Aptly described by one blogger as “Home Depot from the future,” Inventables is a store unlike any other. The materials vendor sells unusual and unreal-sounding stuff, from rubber glass to translucent concrete. Their website is intended to help designers, artists and inventors “streamline the process of innovation and explore what’s possible.” Shape memory polymer that...

On September 21, Cooper-Hewitt and Chronicle Books celebrated the publication of Design Research: The Store that Brought Modern Living to American Homes, by Jane Thompson and Alexandra Lange.     The evening commenced with a touching introduction by Jane Thompson, recounting the genesis of Design Research, the postwar emporium in Boston that introduced advanced designs...

Ted Muehling Expounds Ted hosted a group of Cooper-Hewitt members at his studio and store in SoHo this week, as you can see from the Monday at Muehling’s post, giving them a peek at his wonderfully creative environment full of glass, emotive sculpture and creatures from the natural world. He is also the guest curator...

With the Pavilion des Arts et Design at the Tuileries last week, Paris was buzzing with design. I loved the Kartell windows with comments about design by such stars as Patrick Jouin and Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, shown below, applied to the windows on Boulevard St. Germain. And of course I don’t go to Paris...