‘Only Murders in The Building’: How a Parrot and Artwork Were Used to Illustrate Bunny’s World

variety.com:

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorThe new season of “Only Murders in the Building,” currently streaming on Hulu, sees the trio of amateur sleuths and residents of New York’s Arconia apartments played by Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin becoming suspects in a new crime — the killing of Bunny Folger (played by Jayne Houdyshell).Production designer Patrick Howe was told by show co-creator John Hoffman that Bunny’s apartment would need to be a new set for the season. “It hadn’t even registered that the character was dead.

In all my years of designing, I don’t think I’d ever designed for a dead person,” Howe says.Bunny had been a longtime resident of the Arconia and the president of the building’s co-op, so Howe looked to influences from luxury interior designers Bunny Williams and the late Mario Buatta to create a look of settled affluence.

The bold and lively floral pieces in the character’s apartment, Howe says, were intentionally ironic. “Most people saw her as mean, bitchy and crabby with money.

But her environment was warm and inviting because, as we learn, she wasn’t always bitter.”Howe also aimed for a contemporary and elegant look.