BrooklynModern

The couple purchased the cottage for $95,000. Eight and a half wooded acres
and a detached garage/barn were included. The renovation budget was 10K.

Even though the real estate market has considerably softened, many people still feel priced out. But check out this story from the NYTimes about a handy Williamsburg couple, Christina Salway and John Moskowitz, who bought and restored a 700-square-foot 1920s cottage in Sparrow Bush, NY. With little building experience, a small budget, and good taste, they navigated a complex DIY restoration. Read full article here.

Ms. Salway is a 26-year-old interior designer (click to check her site). Many of the pieces were acquired through Craigslist, thrift shops and yard sales, receiving free items from family and friends and finding things on the street. “You need a good eye,” Ms. Salway said, noting that treasures are often found in recycling bins and Dumpsters.

A vintage stove was bought on Craigslist. Two stools, a wood workbench
and an old wood locker were found on the street.

Artwork was also bought on Craigslist and at yard sales and thrift shops.
Old valises were stacked to make a hallway table.

by Daniel Sommer, Contributor

To many, trailer parks conjure images of poverty and undesirable living conditions. Brooklyn artist Kim Holleman challenges these misconceptions in Trailer Park, part of the Bushwick Biennial on view now at NutureArt Gallery. In the piece, Holleman turned the inside of a former camper into a live and growing public park. BrooklynModern recently caught up with Holleman inside her trailer and spoke with her about her work.

“I lived in a trailer when I was a young child, and I could always see to the other side of it. I always knew where my parents were, it was very cozy, it was very enclosed, it was a perfect oasis, and enclosed bubble…When we moved out of the trailer into our gigantic house, everything went awry. (This upbringing) give me the insight other people aren’t going to have.”

Holleman used her construction and fabricating background to turn a trailer into a fertile oasis, challenging ones expectation of what the object holds within. Replanting the trailer every spring, the plants themselves are found objects. Each one was found growing in Brooklyn and was transferred to the custom designed planting beds.

Also on view, Kim Holleman’s The View is a theoretical core sample of what the ground we live on has become. The hanging glass case contains a mini ecosystem, complete with living plants and bugs, but also toxins and pollutants. Over the life of the piece, the ecosystem has begun purifying the toxins and regaining control over the toxins.

The Bushwick Biennial includes shows throughout Brooklyn. Information can be found at www.bushwickbiennial.com

For more information on NUTUREart, see www.nurtureart.org.

Sustainable Flatbush’s bike will provide electricity for Flatbush’s residents
and help reduce the neighborhood’s carbon foot print.

Sustainable Flatbush, a great green Brooklyn based blog, has submitted a proposal to National Geographic’s Green Effect contest to build a solar bike that will serve as a mobile charging station for Brooklynites. To improve Sustainable Flatbush’s chance of winning the grant, visit their entry at National Geo and and give a “thumbs-up” in the form of a high rating and a lovely comment.

Here’s the proposal link:
http://greeneffect.nationalgeographic.com/idea/2873/?sort=title

Brooklynmodern just moved to a new format and a new host. Viewing older post and a few other features won’t be available until next week. In the meantime, enjoy the front page and email us with any feedback/ideas/stories at brooklynmod@gmail.com.

In Design as Diplomacy, the editors of the Dining and Wine section report on the transformation of Desirée and Jeffrey Greene’s high-end SoHo loft. Desirée, who collects books on Indian philosophy and has traveled throughout India, has a special preference for concrete because “it’s a cool stone,” and “there’s no air-conditioning in India.” To realize this theme, they collaborated with Brooklyn’s Oso Industries. Eric Weil, the firm’s founder, is known for pushing the limits of concrete by adding color, textures and coupling it with materials such as stainless steel rebar, black walnut, and glass. Check out Oso Industries’ work here.

Concrete sinks in the master bedroom.

Pine Bench
This bench was created by taking rubber molds of the bark of a Pine tree
and sculpting clay casts of this bark into the geometric shapes. The bench is
cast as a single piece and the top has been polished to a mirror finish.

Burn Lamp
The Burn Lamp is an exploration of contrasting textures and materials and was just shown at Bklyn Designs.

If you’re interested in helping Bklyn’s environment and using your roof for something tasty like veggies, check out the green roofing workshop by Green It Yourself and Eco Brooklyn. They offer intensive and semi-intensive classes from $300 to $600.  For basic info, look into their free class on August 8th. Additionally, if you’re interested in green roofing as a profession, check out greenroof.org to learn about the industry and becoming accredited.

Instructables is a great site for D.I.Y. types. One of their recent posts teaches you how to make a bench from cardboard, which has actually become a material of choice for many designers lately. The builder of this bench mentioned that he was inspired by the work of Brooklyn’s very own Scrapile.  Aside from being an easy project, this tutorial also has a sustainable benefit if it’s done with reclaimed cardboard.  The author also testifies to the bench’s strength, saying that it can support three adults. But just keep it keep away from water. Visit the tutorial here and download a pdf with instructions.

SCRAPILE ’s benches made with repurposed scraps of wood from New York’s woodworking industry. Visit their site here.

Le Corbusier began his day at 6 a.m. with gymnastics and painting

Last night I came across Daily Routines, a rather fascinating blog about how writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days. While I always assumed that the creative mind works best late at night, some of the interviews illustrate the contrary: both Gerhard Richter and Gio Ponti started the day around 6 a.m. Winston Churchill, who was actually a writer by profession,  awoke at 7:30, but worked from bed until 11 a.m. Here is an interesting piece on Le Corbusier. Enjoy it with some morning coffee:

Le Corbusier’s working hours were implacably regular. During my four years at the atelier, he worked at the rue de Sévres from two in the afternoon to around seven. The hour of 2:00 P.M., I soon learned, was holy. If you were a minute late you risked a reprimand. At first Corbu arrived either by subway (a convenient, direct metro line connected his Michel-Ange- Molitor station with the atelier’s Sévres-Babylone) or by taxi. Later on he started driving his old pistachio-green Simca Fiat convertible. In his last years it would be the taxi again. The process of returning home revealed quite a lot about Le Corbusier’s character. If the work went well, if he enjoyed his own sketching and was sure of what he intended to do, then he forgot about the hour and might be home late for dinner. But if things did not go too well, if he felt uncertain of his ideas and unhappy with his drawings, then Corbu became jittery. He would fumble with his wristwatch – a small, oddly feminine contraption, far too small for his big paw – and finally say, grudgingly, “C’est difficile, l’architecture,” toss the pencil or charcoal stub on the drawing, and slink out, as if ashamed to abandon the project and me — and us — in a predicament.

By Daniel Sommer, Contributor

Following in the footsteps of other New York public arts projects such as Christo’s The Gates and Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls, Brooklyn based sculptor Joan Benefiel held an opening reception in the Hudson River Park last night for The Hudson River Project. As founder of Figuration sculpture studio, Benefiel’s latest project aims to perch translucent resin figures on top of abandoned river pillions on what was once Pier 42 on Manhattans west side. Each sculpture will be cast out of bright orange resin, and will glow with ambient light. The Hudson River Pilings Project was created with permission of the Hudson River Park Trust and will be officially unveiled later in the summer.

Benefiel’s figures that will be perched on the pilings were on display at the New York Academy of Art early this year.