July 2012

To have finally made the trek to New England's one and only Ikea, and to have left with an unambiguous sense of disappointment, was (and is) well, disappointing.

And the disappointment lies not in their too-small bowls, or threadbare sheets, or the wiggly, wobbly beds... although these things are indeed unfortunate.

The regret resides in a failed promise of accessibility and affordability - but more so - a failed promise of design, both modern and democratic.

Online and in print, Ikea still presides as the universal purveyor of trendy, modern home goods. Effectively, they spread a message of hip and relevant style - even when the pudding's proof tells a much different, and less impressive truth.

Some cavalierly refer to it as the Monet Effect (keep in mind that Rural Modern is in no way comparing Monet to Ikea, at least not today). This Effect can be used to describe people, places, and things that are beautiful and complete when viewed from a distance, and incoherent messes at close range. Anyone who has seen a Monet in person can immediately appreciate this Effect; it's what makes the work dynamic and distinct.

Unfortunately, this Effect is not complimentary when applied to Ikea. Their cool-from-a-distance array of products are likely to disintegrate once in your possession. And why is this the case? Is it that we equate democracy with disposability? With uncritical apologism?

I hope not. And in a spirit of hope, I returned from Stoughton with a simple, glowing orb of light. A purchase in support of democratic design? Ask me in a year; If the ball's still lit, the answer may be a YES.

There are many aspects of daily life that showcase what might be called negligent design. Negligent design is not limited to failed design (was that a PC sputtering in the distance?), although that's certainly part of it. Negligent design also contains static (and sometimes stagnant) design, which includes processes and products that are born of replication for the sake of ease. As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it... 

At times, the absence of innovation can indicate hostility to change (think here of systems - entrenched in their own ways - and wedded to the very habits that ensure their demise)...

But often, an innovation deficiency is the long-term result of a once-novel solution. When something so useful, so functional, so efficient becomes widely used and readily available, it becomes a wheel of sorts; once designed, need it be continually reinvented?

Sure, the wheel is slightly more significant in the course of human history, but the clothes hanger shares with its round, revolutionary friend a condition of completeness. This completeness deters (over time) urges to innovate. Why? because the clothes hanger (like the door knob, the envelope, the pillow case, the paperclip) is like a question, answered succinctly and with certainty. And because already-solved design problems offer comfort, ease and affordability, it's important to remember that improving on what's already been done can reap rewards that produce a (more) innovative everyday.

We end the week in the same place we started... Japan, where an indigenous approach to design thrives on less-as-more. And in the case of Lucky Drops (today's featured design), it's smaller in size and short on convention, but expansive, transgressive, and bold in every other way.

Small homes, tiny houses, little dwellings - whatever you call them - are suddenly trendy in the U.S. And while our culture may tout the merits of "conscious design", we're more likely to construct token emblems (petitte abodes, for example) than we are to fundamentally disrupt the status quo. in other words, our principled actions are exceptional to the rule. 

But brilliance-as-the-rule does exist. And excellence need not be stranded amid expanses of mediocrity. Japan (or so it seems to Rural Modern) may be our best model of fearless distinction. Just look at Lucky Drops, the divine dwelling from Yasuhiro Yamashita, and be humbled and inspired by it's tiny greatness. See it's radiance; Appreciate it's glow; And imagine many such structures dotted throughout an entire landscape.

Achieving similar heights of splendor is within our reach... it all begins with the radical act of recognizing splendor when it's in our midst. And Lucky Drops, my friends, is most certainly it.

Thanks to NPR for the inspiration.

Spoon & Tamago has (thankfully) shed light on an excellent, and most congruous (with Furniturea), residential structure in Osaka: House of Cedar by Suga Atelier.

The architectural intent of House of Cedar was not (at least to our knowledge) to reference the slightly slanted lines of Furniturea's Shutter Series. Rather, Atelier's interest was in turning a building's insides out - and in doing so - transformed the hidden into seen, the unknown into interesting, and the structure into facade.

This building is Rural Modern ready. Like one section of negative space from our Lattice Bed... Like our Shutter Dining Table top upended.... It's everything we love about design, contained in one perfectly glowing, deliberately crooked, and thoughtfully experimental home.