Quoted: Random House imprint Vintage is redesigning the paperback versions of Thomas Pynchon’s novels [...] -Design Week.

The Museum of Online Museums has just been updated.

A public art project to show Brooklyn City Dwellers what happens when the city floods by 10 feet as a result of climate change.

Quoted: high water line

The Seattle P-I has a wonderful exploratory piece on the failures of the new library. Lauded for "[...launching] both the image and substance of the Seattle Public Library into a new era" while chastised for lacking spaces "conducive to intimacy with a book," this is a fair and well-executed opinion piece placing its finger on a distinct lack of warmth. Indeed, I have found that the mixing chamber looks a little too inspired by Gilliam's "Brazil." This is a building which focuses on the design of access to information without much thought to the ingestion of that information.

I love taking visitors to see the new library but I've never actually gone there to read even though it's a scant two blocks away from my work. This seems odd to me considering that I spend about an hour a day reading at one of several local coffee shops. I do want to try going for a good read on the 10th floor, if for nothing other than the view, but I'd love to see what the author of this piece is calling for - a timely reconsideration and re-examination. Many of the issues (furniture / warmth) are with superficial and not structural elements, they can be changed.

Quoted: I'm beginning to suspect that the building's celebrated splotches of weirdness -- the red sea-monster-bowel corridors on the fourth level, the bile-yellow elevators and escalators, the vertiginous canyon overlooks on the upper levels -- exist to draw attention away from the fact that most of its work and pleasure spaces are actually cheaply finished or dysfunctional. And that the building's working viscera are failing at fulfilling the promise of its stunning skin.

This post at Bokardo reads like a manifesto for designers. I really enjoyed it.

Quoted: A number of years ago a friend gave us a great tip that to this day has made picture hanging a simple, pleasurable task. The tip was to always hang your art at 57" on center. "On center" means that the middle of the picture is at 57" (obviously, the hook will be higher).

This is an interesting public toilet in Switzerland. You can see out but it's a mirror for people trying to look in...

Ross and I took a walk up to this coffee shop a few blocks away from Blue Dot headquarters. It's sort of an odd location without much foot traffic but they serve Caffe Vita coffee (pretty darn good), have a beautiful space, wifi, and large works of art. The website states that they're going to start serving beer frin Georgetown Brewery and Rainier soon as well. That's enough to give it the nod to 5-stars for me.

Recommended.