the big reveal: rue daily

I've been dying to share this news and technical difficulties made me wait even longer, so I am bursting to stay, Rue Magazine has gone Daily. While we'll still publish a full length magazine regularly (8 issues per year) we'll also have daily content each week day. I'm very excited to be writing more and to be creating more of a dialogue with the Rue community.

Above are a few images from already published stories. (We've stocked up on good ones to get started!) We'll be sharing the same great content as the magazine- interiors and styling, fashion, and DIY plus food, interviews with designers and tastemakers and more!

Visit us at Rue Daily!

tumblights 1/29

Oy, a whole day behind in everything this week but now it's time to relax and enjoy some tumblights. This week's post were all about the elements, there are even some "earth" ones up on the tumblr. Enjoy!

1. Sea Chair tackles ocean pollution, over fishing, and job creation via  Design For Mankind
2. Pair of floating dice leave their path on the sea up to chance via designboom
3. An inflatable solar powered lantern via designboom
4. Solar energy charging station for electric bicycles and personal devices via designboom

Enjoy these? Find more daily at percentblog.tumblr.com. And even more stunning images on my pintrest. 

shhhhhh....

I can't quite say just what yet, but looking forward to sharing some big Rue Magazine news on Monday!

reflecting on the past four years

As today is both Martin Luther King, Jr Day and the second inauguration of President Obama, I find myself in a reflective mood. The past four years have been ones of huge personal change for me, much of it related to the political landscape. Four years ago I was still in college, starting my second semester of senior year. I was lucky enough to attend the inauguration, missing the first day of my design studio to do so. This blog did not exist and I could never have predicted what would lead me to where I am today.

While nationally this day is of great significance, in my world today is the perfect occasion to end the holiday lull on this blog. I'm looking forward to sharing much more design for social change in the coming weeks.

read more: building a space for calm

Currently, questions about design at psychiatric care facilities are viewed through the prism of security. How many guard and isolation rooms are needed? Where should we put locked doors and alarms? But architecture can — and should — play a much larger role in patient safety and care.

One prominent goal of facility design, for example, should be to reduce stress, which often leads to aggression. 

For patients, the stress of mental illness itself can be intensified by the trauma of being confined for weeks in a locked ward. A care facility that’s also noisy, lacks privacy and hinders communication between staff and patients is sure to increase that trauma. Likewise, architectural designs that minimize noise and crowding, enhance patients’ coping and sense of control, and offer calming distractions can reduce trauma. 

Thanks to decades of study on the design of apartments, prisons, cardiac intensive care units and offices, environmental psychologists now have a clear understanding of the architectural features that can achieve the latter — and few of these elements, if incorporated into a hospital design from the outset, significantly raise the cost of construction. 

- Roger S. Ulrick, The New York Times