With New York magazine's Home Design Fall 2010 issue dropping this week, it's a wonder anyone in the entire sprawling metropolis can hold their chin up with any modicum of dignity. Normal homes just seem so boring compared to the ones unearthed by design editor Wendy Goodman. Speaking of—there's nothing remotely boring about the kind of families featured in this "Family Edition"—there's not one but two sets of cohabitating brothers (including a set of twins), a single mother, and a gay couple with twin daughters, among others. All right, so Rule No. 1 for being considered for editorial coverage: no nuclear families. Think you've got what it takes to catch Goodman's eye? Here's the 10-point checklist; follow these rules and you're an insta-shoo-in for her next design issue:
· When renovating an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, carve a courtyard into the middle of the house to maintain net square footage.
· Garage in the way? Demo' it and use its wooden roof beams to clad interior walls.
· Make a lighting fixture out of industrial bread tins.
· Hire starchitect Annebelle Selldorf.
· When faced with reno'ing a former YMCA space, knock down a whole wall and stick bedrooms, an office, and a TV room in the space previously occupied by basketball courts.
· Cover every inch of a bedroom with patchwork quilts.
· Go to school at Harvard. For architecture. Then go work for Rem Koolhaas, move to Brooklyn and open an interiors/jewelry firm.
· Be able to drop the following terms in one single breath: Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Kelly Wearstler, Jonathan Adler, Zaha Hadid, taupe, MoMA, Wedgwood, Visionaire, platinum, and B&B Italia.
· Embrace "maximalist" art such as ventriloquist dummies.
· Opt for an apartment built in the late 1800s, preferably one with its original mahogany paneling intact and, of course, preferably one on the Upper East Side.
· Family Style—Home Design Fall 2010 [NYMag]