t. I don’t know. But Bonazzi, our nonnas, and I know this: Waste not, want not. Capisci?