Speaking of whimsical Brazilians, the January/February issue of Elle Decor takes us into the Brooklyn loft of Vik Muniz and his wife (and fellow artist) Janaina Tschape. Their dwelling is a 6,000-square-foot former garage in Clinton Hill that underwent serial renovations--first by Brenda Bello of Basil Walter Architects and then by Matthias Neumann--to transform it into a swoonworthy light-filled live/work space. Alas, the story is not online, so get thee to a newsstand for a taste of the Munizian mix of Tiepolo, Courbet, Man Ray, Warhol, Chinese scholar's rocks, a stunner of a Ron Arad chair, and masses of empty burgundy bottles (for a project with Daniel Boulud, assures Muniz).

Other highlights of this issue include Rob Brinkley's excellent traveler's rundown of the starchitectural hotbed that is Dallas (in various stages of completion there are works by Koolhaas, Foster, Piano, Pei, and Calatrava) and a feature on the Bay Area home of hotel designer Roger Thomas. In a standout passage on chez Thomas, discussion turns to the time when the designer tried to explain to his decorative painters the precise greeny-brown he wanted them to paint the walls:

As Thomas delightedly recalls, the artisans suggested that the color their client was laboring to explain sounded like the same one the 19th century artist Jacques-Louis David used in the backgrounds of his midcareer portraits of French nobles. "We hate two two-world colors," the designer says. "We love paragraph colors."

All of that good stuff makes up for the fact that the piece on fashion designer Monique Lhuillier's Bel Air home cruelly teases us with mention of a "Twombly-esque" painting by Ralph Rucci that is not pictured. For shame!