All articles by Rebecca Paul

Rebecca Paul is a Brooklyn based artist, writer, designer and strategist currently living in Buenos Aires. With and Undergraduate degree in Illustration and a Master's in design and business strategy, Rebecca is equally passionate about discovering compelling business ventures as she is about exploring her own artistic expression. The written word is her tool for brining the two worlds together. Her previous work experience includes her position as the Business Operations Manager for Inhabitat.com, the leading website dedicated to green and sustainable art and architecture; as well as the Director of Content Strategy for Prodigy Network, a international company committed to building new economic structures through crowdfunding in Real Estate. Follow her on twitter and instagram @rebeccapaulz

Steven Holl’s Upstate ‘Ex of In House’ is an experiment in voids and sense of place

October 25, 2016

Steven Holl’s Upstate ‘Ex of In House’ is an experiment in voids and sense of place

By Rebecca Paul

In architecture, research and concept come long before building and design, but more often than not architects don't have the chance to execute their ideas to the fullest extent when managing client expectations. But New York-based architect Steven Holl didn't have that issue with his Ex of In House, a small guest house-turned-experimental site on the property of his personal Hudson Valley residence. The 918-square-foot structure is part of the firm's Explorations of "IN" research project, which questions "current clichés of architectural language and commercial practice." Here, they wanted to explore "a language of space, aimed at inner spatial energy strongly bound to the ecology of the place.”
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New York’s 1940s ‘victory gardens’ yielded a whopping 200 million pounds of produce

September 28, 2016

New York’s 1940s ‘victory gardens’ yielded a whopping 200 million pounds of produce

By Rebecca Paul

During the Second World War the United States (and other European nations) experienced significant food shortages, as the majority of the country's food supply was being sent overseas to aid in the war effort. In response, government organizations encouraged citizens to plant "victory gardens" to help ease the burden. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson said "Food will win the war," and launched through the Bureau of Education a United States Garden Army. The program, funded by the War Department, began in 1943 and urbanites living in New York City collectively grabbed their shovels to adorn the bare concrete streets with a far more plentiful kind of landscaping.
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History

MOON lamp uses NASA-sourced data to replicate lunar phases in your living room

September 27, 2016

MOON lamp uses NASA-sourced data to replicate lunar phases in your living room

By Rebecca Paul

On average we spend almost 90 percent of our time inside, so it comes as no surprise that there are several home-decor products on the market that attempt to mimic different systems in nature to help break up the monotony. The newest addition to this collection is MOON, a small model of the moon that actually uses data sourced from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to position the unit. The MOON model was created by designer Oscar Lhermitte in collaboration with London-based design studio Kudu.
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Landmarked church in Boerum Hill gets transformed into a modern-industrial home

September 26, 2016

Landmarked church in Boerum Hill gets transformed into a modern-industrial home

By Rebecca Paul

This landmark-district building in Boerum Hill was most recently a church, and before that a warehouse. The design team at Delson or Sherman Architects recently led the conversion of the property into a modern home that pays homage to both of these former incarnations by leaving raw materials visible while creating a bright and open floorplan.
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Distinctive Homes

Greenpoint row house features two-story kitchen and bone-dry wine cellar

September 23, 2016

Greenpoint row house features two-story kitchen and bone-dry wine cellar

By Rebecca Paul

The renovation of this row house, located in Greenpoint's landmarked historic district, was an inspired project right from the get go. The owner's original intention was to sell the home on account of its unstable structure, seasonal flooding, vinyl siding and asbestos laden facade. However, the team at Delson or Sherman Architects convinced them to give the property an architectural facelift instead. From the front facade to the backyard, the property has been majorly upgraded with some beautiful additions including a two-story kitchen and wine cellar.
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Architecture And Design

Paul Foeckler creates rustic indoor lighting using reclaimed California firewood

September 22, 2016

Paul Foeckler creates rustic indoor lighting using reclaimed California firewood

By Rebecca Paul

For fireplace-starved apartment dwellers, here's an alternative way to bring in some woodsy warmth as we approach the cooler months. Designer Paul Foeckler's Split Grain lighting collection is made from firewood he forages himself in California and then slices uses a splitting technique that reveals the grain patterns of the cross sections. These intricacies are then highlighted when the light emanates from the sculptural piece.
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Uniqlo’s NYC subway-inspired t-shirt collection hits stores

September 7, 2016

Uniqlo’s NYC subway-inspired t-shirt collection hits stores

By Rebecca Paul

The New York City subway map is an icon of our modern urban culture, and it was only a matter of time before the popular graphics made their way on to a t-shirt in some trendy way. Uniqlo just released a new line of SPRZ NY tees featuring designs pulled from the The New York City Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual, a graphic system designed by Massimo Vignelli and Bob Noorda in the late 1970s. The new line of tees were produced in collaboration with the MoMA and appropriately named, "The Subway and the City."
see more designs here

Turn any image into a custom template for wallpaper and more with Morpholio’s ‘Stencil’ app

September 6, 2016

Turn any image into a custom template for wallpaper and more with Morpholio’s ‘Stencil’ app

By Rebecca Paul

It's no secret that stencils are all the rage these days, and here in New York City we've been enjoying sites adorned with stencil-inspired graffiti for decades. Like many trends that start in the streets, the art of stencils have made their way into the design language of everything from t-shirts to pillows, magazines and most definitely interior design. As a response to these trends, Morpholio has just released Stencil, a new app that allows you transform any image you come across into a custom digital stencil to use with any of your designs.
find out more here

Superhero bookshelves transform your living room into a secret urban lair

August 31, 2016

Superhero bookshelves transform your living room into a secret urban lair

By Rebecca Paul

Technically we all have to grow up, but that doesn't mean we can't always be kids at heart. Turkish product designer Burak Doğan helps us integrate this sense of play into our often serious adult lives with his series of superhero bookshelves. Now you can transform your dull living room into your very own superhero lair.
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Stay cool on the go with Zero Breeze, the first smart, portable air conditioner

August 30, 2016

Stay cool on the go with Zero Breeze, the first smart, portable air conditioner

By Rebecca Paul

If recent sweltering temperatures have you reconsidering your outdoor plans for Labor Day, you may want to check out this new product before resigning yourself to a holiday weekend indoors. Zero Breeze is the first portable air conditioner that will not only keep you cool indoors and out, but also includes a blue tooth speaker, night light and charging station for your devices.
Get the scoop on the product

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Popular Articles

Bono: A stylish aluminum composter perfectly sized for your countertop

August 29, 2016

Bono: A stylish aluminum composter perfectly sized for your countertop

By Rebecca Paul

Composting in New York City can be challenging to say the least. Not only are you dealing with the constant changing of the seasons, but space in this densely packed town is also sparse. However, with every challenge is also an opportunity, and much like many of the other problems associated with these limitations we look to design to keep us moving in the right direction. On the composting front Polish designer Ala Sieradzka's as made for us Bono, a compact countertop composter spun from powder-coated aluminum that comes with an equally stylish cork lid and base.
learn more here

BioLight’s PizzaDome brings wood-fired pizza to your campground

August 23, 2016

BioLight’s PizzaDome brings wood-fired pizza to your campground

By Rebecca Paul

While the majority of the NYC's five boroughs are a rough and tumble concrete jungle, just beyond the bridges, highways and waterways, city slickers can find solace in the tranquil forests of the northeast. However, there are some city conveniences, if given the option, we'd never want leave behind, and good pizza is definitely one of them. To add to their already cool roster of camping gadgetry, BioLight bring us "PizzaDome," the very first portable wood-fired pizza oven designed specifically for the campground.
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Where I Work: Inside prop stylist Courtney Dawley’s quirky, colorful Greenpoint workspace

July 18, 2016

Where I Work: Inside prop stylist Courtney Dawley’s quirky, colorful Greenpoint workspace

By Rebecca Paul

For some New Yorkers, bargain hunting is a fun weekend hobby, but stylist, designer and creator of Found By a Prop Stylist Courtney Dawley has taken the casual pastime and transformed it into her career. Courtney's keen eye for a deal and her ability to curate the unlikely into cohesive collections of modern nostalgia were the seeds for her thriving online shop and style website. Courtney also transforms many of her vintage finds into stylish and functional pieces for the home, ranging from antique painted planters to vintage mugs up-cycled into stylish candles. 6sqft recently visited Courtney at her Greenpoint studio and home, and, in addition to photographing the fun and eclectic space, we learned about how she got into collecting vintage objects, her personal design aesthetic and new collection, and the best spots nearby for vintage finds.
Get it all right here

Lift-Bit Is the World’s First Digitally-Transformable Sofa

May 31, 2016

Lift-Bit Is the World’s First Digitally-Transformable Sofa

By Rebecca Paul

For the first time, a remote will control a section of your living room furniture that doesn't include your lights or home entertainment center. From the international design and innovation studio Carlo Ratti Associati, Lift-Bit is the world’s first digitally-transformable sofa. The wired furniture was created with the support of Swiss-owned furniture company Vitra and is made up of a series of modular seats fully stacked with the Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies. Each separate seat has the ability to raise or lower independently, thus introducing a multitude of seating configurations and functionality that can be controlled with the click of a button.
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‘Amalgamated’ Vases Are Made From Hundreds of Pencils Glued Together

May 19, 2016

‘Amalgamated’ Vases Are Made From Hundreds of Pencils Glued Together

By Rebecca Paul

Pencils are used in a variety of applications and can be a powerful tool of expression for people who associate themselves with the written word or visual arts. "Amalgamated" is a collection of vases from Finnish designer Tuomas Markunpoika in collaboration with Gallery FUMI and Faber-Castell, created to explore the relationship between the mass produced "tool" and the potential individualism it facilitates. By repurposing the objects as raw material, this project aims to provide commentary about how the pencil when being used for its intended purpose, goes unnoticed.
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The History of the Roosevelt Island Tramway

May 17, 2016

The History of the Roosevelt Island Tramway

By Rebecca Paul

In honor of the Roosevelt Island Tramway's 40th anniversary today, we've pulled this wonderful piece on the history of the high-flying gondola system from our archives. Commuting in New York City, whether for work or pleasure, is rarely an enjoyable experience. However, for some tourists and lucky city dwellers, the Roosevelt Island Tramway provides a delightful, high-flying travel alternative to the standard, and sometimes miserable, modes of NYC public transport. Running across the East River, this aerial tramway brings commuters to and from Roosevelt Island and Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and has carried over 26 million passengers since opening in 1976. It is one of the few forms of mass transit in New York City not operated by the MTA, but it still costs the same as the bus or subway and can be paid for with your NYC metro card. Like most things in our historic port town, both the tramway and the commute between Manhattan and Roosevelt Island has a history, and this one includes bridge elevators, high-rise rescue missions and French ski lifts.
More on how the Roosevelt Island tramway came to be

Angular Design Dominates this East Hampton Home Renovation by Maziar Behrooz

May 15, 2016

Angular Design Dominates this East Hampton Home Renovation by Maziar Behrooz

By Rebecca Paul

This dynamic East Hamptons home is located on the East End of Long Island in Wainscott, New York. The owners of the property originally purchased it 20 years ago when it was just a small structure. After a few expansions and renovations over a decade, in 2008, they decided they wanted an even bigger home and enlisted the help of architect Maziar Behrooz to build anew. The owners, who are originally from France, fell in love with the natural beauty of Long Island and wanted to reimagine their property without regard to its organic confines. In response to this request, architectural plans were created to include a dramatic 9,500-square-foot extension with asymmetrical triangles and a linear orientation that unifies the pool, grounds and garden.
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Architecture And Design

Spencer Lowell Creates Hyperrealistic Photos of the Queens Museum’s Famous Panorama

May 13, 2016

Spencer Lowell Creates Hyperrealistic Photos of the Queens Museum’s Famous Panorama

By Rebecca Paul

The most prized piece in the Queens Museum is undoubtedly the Panorama, a scale model of the entire city conceived by Robert Moses for the 1964 World's Fair. Now, fifty years later, it can be enjoyed from an entirely new perspective, thanks to a recent collaboration between LA-based artist Spencer Lowell and the Frieze Art Fair. The resulting collection of hyperrealistic images zoom in on some of the most impressive sections of the model and give an aerial view of the mini metropolis that showcases the city's urban density in a new way.
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Events & Things To Do

Grow Vegetables in Your Apartment Effortlessly With Foop and Your Smartphone

May 11, 2016

Grow Vegetables in Your Apartment Effortlessly With Foop and Your Smartphone

By Rebecca Paul

Caring for plants at home is a nice idea, but growing food inside your city apartment is an even better one. Now with Foop, a hydroponic pod from Japan, you can grow vegetables and herbs, like lettuce, parsley, basil, and mesclun with almost no effort. The process couldn't be easier; The first step is to purchase of your desired vegetable seeds, and the second to place the seeds into Foop's "cultivation cup." After the seeds are in place, you set a time frame for them to grow using Foop's app. When the vegetables are ripe for picking, you'll get a notification on your phone!
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The Hare Krishna Tree in Tompkins Square Park Is Where the Religion Was Born in the West

May 9, 2016

The Hare Krishna Tree in Tompkins Square Park Is Where the Religion Was Born in the West

By Rebecca Paul

New York City is often referred to as a concrete jungle, but that doesn't mean it's 100-percent void of vegetation. Throughout the city you'll find beautiful pockets of lush city parks that often have a special history of their own. Tompkins Square Park for example is home to the Hare Krishna tree and the birthplace of this modern religion.
The full story here

History

Livi Transforms the Traditional Flower Pot With Biomimicry and a Smart Stick-On Design

May 6, 2016

Livi Transforms the Traditional Flower Pot With Biomimicry and a Smart Stick-On Design

By Rebecca Paul

There's no denying 6sqft is a huge fan of incorporating greenery into the living space, both for their aesthetic appeal and numerous health benefits, so we're always on the lookout for new ways to house our favorite green friends. The latest innovation is Livi, a modern take on the traditional flower pot that uses Biomimicry to create self-adhering pads that replicate the way frogs' feet attach to glass or other smooth surfaces. Livi's fancy feet add life and functionality to the flower pot, allowing you to position your plants on both vertical and horizontal surfaces.
Find out more

Quirky Playing Cards Are Designed With History’s Most Iconic Architects

May 6, 2016

Quirky Playing Cards Are Designed With History’s Most Iconic Architects

By Rebecca Paul

Federico Babina is an Italian illustrator who's previously brought us clever illustrative works like Archisutra and Archidirector. In both series, Babina replaces images of people with personified buildings, and with his new series, Archicards, he adopts this same approach but with a twist. Instead of replacing people with buildings, Archicards replaces the standard images found on playing cards with famous architects throughout history. So, the king of hearts is now Corbu, while the king of diamonds is played by Frank Lloyd wright—just to name a few.
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Pinball Prohibition: The Arcade Game Was Illegal in New York for Over 30 Years

Police Commissioner William O’Brien smashing a pinball machine in 1949

May 4, 2016

Pinball Prohibition: The Arcade Game Was Illegal in New York for Over 30 Years

By Rebecca Paul

It's hard to believe, but between the 1940s and '70s pinball was actually banned in NYC, as well as other major cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, for its questionable ethics. While most of us consider the arcade game a wholesome activity, its first iteration was without the flippers and considered a form of gambling. From city raids to seedy backdoor operations, pinball prohibition lasted for more than 30 years, and efforts to get the beloved game legalized were equally dramatic.
Get the full scoop

History

Use BrickBox Modular Shelving to Store Books, Create Room Partitions or Move Homes

May 4, 2016

Use BrickBox Modular Shelving to Store Books, Create Room Partitions or Move Homes

By Rebecca Paul

Kazam Design's BrickBox is a simple yet innovative storage system that consists of wooden boxes designed to easily fit together without screws or assembly. The units can be stacked or arranged to not only provide ample and flexible shelving, but to create sideboards or room separators. Each "brick box" also doubles as a wooden box perfect for transporting your belongings when you move from one space to another.
More on this design here

Alison Jennison’s Greenpoint Townhouse Reflects the Neighborhood’s Eclectic Vibe

May 3, 2016

Alison Jennison’s Greenpoint Townhouse Reflects the Neighborhood’s Eclectic Vibe

By Rebecca Paul

From its residents to living spaces, Greenpoint has become a diverse neighborhood across the board, and this cozy townhouse from designer Alison Jennison reflects these same vibes. The interior combines a modern color palette with an eclectic and well-curated mix of furniture and art, creating a balanced and comfortable place to call home.
See the full space here

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