Okay, so put aside the old photos and get over the price, we’re looking for some “plugged-in” readers’ early reviews of the 2007 San Francisco Decorator Showcase (a.k.a. 2901 Broadway). Favorite rooms, ideas, or epiphanies? Clandestine photos or scanned images? Come on, you know we’d do the same for you (and we will next week).
And in somewhat (un)related news, it appears that the joint Dwell/Infinity design competition has been met with a bit of ire from a “passionate community” (to quote Dwell’s online editor). Passionate community? That sounds strangely familiar…
I just repost what I wrote in the other thread…
Did anyone else go this weekend? I did. Personally, I think it was the best Decorator’s Showcase home I’ve seen, though I’ve only been to the last four. I could go on about it, but I was fairly impressed. Nothing was too over the top, even Kendall Wilkinson’s teal master suite kind of made sense. My personal favorite rooms were Suzanne Tucker’s vibrant living room, Chris Reed’s elegant library, and Tish Key’s subtle Tea Room. That said, the nether regions of the home looked in poor, poor condition. Trying to repair the structure will be astronomically expensive. Plus, the house really only has two levels, so it’s surprisingly small. It doesn’t feel as monolithic and foreboding as the pictures suggest. Still, I wouldn’t enjoy wandering around the dank, subterranean parts after dark.
The Dwell sponsored Infinity Design competition has met an amazing and uniformly negative response from the design community. Which makes you wonder what they were thinking in the first place and what they were trying to achieve.
http://archinect.com/about/index.php
http://bustler.net/index.php/description/the_infinity_design_challenge_san_francisco/
My guess is they thought it would be a cute marketing gimmick that would generate buzz (for Dwell and for the Infinity) and create some unusual model units. Seems to have backfired.