Design

You know that well-worn architectural saying: A great building requires a great client. In the case of Renzo Piano's extension of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which opens Feb. 16, the equation isn't quite so straightforward. To begin with, LACMA has added substantially more than a single building.

CONSIDER this humble sugar shaker, a staple of kitchens and coffee shops across the land. About 35 million have been sold -- maybe double that if you include all the knockoffs -- and not one of them labeled a work of art. Yet that's exactly what they are, says design historian Bill Stern, a connoisseur of ubiquitous and unsung objects. "This decanter is iconic," he says, "the very essence of modernism, a perfect meld of function and form."

DO your kids enjoy the box more than the toy that came in it? Then they might appreciate the possibilities of a new drink bottle conceived by noted industrial designer Yves Behar. Chubby knobs make it easy for little hands to hold the new Y Water. After the vitamin-infused beverage is consumed (or spilled), the 9-ounce plastic bottles can be refilled, recycled or, better yet, played with.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico MICHELE CONNOR calls her ranch "a hunting lodge where there's no hunting," 20 acres greened by fields of alfalfa and shared with six dogs, 10 horses, a dozen sheep and a couple of burros, not to mention the chickens, geese and peacocks. It's a scene that reminds Connor of childhood, when she would play with dolls and imagine an escape far from the city. "I would make little corrals and play with little animals," Connor says. "That was my fantasy.

Jorgen Evil Ekvoll and Can Sayinli's hand-woven silk rug -- a design called War, depicting a baby surrounded by bleeding bodies, hand grenades and guns -- sold for $60,000 at the Art Basel Miami Beach exhibition in December. Dan Golden's wry cartoons of cigarette-smoking canines, psycho-babbling infants and the Red Cross symbol with the tag line "Morphine Is the Best Medicine" on hand-tufted wool sell for $6,750 each at Eccola Imports in L.A.

Design websites: A Home article Thursday on design enthusiasts who post pictures of their homes for strangers to critique misspelled the last name of Casagogo.com co-owner Jon Wolff as Wolfe.

Forget salaries, expense accounts or keys to the executive washroom. Employee loyalty is won or lost over the cleanliness of the bathrooms and the amount of sticky goo on the carpet. One in three workers surveyed recently said they had accepted a job -- or quit one -- because of the most basic working conditions. The respondents' chief complaints by far: the state of the indoor atmosphere, the gripes being about either hot-as-the-tropics heating or Antarctic air conditioning.

RESTAURANT diners -- when they can make themselves heard above the blaring music from a chef's iPod playlist, the clatters and shouts from an open kitchen, and the roar of the cocktail drinkers in an adjacent lounge -- are talking about restaurant noise these days more than the food. And the sound of that is finally reaching management ears.

Design websites: A Home article Feb. 21 on design enthusiasts who post pictures of their homes for strangers to critique misspelled the name of Casagogo.com co-owner Jon Wolff as Wolfe.

LIVING downtown with limited space to garden doesn't necessarily mean a bleak, gritty landscape, short on plants, with only the urban skyline to stare at. It can be lush and green, extremely livable and packed with fascinating plants. Take a few lessons from the Northwest, where garden designers recently mounted elaborate displays using containers and planters to artfully landscape small urban spaces.