Kehinde Wiley, Angela Brooks, Yves Behar, and Narciso Rodriguez are among the ten "rare characters" that USA Network is honoring with Character Approved Awards.

Don't be surprised if you spot Yves Behar during the commercial break of Law and Order: Criminal Intent or spy a colorblocked sheath designed by Narciso Rodriguez between episodes of White Collar. The designers are among the ten honorees of USA Network's 2010 Character Approved Awards, and they'll be featured in vignettes directed by Henry Alex Rubin (Murderball) that debut later this month on USA. The other honorees are Kehinde Wiley (art), Angela Brooks of Pugh + Scarpa Architects (architecture), Green Day (music), Blue Hill restauranteur Dan Barber (food), screenwriter and playwright Nora Ephron (writing), director Kathryn Bigelow (film/TV), Kiva.org co-founder Jessica Jackley (giving), and the team behind Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy (new media/technology). Now in its second year, USA's Character Approved Awards initiative is dedicated "to celebrating the true trailblazers across a variety of disciplines." That celebrating will officially kick off on February 25, when USA and Vanity Fair host a cocktail reception in New York City at the Gehry Glacier (also known as the IAC Building). Green Day will perform, and if we know this crew, many a collaborative project will be hatched, along with some of Barber's farm-fresh eggs.

Old-school Sweethearts Conversation Hearts, pictured above, are no more.

If you were trying to avoid all the crowds when Philip Johnson's Glass House opened for tours in 2007, and then tried but couldn't beat the mad rush for tickets in '08 and '09, then you have no excuse not to plan a trip to New Canaan this year. There are big goings-ons already, with tickets for the season, May through November, having just now gone on sale. This year they've added the Glass House Twilight Tour, which allows you to see the house at dusk, complete with the "seasonal lighting effects" originally created by designer Richard Kelly (and hopefully has nothing to do with young vampires in love -- though for $150 per young vampire, we're sure they're certainly welcome to attend). But if May is too far out for you and you're itching to get out there, this Thursday through Saturday, they'll be holding the Glass House Valentines Day Pop-Up Store, featuring the work of six designers, like Amy Plum and Helen Raynus. So there you have it. No excuses this year.

Ever since we, and everyone else on the planet, posted about Unhappy Hipsters, a simple Tumblr blog that lends captions to photos from Dwell, the site's been completely unavoidable of late. Hard to believe that it's only been around, by our estimates, since mid-January. But that's the internet for you, quick, quick, quick. With all that attention, some interesting bits have sprung up. First, the LA Times' Christopher Hawthorn filed a two page report about the site, talking all about how popular it had become and how its owner(s) still wish to remain anonymous. Strangely he also comments on how its quality has declined: "once the world noticed -- it was only a matter of time before its crisp satire started to droop a little, as it has in the last few days." We know the guy's a critic, but geez, he just says so himself that the site's only three weeks old. Less discouraging than that review, and much more interesting, is that Psychology Today picked up on the site and put together a great read on why exactly these hipsters are unhappy and asks if modernism is inherently a big downer. Here's a bit:

I think that modernism's restrained quality is fundamentally in tension with the idea of delight. Delight is an emotion of abundance -- a celebration of sensation and richness. Delight and joy are primally connected to wellness, and wellness in nature is lush, plump, vibrant, and bountiful. Throughout our evolution, these were the aesthetics that signaled a good place to settle -- one that provided adequate water, food, and shelter to sustain life. The matte, bare surfaces beloved of modernists signal something else entirely. I can't help but think there must be something primal within us that understands such stripped down spaces as inhospitable -- the emotional equivalent of dry desert, or fallow fields.

While we said back in January that 2010 might be shaping up to be another rough and tumble year for Frank Gehry, what with the recent stop work order on his Beekman Tower and his pulling out from Jerusalem's troubled-from-the-start Museum of Tolerance, the guy is still a starchitect after all and that's a pretty choice spot to be in. It's just been announced that he's passed on potentially working on a museum project in Dundee, Scotland (where he's worked before with the small Maggie's Centre building), saying that "he has too much work on at the moment to contemplate taking part in the competition." One of the things most likely keeping Gehry busy at the moment is the main structure for the Saadiyat Beach Golf Club in Abu Dhabi. The building, Gehry's first clubhouse, will be quite large, coming in at around 18,000 square feet, and is described as "a postmodern twist on the traditional garb worn by Arab men." The new building, set to finish in two years, will be surrounded by a golf course designed by golf legend Gary Player. If you want to golf in the middle east in the next couple of years, we're willing to bet that there's more likelihood of being able to do it here than at the proposed Tiger Woods course in Dubai.

Looks from the spring/summer 2010 collections of Prabal Gurung (left) and Bibhu Mohapatra (right), who are among the 12 designers selected for tenancy in the CFDA Fashion Incubator.

With fashion week looming, a crop of young designers have received the good news that they have been selected as the inaugural tenants of the CFDA Fashion Incubator, a business-boosting initiative of the Council of Fashion Designers of America that was established last fall with a $200,000 grant from the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Each designer (or design team) will be able to take advantage of a two-year lease on an individual studio in New York's Garment Center at below-market value rates as well as business mentoring, educational seminars, and networking opportunities. The designing dozen are:

Last week saw us back in product wonderland, better known as the New York International Gift Fair (NYIGF). Our first stop at the biannual gifts and home accessories extravaganza is always the juried Accent on Design division, where the likes of Marimekko, Jonathan Adler, Umbra, and Artecnica showcase their latest and greatest items. Tasked by the fair to select one item as "the next big thing," we chose the Brelli: the world's first biodegradable umbrella! Designed by Pam Zonsius, the Brelli covers a bamboo parasol frame with a sleek canopy of transparent biofilm. The result is a sturdy reimagining of a delicate design classic that also happens to be 100% green. Available in three sizes that retail from $38 to $62, the Brelli comes tucked inside an organic cotton carrying case and can be decorated with permanent paint markers (non-toxic, of course). Finally, a way to protect oneself from the environment without contributing to its destruction.

Previously on UnBeige:

Looks from the spring/summer 2010 collection of Sophie Théallet, who will show her fall collection next Tuesday, February 16, in New York City. (Photos: Dan Lecca)

"For me, creating a collection is a very painful process. I just like looking at my environment: walking in Prospect Park, going to the movies, reading a book, listening to music. At some point, something shows up and I begin to design on the paper, and I start to play with it. It depends on a lot of things but when the ideas come, I feel free and happy."

-Sophie Théallet, winner of the 2009 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Prize

Unfortunate and belated as it is, you run into some pretty interesting lives in the obituaries. Case in point, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported that Clifford A. Nahser passed away last week. In addition to working for the Atlanta Public School System for 26 years, designing new buildings for them, and being "an early expert in the installation of AstroTurf," Nahser was also the chief architect behind the Waffle House, the iconic, greasy spoon restaurant chain you run into every two minutes in the south of the country. Here's the story:

Co-founder Joe Rogers Sr. asked him to help design new restaurants from the prototype diner he opened in Avondale Estates in 1955. Mr. Nahser worked on the blueprint for one of the earlier units, then went on to help design hundreds more as the restaurant chain grew.

Tweaked and updated a little over the years, the same basic plan was used for Waffle Houses in 28 states, said his brother Donald Nahser of Alpharetta.

"He used to say, 'Anybody who's ever traveled through the South by car has been in one of my buildings,'" his brother said.

As the LA Times' critic Christopher Knight puts it: "'Great Recession'? What 'Great Recession'?" He's commenting on the news that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has announced that it has raised $250 million in just six months, largely to help expand their space to make way for the massive Donald Fisher Collection, which you'll remember they were able to hold on to after the Gap founder's sudden, unexpected passing last year. Kenneth Baker at the San Francisco Chronicle reports that there haven't been any designs yet for the new extension, but now that the money has poured in, the museum is planning to add roughly an additional 100,000 square feet to its current facility, making it one of the largest modern art museums in the country, larger than the MoMA in New York. The big story of all of this, however, is this:

The $250 million raised thus far comes from what [museum director Neal Benezra] called "core members of the board" and is intended to challenge other affluent friends of the museum to pitch in. The museum will not divulge individual contributions, but its board includes luminaries of business and philanthropy such as Charles Schwab, Mimi L. Haas, Helen Hilton Raiser, Paul Sack and Roselyne Swig.

To which Christopher Knight responds, "Those pockets are not merely deep, they are also open. Good for them."

We think we've made it perfectly clear in the past that there are a lot of things we don't know about Barbie. We know it was the doll's birthday last year and she can get Jonathan Adler to design her Malibu Dreamhouse, but that's about it. So it was interesting to read about a controversy surrounding the iconic toy coming out of Buffalo, New York. Story goes, according to the Buffalo News, is that a 2002 competition called "I Can Be," which asked the public to select the next career-themed edition of the toy. But when "Architect" won, "Mattel balked at producing an architect doll." Now that the company has launched another similar contest eight years later, architecture professor Despina Stratigakos has kicked off a campaign to finally give architecture its due. Here's a bit:

"This is a powerful icon, and it does speak to little girls," said Stratigakos, an assistant professor in [University of Buffalo]'s School of Architecture and Planning. "We need role models."

Architect, environmentalist, surgeon, news anchor and computer engineer are the five jobs voters can pick from in the contest, which runs through Wednesday at www.barbie.com/vote. "An architect designs buildings and makes sure they're safe, sturdy and cool-looking," the job description reads on the contest Web site.

We're sure your head hurts too after last night's pummeling of greasy food, beer, and some occasional bits of football thrown in there for good measure, so we'll start out gently this morning. An interesting new iPhone app has been released by the Japanese company Wowlab. Called addLib (not to be confused with the popular sound card company, AdLib, of the 1980s), it's essentially a random design generator. You plug in a photo, it kicks out a poster that looks like it might have been laid out by some famous Swiss designer, all at random, using "the Grid System, a fractal theory, the golden ratio, and the Facial Recognition System." A fun toy, sure, but we'd be interested to hear what you think it says about design, that quality can come from formula rather than unique, practiced artistry. Or are we just over thinking the whole thing? Here's the app in action: