D2S Editor Favs: Week of January 21, 2008

  Favorite Hot Designer

Julian Schnabel, who designed this lobby for Ian Schrager's Grammercy Park Hotel, just won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director for his movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. And he was just nominated for the Academy Award Best Director. Art, sculpture, music, movies, design -- is there anything Mr. Schnabel is not able to tackle with Renaissance Man style?

Favorite Gadget

General Electric's Front-Load Dryer has been given the higherst dryer ratings by many consumer advocacy and testing groups lately. The big advantage is that it monitors the dampness of clothing and let's you know when to take clothes out of the dryer before they become too dry (yes, drying fabric too much is not a good thing).

  Favorite Design Technology

Decorative Imaging has fused traditional handcrafted methods for residential decoration with their DecoImage technology. They are a great solution for applying decoration to any interior surface, as you can see from the sample photos above, showing their use on floors, walls, ceilings, and doors.

  Favorite Expensive Furniture

Furniture and product designer Marc Newson created his Lockheed Lounge in 1986, and one of his limited edition metallic, sculptural copies sold for $968,000 at Sotheby's, making it the most expensive piece of furniture at auction. We wonder if anyone actually sits in it, or rather admires its sculptural form from a more comfortable standing-up position.

  Favorite Lighting

These handsome fixtures are from TAF, a Swedish design firm whose unspoken motto seems to be great design with a touch of anarchy.

  Favorite Buzzed-About House

We're wildly impressed with the M-House and other modular housing solutions from architect Michael Jantzen.

  Favorite New Use for Your Home

We like the concept behind FilmingLocations.com, Hollywood Locations, Plan-It Locations, FilmingDirect.com.  They purport to be a link for your home or business property to professionals who are scouting locations for everything from commercials and TV episodes to major studio and independent movies.