Is "authenticity" over, as The New York Times says, or are we just all sick of the oh-so-sweet and lovely rustic style? My rant about how we've become beaten down by charm. Plus: I take a look at some of the new magazines and websites that have crossed our desks—including Wilder Quarterly and Co.Exist—and ponder what's next for design, now that "tweemo" (yes, that's our term!) may have finally reached its peak.
Each year, London's Serpentine Gallery has a temporary pavilion designed by a well-known architect. This year's version is by Pritzker prize winner Peter Zumthor, with a garden by Piet Oudolf—the first time horticulture has joined architecture in the 11 years of the pavilion's history.
Commissioned by the city of London to replace a dying sycamore tree, the Traffic Light Tree has 75 signals that bewilder birds and confuse motorists—doing everything but directing traffic.
Botanic motifs flourished in Victorian design, and typography was no exception. Ornate filigree details and calligraphic embellishments were often designed as stylized flowers, leaves, and even trees, around the alphabet characters. We look at the story behind several typefaces inspired by the natural world.
In the last several years, artists have reclaimed moss as a medium, creating site-specific installations to reclaim public spaces, and creating a new sort of growing, living graffiti.
An exhibit of contemporary topiary pieces is on display at this year's International Horticulture Expo, in Xi’an, China. The menagerie of living sculptures includes the country's national bird, a giant panda, and a cow.
Has London one-upped Paris when it comes to vertical gardens on museum walls? The National Gallery in London unveiled a vertical garden that is a living reproduction of Van Gogh's "A Wheatfield, with Cypresses," using 8,000 living plants of more than 26 varieties.
The artist collective London Fieldworks has been creating fantastic bird houses since 2008, sculptures that draw from sources as diverse as 1960s public housing, dictator's palaces, and more.
