Two-piece sofa system.
Mood is a modular sofa system for residential and public use made by Belgium's Vange Edition and designed by Alain Berteau (that's Alain in the photos left & centre). By moving one or both elements, the sofa is transformed. Vange also makes the K-bench, a flexible bee-hive structured extendable bench designed by Charles Kaisin, T-table, five acrylic low tables in one by Philippe Doff-Sotta, and acrylic RVB pendant lamps by Laurence Brabant.

Designers: Alain Berteau, Charles Kaisin, Philippe Doff-Sotta, Laurence Brabant

+ vange.be
+ alainberteau.com

Hide-away shower faucet.
Derived from the french word for absence, Absens is a fitting name for a faucet that disappears when not in use. The faucet is recessed into the wall and hidden behind a large tile, which, when you press on it, cantilevers open to reveal the faucet. Press the tile back into the wall and the faucet disappears. We saw this at the SIDIM design show in Montreal this past weekend. Made by JL Baril, their website is under construction, so I've included their phone number as well below.

+ jlbaril.com
+ 1.819.693.3871

New Directions in Sustainable Architecture
There was a time not that long ago when the internet was spelled with a capital "I". Today the internet is so ubiquitous the underlying assumption in any conversation is that everyone has access. Now it's the environment's turn at ubiquity and hopefully soon the assumption will be all design and architecture is green (environmentally correct) to start with. And the day it happens, there will just be good design and bad design. Until then we will read books like The Green House, where there are 35 MoCo design, environmentally correct, homes by architects such as Santiago Calatrava, Shigeru Ban, Miller/Hull, Rick Joy, Lake Flato, Kengo Kuma, Glenn Murcutt, Pugh & Scarpa, and Werner Sobek. The book is well illustrated, it's co-authored by the Executive Editor of ID Magazine, and features not only photos but plans and drawings as well. Hardcover, 196 pages, 300 images, $29.70 at Amazon. Via Apartment Therapy.

+ The Green House at Amazon

This week's MoCo picks + submissions.

+ "familiar shades melted together into one creating a lampscape" at Studio Frederik Roije. <Core77>

+ Protein° DPM Series 1 canvases by William Rowe and inspired by naturally occuring Disruptive Pattern Materials [DPM]. <Cool Hunting>

+ Tandem outdoor lounger by designer Thomas Sauvage d'Ego. <Josh Spear>

+ j.milo's Plaza rug by designer Jessica Miller. <design*sponge>

+ The Sunset breezehouse gets built. Click on "Tour". <LiveModern>

+ Everything Old Is New Again - ICFF with insight. <IDFuel>

At quarter to midnite last night MoCo Loco's web hosting company, Hostway, suspended our hosting account, and our email accounts, for alleged spamming. This morning, when we called the 24/7 tech support, we were told the issue could not be resolved until Monday at 9AM (ostensibly when the person responsible for spam shows up for work). Inexplicably, we're back, but we don't know for how long...

Web hosting esoterica
As you may know, web domains and email accounts can be hijacked by spammers with the result I just described. For the record, we abhor spam. In fact, we don't even have a newsletter and I personally use a spam service, Spamarrest, to try to control incoming spam. We are not spammers. To all my blogging peers, thank you for your support and one word - mirror.

I still believe Hostway has a good service. Unlike what happened to MoCo Loco last night, I am willing to give Hostway a second chance.

Regular posting will resume later today (if we're still here).

Harry

MoCo Loco mention in Business 2.0 magazine.
The June 2005 cover story of B2 is an ode to The New Instant Companies and in a sidebar titled How To Capture The Buzz (on p.94) there's a blurb on a posting we did for ASP Aquarium's Space aquarium. The issue is online at business2.com (but I couldn't find the sidebar online).
Thanks Susanna!

+ business2.com