People

At Home w/Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton Gets Into the Design Game NYTimes

Diane Keaton is going strong, actively involved in preserving, then flipping homes in Southern California. The actress is on the board of the Los Angeles Conservancy, showing off her Spanish Colonial Revival house in Beverly Hills for Architectural Digest.

The latest design venture for the actress is a tabletop collection that she created for Bed, Bath & Beyond.

The stoneware cups, bowls and plates, which are available online and in some stores now, have her trademark whimsy (some are stamped with the words “eat” or “bite”) and lack of pretension (prices start at about $5). But they also reflect Ms. Keaton’s latest obsession: the heartland. The “farm-y, landscape colors” she used, she told a reporter, were inspired by wheat, grass and bark.

NYC Urban Farmer

Fellows Friday with Viraj Puri TED Blog

Viraj Puri’s Gotham Greens was created in 2008 with a mission of providing New Yorkers with local, sustainable, premium quality produce year round. Puri’s associates grow everything, from seed to harvest, in a 15,000 square foot hydroponic rooftop greenhouse.

There are a number of ways to farm responsibly and sustainably. Gotham Greens has selected methods based on a unique geographic, urban location and a largely underused resource of rooftop space. There are plenty of large, unshaded, unused rooftops in New York that may be well suited to some form of urban agriculture.

This interview is brimming with insights from social entrepreneur and social citizen Viraj Puri, who volunteers that he spent years working in Malawi working on the development of fuel-efficient stoves. In 2004 Viraj develop a company that implemented green building and renewable energy installations in Ladakh, India.

A Martha’s Vineyard Escape

New York restauranteur Keith McNally’s island farm ELLE Decor

When New York City–based restaurateur Keith McNally sets up house for the summer on his four-acre farm in Chilmark, he works the land instead of plying the sea. In addition to his wife, Alina, and five children, McNally shares the property with several Berkshire, Tamworth, and Gloucester Old Spot pigs, as well as goats, sheep, lambs, and free-range chickens and ducks. Although they have all the fixings for some pretty great dinner parties (and the famous neighbors to round out the guest list), McNally and his wife like to lead a low-key life on their mini farm. “I have the need to produce my own food when I’m always around people consuming food,” says McNally, who has even taken to making his own goat cheese. “I cook a lot too, sometimes for dinner parties but mostly for the family.” More photos at ELLE Decor

Les Artistes

Timeless Topics

“The topic of powerful men who can’t control their sexual behavior is unfortunately terribly current,” said Oskar Eustis, artistic director of New York Public Theater’s annual Shakespeare in the Park gala at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater, which previewed this summer’s production of All’s Well That Ends Well’.

“There’s a moral compass in males that hasn’t evolved since Shakespeare’s time. Some men are willing to take great risks to get their way sexually,” Oskar Eustis continued.

Sublime as the production was, the poetry kept being upstaged by the real world’s vulgarity. “France is a dog hole,” one actor said, bringing to mind Dominique Strauss-Kahn. “Those girls of Italy, take heed of them,” said another, conjuring thoughts of Berlusconi. And “A young man married is a man that’s marred” (everyone else).

People

Northern Lights

Swedish Interior Designer Marie Olsson Nylander is giving the world an intimate peek inside her family home. The shabby 1970?s villa humbly sits in the town of Arild, Sweden, where it hasn’t see any love for 30 years, until now. When Nylander and her husband Bill first laid their eyes on the unkempt villa they weren’t convinced it was going to be theirs, yet they couldn’t get the home out of their heads. The Nylander’s returned three times to view the villa which caused them to slowly catch feelings for the old home; a purchase came shortly after. More images @ KNSTRCT

Swedish Home of Designer Marie Olsson Nylander

Heidi’s Big Baubles

Heidi Klum’s new QVC collection called ‘Wildlife by Heidi Klum’ will kick off with Heidi on a Sept. 8 QVC special Fashion’s Night Out broadcast from Manhattan, supporting New York fashion week.

“All of the pieces are statement pieces. The only reason to wear costume jewelry is to wear something large — something you can’t do with real jewelry because it would be too expensive,” explained Klum, who added she takes design inspiration from her trips to flea markets and the many collectibles and knickknacks that fill her L.A. home.