Fab made a splash in Milan with more than cushy Warhol Brillo boxes. The online retailer invited designers from around the world to pitch new products for the chance to have them produced and sold on Fab. More than 150 creative types from 30 countries turned out, and now it’s onto New York. In addition to showcasing its new private label alongside collaborations with the likes of the Albers Foundation and Blu Dot at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, which opens to the trade tomorrow, Fab is hosting another “Disrupting Design” competition.

The fearless leader of the judging panel will be Fab co-founder and chief design officer Bradford Shellhammer. “At Fab, we are constantly reinventing ourselves and rethinking what Fab can be,” he says. “By directly engaging with designers to find the best new work out there, we’re hoping to help even more of our members find things they love.” Today’s ever-changing offering ranges from a Louis Ghost Chair signed by Philippe Starck and vintage Kodak Brownies to a subscription to BirdWatching magazine and a pepperoni pizza t-shirt. Shellhammer paused in his booth preparations (find Fab at #1220 at ICFF) to answer our questions.

How did the Disrupting Design competition go in Milan last month?
We were overwhelmed by the response in Milan, which is why we’ve decided to do it again in New York during ICFF. We had so many great entries from all over the world when we did the call out in Milan. Initially we were planning on selecting three winning designs, but we couldn’t narrow it down so we ended up shortlisting twelve designs which we are working to put into production and sell on Fab–the revenue of which we of course share with the winning designers.

What advice would you give to those interested in presenting their designs to the Fab jury on Tuesday at ICFF?
Take a look at our site and keep the Fab viewpoint in mind when presenting. The winning designs from Milan all embody the Fab ethos–they tell great stories, utilize interesting materials, or have a sense of whimsy. We are looking for designs that will be appreciated by our global community of more than 12 million design lovers.

What are some qualities of a successful product on Fab?
Great products tell a story, elicit emotions, or solve problems. It’s that simple. It needs to check at least one of those boxes (hopefully all three). They can be in any category and at any price, as long as there’e something compelling.

What is a product that you’ve sold on Fab that has surprised you, in terms of expected versus actual interest from customers?
Yves Behar‘s medicine accessories for Sabi I thought may be targeted for a customer older than ours, but we sell a lot of them!
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Sound works and art fairs are rarely compatible. There’s the impetus to keep moving (must…see…everything), the ambient murmur, and for exhibiting galleries, the difficulty of peeling off fairgoers to don headphones or enter a booth for a bit of aural stimulation. Frieze New York tackles these problems with the help of luxury cars and technology. The fair, which runs through today, partnered with BMW on Frieze Sounds, transforming a sleek fleet of VIP shuttles into sound cocoons for the duration of the commute to Randall’s Island–of course, it helps that the BMW 7 Series has a sound system that suggests a full orchestra is hiding in the trunk. Cecilia Alemani (pictured), curator of Frieze Projects, organized the program of three specially commissioned audio works by Trisha Baga, Charles Atlas and New Humans, and Haroon Mirza, which are also accessible at a listening station inside the fair. Not a VIP? Not in New York? Not to worry: the Frieze Sounds are now posted online for all to enjoy. So sit back, relax, and pretend you’re being chauffeured to an art-filled island inside a shiny new 740i.

At left, the booth of Jousse Entreprise at the inaugural Collective Design Fair, which runs through today at Pier 57 in New York. (Photos: UnBeige)

NYCxDESIGN is upon us, and among our favorite happenings so far is Collective, a new design fair that has brought 22 galleries from around the world to New York’s Pier 57. Spearheading the impressive initiative is Steven Learner, working with a supportive bunch of designers, curators, collectors, and dealers (hence “Collective”). “As an architect and collector, I have visited the greatest design fairs in the world and realized that it was essential to create an event of this caliber in New York,” says Learner, whose architecture and interior design firm managed to make the gritty, 70,000-square-foot hangar feel breezy and inviting. Here are a dozen of our favorite works from the fair.

J. Lohmann Gallery brought a stunning assortment of new works from five European artists. Here, a ceramic and PVC “Tied Up” piece by Steen Ipsen.

The gorilla in the room, shown by Southern Guild of South Africa, is Bronze Age’s “Welcome to My World” (2012), a bronze and timber primate that stands nearly seven feet tall. “Shadow of Time,” a 1989 floor clock by Ron Arad, is at the booth of Stockholm-based Modernity gallery.

Win the rat race with Atelier Ted Noten‘s lucite tote, at Ornamentum.
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From across the pond and into a SO-IL-designed tent pitched on the banks of the East River, it’s Frieze New York, back for a sophomore edition after attracting some 45,000 visitors to its stateside debut last year. The fair, which opens today, is the largest ever hosted by Frieze, according to directors Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover. All that’s standing between you and the offerings of 189 galleries ranging from Air de Paris to Zeno X is the commute to Randall’s Island, the 480-acre park that Robert Moses first designated for recreational use–before that it was home to public facilities such as a boys’ home, a hospital, and a home for civil war veterans, which all sound like promising fodder for future Frieze Projects, the fair’s site-specific program of art projects. Prepare for your island adventure by watching the below video.

“I’m just so fascinated with what the approach to theme will be–is it about a punk attitude? Is it about the specific time period referred to as punk? I think there are a lot of mysteries to be unveiled. And we can use it as an excuse to spit inside the museum…just inside a cistern of some sort, any old Greek cisterns we might find.”

-The delightful Lena Dunham on her expectations for last night’s punk-themed Met Gala. She attended with Erdem Moralioglu, who designed her dress, complete with upper back-bearing “tattoo window.” The two had a transatlantic fitting via iPad. Added Dunham, “My dog ate a safety pin during the fitting, which is punk.”

Paola Antonelli, charmer of Stephen Colbert and the most curious of octopuses, will be honored this evening in New York by the MEDIUM Group. The art and commerce go-between is presenting Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design and director of research and development at the Museum of Modern Art, with an award in recognition of her curatorial achievements and contribution to contemporary culture. Hosting the “Cocktails and Curators” bash, a kind of Frieze kickoff, are Hannah Bronfman, Amani Olu, and Larry Ossei-Mensah. We’re not sure what the award consists of (perhaps a lifetime supply of Beefeater 24 Gin, the evening’s sponsor?), but might be suggest forgoing a traditional trophy in favor of a carbon-fiber “robo-fly”? “Hello, world’s smallest flying robot!” Antonelli tweeted recently of the insect-scale innovation, the subject of a newly published Science paper. “Where have you been all my life?”

Mere months stand between you and Dwell on Design, a veritable feast of modern design in the form of thousands of products, oodles of presentations, modern home tours, and demonstrations galore. This year’s ideas- and inspiration-fest takes place June 21-23 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Among the highlights in store for the eighth Dwell on Design is a keynote address by architect and product designer Michael Graves (have you tried his tweezers?), who will share his insights on universal design and design’s direct influence on quality of life, and a series of panels–featuring speakers from organizations such as the Getty Conservation Institute, MOCA, LACMA, and Architecture for Humanity–tackling issues in the areas of design innovation, sustainable design, and the business of design. This year’s show also features the first Dwell on Design artist-in-residence, Tanya Aguiñiga. The Los Angeles-based furniture designer, craftsperson, and community activist will create a living exhibition of upcycled furnishings that after being displayed on the show floor will be donated to local shelters.

Richard Misrach, “November 20, 2011, 3:36 PM” (2011). Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery.

“I grew up in L.A. and went to Berkeley from ’67 to ‘71. I started out as a math major and ended up in psychology, but that was also when Berkeley was just going insane. I didn’t take formal classes in photography at all. I started taking photographs of tear gassings on the Berkeley campus with my uncle’s camera….I was being exposed to Berkeley street riots and the politics of the time, which was very important to me, but I was also being exposed to the f/64 school of photography—Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange—and I was just falling in love with photography, so I found that that combination of social, political engagement along with my passion for the aesthetics of the medium of photography were coming together very fast and hard. For the last forty years I think my work has reflected those two polarities, and it’s been sort of interesting the way they have been pushed. They’ve never really reconciled—art and politics.”

-Richard Misrach today at Paris Photo Los Angeles, in an on-stage conversation with John Divola and curator Douglas Fogle. Misrach’s work is on view through June 16 at the Cantor Center at Stanford University. A exhibition of his new largescale photos opens next Saturday at Pace/McGill Gallery in New York.

Thom Browne is on a roll. Last fall he received the Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Award for fashion, and a few months later First Lady Michelle Obama sported his necktie-inspired navy silk coat to the inauguration. Now Pratt Institute is honoring the designer with its 2013 Fashion Visionary Award, which in previous years has been bestowed on fashion greats including Ralph Rucci, Diane von Furstenberg, and Fern Mallis.

Browne will receive the award this evening at the Pratt fashion show, an annual affair that showcases the reliably remarkable thesis collections of seniors in the school’s fashion design program. “No American sportswear designer better represents the aspirations of Pratt fashion than Thom Browne,” said Pratt fashion department chair Jennifer Minniti in a statement announcing the award. “His highly conceptual runway presentations and impeccable craftsmanship have set standards for excellence and originality that push forward and inspire our fashion students to do the same.”

“After so many years of averting the border patrol between the disciplines of art and architecture, while inhabiting both yet claiming to be outsiders, this is the ultimate validation,” said Elizabeth Diller last Wednesday at the Plaza Hotel, as she joined partners Ricardo Scofidio and Charles Renfro in accepting the American Academy of Rome’s Centennial Medal for their exceptional contributions to the worlds of architecture and the visual arts. The trio spent the previous evening at the New York Public Library, where they discussed their interdisciplinary design studio’s renewal of Lincoln Center. We asked writer Nancy Lazarus to attend the event and harvest some memorable quotes. Learn more on May 10, when Diller and Scofidio will be joined by DS+R monograph author Edward Dimendberg for a book talk at the Center for Architecture.

Redesigning Lincoln Center was an epic undertaking that involved a prominent public landmark and a painstaking process that evolved over nearly ten years. Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the design studio behind most of the project, has chronicled their experiences in Lincoln Center Inside Out: An Architectural Account (Damiani). The three principals shared their views on the project and the book at a recent event hosted by New York Public Library and moderated by Barry Bergdoll, chief curator of architecture and design at MoMA. The DS+R trio is just as articulate as they are creative, so here are excerpts from that discussion.

On Lincoln Center’s design:
Diller: The old Lincoln Center was too elitist, solid, and turned its back on the neighborhood and community. We were drawn to the promenade levels where everyone pours out in the middle of events. We wanted to extend that social feeling to the rest of the project. We broke down the edges to enable events in the public spaces. There’s more symmetry now across the public and private spaces.

Scofidio: There were no photos of the old Lincoln Center except the main plaza with the fountain. Someone said that in the 1960s, plazas were designed to be desolate.

On how they approached the project:
Diller: To win the project we showed many ideas, since we tend to think in multiples, with different approaches and solutions. We demonstrated our affection for the place and showed how to take it to the next step. We felt we could do it justice and interpret it for contemporary culture. We wanted to transform Lincoln Center for the logic of our time.

Scofidio: We didn’t go in and say here are the problems we have to correct. We just said we can finish Lincoln Center.
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