Battery-Powered Home

Thanks to Engadget for noticing this tech! Panasonic and Sanyo are developing a lithium-ion cell designed to power a home for a week.


The home use storage battery, scheduled for a 2011 release, is a way to store electricity generated from solary batteries that now do not allow long-term storage. The system may also be coupled to a system that tracks electricity usage on the home's TVs. More info from Physorg.com.

A Quiz on Taste

Thanks to BoingBoing for the tip on this modern furniture quiz: Donald Judd or Cheap Furniture? (by Graydon Parrish and Mikhail Simkin), which challenges one's ability to tell priceless designs created by minimalist sculptor Donald Judd as furnishing apartments that also contain famous abstract paintings from cheap flat-pack furniture from big-box establishments. I didn't get a perfect score, but I was close (I blame IKEA's "woods" for my errors). How about you?

Save the Date

Cliff Fest, Oak Cliff, November 14th, 2009

From "Oak Cliff People", 6/26/09:

‘Cliff Fest’ Planning Begins
New festival will take cues from Taste of Addison
By Silver Hogue
Staff Writer
http://www.peoplenewspapers.com/ME2...E75FD51480D8A7D

The wheels are turning on one of the biggest festivals to hit Oak Cliff’s Bishop Arts District....Cliff Fest.

The event, which is slated for Nov. 14, will be a showcase of all things Oak Cliff and is being modeled after Taste of Addison, a food and entertainment festival held each year in the suburb north of Dallas.

“I want it to show the best of Oak Cliff,” Sheri Mathis, event coordinator for the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce. “All the things people don’t know about — the artists and galleries that are out there that people don’t know about, the restaurants, the neighborhood feel of it.”

Another awesome fixture

Love Le Soleil, a suspension lamp from Vincente Garcia Jimenez debuted by Foscarini (the makers of Ferrucio Laviani's SuperNova, another of my loves) at Euroluce last week. For more of the story, go here.

Flipside shower

A new way for gadgets to make it to the shower....Kohler's Flipside hand-hel shower has a rotating nozzle that provides a selection of four different streams. For under $130 you can play with something nice and shiny which is only slightly evocative of a select-a-stream garden hose nozzle.

Gizmodo seems just as impressed as we are.

Recycled Lamps

I'm always a fan of new lighting thoughts, and this recycled wine bottle lamp puts a new eco-spin on illumination.

Jerry Kott handcuts and polishes recycled bottles to create light sculptures. Colorblock table light fixtures have a weighted, distressed aluminum base with a switch on the cord. 3-color blocks are $150, 4-color blocks $280 at re:modern. My only eco-wish: LED bulbs!

Grange House, England

Harrison Varma is an ten-year-old architecture firm in London "specialising in the creation of individually crafted, contemporary, luxury homes built to the highest standards". The luxurious, modern designs have a unique interaction with their environment, whether it's an in-town block or a cottage lane.

XRay Film Lamp

Thanks to Haute Nature for finding this creative, reused item! I'm seeing an IKEA hack in the future....